by Linda Wisdom
It took Jazz all of ten minutes of scanning the empty parking lot to realize she had walked over to the boardwalk instead of driving.
Fear and anger still mingled inside her and her neck hurt like hell, even if she couldn’t feel any wounds or find any sign of blood. Considering the sensation of feeling Nick literally rip her throat open, she should be able to see something. And her neck wouldn’t be hurting if he hadn’t done something there.
And Nick. Why hadn’t he gotten sick when he took her blood? At the very least, he should have suffered from one hell of a case of heartburn, since a witch’s blood is poisonous to a vampire.
“It doesn’t make sense.” Her whisper hung in the air, creating questions she had no answers for.
Needing to think things out, Jazz took a circuitous route home, stopping at a twenty-four-hour Starbucks for a Venti white chocolate mocha for herself and ignoring Fluff and Puff’s pleas for a cinnamon roll. With the charges Rex wanted to level against the slippers, she knew he had the right to demand they be taken into custody. But that didn’t mean she didn’t have more than her share of doubts about Willie’s sudden disappearance. Werecarnies tended to wander more than mortal carnies did. If she wanted success she knew she’d have to start looking for the Wereweasel before he ended up states away.
She sipped the hot liquid, savoring the rich chocolate taste mingling with the caffeine as she walked past storefronts that wouldn’t open for another couple of hours. That was fine with her, since she wasn’t in the mood to stop and chat, or even shop.
“Why does Nick have to ruin things when everything was going so well?” she muttered, taking another swig of her drink instead of sitting down and giving in to tears.
Since they had vanquished Clive Reeves a few months ago, Jazz and Nick had taken up where they had left off over thirty years ago, but with one major difference. This time around they made love more than they fought. They’d even had actual conversations. Some of them ended up with verbal outbursts, but she didn’t consider those times fighting. More a difference of opinion.
Jazz was still convinced The Protectorate wanted Nick to rejoin their ranks. Especially after Flavius’s death. Nick had taken the loss of his sire, and close friend, hard. Jazz gave him time to mourn the vampire’s passing but refused to allow him too much time. Not when there was a chance The Protectorate might try to use Nick’s guilt to persuade him to carry on Flavius’s work. She had always felt the group, set up centuries ago to govern the vampire race, used Nick’s strong sense of good and evil to further their own cause. That they would use him until there was nothing left but an empty husk.
As a former noble Roman officer, Flavius had thrived in the environment. Nick’s human role as a Slavic soldier meant he was well suited to his role as an investigator in The Protectorate, but Jazz hated his working for them. Hated how they used him. She wanted to believe him when he told her he’d left The Protectorate, but then he let slip they’d hired him to find out who was destroying vampires. She saw it as their chance to lure him back into the fold. She found it difficult to believe his claim that he only took the assignment for the hefty retainer they offered and once he received payment after Clive Reeves was killed by his victims and his mansion imploded, he was out of it.
Jazz found no compunction in checking his answering machine messages on the sly. As suspected, The Protectorate still called with offers. She wondered what would happen when, like the Mafia, they made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. To ensure that couldn’t happen, she deleted the messages before he could hear them. She just hoped he never found out what she did. Nick was big on privacy issues.
As she headed home, one thing stuck in her head. Her cell phone hadn’t rung once since she left the building.
“Stubborn vampire.” She lobbed her empty cup into a nearby trashcan and scuffed her way down the sidewalk.
***
“Stubborn witch,” Nick muttered, tossing a bag of O neg in the microwave and setting it to warm. “What makes her think I’d risk my stomach, not to mention my existence, in taking her damn poisonous blood?” The minute the microwave dinged, he opened the door and withdrew the plastic bag.
He knew some of his kind who drank directly out of the bag, but he preferred to be more civilized than that. He kept a variety of beer bottles as his beverage holder of choice, his own little way of keeping his life somewhat normal…as far as human standards of “normal” go.
