Demon Born Magic (Ella Grey Series Book 3)

by Jayne Faith

  She swept the room with her gaze as some of the women gasped.

  I ground my teeth against the growing pressure in my head.

  She was not only locking me in, she’d managed to reveal something that would make it all too easy for the witches to overlook the transgression with the rip magic. I could already picture it. Before the glow of the announcement wore off, she would grow somber and penitent and present her rip magic dabblings as a terrible but innocent mistake on her part.

  While the women turned to each other and all began to talk at once, Lynnette gave me a triumphant grin the clearly said: checkmate.

  Chapter 5

  JUST AS I expected, Lynnette didn’t wait long before turning serious and making her confession. She managed to look sincerely remorseful, even scared at times. As I watched her, I wondered if she’d practiced in the mirror before the meeting.

  “There are many others harvesting rip magic, too, but that’s no excuse for the recklessness that brought such terrible consequences,” she said, her voice trembling. A tear slid from one eye, and she reached up to delicately wipe it away with one navy-painted nail. “If I’d had any idea how dangerous it would turn out to be, I wouldn’t have done it. I’d do anything to take it back.”

  My eyes flicked from one face to the next while Lynnette continued her tearful speech. I was waiting for at least one of them to circle back to the angel investor. Seriously, not one of them questioned the mysterious money that seemed to have appeared from nowhere?

  As I watched their reactions, something hit me like a splash of cold water. These witches were truly under Lynnette’s influence. I didn’t know if it was her charisma, if she’d used verbal magic on all of them, or both, but there was no doubt in my mind. It wasn’t that she’d flat-out brainwashed them cult-leader style. I’d have noticed that kind of change in Deb. No, it was subtler and more insidious. She’d found ways to use the women’s deepest desires to tie them to her. The strings were firmly in place, and Lynnette knew just how and when to tug on them.

  Jennifer’s words came back to me, and another piece of it slipped into place. She’d said that Lynnette had wanted me, and whatever talents of mine she perceived, very badly. If Amanda’s death hadn’t opened up a spot in the coven, Lynnette would have found another way to rope me in. To obligate me to her. Jen understood perfectly Lynnette’s designs on me and knew that I’d been forced here against my will. Yet she’d seemed oddly at ease with it all. Deb, too, I realized, seeing it with more clarity. I’d chalked up her reaction to the fact that she was so thrilled we were both in the same coven she preferred not to dwell on how it had happened.

  I could have tried to snap the women into the reality I was seeing. I could have stood up and bashed Lynnette for going behind their backs and doing something so stupid and dangerous it got one of them killed and nearly wiped out the rest. But I knew it wouldn’t be that simple. She was playing a long game with them.

  As I sat there, I knew I’d have to do something about Lynnette. I couldn’t allow her to continue leading this coven. Not just for my own sake, but for all the women involved. It might take time, but I would find a way to outmaneuver her.

  I spent the rest of the meeting observing. Watching the subtle ways Lynnette manipulated the mood and energy of the group. I didn’t have the magical aptitude to sense some of her subtler forms of magic, but I suspected that most of the time she didn’t have to rely on her powers. The other witches would notice if she were using significant amounts of magic. Maybe at first she had used whispers of verbal magic as she had on me, but these women had been with her for months. She’d already laid the groundwork for her control. Now, it was more a matter of keeping them distracted, fostering their loyalty, and maintaining her dominance.

  I might have been the powerless one in the room magic-wise, but I was pretty sure I was the only one who completely saw through Lynnette’s bullshit.

  With a sort of detached incredulity, I watched her little act play out.

  When we finally took a break, she excused herself to the kitchen, and I was hot on her heels. She turned to the fridge and stiffened when she realized I was right behind her.

  I gave her a few slow claps.

  “Great performance,” I said sarcastically. “I’m surprised you can even move your hands, with all those witches wrapped so tightly around your fingers.”

  She looked off-guard for the tiniest moment and then gave me a cool smile. “Loyalty. It’s the foundation of a strong coven.”

