Juniper

by Eva Delaney

  I felt like someone had poked me in the squishy, tender heart muscles. Was the soulbinding wearing off this quickly? Was I already losing the hotties?

  “He’s cursed!” Samuel said.

  “Nah, he’s just a giant dick.” Maybe he was a ghost again before I even got to know him. By know him, I meant ride his cock to squirt town.

  Liam knocked on the door again. I sighed and yanked it open. “Officer, I—”

  My mouth fell agape and wordless. My heart froze for a moment.

  “Hello, Juniper,” a blond woman said with a predatory smile that was still familiar after all these years.

  “Alyssa,” I gasped.

  Chapter 7

  My magic reared its ugly head like a misshapen cock in spandex shorts. My hand cut through the air with a curse on my lips. Purple light burned toward Alyssa.

  The woman who had been like a sister to me for almost ten years.

  No, no, no. I shouldn’t do this—just like that man who shouldn’t jam his misshapen cock into tiny shorts and walk around downtown. I yanked back on the magic like a leash connected to a dude on all fours.

  But it was too late to stop it entirely.

  Alyssa’s smile didn’t flinch as her hand whipped through the air. My curse smashed against an unseen force and died.

  Pulling back on my curse and weakening it had been a bad idea. She was here to kill me. I should have hit her with everything I had and watched her crumble. Fuck! I didn’t want to fight, but now I had no choice.

  “Alyssa,” I hissed.

  “Oh please, don’t be so dramatic,” she said, gesturing to my clenched hands. “I’m just here to talk.”

  Liar. I stepped out of the apartment and shut the door behind me. We could settle this without the men getting hurt.

  “April?” Shakes said as the door clicked shut.

  “Stay there,” I snapped and waved my fingers to ward the door. I turned to Alyssa with a glare. “Did you send Azea?”

  “Who?”

  She knew who I meant. I fixed her with a flat stare.

  “Oh, that bitch? I haven’t seen her in a year.”

  I doubted it. “You’ve been following me.”

  “Naturally. But that doesn’t mean I’m here to fight. If I wanted, I could have attacked you before you spotted me.”

  I snorted. “I knew you were there. You can’t sneak up on me any more than a guy wearing a collar with a bell on it.”

  “You do that often? Ah, I’ve missed you.” Alyssa flashed her faux warm smile. Even now it was familiar like the smell of a childhood home. And even now, it made my muscles relax a bit. I knew her smile was fake, but it reminded me of better times.

  “How did you get past my security?” The wards on the apartment’s front door and the ones on my store when she rescued Azea. I was certain it was her.

  Alyssa rolled her eyes in that way that made me want to punch her. She didn’t answer, but I knew how she had sneaked past me. She had a natural skill for mimicking others’ magic. With it, she tricked wards into thinking she was the witch who had cast them, so they didn’t trigger when she was near. That had made her a kick-ass member of our team of thieves.

  Well, that and her perchance for cold, snake-like opportunism. I had liked that in her before now. She would take advantage of me at the first chance. I had to appear calm. Give her nothing to work with.

  I forced myself to relax my fists and let the magic trickle through me and away like cum through fingers—its sticky residue still there on my skin where I could use it if I had to. Though what would you use cum for? Meringue?

  Hmmm…maybe it could be used for magical sex toys. Re-charge batteries. Save it for future alone time fun when your partner’s gone…

  “Face it, Juniper. You were doomed,” Alyssa said.

  I rolled my eyes to annoy her. “I noticed you a week ago because you made critical errors, like you usually do.”

  “Oh?” Alyssa said, quirking an eyebrow. It was a bit shaggy, which was not like her. Something was up.

  “For one, those men who attacked Violet were yours, weren’t they?” I said.

  “You think everything is about you.”

  “So that’s a yes. Plus, you didn’t notice the seeing stones that circle The Magical Rooster. They just don’t see, they also talk,” I lied. “They never shut the fuck up once you know how to listen to them. Thankfully, I do. They each had a different version of your exploits, as they tend to have. But they were happy to tell me everything they noticed.”