As he lifted the blood-filled Schlitz bottle to his lips, a memory jogged his brain. Flavius laughing at the Heineken bottle Nick used one night while his sire chose a Baccarat crystal wine glass.
The heart that no longer beat twisted a bit in his chest. Before, it could be years between times he and Flavius saw each other, but Nick always knew that the elder vampire was somewhere in the world. Available by phone or e-mail. If Nick needed him, he was there. Then a madman used evil magick to turn the powerful vampire into a shade and it took the combined efforts of Nick, Jazz, and even Irma to send Flavius to the land of shadows where vampires went when their lives were extinguished.
Nick knew many vampires, but Flavius was more than that. He was his sire. His brother.
And now Nick was alone.
As he lowered the bottle, his eyes settled on a photograph tacked to the refrigerator by a magnet shaped like a fortune cookie—Jazz sitting on the wooden railing on the boardwalk pier, the setting sun a brilliant blaze of orange and gold behind her and just as dazzling as her smile. Denim shorts displayed legs that seemed to go on forever while her turquoise and white checked crop top trimmed in lace was feminine and flirty. Her hair was piled high in a messy knot with ends drifting in the ocean breeze.
Anyone looking at the picture wouldn’t believe that she was 700-plus years old and had more magickal power in her fingertips than many had in their entire bodies.
No one, not even Flavius, made Nick feel well and truly alive the way Jazz did.
But, other than great sex, what did he give her? Make her feel? Even after all these years, did they truly have what was required between a couple? Especially when that couple was made up of a witch and a vampire?
He swallowed the rest of the rapidly cooling blood. His appetite was gone, but after last night, he needed the nourishment.
And he needed rest.
He returned to his bed, to sheets that smelled of Jazz’s perfume. He quickly stripped off his jeans and climbed into bed, burrowing against the pillow she’d used.
The pull of daybreak wasn’t strong, but he hadn’t rested much lately, so his eyelids drooped quickly.
“Perchance to dream,” he murmured, as his body shut down for the daylight hours.
***
“You are in so much trouble,” Jazz told Fluff and Puff, setting them on her chaise then heading for her closet. She stomped all the way to the rear and placed her hand against the back wall. “My secrets are here. My secrets are dear. I ask that you open for me.” The wall trembled under her touch and silently slid to one side. A faint light shimmered inside, illuminating the interior that held magickal items Jazz rarely used, and one item she never thought she would have to use. She paused at the entrance, taking several deep breaths to calm her racing pulse. She walked over to one dark corner that was faintly illuminated by the glow coming off a fair-sized cage. Magick covering the bars prickled her skin as she picked it up and carried it out of the room. The wall silently slid closed.
Fluff and Puff’s chatter ceased as they watched her carry the cage into the room and set it on the bed. Jazz ignored their squeaks and cries of alarm as she murmured the words to release the cage door.
“I have no choice. Do you realize what will happen to you if I can’t prove your innocence? Rex can go to the Witches’ Council and demand you be destroyed. And I would have no option but to give you over to them.” When she picked up the wildly struggling slippers, angry sparks flew around the room as they fought her every step of the way. Jazz gritted her teeth against the painful magick sk
imming up her arms. She hadn’t been leading Rex on when she said they were protected. Magick did shield Fluff and Puff, and the slippers were drawing on that power now. She knew she’d have a major headache by evening. “So sad. Bunnies been bad. Don’t let me fail. Bunnies must go to jail. Because I say so, damn it!” She pushed them into the cage and quickly secured the seal on the door before they could escape. Sparks from bunny tantrums bumped up the atmosphere in the room to the point of suffocation. “Stop it! Do you think I want to use this?” She swallowed the anguish she felt. “I know Dyfynnog used this cage to keep you two prisoner, but I have to keep you secured. Or would you rather I hand you over to the Witches’ Council like Rex wants?”
She took their sudden silence as their assent. Their black eyes shot accusations at her as she moved around the room. In the end, Jazz escaped to the bathroom so that she didn’t have to listen to their angry muttering. She had a feeling their incarceration wouldn’t be pleasant for them or for her.