  “I’m not like them,” I said. “You may have powered me into this, but I see you for what you are.”

  She shrugged a shoulder and began pulling out a platter with sliced fruit and cheese on it. “Twelve against one, Ella. Not very good odds.”

  She set the plate on the counter and peeled back the plastic wrap.

  “I don’t need odds. I’ve got the truth in my corner. Once Deb sees it, we’ll get the rest to see too.”

  “Deb is as committed as any of them. It’s because I can give her what no one else ever has, including you.” She paused and placed her palms wide on the marble countertop. “Stability. Belonging. Family.”

  My blood pressure spiked.

  “We don’t need you,” I said though clenched teeth.

  But I remembered what Deb had said, that this, the coven, was the solution to her problems. This was her plan. Her future.

  Lynnette looked past me as someone else came into the kitchen.

  “Can I give you a hand?” Elena asked, swinging her long curtain of brown hair back over her shoulder.

  “If you could take this platter, it’d be a huge help,” Lynnette said. “Ella, could you grab the champagne from the fridge? I’ll get the flutes out.”

  “Champagne!” Jennifer said, poking her head in. “Damn, pre-VAMP2 Jen loved champagne.”

  Elena gave a voluptuous laugh. “You can still drink some.”

  “Yeah, but it’s just bubbles without the buzz,” Jen lamented.

  I woodenly moved to the refrigerator and pulled out the two bottles of Veuve Cliquot inside.

  If Lynnette had a fricking toast planned, I might lose my shit. She’d just confessed that her greed was indirectly responsible for Amanda’s death, and, what, we were going to sit around and sip champagne? If I weren’t there to witness it, I would have said it was unbelievable.

  By the time the meeting broke up and Deb and I headed out, my head was pounding with the effort of holding it together. She asked me twice in the truck if something was wrong, and I told her I was just still upset about losing my job.

  She went to bed not long after we got home, but I was too keyed up to sleep. I went online, trying to dig up anything I could find on Lynnette Leblanc. I knew she’d been in a coven prior to the one she was now leading. I wanted to know why she left. I found the charter number for her old coven, which had become inactive. I had no idea if she got out before the coven dissolved, and I wanted details.

  But when I kept hitting dead ends on dirt specifically about Lynnette, I switched gears and started reading about coven law. Apparently you couldn’t simply up and decide you wanted out. It wasn’t just a matter of handing in your coven card. There was a lengthy process, and you had to prove extenuating circumstances. Dissolving a coven was actually easier to do than to exit as an individual. If the coven wasn’t profitable during a period of four consecutive years, the members could vote to dissolve the charter. They could also vote to change the type of organization and lose the charter but still maintain the group as a sort of social club. From what I could gather, social club status was a mark of failure and most failed covens preferred to disband instead.

  Four years. Damn.

  Even if I was forced to wait it out, that rule wouldn’t help me since our mysterious angel benefactor was gracing us with huge loads of cash that all but ensured our profitability from the outset. I rubbed my brow with my fingertips. Who the hell would just do a thing like that, anyway? Had Lynnette used her magic wor
ds on someone who had a bunch of money to throw around?

  When my phone lit up with a call, I was happy for the distraction. It was Damien.

  “Hey, what’s up?” I answered.

  “I quit Demon Patrol.”

  I sat up straighter. “What?”

  “After my shift ended, I went home. I thought about it for two hours. Then I typed up my resignation letter, printed it out, and took it to the station.”

  “I . . . don’t understand.”

  “I’m free!” he crowed.

  “Free of a regular paycheck?” I said. “Maybe that’s okay for you, what with your trust fund and all, but for us normal folk, that’s not a good thing.”

  I couldn’t imagine why he was so damn cheerful, and in my current mood, it kind of ticked me off. If he didn’t want to work Demon Patrol, he didn’t have to wait for me to get canned so he could leave. He had plenty of education and skills to pursue something else. I, on the other hand, was royally screwed.

