Hexes and Hellfire: Kyra Bell: Book One

by Brittany Rose

  We were disgustingly insatiable. I couldn’t get enough of him, and we were inseparable over those three days, while nothing else happened besides the day to day running of the ranch. Which for me was two hours of brewing potions every morning, and then helping set the table and clear up after each meal. It left us plenty of time to play and spend time together, and I even had time to continue my studying.

  We were in a honeymoon stage, and our brief time apart for our responsibilities merely ensured the heat and fire between us built back up to explosive proportions.

  I felt like I was falling in love, and hard, but at the same time I knew that was mostly an illusion due to the pleasure and intimacies we shared, partially a chemical romance. But, we were growing closer too, it wasn’t all emotions and chemistry. I did have hopes for the long term, even if it was far too soon for any kind of surety there.

  Both Abby and John took it in stride and were even happy for us. John seemed to think it was about time, and he told me he saw it coming on the first day. Abby was a little conflicted, which probably had to do with the fact she hadn’t made a decision on if I was staying or not. I didn’t let it worry me, at least, I didn’t let it color the time Vic and I spent together. She’d make a decision in two more days, and perhaps it was foolish, but I believed she’d accept it.

  It felt like being in a whirlwind, those three days. Not that it stopped cold after three days, not completely, but trouble once again entered our lives. It was the nature of the supernatural world. Power corrupts after all, and a percentage of us lose ourselves to ambition, much like the human race. Except, we have a lot more power, personal power I mean in the form of magic.

  Our power gave us a greater potential for good, but equally toward evil as well.

  Adele had been a sadistic fire witch, overly impressed with her own power, and foolish enough to mess with the denizens of hell. Putting her down had been the right thing to do, our only choice actually since she was going to kill us, but it’d had unintended side effects. We’d thought we’d dealt with those, with turning ourselves over to the council for judgement, and at the same time getting Serin off of our asses, but the fallout wasn’t quite done yet.

  I wasn’t entirely sure the fallout from the council was done with either. We’d shamed a Nephilim, if not in front of the world or humans, in front of his peers, and he’d lost all his authority. But so far there’d been no backlash to that.

  The four of us had just gotten home from a night out, we’d had dinner and gone dancing. The living room was warm, or so it seemed to me with Vic’s arm around me, and we were sharing a night cap before turning in for the night.

  Well, John would be guarding us when sleep finally came for the rest of us, but I was more than sure he’d be sharing Abby’s bed until that happened.

  There was a triple hard knock on the door, aggressive, and I almost slipped and told them it was a powerful earth witch and vampire at the door. I was so relaxed in his arms, my guard was down, but I managed to swallow the words before they came out. Supernaturals couldn’t feel the other races, except for what my third race was, and the Nephilim.

  At least, not without spells for witches, or scents for shifters.

  I felt a little guilty about hiding the truth from Vic now, but there was no way I was sharing that secret. Everyone had secrets, and this one wouldn’t harm anyone, I wasn’t anything like the person they’d believe me to be if they learned that truth. I liked to think so, anyway.

  The four of us got up and moved toward the door. Abby rolled her eyes at our protectiveness, but the three of us were looming just a few feet back when she answered the door.

  The earth witch looked familiar but I couldn’t place it for the moment, with light blonde hair, vivid blue eyes, and a very lithe five foot four in height. She had on a mauve pencil skirt and creamy white blouse. The vampire had short dirty blonde hair, and blue-gray eyes. He was wiry, and about five foot eleven in height. He had on black dress pants and wore a button-down dress shirt and tie. It was like they were dressed for the office.

  Strangely, though they were the visitors, I felt underdressed and at a disadvantage. Especially in the risqué little black dress I’d worn for clubbing. It was then I realized why she looked familiar, she wasn’t the spitting image Adele, but she was so close to it there was no doubt this was Adele’s family.

  I tensed up a little and laid my hand on my bag, just in case I needed to pull a pistol quickly.

