by Eva Delaney
How do you reverse a curse? I’d never done it before. Maybe I had to pull the dark magic toward me rather than shooting it outward? Then what? A protective spell like those used to create shields?
If I failed, Shakespeare wouldn’t even get to be a ghost. He’d be gone. His consciousness wiped off the earth.
I swallowed a lump in my throat and reached out, grasping onto the curse energy that made my body tremble in a way I hated. I pulled. The energy was sticky, like trying to tear Silly Putty or gooey cheese. It stretched and stretched and snapped, leaving pieces behind on Shakes.
The freed curse energy zoomed at me, and I muttered a defensive spell. The magic smashed against my shield and died. I reached back to Shakes, grasping more of the evil and pulling.
I drew out the curse like a vampire sucking a person dry. I lost count of the number of times I yanked dark energy from Shakes’ bones only to find more clinging to him.
Finally, I reached out to grasp the curse but touched a clear trickle of energy, like a brook splashing over my fingers.
Oscar gasped. Samuel hushed him.
I sighed and opened my eyes. Shakespeare in all his tight leather-clad glory sat cross-legged before me. He smiled, and my heart did a backflip like a dildo tossed across the room.
He grabbed my waist and pulled me onto his lap, pressing me against his chest and burying his face against my neck. “I knew you could do it,” he said.
Well, I was ready to drop my pants so he could fuck me against a tree like raccoons who found each other on Critter Tinder.
I pressed a hand to Shakes’ chest to feel the rise and fall of his breath and the steady racing of his heart. He was really back. I pressed a kiss against his wavy hair, then smacked his arm. “If you ever pull a ‘grand romantic gesture’ like that again, I’ll turn you into a toilet plunger and leave you in the bathroom of a restaurant that failed its health inspection.”
“Romance achieved,” Shakes said.
“Yarrr, this be a happy ending.” Sammy threw his arms around me and Shakes. For a swaggering pirate, he sure liked group hugs.
Oscar seemed not to. He stood a couple of feet away with his hands deep in his pockets. I yanked myself free of Shakes and Sammy—which wasn’t easy. Neither let go until I gently whacked their arms.
I joined Oscar. “Hi, Ozzy.”
He didn’t answer. His face was streaked with dried bloody tears. I strolled past him to the forest, tramping through the bushes to find my backpack and the tote bag from Yes Now Bob. Returning to Oscar, I pulled a shirt from my bag and slipped a finger under his chin to tilt his head up.
He blinked at me as I dabbed at his tears with my shirt. Whatever he was thinking or feeling about me right now, he didn’t resist. But he didn’t touch me, either.
“Did…did you know these people?” he whispered and gestured to Azea, unconscious on the road.
“Yeah.” Telling the truth was becoming strangely easy, at least with him. “We were friends once, years ago, before I left the gang.” An odd kind of melancholy settled over me. Nostalgia for the friendship mixed with guilt for having harmed her.
“Now you’re fighting each other?”
I heaved a sigh. “Unfortunately.”
“Why?”
I shrugged. “The world is rarely kind to dark witches. Ramrod gave us a home, a purpose, a family. A way to use our abilities for something greater than ourselves that sounded like a good idea. Control magical items, keep them away from the ignorant and malicious, and save the world. Dark witches never get to be the heroes. He gave us the chance to be. Eventually, I realized his mission was bullshit. We weren’t saving the world. We were hurting people, stealing their heirlooms, and handing Ram more and more power so he could do whatever the fuck he wanted. I realized that. Not everyone else did.”
“So, they’re fighting for their family?”
“And their sense of self-worth.”
“What are you fighting for now?”
I paused with my hand an inch from Oscar’s face. “To not be a dickweed, I guess.”
“That’s what you’re fighting against. What are you fighting for?”
I didn’t have an answer. “You’re annoyingly wise, you know.”
He smiled a little. “Thanks.”
“Wise for your age, too. I’m fighting for dildos and butt plugs. They make the world a better place.”
He snorted. “So do hands.”
