The Baker's Guide to Risky Rituals

by Kathryn Moon

  “I’m not stepping down,” Bell said. “I’m warning you, and only you. I’ll let you know if it…gets more serious.”

  Send him to the Bowels, the voice in Pie’s head bellowed. But Pie was…curious. Could Bell keep his promise to the witch? Was a human woman really so capable of unraveling all their work? Even if Bell wasn’t playing the witch, Pie could let it be a deception, one he was in control of. Bell could protect her from the things he was stronger than, but Paimon, Great King of Hell, was not one of those things.

  “And the detectives?” Pie asked.

  “Merryweather sang the whole story to whoever would listen. I left when they let me. An ambulance took Josie to the hospital.”

  Pie’s eyes tracked movement as Bell frowned, twitching in his seat. What kind of restraint had it taken the demon king to keep himself from following the little witch and healing her? Potentially dangerous as the situation was, it did prove entertaining.

  “Well… you wouldn’t be the first of us to get caught up with them,” Pie said softly. Bell snorted. “And I’m not inclined to lead a mutiny and take your position. I’ll keep my eye out.”

  Bell nodded and relaxed. Pie would toss Bell out on his ass if that was what needed doing for the mission, although he might play the card at the last second.

  “Good luck,” Pie said, as Bell pushed up from his seat at the garden table. “From what I’ve heard, human women are a powerful lot.”

  Bell’s teeth gritted almost audibly, and he left the garden for the house. The cigarette was burnt out right down to the filter, stinging Pie’s human skin where he’d forgotten about it. He dropped the butt in the ashtray and lit another.

  Light flickered on in the corner of his eye, and Pie’s stare shifted back across the garden to the carriage house on the other side of the fence. Slowly, carefully, Pie allowed a small amount of color to filter into his vision. He preferred to see in black and white and gray in the human world, cutting away some of the distraction and clutter. It was easier to focus, easier to mute the natural glitter of Earth and focus on the mission.

  The curtains on the second story were sheer, in shades of orange and pink and green, mismatched and vibrant. Pie twisted the smoke in the air to frame the picture as a shadow stepped up to a window, pulling back the curtains. Dark curls bounced in every direction, and Pie smashed color back down, retreating to grays as Rosa Velasco stood in her bedroom window and stared back at him.

  The green witch was vibrant even without color, and Pie played with his own curiosity on slow evenings. She had blue bottles in her kitchen windows, and multi-colored Christmas lights wrapping around her stair railings. He wondered what shades she came in but hadn’t looked yet.

  The witches were proving a complication in Sweet Pea. Now, with Bell compromised, the last thing they needed was for Pie to be distracted by his curiosity. He stubbed the cigarette in the ashtray and stood, leaving Rosa watching him retreat to the house from the view of her upstairs window.

  “I mean honestly, what was that man thinking?” Mrs. Montgomery said, staring long enough at Josie from across the counter that Josie thought she might be seriously looking for an answer. “Well, I mean, we all know the vote was bound to keep the park.”

  Josie hummed and nodded, eyeing the line from her counter out the front door of the bakery. At least no one looked impatient to get their pastry. Of course, that was because they were all here to tell Josie that they never, not for one second, doubted that she had nothing to do with the murders.

  The news of Merryweather’s confession spread like wildfire, not just through Sweet Pea but through all the surrounding towns, largely due to Bell’s over enthusiastic magic on Merryweather, who spouted the confession to anyone who stepped within hearing distance. By the time the coven picked Josie up from the emergency room, the news had made it to everyone’s ears. Merryweather had managed his goal in one fashion, his family name was now vividly painted in the community memory. Sweet Pea was only too happy to gobble up the equally sordid version of events, and Josie was now a ‘local’ darling.

  “I think he was just looking forward to the money, honestly,” Josie said. “What can I get for you today?”

  “Oh, I am sure you’re right,” Mrs. Montgomery nodded. “Oh, I just don’t know it all looks so good. And so reasonable too. Did you lower your prices, honey?”

  She had not, although Josie thought now might be a good time to raise them. “Same as ever.”

