“Wonderful. I feel great.” I totally didn’t mention that I’d felt like dog crap until I’d drank Glenda’s smoothie. Cassie worried enough about me as it was. And I appreciated that Glenda was willing to hide her assistance and make it seem as if I were completely recovered, otherwise I was sure Cassie would have bundled me up, stuffed me in her car, and had me back on her sofa for another week or two.
Cassie gave me a thorough looking-over as she put the grocery bags on the counter and began to unpack them. “You sure?”
“I’m sure.” I grabbed the block of cheese and carton of milk and put them in the fridge while Glenda pulled two pounds of hamburger, a frozen pizza, and a box of donuts from her bags.
“Well, we figured you probably didn’t have anything in your fridge that wasn’t totally spoiled, and that you might be too tired to do any grocery shopping…” Cassie’s voice trailed off and she made a hurt-sniff sort of noise. I hid a smile, knowing that my eldest sister needed to be needed.
“I really appreciate it,” I told her. “I was just making a shopping list, but honestly I am kind of beat after not doing much for the last two weeks.”
Cassie beamed. “Well, now you don’t have to buy groceries. Or dinner. Look—Glenda and I brought some pork fried rice, wonton soup, and egg rolls. I thought we could all have dinner together.”
I glanced over at my younger sister, who had pulled another jug of smoothie from her huge purse and was discretely shoving it into my cupboard. “I’d love that. Let me grab some plates and chopsticks.”
“Oh, no you don’t.” Cassie took me by the shoulders and steered me over to the couch. “Sit. Glenda and I have got this. You rest.”
I sat and watched as my eldest sister took charge of everything, just like she always did. Some people might find Cassie bossy and overbearing, and I’ll admit we sisters did sometimes chafe under her occasionally smothering care, but we loved her for it. She’d not hesitated to raise us all when our mother had hit the road, and that was saying a lot since she’d only been thirteen at the time. Plus, there were times when it was nice to be pampered and coddled. Actually, there were a lot of times when it was nice to be pampered and coddled.
Glenda walked over and handed me a bowl of wonton soup. “You doing okay?” she murmured. “Your aura looks a bit dim and colorless.”
“My aura is a whole lot less dim and colorless thanks to your potion,” I whispered back. “Without it, you guys would have come in to me passed out on the floor.”
Glenda grimaced, shooting Cassie a quick glance. “Glad that didn’t happen. Cassie would have hauled you back to her house and tied you to the sofa.”
“Don’t I know it.” I let out an exasperated huff. “I just want to get my life back, you know? I want to get back to my clients, back to my hobbies, back to my routine.”
Glenda reached down to give me a quick hug. “I know. Just don’t push things too fast. You almost died. Take all the time you need.”
I had died. And going through that made me a bit frantic about taking advantage of the time I had. I didn’t want to spend another two weeks on Cassie’s sofa—two weeks I’d never get back. I might die next week or next month or next year, and I wanted to spend every moment I had left doing the things I loved and not “taking it easy”. There was nothing like an actual death experience to make a witch cherish the little things in life and knowingly live in the moment.
Cassie came over with plates of fried rice and egg rolls, plus a handful of chopsticks. She and Glenda joined me on the sofa, and we all ate, talking about our jobs and discussing whether we should have meatloaf or pot roast for this Sunday’s family dinner.
“How are things with Lucien?” I asked Cassie. “He seemed a bit upset about something going on in the third circle of hell yesterday.”
A bit upset was a massive understatement. I’d thought for a moment there he was going to burn down Cassie’s house. Or possibly set Eshu on fire. I got the idea the whole blame-the-messenger thing was big among demons.
Cassie rolled her eyes and took a second to swallow her mouthful of fried rice. “It’s not good. He might have to go down there for a few days and straighten things out.”
Glenda grimaced. “What happened?”
“Evidently some communications got mixed up and a few demons got pissed at each other and it all escalated.” Cassie waved an eggroll for emphasis. “He’s blaming Eshu for screwing something up.”
