by Bethan Tear
The main component of the spell was missing, the last and most vital ingredient. She ran upstairs and yanked open her sock drawer, of much less intrigue to Kaden than her bra drawer. At least something useful had come from her last encounter with Chris. Bundled inside was the blouse she had been wearing that day, stained with his blood, his essence, the key to directing the magic towards him and infiltrating his mind. The blood was crusty, flaking away, but the stain was deep and she was confident it would be enough for her purposes. She returned to the cellar, lighting candles, flickering flames illuminating the stone bowl and pedestal used for grinding herbs, making the silver snake scales shimmer iridescently.
“Okay…you can do this, you can do this,” she reassured herself quietly, and then added firmly, “You have to do this.”
With that inspiring little speech and the certainty of no other choice Hazelle began grinding the herbs, rosemary and thyme, cloves and fig leaves. There as a balance of nature and nurture with spell casting, and the more dedicated, the more patient and careful she was the stronger the spell would be. Considering it was only her second spell she felt confident, perhaps more than any rookie had a right to be. She knew what was expected of her, what the elements expected of her should she wish for her energy and efforts to be accepted.
She poured the herbal dust into rose sweetened water, as had been detailed in the book. It turned a muddy brown, nothing magical or mystical about it…yet. She added the more potent ingredients, the monkshood, the bat wing, crushed snail shells, toad bile and a lizard’s egg. When it came to the snake scales shed under the light of a full moon she disregarded the instructions, doubling the recipe, and while only one raven feather was required she used two, to give the spell extra punch. She then stirred in a generous amount of Highland whisky; the fumes making her feel dizzy, though she wasn’t intoxicated because of the alcohol. It was the energy buzzing all around her, the elements awakened, the power bristling in her hair like electricity, prickling her skin, congealing in her gut, making her heart beat faster than ever before.
It was time for the most crucial part of the spell, the essence of whoever it was she planned to curse. Spit, tears, sweat or semen would do it, but blood was the most powerful, the most effective offering. She scraped some of it into the potion, swirling it around, until it was blood red, glittering like liquid ruby in candlelight. Would it be enough? To make sure she dunked the whole blouse into the bowl, letting the blood infuse with the potion, staining the blouse pink. If this spell worked Chris would never know the favour he had done her.
She said the chant out loud, three times, in quick succession, the words hovering around her in the dank darkness, trapped by brick and shadow. She reached over and picked up one of the candles, tilting the flame over the potion. It ignited instantly, flaring to life like dragon flame, burning away the alcohol and consuming the blouse. Black smoke gushed from the potion, gathering around her, immersing her in thick, cloying, demanding darkness. She embraced the smoke, letting it conquer all her senses and dictate her mind, lure her and guide her to where she needed to be. The pungent smell made her nose tingle, hot flames fanning her skin and she knew, whatever she had invoked, whatever had come to claim her, that she had succeeded in the first part of the spell and she was, so far, still in control.
Closing her eyes she let the energy wash through her, her nerves fizzling, her blood boiling, her body attuning on a biological level to the magic that was trying to sway it. When she opened her eyes she was dazzled by bright, pulsating white light and she wondered if she was in heaven, if the black smoke had choked her, if she had somehow died while experimenting with forces she couldn't understand. She hadn’t been sure she believed in heaven before Kaden, but if there was a hell and he came from it then there had to be a flipside. A ying to the yang. The universe was all about balance, light and dark, sin and innocence, action and consequence, and if there was evil in the world that meant there also had to be good. Magic had taught her that much.
She didn’t see any angels with white wings and Jesus sandals playing golden harps, or any deceased family coming to welcome her to the afterlife. The light faded, allowing her to see other colours, pinks and purples, emerald greens and aquamarine, tarnished gold and shimmering silver. There were dark spots too, black, thorny crevices that exuded so much negative energy she wanted to recoil from them. Everything flickered and fluxed, throbbing with energy, with life, with potential.
Chris’s mind was nothing like she’d anticipated. She knew he was a complicated character, but until she’d been able to see inside his head, his thoughts and feelings and desires she had never realised how truly fucked up he was, how twisted and perverted he had allowed himself to become. She was able to take a peek into his memories, the blond, cute little boy who admired his new uniform in the mirror on his first day of school, the lanky, freckled teenager who was being teased because he had been outrun by a girl on sports day, the geeky, gangly youth who had stuttered his way through a speech at a school assembly and lost his glasses when his head was flushed down the toilet later that day. There was all that and so much more, memories whizzing past Hazelle, some so quickly they were blurry snarls of pain and emotion.
There were so many factors that made up a person, so many important points in their life that shaped them, some so small others might have forgotten them, but some so traumatic that they transformed the victim's mental state, their outlook on life, perhaps forever.