  Alyssa grinned, sincere and friendly. “Oh, I saw them. They sing to the moon as well. Did you know that?”

  “Who do you think taught them? Were they singing Bad Romance or Toxic?”

  “Bitch by The Rolling Stones, obviously.”

  “Ah, that’s one of their favorites.”

  Alyssa and I grinned, sharing our old conspiratorial glance. Fuck, even though she was trouble, I missed her. We had once been trouble together, and old habits, like that old dude in poorly chosen shorts, never died.

  “Still the expert liar, Juniper,” Alyssa said. “And…what is it you do now besides lie?”

  “Put some good into the world.”

  “By putting some good into pussies and buttholes?”

  So she had been watching the store. “And around cocks, too.” I knew many people saw my work as frivolous, but I provided pleasure. It made the world a little brighter, unlike my old job.

  “Hmmm,” Alyssa said. “Perhaps I’ll purchase a box of your toys to give out at a homeless shelter. I’m sure it will do such good. Juniper the hero.”

  “You should talk to my customers; women who thought they were incapable of orgasm until I came along. What I do is heroic to them. Why are you really here?”

  Alyssa’s green eyes bore into mine. “To save you from yourself, of course.”

  “You’re here because of Ram.”

  “Not exactly. I’m here to stop Ram.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Not a chance in hell, Alyssa. You’d suck his balls if he’d let you. What do you want?”

  She sighed. “Listen, I’m not here on Ram’s behalf. Well…I kind of am. I’m in town on one of his missions, but he wants you dead. If I were following his orders, we’d be throwing down like a Mortal Kombat game. I’m here because I need your help.”

  She was lying. I crossed my arms.

  “It’s true. I need to stop Ram, and you’re the only one who can help.”

  “I’m supposed to believe that you hate him and give a shit about doing what’s right?”

  “I don’t. I give a shit about my own life. You know he’s planning to steal the world’s magic, including ours. That’s why you took what you could and fled, like a coward, I might add.”

  “And staying was very brave,” I said. “Following the orders of a madman is always what a hero does.”

  “As is gluing pussy lips onto tubes for lonely men—”

  “Don’t be silly. We don’t use glue for that. It needs to be waterproof. We use—”

  “He’s gotten worse, Juniper,” Alyssa said. For the first time in all the years I’d known her, she looked worried. “It’s not just fun and games anymore—”

  “It never was.”

  “He’s going to do it; he’s serious this time. He wants to rid the world of magic, take our power. And he needs what you stole to do it…Unless you lost the Stone?”

  “Yes, I did actually, up a troll’s ass. He quite enjoyed it. Maybe you should try to find it with that lying tongue of yours.”

  “Fuck you…what is it now? April? How terribly clever,” Alyssa said dryly.

  “It fooled you, Ram, and everyone else for four years. How did you find me?”

  “Now, you know I won’t reveal all my secrets.”

  That was a problem. If I was to hide in a new town with a new identity, I needed to know how I had fucked up.

  “Look, Juniper, I’m being frank with you here—”

  “Hi, Frank
. I’m Sammy Davis Jr.”

  “Enough dad jokes. Ram needs to be stopped. Those relics he hoards don’t belong to him. They belong to us. We’re the ones who captured them in the first place. I can’t defeat him alone, but if you embrace your power rather than making cocks, we can stop him.”

  I had embraced my power before—when I worked for Ram and when I betrayed him. He had nearly killed me. Begging for mercy and swearing fealty was the only thing that saved me—he liked it when witches sucked up to him.

  That was years ago. Now, he had a small army and half the world’s magical items. We couldn’t stop him.

  “You should try one of my toys,” I said. “You might relax for once. If you take a ruler and measure your asshole, I’ll make you one custom-sized for your stuck-up ass.”

  Alyssa rolled her eyes. “You have to do something about Ram. You’re the only one who can equal him in magical power and ability.”

  I shuddered. She had no idea how wrong she was.

  “He’s your brother, you know.”

  I didn’t, but it wasn’t surprising. I shrugged.

  “You knew?”

