by J. R. Thorn
I shivered, then ignited flames at my fingertips. The cold reality of what I was up against gave me control over my powers and the hellfire that Devon awakened in me. I traced a circle in the air and a ring of fire blazed on the floor around the surviving demons. They screeched and spat curses in a growling, ancient language. The floor disintegrated into another realm and heat wafted into the room. My nose wrinkled at the rotten-egg stench of sulfur as the demons fell through.
“Nicely done,” Devon said with approval. He rested a hand on my arm.
Fear and pain left me when I allowed the sensation of his touch to run through me. Hellfire was a terrifying power, but it was also what Devon was made of. I accepted it, appreciated it, and that’s when I felt the bond snap into place.
He grinned. “Well look at that. Did you just pre-ejaculate our bond?”
A laugh bubbled out of me. “I guess I did.”
Chapter 8
I didn’t want to return to my apartment. The hospital called and told me all the arrangements had been made in advance and the funeral was scheduled for six PM. I stared at the simple message—a fucking text message—that told me I was going to have to say goodbye today.
I was tempted to call my mother up in the spirit realm again and let her know what I thought of the prearranged funeral. Another text came with the address and I rolled my eyes. Of course she wanted to be buried in the “family” graveyard.
The offbeat ancient patch of ground was off limits to the populace, but she’d taken me there more than once. She’d told me that my family was buried there, but it seemed impossible. Unmarked graves littered the grounds and the city had stopped allowing new burials for well over a hundred years. But if my family was made up of thousand-year-old Keymasters… well, no telling who or what was buried there.
My mother had left me more than just the shop and a deck of magical cards. I met the guys at our new headquarters, a mansion smack-dab in the middle of downtown New York. Ancient cracks ran up the sides and gargoyles stared down at us as we entered.
“This mansion is technically owned by a succubus,” Edwin informed me.
Devon and Jeffery fell behind us and held quiet conversation. I wanted to listen in on them, half-wondering if they were talking about what I was like in bed.
“Ren,” Edwin said in a voice that demanded my attention. “I don’t want you to be alarmed that there’s another supernatural creature in here. Witches own the city and the Keymaster owns this estate, but on paper it’s owned by the succubus. She’ll keep up pretenses for us.”
I shook my head. “Isn’t a succubus a type of demon?” I’d had my fair share of demons for the day.
Edwin produced a key and jammed it in the keyhole. He turned it and a soft click sounded. “They originally received their powers from demons, but they’re a natural occurrence in this world and the affliction is part of their heritage, similar to vampires. The only difference is that vampires can also be made. Succubi aren’t made, not anymore. They’re born.” He opened the heavy door and motioned me inside. “Either way, this succubus is our ally. I’m sure you’ll get along just fine.”
I frowned and followed Edwin inside. One glance over my shoulder showed Devon and Jeffery grinning at me. “What are you two laughing about?”
Jeffery smacked my ass and I yelped. “Devon is an angel of hell. He’s definitely one to kiss and tell.” He blew a kiss at me when I glowered. “I think it’s cute you formed a bond without even having sex.”
Edwin shushed us. “We’re guests in this house. Don’t be crude.”
“It’s quite all right,” said a woman’s silky voice with a thick British accent. I turned to find a voluptuous woman with breasts overflowing from a tight red dress I’d expect a supernatural creature called a “succubus” to wear. A locket nestled between the curves of her cleavage and she grinned and flashed perfectly white teeth. “Sex is always a welcome topic in this house.” She eyed my protectors, but I didn’t feel threatened by her. She measured them up and then smiled at Edwin. She lifted onto her toes to give him a kiss on the cheek. “I’m so glad all of you are here. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a Keymaster awakened.”
I placed my hands on my hips. “Is that so?” That would make her an ancient kind of old. “Did you know my mother?”
She nodded and her glittering blue eyes that would slay any man with their sheer precision drew me in. I scented her powers at work on my protectors, but my magnetism to her wasn’t one of lust. She fascinated me. “Yes, dear. Your mother and I were good friends. I go by many names, but you may call me Madame.”