She tried to avoid the dark purple tangles of his pain as much as she could. Like bruises when she touched upon them they were still tender, and though they had left little damage on the outside they had scarred him deeply on the inside. She was able to immerse herself in his memories, to see things as he did, from his eyes and his point of view, to see herself the way he did. He saw her as a possession, like a car, or a cell phone, his property and nobody else’s. She made him crazy, made him forget himself, he knew he was mad with passion for her, and he hated her for how much she made him want her, increasing his longing for her by denying him time and time again. It was scary to see the process, to know how deeply and intimately he thought about her, how he truly felt about her and what lengths he would go to just to have her.
Through his eyes she was the brightest thing in his world of grey, a drab landscape of neglect and broken promises that he believed she could cure. It was like she was stood in direct sunlight, her hair golden, her eyes enticing, her smile seductive. In reality she was none of those things, she never felt particularly pretty or sexy, and her hair wasn’t that shiny, the blue in her eyes never so vibrant. It showed how warped his memories were, how disconnected from the real world he truly was.
This was what she had been searching for, this was what she needed, his memories of her, his depraved desires and perverted longings. She stood facing them, not cowering in their shadow as she thought she would have, as she almost certainly would have done had she been facing the man himself. Would he notice her in his mind? He had accused her of meddling with it before, of bewitching him, heart mind body and soul. Now there was actually some truth to it.
It didn’t matter. If the spell worked then he wouldn’t remember who she was to know she had trespassed in his mind.
She reached out, her fingertips glowing hot and white, brandishing the flames and summoning energy that she had left behind on the mortal plane. She embraced it, hot, white, blinding light streaming from her hands, expelling flame and eradicating his memories.
“I absolve you!” she screamed through fire and flame, wind blasting through her hair with the heat of retribution,“I renounce you, and reject you and forget you as you shall forget me!”
The fire danced around her, leaving her unscathed but burning away the memories of her like old film, leaving them spotty and distorted, disjointed, before the memories were consumed completely, obliterated, and she was liberated.
When she opened her eyes again she was back in her own body, in her own mind. The smoke had v
anished, replaced by shadow and light battling for dominance around her pentagram. She could feel the energy receding, her own energies thoroughly spent, the ritual completed.
The candle closest to her was extinguished by a gust of wind, the last whisper of magic, silver smoke twisting on the air like a lingering spirit.
The spell had been a success.
Chapter Nine
As it was Kaden did return late, and he returned alone.
Hazelle was lying in bed; eyes wide open, staring blankly at the ceiling above without really seeing it. Her mind was too preoccupied for sleep, fretting about the spell, about the magics she had experimented with and any repercussions that might befall her because of it. She wished she had a number for Chris, to call and see if the spell had worked, if he did remember her. When they'd broken up she'd thrown all his numbers away in a bid to rid him from her life the first time, after the court order, but even if she did have a number she wouldn’t mention her name, should the sound of it break the spell and re-spark his old memories of her.
She heard Kaden unlock the door, her mother still not home, and heard him stamp up the stairs, slowly, worryingly, like something out of a horror movie. Could she be so certain it was Kaden? Chris might have been spying on him too; he might have mugged him and stolen the key. This could be him coming up the stairs, having realised she’d cast a spell on him, eager for his revenge.
She realised if it was him he might be a bit more subtle about it and not give her the chance to escape. Besides, she didn’t think any living mortal could best a demon, and anyone who tried was sure to suffer Kaden’s wrath. She had yet to see the full extent of it, but she would wager it was a sight to behold and she didn’t want to be on the receiving end of it.
“Hazelle,” Kaden’s raspy voice came through the door. He tried it, finding it locked. That wasn’t enough to stop him.
Or at least, it shouldn't have been.
She tip-toed from the bed and pressed her ear to the door, hearing his harsh, uneven breathing from the other side.
“Kaden?” she said gently, unsure of his temperament. He had been the angriest she had ever seen him earlier when he'd stormed out of the house. She had hoped his anger would dissipate, or at least diminish, but with him there could be no assumptions, no second guesses.
“Hazelle.”
He laughed wildly, and when she unlocked the door and opened it she saw him slumped against the opposite wall, a degree of madness in his eyes. They were fully dilated, black as night and shimmering with demonic light. There was no evidence of teeth and claws, which was fortunate. It would not do well to have reports of a monster prowling suburb streets on the morning news.
“Hazelle,” he repeated her name and it seemed to drip from his tongue like honey. His shirt was grubby, his jeans covered in grass stains, his hair dishevelled and he reeked of liquor.
“You’re drunk,” she stated, surprised. She thought someone like Kaden would have control over substances that affected mere mortals.
“Intoxicated. Inebriated. Legless.”
“I can see that,” she said lightly, gesturing at his legs, splayed indecently, “I take it you had a good night.”
“Good.” He gave a short laugh. “Yes. That’s one word for it.”
“Got any others?”
