Hell and Hexes

by Dunbar, Debra

  “Here.” I plopped her down on the couch, saddened that the motion hadn’t freed the nearly escaped boob. Then I went into her kitchen and looked in her fridge. “Why don’t you have any grapes? You need to have grapes.”

  “I haven’t been to the grocery store, and I don’t normally eat grapes. I think Cassie brought some blueberries, though.” Her voice was husky/sleepy. It made me wonder once more if the time was right to show her my enormous love-lance or if more wooing was in order.

  I grabbed the blueberries and sat on the coffee table beside the couch, looking around for a fan. What was the problem with this witch that she didn’t have a fan, nor grapes? How was I supposed to show her my adoration if I couldn’t fan her and feed her grapes?

  Needing to improvise, I grabbed a pillow off the couch and tried to fan her with it, accidently bopping her on the head.

  “Hey! What are you—”

  I shoved a few blueberries in her mouth then began to recite the naughty limerick I’d composed in her honor. Every time she went to say something, I fed her more blueberries, and fanned with increasing vigor.

  I decided to stop with the blueberries when she began to laugh and nearly choked on them.

  “Stop! Eshu, cut it out. I’m not hungry, and I don’t want to have a pillow fight right now, if that’s what you’re trying to do. I’m tired. I had a really exhausting day, and I need to sleep.”

  I set the pillow and the blueberries aside, pouting a bit as she adjusted the tank top and secured the renegade boob in place.

  “I’m sorry.” She reached out and touched my thigh. I silently willed her fingers to go higher, but to no avail. “I’m so happy to see you. I’m glad you came over here, really, I am. But it’s late and I’m so tired. Maybe we can take a raincheck? You can shove fruit down my throat and whack me with a pillow while reciting bawdy poetry another night?”

  I’d rather shove something else down her throat, but clearly that wasn’t going to happen tonight. Instead I scooted her legs over, sat down on the couch, then repositioned her legs on top of my lap. “Why are you so tired, my couch-witch? I assumed your reclining state was so that the other mortals could worship you accordingly. I never thought that it was because you needed extra rest.”

  “The accident,” she murmured in that sleepy voice that went right to my groin. “I was recovering on Cassie’s couch, and I thought I was okay, but I guess not. I’m so tired.”

  I ran my hands up her bare legs, a thrill racing through me at the soft mmm noise she made. “I know you told me you’d had an accident, but I hadn’t realized it was so serious.”

  “I went to the hospital and was on a couch for two weeks.” She chuckled. “What did you think, I stubbed my toe or something?”

  “A hangnail? A papercut? A bad case of split ends?”

  “Brat.” She smacked me with the pillow, then lay back with a contented sigh as I kept caressing her legs.

  “Two weeks is plenty of rest,” I told her. “You should be good as new by now.”

  She sighed. “I’m not. Cassie wants me to go back on her couch so she can fuss over me, but I wanted to get back to my life. Outside of your visits, all I was doing was lying there, streaming Netflix, and obsessing about…things. But I’m not doing good. I’m so tired. Glenda’s smoothies are the only thing keeping me going. And…mmm, that feels good.”

  I kept doing the thing that felt good and she relaxed into my touch, turning her face to the pillow and closing her eyes. There was something beyond her easily depleted physical energy that was worrying her—something about her town, her responsibilities, her magic. But I could tell she didn’t want to talk about it right now. I could tell she didn’t want to even think about it.

  It scared her. Something worried and scared her, and I didn’t want my couch-witch to be afraid. I wanted her to laugh. And to make those happy contented noises she was making.

  Well, had been making. Right now, she wasn’t making those noises anymore; she was snoring.

  I looked down at her face, wanting to kiss her. But fairy tales to the contrary, I knew from experience that often did not go well. Kissing a sleeping person whom one had been in the happy habit of kissing while awake was fine. But a first kiss while they were asleep? There was a good sixty percent chance that was going to result in a fist to the face and not amazing sex.

