I watched in horror as the woman turned the corner. Her eyes were dark with magic, her hands outstretched toward us. There was power emanating from her, and a lot of it. Our captor opened the window, then climbed onto the ledge.
She threw a bolt of magical energy toward us, blowing out a small piece of the wall. Then he leapt into the air with Babbs and me pinned against his side. From the corner of my eye, I saw another series of bolts fly past us, one colliding with the man who held us as we fell through the air. He yelled out in pain before his feet slammed hard into the pavement.
I fell to the ground, disoriented and confused. The she was there, the other witch. She was headed right for us, a look of angry determination in her eyes.
“I got this!” Babbs placed her body directly in front of mine then knelt to the ground.
It was amazing. I could see it happening. A fast and powerful energy spilled from my best friend’s body. It flowed along the ground like water until reaching her feet and puddling around her. It was the magic of Babbs’s empathy. It engulfed the woman, slowly calming her down, slowly washing away the half-cast magic inside her.
She stumbled, coming to a stop then taking stock of her surroundings. Our eyes locked for a second as she realized where she was. Then, like a flash, she was gone, turning a corner and disappearing into thin air.
“That was amazing!” I hugged Babbs tightly, her body stiff and her eyes wide. “What’s the matter?”
“The guy.” She pointed to the man lying on the sidewalk. “The one who saved us. It’s Nicco.”
16
“Quick!” I laid Nicco on the couch. “Get his shirt off!”
Babbs grabbed his black T-shirt and tore it open, revealing his wonderfully sculpted body. He was unconscious from the blast, and if not for a simple hex, there would be no way Babbs or I could have carried his two-hundred-plus body down the street and up those stairs. Thankfully, I had my best friend there with me, helping me keep a cool head amid all the chaos.
“His arm,” Babbs said. “There’s one on his shoulder too. They’re pretty deep!”
“I don’t know what to do,” I said. “I don’t know what kind of magic this is.” I placed my hand over the gaping wound on his shoulder, trying my best to feel for any magical signature whatsoever. It was useless though. I didn’t recognize it. I could do nothing but watch him lie there in what had to be a massive amount of pain. “He’s hurting.”
“Here.” Babbs placed her hand over the gash.
A soft, soothing magic flowed from her fingertips. I watched as it washed over his body, calming him, helping to relax his muscles. I could see the pain on his face lessen with every pulse of my best friend’s magic, with every touch of her fingertips.
“Thank you.” I wrapped my arms around her.
“It’s just a little something to help settle his nerves, to help him sleep a little deeper.”
“It’s amazing,” I said. “Thank you so much. It means the world to me, and to Nicco too, I’m sure.”
“He won’t feel anything for a while.”
“You’re getting so good at that.” I looked into her sweet blue eyes. “You’re getting so powerful.”
“I’m just learning to finally control this thing.” A sense of compassion was in her voice. “Thanks to you.”
I lay beside Nicco, placing my head on his thick, muscular chest. My fingers ran circles around his navel and across his abdomen. I wanted nothing more than for him to wake up and explain to me what happened and why he was there. I could feel his blood pumping and hear his heart beating. The scent of his Lycan pheromones, dark, woody, and dangerous, drifted from his skin, engulfing me an intoxicatingly seductive cloud of emotions.
Since the day he’d imprinted on me, the day he told me he would stay with me forever, I’d managed to keep a small distance between us. It wasn’t as if he wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous or kind. He was obviously both things. It was just that . . . well, I knew what happened when people dropped their guard around Lycan men.
The physiological response was often too much to ignore, and I hadn’t wanted to take the chance. I’d wanted to make up my own mind about us, on my own time. Thankfully, Nicco was the kind of guy who respected that. But seeing him like this, seeing him hurting and wounded, caused me to throw caution to the wind. I no longer cared about getting too close to him. I guess I’d finally realized he was worth the risk.
“Are you okay?” I heard Abben’s voice call out from the doorway. “I could feel your stress signal. We got here as fast as we could.”
“It’s not me,” I said, leaning up to reveal Nicco’s wounded and unconscious body. “We found the witch . . . the one who took Hannah Alden’s body.”
“And she did this?” Abben’s jaw nearly hit the floor.
“Yes.” I sighed. “But there was more to it than just that.”
“More to it like what?”
Babbs and I explained what happened at the mall. We told her how the witch showed up and began casting directly in front of the Lycan symbol and how we’d interrupted her. About how Nicco had saved us and about all Babbs had done to help.
“So, you have no idea who she is?”
