“Sucked dry.” Damián contemplated this. “Maybe I won’t join your coven.”
“And Black and Blacker has a portal to this dimension. It’s beginning to make sense,” Dulcie muttered. “So, Magdalene was to deliver the coven and in return she’d become High Priestess.”
“There’s no point to it. Magdalene would never share power with the likes of Black and Blacker. She wanted to own us, to run The Plague Tree as her own operation,” Keeva pointed out. “She’s always had beef with the Projectors. She had to deliver something else. Any idea what?” she asked Astral, who shrugged.
“No. Losing the coven is her default. I suspect that’s why she panicked and sent me in. It wasn’t about losing the money after all. She was losing the coven,” she said.
“What’s that rustling?” Damián whispered.
Everyone strained to listen. “It’s Shucky,” Astral said flatly. “He’s got his head stuck in the food sack now that the basin is empty.”
“Let him go for it,” Keeva said tiredly. “I’ve no idea how much he needs, but at least it’s not cakes.”
They sat deep in thought as Shucky chomped through his food. Astral rose heavily and moved into the shadows that draped the dresser and located four cognac glasses and a bottle of Delamain Vesper.
“This calls for a crow drink,” she said. Witches only drank cognac at funerals, when they called on the crows to pay homage. At Grandma Lettice’s funeral, the skies had been black with birdwings. “And a sandwich.” She moved to the fridge and started to pull out cold cuts.
“Thank goodness,” Damián muttered. “I’m starving.”
“With the power off, we might as well clear out the fridge,” Astral said as she loaded the table with hams, salads, and local cheeses and chutneys. She grabbed a loaf of homemade bread and began slicing when Damián screamed, making them all jump.
“There, I saw a shadow.” He raised a trembling finger to the window. Lightning rent the skies and thunder boomed ominously overhead.
“Not another prowler.” The last thing Astral needed were the Irish blues flinging themselves around the yard in this wind.
“I wouldn’t like to be a prowler with a hellhound on the premises,” Keeva said. “I hope it’s Eve Wormrider snooping around again.” They regarded Shucky, buried up to his shoulders in the food sack and totally unconcerned about anything but kibble. “Then again…”
Dulcie rose to peer out the rain-fogged window. “There’s nothing out there.” She turned to Damián. “I wish you showed this amount of imagination with the bridal bouquets.”
“Let’s eat.” Astral pacified her guests. They relaxed and began to assemble sandwiches, warmed as witches always are by good food and drink, and even better company.
“And there’s no clue in the paperwork as to what Magdalene was meant to deliver?” Keeva asked around a huge bite.
“It didn’t directly specify.” Astral’s shoulders slumped. “That’s the problem. The contract was just as obtuse as most of Black and Blacker—”
The brass knocker slammed against the oak front door, startling her. It rattled out several more authoritative rat-a-tats that echoed in a strange symposium with the thunder. They all looked at each other warily.
“The house won’t let any danger approach,” Astral murmured, trying to placate herself more than her guests. “It goes into shutdown.”
“You mean the house with the uninvited hellhound in the kitchen?” Dulcie pointed out. “Your house is acting weird these days, Astral.”
“Ever since the wand broke,” Keeva added.
There came another loud knock and Astral rose to her feet. “I guess I’d better go answer that,” she said reluctantly, and was relieved when her friends rose, too.
While her friends hovered in an awkward gaggle on the kitchen threshold, Astral moved slowly along the darkened hallway to the big oak door. She held aloft a flickering candle that threw shards of light across the polished furniture. The wallpaper had gone eerily mute, hunkered down in muddy colours, while the draughts in the hallway stilled, so the air seemed saturated with ominous intentions. Astral’s heart thudded, picking up on the house’s anxiety.
She reached for the door latch and hesitated, but a swift glance over her shoulder showed the wraithlike faces of her friends several yards behind her. “Ready?” she whispered.
Dulcie nodded encouragingly and she and Keeva raised their wands to ward off any threat. Damián grabbed a heavy vase.