  Abby asked neutrally, “Can I help you?”

  The witch made an apologetic face, one that was artfully done but I didn’t believe for a second. Her face looked right for it, both regretful with a tentative slight smile, but her eyes were too cold, calculating.

  “I’m sorry for showing up at your door so late, but we just got in town and it seemed prudent to do so. I’m Adele’s younger sister, Vera. This is my companion, Darren. I was hoping we could talk? I come in peace.”

  Abby paused for a moment, and I relaxed slightly when she didn’t invite the woman inside the wards.

  “What do you want to say?”

  Vera sighed, “I loved my sister, but she was… what do the humans say? The black sheep in the family. She abused the craft, summoned demons, and I’m not all that surprised she paid for that. I’m in town just for a few days to put affairs in order, I’m the executor of her will. Clean out her property, and put it up for sale, all that. I felt the need to make sure this is settled, and there won’t be problems between our groups?”

  Abby shook her head, “Why would there be?”

  Vera shrugged, “It takes all kinds, groups on the edge of supernatural society have been known to be vindictive toward whole supernatural families to remove even the slightest chance of vengeance or blood debt. I can already see, now that I’m talking to you, that’s not the case here, but it seemed prudent to find out if I had enemies here. I’ll be here a few days, and then gone back to Texas.”

  That almost made sense, but I wanted to call bullshit.

  Abby nodded, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Vera’s face showed anger for a moment, but it cleared so fast I wondered if I saw it.

  “Thank you. She wasn’t a good person, and was hard to grow up with, but I loved her. Good night.”

  They turned and left, and Abby slowly closed the door when the dark night swallowed up their forms.

  “Vic?” she asked.

  Vic grumbled, “Her scent was disguised, but my instincts tell me she was full of shit, and this was her evaluating her sister’s killers and enemy. We need to be careful.”

  Abby sighed, “I got that impression, it’s why I didn’t let her in. She had detections going, but the wards held them back at the door’s threshold, so she has no idea how powerful we are.”

  “Maybe, but I bet she read the earth, and that would give her an idea, based on the fight.”

  Vic grunted.

  John nodded, “I’ll be careful tonight. Chances are she had more people out of sight, just in case we attacked. She did learn we weren’t aggressive, which will allow her to plan accordingly.”

  Abby smiled ruefully, and shook her head, “Or, we’re all paranoid, and we’ll never see her again.”

  Yeah, I wouldn’t count on that. She’d definitely been sizing us up. She’d also tossed a bucket of ice water on the night, and we moved back into the living room and poured another drink to try and reclaim the mood.

  The next morning I woke up warm and comfortable against my hard-bodied shifter, but it was only three in the morning when I looked at the clock, we’d slept just a couple of hours. I felt unsettled.

  Vic looked at me and tensed, “What woke us?”

  “I don’t know. Vibrations?”

  Abby’s voice reached us through the house, “Stable, on fire!” no doubt feeling it through the wards she had on that building.

  Crap. I jumped up and pulled on a t-shirt and stretchy shorts, and I slipped my feet into running shoes. I didn’t bother with pan
ties or a bra, no time, but I wasn’t fighting a fire naked. Vic was already shifted and running out the door on all fours with a low growl in his throat, and I took off after him.

  Both of us overcame Abby halfway across the field. The light of the fire lit up the edge of the stables, and there was black smoke pouring into the sky. I was more worried about Clara and the other horses than I expected I’d ever be.

  John came into view, and he already had the hose going but it didn’t look all that effective. He also had the large stable doors open at both ends, so the horses wouldn’t all die of smoke inhalation.

  Thanks to John’s patrol and Abby’s wards, we’d caught the fire in its infancy. It looked like the fire was on the wall and roof in the back corner, but the horses all neighing and moving around in terror made it much worse in my mind.

  As I got close enough to see inside, I could see that corner of the stables was partially collapsed. The roof dipped, the wall was precariously leaning only held up by nails and a prayer, and there was splintered wood. What the hell?

