by SM Reine
The circle closed around me with a solid yet silent thump. I felt it deep in my chest. The whole room hummed with energy. I sighed.
“Did something just happen?” Leanne muttered to Tatiana. Guess they weren’t even vaguely witchy.
Kelsie’s fitful tossing had slowed in bed. Now she was just panting and sweating. The hand prints on her breasts had darkened. They were actually blistered now.
I emptied the contents of my purse and Tatiana’s grocery bag on the bed, trying to decide how I was going to put together a healing spell with what little I had. I’d brought a few common herbs from my lazy susan at home, and Tatiana had brought me a bunch of chunky costume jewelry to serve as stand-ins for crystals. Leanne had contributed bandages and a few vessels from the gas station. Which meant plastic cups and an empty bottle of tequila.
Better than nothing, but only slightly.
The bandaids would be helpful. They represented healing in the most obvious way possible and would help guide the magic. I set those beside Kelsie, then started mixing herbs.
“Blessed Hecate, work thy will,” I murmured. “And I sure hope your will is making Kelsie more comfortable.”
I drew on the strength in the circle of power as I stirred the herbs, combining aloe vera with mint, a little sage, some sweet marjoram. Abuelita had told me that the specific ingredients weren’t the important part. It was the intent, the strength of will. So I focused my entire heart on the idea of Kelsie healed. No longer sweating and thrashing with a pounding heart, but restful. I pictured her breasts unmarked. I imagined her sitting up and smiling.
Please, Hecate. Help her.
With my eyes closed, I could almost see the magic filling me. It poured through my circle from the earth. It swirled around me in a tidal wave of power.
Strangely, it also looked to be coming from the sky—the same way that The Devil’s tracking spell had pointed straight up at the sun.
Help her, Hecate…
The paste in the plastic cup began to glow faintly, growing hot. Excitement thrilled through me. I dipped one of the largest bandaids into it. “Sorry for the grabbiness, Kelsie,” I said, knowing she couldn’t hear me.
Carefully, I spread the bandaid over her left breast, covering as much of the handprint as possible. She cried out in her sleep, twisting away from me.
“Oh, no,” Leanne said, stepping toward us.
Tatiana caught her before she crossed the salt line. “Careful!” I’d warned them that breaking the circle would break the spell, too. Good to see one of them had remembered.
Quickly dipping a second bandaid in the paste, I covered Kelsie’s other mark.
For an instant, my hands seemed to glow just like the magical mixture I had made, burning with starlight. We were all starlight. All four of us, including the women outside the circle. And the energy all streamed toward Kelsie.
Then it was gone. She slumped against the bed.
I froze, hands hovering over her, unsure if I should try to do anything else.
“Kelsie?”
The woman responded by snoring softly.
A relieved laugh escaped me. I peeled back a corner of the bandaid to see the handprint fading, though the blisters remained.
I’d done it. I’d healed her.
And Pops had told me Hawke women didn’t cast magic.
“You can come in now,” I said.
Leanne broke the circle and checked Kelsie’s heartbeat by pressing two fingers to her throat. It must have slowed down because she said, “Oh, thank goodness for you, Ofelia. Thank you so much.”
I blushed. I wasn’t embarrassed by getting naked in front of a room filled with horny men, but a little gratitude made me feel incredibly self-conscious. “Don’t thank me yet. I don’t know how much good I’ve done. She’s not awake, is she?”
“But she’s not as feverish,” Tatiana said with a hand on Kelsie’s forehead. “It’s a start.”
Guess we couldn’t ask for more than that.
I left the rest of the bandaids and healing paste on her bedside. I suggested that they could try reapplying in a couple of hours, but I was talking out of my ass—I didn’t really have any idea if reapplying would do anything at all. I just I thought it might make them feel better to have something to do.
“I’ll check on you ladies soon,” I said, sticking everything else in my purse. “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Appreciate it, but I think we’ll be okay now. We can last until Johnny’s back. Besides, we’ve got to work, and so do you,” Tatiana said.
