“Sure, I can do that.” Boy, she was such a softy; melting over the sound of the senator’s voice.
“Great! I’ll see you tonight.”
“Okay. Bye.” She released a long breath and hung up, blushing as if her employer had whispered lustful promises of a steamy night in bed. Her Senator Provost sexual fantasies were becoming tired and worn.
Jen had been using him to fuel the lust during her self-pleasuring sessions for so long that she was running out of fresh material. She decided to substitute the senator with the hot cop. Tonight, when her hand worked its way between her thighs, she would see Hot Cop’s face; she’d feel his lips and his burning touch.
What else could she do except fantasize? She’d never meet any men if she continued to be cooped up in the house with Ethan. Most nannies in the area got to prance around the pricey shops on Germantown Avenue and meet people when they took the kids in their charge to the many activities planned for them on a daily basis.
But not Jen. She was imprisoned inside the house. Among a host of dislikes, Ethan despised the outdoors. So until she got some time off to search for a boyfriend, she’d have to continue to masturbate and mentally hop from the senator’s bed to straddling Hot Cop inside his police cruiser.
Ooo, that was such a naughty thought, but with the bad sex drought she’d been experiencing, she’d be a fool to save herself for a bona fide boyfriend. She’d settle for a fuck buddy in a hot second. The weather was changing; she had to hurry up and get a sex partner before she ended up cold and alone in her little nanny bedroom.
She stood still for a moment, pondering her sad fate. The woman on the bridge crossed her mind. The recollection seemed more like something she’d dreamed than actually seen. The woman seemed ghostlike…imaginary…not flesh and blood. Not real.
If there had been a naked black woman on the bridge, cars would have careened. There would have been pile-ups and such a big commotion, Carmen and Lizzy would have heard about it on the news by now. Yes, she’d been under a lot of stress and her imagination was running wild.
Dealing with Ethan was not easy but she’d have to survive the terrible tot if she expected to get that prestigious position with his father.
Xavier had pulled another prank. He’d had Eris thinking she was running toward freedom. But once again the joke was on her. That bridge—a wooden link to earth and mankind, cut off. Again. Sending Eris spiraling back to the Dark Realm.
The fall was long and terrifying. And though she was unharmed, she felt traumatized. And helpless. How dare Xavier to continually manipulate her, pull her from the Dark Realm on a whim, and then just as whimsically, send her spiraling back.
Angrily, she kicked the soot; exasperated at being at the mercy of a cruel, demented child.
Eris came up with a plan. Xavier was a prankster, taking his bogus childhood to an extremely annoying level. He had deceived her twice and obviously did not intend to help Eris escape.
But Eris was not to be toyed with. The next time he engaged in child’s play and tried to tantalize her with a teleported bridge that could lead her out of the Dark Realm, she was going to use some muscle to get out of this hell.
She’d outsmarted Xavier before, joining him when he escaped the Dark Realm through his mother’s birth canal. She’d done it once and she could do it again. Xavier had better beware. Eris intended to exact revenge on him once she broke free from the Dark Realm.
“What’s your name?” she asked the ghoul who sat bent over, blowing away the lingering smoke from his phallus, which she’d burned.
He gave her a surly look. “What’s it to you?”
“Answer me before I set your balls on fire.”
He yelped, scooted back, cupping his scrotum as if it were a sack that contained gold nuggets.
“My name’s Boozer,” he muttered.
She turned up her lip. “What kind of name is that?
“My last time on earth…I was a thief, a scoundrel, and a helluva a mean drunk.” He smiled at the recollection. “I was known as Boozer. My name is the only thing I ever came by honestly.” He chortled.
Eris smiled wickedly. She’d found her muscle. Boozer would make a perfect minion on the earth plane. “Shut up, you fool!” she ordered, eyeing his scrotum with her blue eyes narrowed and mean.
He clamped his lips together and grabbed his testicles protectively.
