“Shit!” He ran down the length of the porch and the thing was on his back the whole time. I saw him trying to fend it off with his hands but they had no solid form.
“Graham, don’t run away where I can’t—eek!” Okay, I had my own ghoul to deal with. It had run its body through me and I felt like I’d been plunged into an ice bath. I was left shivering, gripping my wand tight as I tried to chatter out a spell.
“Chaleur, chaleur,” I said, desperately trying to warm myself up. I had some experience with the warmth spell from working on old houses on cold winter days. I tried a fire spell to the usual pathetic effect.
The ghoul swept toward me and became solid just as it slammed into me. My back hit the wide planks of the porch, the wind knocked out of me.
Fuck. I tried not to panic. It was just a passing ghoul, I was pretty sure. Sometimes when a person died, random spirits blew in to feed on remnants of magic left behind. They were just the vultures of the magical world. Another pest like the paper imps in the last house. I was used to this sort of thing, but I didn’t enjoy it. Who would? One minute you were scoping out a house and the next moment a ghoul was swirling around you cackling with glee.
“Little witch, stay down, down, down on the ground…,” it chanted, and now when I tried to get up, my limbs stuck to the floor. Oh, yes, and ghouls also love poems.
I heard Graham roar like he was in a serious fight around the corner of the porch and I twisted, trying to loosen up the spell.
“Let me go!” I demanded with all my will. “I have to move! Ungh—” I twisted again and broke free, nearly tripping on my own feet in my attempt to get to Graham.
The ghoul tried to block my passage, swooping toward me. “Think you’re clever, do you? Well, I can see right—”
I blasted the ghoul in the face, getting a good hit in that time. It evaporated before my eyes.
Bevan swept down in front of me, his bat wings flapping so close to my face that I had to stop. “Helena,” he said. “I need to tell you—this house—”
“Uh-huh?” I knew Bevan wouldn’t appear if it wasn’t important, because he was an old-school familiar who didn’t come unless I called him, and would then chastise me for calling him too often.
“It’s almost a parallel.”
“Almost?”
“There’s a hole in the fabric between worlds just waiting to—”
Suddenly Graham flew forward across the porch with his hands wrapped around the ghoul as he strangled it, while demon wings had torn through his dress shirt and I could see the outline of his tail trapped down the leg of his pants. Damn, I didn’t need any more fantasies about the things these men had in their pants. I could also see that the ghoul had scraped his face, drawing lines of blood across the bridge of his nose and forehead, and even worse—the color of his skin was turning bluish. He’d been hit with the ghoul’s chill. His eyes glowed as he let out a final grunt of anger and the ghoul dissipated.
“Tear,” Bevan finished.
“I see.”
Chapter Five
Helena
Graham sank to his knees and I rushed toward him. His teeth were chattering.
“What—what the hell— I’m so cold,” he managed through his shivering.
“Did it kiss you? They have this cold kiss spell they do sometimes.”
“I guess it—s-sort of—brushed my forehead—”
“Well, never fear. I’ll warm you up.”
“With a hot kiss?” He shot me a grin that was hiding some nerves.
It was tempting. But I wasn’t ready to give in to his charms yet. I put both of my palms on his cheeks now and said softly, “Chaleur…”
The bluish tint immediately started to leave his skin as the warming spell melted through him.
“Your bat has returned,” he said.
“Yes, I was here to warn my witch about exactly this sort of situation,” Bevan said.
“Bevan’s kind of a little bitch,” I said.
“Oh, that’s uncalled for.” Bevan’s big bat ears were shot up straight with aggravation. “I’m just here to protect you and it’s not my fault that you’re always battling ghouls or breaking your leg. I can’t keep up.”
“If you’re going to show up late, you might as well not even bother.” I petted his back just so he knew I loved him though. That was our usual relationship. Some familiars took human form and wanted to do human things, but I barely knew what Bevan looked like in human form. I hadn’t seen him that way in years. He was more like an outdoors cat who occasionally showed up for a head scratch.