She motioned for us to follow and took us into a sitting area. My hackles lowered when I sat down on a plush sofa. Lines of bookcases filled to the brim blocked out the walls and not a speck of dust could be found. Anyone who appreciated the literature was a good person in my book.
When she motioned to leave us, I raised a brow. “You won’t be staying?” This was her house, and apparently Edwin had the key. That bubbled up a lot of questions, especially with their familiarity. Just because Devon couldn’t have sex with women didn’t mean Edwin followed the same rules. I decided I wasn’t going to be the jealous lover if they’d been an item in the past, but I didn’t like unspoken secrets.
She smiled and moved aside as a butler appeared with a tray full of tea. “I have other duties to attend to, and I’m afraid I’m quite useless when it comes to matters of death.” She bowed her head. “My daughter is in the other room and I will tend to her. Please make yourselves comfortable.”
Edwin sat next to me and accepted a cup of tea from the butler who looked neither excited nor bored. “My lady,” he said when I didn’t respond.
I took one of the steaming cups and murmured my thanks.
“She and I have a platonic relationship, if that’s what your pouting is about,” Edwin said.
I startled, nearly spilling tea all over myself. “I’m not pouting.”
Jeffery reclined on one of the other sofas next to Devon. “You’re definitely pouting.”
I buried myself in my teacup so they couldn’t see the blush that rolled across my face. I wasn’t a huge fan of tea, but the aroma reminded me of my mother with the hint of spice. I drained the cup and peered at the leaves and frowned at the pattern.
One of the skills of being a fortune-teller was reading those patterns. I’d seen my mother do it a hundred times. There was power in nature, she’d said, as well as the interaction between the elements and the human body. Tea leaves had history of their own; they came from nature that bore roots into the earth and gained secrets that could be unraveled in the right circumstances.
Mine showed three circles. I knew what it represented, but what I didn’t like was the line that slashed through the middle. It couldn’t be anything good.
I hadn’t noticed the television in the elaborate room, but the butler flipped it on and handed Edwin the remote. “You asked for the news,” he said, adopting an accent that favored the lady of the house. “Please call for me if there’s anything else you need.”
With the butler walking off with everyone’s teacup except mine, which I refused to part with, Edwin sighed loud enough to win my attention. “You shouldn’t have taken her to a demon’s nesting,” he chided, speaking to Devon.
Devon rolled his eyes. “She needs training in hellfire. What better way than a crash course in demonic activity?”
Jeffery frowned as he watched the news. It showed the display of dead birds that buried Fortune Street. “Turn it up.”
“Today, a phenomenon wrecked the small side street known as ‘Fortune Street.’ Numerous cases of unexplained deaths have hit residents in this area, including wildlife. Investigations are underway to understand what has happened and who is responsible. Some are blaming the occult shop that is the epicenter of this strange occurrence. Others are pointing fingers at the city for failing to perform yearly audits on a nearby chemical plant.”
“They’re going to bl
ame it on chemicals again,” Devon mused. “That is the human go-to.”
Edwin frowned. “You mean that’s the favorite excuse of the male muses.”
I inched closer to Edwin. “There are muses, too?” I’d always pictured a muse to be an ethereal, floating giggling fairy-like creature. “They’re male?”
Edwin protectively wrapped an arm around me and drew me close to the rock-solid armor of his chest. The silk shirt did little to hide the lines of perfection that defined his body and I found my fingers exploring him. He didn’t seem to mind. “Only three muses are male and they are responsible for keeping the supernatural community hidden from the human world. But that’s not what I’m concerned about.” His fingers squeezed my arm, but then he flexed and released me as if aware he might hurt me. “Devon tells me this is a witch’s death spell. There are going to be repercussions. The cycle of death you’re supposed to outrun is now going to get a jumpstart. It’s already taken its share of lives on Fortune Street along with the witch who summoned it.”
He turned down the TV that continued to speculate less supernatural-means of how this phenomenon could have occurred.