The knocker rattled viciously. Astral swung the door open with an attempt at gusto—lightning flashed, thunder roared, rain and wind hit her full in the face and hurtled up the hallway with the force of a hurricane, toppling table lamps, tearing at curtains, and rolling back the rugs. Stupefied, Astral blinked away the rain. Abby Black stood on her doormat, her hair whipping around her gaunt face. Her jet-black gaze pierced like a knife to the heart. She looked absolutely terrifying but also terribly sexy. Behind her, Astral heard the sharp intake of breath from her companions and the crash of a vase hitting the floor.
“I believe you have something of mine,” Abby bit out through clenched teeth.
Mumsey!
Shucky pushed past, bouncing Dulcie, Keeva, and Damián off the walls. Astral watched numb-faced as he rammed his hairy head onto Abby’s shoulder for a scratch. Finally, her brain lurched into gear, whirling at a hundred miles an hour. Shucky was a hellhound, and hellhounds ran with…
“Y-you’re Death,” she sputtered, her shocked gaze locked with Abby’s inscrutable one.
“Pleased to meet you,” Abby said. “Invite me in.”
The Guardians
Chapter 11
“Death wears Prada.” Damián’s awed whisper broke the silence. “I knew it.”
“Armani, actually,” Abby answered stiffly. “Wet Armani,” she said, indicating the rain with a disdainful flick of her finger.
Astral swapped a shocked glance with her friends, then stepped back. “Please, come in.” She held with her earlier claim that nothing and no one could harm her or her friends in this house. “Welcome to the Projector home, joy be with our kith and kin. Blessed be.” She gave the official welcome for first-time visitors.
Abby didn’t move. “I’d like wine,” she said.
A confusing request but Astral was happy to find she was conveniently holding a glass of red wine. “Oh, here. Try this. It’s a Sangiovese from Tuscany with a very nice nose—”
“Astral,” Dulcie called to her in warning.
“And bread. Give me bread.” Abby pointed to the loaf in Astral’s other hand. Now this was surprising, hadn’t she just sliced this loaf on the kitchen table only a minute ago?
“Astral, no.” Keeva and Dulcie were both calling for her now.
She handed Abby the entire loaf. “I made it myself. It’s organic.” She turned sluggishly to where her friends were just as sluggishly advancing down the hall towards her.
“And as you know, I do enjoy bread.”
“Astral, stop. It’s a ritual,” Dulcie called. She sounded distorted, like she was talking underwater. “She’s from another dimension. Don’t offer her bread and wine…or salt. Absolutely no salt,” she warbled in a mermaidy way. “This isn’t a vampire movie, she needs more than a welcome mat.”
“Ah, yes, salt. Do you have any?” Abby asked, pleasantly. “Please,” she added with a tight smile.
Astral felt pulled in all directions, between the watery burbling of her friends who seemed farther away than ever at the end of the hall, and Abby’s attractive, mellow tone as she asked cordially for hospitality, which as a Fireside witch, she felt obliged to offer.
“Salt? Oh, I don’t think I’ve got any…”
“There. In your pocket.” Abby pointed to Astral’s skirt pocket.
Wow, she’d never noticed this skirt had a pocket before. And it was a favourite skirt. How convenient. And, oh, the pocket was full of salt.
“No, Astral,” Keeva shouted, but from so far away that
it came out all soft and cuddlesome, like a unicorn’s bellow. Astral sighed, delighted at her thought, knowing Keeva would be delighted with it, too. She pinched some salt from her pocket and sprinkled it into the hollow of Abby’s outstretched palm. Her fingers snapped shut over it.
“Oh, fuck.” Keeva’s voice returned to normal and Astral felt the chill of the cold air rushing into the hallway, waking her dulled senses. She shivered. She’d just been bewitched, and on her own doorstep. How rude!
“With this bread, may there never be hunger in this house.” Dulcie rushed forwards shouting a hurried counter-protection spell and waving her wand frantically. “May this wine assuage all thirst and salt protect this lintel and all who pass herein. So mote it be.”