  So gave her legs one last caress, got up, put a blanket over her, then left before I decided it was worth the risk of get punched in the face.

  Chapter 4

  Sylvie

  The next morning, I chugged down a glass full of Glenda’s smoothie concoction, hoping it would be enough to get me through the day. Then I chased it with strong black coffee in an effort to get the foul taste out of my mouth. My first appointment was at ten, so I had time to scramble a few eggs and actually have a decent breakfast.

  I felt…better. Maybe it was a good night’s sleep in my own home, although my couch wasn’t anywhere near as comfortable as my bed. Either way, I’d slept soundly all night, barely moving an inch. I woke up refreshed and happy.

  Eshu had come over late at night. I was sure of that, even though it felt like a dream. He’d obviously slipped out sometime before I woke, but I distinctly remembered dragging myself out of bed to answer the door, having him try to cram blueberries in my mouth, and whack me with a pillow. Then he’d done this incredibly erotic leg massage that had made me wish I hadn’t been so tired.

  Would he be back? He’d clearly gone to a lot of effort to track me down because I was sure none of my sisters told him where I lived. But Eshu was…well, Eshu. I wasn’t sure if his interest would last more than a day or two, if even that. I might not see him for months only to have him show up at my door again as if he’d never left.

  I knew better than to try to change a guy like that or to expect anything more than who he was. I only hoped the next time he came around, I was more awake and could take that leg massage to the intended conclusion.

  I couldn’t get too attached to him, though. I was vulnerable and recovering from a life-changing event. Could I enjoy what I needed, but not expect anything more, or would I end up with a bruised heart after he’d moved on to the next woman?

  But I couldn’t obsess about that right now. It was Friday, and even though I’d only been back to my life and work for two days, I was thrilled. Maybe I’d head to Pistol Pete’s for the band tonight. Then Saturday I’d have breakfast at the diner, run a few errands, take an afternoon nap, and get ready for The Game.

  The Game. I’d been on couch-rest for two weeks and left my adventuring party about to enter a condemned building in their perilous quest for the Stone of Power. There would be aliens. There would be monsters. There most definitely wouldn’t be the Stone in the treasure chest they were so determined to open. Some of them might die and have to roll up new characters, but we’d all enjoy ourselves for four or five hours while eating pizza and drinking beer.

  It felt so good to get back to normal, to the life I’d had before I’d died. But as I thought of my weekend plans, my mind drifted back to a certain demon—one who’d made me laugh those two weeks on the couch. Would he stop by tonight? Next week? Next month?

  If not, perhaps I could come up with a lame reason to go hang out at Cassie’s house with Lucien one day this week, just to see if he’d show up. Or I could just be honest with myself and ask Cassie about him.

  No. I’d gone through enough. I didn’t need to be chasing after some demon that I was pretty sure was a total playboy. If he stopped by, I’d indulge in whatever he offered. And then I’d try hard to forget about him just as quickly as he forgot about me.

  Brushing Eshu once more out of my mind, I stacked the dishes in the sink, gathered up a sweater and my purse, and headed to the office.

  My first client of the day was Henriette, who was one of my life-coach clients. After a lifetime of same old-same old, she was trying to discover who she truly was inside. It was sort of a banshee mid-life crisis. Henri
ette’s current goal was to find something new and rewarding to focus on in the second half of her very long life, to find a passion hobby.

  The past month I’d had her write down all the things she’d always found intriguing but never done. Narrowing them down, we ended up with a list of five. Her goal was to try one item from that list each week, then be prepared to discuss the experience at our meeting.

  Sky diving. Knife-throwing. Irish dance. White water rafting. Plein air painting.

  Yep, plein air painting. That’s what Henriette had spent the last three weeks working on because we hadn’t had a meeting due to my accident and recuperation and she wasn’t the sort of banshee who would proceed onto the next item on the list without my approval and guidance.

  So far, we’d explored Irish dance, which the banshee had thoroughly enjoyed and had been actually quite good at, and knife throwing. She wasn’t as good at knife throwing, and after an unannounced demonstration in our session, I’d done what all my training forbade me to do and informed her she should give that one up immediately.