I raised my eyebrows at Graham, who was still shaking off the cold spell, shivering a little when a breeze crossed the porch. “What was that thing?” he asked.
“Scavenger ghouls.”
“You sound pretty nonchalant, but I’m not the only one with goosebumps.” He wrapped his fingers around my wrist and I saw that he was right. And also that his hands were so powerful and too clean. I needed to get him dirty.
I don’t know how much longer my willpower can hold out with this guy…
“Are we going to talk about this whole deal?” I waved a hand toward his wings.
“I just…strangled that thing,” he said. “It came at me and it passed through me, but somehow I just knew I could force it to bend to my will. That I could touch it. And kill it. I just did it. Instinctively. And as I had my hands wrapped around it and I could feel it trying to slip away from me, and it was scratching my face, my body…” His eyes met mine, his tall and muscular form quivering not just with cold but with all the tension and exhilaration of using his power.
“Graham…” I bit my lip. “You’re powerful.”
“This is the power I got from all the people who voted for me and supported me,” he said. “Right?”
“Yes.”
“It felt really good,” he said. “I’m not sure if I should be proud or alarmed.”
“Both.”
“How do I make this go away?”
“No hurry…,” I said, with a little wink.
“But my tail is stuck.”
In one of the bolder moves of my life, I reached down the back of his pants, wrapped my hand around the appendage, and whipped it out. “There you go.”
He put a hand on his belt, because now the waistband of his trousers was thrown off, pinned under the tail and threatening to fall off his ass. As much as I was enjoying the threat of his clothes falling off entirely, I feigned that I had other purposes in life and went back to the front doors of the manor. Bevan fluttered after me, apparently concerned about leaving me alone. He was always with me for home inspections, anyway.
“Helena, I’m serious,” Graham said. “What does this mean?”
“Well, we’re—”
“No, I know what it means,” he said, stopping behind me at the door.
“Oh?”
“I’m not what I thought I was. And I can’t go back. I have an election in two weeks…all these people who got me this far…but it was never real, was it?”
“Graham…some of it was real. Most of it, probably. You genuinely seem to care. And there are demons who become politicians for their whole lives, so…I suppose it’s just survival to use your magic that way.”
“I’m afraid there is a part of me that’s not a very good guy…and I think I’ve always known it. That’s why I try so hard to keep everything under control.”
“There’s a part of everyone like that,” I said, my voice coming out breathy as we were getting closer, and my desire to warm myself against him was growing stronger. I wondered what it would be like to feel his wings around me and his tail…everywhere.
“Helena…”
“We have to hurry. Billie will be here soon,” I said, not without reluctance.
I opened the door without any trouble this time. In fact, it wasn’t even locked.
“Oh!” I said, as Byron stood on the other side.
“I just arrived,” he said. “I had other
business. You are a sight for spectral eyes, Helena. And…Graham…”
“Hello, Byron,” Graham said, with a distinct edge of don’t-even-start.
“You’re awfully busy for a ghost,” I said, looking at him askance before I noticed the interior behind him. My mouth fell open.
The entrance room alone was something else. I was a little worried I was going to get taken out by a chandelier fitted for candles that had two tiers like a giant birthday cake. It was a chandelier that would absolutely, 100% kill someone in a movie.
And my life often ended up turning out like a movie. Note to self, don’t stand anywhere near this chandelier.
The entrance room was painted pink. Not a soft candlelight-glow pink like the dining room in the last house. This was almost a cotton candy pink and even the built-in bookshelf against one wall was pink. Then we had some sort of Moorish revival design to the staircase complete with a very eye-grabbing staircase ornament: an ebony-skinned lady wearing a gold turban and, apparently, gold pasties, and nothing else. Well, I had seen stranger decor in 19th century houses, but this was up there.