As if cued by her words, I heard muffled shouting out in the desert, beyond the walls of the Ranch. The fighting had spilled out of the bar. The bikers were returning to their various campsites around Lobo Norte.
“Careful who you service,” I said. “I still don’t like those handprints.”
Tatiana looked grim. “Don’t worry. We’ll be careful. Real careful.”
Slinging my purse over my shoulder, I headed for the door. I felt drained but energized. Sleepy but content. A strange mix of sensations.
“Never thought it was fair Johnny wouldn’t let you work here,” Leanne said. I stopped in the doorway. “I bet you could have been out of here by now if you were earning as much as we do.” She sighed. “Your magic is so pretty. You shouldn’t be in a place like this.”
Johnny had told me that part of the reason he didn’t want me to whore myself out at the Ranch was that the girls hated me—the other part being how ugly and scarred I was. I’d taken his word as truth. But now that I cast my mind back, thinking of the few times that I had talked to the Ranch girls, I realized that they had never been mean to me. If we’d argued at all, it was because I’d started it.
I’d always been a bitch to them, just because Johnny said they hated me.
Guilt crept over me. I turned around, gripping my purse tightly. “Thanks, Leanne.”
Kelsie was breathing deep, caught in restful sleep. I hoped that it would be enough to save her. I hoped she could last until Johnny could fix her up.
If nothing else, I hoped she would die peacefully.
I realized someone was following me halfway back to my trailer.
The night was dark and getting darker fast. The new moon was only a week away. The waxing crescent in the sky couldn’t seem to penetrate the depths of the shadows around me.
My bar was a distant pinpoint of light, seemingly impossible to reach. The desert between the building and me was a long, murky, starless void. Cooper was waiting for me there. Cooper, and safety.
I hadn’t taken the road back because I was trying to avoid the camping bikers. Their voices bounced in the night. It was impossible to pinpoint their origins. I’d thought it would be safer to avoid the places where most of the motorcycles were parked, but instead, I was now surrounded by sagebrush and rocks that looked like lurking men waiting to grab me.
And I heard footsteps.
Whenever I stopped walking, the man following me did, too. I could only hear him when I was moving. I stared around the desert, eyes wide to try to let every ounce of light in. It was impossible to distinguish between the shapes of the gnarled bushes and human bodies. I didn’t think I could see anyone coming after me, but there was no way to be sure.
I didn’t feel alone.
Maybe I was imagining it. Maybe it was just the stress of being alone in Lobo Norte finally catching up with me. Or maybe it really was a biker stalking me back to my trailer, keenly aware that I hadn’t thought to bring Bo Peep with me, hungry to use the stripper in any way he desired.
The generator hadn’t broken on its own. Kelsie hadn’t blistered herself with those handprints.
I walked faster but the bar seemed farther away than it had seconds before.
My mouth opened. “Cooper,” I croaked. I’d been trying to shout. I could barely hear my own voice. How good was a werewolf’s hearing? Would he be able to hear me over the shattering bottles, the shouting gangs, the screams and fighting? I couldn’t rely on
that. Like always, I’d have to take care of myself.
I broke into a run. I’m built for strength and flexibility, not speed, so I wouldn’t be breaking any records for sprinting, but adrenaline made me feel like I was flying on the wind.
My pursuer was surprised. The crunch of his soles on the dirt didn’t fall into rhythm with mine. Then he started running, too.
I didn’t look back. I just ran and ran, putting all my energy into speed, leather fringe flying behind me. My heart beat so hard that I could taste it.
Hands reached for my back. I was certain that I wasn’t imagining that.
My trailer grew closer. I swallowed down my pounding heart and leaped for it, hands outstretched. My fingers tingled when I crossed the wards that I had placed around the walls. The door was unlocked. Had I left it unlocked?
