Witch of All Witches: Tales of Xest #4

by Donna Augustine

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” She buried her nose in the magazine.

  “Sorry. I didn’t realize it was a touchy subject.”

  She shook her head briskly but didn’t look at me as she said, “It’s not.”

  “Okay, well, if you want to talk about it at some point, I wouldn’t judge, not that there’s anything to judge.”

  She stopped flipping her magazine and angled her head partially toward me, but still not looking at me. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “Mertie! You working or what?” Zab shouted from the office. “Your ride to go tank the kid’s exam is here.”

  “I’m coming!” she screamed twice as loud as needed. “And tell my ride he’s getting paid. If he’s got to wait an extra five minutes, he better suck it up.”

  She dropped the magazine on the table and left without saying goodbye, as she usually did.

  26

  “Lou’s not coming,” I said. “He’s never late for appointments.”

  It was an hour past when Lou should’ve arrived. I sipped on some tea, eyeing up Hawk and Oscar to see if they were going to chime in.

  Hawk was standing near the mantel, leaning against it slightly. He was trying to keep his body relaxed, but one look at his eyes and you saw blood.

  “You think Xazier is going to show?” Oscar asked, sitting on the opposite couch, looking much less lethal than Hawk.

  I shrugged.

  Hawk walked over. “If he doesn’t, it’ll just be more tracking in the morning.”

  Oscar shook his head. “I can’t hop planes.”

  Hawk glanced at Oscar. “There are other ways.”

  Oscar’s gaze snapped to Hawk like he’d gotten yanked by a bungee cord. “You’re not thinking of…”

  “It’s been done before.” Hawk’s jaw shifted as a flicker of black hide flashed on his neck.

  Oscar got to his feet. “Yeah, but that’s…”

  Hawk shot Oscar a look that seemed to make him lose his voice completely.

  “What are you talking about? Thinking of what?” I asked, not liking the blood lust I saw in Hawk or the edginess of Oscar.

  Oscar looked at Hawk then me, and then shook his head.

  “Hawk?” I asked.

  “Xazier should be here any minute. This isn’t the time to explain,” he said.

  I would’ve pressed further if not for the sound of the front door opening.

  Xazier strolled into the office, smiling like a man who’d just gotten lucky on a date and even luckier that he’d dumped her early. His steps faltered as he looked at me, then Oscar, and then Hawk. His eyes grew smaller as he finished his perusal. He came to a complete standstill.

  “Do we have a problem? I thought this was a social call, but I’m getting the sense that something is afoot.”

  Hawk looked like he was envisioning Xazier gutted on the floor. Being the victim of the spell, being the one who’d been robbed, I was the person with the most to be angry about, and for once I wasn’t jumping to any conclusions. That was a lesson learned the hard way and too many times at this point. Things were often not what they seemed, and I wouldn’t toss out a possible ally, or pick a fight with someone I didn’t need to, without having some proof. Although the burden of proof I required was a lot lower than what might hold up in a court of law. There was only so much blood lust of my own I could water down if I smelled guilt on him. This trap had mentally and literally brought me to my knees, and I’d be getting my pound of flesh from someone.

  Before I could finish musing on how I’d kill Xazier if he was guilty, Hawk was across the room in a blur. Xazier’s jacket was in his fists as he had the demon shoved against the wall, his feet dangling above the floor. Hawk’s threshold for evidence was clearly much lower than mine.

  “I’d like to remind you that if you kill me, you’ll void the act of nonviolence between planes.” Xazier’s voice came out smooth, if you didn’t catch the tremor on that last word.

  I made my way closer so I could examine every tiny movement of Xazier’s face. If he so much as flicked his glance in a guilty way, I might have to get in on the action. My anger was about to get the best of me.

  “You seem to need a reminder on who I am,” Hawk growled.

  Xazier’s eyes went big, and it was pretty clear he didn’t need any such reminder.

  “Did you set that trap?” Hawk asked, Xazier’s feet still dangling.

