Charms & Demons

by Kim Richardson

  And yet, I wasn’t the type of female who was easily persuaded by a pretty face and tight behind. But it was a dream, so, why the hell not?

  I let out a feverish giggle. “You’re not really here. I’m dreaming.” And it’s a very good dream...

  “She’s losing it,” came another voice, and a black bird fluttered into the cell and flew to Logan’s shoulder. “Look at her. She’s delirious with fever. We need to get her out of here before the poison spreads to her brain.”

  Another giggle escaped me. “Poe? Get out of my dream.” He was probably only showing up in my dream because I was so worried about him.

  “Looks like it already has,” said Logan, his voice deep with concern.

  The raven leaped off Logan’s shoulder and landed next to me on the bench. “Wake up, Sam. This isn’t funny.”

  “Get out of my dream, Poe,” I said again, annoyed that I couldn’t even control my own dream. I reached out to push him away but missed.

  “It’s not a dream, you idiot. Wake up!” The raven clamped his beak around my index finger and bit down hard.

  “Ow!” I yelled, and snatched up my hand, my heart pounding in my finger. “You little shit. You bit me! That’s twice you bit me!” Wait a freaking second. That was real pain. If I felt real pain, then...

  That sobered me right up.

  Holy hell. Logan was actually here and real, and I’d nearly said something really, really stupid.

  The Goddess must still love me.

  Using the wall as support, I balanced myself to my feet, trying to gain back some of what little self-respect I had left. “How did you get in here?” I asked, my eyes flicking past Logan’s shoulder to my cell’s open barred door and finally to the steel door. That one too was open. The desk was also empty of its guard. “What happened to the guard?”

  “He went for a nap,” answered Logan. He hurried forward. “We don’t have much time before he wakes up and is really pissed. I’ve got a car parked outside. You think you can walk?” He reached out for me but I brushed his hand away.

  “Of course I can walk.” I pushed off the wall. My legs wavered a moment before I straightened myself. “Just not for very long.” Now that my delusions were gone, the pain and the nausea came rolling back in. Note to self: never get stabbed by a death blade again.

  “We would have come sooner,” said Logan, his features pinched in worry, “but we had to wait for the shift change. Less witnesses. Less mess.”

  I nodded as I strained to keep from falling over. Made sense. But something didn’t. I looked down at the raven. Strange that he’d gone to Logan instead of my grandfather or even my aunt.

  Worse, I had morning breath—or evening breath—depending on how you looked at it. I hadn’t brushed my teeth in more than twelve hours. It was what I liked to call, mud mouth—when I actually felt a thin layer of mud on my teeth and gums.

  This was just fantastic.

  And Logan, well, he looked good. Too good. His stubble and the heavy weariness on him made him look damn sexy. And he was just too close, too tempting. He was just a tad taller than me, and I was suddenly a hundred times more nervous.

  Get a grip, Sam. He’s just a man.

  I glanced away before I started to drool because that would seriously cramp my style.

  “Logan. Why are you here?” My voice came out in a grunt as I attempted to rid myself of my idiotic thoughts.

  “Poe told me what happened with the higher demons.” Logan shrugged. “Isn’t it obvious? I came to rescue you. And... it looks to me like you needed rescuing.” A sly smile crept across his face as he took in my sore state.

  If I wasn’t so red in the face from my fever, I would have felt a gargantuan flush right about now. My free hand wanted to tap down any misplaced hairs, but I stopped myself before I made myself look like a fool. If I did, he’d think I cared what he thought of me. I didn’t.

  Logan’s gaze moved to my lips, and a faint smile quirked the corner of his mouth. The memory of our kiss apparently amused him to no end. When our eyes met, his widened a fraction, and I knew he was thinking of the kiss we’d shared.

  Okay. So this was what this was about. He obviously thought I wanted to sleep with him because of one, teeny weeny kiss. Okay, maybe, just a little. But he didn’t have to know. And I wasn’t that easy, either. I didn’t rip off my clothes at the sight of a pretty face. After five glasses of wine—maybe.