Eris was pleased. Boozer had displayed an appropriate degree of fear and obedience. “How’d you like to take a trip with me?”
He groped his appendage and looked at her with tawdry desire. Though the burning hole was causing him pain and seeped a nasty, bubbling green secretion, Boozer was more than willing to forget his discomfort and roll around in the soot with Eris.
Eris kicked him. “Not that kind of trip, you vermin.”
“Sorry.” He stopped stroking himself and, instead, began doctoring his wounded appendage, gingerly placing bits on soot on the smoldering hole.
Eris looked around and then lowered her voice conspiratorially. “I’m making an escape soon, and I’m considering taking you with me.”
Boozer’s eyes widened to twice their size. He slapped his thigh. “Hot damn! How do you plan on doing it?”
Eris gave him a faint smile. “I’d be a fool to tell you.”
He nodded in understanding.
“Can you run fast?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Boozer was Eris’s kind of fiend. But she was curious about the time frame of his last incarnation and where he came from. Was he an earthling or from some other realm like herself?
Once all the fiends were clumped together inside the humid environs, it was hard to distinguish their origin. On the Dark Realm, everyone understood each other, speaking a universal language, via telepathy.
Evil was what they all had in common. But some were more so and possessed powers—like Xavier had. Xavier had honed his skills while on the Dark Realm and managed to retain some of his powers now on the earthly plane.
“Where’s your former home?” Eris inquired.
“Mississippi.” Boozer puffed up, proud, seeming to forget that his fellow Jacksononians had shot him down like a dog.
Good, an earthling. An American earthling and a Southerner, at that! Eris was extremely relieved that Boozer hadn’t come from a foreign country or another, less-intelligent realm. She needed a cohort that could speak English and knew American ways. She hoped he could remember his way around the South.
“You’re sober now, so I hope you won’t stagger and fall like a drunk when I’m ready to use your services?”
“No, I ain’t had a drink in…” He looked upward, his bushy brow crinkled in confusion as he tried to process time. Unable to come up with exact dates, he went on, “I ain’t had a drink since I made my last batch of moonshine,” he said.
“What happened after that?” Eris had logged into the Stovall man’s computer and done a quick study of American history during her last earth life. Moonshine sounded like an expression that was around during her first visit to earth.
“Some fellas shot me down. Claimed I’d been raping all the women in the town while the men were away at war. They also blamed me for the bringing a bad case of the claps down on the whole town.”
“Did you?” Eris giggled.
“Somebody gave it to me. I reckon I passed it on to twenty or so females who I had my way with.” He scratched his head. “But I ain’t spread the claps to the whole doggone town.”
“Where was this town?” she said, hoping it was Roanoke.
“Jackson, Mississippi.”
Eris sneered. “How far is that from Roanoke, Virginia?
“By buggy?” Boozer scratched his head. “Hmm. Probably…”
“No! By car!” she snapped.
“By what?” Boozer frowned in confusion
“An automobile, you moron! How long will it take to drive to Roanoke?”
Scowling in bewilderment, Boozer raked a claw back and forth across h
is scalp. “I don’t know nothing about that ’mobile thing, but we could probably hop a freight to Virginny. I reckon it would take a week or so to get to Roanoke.”
“You reckon?”
“Can’t say for a fact. I never stepped foot out of Jackson.” Boozer grinned. “I’m looking forward to getting my hands on some Virginny rump.” As though readying his shaft for mayhem, he flicked bits of soot from his injured appendage.
Boozer was a numbskull for sure. She considered giving him another blast of heat for being so stupid, but she restrained herself. She needed him for his brawn, not his brains.
Fuming mad, Eris thought about those damned Stovalls… Bryce, Ajali, and the little jewel-thieving brat, and how they were all living like royalty in the old Stovall plantation. They were nothing more than brazen squatters. It was she who had kept the master’s bed warm when his ailing wife couldn’t. She was entitled to the deed to that mansion. The Stovall plantation rightly belonged to her!