  “What trap?” Xazier asked, his tone a little less smooth this time, like it had gotten run over by a four-wheeler.

  Oscar moved to Hawk’s other side. “That bullshit isn’t going to get you out of this room alive.”

  It was a good thing Bibbi wasn’t here. She would’ve stabbed Xazier with a butter knife already. Actually, maybe it was unfortunate she was missing this. She really would’ve enjoyed it. Too bad Hawk had cut everyone else off from this one.

  “Don’t lie to me,” Hawk said, moving his forearm against Xazier’s neck.

  Could you kill a demon by choking? Didn’t seem like a viable plan. Having no previous knowledge of fighting demons, I was going to leave the dirty work to Hawk, who seemed quite at home with it. Xazier didn’t seem overly happy, so it had some effect.

  Was Xazier lying? I studied his every twitch. It was too hard to tell. If he was a liar, he was the best I’d ever seen.

  “Answer me.” Hawk shifted his arm higher, forcing Xazier’s chin up.

  “I knew about it, but it wasn’t me,” Xazier said, his voice growing raspy. Maybe you could choke a demon.

  Hawk moved his arm and released Xazier, who dropped to the ground but didn’t quite topple to his knees.

  “Who set it?” I asked.

  Xazier rubbed his neck as he turned to look at me. “Who do you think? It was Lou.”

  I gave his chest a shove, making him bump into the wall. “You knew this and were waiting for me to get screwed!”

  He cringed away from me, but it was probably mostly to do with Hawk looming over my shoulder.

  “What did you expect? I wasn’t doing it, but there wasn’t any downside for me. Either you beat Lou and dragged him into the hill, or Lou sucked you dry and got all your magic. Either way, it wasn’t my problem and fixed my issue,” Xazier said. He lifted his shoulders, as if I couldn’t possibly fault him.

  In truth, I didn’t. If it had come down to him or me, I would’ve done the same and not even blinked.

  “How do we undo it?” Hawk asked.

  “We can’t,” Xazier said.

  “Then we have a problem.” Hawk reached out and grabbed Xazier’s jacket, about to hoist him against the wall again.

  Xazier tried to pull away. “She might be able to, though.”

  “How?” I asked, stepping in between Hawk and Xazier. I couldn’t let Hawk kill the demon who knew how I could get my magic back.

  “The spell pulled at your magic, making you want to give it. All you need to do is pull it back harder and the snare will unravel.”

  “That’s it? Just pull stronger?” I asked, not believing it could be so simple.

  “Yes.” Xazier stopped trying to smooth the wrinkles out of his jacket and looked straight into my eyes.

  “And what if I can’t?” What if it was too late? What if I was already too drained?

  Xazier looked at me with pity in his expression, as if he knew all of my unanswered questions.

  “Then you can’t,” he said, without any gloating.

  He was innocent in this. Of that I was sure.

  “Go,” I said, wanting him to leave before the violence I could feel coming off Hawk decided Xazier was a good enough target.

  Xazier didn’t waste any time leaving.

  “Lou will not get away with this,” Hawk said, before he left as well, Oscar following after him in a little too hurried a manner.

  27

  Oscar strolled into the office in the middle of a business day in full swing and headed over to Bibbi. Nothing about that was unusual except
the way he scanned the room as he did, and then the way his eyes held for a second on Hawk, and then me, before he went to hang out by Bibbi’s table.

  Hawk walked out the front door, and Oscar looked at me.

  “The job should be done by tomorrow,” I informed the client in front of me.

  “I always get my work done in a timely fashion, not like you young kids.” She skimmed the contract, and I waited, knowing what was coming. “That’s absolute robbery. You’re taking how much? That’s absurd.”

  She continued, and I let her carry on without comment. Her name was Hildy. She didn’t look a day younger than a hundred, and she was particularly good at ruining relationships. The pay she got for her jobs was great because there seemed to be no lack of payment a scorned lover was willing to pay to see their ex miserable. The big issue was the conversion rate from misery to coin was horrible, so she only saw ten percent per job. There was nothing I could do. No one wanted to hold on to misery.