“I assure you, I have no disadvantageous intentions towards your assembly.” Abby tossed the salt over her left shoulder and strode over the threshold. The grandfather clock gave a discordant bong and the wallpaper blushed bright pink. In the candlelight, Astral saw Abby’s lips twitch into a slight inclination, which she had come to recognise as levity. Apparently, Abby Black found her home and her friends amusing.
“You bewitched me on my own front step. That’s sneaky,” Astral accused her. Even more disappointing, after a quick scrabble around her skirt she added, “And this skirt doesn’t have pockets anymore.”
“On the bright side,” Abby said, looking around with interest, “I didn’t ask for your souls.”
“Oh.” Astral remembered with a gut-lurching thud that she wasn’t dealing with the head of ops anymore. It was Death who had come a-calling.
“Or demand the beating heart of a virgin,” Abby said softly. She raised an eyebrow at Astral and swept past, leaving her uncertain if she had heard her correctly. She blushed like a virgin anyway.
Witches nice. Shucky said, following on the heels of his mistress.
“I’m aware of the coco-mocha-moo-moo situation,” Abby stated. The smile dropped, revealing a countenance of frigid displeasure, but Astral was beginning to think that Abby used that expression as a protective mask.
The front door slammed shut with a satisfied clunk. Astral eyed it warily. Around her, the house seemed charmed at the entrance of Death, who was basically sovereignty from another dimensional realm. It had been far more uptight over the storm. It couldn’t actually like Abby Black, could it? The hall clock tick-tocked pleasantly, all the lamps righted, and the draperies and rugs sorted themselves out nicely. Only the wallpaper acted giddily. It formed a million little twerking cupids. She gave it a chastising scowl. It was practically flirting with their guest.
“You got your dog, so you can go,” Keeva said, tone bullish. “And by the way, he needs to be microchipped, in case he wanders off again.”
“Black Shuck knows his way home.”
“Then what do you want here?” Keeva asked, the warning edge still in her voice.
Abby gave a brief predatory smile that flashed sharp and white. Her teeth had a warning edge of their own. “I have come for the princess.”
There was an instant of consternation as Astral, Keeva, and Dulcie turned protectively towards Damián. He squawked with indignation. “I’m not going.”
“Not him,” Abby huffed. “An actual princess. Daughter of Hades, the Lord of Hell.” Thunder boomed directly overhead, and lightning split the skies, casting them all in a flash of spectral light.
Despite the stormy grandeur outside, in the hallway of the Projector home, there was a moment of perturbed quiet, then Astral spoke up. “She’s not here.” Then added, “Whoever she is.”
Abby frowned. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”
Dulcie exchanged a look with Keeva, then with Astral, who debated whether it was a good idea to have a conversation with Death. Her manners overrode her trepidation.
“Of course. Follow me.”
They all filed into the candlelit kitchen, and Abby looked around with interest.
“Am I disturbing a ritual?”
“The power’s gone off, so we’re having a candlelit supper. It’s a witch thing.” Astral hoped she didn’t sound as defensive as she felt, all exposed here in her own kitchen, the heart of her home, the seat of her witching power, with the table covered in cheese crumbs. “Please, help yourself.” She indicated the food.
“I think lovers throughout the world have stolen your witch thing idea,” Abby said, ignoring the table and its contents and instead wandering absently around the shadowy room, her fingertips trailing along the surfaces in a far too familiar way that Astral rather enjoyed, though she blushed at the word “lovers” on Abby’s lips.
A furtive glance told her no one had noticed her flaming cheeks. And then she locked eyes with Abby and saw that she had noticed and the amused tilt to her lips was back. She paused by the old family dresser, which made Astral uncomfortable about the broken wand sleeping in the drawer.
“Contrary to folklore, witches are very predisposed towards romance,” Dulcie said, in her most lecturing tone. “Who invented awakening kisses, and frog princes, and fairy-tale endings? It was us,” she concluded primly.
“I look forward to finding out more about witches’ predispositions towards romance,” Abby said cordially. She was examining the little family portrait on the wall.
