‘Roni?’ Jake’s muffled voice came from the other side of the door. ‘Are you okay?’
Groaning she took a deep breath, hauled herself off the floor and limped slowly to the door. He always seemed to have an unfortunate knack for being around when she was at her most ungraceful. As she swung the door open Jake stood watching her carefully. He had Olivia’s rather appealing puppy tucked under one arm, it’s blue leash dangling down to the floor. As soon as Beau saw her he scrambled against Jake trying to get to her, his tail wagging madly.
Jake’s gaze tracked slowly down her body, from her tank top and pajama pants to her bare feet and back up, until he met her eyes. She flushed under his intense appraisal. She thought she saw a flash of something in his eyes, heat perhaps, but dismissed it. He didn’t see her like that, he only saw her as a kind of cute klutzy sister type. She really needed to stop obsessing about him she thought, as she took in his gorgeous face and blonde hair. It was starting to fall forward into his eyes a bit, he obviously needed a haircut and she found her fingers twitching slightly. Fighting the urge to reach out and push his hair back she swallowed and cleared her throat. It shouldn’t be awkward between them, over the past month or so they had settled into an easy friendship and she was finding lately that she enjoyed his company more and more. She didn’t want anything to change that, after all it wasn’t his fault she had a pathetic crush on him. She watched as his jaw clenched and his eyes involuntarily dipped to her chest again. It was only then she realized in horror that she wasn’t wearing a bra, dammit. Her face flushed pink and she automatically folded her arms over her chest.
‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ she muttered in mortification.
‘You called and left a message earlier,’ Jake explained after a moment.
‘Yes, but it was getting late so I assumed you’d just call me back tomorrow.’
‘Yeah,’ he replied ruefully, ‘sorry about that, I would have called you earlier. I got called out on an emergency, but…’ he held up a bag of takeout, ‘I brought dinner. If I know you, you’ve been so caught up in Olivia’s books you probably forgot to eat anything.’
She looked down to the bag and her mouth watered at the scent wafting towards her. He was right she had forgotten all about eating.
‘Oh alright,’ she sighed, moving back so he could step into her small apartment.
She closed the door as he placed Beau down on the floor and unhooked his leash. The minute the puppy was free he scrambled across the floor and began to sniff everything in sight, acquainting himself with his new surroundings. Jake watched him in amusement for a moment as he bumped into another pile of books and rolled over on the floor.
‘He’s as clumsy as you are,’ he smiled fondly.
Veronica’s heart sank. That was probably how he looked at her, with that same indulgent smile. He’d never see her as a sexy confident woman, who the hell was she kidding? He was way out of her league.
‘I’ll get some plates,’ she sighed softly in resignation.
‘Hey, what’s wrong?’ he frowned at her tone.
‘Nothing, I’m fine,’ she turned towards the kitchen.
‘’Did you hurt yourself?’ He noticed her limping slightly, and as she cradled her elbow his frown deepened.
‘It’s nothing,’ she replied. There was no way she was embarrassing herself further by telling him that she not only tripped over her own feet but also the coffee table and the books, in the short distance between her couch and the door.
‘It doesn’t look like nothing.’ He dropped the bag of food down by the door and scooped her up effortlessly into his arms.
‘Jake,’ she flushed again, ‘it’s really not that bad. Put me down.’
‘Be quiet, he murmured as he headed towards the couch, easily dodging the small land mines of books scattered across the floor.
He was so agile and full of quiet understated strength as he moved fluidly, settling her on the deep cushions of the couch.
‘Stay there,’ he ordered quietly as he scooped up the bag of food and disappeared into her small kitchen.
She heard him rustling around, the clank of plates being lifted out of the cupboard and the tinkle of glasses clinking together. Taking a moment to draw in a shaky breath she willed her heart to settle into a normal rhythm. It was mortifying having this reaction around him. All he’d done was carry her to the couch because she was being a klutz again, but the smell of him as he’d pressed her against his chest and his arms had tightened around her. She shook her head and blew out the breath she was holding, she was beginning to annoy herself. She needed to get rid of this fluttery schoolgirl feeling whenever she was around him and settle into the friend zone where he was already firmly planted.