  Arrogant male. If he thought I was going to fall all over him because of a kiss, or his drool-worthy physique, he didn’t know me at all.

  My anger rocketed, replacing my fever and lameness for a moment. “I don’t need your help. I was doing fine on my own.” If I can just keep the room from spinning.

  Logan grinned. “Right.”

  Keep breathing. “The human police were just about to let me go,” I lied, my voice coming out a little angrier than I intended.

  “Sure.”

  “They have nothing on me.”

  Logan raised his brows. “Really?” He turned towards the guard’s desk. “So all those photos of you kneeling next to the dead witch on his computer are fake? That’s some damn fine photoshop work if they are.”

  Poe snorted and I shot him a look.

  Crap. Why didn’t I take that human woman’s phone?

  I heard a flap of wings and Poe landed on my shoulder. I turned and looked at the bird. Seeing the question on my face, the raven said, “Don’t kill the messenger raven,” he whispered, just out of Logan’s earshot. “I’m here. Aren’t I?”

  “Why is he here?” I mumbled. The room started to spin again as some of my anger was wearing off.

  The raven let out an exaggerated sigh. “I looked for your grandfather all over Mystic Quarter. Nobody’s seen him. And your aunt is gone to Louisiana for some dark witch convention. He was the only one available.”

  Great. My familiar sought help from an angel-born before looking to another witch. What did that mean? And what did it mean that he actually came?

  Poe made a noise in his throat. “Did you know he’s one of the top angel-borns here in New York?”

  My eyes went to Logan. “Yeah. He’s an operative. I know.”

  “No,” said the bird, and he leaned against my cheek. His breath was warm. “I mean, yes, he’s an operative for the angel-borns, but he’s also the new Head of House Michael.”

  I shifted position to get a better look at the angel-born. I’d remembered seeing his P-shaped birthmark on his neck—the archangel Michael’s sigil—branding him not only as an angel-born but also from that specific house. I couldn’t see it now under his jacket, but I knew it was there. Looking at him now, he seemed too young to hold such an important post within the angel-born hierarchy.

  Well. Looks like Logan wasn’t just a pretty face with a nice tight behind, after all. Interesting.

  But it also made him even more dangerous.

  What was also dangerous was the rate in which I was about to keel over if I didn’t get some healing magic in me soon.

  I took a step forward, and it was all I could do not to spew the remnants of yesterday’s meal all over my cell’s floor. This was not how I wanted the Head of House Michael to see me—weak, sick, and a total mess.

  “I might throw up in your car,” I added, not looking at Logan as I took baby steps towards the door.

  “It’s not my car,” answered Logan, a smile in his voice.

  Okay then.

  Walking like a hundred-year-old witch, bent with arthritis, I left the jail behind me, praying I’d never see the inside of it ever again. But my mind was racing and jumping with questions.

  Why did the Head of House Michael come to rescue me?

  11

  “Are you almost done?” My voice sounded impatient. I was hungry, and the intoxicating smell of the grilled cheese with tomatoes and onions simmering in the frying pan had me salivating. Fatigue rolled over me in a sluggish wave as I lay on my stomach on the kitchen island, the granite cool against m
y skin.

  “I would be if you’d stop fidgeting,” barked my grandfather, standing next to me. “This is a complicated spell. You just don’t remove the death blade’s poison like you would a wart from your ass. It takes concentration, technique and expertise. One wrong move, and the infliction could get worse. There are levels to peel off, if you will, before reaching the poison.”

  “Like an onion,” came Poe’s voice as he landed on the stool next to the counter. A large watch hung from his left foot. “He’s basically saying you’re like a vegetable.”

  I made a face. “Where did you get that watch?” I asked, not remembering seeing it before now. Must have been the fever.

  “From our friendly neighborhood jailer,” said the bird, puffing out his chest proudly and looking like an overgrown pigeon. “I took it as payment for wrongful imprisonment. I could have gauged out his eyes, but taking the watch was a lot less messy.”

