Juniper

by Eva Delaney

  “Youthful dreams never come true,” I said.

  “You thought you were being the hero when you stole the stones and left. But you weren’t. You want to put good back in the world? You want to repent for our thefts and…” she waved her hand, “other unsavories? You want to help your ghost men? Then be the father-pegging hero already.”

  That gave me an idea. People joined Ram for the same reason we had: because he gave them a purpose, a sense of worth when their lives had none.

  Maybe I could use that against him.

  “If we do this, we can’t do it Ram’s way. Our old way.”

  Alyssa rolled her eyes. “Again with the fake heroics.”

  I ignored her. “Tell me the truth: did you free Azea from my store?”

  “Absolutely.”

  I knew it. No one else could have done it without setting off my wards. “So you still got it. You can still mimic others’ magic well enough to sneak past wards.”

  “I can get you into Ram’s place without even doing that. He thinks I’m loyal still.”

  “He can’t know we’re coming. Do you actually have those rings?”

  “For the first time in forever, Juniper, I’m not lying to you.”

  I wasn’t so sure, but I might be able to make this work even if she was. And maybe I could do it without putting anyone else in danger.

  Chapter 27

  I rested Sammy’s base on the palm of my hand and lifted him over my head as I turned in a slow circle. “This is a gaff-rigged schooner, cabin boy Samuel. What do you think?”

  As the ship rocked under my feet, I stumbled a step and grasped Sammy around his shaft so I didn’t drop him overboard. “Did we trim the sails properly, Sammy?” I held him up higher so he could take a look at the white canvas stretched along masts and spars.

  Alyssa groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose again. “What are you doing?”

  “Shhh, Sammy is considering the rigging.”

  “He’s a fucking dildo! And were you reading to him in the cabin last night?”

  “Of course not!” I said, turning to her. She stood at the helm, holding it lightly in one hand. “Sammy doesn’t like books. I was reading to Oscar.”

  Alyssa rolled her eyes. “Do I want to know about that?” She pointed to the mainmast. At its base, my laptop sat open, a rope wrapped around it to hold it to the mast. Shakespeare the dildo stood on the touchpad. I had to tape him to do it so he wouldn’t roll away when the ship rocked. The computer screen showed his sitcom script…in between the lines of rope that held it in place.

  “The fresh air will help his creativity,” I explained.

  “Urrghhhh,” Alyssa shouted. “Why did I think you were a good idea?”

  “What’s that, Sammy?” I lowered the dildo to my ear. “You’re right. She should fuck off.”

  “Screw you. First you throw my new phone overboard, and now this. I’m going to lie down.” She stomped away from the helm, and I hurried over to grasp it. Muttering to herself like a crazy person, she climbed down into the ship’s hold.

  “I know, right?” I said to Sammy in my fist. “She’s losing it.”

  “They can’t hear you!” Alyssa shouted from the hold like she did every day.

  “I know that!”

  “Then why do you keep talking to them?”

  “Because I miss them,” I shouted.

  It had been a week since the soulbinding spells wore off. I had spent it recovering magical rings, spelling dildos, and recruiting help. Alyssa spent it leading some of Ram’s loyalists on a false trail with promises of finding me. If she meant to betray me, she was playing a long game.

  I had hoped the spot in my chest that ached for Sammy, Shakes, and Oscar would fade away. I hadn’t known them for long, and I had broken the spell that initially bound us. Plus, somewhere between the eleventh and twelfth times my parents left, I learned to stop caring about loss.

  But a week later, I was still talking to their dildos. Maybe I had never learned to stop caring but had convinced myself I did. A skilled lie.

  Where were the men? I wondered for the millionth time. Were they still trapped in their death spots? Were they hiking across the US and jumping on planes in a vain attempt to find me? Would they find each other in Silver Springs while searching for me?

  Even more important: were there ghosts everywhere, watching us? That was unnerving. What if Genghis Khan had watched me pee when I was in Mongolia? What if I crapped on a sleeping ghost in the woods and never noticed? Did ghosts sleep? Were there dog ghosts chasing balls and sticks they could never pick up?