He stepped back into the room, with a wine bottle and two wineglasses in one hand, both fully loaded plates balanced on his other hand and forearm and what appeared to be an icepack tucked under the arm which held the wine. He moved with thoughtless precision and that same graceful economy of motion, completely unaware of how appealing he was. Damn it, she wished she could be like that, he made it all look so easy. If that had been her, the dinner would already be splattered up the walls, the plates in pieces on the floor and she’d have probably cut open a major artery with the glasses and quite possibly knocked herself unconscious with the wine bottle.
‘Where’s Beau?’ she asked as he set the plates, glasses and wine on the table and pulled two packs of chopsticks out of his back pocket, dumping them on the table too.
‘He’s in the kitchen with his own food,’ he dropped down on the sofa next to her with a grin. ‘I learned the hard way, if I actually want to eat all the food on my plate I have to distract him.’
‘Smart.’
‘I like to think so,’ he picked up the icepack. ‘Okay where does it hurt?’
‘My elbow.’
‘Not the ankle?’
‘Stubbed toe, its fine.’
‘Okay elbow it is then,’ he took her injured arm carefully and examined it thoroughly before pressing the cold pack to her skin. ‘You’re going to have a hell of a bruise.’
‘Wouldn’t be the first time.’
‘I don’t get it,’ he shook his head in amusement.
‘Get what exactly?’ she pulled the plate into her lap and with one hand awkwardly scooped up some noodles .
‘You can’t seem to stay upright most of the time, yet I’ve seen you stand there cool as a winter’s breeze and take down monsters with a shotgun,’ he shook his head and chuckled. ‘It’s like you’re two completely different people; you’re Clark Kent and Superman.’
‘That’s not actually very flattering’ she frowned, ‘can’t I be Diana Prince slash Wonder Woman.’
He pursed his lips thoughtfully and his gaze once again dropped to rake across her body, which heated unconsciously under his perusal.
‘Actually you’d look good in the star spangled hot pants.’
‘Shut up,’ she murmured as her cheeks flushed pink once again, ‘although,’ she continued, ‘if we’re talking superheroes, my choice would be Elektra. Okay she’s Marvel instead of DC and she was created to be the love interest of Daredevil but she is awesome, plus she fights with a pair of Sai, the daggers that look like tridents. Seriously cool weapons.’
Jake sat there, his own dinner forgotten as he watched her in fascination.
‘That’s it, I’m in love’ he grinned, ‘if for nothing else but your knowledge of Comic books and ancient Chinese weaponry.’
‘Actually the Sai was also used in Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia and there is some speculation that it originated in India.’
‘You’re like a walking text book,’ he shook his head incredulously.
She laughed lightly as she scooped up another mouthful of noodles.
‘Of course Elektra’s not just from the comic books. In Greek mythology Electra, spelled this time with a C not a K, was the daughter of K
ing Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra and therefore she was a princess of Argos. Both she and her brother Orestes plotted revenge against their mother Clytemnestra and stepfather Aegisthus for the murder of their father.’
‘You’re so cute’ he chuckled, attacking his own plate of food.
And there it was, she thought with a quiet sigh, in the space of two minutes they had gone from star spangled hot pants to cute. When was she going to learn to keep her mouth shut? Maybe her mother was right after all, no guy was ever going to be interested in a woman who constantly had her nose in a history book.
Slightly embarrassed she casually changed the subject.
‘So you got called out on an emergency earlier? I hope it wasn’t anything too bad.’
‘Actually’ he frowned, ‘we got called out to the Bailey’s store. Jonathan Bailey was found collapsed on the floor by the cash register.’
‘Oh my God,’ Roni breathed heavily, ‘was he attacked? Is he okay?’