***
“Why isn’t there a mark?” Jazz leaned across the graceful, deep, rose-colored bowl that doubled as her bathroom sink to peer into the oval mirror. All she saw was an unblemished neck. She knew a vampire could lick a bite and it would heal instantly, but she had jerked away from Nick, so a mark, if not a lot of bruising, should still be visible. She touched her fingertips to her neck, felt tenderness along the skin’s surface, but that was all. Her moss-green eyes widened at the memory of the pain she felt at the time, but even there she couldn’t find the answers she was seeking.
She straightened up and ran over to the tub, turning off the water before it overflowed. She had decided a long hot bath was in order. The silence from the bedroom was deafening. She was positive Fluff and Puff were pouting big-time, since no one pouted better than her bunny slippers. Well, unless it was her. She had a pretty good idea once they were freed they’d be taking vengeance on anything of hers they could reach. It was up to her to vindicate them of a crime she was certain they didn’t commit, but she feared in the end she’d be the one punished. The slippers knew how to hold a grudge and even more how to make someone suffer. She made a mental note to put heavy-duty wards on her closet.
“Choices, choices.” She ran through her large selection of body washes and body creams, most of which smelled like a bakery. Since she wanted comfort, she chose a body wash inspired by the scent of creamy hot cocoa and set aside a like-scented body cream and a shimmering body powder that reminded her of marshmallows. When she was in total witch mode, she wore a heavier, spicy scent. Otherwise, she stuck to what she called the “fun stuff.” The many bottles and jars in the bathroom cabinet were proof of her addiction to good smells.
The rubber duckies lining the edge of the tub perked up as they watched her ready her bath. When Blair gave Jazz a collection of rubber duckies last summer, Jazz didn’t expect the duckies to pretty much take over the tub anytime they could. Many an evening she walked in to find it filled with water and the duckies playing their own version of Battleship.
“All right, guys, behave,” she gently scolded them, as one rubber ducky wearing Joe Cool dark sunglasses emitted a squeaky wolf whistle before hopping off the ledge and into the warm water. The others followed him into the bubbles, quacking their pleasure as they bobbed up and down in the mild waves.
Jazz switched on her CD player, stepped into the steaming water, and activated the whirlpool jets, settling back against the curve at the end that cradled her neck with just the right touch. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the outside world as the soft sounds of Celtic Woman floated through the room and the rubber duckies started scrambling back up onto the ledge, taking turns diving into the water.
She sunk further down in the water and allowed the many jets to massage her body from toes to shoulders. Soon she was lulled into a light doze.
She suddenly felt the faintest of touches brush over her toes. She smiled and shifted her feet from her dream tormentor, not really trying to escape. She couldn’t remember the duckies trying this game, but they did love to play, so she’d go along with their fun. Then she sensed the hint of fingertips trail along her ankles and up her calves. This time she couldn’t escape, nor did she want to. Instead, she parted her legs a bit in a less than subtle invitation. Her smile dimmed to a slight frown as the phantom fingers stroked her inner thighs and upward. The closer they reached her core, the colder the touch became, even in the heated water, until she felt as if needles of ice pricked her skin and pain radiated through her body. A sense of something not quite right invading her dream state brought her back to awareness and she jerked away. Water splashed over the side of the tub as she sat upright looking around the room, but nothing appeared out of place. She was alone in the room.
Even in the heated water she felt chilled. The music still played and sounds of Fluff and Puff growling complaints added further background noise. She turned her head and found the duckies now perched on the ledge. They all had a faint look of alarm on their yellow-orange faces and their beaks moved in silent distress. She leaned over the side of the tub and peered through the open bathroom door where she could see that her suite’s double doors were closed.
But that didn’t stop the sensation that the atmosphere in the rooms had drastically changed, and not for the better. Jazz quickly climbed out of the tub and opened the drain. She wrapped a bath sheet around her body, swiftly drying her skin. Normally, she would take her time and smooth on body cream and dust herself with the shimmering powder, but this time she wanted to be out of there as soon as possible.