  “No, but half the dark witches from Babylon to San Fran are related to me somehow.” Thanks to my very horny, very long-lived mother and my very horny, very long-lived father. Both of them were anything but monogamous. “Besides, you could be lying.”

  “Would I lie to you?” Alyssa said.

  I met her gaze. Her mouth quirked a bit into a smile. Mine did the same. Then we burst into laughter.

  “Ahhh,” I said, wiping a tear from my eye. “It’s good to laugh again.”

  “I missed you, Juniper.”

  “Yeah…” A part of me had missed her and the old team, too.

  “We had good times, didn’t we?” Alyssa said.

  “If we ignore the part where we were stealing magical objects for a crazy man…well, actually that was the fun part. The handing them over to him was the stupid part…that and the murders.”

  “Hmmm…the folly of youth.”

  “Ah yes, the usual rite of passages: prom, graduation, going to college, murdering your rivals in magical battles on top of moonlit waterfalls, hiding the bodies—”

  “Don’t be so dramatic, June. We rarely killed anyone, and we didn’t hide anything….we didn’t have to after your magic was done with them.”

  A cold shiver went down my spine at the reminder.

  “Ram and his followers will be coming for you. You can attack first, or you can wait until he ambushes you. Either way, you have to face him.”

  No, I didn’t. I had avoided him and Alyssa for four years. I could keep doing it.

  “I need you to stop him. Can I count on you to join me?”

  I had no intention of helping Alyssa. I’d keep the Scourge Stone from him, but that was it. Of course, Alyssa was never one to accept no for an answer. “I was never going to escape Ram, was I?”

  “I don’t know why you’re trying to. You can take him.”

  “Not alone, not with all the relics he hoards.”

  “I’m here. We’ll do this together like old times. Better times.”

  I nodded. “What’s your plan?”

  Alyssa smiled her cold, almost malicious, smile. That might mean she was glad or that she was a snake about to strike. She looked the same in both contexts.

  “You have three days to wrap up your shit here in ass water springs, then we’ll ride out.”

  She didn’t answer my question. “I’m in,” I lied.

  Alyssa’s shoulders relaxed, and she sighed. “Good. Good. I’ll be back in three days with a car.”

  I’d be gone by then. This stunk of a trap, and I wasn’t waiting around to be caught.

  Chapter 8

  I locked the door and turned back to the apartment.

  Shakespeare had abandoned his scribbling and stared at me, stricken. “You said your name was April June, but she called you Juniper.”

  “What’s in a name? A Rose by any other name would still have three vampires pounding her real good.”

  “Then I shall call you my love instead of any name. My moon, my summer day, my—”

  “Shut it, Shakes,” I said, feeling heat rise up my neck.

  I thought I had a few hours before Ram and his people arrived, but that was careless. Denial. Alyssa was already here and plotting something behind her claims of stopping Ram. I had to leave now.

  Samuel yelped, and I whirled to the bedroom, magic flowing to my hands and lips. He stood there, stark naked with a curved dildo resting on his palm. That was The Oz.

  I bottled the magic as my heart sank. Oscar was gone, and Samuel and Shakes would soon follow. At least they’d be safe from Ram, Alyssa, and the rest of the gang.

  “He was a man a moment ago!” Samuel said. “What is this—”

  The dildo in his hand shifted to a red-haired man in a robe, sitting on Samuel’s hand.

  Oscar crashed to the floor, taking the pirate’s hand with him. Samuel fell into the mess of lube, rum, glass, and my broken phone.

  I grinned. Oscar wasn’t gone! He had shifted into a dildo.

  “Fuck, thar be glass in me arse!” Sammy shouted.

  I snorted.

  “What happened?” Oscar cried, jumping to his feet and looking around wildly.

  I placed my hands on my hips. “Huh. You can shift.”

  Oscar’s eyes widened. “Like a wolf?”

  “But into a dildo, yes. That’s new. Do it again.”

  Oscar blinked. “No! Never! I don’t want to be a dildo. I just want to go back to being me.”

  My hands dropped to my sides as I sighed. “You will.” Sooner than he would want, I was sure. Once the spell wore off, he’d be a ghost again.