Jeffery pulled out his phone. “I’ll call Berlin and get reinforcements. The Keymaster’s job is to outrun death, not witches. Witches are vampire business.”
Devon snatched the phone out of Jeffery’s hand. “No way are you involving vampires in this mess. That’s a last resort.” He grinned and flames licked in the backs of his eyes. “I say we prowl for the demons unleashed by the witch’s spell. Demons are what will give the spell power and if we send them back to hell before the spell can reach them, then that’ll solve our problem.”
Edwin shook his head. “Hellfire is not the solution here. If demons are the problem, perhaps we should bring the Legion in on this.”
Devon barked a laugh. “The Legion? Are you fucking kidding me? Those group of bozo angels wouldn’t know how to deal with a horde of demons compelled by witch’s magic any more than a cat can get out of wet paper bag. You’re just going to waste our time bringing them into something we can handle ourselves.”
The guys continued bickering on the best way to handle a situation that I’d caused. I shouldn’t have left the witch to those demons. I’d known in my gut that something was wrong about that place. I should have listened to my instincts and put her down right then and there.
I paced the room and ran my fingers over the book spines. Something about books gave me a sense of comfort and I wandered until I wound around to the other side that sloped into a cubby complete with a reading chair. The murmur of my protectors continued on, not having noticed that I’d abandoned them while I went to go think.
I picked up a book that protested under my touch. Frayed, wrinkled edges along the cover told me this book was well-loved, as well as old. The sense of wonder and mystery made me open it as I settled into the low chair that overlooked New York’s busy streets. A single gargoyle stood guard over my window and somehow made me feel safe.
I opened the book, frowning at the ancient Latin that I couldn’t read. Just like in my mother’s shop, there’d been a grimoire, but the words had come to me easily. Perhaps this was another such book, but it was made for another bloodline. There were other covens in the world.
That got me wondering what kind of coven had claimed the occult shop. My mother clearly had known about them and warned me never to go in there. If she was an all-powerful Keymaster, why hadn’t she dealt with the threat herself?
Mindlessly I continued to turn the pages, secretly hoping that I’d come across something that would make sense. I jumped when my phone buzzed in my back pocket. Leaning and pulling it out, I saw that my alarm was warning me the funeral was going to start in just an hour. I’d almost forgot… or didn’t want to face it.
Releasing a long sigh, I rested the phone inside the book and buried my face in my hands. “Why is this so hard?” I asked my mother, even though I knew she couldn’t hear me. That’s not how the spirit realm worked. I needed to make a link and reach out before she could hear anything I had to say. I opened my eyes and picked up my phone again, tempted to make that connection. But what was I supposed to say to her? I don’t want to go to your funeral? I’m not ready to say goodbye? It sounded so pathetic. She knew about my visions. I’d had years to prepare for this day, but I still wasn’t ready. I’d put my head in the sand and hoped that it was all nonsense. I’d denied her magic and everything I knew to be true just because I wished that it wasn’t. I’d been a child, and now that I was faced with reality, it was time to grow up.
Jumping to my feet, I released a long breath. I was going to face reality this time, but I wasn’t going to do it the way everyone wanted me to. I fumbled into my jacket and wrapped my fingers around the cards my mother had left behind. This was my heritage and my strength. Being a Keymaster meant that I had enough magic to save the world from a thousand-year cycle of death, but being a witch of an unnamed coven meant I had other choices. I wasn’t going to abuse my connection with my protectors and make that tea-leaf prediction come true. It was time to face what my visions meant. If I allowed my protectors to fight my battles for me, then I would lose them. It was time to stand on my own.
Slipping out of the mansion without three sexy supernaturals noticing me was no small challenge. Their bickering had faded into silence, followed by calling my name.
“How could you not notice she’d walked off? She was sitting right next to you!” Devon snapped at Edwin.
“Don’t get mad at me. You’re the one with a solidified bond. You should have sensed her pulling away from us.”