‘We’re not really sure what happened at this point, there seems to be some confusion,’ he replied. ‘He was alive, barely, he’s been rushed to the hospital. Louisa’s on tonight, she’s going to keep me updated as to his condition. Nothing seems to have been taken so we can rule out robbery but there seems to be some confusion as to what actually happened. I’ve got a witness that says he wasn’t alone when he collapsed. We’re still trying to make sense of it all.’
‘I really hope he’s okay, he seems like such a sweet man.’
‘Yeah,’ Jake blew out a deep breath as he placed his empty plate on the table and picked up the wine.
‘You not driving tonight?’
Jake shook his head.
‘Snow’s mostly gone now, so I figured I’d walk Beau over as it’s only around the corner from my place.’
She accepted the glass he handed to her and settled back against the couch.
‘So,’ Jake picked up his own glass and leaned back too, ‘why don’t you tell me what you found in Olivia’s books.’
Her face lit with excitement as she remembered the reason she’d called him in the first place. She leaned over to the nearest pile of books and lifted an old book. It was small and covered with dark red cloth binding, which had split at the spine and almost hung off. She flipped through the dry pages, ignoring the stale dusty smell.
‘I found this,’ she handed the book to him; ‘it’s not exactly what I was looking for but it’s close enough.’
‘A summoning spell?’
She nodded enthusiastically, smiling as she unconsciously edged closer so she could look down at the page too.
‘It’s a spirit summoning, theoretically we should be able to summon Olivia’s spirit and speak with her.’
‘That sounds a little too easy,’ he frowned suspiciously.
‘Well it’s not’ Roni murmured as she gazed down at the open page in his hands. ‘Some of these items we’ll need for the spell are pretty hard to come by.’
‘Pretty hard to come by?’ he repeated scanning down the list, ‘a pentagram bound at the corners with white silk ribbon and made from the wood of a Willow tree harvested in the light of the full moon?’
‘That’s actually one of the easy ones,’ she picked up her notepad and scanned down the notes she’d made. ‘I’ve already ordered the ribbon online, that should arrive in a couple of days. As for the wood, there is a hiking trail through the woods south-west of the lake and according to Glenn Gordon, the guy who runs hiking groups for tourists down that way, there are some willows just west of the trail. It shouldn’t take more than a few hours to hike up there from the visitors center.’
‘In the dark?’ Jake asked her pointedly. ‘You said it needed to be harvested in the light of the full moon, you can’t hike unfamiliar ground to look for a willow tree in the middle of the night.’
‘It’s not ideal’ she agreed, ‘but unfortunately it’s necessary. As luck would have it the full moon is only a week away, so we can cross that one off the list.’
He shook his head and sighed, resigning himself to hiking through the woods in the middle of the night as there was no way he was letting her go alone. His eyes dropped down to the list and scanned past the more mundane items of candles and salt to some more exotic herbs.
‘What the hell is Kuzu?’
‘Japanese arrowroot,’ Roni told him.
‘Why would we need Japanese arrowroot?’
‘I don’t really know,’ she wrinkled her nose in thought, ‘it was used for drawing poison out of wounds. Maybe it has some other magical property, I’m not really sure. I’m just kind of approaching this spell from a recipe standpoint.’
‘What? Just follow the instructions and hope it turns out looking like the picture?’ Jake cocked an eyebrow in amusement.
‘Something like that’ she smiled, ‘I think we’re just going to have to take a lot of this on faith and hope that the person who wrote the spell knew what they were doing.’
‘Fair enough,’ Jake continued to scan the list. ‘Uh, what is Silene undulata?’
‘That is a small white flower used by shamans, it’s more commonly known as African dream root. I think it’s supposed to induce vivid hallucinations or something.’
‘What?’
‘Relax we’re not going to be ingesting it, probably just inhaling some of the fumes.’
‘Huh?’
‘Never mind’ she shook her head.
‘Roni, where are we supposed to get all these herbs and flowers from?’