  Oscar was shooting me looks again, then glancing toward the back room, as Bibbi was shifting through her pile.

  Hildy finally made her way out the door, giving me a half-hour break before my next client, so whatever Oscar wanted better be fast. In that time span, I was going to eat, fake-bully Mertie into getting me a cocoa, and run upstairs and change my shirt. I’d spilled tea on it an hour ago while pondering what to do about my current predicament.

  I headed to the back room, making it easy for Oscar. It took him zero seconds to follow me.

  “What is it? Why do you keep giving me looks like the world is ending if we don’t speak?” I asked.

  “You need to have a talk with Hawk.” His voice was urgent but hushed, and he kept an eye on the doors.

  Oscar didn’t go over Hawk’s head and come to me for anything. They had a direct connection. There was never an in-between. If there was, something was very wrong.

  “Why? What’s the matter?” My stomach plummeted, hit the ground, and bungeed up into my throat, lodging itself there.

  “Last night, when he said there were other ways? There aren’t. Or not ways that won’t put a price on your head. There will be zero chance if he goes ahead with what he wants to do to Lou that I, or anyone in Xest, will be able to save his ass.”

  I leaned on the counter. “What’s he going to do?”

  “If you can’t get Lou to come here, Hawk’s going to go get him, and not in a good way. It’s some real questionable magic, and it’s forbidden on every plane of existence.”

  “Why would he do that?” I asked, shocked I could get enough air into my lungs to speak.

  “Because of you. He’s protecting you, and you have to stop this.” His tone was nearly frantic.

  “I’ll do whatever I can, but I don’t know if Lou will show for me either. He got what he wanted. That’s why he hasn’t shown.” I knew. I was the one who’d handed it to him.

  The front door to the office opened, and Oscar tilted his head in that direction. “Just get it done.” He walked out without a backward glance.

  I turned and laid my hands on the counter, dropping my head and trying to come up with a plan. If I could make Lou do what I wanted, he would’ve shown up last night. He wouldn’t have tricked me. I couldn’t control him when I had all my magic, and now that I was at a fraction of what I’d been, how would I ever be able to force him to do anything?

  I heard steps approaching and turned, waiting.

  “Mute us,” I said as Hawk walked into the back room.

  He took a look at my face, and the din from the office immediately died. It was a neat trick that I’d always assumed I’d learn one day, when I was bored and things finally settled down. It was the way I’d thought about a lot of spells, until my magic was lost, or mostly. Now muting a room might be beyond my capabilities, and the longer I wondered if it was going to come back, if I’d been robbed permanently of my magic, the more I tossed and turned at night. I realized how comforting it had been to have all the possibilities laid out before me, especially as I stood here now, completely helpless.

  “Are you planning on doing something to track Lou?” Subtlety didn’t usually work with Hawk. I was hoping there was nothing to tell.

  “Perhaps.” He turned and moved toward the bookshelves, as if he was either very interested in something else or not at all interested in this discussion.

  “What is it?” I stalked him across the room.

  “It’s better if we don’t discuss it. Putting it out into the universe prematurely isn’t the best idea.”

  I leaned both my hands on the back of the couch. It was so bad he didn’t want to say it aloud? I stayed that way for a few minutes until he went to leave the room, and it spurred me to action.

  I followed him to the door and grabbed his arm. “I don’t want you to do it, whatever it is. If it’s so bad you can’t speak of it, don’t do it.”

  “I’m not allowing him to get away with this.”

  His tone, his stare, even the line of his shoulders—everything about him told me this was a losing argument.

  “You didn’t want me to go on the hill, and I didn’t,” I said, refusing to give in.

  He didn’t say anything. The set of his jaw made me think that the line of reasoning that would make him back down didn’t exist.

  I shoved away my feelings of loss, my own anger, and looked at the man in front of me. I had to sell him on what I was about to say if I had any chance of saving him.