  “No, free to do something more interesting with you,” he said, only a bit more subdued. “We’re going to start our own firm.”

  I puffed my cheeks, blowing out a noisy breath. “I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. Did you really quit Demon Patrol? Have you been drinking, Damien?”

  “I assure you I’m completely sober,” he said. “And yes, I quit. C’mon, this will be fun, Ella!”

  My mood began to soften. He’d just quit his job in an effort to cheer me up. If that wasn’t a gesture for the ages, I didn’t know what was. Not that it was purely altruistic—he was always playing his own angle—but still, it was a sweet thing to do.

  “Okay, explain your plan to me in really simple words, preferably one-syllable ones if possible, because I’ve had a hell of a day and I’m clearly missing something.”

  “I was just thinking earlier about how I could pursue more interesting work. Something with more variety. You know, to contribute to my studies and observations.”

  “Right, your scribblings in your nerd notebook,” I said. It was immature, but I was tired and cranky.

  “We’ve got contacts at Supernatural Crimes now,” he said, ignoring my little jab. “We could probably wrangle some contract work while we figure out our niche market.”

  “Back up. Niche market for what?”

  “Our own supernatural investigation and magical services firm,” he said, as if it should have been obvious all along.

  “You mean freelance, like Johnny does?”

  “Yes, essentially.”

  “Huh,” I said, still trying to process.

  “C’mon, what else do you have to do?” he cajoled.

  “Oh, I don’t know, figure out how to escape Lynnette’s clutches, stop a reaper from eating my soul, and get my magic back. You know, just a few little things.”

  “But you need a job regardless.”

  I chewed my lip. I honestly couldn’t think of what I might contribute to Damien’s venture. He was the most powerful crafter I knew. If there was a job he couldn’t handle, I couldn’t imagine what good I’d be.

  But really, what did I have to lose?

  “I’m in,” I said.

  Chapter 6

  “DUDE, WE ARE not calling our business Systematic Supernatural Solutions,” I said, a little breathless as I jumped out of the way of Damien’s staff, which he’d just tried to use to sweep my feet out from under me.

  I knew he’d minored in charmed weapons, but I hadn’t discovered until recently that he was also pretty damn skilled in the actual use of a variety of traditional weapons. He’d spent his youth earning black belts in a several martial arts disciplines, too. An outlet for his frustrations as the family black sheep, he’d said.

  I blocked his staff as he slashed it diagonally at me, and then I quickly whipped mine around and jabbed the end of it forward toward his midsection. I stopped short of actually jamming it into him, but he still contracted in anticipation.

  “Good,” he said. “Your reflexes are improving.”

  I set the end of my staff on the floor and planted my other hand on my hip.

  “That’s a completely unappealing name, plus it sounds like some kind of bio-magic start-up company,” I said.

  We were at his place, a spacious open-plan residential loft in one of the downtown high rises. I had no idea what the rent was and didn’t really want to know. The number would probably make me puke. I could just about fit my entire apartment in the area Damien had set up for sparring.

  He held his staff across his thighs, his hands loose. He looked like a giant letter A, as if he were posing as a human compass, the point-and-pencil kind used to draw arcs and circles in geometry class.

  “Fine, what do you think we should call it?” he challenged.

  I shifted my weight back and forth, thinking. “Perfect Circle Supernatural Services,” I said.

  He raised his brows. “That’s not terrible. We can keep that one on the table.”

  “I still don’t understand what market niche we’re going for,” I said. “I have no specialties, and you can do just about anything sub-mage.”

  “You do have specialties,” he said.

  I leaned my staff against the wall while he went to the kitchen island, slid open a drawer, and pulled two bottles of water out of the refrigerated compartment. He tossed me one, and I caught it in one hand and cracked open the lid.

  “Well, yeah, the necromancy,” I said. “But I’m like a preschooler in that department.”

  “But you can learn.” He took a long pull from his bottle. “You can also reap souls. That’s a skill. You can de-haunt places.”