“Not a clue,” I replied.
“Actually,” Babbs said, “I think I have an idea.”
“I’m all ears.”
Babbs walked to her bedroom and came back out holding some fabric and a few zippers, lifted them into the air, and looked at me. Maybe I was too distraught at the moment to see where she was going, or maybe she was just really getting that good with her magic. Whatever the case, though, Babbs produced what sounded like a clever idea.
“The skirt . . .” She placed the fabric and zippers next to the sewing machine. “The one I gave to Hannah Alden. Whoever that witch was, she took the skirt. We know that much to be true. What if I sew the same skirt again, only this time, I reverse it?”
“Actually . . .” Abben said, “that might just work.”
“What might?” I asked.
“If I sew the same skirt in reverse, then hex it with a polar magnetic hex, then shouldn’t it be able to track down the other skirt? Its opposite?”
I thought about for a second. It was simple physics and pretty easy magic. But together, I didn’t see why they couldn’t create a pretty functional hex. We needed to find the witch responsible for injuring Nicco, and without a sample of her magic, I might never find the right words to heal him.
“Yeah,” I said, a pang of hope flashing through me. “That should work!”
“Kianna.” Babbs turned to her. “You pour and I’ll sew!”
“I’ll handle the music!” Abben said. It was a bit out of character for her, but I appreciated the effort. She was trying to make me feel better and it was sweet. She placed her hand on the small stereo in the corner, then took a deep breath.
♫♫ Lying in my bed, I hear the clock tick and think of you . . . ♫♫
“I love this song.” I placed my hand on Nicco’s soft cheek. The indent of his dimple against my palm, the light bristle of hair letting me know it had been a few hours since he’d shaved, it was a perfect culmination of the senses, each one bleeding into the next and falling over me like a blanket of silk.
I pressed my head against his chest again, the heat from his body soothing me, calling me into a restful slumber I didn’t ever want to wake from. The soft white noise of my friends’ conversation, of pouring wine and clanging glasses, bled through, carrying me off into a dreamlike state of comfort and peace. I realized then that in keeping a distance between us, I’d denied myself the comfort and tranquility of Nicco’s embrace. What a fool I’d been.
“All right!” Babbs said a few minutes later, her words pulling me from my place of peace. “Here it is. An exact duplicate, a perfect mirror, the Yin to that skirt’s Yang!”
“Looks good,” I said, rubbing my eyes and getting to my feet.
Nicco still lay on the couch, still under the blanket of painless peace Babbs had gi
ven him. I didn’t want to leave him, to head out into the streets with him like this, but I knew it was for the best. He’d be safer here, and I needed to find the witch responsible for making him this way.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get this over with. The sooner we find her, the sooner I can reverse this.” We stepped into the hallway, each of us placing our hands on the door and repeating the same chant. “A barrier unbreakable! A barrier unbreakable! A barrier unbreakable!”
A brief time later, the skirt led us to what Babbs said must be the home of the witch who’d killed Hannah . . . and yes, I know it’s crazy to follow a hexed skirt around Atlanta, but just work with me here . . .
“I don’t think anyone’s home,” I said, pressing my hand against the door and feeling for any movement, magical or otherwise.
The looked as empty as it felt. There were no lights, no signs of life, and no sounds. I placed my hand on the door handle. A sharp burn ran through me, burning like fire against my skin. I pulled away. The place was protected by magic, though it didn’t feel that strong.
“We’ve got this,” Kianna said, locking hands with Babbs and stepping toward the door. The tattoos on their arms began to glow simultaneously. A bright pink light pulsated from their fingertips then drifted through the air and wrapped the handle. Almost instantly, the door popped open and we entered the empty home.
“Here it is!” Babbs walked out of the bedroom a few moments later. She handed the skirt to Kianna, who immediately put it on and gave a small twirl. “Looking good, sweet thang!”
“Thanks!” Kianna chirped, tossing her jeans into the air and snapping her fingers, causing them to vanish. “It’s pretty comfy too!”
“Oh!” Babbs winked. “That’s a Babbs McGhee original, baby. Of course it’s comfy. Gotta be prepared for that all-too-frequent walk of shame!”
“Walk of shame?” Kianna raised an eyebrow. “I don’t—”
“Baby! With as good as you look in that thing, believe me, you’ll be walking before you’re talking and won’t nobody be listening. You hearing me?”
“I guess so . . .”
“Mmmhmm.”
Abben and I headed for the kitchen and began looking through the drawers and cabinets. If there was one thing I’d learned to be true about both mortals and witches alike, it was that, for whatever reason, all secrets hide in the kitchen.