  On any other night, I would have scolded my feathered friend for stealing from a human, and a police human at that, but I was too tired to care. All I knew was that Logan had somehow managed to knock out our jailor and two other policemen who were working the nightshift. I’d never even noticed Poe taking the watch from the unconscious human. Probably because I’d been too busy trying not to vomit all over myself.

  Logan. Now he was a curious one. He could have refused to help, or better yet, have sent someone in his place. But the angel-born, the new Head of House Michael, had come on his own to bust me out of jail.

  I let out a sigh. I’d been on the bloody counter for more than two hours, and although my grandfather’s wizardry had managed to remove most of my fever and had suppressed some of the pain in my lower back, I was running out of patience. He promised minimal scarring, not that it made a difference. It would only add to the litany of scars I carried.

  “You said it would take five minutes.” Yes, I sounded ungrateful, but I was starving, my hunger turning me into Godzilla the witch, without the lizard skin.

  My grandfather made a disapproving grunt in his throat. “If I don’t remove all the poison, it will spread further into your blood and eventually kill you. Are you willing to risk that?”

  “You don’t have to be so grumpy. I’m the one in pain here. I’m the one who got stabbed.” I turned my hip to look at him and groaned at the pain. I gritted my teeth, feeling light-headed and more tired than angry.

  “Stop moving!” shouted my grandfather, his finger pointed at my eye as he moved around and appeared in my line of sight. “If you don’t stop moving,” he warned, “I’m going to hit you with a sleeping spell.”

  My mouth fell open. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  A wicked grin spread on the old witch’s face, the smile of a madman contemplating an evil scheme. “Try me, my dear girl. I might be old, but I can still whip your ass with my magic. Don’t temp me.”

  A smile tugged at my lips. “Fine.” I settled back down with my chin resting on the hard counter. “I’ll try not to move.”

  Poe snorted in a way only birds could snort. The raven looked positively happy, watching me on display like this. Thank the cauldron Logan wasn’t here. Though I didn’t know why I cared. He’d already seen me at my worst.

  My grandfather wrinkled up his eyes at the corners. “You should be thankful I’m not sticking you with a needle,” he said as he tightened his blue bathrobe and moved to the counter next to the island.

  If you stuck me with a needle, I might have to kill you, Gramps.

  My grandfather wiped his brow, and the fine seams and wrinkles around his face deepened in the shadows, making him look old and frail in the kitchen light. “Never quite understood the logic with human doctors and their needles,” he said. “Why inject a foreign solution into the body when you’re supposed to take out what’s making them ill? They’re just pumping the body with hazardous cocktails instead of removing the illness. Strange medicine, that is.”

  I had to agree. I could never understand human medicine myself. How could you heal anything without magic? It sounded like lunacy. Magic made sense. Needles did not.

  I gestured to the frying pan. “You think I’ll manage to taste that grilled cheese in this century?”

  “That’s gratitude for you,” sighed my grandfather. “In my days, we respected our elder witches. Disrespect and insolence? If we spoke out of turn, we’d lose a finger. Sometimes two fingers. Sometimes an ear or an eye. My best friend Ludwig lost his eyebrows. Never was the same after that.”

  “I’m glad things have changed and evolved from the more barbaric ways of treating each other,” I grumbled, glad I wasn’t born in that generation. Otherwise, knowing my attitude, I would have lost more than a few fingers.

  My grandfather made a huff. “Not really. And we most certainly didn’t disrespect a witch while they were trying to help after spending hours repairing your body.”

  “Okay, okay,” I sighed. “You’ve made your point. Please proceed with the healing, ‘O Wise One.”

  My grandfather made a face before turning around and rummaging through the vials and jars on the counter next to the island. He picked up a glass jar and whirled around, the ghost of a smile on his face as he looked at me. I knew that smile. It was a “you’re going to get it” kind of smile. What was he playing at?

  My pulse increased. “What is that?” His large hand covered most of the jar, and from the angle of my head, I couldn’t see much.

  “Leeches,” informed Poe.

  Leeches? I gave a start. “Leeches!” I pushed myself up and spun around, my legs hanging down from the counter, as I positioned strategically, in case I needed to run. The pain was forgotten at the idea of slimy, disgusting leeches coming anywhere near me.