I jumped inside. Slammed the door behind me. Flipped every lock and deadbolt. Something hit the other side with a distinct thump.
Backing up until I hit the wall, I stared, wide-eyed, at the curtained window beside my door. The shadow of a man slid over it. He was tall and skinny. That much I could tell. Then he slid away, disappearing, and my trailer was silent.
XI
After two years staffing a bar that served biker gangs, I’d become extremely familiar with the catastrophes their parties could leave behind. But I hadn’t ever realized how good Gloria was at damage control until she wasn’t there to pick up after the destruction. I stood in the doorway of the bar with my mop. My jaw dropped open.
“Where do I even start?” I asked the trash and broken bottles strewn across the floor.
Like Pops always said, the only way to eat an elephant was one bite at a time.
I was pretty sure he’d never said that while thinking of his little girl cleaning up used condoms and hypodermic needles, but whatever.
Grabbing heavy duty gloves and trash bags, I started sweeping everything into piles. The motion was peaceful and repetitive and gave me lots of time to think. Maybe too much. It was easy to pretend that I had been imagining my pursuer the night before now that morning had hit, but it didn’t change what had happened to Kelsie.
It was funny how repetitive stripping for tips while men beat the shit out of each other in a cage could become. We were meant to be neutral territory. A relatively safe place for biker gangs to hash out their disagreements and earn lots of money.
None of them had ever hurt the girls before. Johnny hadn’t let them.
The monotony had been shattered.
I had the windows cracked open, and there was a strange smell on the wind. There were no clouds in the acid-blue sky but the sun didn’t seem quite bright enough. The gloom sucked the urge to work right out of me. There was no way I was going to be able to clean everything in time to open for the early afternoon drinkers.
My gaze drifted to my purse on the counter. It was a leather hobo purse with fringe hanging from the bottom and a beaded pattern on the side. I’d bought it at the reservation outside Lobo Norte’s borders, over on the United States side of things. It was big enough to hold all of my magic supplies and a few extra boxes of shells for Bo Peep, so I hadn’t bothered to empty it the night before.
I was still tingling from trying to heal Kelsie. I felt electric. Almost invincible.
My hands took over for me. They opened my purse, pulled out the big jar of salt, and started sprinkling.
I’d already swept everything away from the walls, so it was easy to make a big circle that contained everything. I lit a few sex wax candles and placed them at the corners. North, south, east, west. The guardians of the watchtowers came even easier to me this morning.
Rubbing my palms dry on my cutoffs, I reached back into the depths of memory for Abuelita’s favorite household spells. “Blessed Hecate…” I began, and then stopped myself. I didn’t need a goddess for cleaning a bar. Better to stay on Hecate’s good side so she’d want to help me when I really needed it.
I pressed the play button on my tape deck. “Pour Some Sugar on Me” started to play, and I grabbed the broom.
Pushing the broom across the floor made my spine jolt with magic. I didn’t just sweep the trash that I touched. Everything moved. A wind swirled through the room, pushing all of the trash toward the middle. It even whipped everything off of the tables and counters. It was a small hurricane of garbage—might have been kind of cute if it hadn’t been made up of broken bottles and other dangerous objects.
Giggles escaped me as I ducked out of the way of a flying, studded cowboy boot.
“Now this is cleaning,” I said.
I bounced my hips along with the music as I gathered the trash into bags, holding them out so that the wind could dump everything inside. It took all of five minutes to clear the floor, leaving nothing but blood and whiskey stains behind.
In the end, the magic filled six big trash bags, which I set aside very carefully, making sure I didn’t puncture myself on anything.
I hummed as I filled a bucket with water behind the bar. It seemed to sparkle with its own magic. Better than any soap. But I didn’t get to test it out.
The front door opened. Cooper entered, scuffing the salt line and making my magic die in an instant. It sucked out of me. My hands went slack and I dropped the bucket. Water sloshed over my feet.
“Ofelia,” he growled.