I chuckled. “I offer classes on that at the shop.”
“Really?”
“Would I lie to you?” I dabbed the last of the blood from his face. “There.” I turned back to the mess around us. Shakes and Sammy stood nearby watching Oscar and me. Damn the lack of privacy around here.
Actually…yay the lack of privacy around here. I could whip off my pants and finger myself in the road while they watched.
I shoved the thought away. “We’ve got to get out of here.” Especially since Ver, who had gone after Oscar, and Alyssa were somewhere nearby.
A bit of magic always did the trick. I levitated Azea, and Brownshill the giant puss into the forest so no cars would run them over. I couldn’t find Sandra who was now an ant, but she could run her tiny ant ass off the road herself. Vers would eventually realize there was no one in the forest to chase and return to help his cursed friends. They’d be fine.
Oscar could drive, so he took the wheel of Saph’s new convertible with Sammy in the passenger seat. If he couldn’t captain the car himself, he would be second in command in his own mind.
I knelt in the backseat, facing behind us with Shakespeare at my side. As Oscar drove, I muttered curses and tore up the road behind us. The pavement turned to upraised jagged spikes of asphalt like a section of Mordor. It wouldn’t stop witches who could repair it, but it would slow them down.
“Turn left here,” I told Oscar. He pulled the car onto a narrow dirt road that cut through the forest. “Stop for a moment.”
I closed my eyes and stretched out my magic as far as I could reach down the main road. I cursed the asphalt for miles until I reached the end of my ability.
With a sigh, I nearly collapsed into the seat. Shakes’ strong arms wrapped around me and pulled me onto his lap. His cock was hard through his tight leather pants. I wiggled my ass against it to mess with him.
“Keep driving, Ozzy, until we come to the bridge.” I had planned and memorized dozens of escape routes from Silver Springs before I even moved here.
He glanced in the rearview mirror. “You should eat something.”
I knew he said it to get me off Shakes’ lap, but he was also right. I hadn’t eaten since lunch, and it was now sometime after midnight. I pulled Bob’s phone from my backpack and checked the time. 3 am.
Sammy twisted around in his seat and handed me the bag from Yes Now Bob. I slipped off Shakes’ lap, making sure he felt my ass against his hard-on as I did.
The top takeout container held fried tofu and waffles with mashed sweet potato and syrup. Thank you, Bob, thank you. I pulled out the packet of cookies Shakes had given me and crumpled them on top of the waffles. Why the hell not?
I found a fork in the bag and dug in. “Take the last meal,” I told Shakes, nudging the bag toward him. “Your first meal in four hundred years.”
“And the last,” Oscar muttered.
“I’d rather write,” Shakes said. “It’s been four hundred years since I’ve been able to do that, and I miss it more than food.”
I nodded and pointed at the laptop on the floor of the car. He reached in and grabbed the laptop, balancing it on his lap and typing one letter with a single finger. “This looked easier when I watched others do it.”
“It takes practice,” I said sadly, because he’d never get to chance to practice and become good at typing. He’d never get to write that sitcom.
The dirt road we traveled had no lights, except the glow of the laptop. But Oscar’s vampire night vision meant he drove perfectly along the twisting, bumpy road. He ev
en turned off the headlights, so we’d be less noticeable.
Sammy sang sea shanties until I told him to hush before someone heard and tracked us by his singing. But for a brief moment, his voice had been lovely and clear as a summer day. Instead, I watched Shakes’ script take very, very slow shape on my laptop.
Despite his desire to reach the masses, he wrote in iambic pentameter. But his script lacked the fancy-sounding English of his day. He wrote in modern slang. By modern, I meant Shakes’ definition of modern—slang from every decade of the last hundred years.
The main characters were a duke and his talking dildo sidekick. Shakes added a note in brackets that said the duke was a vampire and the dildo was a cross-dressing woman—‘plot twists for later.’ Another bracket read ‘they fall in love.’
Hmmm, maybe he really was the Bard. Iambic pentameter seemed to come easily to him. I wondered if I should offer to type for him while he dictated. But that might ruin his flow, as painfully slow as it was.