I felt a bit indignant about that. “Don’t make poor Eshu the scapegoat. It’s not like demons aren’t ready to throw down over the stupidest thing. Remember last Sunday when Lucien nearly beheaded Hadur over sun dried tomatoes in the salad?”
“I’m with Hadur on that one,” Glenda chimed in. “Sun dried tomatoes are an absolutely delicious addition to both salads and wood-fired pizza.”
“Lucien can’t do nightshade stuff,” Cassie explained. “And dried makes it worse. Last time he ate tomatoes, he had to sleep in the guest room. His gas was bad enough to kill an army of goblins with one noxious shot.”
I shuddered. “Well, he didn’t have to eat the salad. There was no need to get up in Hadur’s face about it.”
“Lucien needs his greens. He has to have a diet with lots of fiber,” Cassie shot back, defending her demon. “Hadur did it on purpose and didn’t tell him until he’d already eaten half the salad. We missed out on sex that night because I didn’t want to have to screw while wearing a gas mask.”
Glenda slapped her hands over her ears. “Don’t want to hear this.”
I, on the other hand, totally wanted to hear it. Patting Cassie on the knee, I sent her a sympathetic look. “Sexual relations are a key component to your and Lucien’s relationship. That must have been difficult for the both of you.”
“It was.” Cassie pouted. “And it was my turn to be on top, too.”
“Not listening,” Glenda announced.
“Perhaps you can double up this Sunday to make up for it?” I suggested. “You be on top for morning sex, and he can do doggy-style, or get a blow job, or spend some time going down on you after dinner.”
Cassie’s eyes got a faraway look. “Oh…. yes. That would be amazing. All of those. Lucien has remarkable stamina, and it only takes him a few minutes to recover. I wish I bounced back that quick.”
“So…how about the weather?” Glenda chimed in. “Think we’ll get some rain this week? It’s a bit dry this summer, and we could really use a good shower.”
I held back giving them some tips on shower sex and how golden showers between consenting adults were a perfectly acceptable kink in spite of public opinion and took pity on my sister. Glenda wasn’t at all a prude, but she wasn’t into what she called “oversharing.”
“I just hope the rain holds off a bit longer,” I told her. “I’ve been cooped up for two weeks on Cassie’s couch and really want to soak up a bit of sun.”
“Speaking of my couch, did you know that crazy Eshu calls you ‘couch-witch’?” Cassie laughed. “We’ve told him your name a dozen times. It’s like he can’t remember it, although Lucien says he does that sort of thing on purpose to be annoying.”
I took a bite of my eggroll, trying to keep my expression bland. Inside I was blushing and flustered because I thought it was cute. Couch-witch. He was so funny.
“He drove Lucien nuts asking where you were,” Cassie continued. “The guy wasn’t paying one bit of attention to what he was supposed to. Instead he was looking under the couch and in the closets, wanting to know where you lived.”
“He was?” I tried really hard to keep the bubbly joy out of my voice.
“He’s such an idiot.” Cassie rolled her eyes. “Of course we didn’t tell him. What a fool. Drives Lucien nuts. I think he’d ban him from the house if he didn’t need him. He’s the only demon who’s allowed in heaven.”
The bubbly joy vanished. Eshu wasn’t an idiot. Yes, he was a clown, a funny guy, but that didn’t make him stupid. Not that it mattered. I’d probably never
see him again. He’d forget about me by tomorrow, and it’s not like he ever came by Cassie’s house when we were all there. I never would have met him if I hadn’t been convalescing on her couch for two weeks.
Couch-witch. That was so stinking cute.
“Enough about Lucien. How are things with the werewolves?” Glenda asked.
“Tense.” Cassie shoved the last bit of eggroll in her mouth and picked up her soup. “Sadly, Dallas’ mating ceremony didn’t hold off tensions for long. There have been raids on both sides and some vandalism of the road going up to the compound.”
“I would have thought Dallas would be too busy locked in a bedroom on his honeymoon to be fighting,” I commented.