I didn’t hear the rest because I squeezed into the garbage shoot packed between the bookshelves in my secret cubbyhole. It probably wasn’t my wisest of choices in an escape plan, but the gargoyle on the other side of that window was judging me and I wasn’t about to jump down three stories onto the street.
Using my hands to keep me from plummeting, I spread out my toes and balanced my weight on the balls of my feet in the shoot that went straight down. My boots scraped against the lining of the wall and grime came down with me, followed by a very unpleasant scent of rotten tea and molded cookie crumbs. “Damn British Succubus,” I cursed under my breath as I continued to shimmy down the shoot.
Once I reached the pile of garbage that marked the end of my journey, I grimaced and hoped that I’d be able to clean my boots after this. Emerging into an underground kitchen, I jumped over a basin meant to catch the garbage and slinked my way through an arrangement of maids and cooks who frowned at me.
“Scorned lovers,” I said with a sideways smile and a shrug.
Apparently having worked for a succubus, the help seemed to accept this excuse and gave me sympathetic nods.
My stomach growled when I passed what was no doubt meant to be tonight’s dinner. I grabbed one of the wrapped appetizers and popped it into my mouth, only getting fussed at by a chef swearing at me in French. Grinning with my mouth full of the sausage and cheese delight, I scurried out through the back stairway that led to the street.
The graveyard was well on the outskirts of New York, so catching a cab would be a waste of time. It’d take an hour just to get out of this part of town and it was already past five. I surveyed the alley, satisfied that I was alone and pulled my deck of cards from my jacket. I flipped through it until I came to the portal card. With a shrug, I decided I had nothing to lose. I flipped it over and pressed it against my forehead and closed my eyes. “To the graveyard.”
At first, nothing happened. I sighed with frustration, then tried the command again in ancient Latin. The words came to me when I wished for them, and the air instantly hummed around me.
I opened my eyes just in time to spot the swirl of fog that ran over my ankles and sped up and around me faster and faster, blowing my hair back and making the hairs along my arms stand on end as the temperature plummeted.
Both vampiric cold and hellfire helped me to accept the intense transla
tional magic that moved me through space. I hugged myself and crouched, hoping that I hadn’t just made a huge mistake using magic I didn’t understand.
A roar sounded in my ears as the world around me disappeared, replaced with the inner wall of a hurricane. Two red eyes peered through and I froze.
Death itself was watching me.
We stared each other down—me, a fledgling witch from a coven with no name, and death, an indescribable force of terror and magic that was the only thing that was final and guaranteed in this world.
I wasn’t sure if it was the kind of staring match I could win, but I didn’t have to. The second the magic around me broke down, the low sunlight revealed a graveyard I’d been to a hundred times. Unmarked gravestones glinted and fresh flowers rested on each one. I smiled, wondering if that had been part of my mother’s arrangements.
I stood up and brushed the dust from my jeans and placed my deck of cards back into my jacket. The sky revealed low light filtering through the leaves. I checked my phone and it was already three minutes to six. “Damn,” I hissed. The spell must have been more about just moving through space. Time seemed to be linked to it as well.
I tucked that bit of information away as I wandered the grounds until I happened upon an old woman preparing for my mother’s funeral. I stopped in my tracks when I spotted the glistening coffin that no doubt held her body. It’d blended so well with the trunk of the massive tree that buried long, winding roots in the ground I’d hardly noticed it.
“I’m glad you could come,” said the old woman with a familiar face. She smiled and gave me a friendly squeeze on my arm. “Iris said you’d make it, in spite of what you might think about this sort of sudden burial.”
I hadn’t seen my mother since all of this had begun. Tears immediately threatened to well in my eyes and I swiped them away. “You were a friend of hers?”
A smile lit her face, banishing the grief that threatened to take me under. “Of course, dear. I’m a part of your coven.” She produced a deck of cards identical to mine, except for the fact that hers were faded and creased, just like the book I’d found in the succubus’s mansion that betrayed its use and care. “You can call me Jennie, by the way.”