  I ran in, and opened the stalls closest to the fire, that weren’t already on fire, and got them out of there. At the same time, I could hear Abby chanting an air spell, probably to starve the fire of oxygen. I got two more horses out before I finished, my heart pounding in my chest, angry, and coughing from even the light smoke inhalation.

  Abby’s spell went off, and the fire died quickly. With no oxygen it couldn’t sustain itself. I didn’t bother getting the other horses out either, as a quick follow up spell by our air witch cleared the room of even the minimal smoke that was lingering, and the horses were already settling down.

  That’s when I noticed Vic was standing guard, alert for any attack. That made sense, but I knew there’d been no other supernaturals close.

  Abby said, “What happened?”

  John shook his head, “I don’t know, I didn’t see anyone. It was like an earthquake, a very short one that almost knocked down the end of the stables, then the fire started. I grabbed the hose and started to spray down the wood, to stop it from spreading.”

  Abby grimaced, “Earth magic?”

  “Vera.” I had no proof, but I could feel it in my gut.

  Abby blew out a breath, and then cast another spell, detect magic. She walked into the stable and toward the burnt end that looked like it might just collapse at any moment, and she searched the detritus on the floor. She bent down and picked up a small piece of steel, with semi-precious gems embedded in the metal.

  “Earth magic. Vera must’ve thrown this into the stables on her way in or off the property. The spell attached to it was spent, but I can read the residual magic on it.”

  John blew out a breath, “Earth witch, that explains the earthquake and the building almost falling down, but not the fire.”

  Abby pointed at the corner just a few feet away from where she’d picked it up. We all looked in that direction, and one of the outlets was blackened and charred.

  “Electrical fire, a clever use of earth magic, to start a fire that way.”

  Vic growled, his eyes still scanning the darkness around us. He was probably wondering why they didn’t attack, when we were quite distracted there for a minute.

  “It was a lure, not a distraction to ambush us. We defended and killed Adele because we had the home ground and wards on our side. She did this to piss us off, and even knocked on our door with that ridiculous bullshit story to tell us where she’d be. She wants us dead for killing her sister, but she’s smart enough to also want the homefield advantage, and if we don’t go after her she’ll do something like this again, until we do. If we do go after her, we’ll be facing her wards, protections, and perhaps even Adele’s fading ones.”

  John gave me a funny look.

  “What?”

  John cleared his throat, “You seem exceptionally adept at reading the intentions of our psychopathic enemies.”

  I supposed that was true, did that make him nervous, that I could so easily put myself in their shoes? Into the shoes of a sadistic women obsessed with revenge? I didn’t think I was a psychopath, but I’d just been on the run or hiding for four years, and I’d had a lot of time strategize in my mind and I was good at doing exactly that. Putting my frame of mind toward those that would hunt me, so I could anticipate their actions.

  I was also rather intelligent.

  I laughed, “I’ll take that as a compliment. No doubt, she hoped we’d be so angry we came after her without pausing to think. Of course, her plan had been to collapse the stables, and kill all our horses. If that had worked, we wouldn’t be thinking straight right now.”

  Vic chuffed, changed, and then pulled on a pair of overalls that were hanging on a hook. I watched shamelessly.

  Abby snorted, “Maybe, but we still need to go after them. We can stop an attack and defend, but they can chip away at us using sabotage until we do if they refuse to engage fully. Any suggestions on how to do that, so we all survive? Attacking a fortified position doesn’t sound healthy.”

  “We need to know what we’re facing, she showed us her vampire but kept the rest of her group hidden from us. Someone needs to do a recon before we can plan. We should also stack the odds in our favor if we can, give Sally and Stan a call and see if they’ll help us out. The twelve of us should overwhelm her, even on her home ground.”

  Abby frowned, “Why would they help?”