  After a few hours, Alyssa and I switched spots at the helm again. We had made this journey dozens of times while working for Ram, often with an entire gang crowding the ship with us. The journey back to Acasa Island had usually been a booze cruise. Magic kept the wind blowing, and all we had to do was make sure the ship held a straight course. So, we drank and covered the deck in cum. Ver had fucked me over that very railing.

  I didn’t miss it, oddly enough. I thought I would. Instead, I held Oscar the dildo and showed him what the ocean looked like. I didn’t know if he had ever seen it before, and I couldn’t ask him. Well, I could and I did, but he didn’t answer. He was shy.

  “When did you lose it?” Alyssa asked one night as she downed a bottle of NyQuil on the deck. She drank a bottle every night, and I started to worry she would overdose.

  “When did you turn on Ram?” I countered.

  She sighed. “The day he tried to kill you. I was just too angry with you for leaving to admit that I hated him. It took a while.”

  “Are you lying?”

  “Never,” she said with a knowing smirk. “Are you?”

  “Always,” I said with a smirk.

  I hoped Alyssa was telling the truth so that I wouldn’t have to fight her when we reached Acasa Island. Even though the truth meant I was an ass who had betrayed her because I thought she would pick Ram over me. It had been easier to leave without a word, to hurt her before she could hurt me. I guess that was a symptom of pretending not to care about losing people. I betrayed them before they turned on me.

  “Alyssa,” I said. “I’m sorry I left without saying anything… I’m not sorry I left our gang, but I am sorry I left you.”

  “Only took you four years to realize that.” Alyssa rolled her eyes and stomped down into the ship’s hold to pass out.

  I didn’t argue. She was right.

  The next day, the familiar lump of Acasa Island appeared on the northern horizon. It felt like I was returning home to a place that wasn’t my home anymore. I supposed that was a common feeling for many people. But I had never gone back to an old haunt before. It never made sense to return to a place I had left behind.

  “Make sure to back up your script, Shakespeare,” I said. The dildo sat on the computer and said nothing. “Thinks are about to get messy.”

  We reached Ram’s wards a few kilometers out. Expertly constructed, they attacked anyone with negative intentions against him. But Alyssa’s specialty, honed over years of heists, was mimicking others’ magic. She cast a spell to wrap us in energy that felt like Ram’s and made us effectively invisible to the wards.

  The only problem was that she had to hold it consistently. That meant she would have little focus and energy left to fight when we hit the shore. I had to protect us both and battle Ram and his minions.

  It also meant that if Alyssa decided to betray me, all she had to was drop that spell and Ram’s wards would tear me apart.

  “Hold on to your ass, Sammy.” The dildo sat silently on the rail of the ship. I had taped him there so he could watch the waves or the rigging. I really wasn’t sure which side his face was on as he was all dick. “We’re about to be fucked hard and not in the fun harem way.”

  “Stop talking to dildos,” Alyssa snapped.

  “Nah. Why be sane at this point? I’m either going to kick ass and get the men back, or Ram will turn me into foreskin and drop me i
n the ocean to drown. Then, I’ll still get the men back, just as a ghost. Woooo. My unfinished business is in multiple places, so I won’t be stuck on the island. I can go find them.”

  “Don’t be so sure, June. Your unfinished business might be Ram. If we fail, this island might be your final lonely fate.”

  “That’s more reason to talk to dildos while I still can.”

  “No, it’s not!” Alyssa pinched the bridge of her nose. “Get your brain together. It’s time to reunite with the old gang.”

  Chapter 28

  I floated over the island’s docks with purple flames engulfing me. The Scourge Stone pulsed in my butthole. As the magic burned through me like a good proper fucking, I laughed from joy.

  “Don’t get cocky,” Alyssa said, jumping from the ship to the dock.

  Ahead of us stretched Acasa Island in all its rocky shittyness. Squat buildings sat among the jumbled boulders that made up the island. The homes’ bright colors were at odds with their simple, flat fronts. I eyed the island’s highest point with my heart in my throat.

