The Wayward Deed (Vacancy Book 2)

by A. K. Caggiano

  Lorelei nodded gravely back. “I don’t know what any of those things are.”

  “Damiana and mura-puma are no biggie, you can go pick them up in town right now, they just make you a little frisky, or a lot in these doses, but who doesn’t love that?” She giggled. “I would say that mandrake is questionable, but it’s not on the magistratus’s illicit substance list. Too high a dose and it’s lethal, but the right amount can get someone infatuated in short bursts. Henbane’s like that too, only it has the added effect of dulling charmed folk’s natural abilities. Probably used so whoever drinks these things doesn’t catch on to what’s inside. That one is definitely restricted if not totally illegal.”

  Philomena caught her breath, then she kept going, eyes never blinking. “But that last one, the rosa desideratae, that’s bad. I mean, not only is it totally illegal even for cupids, but it’s just…we don’t even want to use it. That’s the thing giving both of these samples that sheen.”

  Lorelei looked over the petri dishes again, two and three looking like they’d been dipped in oil.

  “You could call it liquid love, but not the warm, chocolate chip cookie, butterflies in your belly kind. It’s the sad, desperate, needy kind. The fill-a-hole-with-someone-bad-for-you-just-to-feel-something kind. Sure, it works, but it can turn you into an addict for the other person no matter how they treat you. It’s bad news.”

  Lorelei watched the liquid in the dishes swirl around like it was consuming itself. “How long does it last?”

  “Well, the good news is real love is more powerful than this stuff—like I said, most powerful thing in the whole universe—so you need to be re-dosed with rosa desideratae, otherwise you’d probably be able to break out from under its spell after, I don’t know, a couple days? Maybe a week? Unless you’re already really sad and devoid of people who care about you.” Philomena sniffed, her eyes going puffy. “Oh, I don’t even want to think about that!”

  Lorelei rubbed her face, overwhelmed by the information. “Geez, and here I thought love potions were just supposed to be funny things that made you extra flirty.”

  “That is what they’re supposed to be!” Philomena bounced to the other table and grabbed a handful of little, round objects with points on one end. “Like these, I haven’t perfected them yet, but they make you all aroused and happy and go after the person you wanna kiss.” She giggled and rolled them around in her hand. “That’s what cupids do. We try to never make people do things they don’t already want to, we don’t want to make up feelings, we just bring real emotions to the surface unlike, well, that stuff.”

  Lorelei pulled a chair out from the desk and sat, blinking down at the floor.

  “But,” said Philomena slapping her hand down on the desk and making her jump, “there’s something extra weird about all this. See, I’ve seen my fair share of wacky stuff, love potions gone wrong, even screwed up my own elixirs maybe once or twice, but this—I haven’t actually seen it like this where both of the drinks are spiked.”

  Lorelei looked again at the dishes and the cups behind them. Test Two had a smudge of pink lipstick on the rim. “What does that mean?”

  “Sometimes cupids make elixirs to use on two different people. We shoot person A and person B and then they fall for each other if it works out, yadda, yadda, yadda. But when you want someone to follow their own heart or to fall for you, you only dose that person, you don’t need to dose yourself too. And like I said, there was an enchantment on the cups, so this isn’t the work of some third party like a rogue cupid doing this to these two. I really think one of the two of them was doing this, using magic plus those ingredients to force some kind of connection, but they were dosing themselves too. Isn’t that just…just weird?”

  No, it wasn’t weird, Lorelei decided in an instant. It was foul and cruel, and it had to stop. She grabbed the middle dish, and the liquid inside sloshed.

  “Careful,” said Philomena, shooting her hands out beneath it. “I broke everything down to figure out what it was. You’ve basically got a love bomb in there.”

  “Yeah, but it’s proof, right? This proves she’s been enchanting him? Manipulating him?”

  “Oh, yeah. Definitively.” Philomena stood straight.

  “I should tell him.”

  “I think it might be a crime not to.”

  Frowning down at the oily liquid in the shallow dish, Lorelei huffed and turned for the door. The cupid ran ahead of her, opening it and then following as they took to the stairs.