She looked at Boozer. “As soon as we get out of here, we’re heading for Roanoke. I have lots of nasty work for you to do. I’m going to let you loose on a couple of folks who deserve to be ripped, limb by limb.”
Boozer giggled maliciously.
Wondering if the creature would be a hindrance as she maneuvered around modern day America, Eris asked, “You never answered my question. Can you drive a car?”
He held up his clawed hands. “I don’t know what that thing is, but I can drive the heck out of a buggy.”
Disappointed, Eris’s shoulders slumped. No telling where that bridge would lead her. She’d have to find herself a chauffeur to drive her to Roanoke to pick up her jewelry Of course, she’d take Boozer along to do what he did best. Maim and murder.
On her behalf, of course.
He could start with Xavier, for taunting her.
The Stovall family, next.
“When the time comes…when I’m ready to leave, I’m going to need you to pick me up and carry me. Follow my explicit instructions and run like the wind. Can you do that?”
Devilment shone in his beady eyes. “That’s easy. When are we leaving?”
Exasperated, she scorched his arm with her burning glare. “Stop pestering me with idiotic inquiries. I’m a goddess and you’re a mortal moron. I expect you to follow my directions without questioning me.”
“Ow!” He rubbed his arm and patted at the puff of smoke. “All right. I’ll shut my trap,” he mumbled.
“You won’t be able to see our transportation, but I will,” she confided. “Being a goddess, I possess special powers.”
Boozer nodded dumbly.
“When I snap my fingers, scoop me up in your arms and run as fast as you can. I’ll point out the direction. Understand?”
“Uh-huh.”
“That’s not an appropriate response to a goddess.” She gave him an evil look.
He shrank back. “O-okay. What should I—?”
“You should say, yes, goddess!” Eris informed.
“Alrighty. Yes, goddess,” Boozer obliged without batting an eye. The woman had powers and she was his ticket out of hell. He’d call her whatever name was pleasing to her ears. Boozer was already thinking up ways to stir up trouble with his neighbors in Jackson.
The fact that more than a century had passed didn’t enter his mind.
Carmen tended to stretch the truth. The visiting dignitaries turned out to be the senator’s old college pal, Paul Gooding, and two blondes—one was a strawberry blonde who did something important on Capitol Hill, and had gotten her positions in Washington, thanks to her connection with Senator Provost.
The other was a dirty blonde with a noticeable boob job.
Carmen had pointed out that the boob job blonde was the former nanny, who was now his personal assistant.
Carmen went home after serving them, and Jen could tell there was a change in the atmosphere downstairs. The guests, becoming more animated by the minute, were no doubt, enjoying cocktails.
Hearing the constant tinkling of stemware, along with her many jumbled thoughts and conflicting emotions, was stretching every one of her nerves. Had she actually imagined seeing the naked woman on Ethan’s computer? Was she hallucinating when she saw what looked like a flesh and blood woman running on Piper’s Bridge? How could something that weird happen twice?
Their voices grew louder. Just what were they celebrating? Jen wondered, closing the novel she couldn’t concentrate on. She flung Ethan an irritated glance. He was parked in front of his computer as usual.
Bored with Ethan’s company, Jen decided to entertain herself by snooping on the senator and his friends. She rose from her appointed chair—a rocker—something the future Ms. Vice President thought was an appropriate seat for a nanny. She then slipped out of Ethan’s bedroom and tiptoed downstairs.
Jen crept along a wall toward the dining room and then halted, standing stock still when she was close enough to hear each voice clearly.
“How’s it feel to be this close to the White House, Danny Boy?” she heard one of the blondes say in a voice that reeked with flirtation.
“Danny Boy!” Jen mimicked, her expression sour. The woman sounded self-assured, and too damn familiar with the senator, to be a casual friend. She wondered if the dirty blonde would call him Danny Boy if Catherine Provost was within earshot. She doubted it.