  I shrugged, “A little fear of the unknown, and we’ve worked together recently to good results, and cooperated with the warehouse. It wouldn’t hurt, for the three remaining groups in the area to organize a true mutual defense, but it means we’ll have to come to their aid later, if they ask us.”

  John laughed, “Fear of the unknown?”

  I nodded, “That one’s easy. No one knows Vera’s true intentions. Will a psycho like that really be satisfied taking down just the one group, that killed her sister, or will she go after all her sister’s enemies in the area? No way to tell, except we all know Adele would’ve killed all three groups, Vera’s just starting with ours because we’re guiltiest in her eyes. Stand together, or fall separately, kind of thing. I don’t know, maybe I’m being naïve, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask, would it?”

  Abby sighed, “Let’s get this fixed, so the stable doesn’t collapse. I’ll call them tomorrow. I’ll also send out a bird or two to spy on them, see what we’re facing in numbers and abilities, if not wards and traps. Either way, we hit them tomorrow night, right after the ranch closes. We don’t have a choice, not if Vera is bent on revenge.”

  That would work. Air witches could commune with and even share their senses with birds, given they knew the right spells. It was kind of perfect actually, an earth witch couldn’t do anything to prevent it, and would most likely not even notice it. Earth magic was ineffective several hundred feet in the air. Of course, Vera could have an air witch with her too, that’s what we needed to find out.

  We got started on fixing the stable. I was able to fix the electric, copper wire was earth after all, so was the steel tubing, and rather small so within the bounds of my magical ability. Vic and John used four by fours to set up new supports at the edge of the damage, then ripped out the wall and part of the roof that was splintered and would need to be replaced. Then they replaced it with simple half-inch sheets of plywood using two by fours to brace it, and then covered it with tarps so it wouldn’t rot in the rain, and it kept the wind out.

  It was a temporary fix of course, with whatever they could find in the barn. Best we could do in the middle of the night. They’d need to hit home depot to buy the supplies to fix it good as new. By the time it was done the sun was peaking over the horizon and it was time to start our day.

  So, while Abby cooked breakfast I brewed the best potion ever to get us through the day. Coffee…

  Chapter Seventeen

  That morning I had to brew another twenty bottles of perfect vision eye drops. Word of mouth must’ve spread the word, because they were selling fas
t. I also needed to brew a batch of both contraceptive and performance enhancement potions. That those two were quick sellers was probably worth a snicker or two, considering they related to the same thing.

  Lastly, until lunch, I started to experiment and design a potion for memory enhancement. I didn’t get very far with it, like my magic wasn’t sure which way to go on it. I wasn’t discouraged, new potions took time and it was a brand-new project now that I had the eye drops figured out.

  It was only when I headed to the house for lunch with Vic, that we got any updates. Neither of us were in the mood that day, it was the first time we’d skipped a mid-morning quickie. I was too tired, and we were both angry about the Vera thing. Vera was probably as nuts as her sister was, sadistic and controlling, and worse yet, she seemed smarter.

  I had potions that would make us alert and ready to go, because we couldn’t risk trying to get some sleep first. She’d just do something else in the middle of the night on our grounds if we did. Assaulting protective ground while sleepy just sounded like a horrible idea, after all. We had to go after her. But, those potions weren’t safe to use a lot of in succession, so better we made it through the day sleepy and only needed to take one dose right before the attack.

  At least John got to sleep all day, vampire.

  We could always crash when it was done. I didn’t like killing, but I’d sleep the sleep of the righteous after putting that crazy bitch down. Next to the guilt and nightmares Manhattan caused me, guilt or doubts about putting down someone trying to kill me wasn’t even on my radar.

  Abby had thrown together a plate of cold cuts, shredded lettuce, sliced tomatoes, sliced onions, and there was mayo and mustard on the table. There was also a stack of bread, and some soft tortillas if anyone wanted a wrap instead. She’d also put out a potato salad and macaroni salad for sides. I put together a roast beef sandwich and scooped out some potato salad for my side. It was good.