He crossed the space between us in two strides, shoved me against the bar, and kissed me hard enough that I forgot how to breathe. His hands tangled in my braids. His chest against mine was hot from the sunlight.
I could get used to a greeting like that.
He broke away from me, running his thumbs along my jawline, gazing intently at my face. “You didn’t tell me you were leaving last night.”
“I’m sorry. The Ranch girls needed me. You were busy.”
“You never came back.”
“I had to go home, where it was safe,” I said.
“Your single-wide’s safer than being with me?”
I didn’t want to tell him about my wards. I wasn’t ready to explain the magic thing to him yet. Unfortunately, Cooper wasn’t utterly blind, and he finally realized that he was standing in a circle of salt and burning candles.
Cooper grabbed the nearest candle. It was still in a red tin that said “Edible Sex Wax.”
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Cleaning,” I said.
“With sex wax?”
“It sets the mood.”
“You’re a witch,” Cooper said. “I should have known.” He leaned against me to return the candle, putting his body flush with mine in a long line. I gazed up at his chiseled jawline. “You’ve put some kind of spell on me.”
Even though I knew he was just flirting, the accusation made heat climb my cheeks. “It’s not like that. I haven’t cast magic in a long time.”
“But you smell even better now.” He tongued the tender skin behind my ear, making my knees weaken. “I’m smelling your magic.” He sucked on the side of my neck.
I dug my fingernails into his hips. “Cooper, I want this. I want you. But I have to open the bar, and that’s not going to happen until I clean everything, and there’s still a lot to do.” Especially since he’d completely wrecked my mojo.
He groaned softly, but said, “Okay.” He picked up the bucket and started refilling it with water.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Helping you clean.”
I’d been wrong the night before. I’d thought that watching Cooper threaten another biker over me was the hottest thing ever. In fact, watching Cooper clean was the hottest thing ever.
He turned up the tape deck and started scrubbing the counter.
“What happened last night, Ofelia?”
“It’s Kelsie, like I told you. She’s sick. Tatiana thought that it was an overdose, but I think someone’s hurt her. So I went to try to help them.” I blushed. “I tried to heal her.”
“You should have warned me,” Cooper said. “I’
d have gone with you.”
“And left the bar?”
“Nothing is more important than you.”
God, that man talked pretty. I was tempted to peel off my gloves and shove him to the floor right that moment. But the sun was getting awfully high in the sky—we’d have company soon. I settled for appreciating the sight of his muscles flexing as he scrubbed the tables alongside me. It was almost as good as sex.
“So what’d you do before you became a bartender in a magical town?” Cooper asked. “Wait. Let me guess. You were a witchy seductress in a traveling carnival. You used your allure to part men from their money at the ring toss.”
I laughed. I liked the exotic imagery of it, but it was way more exciting than the truth. “I got an associate’s degree. General education.” The corner of my mouth lifted in a half-smile, thinking back on my time at college with my friends. I’d mostly gone because a few of the girls from high school were doing it. That, and because Pops had given me the choice of continuing education or living on the streets. Not much of a choice.
“College girl.” Cooper gazed down at me, as if trying to picture me in school.
“Pretty hard to believe the stripper took trigonometry, I know, but I passed with flying colors.” If a C-minus counted as flying colors.
“It’s not hard to believe at all. I can tell you’re smart. I’m just surprised you only got your associates.”
My smile faded. “I was accepted at UCLA. I was going to finish off my undergrad.”
“But?”
“Life happened.” I swallowed hard. “Lobo Norte happened.” That was only skipping…oh, a few hundred significant events. “What about you?”
“Would you be surprised if I told you I went to college, too?” Cooper asked. “I have a masters in anthropology. When I left, I was working on my doctorate.”
My jaw dropped. “Your doctorate?” Dr. Trouble. Insane.
He hooked his finger under my chin. He smelled like soap. “You don’t have to look so surprised.”