  When they passed through the foyer, Ziah was on the phone at the front desk, aggravation in her voice, “Nothing’s changed since the last time you asked, LaReaux, and no, we don’t care about the publicity.” She looked up. “Lore, is something wrong?”

  But Lorelei ignored her question and just kept going—if she took a moment to consider things, she might have not gone through with it, and that certainly wasn’t what magic wanted.

  She was knocking on Conrad’s bedroom door before she had a moment to think about what she was going to say, and when he opened it, she could only shove the dish under his nose.

  His eyes went wide, then his brows cocked unevenly. “What’s tha—” His nose scrunched up, and then he looked at Lorelei and past her to Philomena up on her tippy toes behind her, waving.

  “You’ve been poisoned,” said the cupid with absolutely no aplomb.

  Conrad glanced down at the milky, iridescent puddle in the petri dish again, then stepped back, opening the door wide. Inside, Bridgette was perched on the edge of his bed, legs crossed, flicking through pages in a weathered notebook with a pen in her mouth.

  A hot anger flowed through Lorelei unlike anything she was expecting. She didn’t know Bridgette was there, and at first it was terrifying, but the realization of what she’d done steeled her. “You,” she said, pushing past Conrad and handing off the dish to Philomena who took it in a mad scramble. “You drugged him.”

  CHAPTER 17

  JUST A POTION

  Lorelei’s words came out more like a realization than an accusation. That was what it was, after all, wasn’t it? Bridgette had drugged Conrad, and she’d been doing it for a long time.

  The pen fell from Bridgette’s mouth, bouncing off the notebook and onto the floor. “What?”

  “You’ve been doing it this whole time, haven’t you?” Lorelei clenched her fists and stood in the middle of Conrad’s windowless bedroom, not backing down. “Every single time you break up, that’s how you get back together. You trick him with coffee that’s practically a roofie.”

  “Excuse me?” Bridgette stood, throwing the notebook on the bed. She was taller than Lorelei, especially with her boots on, and intimidation came much easier to her even from halfway across the room.

  “Rosa desideratae,” she said like she’d been familiar with the ingredient forever. “And mandrake and…and chicken-ire, or, uh—” She looked back to Philomena for help.

  The cupid held the petri dish where Conrad could see again. “Henbane, damiana, and mura-puma. And an enchantment of some sort. It’s all in here, verified it myself if you want to see the notes.”

  “Wait, what?” Conrad’s hand slipped off the door knob, and his arm fell lax at his side.

  “Yeah, what?” Ziah appeared in the doorway. She had apparently followed them on their mad dash through the manor, but Lorelei hadn’t noticed let alone stopped to explain.

  “In the drinks, the ones she brings every time they fight.” Lorelei mocked Bridgette, sticking her hip out, then shot a knowing look at Conrad. “The ones off Moondoe’s secret menu? I stole the cups myself from your dresser a week ago and had Philomena here, a cupid, test for some kind of love potion. I can’t say I’m super surprised to find out they were laced with some of the worst stuff.”

  “Bridge?” Conrad’s voice was quiet as he looked past Lorelei to the witch.

  Bridgette opened her mouth, crossing her arms, her eyes searching the ceiling as she struggled for the words. “I don’t know wha
t in the nether she’s talking about.”

  They all stood there in silence for a long moment, the girls challenging one another, until Philomena squinted up at Conrad. “You can test it yourself if you like, but it’s true.”

  Ziah shifted in the doorway, whistling low.

  Bridgette sucked her teeth and let out a squeaky growl, shaking her head. “Ugh, fine, whatever! Yeah, I did it, I used cajolery on him, I gave him a love potion, I did it all, but I didn’t want to, okay? It’s not like I enjoyed it, so don’t get it twisted.”

  Lorelei hadn’t been expecting that. Philomena stood with the petri dish still in hand, looking from one of them to the other, and Ziah leaned back against the door, a disgusted snarl escaping from her lips.