Again, Astral glowed and Dulcie, not impervious to innuendo, frowned, confused. Her gaze darted between Abby and Astral with a look that Astral refused to engage. She had too much on her plate right now without Dulcie’s opinion on her crushing over the fourth horseman of the apocalypse.
“Can I pour you a cognac?” She tried to lure Abby away from the portrait.
Abby glanced over at the Delamain bottle. “Please,” she said, and at last took a seat.
“So, why did you think I was the princess?” Damián dove straight into the conversation and the gorgonzola.
“I didn’t. Your friends did. And you are most definitely not the princess I seek.”
Damián glumly played with his food, his interest immediately waning.
“Shucky said something about a princess.” Astral picked up the topic and ran with it. “There are none in Golem. Now, Monaco or Disneyland Paris have—”
“You can hear Shucky?” Abby asked, surprised.
“Yes, and so can Keeva.”
“I’m a Dogwitch.” Keeva’s explanation was as brusque as it could be around a mouthful of crumbed ham.
“I can hear water in my ear.” Damián decided to join in again.
“But you’re a Fireside witch.” Abby turned to Astral. “How can you hear him?”
She shrugged. “Somehow, I do. He’s usually asking for cake.”
“Wait,” Dulcie said, clearly agitated. “How do you know that Astral’s a Fireside witch?”
“I have notes.”
“Notes?” Dulcie pressed.
“Copious notes.”
“On Astral?” Anger seemed to flash from Keeva’s eyes.
“On all of you,” Abby said, ominously. “The entire coven. I think you know why.” She motioned at the table. “Do witches normally eat this much?”
“Genetics,” Keeva answered. “We’re hardwired to be guilt-free and happy. Never trust a skinny witch.”
“I wish I had known that sooner,” Abby said drily.
Dulcie shared a look with Astral. “We’re aware of Magdalene’s dealings with Black and Backer,” she said in a hard tone. “You’re going to force a merger, then suck out our powers. It won’t work. Coven-wise, we consider the contract unconstitutional.”
Abby regarded her, implacable. “Of course you do. Betrayal is always a hardship, but in my world, it’s a given. I need defaulters. Otherwise, business would grind to a halt.”
“You set us up,” Astral said, both shocked and angry.
“Magdalene set you up. Granted, it was through hubris rather than malice. She wanted power and promised she could deliver a princess in return. She didn’t, so she’s in default.”
“Where did all our money go?” Keev
a demanded.
Abby shrugged. “Power and greed are sisters. With her new powers, Magdalene assumed she could skim off the pension fund by investing your money as she saw fit.” She pursed her lips ruefully. “She eschewed my financial advice, let’s just say.” A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth, but her joke pleased only her.
In fact, she seemed uncannily relaxed, sitting with her legs crossed at Astral’s table with a goblet of amber cognac, raindrops still sparkling off her ebony hair and Armani shoulders. The slant of her eyes, and the sharp sweep of cheekbone made Astral’s heart skip like a child in a playground. She glanced around the table, confirming she was alone in her surmise. Her companions were too wound up on sharing supper with a being from the highest echelons of demonic sovereignty to appreciate the arch of an eyebrow or the majestic flare of an aquiline nose.
“Why exactly should her defaulting affect our coven?” Keeva asked. “What if we voted her out? And we bloody well will, now that we have evidence.”
Abby shrugged. “The contract still stands. Your portfolios will be liquidated and by the sanction of your High Priestess, The Plague Tree Coven becomes the property of Black and Blacker on the thirteenth day of the thirteenth moon.”
“There is no way that you can do that,” Dulcie cried. “Magdalene Curdle embezzled that money and you were her accomplice. Plus, we knew nothing about a stupid deal for a princess. This is all a con.”
“Careful. Black and Blacker is a subdivision of Hellbent Incorporated. Our working practises are impeccable, our contracts bulletproof, our ethics diabolical—but in a good way.” Abby rose to her feet. “There is still the matter of the outstanding princess. Deliver her and the contract stands. You could still seal this deal with the Devil. Always a good thing.”
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