  I recapped my bottle and shoved my bangs back from my forehead. “I can’t do shit with my magic blocked, though.”

  “That is a problem,” he said. “But you could solve that if you know how to hold back the reaper, right?”

  “I think so.” I glanced out the floor-to-ceiling windows, catching a glimpse of the pale pink morning sky on the east-most end of the view. “Jen seems to believe she can help me hold back the tsunami of magic from the ley line.”

  “Okay, so you just have to find a way to make a deal with the reaper,” Damien said. “And there’s one person who might be able to help.”

  I nodded. “Rogan.”

  Aside from a quick text the day before to let me know he was still in Nevada, I hadn’t heard much from him. I drew a slow breath. Damien was right. It was time to get Rogan to take me fully into his world. I needed my magic back for too many reasons to count.

  “Ready to go again?” Damien asked.

  I set my bottle on the counter next to my phone and went to grab my staff. We faced off, both in identical knees-bent positions. Then I straightened and took a step as if to leave the mat.

  “Was that my phone?” I said.

  When he looked, I lunged and swept my staff around to the backs of his legs, tapping hard enough to make his knees buckle.

  He narrowed his eyes at me, and I gave him an evil grin. He wordlessly pushed to his feet. “Oh, it’s on.”

  I gave him a villainous cackle.

  For the next half hour, I lost myself in the rhythm of our sparring and the sharp clacks of the long wooden dowels hitting together. Then we practiced with pairs of plastic daggers.

  When we stopped again, I checked my phone.

  “Speak of the devil,” I said. “I’ve got a message from Rogan.”

  I’ll be back in town in a couple of hours. I’m coming straight to your place.

  He’d sent the text over an hour ago.

  I looked up at Damien. “I’ve gotta run. He’s on his way back.”

  At home, I went into my bedroom to grab clean clothes. Deb had been sleeping in my bed, and I’d taken the fold-out in the living room. Her clothes were stuffed alongside mine in the closet and piled in plastic crates in one corner. There was space for another dresser, but we hadn’t gotten around to second-hand stores to buy one.

  In the corner, I noti
ced some plastic shopping bags. Wondering if they held infant things, I poked one of them. It shifted, revealing something glittery. I leaned down for a closer look and tugged on it. It was some sort of banner.

  “Oh, no,” I muttered, when I realized what it said.

  HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

  I rummaged through the other bags. Dollar store party hats, a bag of balloons, and colorful paper plates and napkins. Lots of them.

  “Nooo,” I moaned, sitting back on my heels.

  My birthday was coming up, and it looked like Deb was planning a party. I wasn’t a fan of big parties. Even less so of surprise parties.

  I shoved everything back in place and grabbed my clothes. I had bigger things to worry about than how my best friend intended to torment me in celebration of my twenty-fifth birthday.

  When Rogan arrived, I forgot all about the party supplies. As usual, he wore his duster and just a t-shirt, navy this time, underneath. It was barely above freezing outside, but he seemed oblivious to the cold. I did a double take. One of his cheeks looked like it had skated across the sidewalk.

  “What happened to your face?” I blurted as I let him in.

  Loki started circling him, sniffing as if Rogan had rolled around in roast beef sandwiches right before he came over. Rogan started to lift his hand to pet my dog but then seemed to think better of it.

  “Last night I tried to get onto the compound property through a drainage tunnel.” He reached up to touch the scrapes. “I misjudged what would happen if I had to get out quickly and ass-backward. My face took the punishment for my mistake.”

  I cracked a small grin at his wry explanation. “No one saw you, did they?”

  Loki stopped his frantic snuffling, backed off a few feet, and sat. With his pupils pulsing hellfire red, he went stone-still, watching Rogan.

  He shook his head. “I made it out in time.”

  He glanced at Loki and then scanned the room. I watched Rogan look around, and I suddenly remembered it was his first time inside my apartment.

  “I’m dying here,” I said, making rolling motions with my hands. “What did you find out?”