‘The internet’ she replied. ‘Don’t worry I’ve already ordered most of them.’
Er, Roni?’ he frowned, ‘I don’t think you’re going to be able to get this last item from the internet.’
‘What’s that?’
‘The blood of a necromancer?’
‘Ah yes that one,’ she pouted thoughtfully. ‘I’ll admit that one was a bit of a challenge.’
‘A challenge? This isn’t World of Warcraft Roni, there is no such thing as Necromancers.’
‘Of course there is,’ she shrugged as if the answer should be painfully obvious. ‘I’ll admit it’s a bit of an archaic word to use but then again I don’t know how long ago the spell was created.’
‘What are you talking about?’ he shook his head, ‘Necromancers are dark wizards who raise corpses.’
‘You’re thinking in terms of modern popular culture, TV, Films and games which deal in the fantasy and science fiction genres, but although they are wildly exaggerated for dramatic emphasis there is a grain of truth, a seed from which the myth grew. If you go right back into antiquity Necromancy evolved from shamanism, the practice of calling upon the spirits of ancestors. Necromancy was widely accepted as a way to communicate with the spirits of the dead, or shades as the Greeks and Romans called them. It wasn’t until the middle ages when the Medieval Christians believed that only their God could resurrect and so the Catholic church condemned it as demonism and the work of the devil.’
‘How the hell do you know all of this?’ his mouth fell open in surprise. ‘You’re like a female rain man.’
‘My point is’ she sighed, ‘you just have to take it out of its historical context and move it into the modern day. In the Middle Ages alchemy was considered heresy, yet today we call it science. Back then Necromancy was the domain of demons, witches and practitioners of dark magic but today we call it spiritualism and it is practiced by mediums.’
‘Mediums?’ he groaned, suddenly understanding. ‘Fiona?’
‘Yes,’ she nodded sympathetically. ‘Fiona.’
‘We need to talk Fiona into giving us some of her blood?’
‘Not just that, as she is an extremely talented medium we could really use her help.’
He groaned again.
‘What have you got against Fiona?
‘Nothing exactly,’ he shook his head, ‘it’s just the woman is a whole bucketful of crazy.’
‘I’ll a
dmit she’s got a few quirks.’
‘A few?’
‘Alright a lot,’ she laughed as she took a sip of her wine, ‘but at least there’s no guessing with her, you know exactly what you’re getting.’
‘That’s true I suppose’ he grimaced, ‘I just don’t want to deal with her legion of cats and that’s after navigating the minefield of garden gnomes just to get to her front door.’
‘You don’t like gnomes?’
‘Not when they number more than the entire population of the state of Texas.’
She laughed warmly and lifting her feet she curled them comfortably under her as she turned to face him more fully. Casually propping her uninjured elbow on the back of the couch she rested her head against her hand and took another sip of wine.
Jake leaned back and tilted his head, watching her quietly. She looked so comfortable and relaxed in his company, her intense blue eyes watching him, her cheeks flushed from the warmth of the room and the wine. One of the straps of her tank top had begun to slide slowly off the curve of her shoulder and his fingers curled involuntarily with the urge to reach out and stroke her skin, to see if it felt as soft as it looked. His jaw tightened and he fought the urge for his gaze to dip once again. It was pure torture knowing she wasn’t wearing underwear and he had to keep reminding himself that they were just friends, but damn he wanted his hands on her desperately. For a nerd she was pretty damn sexy and the crazy thing was she didn’t seem to know. He watched mesmerized as her tongue slid slowly across her lower lip to catch a drop of wine.
‘It’s getting late,’ she murmured.
‘Late,’ he repeated absently, his gaze fixed on her lips.
A small series of yips from across the room drew his attention and broke his gaze as they both looked across to where Beau was laid out on his back across a cushion, his paws in the air twitching madly.
The Guardians Complete Series 1 Box Set: Contains Mercy, The Ferryman, Crossroads, Witchfinder, Infernum Page 90