He frowned, his forehead crinkling, as if she had asked him to calculate the square root of four thousand and sixty-six, or asked him what the meaning of life was. She shook her head, disappointed and disillusioned by him. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Wrapping her arms around his torso she helped him to his feet. He was slow and stumbling, rambling incoherently about something. She paid it little attention, concentrating more on support his weight. He dwarfed her, his muscles adding more pounds to his towering frame than she weighed soaking wet. A drunken demon was not something she had ever dealt with before, and she only reason she did now was because he had been so caring and considerate with her when she'd been ill. This was different, self-inflicted, but she supposed, in a way, she owed him. She couldn’t sleep anyway and helping a demon in distress was a good distraction.
She washed his dirty hands and teased the knots out of his hair, tugging bits of leaf and blades of grass from it. He must have fallen several times on the way home. He was lucky it was only mud and grass on his shirt. When it came to undressing him she didn’t blush for once, suspecting he wouldn’t remember any of this. He stood there, swaying on the spot as she unbuttoned his shirt, revealing his heavenly golden abs, the pictorials bulging with pure muscle and power, a body any man would be envious of and any woman over the age of puberty would want to own. Except her, apparently.
He let her undress him, humility not in his nature.
“Like what you see?” he slurred, a stupid, lopsided smile on his face. Did this mean he had forgiven her?
“Yes,” she admitted, her voice much too breathy. There was no point in lying, the answer was written all over her face.
He gave a quirky smile of approval and pressed his lips to her throat. Considering the state he was in it was surprisingly gentle and reserved, almost as if he was shy, when she knew he was not. She thought he would kiss her elsewhere, maybe hoped it, but instead he stood there and let her finish undressing him without comment or criticism. When he was naked she shoved him into the shower, handing him the shampoo and soap, a small part of her wishing she could join him. It would have been the perfect excuse to run her hands over that tempting, tawny skin, to test his muscles and admire his…appendage. Not that she hadn’t seen it often enough already. Instead she was dutiful, averting her eyes and wrapping a towel around him when he stepped out of the shower, his golden skin glistening with water like a freshly oiled god, preened for some sex ritual.
She felt the familiar, frustrating warmth pool between her legs at the sight of this man, and this man alone. This insufferable, impossible, irresistible beast of a man that made her feel what every other man had failed to. Did this mean there was something seriously wrong with her? Was she evil for being so attracted to a demon? Was she damned?
No. Not damned.
Doomed.
When he was dry she led him to his bed, not wanting to humiliate herself further by trying to put boxers on him and having them both end up on the floor in a tangle of limbs and lust. He didn’t seem to mind being naked at all; he revelled in it, and why shouldn’t he? He was sex personified, idolised, his body faultless, his face flawless, his hair like spun gold stained with blood. That grisly thought made her think of the spell again and she wondered if such a spell would give her any insight into Kaden, into what he thought about her, what he planned to do with her, how many times he would accept her refusals.
She drew back the sheets for him and he lay down in the bed obediently. When she dropped the duvet back over him he reached out and patted the space next to him, a depraved smile on his face.
“Lay.”
She shook her head. She wasn’t going to be forced into anything she didn’t want to do, not ever again.
He frowned.
“Lay,” he repeated, sounding like a sulky child. He was so drunk he could scarcely stand on his own two feet and currently not much of a threat to anyone.
“Okay,” she conceded, “But my clothes stay on.”
He smirked.
She perched nervously on the edge of the bed, drawing a spare blanket over her as she lay down. He snuggled against her, his head in the crook of her neck, his nose tickling her skin as he breathed her scent in deeply, sighing as if he savoured it. His breath warmed her skin, making her tingle with anticipation. He must know the affect he had on her, on all women, and even some men. She had never met a man like Kaden, had never seen his physical equal, and unless she was willing to summon another sex demon she doubted she ever would.
“Could have…” he breathed, “Could have…didn’t…”
“What?” she asked, puzzled.
“Woman…beautiful…begging for it…cou
ld have…could have…but didn’t,” he muttered, half asleep. She’d heard enough to assume what he was babbling about.
“Why didn’t you?” she asked in awe, “You said you would.”
It was a question with an answer she might dread to hear. She didn’t want to think of him with another woman, smiling at her he way he smiled at Hazelle, charming her, seducing her, fucking her. Kaden’s language was rubbing off on her, in all the wrong ways and yet the harsh reality of it was that he had been made for sex, designed to tease, thrill and devour women.
“Didn’t…because of you,” he murmured, his voice muffled by his lips moving against her skin, sending shivers of longing down her spine.
“But…why?” she asked incredulously, unable to put her disbelief into words. He was a demon of lust, of carnal desire, sex was in his blood, in his nature, it was what he had been designed to do and she had been denying him that. Unless he had found his kicks elsewhere, as she had assumed, it was at least a week since he’d indulged. She’d suspected he needed sex like humans needed food and water, maybe even air. It must have been killing him inside, and yet he still abstained?
It didn’t make any sense to her. And she didn’t get her answer because Kaden was asleep, quietly and rhythmically breathing as he was nestled against her, his arms trapping her. He was very drunk, perhaps disorientated from hitting his head when he fell over, obviously confused and she tried to convince herself that it didn’t mean anything, that it didn’t make her special, or unique, or important to him.