We reached a narrow wooden bridge over the Silver River in the pre-dawn hours. On my orders, Oscar pulled to a stop.
“They might have wolf shifters tracking us,” I explained. “We’ll swim upstream to cover our scents. Rub your asses all over the car. I’ll make it self-drive toward New York to lead any shifters that way.”
Reluctantly, I took the laptop from Shakes, tucking it into my bag along with Bob’s phone and the Scourge Stone. In the front seat, Sammy wiggled back and forth, rubbing his ass on the seat as I had said.
I snorted. “Shift to dildos, boys. I need your cocks.”
“Finally,” Sammy said.
“What? Now? Here?” Oscar said.
“I shall offer you all of myself, my love,” Shakes said.
I chuckled. “We’re traveling underwater to hide our scents, and it’ll be easier to magic one air bubble than four. So dildo up and get in my backpack.”
“By backpack, ye mean…” Sammy said.
“The bag.”
“By bag, ye mean…”
“This one.” I held it up.
“By this one, ye mean…”
“Turn into a dick, you dick.”
“I’ll get in yer real backpack later,” Sammy said with a wink. He shifted. Oscar heaved a sigh and did the same, followed by Shakespeare. I jammed them into my backpack and zipped it closed.
As I whispered spells and moved my fingers, the magic came roaring back, not even tired from all the battle. It warmed my blood and chased away the exhaustion. I felt like I could fly.
I spelled the car like I had spelled sex toys to move on their own. In a minute, it would start driving itself through the woods and to the main highway on the far side. I circled myself in an air bubble so we could remain dry and breathe while underwater. Though I wasn’t sure if dildos needed to breathe. With a final word, I lifted into the air and glided over the bridge’s railing, down into the water.
The rushing spring waters closed over my head, and I reminded myself to breathe.
With a flick of my wrist, my magic dragged me through the water as though pulled by a rope.
“Are we there yet?” Sammy called from the backpack. “My dick is against Shakespeare’s dick…I think. It’s hard to tell if this is his head or his dick or his middle. Whatever it is, it be too pleasant to rub.”
“Move over then,” Shakes snapped.
I laughed at them. The backpack shifted and bulged against my back as they tried to move around with their limited limbs.
As we traveled upriver, the water grew shallower and shallower until I had to stand and walk. I kept the bubble around my legs to keep out the cold water.
As dawn broke through the thick trees, the river became a creek, then something even smaller. Ahead of us, one of its dozens of sources trickled out of a pile of stones.
Our destination. The caverns that held the magical Silver Springs that the town was named for.
Chapter 22
I magicked myself over the cascade of water and into the cave above. I followed the gentle stream until the cave opened up to a circular room with a natural pool in the center.
Placing my bag on the stone floor, I pulled out Sammy, Shakes, and Oscar. Sammy moaned when I squeezed his shaft—or maybe it was his head or his arms. Who knew when his entire body was cock?
I placed them on the ground, and they shifted back to human form.
“What is this place?” Shakes whispered so his voice wouldn’t echo.
“It’s part of the hot springs. Everyone is familiar with the aboveground section near the park. But that’s a small part of a vast underground network of pools and streams. Eventually, they all flow into the Silver River. The water will help cover our scents, and the magic that drifts from the spring will cover…well, me.”
“I had no idea this was here,” Oscar said as he peered down into the silvery blue pool of water.
A sheen of steam rose from its surface like hot coffee. The gentle sound of running water echoed in the cave from the low waterfall that fed the pool.
“The whole network of springs is magical. Earth magic from deep inside the planet.” I spotted a flat area of rock near the cave wall. I dropped my backpack there and sat down with it.
“Fuck yes,” Sammy said. He hopped on one foot as he peeled off his boot. In half a minute, he was ass naked. He was skilled at undressing, except for boots, which foiled his swagger. But he pulled pants off in one motion like a stripper and was one hundred percent commando, which was how I liked my men. He didn’t wear a shirt either, just a coat, so that dropped in half a second.