“Me, too.” Glenda took a bite of her egg roll. “The way that werewolf acts, you’d think sex was his number one priority. I had to threaten to poison his well with a limp-dick potion to make him stop grabbing my ass.”
“I think the honeymoon would have given us a few months of cease-fire if Clinton hadn’t taken advantage of the wedding and made a move,” Cassie said. “I really don’t know the exact details of what’s been happening so far, but I know it involves a lot of peeing to move territory markers, as well as attacking scouts during the night and roughing them up. Oh, and Clinton’s guys bombed out a section of the road. Make sure you use four-wheel drive if you need to go up to the compound because they dug the crap out of the road. Potholes and ditches all over the place.”
I grimaced. “And of course Dallas retaliated.”
Cassie rolled her eyes. “Werewolf egos. Of course he retaliated. He’s not going to let his pack think he’s weak by letting that sort of thing go. I really don’t know what to do at this point. I’ve gotten in Dallas’s face, burned the beard off Clinton’s face, threatened the pair of them. Neither one is going to back down.”
“Just blow up the mountain and be done with it. No more werewolves, and it would shave twenty minutes off the commute time to Fairview.”
I choked back a laugh because Glenda was kidding. At least, I thought she was kidding. Cassie was the only one of us with an explosive temper, but Glenda had this dry pragmatic thing going on that made me sometimes wonder about her moral alignment.
“Trust me, I’ve considered it,” Cassie said. “There aren’t many options left, honestly. I’ve put down my foot when it comes to some things, but I can’t change hundreds of years of culture and tradition in a few months.”
Thanks to Cassie, wolves were now allowed to leave the pack and live in Accident without being hunted down. But as my session with Alberta and Shelby had revealed, being a lone wolf wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Still, the option was there. And Cassie had told Dallas that werewolves would be held to the laws of Accident, regardless of what their own rules and regulations allowed for. Supposedly that meant due process for any werewolf violating pack law. Basically, they could keep their traditions and culture unless it went directly against the laws of Accident.
Of course, what happened up in the mountains didn’t always come to light down here in the valley. And if it came to it, our legal system didn’t really have the power to enforce law in a pack of hundreds of werewolves. At least not without seven witches backing them up.
But that would be a solution of might, and I wasn’t the only one who knew violence wasn’t the long-term solution to what we’d come to jokingly call the Werewolf Problem. Bending them to our will by force would only get us temporary, grudging compliance that would rebound and smack us in the asses the moment our backs were turned.
“So, you’re just going to let them go at it and hope for the best?” Glenda asked.
Cassie shrugged. “I can yell and set fire to shit all I want, but I can’t stop a werewolf war. I’ve told both Dallas and Clinton this can’t affect anyone outside the two packs, and no fighting can take place off the mountain. I also let them know that any werewolf who wants refuge from the fighting is welcome in town, and I won’t tolerate that being held against them when the dust settles.”
Glenda snorted. “Yeah. Good luck with that. I’m not Ophelia but let me give you my prediction right here: Clinton and his pack are killed. Dallas loses twenty or so of his pack in the fighting. Half the mountain is torn up and all their crops and livestock destroyed. Refugees will be exiled, and we’ll have to take up collections to feed the remaining werewolves through the winter or watch them starve.”
It was a sobering prediction, but neither Cassie nor I denied its validity.
“Dallas won’t budge at all?” I asked.
“Nope. He’s exiled Clinton and the werewolves that left with him and says they need to get off the mountain. I at least got him to say he’d allow them all to remain in Accident as lone wolves, but he won’t make any promises on whether the individuals in his pack won’t continue to attack them or not. It’s too personal for most of the pack, he says.”
“Would Clinton be open to that?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“Not a chance. He wants part of the mountain, and he’s not leaving.”
It bothered me that there wasn’t some peaceful solution to all this. I got why Clinton had formed a splinter pack. He’d chafed under his father’s rule and knew there were other members of the pack that felt the same. The werewolf answer to that was to challenge the alpha, but Clinton knew who would win that fight, and it would have been a fight to the death.