  Let’s just say I’m glad I’m a luck witch because I’m pretty sure otherwise I would have spent some time in the hospital recovering from knife wounds.

  Henriette was waiting for me outside my office door. One thing about banshees—they’re prompt. I guess it was that whole harbinger of death thing. It made me wonder if there was some connection between them and reapers. I’d have to ask Nash some time if he ever worked with banshees or if they’d been handled by some different department or his soul-reaping organization, whatever it was. I’d asked Henriette once about her banshee nature, and she’d told me it wasn’t like a job where she had to run around and shriek before every person in the world died. She said it was more like an impulse that hit her, and she never knew exactly who her wailing was for. She could be in a crowded shopping mall and bam—ear-splitting screaming. Moving to Accident made life much easier on her and her sisters. A town full of supernaturals meant there weren’t a lot of deaths to herald. And here there was no fear that someone would call mall security and haul her off for a psychiatric evaluation.

  I let Henriette in and noticed that she was carrying what appeared to be the world’s largest briefcase. Once we were in my office, she unzipped it and I realized it was, in fact, the world’s largest art portfolio case.

  It seemed the banshee had taken her plein air assignment seriously. I watched as she unpacked and displayed the various artwork, her black hair a lovely complement to her dark-gray skin. Had she colored it? It seemed shinier and a deeper shade than it was when we last met. And she’d coiled it up into a clip, the tail sticking up in a spray of ebony locks.

  Hair color or not, Henriette seemed to be livelier, more animated than she’d been when she first started coming to me. It was a good sign—one that made me think we were on the right track here.

  “What do you think?” She stood back and expanded her arms as if she were on a game show modeling the prizes.

  “Henriette, it’s what you think that matters. These projects are all about you finding what activities bring you joy. It’s the journey that matters, not the destination.”

  “Yes, but are these the sort of destinations you’d not be ashamed to hang on your wall? Things you might actually praise or even pay for?”

  I eyed them closely. They were amateurish in my estimation, but I was no art critic. One was a nymph sitting by a stream, combing her hair. Another showed a cow grazing in a field. Another was a scene from our own Main Street with the diner in the corner and John the Cyclops’ car parked out front.

  “I like them. They’re not my style, and I don’t think they’d be sellable as art, but I believe you could hang them on your wall and not be ashamed to show them to your friends and family.”

  She nodded, eyeing the paintings with renewed interest.

  “But the real question,” I continued, “is did you enjoy painting them? Let’s talk about your mental and emotional state as you were creating each of these.”

  “Meditative,” she immediately offered. “I didn’t worry about whether I was doing it right or if the end result was going to be a piece of crap or not. I just let myself fall into the mixing of paints and making a scene come to life on the canvas.”

  I nodded. The Irish dancing had made her feel alive and powerful. It had been exhilarating, and she’d taken pride in mastering the sometimes-complicated steps. Knife throwing had been cathartic, but while I’m all for catharsis, the potential for town casualties was considerable. Painting seemed like it might be a beneficial thing for Henriette to continue pursuing.

  “Is this the sort of activity you might enjoy doing weekly or monthly?” I asked. “When life gets stressful, it’s nice to be able to turn to something that calms you, that centers you.”

  “I think weekly,” she replied after some thought.

  “Like the Irish dancing, the important thing is the way the activity makes you feel. If you find something else that has the same result, feel free to switch or even add the other activity into your schedule.”

  “Like pottery, or fiber arts.” She pursed her lips and nodded. “I was thinking the same thing about skydiving. It’s probably going to give me the same feelings as the Irish dancing, although maybe more of a rush because it’s dangerous. If I like that, then I could do Irish dancing every other week, and maybe skydiving every few months or a couple times in the summer.”

  “Exactly. And the same with white water rafting. You may end up spacing out those three activities or alternating between them depending on exactly what you feel like doing.”