“Deveraux was a character,” Byron said. “I’m not sure you can be an old money wizard from a place like this and not be a character. He was very enamored of the vampire lifestyle. The old-fashioned glamour and so on. Not so much of the human attitudes so many vampires have. The racism and the sexism. He thought he was very avant-garde. I’m sure he was when he was a young man in the 1940s…”
“That begins to explain this place,” I said.
“Does it?” Graham peered toward the next room. It was purple, sort of a muddy lavender to be specific, with olive green chairs and a very elegant white fireplace that still seemed quite original to the house—1830s or so, probably. It was topped by a painting of a lounging nude Asian lady with a kimono sliding off her shoulder.
“I see that he has a certain…inclusive attitude about his nude ladies,” I said. “As for the sexism, I’m not sure I would want to be his date and come over to this house.” This room had candle fixtures everywhere, all of them gold and ornate. Like Lockwood House, this home had only the most basic electricity.
“He would have made a fine incubus,” Byron said. “He worshipped women but never married.”
“Bah,” I said. “I don’t want to be worshipped.”
“Well, he was old,” Byron said. “And I also wonder how often you’ve been worshipped. You might enjoy it more than you expect.” He winked at me.
“Hey,” Graham said. “I hardly think that’s appropriate.”
“I’ll let Helena decide,” Byron said. “But I have no argument with you, Graham. Helena can handle a great deal of admiration of different types, I expect.”
“Whoa, check this out!” I said, trying not to get into the middle of this. “Another chandelier!” This one was draped with so many strands of crystals that it looked like fifty necklaces jammed together in a tangle.
“I’m not sure I want to know why the two incubi are battling over you,” Bevan murmured in my ear.
“It’s just what they do,” I whispered, and more loudly, “Well, I’m casting a search spell for this treasure. We need to get right on it and get out of here. It takes time to sign paperwork, but…not that much time.”
I held out my wand and tried to focus. It was hard when it was so much easier to sense the moods of Byron and Graham. Not to mention, I hadn’t seen either of them in a while and I really wanted time to appreciate their presence.
The house was humming with magic, and it was even stronger than Lockwood House. In that house, I sensed all the remnants of spells cast by wizards past. This house was infused with magic down to the structure. It didn’t seem to come from any particular place. I knew the treasure was here, I just needed to filter out the noise.
“Bev, you said this place was becoming a parallel?” I asked my familiar. “What do you mean by that? How does a place become a parallel?”
“That’s why Byron was able to change into a demon,” Bevan said, with a slightly long-suffering tone that meant I had probably learned this in school and forgotten. “It means that when this house was originally built, this was the human world entirely. But a wizard has lived here so long that the world is thinning. Magic also requires some element of human belief. So Deveraux must have had human visitors or servants who regarded Greenwood Manor as a magical place. Therefore, over the years, their belief is making this a powerful spot. What this also means is that the house will need a guardian.”
I was only half listening because the house was capturing all my attention.
“Sounds complicated. Glad it’s not my problem,” I said. “Ahh…” I tapped my foot on a medallion on the floor. “I feel something here.” I surveyed the spacious, magnificent room where my search led me.
This was definitely a ballroom. A serious ballroom, with two chandeliers shaped like bowls formed of individual crystals and a ceiling painted with mythological scenes. The walls were a simple muted pink—not to be confused with the bright pink in the other room—with white trim-work that boxed the walls into rectangular sections, each with a framed painting of ballerinas, reminiscent of Degas. The wooden floors were the showstopper. They were made of many different colors of wood arranged in a pattern almost like a sunburst, but instead of a sun at the center, there was a compass indicating which direction the house faced.
Nothing in this house was subtle. It was in the fine tradition of a 19th century mansion. Why use one pattern when you can use ten at once? Why hang one painting when you can hang enough to make your house an art gallery? Why carve one thing when you can carve all the things? And few people realized how much Victorians loved intense color palettes, because most houses had been renovated to modern taste, and all the photographs left behind were in black and white.