  “Well I’ll just have…” And then Mrs. Montogomery genuinely shocked the hell out of Josie with an order that was as long as the line to the counter.

  What on earth had that woman said about her that she felt this guilty?

  This is as good a way as any to take an apology, a voice murmured in her head. It sounded suspiciously like Bell.

  To Mrs. Montgomery’s credit, she didn’t even bat her false eyelashes at the total, just took her pastry box with the world’s corniest grin and leaned across the counter, lowering her voice in a conspiratorial manner. “Oh, and I just can’t wait till tomorrow night.” Then she giggled like a school girl and waddled her way out the door, bleach blonde curls bouncing.

  Josie swallowed her startled laugh and served her next customer. So, Montgomery was coming to their Samhain circle. Well, alrighty then.

  They’d decided, bundled up together as a coven in June’s soft apartment, with bandages around Josie’s freshly tended stomach, to go ahead and invite the town to the circle. Sure, they were proven innocent, but this couldn’t hurt. The town had made an official Facebook event out of it, and Josie suspected their audience was about to be a lot bigger than June had planned for.

  Josie served the line of customers that just seemed to keep growing, until for the first time in Josephine’s Bakery history, she had to close early due to being sold out. It wasn’t an entirely good feeling. She knew the reason they were there; to gawk or to absolve their guilt. There was a kind of satisfaction to it though. She prepped for the next day with the lights off and the kitchen door shut, and then locked up and walked down to Knots and Knittery.

  June’s wards tangled around her like a spider’s web as she stepped inside, filmy and clinging against her skin.

  “Hey,” June greeted, the magic fading. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah! Yeah, I just sold out and got to close early, actually.”

  “Oh,” June set down her knitting and started toward her purse on the shelf behind her desk. “I’ll let you into the apartment, you probably want to rest.”

  “Actually. I was thinking… I think I’ll go ahead and get back into my apartment,” Josie said.

  June paused, silver eyes wide and startled. “Are you sure?”

  Josie had stayed with June for the week since Merryweather had broken in, and Josie had never felt a place that seemed safer or more protected than June’s little apartment. It was a relief to be there, and surprisingly easy, even with her and June being so different. But she had work that needed doing, and situations that she had to stop avoiding.

  “I’m sure,” she said, nodding. “I need to get my altar back in order before I lose all the favor I had. And… I dunno. Need to feel safe in my space again, even if that takes some work. But I’ll be borrowing some of your warding techniques!”

  June smiled, cheeks pinking with pride, and she nodded. “I’ll make you some wall hangings too. Alright. I’m just down the road anyway. See you tomorrow for the circle.”

  “Hope you’re ready for the crowds,” Josie said, grinning as June stiffened in shock again. “Oh girl, yeah. We are the number one Halloween event in town tomorrow night. Get ready.”

  Josie thought she might even have caught a curse from June’s lips as she headed for the door, but it was so quiet it could just as easily have been the click of knitting needles starting up again.

  It was harder than she expected to bring herself to unlock the door up to her apartment. She stood at the bottom of the stairs, listening to silence until her h
eartbeat settled in her chest. The scent of ash was lingering on the air, and Josie frowned, hurrying up the stairs.

  Instead of the wreckage she half expected to find, her apartment was… tidy. Bright. Possibly lacking a layer of dust that she hadn’t gotten around to clearing away. When she walked down the hall and found the wall and floor completely clean of any trace of blood, and the familiar whiff of smoke stronger than usual, she realized what had happened. Bell had cleaned up her apartment for her, erasing the gory evidence.

  The scars on her stomach gave a soft pang. They were healing now, itchy and scabbed over since Merryweather hadn’t dug the knife in very deep, but they sometimes gave her a phantom feeling of Bell being nearby. She didn’t really mind it.

  Her fingers reached up to her lips in absent thought as she approached her bedroom. The memory of the kiss was always halfway present, trying to distract her from the real world and back to a moment full of confusion. Confusion and clarity. The attraction had been present from the beginning, of course. The demand to consume one another was a minor revelation for her.