  “I was upset, but the more I think about it, it’s better. There’s nothing left to fight over. We tell them it’s over. We’re done. We go on with our lives.”

  “Nobody is going to take from you and get away with it.”

  He took a step toward the door, and I got in his way, staring up at him as if I were seeing him for the first time.

  He was ready to go down in a blaze of glory because I’d been wronged. If I could watch us from a distance, I was probably looking at him the way that woman outside of the Sweet Shop had been looking at the man who’d handed her a chocolate pastry. What he felt for me wasn’t clear. That he’d made mistakes was glaringly obvious, but he was going to ruin his life, risk everything he had, in order to avenge my loss. I’d never had someone do that for me, ever.

  I couldn’t let it happen. The cost was too high.

  “I need the stone,” I said, convinced that if I got a hold of it, if even for a second, maybe I could make it shine brighter. It just had to last long enough for him to think I was gaining my magic back.

  “It’s not available,” he said, lying coolly to my face.

  “I know you have it, or it’s close by.” It always was. He owned the stone.

  “I have it, but it’s not available to you,” he clarified.

  Nothing about that answer shocked me. “What if I’m getting better on my own and you don’t need to do anything? I’ve always been an Infinite. Maybe it’ll right itself.” If I wasn’t, or I couldn’t fake it, what was I going to do?

  Things were spiraling fast. Heaven and hell might still be after me because I hadn’t given back the magic that I no longer had to give anymore. Hawk was about to do something that would put him in everyone’s crosshairs. There was no way to stop him because I was too weak, because I’d been an idiot. This last ploy had to work simply because there were very few options left.

  He lifted his hand to my neck. I tilted my head back, giving him access, and then I concentrated harder than I ever had in my life on drumming up some sort of surge. Something that would stop this chain of events.

  His hand dropped and so did his expression before he shuttered it.

  My shoulders slumped.

  He walked out of the room, and there was zero doubt he was harboring as much blood lust as he had when he walked in.

  Now what did I do?

  28

  I was back at my desk with still zero idea of how to fix anything. Oscar had left a couple of hours ago, but not before he told me things were spiraling and I had to fix t
hem. He didn’t seem to be absorbing the fact that I didn’t know how to fix anything. Hawk had walked out, and I had no idea where to or if it was even too late to fix things. Worse, Mertie was pacing the length of the office for the fiftieth time, as if she had discovered some horrific issue of her own.

  Bibbi looked across the expanse toward me, tipping her head toward Mertie. I shrugged. We both looked at Zab. He shook his head.

  Musso wasn’t around to hazard a guess. He’d taken off, something about Bertha’s breakfast not agreeing with him.

  “Where’s Hawk? Wasn’t he here?” Mertie asked as she walked back to the other end of the office—again.

  She’d never asked about his location before. Typically, Mertie didn’t care what anyone was doing as long as they didn’t bother her.

  “He stepped out for a couple. I’m sure he’ll be back.” I should leave it at that. If she was going through something, she was on her own. I had too many issues of my own.

  She did another ten laps, and I cracked.

  “Is there a problem?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Was just wondering. Can’t a girl make small talk?”

  Bibbi gasped. Zab scowled. I leaned back in my chair, as if I’d been punched. Mertie didn’t make small talk. Ever. She made snide little remarks for her own amusement, and that was about it.

  Mertie walked over to my desk and fussed with my cup of pencils. “Tippi, you got a minute?”

  It was the politest thing Mertie had said to me since I’d known her. She knew something and it was bad. Oh no. Was I going to die? Was that what this was? Did heaven and hell know I had only a little magic left and didn’t care? They still wanted to kill me because I’d taken it in the first place? Not that I’d meant to, but I wasn’t sure there’d be a trial. I had a really bad hunch my day was going to get worse in a few minutes.

  “What’s up?” I tried to slow my pulse below heart attack range and failed. I might be dead before whatever was coming for me had the chance to do it themselves.