I felt like I already knew Deveraux Greenwood. While his friend Fiore Capello was a woodland warlock, with a wild garden, Deveraux was a go-big-or-go-home type. He had done nothing to tame the whims of his ancestors, but had let the house get even more ostentatious. The themes of the house were:
1. Chandeliers
2. French style, and not the subtle modern kind
3. A color palette that would make Joanna Gaines cry
And, for good measure:
4. Naked ladies.
I should be glad to let Billie have this beast, but instead I was feeling a great temptation to wrap my arms around one of the columns and declare that I was not leaving. This house was crazy—and I wanted it.
“This is how I wish my childhood home was,” I said. “All these bright windows and colorful walls. Ladyswald is all heavy wood and Medieval artwork.”
“‘Ladyswald’,” Graham repeated, glancing in a gilt mirror to smooth his dark hair back, as if that would fix him after the ghoul fight when his clothes were in tatters. “Now that’s a name. I can imagine just from that.”
“And I’m sure your imagination is dead on.”
Instead, I crouched to inspect the ornate compass-shaped medallion on the floor. The wood fit together snug, but I could see a tiny edge just above the north arrow.
“I think this might be it. Dévolier!” A thin glow appeared all around the compass. “Aw, yeah. Easy peasy. We need to pry this up.” I tried to get my fingers under it. “Damnit… I need my tools.”
“You can’t just use magic?” Graham asked.
“Magic isn’t great at heavy lifting.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. No time for that. I need something…”
“Here, move over.” Graham reached his demon claws around the edge and pulled up the compass. This was no easy task for him, involving a lot of grunting and straining of muscles. It was one big, heavy piece that fit snug in the floor and there was nothing for me to do but watch him drag it out while his already half-destroyed clothes started sliding off him. What punishment.
“That’s an honest days’ work,” he huffed. “Luckily, you were right. There it is.
”
Under the medallion was a familiar wrapped shape. The second piece of Pandora’s Box. I grabbed it, hugging it to my chest. “Okay, put that back and let’s run.” I looked at Byron. “Byron…you’ll still be trapped here.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Do we need to move on to the last house?”
He smiled. He was never able to answer my questions, but his expressions told me plenty when I figured out what to do.
“I’ll take that as a yes. I’ll see you soon. Graham and I will figure it out.”
“I eagerly await the next time I lay eyes on your lively face, angel.”
“Take care,” I said, my cheeks burning as Graham was witness to Byron’s romantic words.
Then I bolted with my bounty, trying not to let my emotions get entangled in the house. I thought I would be walking every room of this house many times, dreaming of how I would transform it, getting to know its quirks. I thought I would get to decide exactly what to change and what to keep. I thought I would be on my hands and knees and atop ladders making Greenwood Manor shine from top to bottom.
Now I could hardly bear to look at the beautiful house. And I had to leave Byron behind with hardly a goodbye, with only the hope that there were no more secrets to discover here.
We reached the car and Graham said, “How do I get into my car? I need to turn back into a human.”
“You just…do it. Use your will.”
He leaned an arm on the roof of the car. “I liked the way you looked at me when you first saw me this way.”
Cheek status: still burning. “Um…well…”
“You said I can only take this form in the magical world.”
“Okay, Graham, well, we don’t have time to explore your demon form,” I snapped, as much as I wanted to. The idea of Graham discovering what his body could do at the same time as I did…that was turning me on more than I wanted to admit. “Just turn back.”
“It’s difficult.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I feel amazing. And I want you so badly I don’t know how to stop it.”
“It’s just your magic,” I said, and I knew this was true. Of course an incubus would struggle with control after the adrenaline of a fight. “It’s flaring up from the fight and this place and everything else. Just…okay, maybe if you tilt your seat back you could fit your wings in behind you, and once we drive away you’ll have to turn back. You know we have to get going.”
Wolves at the Door Page 3