That dirty blonde and her strawberry counterpart would be appropriately respectful if the woman of the house were around. Jen didn’t know what was worse—having Catherine at home barking orders or having to endure the knowledge that two hussies were having a wonderful time while Jen was being treated like an outcast.
She couldn’t help envying the blondes, and wishing she were an invited guest instead of lowly, hired help. Being a nanny sucked.
“I’ll tell you how Danny Boy feels. He feels outmaneuvered and de-balled!” Paul Gooding bellowed. Drunk as a skunk, Paul’s voice was loud and cocksure. Paul and the senator were as different as night and day, but were as close as brothers.
“Not true,” Senator Provost laughingly protested. “I’m proud of Catherine and looking forward to supporting her all the way through her own run for president in eight years.” The senator’s voice was crisp and eloquent; his was the only voice that hadn’t started to slur.
“What about your political career?” Strawberry blonde asked, her tone petulant.
“I’m trying to talk him into switching parties and running against his wife,” Paul retorted. “That would sure spice up politics. Maybe in the bedroom, too. Hey, Danny?”
“You’re a sick-o,” Senator Provost responded, sounding a little embarrassed that his drunken bud had had let the cat out of the bag; revealing the true nature of his relationship with his wife.
Now the two blondes were privy to the fact that the senator and his wife’s love life was a disaster. The political couple had separate bedrooms. It wasn’t unusual for a wealthy couple to maintain separate bedrooms.
For all Jen knew, the pair may have been slipping in and out of each other’s rooms for comfort or sex. But Jen suspected that her employers did not have a sex life. At least, not together. And apparently, the senator had been complaining to Paul. Now the blondes knew. Drats! One of them was going to try to snatch up Jen’s dream man.
Jen was sick of listening to all their drunken banter and witticisms. Feeling ostracized and angry now, she quietly moved away from the dining room and hurried up the stairs.
Back in Ethan’s bedroom, she marched toward the child and clicked off the computer. “It’s bedtime,” she said sternly and then exhaled a long-suffering sigh that warned the boy to not give her a hard time.
But, on second thought, maybe an episode from Ethan would bring the dinner festivities to a speedy conclusion. After taking a gander at Ethan in a full-swing episode, those blonde harlots would never set foot in the Provost household again. And after all the guests had fled, the distraught senator would drag himself upstairs to his lonely bed.
Ethan’s breathing suddenly changed to rattling and wheezing. Jen let out a small mewl of disgust.
“Do not start!” she warned. “I’m not taking any more crap off of you, Ethan!”
There, she’d called him by his given name right to his miserable little face. Expecting Ethan to throw a fit, Jen calmly waited for the beginning of an episode.
But he didn’t tense up or start screaming. What he did was far, far worse.
Ethan looked at her through soulless eyes and displayed a smile that was so chilling, Jen’s blood ran cold, and her teeth began to chatter.
“My name is Xavier!” the boy said. His voice sounded like a grumpy old man’s.
“Wh-what did you say?” Jen’s heart hammered.
“Call me Xavier.” His voice emerged in a horrible wheezing, angry whisper.
Jen gasped in shock.
And fear.
Satisfied that his words had a powerful impact, the child’s lips stretched into another cold and deadly smile, letting his nanny know that he was fully present—totally alert and not speaking nonsense while in the throes of an alleged episode.
Unwilling to hear the child speak another word, Jen turned and high-tailed it out of his bedroom. Her pulse pounded in her ears as she made fast tracks down the hallway, and then trotted down the stairs.
She barged into the dining room without a second thought to how awkward and unattractive she felt in the presence of the elegant senator and his ultra-sophisticated friends.
“Senator Provost,” she said in shaky voice. “Can I speak to you?”
Looking both amused and lecherous, the senator’s best friend sized Jen up, undressing her with glittering eyes. The two blondes stared at Jen with disapproval. The senator rose. After excusing himself, he ushered Jen out of the dining room. Once they were able to speak privately, he asked, “What’s the problem?”
“Ethan spoke.”
The Sorceress Page 10