  Samuel jumped to his feet, holding out his fingers in the sign of a cross as he backed away from Oscar. “What kind of hellish brothel is this with men turning to cocks and cocks to men?”

  “It’s not a brothel,” I said.

  Samuel backed out the bedroom with his cross fingers held toward Oscar. I watched his ass. It looked just as good when he wasn’t bent over, though it was flaked with spots of blood from the glass. He spun so his back was against the wall next to the bedroom door. He must have leaned against the light switch, because the ceiling lights died, then flared back to life.

  Sammy’s eyes widened as he stared up at them. “What deviltry is this?”

  “Electricity,” Shakespeare said. “Lightning captured and—”

  “Witchcraft!” Samuel, dick flopping against his thighs, raced to the kitchen and grabbed a broom. He peered up at a light and tapped it with the broom. “Die, devil!”

  I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Hey, Shakes, why do you understand the modern world when he doesn’t?” Probably because Willy the Playwright here was a fraud. An English major or actor who went crazy.

  “I’ve been haunting London for four hundred years, my love. For him, I do not know, but I suspect there is a method in his madness.”

  I glanced at the pirate hitting a light cover with the end of a broom. “Yeah, no.”

  “There is. He’s confused about how we arrived here. We all are shit-brained fuckered here.”

  Oscar stepped out of the bedroom and stared at Samuel. “Where are you from, Captain?” he said in his soft, worried voice.

  The pirate didn’t look away from his tapping on the devil’s light. “Yorkshire by birth. The sea by choice.”

  “Where were you before you woke up here?” I said.

  “Fish Creep Bay.”

  “Never heard of it,” I said.

  “Ye landlubbers wouldn’t. Me crew and I lived on the cliffs for three hundred years…I think.”

  “You haven’t left that cliff in three hundred years?” I asked.

  “Can’t,” Samuel said, resting the broom end on the floor and leaning on it to face me. “Me ship wrecked on the rocks there during a storm. Can’t leave until Davy Jones raises it from the sea. But he be a lazy bugger.�
�

  Ah, of course. Sometimes, people who died suddenly or violently were trapped at the site of their death. A kind of PTSD. Often, psychological trauma caused flashbacks that meant survivors struggled to escape the past. The trauma of dying did a similar thing. It kept people locked in the place where they passed, struggling to leave their life and trauma behind.

  “You’ve been alone all this time?” Oscar asked.

  “I got me crew, the filthy bilge dogs.” Samuel’s fist tightened on the broom. “I liked ’em well enough when we sailed and plundered that booty. But ye can only hear the same story so many times before ye want to throw a man off a cliff. Except ye can’t because he can’t leave either.”

  “No towns near that cliff?” I said.

  “Ain’t none in sight. Sometimes folks wandered the area with their devil boxes, trapping spirits as slaves. They came in carriages that ran on the souls of horses rather than flesh and blood creatures. But that be it.”

  I nodded to cover the desire to hug him and make it all better. “I get it now. Samuel, I need you to listen carefully.”

  “Aye.”

  “First, I’m going to call you Sammy like a sammwich.” I wasn’t going to tell him the real reason. He made me feel soft like I felt around puppies, and this was a proper cutesy name for him. Fucking mate spell.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Second, all of this around you: the lights, the phone—what you call a devil box—it’s not witchcraft. It’s technology and science.”

  Sammy snorted and tapped the light with the broom again. “I know deviltry when I see it.”

  “You need a trip to the library,” Oscar said, perking up.

  “Pfft. Books be for priests and bureaucrats.”

  “Nooo,” Oscar shouted in slow-mo as though he was trying to stop a car crash in a movie.

  “You can’t read, can you?” I asked Sammy.

  “No,” he said proudly. “I be a man of action, not squiggles.”

  I turned to the Bard, if that was who he really was. “You used to pen plays for the illiterate, and you come from a time without modern technology. Talk to him.”

  “Captain Bartholomew,” Shakes said with a bow, one hand holding the blanket around his waist. “Are you from the eighteenth century? The Golden Age of Pirates?”