Once wrapped warmly in her robe, she went to her trunk for sage and began burning it in pots scattered around the bathroom and bedroom. She needed to cleanse the air and purify the rooms.
She had no idea what brought her so rudely awake, but she knew one thing: whatever the fingertips that had caressed her intimately belonged to, they weren’t even remotely human.
***
Even after smudging the rooms, Jazz still felt a bit out of sorts as she dressed in aqua terry drawstring pants with an embroidered strawberry doubling as decoration and back pocket, and a matching hoody. Tiny strawberries decorated her flip flops. She kept her makeup minimal. She tried a hint of plum eye shadow and black mascara to highlight her green eyes and a dusty rose blush with shimmer in it that echoed her lipstick. Today she wanted the color to boost her unsettled spirits.
She left a pair of angry slippers behind as she exited the room.
“Wow, look at you,” Krebs, aka Jonathon Shaw, III, greeted her when she sauntered into the kitchen and pulled a bottle of citrus-flavored sparkling water out of the refrigerator. “No bad scary witch today?”
She thought of the black leather pants and black silk shirt she’d almost put on in an attempt to feel like the big bad scary witch after a bath that had turned less than relaxing.
“Maybe I’ll go more suburban witch.” She tried to picture herself driving an SUV or minivan with kiddies headed to Little League or soccer practice. She shuddered at the idea. She twisted the bottle cap off and drank half the bottle in one gulp. “Do you want to take a drive up the coast? Stop and get dinner somewhere?” Pretend all was normal with the world even if it wasn’t.
Krebs looked at her bright, almost perky, self and then down to his T-shirt, faded to the color of ancient bones, and tan and navy plaid pajama pants. His dark-brown hair stuck up in unruly spikes. Not as a fashion statement, but only because he hadn’t cleaned up yet.
“Um, we’re not even at lunchtime yet.”
“We could do it for lunch instead of dinner. I’m free,” she suggested with a brightness she didn’t truly feel. “Or even drive up to Santa Barbara, do some sightseeing, then have dinner. Come on. It’s a gorgeous day. Let’s enjoy it.” Let me escape my haunted bathroom and pissed off slippers for awhile.
“I—ah—I don’t think so. Thanks anyway.” He developed a sudden interest in his coffee mug. “Besides, I think that ghost of yours gropes me when I ride with yo
u.”
Jazz snorted as she drank her water, then coughed. “Irma’s too much of a lady to do that.” No way in Hades she’d admit that she’d seen the irascible ghost do some braille on Krebs’s very nice male bod the last time he rode with them. She guessed while he couldn’t see Irma, he could sense when she was taking liberties with him.
Bad ghost! Bad!
“And that’s not all,” he lowered his voice. “And this has only been in the past few months, but sometimes when I’ve been in the carriage house, I swore something was humping my leg.”
She swallowed the hysterical laughter that threatened to erupt. She hadn’t mentioned the dog to him yet and wasn’t looking forward to the day she did. She knew Krebs was allergic to dogs. Luckily he wasn’t allergic to a spirit dog.
“Come on, Krebs,” she whined. “We haven’t had a fun evening out in a while.”
He continued stirring his coffee even though she knew he drank it black and wouldn’t need to stir it.
“I’ve got work,” he mumbled.
“All work and no play make Krebsie a dateless boy.” She took her keys off the board near the back door. “Okay, but you’re going to miss out on some awesome seafood, terrific conversation, and a scintillating evening with moi.” She blew him a kiss and sailed out the door.
The crusty tones of Humphrey Bogart along with loud weeping greeted her as she activated the carriage house door, watching it swing outward.
Casablanca. She heaved a sigh as she entered the carriage house. Irma sat back in the cushy recliner Jazz had gotten her with a lace hanky dangling from one hand as she dabbed at her eyes. She stared at the TV, mouthing the final words.