He stepped into the pool and waded forward until the water crept up his thick thighs and over his round ass. I wished I was that water, splashing between his legs and up his butt crack. Mmmmm.
Sammy groaned, and it made my pussy clench as though he had rubbed my g-spot. Fuck, I needed cock.
“I missed the water,” he said, tilting his head back in pleasure. I eyed his neck and collarbone, and my tongue craved to lick his skin.
“Three hundred years of staring at the ocean without feeling its touch or the wind or even the smell of salt. Fuck, I missed it.” He took a deep breath, his chest rising to his fullest, and disappeared under the water.
Well, fuck. Now who was I was going to ogle? I glanced at Shakes. He knelt by the pool, splashing water on his face. Oscar stared at the water where Sammy had stood. I snorted. He had been eyeing the pirate too.
Oscar must have heard me, because he turned my way. I held his gaze until he shifted as though nervous and dug his hands into his pockets. He scuffed his foot on the ground, seemed to decide something, and came to plop down on the rock next to me.
We sat together in silence for a long time, watching Sammy leap out of the water. He flipped his long dark hair back like a mermaid before disappearing back under.
“You know,” Oscar said finally. “I wished at the springs once, the part aboveground. They say if you toss a silver coin into the springs under a full moon, your wish will come true.”
“Those things never work.”
“Mine did. Maybe…I’m not sure.”
“What did you wish for?”
Oscar rested his arms on his knees. He kept his sweater on despite the steaming hot spring. Vampires ran cold, and he probably didn’t feel warm yet. “I wished for a soulmate.”
I laughed. “And you got me.”
“Why is that funny?”
“You got an expert thief and curse caster for your bookish, nerdy self.”
Oscar shifted a bit and looked away. “Well…you can protect me.”
I grinned at his confidence. “I can try for a few more hours, anyway.”
“Yarrr, join me, Trouble Lass,” Sammy called from the water.
“Once you’re clean,” I said with a smirk.
“Ye like me dirty,” he said with a wink.
I bit my lip at him.
“Men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water,” Shakespeare sa
id.
“What?” Sammy said.
“I shall join you.” Shakes sat to pry off his boots. He pulled off his blazer and shirt before peeling off his leather pants. Commando.
“Mmmm.” I studied the lines of his abs, the curve of his ass, and the thickness of his cock as though they were a soliloquy and this was an English class.
Unfortunately, all his fun parts vanished under the water too. Damn it.
Oscar cleared his throat. “Do you know why I became a vampire?”
“Accident? Horniness? That’s a big reason for it. The biggest, actually. Everyone wants to be a vampire for the sexy.”
“Books.” He smiled at me and looked genuinely happy for the first time since we met. “I wanted to read all the books in the world, but no mortal life is long enough for that.”
“That’s adorable.”
“So, I found a vampire in the big city; that’s where I’m from originally. Lots of vampires in New York, and well…I kind of stole his blood,” he said in a quick mutter.
“You what? Why? How did you even know about vampires?”
Oscar’s shoulders crept up to his ears. “There are no wards in the city to prevent humans from noticing supes. Well, there’s a patchwork of wards around supe clubs and communities, but it’s not comprehensive. Everyone is weird in the city, so no one notices vamps anyway. I spent a lot of time digging through archives in the libraries and, well…”
“You discovered vampires and didn’t think it was a myth? Were you nuts?”
“I wanted it to be true so badly.” His voice filled with yearning. “So, I started a late-night cooking class at a community center. Cooking with Blood.”
“You literally called it that?”
Oscar snorted. “Yeah. I made it vague as though it could be animal blood.”
“No one stopped you from teaching a blood-based cooking class in a community center?”
Oscar shrugged. “I had all the correct paperwork. Anyway, hell if I knew anything about cooking or blood. But I researched and bumbled through it…and made sure the knives were extra sharp. Took six months before someone cut themselves. A very pale, very tall man sliced the tip of his finger off and, well…”