  Josie stopped in the doorway of her bedroom, breath held in her chest. The floor was pristine, not a hint of Merryweather’s circle, and not a drop of her blood. Even more startling was her altar, everything clean and set to rights. Two teacups of rum sat out for her spirits, and candles flickered gently. There were cigars for Ghede Linto, flowers for Filomez, and strange foreign coins in surplus. It was so absurdly thoughtful that Josie wondered if she was wrong about it being Bell, if not for that very particular breed of smoke, something between cigarettes and pine.

  She dropped her overnight bag on the floor by the door and crossed to her altar, kneeling in front of the arrangement and lighting a stick of incense on a candle.

  “Glad to see someone’s been here to take care of you,” Josie said to her spirits. “Thank you, for making sure he heard that call. I really needed him.”

  The healing cuts on her skin tickled, the itch almost like a feather tracing over the lines. Josie hummed one of Mémés songs, trying to focus on her altar instead of the demon persistently at the back of her thoughts. She’d seen Bell around town in the past week, usually riding past her window on his motorcycle with the rest of his crew. She wasn’t sure what he was planning next, or if the words he’d said to her before the kiss still held true.

  She wanted to find out.

  “I’m gonna do… a stupid thing,” Josie whispered, focusing on Filomez’s flower crowned figurine. “And if it’s a really, really, really bad idea, I hope you think of a way to stop me.”

  Josie held her breath, waiting for the phone to ring or the candle to flare, or anything at all really that she might be able to divine as a stop signal. When nothing happened, not even a car honk from the street, Josie sighed and smiled. Well then, time to get to work.

  Josie didn’t have Imogen’s archaic instruments so her chalice was a nice wine glass full of whiskey, and the surface where she’d traced Bell’s sigil was a dry erase board. Her stomach might’ve worked just as well, but she wasn’t sure since the marks were starting to heal. She set a clove cigarette burning in an old ashtray she kept her keys in, because it reminded her of the smell of him, and a black candle burning on a tea saucer. Three sprigs of rosemary were dipped into a small bud vase, cutting through the scent of smoke every time she passed them.

  Her circle was perfectly round and took up every available inch of space of the open floor. Bell was a tall man and he’d probably be a taller demon, so Josie made it nice and roomy.

  When everything was in place, she tugged at the ties of her robe around her waist. She was naked underneath and feeling highly self-conscious of the fact. She’d been naked underneath when they summoned Vinny too, and she hadn’t thought twice about it. But of course, there’d been no chance of Vinny seeing what was underneath.

  Josie sucked her bottom lip between her teeth—she could still feel the memory of Bell’s bite there—and took in a deep breath. She didn’t remember all the guttural syllables Imogen had recited, but since Bell had come with the simple sacrifice of her blood and his mark on her skin, she thought she could draw him out with a bit more ceremony.

  Standing at the foot of the circle she raised her arms and raised her voice.

  “Thee I invoke, Beleth, the bornless one,” she began. “Thee who—“

  But she stopped just as suddenly as the air in the circle shimmered and Bell stepped forward through nothing, silver shining in his black hair, and a smirk curling up his lips.

  “You could’ve just called,” he said.

  “You didn’t even let me get started,” she said. “Don’t you wanna know all the stuff I was gonna say about you?”

  “Tell me now,” Bell said, smirk turning to a grin.

  Josie’s heart flip-flopped in her chest as lines crinkled at the corner of his eyes. She really liked that smile, the surprised and giddy one all tucked under sarcasm.

  She notched her hands at her waist and raised an eyebrow, droning through her list, “Who is a math nerd. Who could beat me at a board game, probably. Who likes chocolate and quiche.” She smiled as he laughed, a whisper of a sound that made her shiver. “Who satisfies.”

  Bell’s laugh turned to a purr. “What do you need, Josie?”

  “You’re making this awfully easy,” Josie said, fingers fidgeting with the cuffs of her robe.

  “Would you like me to resist you?” he asked, glancing around at the circle. “Your language needs work, certainly, but the offerings are fair. And I haven’t agreed yet.”