  “Wait, she what?” Conrad’s confusion was palpable, turning to Bridgette as a cold realization crawled up his face. “You did what to me?”

  Rolling her eyes, Bridgette shifted her weight from one foot to the other as if she were being grossly inconvenienced by this whole interrogation thing. “It’s just a potion! I didn’t want to do it, believe me: that stuff is hard enough to make without accidentally killing someone, which, by the way, you’re still alive, so you’re welcome! But you just kept breaking up with me for the dumbest reasons, and it was easier than, like, talking to you or whatever.”

  He looked around the room as if he would find the answer to a question he hadn’t asked. “For how long?”

  Bridgette shrugged. “How long have we been dating?”

  His mouth fell open.

  “Oh, come on, Conrad,” she huffed. “As if we have anything in common—imagine how bad things would have been if we weren’t drinking that stuff.”

  “How bad—Bridgette, we wouldn’t have been dating at all.”

  “I know!” she exploded with utter exasperation.

  He held a hand out, then it fell back to his side as if there were nothing to say, his face totally blanched. Then he snorted, expletives lighting up the room. “Are you serious? This whole time? Every time I was pissed off at you then decided to take you back, that was you plying me with components? Every time I thought no, she didn’t mean any of that, I was just delusional? Every time we—”

  “Oh, my gods, yes!” She threw her hands up, rolling her head on her neck. “Duh! I mean why else would I put up with you?”

  “What in the abyss is that supposed to mean?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” She squinted at him. “That potion was the only thing that ever made you tolerable to be around. Otherwise, you’re a total downer. I mean, really, you should be thanking me for the couple angst-free days I gave you every month. You certainly never complained about them, you were just happy for once in your miserable life.”

  If Lorelei had sat and thought about how to present the findings to Conrad, if she’d waited a whole week running scenarios, even if she’d called up the clairvoyant Betsy Jo herself and asked, she didn’t think she would have ever come up with what Bridgette said. That didn’t make the moment any more bearable.

  Conrad stared back at her, his mouth closed now, eyes dark. He was still standing by the door, his figure more hunched. Finally his voice came out, strangled. “You should leave.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I figured.” She grabbed her bag and jacket from the desk chair and crossed the room, stopping in front of Lorelei as she went. Bridgette’s eyes could have slit her neck if they were any sharper. “So much for not being a for realsies threat.”

  Philomena moved with a quickness, but Ziah stood in Bridgette’s way for an uncomfortable moment before shifting only enough for the witch to squeeze out past her. Bridgette’s boots clacked on the stone floors until they fell away into silence.

  Philomena’s little form was still gripping the petri dish, drumming fingers on it nervously, and Ziah’s darkly angry figure hovered by the door. Conrad’s eyes still trailed the ground, and he looked like he might be sick.

  Then Philomena turned to the succubus. “Ziah, I was hoping I could—”

  Ziah shot her a look that made her snap her mouth shut.

  “I’ll just, uh, leave this here in case you want it.” The cupid sat the petri dish on the dresser and scurried out into the hall.

  Ziah placed a hand on Conrad’s shoulder, but he didn’t move under it.

  “Please, don’t,” he said mostly to the ground.

  She pulled back, whispered an apology, then left.

  Lorelei crossed and uncrossed her arms in the middle of his room. Any other time he might come up with something biting to say to ease the tension, something funny even about his parents being dead, something he knew both of them would appreciate, but this? Lorelei only wanted to be out of the moment, but more than that she wanted to find some way to comfort him.

  She took a breath, and it was too shallow. She tried again, fidgeting, taking a step toward him. He didn’t move. She held a hand out awkwardly to the side. “Who would have guessed, huh?”

  Conrad had his jaw clenched, raising his head the tiniest bit to acknowledge she said anything at all.

  “At least now you know,” she offered meekly, making her way over to him so that they were only a few paces apart.

  He raised his brows, still staring at the floor. “Yeah. Now I know. A lot of things actually.”

  She drummed her fingers on her elbow and looked around at the room. There were papers scattered here and there, the notebook Bridgette had thrown laying open on the bed. They were in the middle of some kind of work that clearly wasn’t going to get done. Lorelei gnawed on her lip and tried to catch his eye.