  Oh. Hell. No.

  Grinning, my grandfather held up the glass jar for me to see. Packed on the bottom were a colony of black, slimy, flat-looking worms. Leeches.

  My grilled cheese erased from my mind, I nearly threw up right there and then, the moving leeches sending another wave of nausea coursing through me. I’d seen my share of disgusting, slippery, demon guts and entrails, but this? This was another level of disgusting, hitting my repulsive meter to the very top.

  I gripped the sides of the island counter. “You cannot be serious,” I said, hating how scared and weak my voice was. I was a dark witch. And yes, I had a problem with creepy tiny leeches. So, sue me.

  “How do you suppose we remove the poison?” asked my grandfather, his free hand on his hip. “By asking it nicely? Don’t be stupid, Sam. Leeches have been used for centuries for medicinal purposes. Even human doctors have used them.” He moved forward—

  I raised my hand. “You’re not coming near me with those things,” I said firmly. “No way.”

  “Sam.” The wrinkles on my grandfather’s face deepened. “If you don’t let the leeches do their job, you will die. I don’t think you understand how serious this is.”

  “I do.”

  “Apparently not. The poison in your wound will spread if we don’t take it out now.” He hesitated. “If I don’t take it out now, it will be too late.”

  He looked every bit the mad scientist. The crazy white hair flowed just past his ears, the thick white eyebrows, the manic gleam in his eyes, and let’s not forget, the witch was wearing just a bathrobe.

  “There must be another way,” I said, trying to keep the panic from my voice but failing miserably.

  “There isn’t.” My grandfather’s expression turned into a scowl. “Now, be a good witch and take your medicine.” He stepped forward.

  “You come near me with that jar,” I warned, “and I won’t be responsible for what I’m about to do to you.”

  My grandfather let out an exasperated breath. “By the cauldron, I swear. You are a Beaumont witch, Samantha. We do not run away scared of a few leeches. Now, just suck it up and let me do my work.”

  “Easy for you to say.” My eyes went to the glass jar. It wasn’t enough that I’d nearly been killed and then
imprisoned all in one night. Now he wanted to mess around with leeches? “I’ll take the sleeping spell now.”

  “Can’t,” said the crazy old witch holding the jar of leeches. “You need to be awake for this.”

  I frowned. “But, you just said—”

  “I lied. Get over it.” He twisted the lid and tossed it on the counter. Do they look bigger?

  “Just do it, Sam,” encouraged Poe. “What’s the big deal? They’re just leeches.”

  “Exactly.”

  “They’re excellent with a bit of salt,” informed the bird. “And sautéed in garlic. Can’t forget the garlic.”

  The ground wavered. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “You’re already sick, Samantha,” noted my grandfather. “You’ll die if you don’t let the leeches do their job.” Seeing the panic on my face, he added with a softer voice. “They are tiny miracle workers. I promise it’ll be quick.”

  I knew he was lying. But what choice did I have? And yet, I knew he was telling the truth about the death blade’s poison. If I didn’t get it out of me, the poison would eventually kill me.

  “If I do this,” I said, pointing my finger first at my grandfather and then to Poe, “we’ll never, ever, speak of it again. Got it?” I can’t believe I’m actually thinking of going through with this. I must be mad.

  Poe lifted his right wing. “On my honor as a demon.”

  I pursed my lips. “Demons don’t believe in honor.”

  The raven shrugged. “I know.”

  I flicked my gaze to my grandfather, raised my brows, and waited.

  “Oh, for cauldron’s sake,” began my grandfather, but then with one look at me, he added, “fine. I will never mention you and leeches in the same sentence. Now shut up and turn back around.”

  I swallowed back the bile and did as I was told. I barely felt the cold counter as I lay down, bracing myself at the thought of tiny suction-cup-like mouths on my skin.

  Did you ever jump into a lake and come out full of leeches? Me neither. So when I felt a cold, wiggling creature plop against the skin on my lower back for the first time, I flinched, my legs kicking out behind me.