  Ram’s home, a one-story building like the rest, watched over the island from the highest hill.

  His minions, some of whom I recognized, many I didn’t, rushed to the shore. Alyssa and I stood against a crowd of witches, vampires, and shifters who were prepared to kill us.

  “I am the truest mage, as foretold by the prophecy,” I boomed in my best pretentious voice.

  Someone gasped.

  “What prophecy?” one of the minions called.

  “The prophecy,” Alyssa said. “Didn’t Ram tell you about it, Steve? Or were you not important enough to know?”

  “Oh, yeah. That prophecy,” Steve said.

  “I have found the truest mage as foretold by the ancient prophecy,” Alyssa announced grandly.

  Someone gasped.

  “As your truest mage, the seer of all spells, I command that magic belongs to all!” I roared pretentiously. “All relics and amulets shall be returned to the world.”

  “That’s not what Ram says,” a woman with curly black hair called.

  “Ramrod wanted to claim the prophecy for himself and with it, the right to control all magic!”

  “I think she’s lying,” someone muttered.

  “No, no, I heard about this prophecy,” Steve said. “Ram told me personally because he trusts me.”

  “I shall prove I am the truest mage who commands all magic!” I proclaimed.

  Steve gasped.

  “You can leave this island now and return to the world to spread magic and joy. Or I shall claim your magic as my own.”

  “As the prophecy foretold,” Alyssa announced.

  “You’re traitors,” the curly hair woman roared.

  “I have worked for Ram longer than any of you,” Alyssa said. “I have been loyal and the only one he trusts—”

  I shuddered at that cold truth. Fuck, she better not betray me.

  “I have fought alongside each of you. I have saved most of your lives. Would I lie to you?”

  “Ram would have told me if there was a prophecy,” a blond man shouted.

  I turned my gaze to him to see his lips moving as he muttered a spell. My own magic flared through me, and I laughed. I felt as though I could reshape the entire world with a word. The Scourge Stone warmed my asshole as I pulled on its power.

  The man’s curse flew at me like a missile. I mumbled a single word in a strange language. The Stone’s power raced through my body and reached out with green claws to grasp his magic. I yanked and felt something snap on the other end, like pulling on a rope that breaks.

  The man cried out. His power flowed through me, racing through my blood to the Stone in my crack.

  “She…she…took my magic,” he gasped and dropped to his knees.

  I felt bad for him. I didn’t want to rob anyone of their abilities, but I needed as many of these people to surrender as possible.

  “Hey…are you the one who stole the Scourge Stone?” the curly-haired woman said.

  “I am the Scourge Stone!”

  Steve gasped.

  “No, you’re not. You just own it.”

  I spread my arms and let everyone stare at my close-fitting leggings and tank top. “I carry nothing. No bags, no pockets. My hands are empty. Where am I hiding the Stone?”

  The crowd muttered.

  “Ram believed the prophecy referred to him! Right, Steve?” Alyssa said.

  “Oh…umm…yeah. That’s what the boss told me because I’m one of his most important friends.”

  “But he was wrong!” Alyssa shouted. “The prophecy was never about him, and the Scourge Stone was never an object. The Stone is the one true mage who decides who wields magic and who doesn’t! And that mage is Juniper!”

  “All shall love me and come hard,” I declared.

  “Don’t drive me nuts,” Alyssa muttered.

  “Return now to the normie world to spread the prophecy. Use your magic to help everyone in need. Or stay and lose your abilities…FOREVER!” I made my magic vibrate, and the air and ground shook with it. “Lose all that makes you special. Lose all that makes you important. Or leave now and change the world with your magic!”

  The island fell silent. Then, with a tangle of shouts, the crowd rushed for the docks and its motley collection of moored boats.

  But not everyone fled.

  As the crowd pounded across the docks, the shouts of curses rose from dozens of mouths across the rocky shore.

  That was when it all went to hell.

  “Atac de dildo!” I shouted.