  True. Right. Josie squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “We’re holding a circle tomorrow night, a protection spell for Sweet Pea. I want the magic to be strong. Strong enough to…”

  “To stand up against me?” he asked, but his gaze hadn’t lost the hint of a smile. “Are you asking what I think you’re asking, Josie?”

  Why couldn’t she get the words out? Her heart was rioting in her chest as she stared back at him, imagined what might come next. Warmth flooded up her neck. “Now that I think about it, I shoulda just called. I feel weird summoning you and demanding this.”

  Bell stepped forward to the edge of the circle until they were only a handful of inches apart, the magic of the circle preventing him from touching her.

  “Ask nicely,” he said, grinning.

  Which was just the right tease to make the words break free. “Beleth, would you consent to… work sex magic with me?” she said, nose wrinkling. Making sex magic? Having sex magic? Performing?

  Bell bent, and Josie felt the wobble of power between them. He could crack the shell on her circle open if he wanted to. That was fine.

  “Say, ‘to my satisfaction,’” Bell murmured, his lips hovering just near hers.

  “To my satisfaction,” Josie breathed.

  “I consent,” he said, and then he stepped back, and Josie swayed forward as if he’d stolen all the oxygen between them. When he returned to the center he was naked, lean muscles flexing invitingly, and cock hanging between his thighs, dark and swelling slowly. His shoulders and thighs were embellished with strange, black tattoos—images between mathematical forms and constellations and twining knots.

  “I was looking forward to undressing you,” Josie said.

  “Get inside this circle, Cupcake,” Bell said, toes tapping against the floor in a gesture Josie found strangely innocent. “I can’t reach you from here.”

  She toyed with the ties of her robe at her waist, enjoying the way his eyes fastened on the sight, his body tensing as she loosened them. The collar sagged open, and Josie felt a surge of power that had nothing to do with smoke or candles or spells as Bell’s eyes took on a predatory glint. She let the ties drop, the folds of fabric hanging barely open, air sliding in against her skin.

  “Come here,” he growled, one hand sliding down to his stiffening length.

  “Who’s in charge, exactly?” she asked, head cocking.

  “Let’s find out,”
he said, eyebrows jumping and teeth flashing.

  Josie shrugged the robe off, dropped it carefully away from the candles, and then stepped over the lines of the chalk circle, the whisper of smoke curling around her calves. She was already starting to get a little damp, the sight of Bell affecting her—all long lines and carved muscle, the way he completely blocked out the world with his broad shoulders as she stepped closer. Even more powerful were the colorful images passing through her head, all the possibilities of the next few moments. Who would win the hand for control?

  When Bell’s fingers cupped around her hips, tugging her against his chest, his cock pressing into her belly, Josie made up her mind. She pressed a kiss to the center of his chest where she could reach, teased her fingertips up his ribs, but when his hands slid down over her ass to grab at the backs of her thighs, she pressed her hands to the tops of his shoulders.

  “No,” she said, before he could lift her into his arms. His face was just above hers, and she took a brief, brushing kiss, leaning back as he chased her for more. “On your knees.”

  Bell’s eyes flared with heat, those coals igniting in his dark stare, and he sank smoothly down in front of her. There was nothing like this, she decided, sinking her fingers into his thick hair as she pressed down on his shoulders until his mouth hovered in front of her sex.

  “How does it work? Sex magic?” she asked, watching Bell’s lips part as she tugged on a fistful of silky hair.

  “Concentration. Focus on the goal,” Bell said, leaning forward and nuzzling his chin against the tender lips of her pussy. Josie shivered, his stubble was surprisingly soft, and she wanted to let her eyes fall shut to savor the feeling. “I’ll take care of that,” he said. “I want you focused on this.”

  His hand at the back of her thigh pulled, and Josie gripped tighter to Bell as he balanced her on one foot, pulling her against his mouth. A soft praising sound fell from her throat as Bell’s lips wrapped around her sensitive skin, pulling and pressing and licking as if he were kissing her mouth instead of her sex.