  Finally she took a hefty enough breath to fully fill her lungs. “Conrad, I—”

  The look he gave her made her words catch in her throat. “What?” It came out vile and angry. He was mad. At her.

  “I…” She couldn’t look away from him even though she desperately wanted to. There was so much anger there, not like anything she’d seen in him before. The way Conrad had looked at her, even when they first met and she was sure he hated her, it was nothing like this. That had all been a mask, a game even, a layer of emotion to hide whatever had been going on underneath. But this? This was real. “I didn’t mean for that to happen,” she whispered, clutching herself a little tighter.

  “Oh, really? You didn’t mean to embarrass me in front of Ziah and some total stranger?”

  “N-no.” She shook her head, brow furrowing. “Definitely not that. I—”

  “You ran in here and basically told me I’ve been a complete idiot for years. This woman who said she loved me was lying to me, and doesn’t even care that she was doing it. In fact, she hated me all along. And you sprung that on me like it was some kind of surprise party.”

  Lorelei’s hands started to shake. “Well, you should be mad at her about that.”

  “Don’t you think I am?” he shouted, turning away from her and raking his hands through his hair. For a brief moment, she thought she was off the hook. Then he shouted again, and she winced. “But you? You wouldn’t—I didn’t think you would—make me feel so…”

  She looked up at the back of his head. Make him feel so what? What had she even done besides tell him the truth? And made it come out so unequivocally too? If he was mad at Bridgette, that was fine, but why the hell would he take it out on her? “Conrad,” she said, struggling to keep her voice from shaking too. “I didn’t lie to you. I just wanted to…to…”

  “To what?” He turned back to her swiftly, darkness in his eyes. “Make me realize what a moron I’ve been? Well, I get it now. I’m a miserable asshole, that’s been made pretty damn clear.”

  “No, you’re not, you—”

  “Don’t tell me what I am,” he said loud enough to convince her to stop.

  She looked away, trying to escape his glare. Throat hoarse, straining to keep the tears back, she whispered. “I really didn’t mean—”

  “Go.” His voice was so even that it was worse than if he’d been screaming in a rage. She glanced out to the empty hall t
hen finally back to him. Calm, devoid of everything, even anger, his eyes stared through her. “Just go.”

  ***

  Oh, boy, had Lorelei screwed up. Even magic seemed to know it. Nothing wanted to go right, but it didn’t exactly go wrong either, just a tad sideways, adding irritation to everything. The keys waited an extra few minutes before appearing, sweeping the foyer had to be done twice before it was actually clean, and books kept finding their way all over the manor and never making it back to the sitting room until Lorelei carried them in one heavy stack only to find there were hardly any spots left on the shelves.

  And Conrad was gone. He didn’t say to where, but he had left, so she couldn’t even apologize though she was pretty sure he wouldn’t be willing to hear it anyway.

  She wanted to talk to Ziah, but the woman was so busy she didn’t even have time for study sessions. She wanted to tell her everything, really, and when Lorelei finally got sick of holing herself up in her room as soon as her shifts were over to cuddle Aly and feel bad for herself, she went to the succubus’s door and knocked.

  “Ziah? It’s me.”

  “Just a minute.” Ziah’s voice came from the other side. “I’m with a client.”

  “Oh! Oh, my god, I’m so sorry!” Lorelei almost sprinted away, embarrassed she had gotten the schedule wrong, but Ziah’s voice stopped her.

  “No, it’s okay, come on in.”

  Frozen in the hall, Lorelei was at an impasse. Was she kidding? Ziah was open about a lot of things, but this seemed too forward, even for her. And yet, she was curious, and she really needed to talk.

  Easing the door open, Lorelei entered with a hand over her eyes. Ziah’s room always smelled of musk and flowers, and was the perfect temperature with low lighting—a setting that would put anyone at ease immediately, but this time Lorelei could only hold her breath as she sidled in. “So, um, I just wanted to talk to you, but I know you’re busy, and—”