  A troop of dildos dashed from the hold of my ship. They darted around the docks on gossamer wings, dragon wings, and seagull wings because seagulls were mean motherfuckers.

  The air filled with small cocks, average cocks, curved cocks, bumpy cocks, purple cocks, and massive yeti cocks with wings like baby dragons. They shot curses from their tips to knock their enemies unconscious. Also, they slapped people in the face because I thought that was funny.

  People cried out in panic. Purple-black curses cut through the air, demolishing my dildos one-by-one.

  I reached out with the pulsing power of the Stone to grasp the magic of the nearest man. I yanked, and his magic snapped like shattering bone. I laughed from the perverse joy of claiming another’s power.

  And tried to ignore the growing itch in my asshole from the throbbing Stone.

  At the same time, Alyssa slipped her backpack off her shoulders. She flipped it open and swung the bag forward so its contents tumbled out onto the dock: four tablets. With a wave of her hand, they lifted into the air to face the oncoming curses. While she protected us from Ram’s wards, she couldn’t do much else.

  It was up to our team to clear my path to Ram.

  “Oh shit. Oh crap,” Julian, the witch who owned Jewels Cafe, said from one the tablets. “Okay, ummm…freeze spell!” The doors of every nearby house shattered to kindling.

  Well, that was Julian for you. But no one else volunteered to help.

  “Oh! Fuck, okay—” A purple curse slammed into his tablet, blowing it to bits.

  Thankfully, he would be fine. Only another witch with one of the internet rings could send a curse over a video call.

  The rest of us were fucked, though. An almost solid wall of purple energy sped toward us.

  “Dion sgiath,” I said. Every ounce of my magic flowed through me and burst into the world to block the onslaught of curses. Aaahhh, it felt like I could command the sea and sky itself.

  I had missed unleashing all my power.

  My remaining cocks swooped through the air around the heads of the attacking witches. Their stun curses flashed from their tips, knocking witches to the ground.

  But they were outside my protection, and my heart throbbed a little each time I saw one fall.

  “Holy hell,” Jasmine, who I had met at my shop, said on a tablet. She shouted spells, and purple curses blasted from her screen like a storm. I let them through
my shield to crash into the attacking witches.

  She was damn good at this.

  “We got this,” Zoe, the Cleanly Den witch, called from a computer. I had met her once at Jewels Cafe and recognized the spark of a powerful witch: a little shiver on my skin of another power calling to mine like metal to a magnet.

  She chanted the words for a protective shield. I felt the rush of her power as it flowed over mine to hold back the oncoming attacks.

  Perfect. I dropped my shield and lowered myself to the ground. Now that everyone who would fall for the prophecy trick already had, there was no need to play the chosen one.

  Three vamps rushing toward the shield stopped suddenly. They clutched their stomachs and dropped to their knees.

  “Ahhh, it feels like my gut is in a vise,” one of them groaned.

  “At least those baking spells were good for something,” Minerva said from the final computer. “Take that! Dough kneading on your stomachs!”

  Apparently, baking spells worked in a fight, too.

  Her lips moved through a whispered spell and pink sparks flew from her screen. They hit the vamps and popped like soap bubbles. “I’m so over this fight anyway,” she said.

  Shit. Did any witch in Silver Spells know how to fight beside Jasmine and me? “Sfarama,” I said. The three vamps burst into shards of glass.

  “June,” Alyssa said.

  I turned to her, and she tossed me the backpack. It held the dildo-men. If I could get to the vault before Ram, I could summon the men. Then we would die together and have ghost orgies all over the island.

  I shouldered the bag and ran past her, past the tablets, through Zoe’s shield, and into the fray.

  A woman turned to me with a curse on her lips, and fell under a blast from Jasmine. A vampire leaped at me with her fangs and claws flashing in the sunlight.

  I flicked a finger and she vanished, turned to an ant.

  A flash of purple flew at my head, and I ducked under it, drawing on the Stone that pulsed hot in my ass. I clenched my fist and yanked. The attacker’s magic snapped and flowed through me to the Stone.