  “The knife throwing was fun,” she added with a sideways grin. “Maybe I’ll try that again.”

  “I suggest you stick to dancing, and possibly skydiving or white water rafting. The knife throwing was going to get someone killed. As in, me or possibly one of the humans in town. At the very best, you were going to impale a werewolf and find yourself eviscerated in response.”

  She laughed. “You’re right, especially about the werewolves. They don’t take stabbing lightly. Ask me how I know.”

  I couldn’t resist that. “Okay. How do you know?”

  Banshees were gossips, and Henriette and her two sisters were the most gossipy gossips I’d ever known.

  “Chantal said that Kirk said that Ellen said that yesterday night at Petunia’s Bait, Auto Repair, and Beer, Bart Dickskin got stabbed and next thing you know, there’s car parts and buckets of worms flying and people smashing bottles of Budweiser over each other’s heads. Sheriff Oakes got called out, but by the time he got there, everyone had scattered.”

  I stared at her. “Wait…what? Who stabbed Bart? And why? What happened?”

  Petunia’s was normally a pretty chill place, with residents hanging out to wait while their cars were repaired or discussing fishing before picking up bait and beer. The owner normally didn’t tolerate any sort of fighting or arguments. Petunia was a boar-shifter. And a guy. I’ve got no idea why he was called Petunia, but no one made fun of the name, just like no one made fun of the Dickskin werewolves’ name. Well, at least not to their face.

  She sighed, clearly thinking I was an idiot for my inability to follow the convoluted story. “Melvin was there, chewing the fat and getting some work done on a carburetor, and Bart came in to pick up bait and beer. They know they’re supposed to be civil when they’re in town, but you know werewolves aren’t real good at being civil.”

  The light of understanding went on in my head. “So, Melvin is one of Dallas’s…cousins? Nephews? And Bart is part of Clinton’s pack?”

  She sent me a scathing glance. “They’re both Dickskins—third cousins twice removed of Dallas. Melvin is with Clinton’s group, and Bart is part of Dallas’s group. Goodness sakes, Sylvie. You’re a Perkins; you’re supposed to know these things.”

  She was right, but the werewolves had never been so involved in town activities and affairs that I’d learned all of their names. Nor was I positive who w
as with what faction.

  “So, I get that there was some tension between Bart and Melvin, but why the stabbing?”

  She shrugged. “Werewolves get stabby. It happens.”

  “But was there an argument?” I pressed. She was a banshee. They knew everything that happened in this town. “Why didn’t Petunia throw them all out?”

  “Of course there was an argument. And Petunia wasn’t there. He was out getting an engine part from the Chevy dealer outside the wards. First there was some name calling. Then there were some not-so-subtle digs at bathroom habits and hunting abilities. Then Bart ‘accidently’ threw an elbow when walking by Melvin to supposedly get a six pack of beer from the walk-in. Melvin spun around with a screwdriver in his hand and jabbed it into Bart’s thigh. All completely an accident, of course.”

  Of course. I could only imagine the sort of force Melvin would have needed to use to actually stab a screwdriver into someone’s leg. None of this was an accident, and it was absolutely typical of what happened when werewolves were either drinking or pissed off about something.

  Stuff like this made me wish they’d all pack up and move somewhere other than Accident.

  “Bart yelped when he got stabbed with the screwdriver, and things started flying. Took about five seconds before everyone else had joined in and there were broken beer bottles and worms all over the place. Petunia had an absolute shit-fit when he got back and saw the place.”

  I’ll bet. “And they were both gone by the time the sheriff got there.” I repeated her earlier statement.

  “Yep.” She rolled her eyes. “I kinda wish those werewolves would just go to war and get it over with. Least that way they’d keep it up on the mountain and stop fighting with each other in town. Every time one of Dallas’s wolves and one of Clinton’s wolves end up in the same place, fur flies.”

  I thought about the issues with the werewolves while Henriette and I discussed her skydiving trip next week and how joining a book club could expand both her social activities and give her an opportunity to expand her reading interests.