It was a huge mountain. There was no reason beyond pride that Dallas couldn’t allow his only son to establish a sub-pack on a section of neighboring land. Maybe there was some avenue to peace that hadn’t yet been explored. Maybe there was some sort of compromise that would work for both of them. I didn’t know what that was, and it was clear none of my sisters did, either.
“Oh, and this all reminds me,” Cassie added. “Do you think you could pull together a charm or two for me? In the next week or two? I’ve got a case on the other side of the wards and it wouldn’t be good if the humans discovered the defendant was a yeti. I just need to improve the odds that the judge will agree to a change of venue so the trial can be held here in Accident.”
I sucked in a breath and looked down at my soup, appetite completely gone. “Sure. No problem.”
It was a problem. I just didn’t want Cassie or any of my sisters to know it was a problem.
We finished our dinner and my sisters did a quick clean up before leaving. Once they were gone, I pulled my magical supplies out of the closet and spread them out on my coffee table.
A luck charm or two. That used to be so easy. But now…. It wasn’t as if my magic was totally gone. I could still feel a tiny thread of it whispering through my body, but when I went to do anything magical, nothing happened. It was as if I called, and either the magic that remained was too faint to do any good or just didn’t respond at all.
Part of me feared this was the way it would always be. Part of me feared my magic would return, but that it would be…wonky. Maybe charms wouldn’t turn out like they were supposed to. Maybe they’d end up being hexes or not providing the type of luck I intended—which really wasn’t a big deal when all I was trying to do was make sure there was enough hot water for my shower, or that there was a front parking space at the mall. A potential for exposure of our world though…that was big. I didn’t want to screw that up.
I hoped that I just needed a little longer to heal and then everything would be back to normal. As for Cassie’s request, well, I had another week or so to rest up, to drink Glenda’s disgusting potions, and to get my strength back. I’d wait on these charms and maybe try them next week. I was sure by then that I’d be fully recovered and would have no problem imbuing them with the appropriate magic.
Yep, I told myself, I’ll be fine by next week. That’s when I’ll do these charms. By next week, everything is going to be back to normal.
Chapter 3
Eshu
I knocked on the door, hoping that this was the correct house. I’d been to six so far this evening and had all sorts
of creatures spit at me, try to stab me with tridents, and curse me in a weird fae language. I guess some folk don’t like to be woken up at two in the morning by a demon at their door demanding to know if his couch-witch resided therein.
No one answered at this house, so I knocked again with more force, then tried to peek through a side window, nearly falling over the porch rail and into a prickly bush with fragrant white flowers. A light came on, and I readied myself for spit, or knives, or whatever.
Instead, the door opened and there stood my beloved, her hair a sable mess of tangled waves, her blue eyes full of sleep. There was a deep crease on her cheek, probably from her pillow, and her left boob looked as if it were about ready to escape from her tank top.
I stared at the left boob, willing it to fly free, then looked down to her pink lacy underwear and naked legs. They were tanned and strong, with broad thighs and muscled calves. I couldn’t help but imagine them wrapped around my waist.
“Eshu.” Her voice was burred with sleep and I felt myself grow hard at the sound of it.
“My couch-witch. I’ve found you.” I pushed past her and looked around. It was a nice home. Warm. Comfortable. Lots of color.
“What are you doing here?”
She sounded confused, but not displeased. I looked down and aside from staring at the rebellious boob, I noted the shadows under her eyes that I hadn’t seen previously.
I know. I’m a bad potential lover for not having noticed, but in my defense, her boob was almost out of her tank top.
“I’m here to see you, my couch-witch. But why are you not on the couch sleeping? You look exhausted.”
She ran a hand through her hair, making parts of it stick up here and there. “Because I had to answer the door, you dork. And I don’t normally sleep on—”
The rest of her sentence was cut off with a squeal because I’d picked her up and began walking over to the couch. Staggering actually, because she was a bit heavier than I’d thought. Thankfully, I didn’t drop her because I was pretty sure I’d never be able to get any sexy witch action if I dumped my beloved onto the floor.
Hell and Hexes Page 2