You got a junk drawer? It’s in the kitchen.
You left your electric bill out so you wouldn’t forget to pay it? It’s in the kitchen.
Or maybe you’re a witch testing a new spell . . . still in the kitchen.
“Here,” I said, opening a corner cabinet to find small vials of nearly every herb you could think of. Not to mention mortars and bowls of every shape and size. “Look at this. She has to be a witch.”
“Either that or she’s one hell of a cook,” Abben replied. “Though from the looks of these pots and pans, they haven’t seen much play. The only thing that has any wear at all is this teapot.”
“Well, if that ain’t the hallmark of a witch, I don’t know what is,” I replied. “This makes no sense though. I thought she was a lycanthrope. No way she’s both, right?”
“Normally, I would say no, but Nicco is half-wolf, half-warlock. So . . . it can happen.”
“No,” I muttered. “This is something else. It just doesn’t feel right.”
“I agree,” Abben said, continuing to poke around the apartment.
I left the kitchen and headed for the bathroom, which I’d learned was the second-most popular place to hide your secrets. Seriously, has no one heard of a safe? I looked through the medicine cabinet, not exactly sure what I was hoping to find. Lucky, since it turned out to be not much of anything anyway.
“Look at all of this Lycan stuff,” Kianna said, lifting a box from the closet floor. “Amulets, symbols, books . . . ew! A tooth!” She dropped the box to the floor.
“Calm down,” Abben snapped. “It’s nothing we haven’t seen before.”
Abben spent the next few minutes going through the box, hoping to find anything that might help explain what the witch was up to or where we might find her. The box, however, didn’t seem to contain anything terribly useful. That is, until Abben studied the tooth Kianna had dropped to the floor.
“It’s a wolf tooth,” she said, holding it in the air. “That’s it!”
“What?” I asked.
“There was always something missing, something I didn’t understand in my research of this symbol. It had to do with the carving of it. This is it. It has to be done with the tooth of a lycanthrope wolf!”
“Say what?” Babbs said. “A lycanthrope who?”
“Tooth!” Abben leapt to her feet. “Come on. I know what we need to do!”
17
“Seriously?” I asked. “The Lycan club?”
“I need to test this magic. What better place to do that than in a place full of wolves?” Abben responded. “We need to know if it works, if it’s going to repel them.”
I looked into her eyes, reading the expression on her face. Her words were heavy and a little distant. There was something else going on here. She was hiding something from me, something important. I could maybe use a little magic to feel her out, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to ask her flat out what she was thinking. And so I did.
“Nothing,” she replied.
“That’s not true.”
“It’s just that . . . well, what if it works? What if it repels Lycans? And what if, when that happens, they have an adverse reaction?”
“You’re afraid of getting hurt?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she jabbed. “I’m afraid for you. If that happens, then that will be concrete proof that Nicco is responsible for this. Can you handle that? Have you prepared yourself?”
I couldn’t believe it. This? Again?
“So, let me get this right.” I rubbed my temples, trying to alleviate the wave of frustration that befell me. “Even after he risked his life saving me and Babbs, even after seeing him lying there unconscious and injured on my couch, you still believe he’s responsible for what happened to Hannah?”
She let out a heavy sigh, one that let me know how much she didn’t want to have to answer that question. I didn’t care though. I needed to hear her say it. I needed to know if she had that little faith in me, in my ability to trust people.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s just a coward’s way of saying yes,” I replied.
“Ginni! I didn’t say yes.”
“But you didn’t say no.” I turned and headed for the door. “Come on, lets get this over with.”
I pushed through the doors of the club and parked myself on a seat at the bar. A few minutes later, Babbs handed me something in a frilly glass that I slowly nursed while trying not to think about how upset I’d once again become with Abben.
I’m not crazy. I get it. If it’s not you, if you’re on the outside of things, then you try to see it from all angles. But did she not see how much it upset me the first time she mentioned this crap? Why do it again? Why chance that?
“You okay?” Babbs asked. “Want me to . . . ?” She extended her hand.
“No.” I batted it away. “I’d rather wallow in my anger. At least then, I’ll have something to spur me on in case this night takes a nose dive.”
“Oh,” she chirped. “It’s definitely going to take a nose dive!”
I felt Babbs swaying back and forth next to me, her feet rocking to the music from atop her barstool. It was sweet that she wanted to stay with me, but it wasn’t fair to ask her to.
“Go,” I said. “Go dance.”
“No. I—”
“Babbs. Just go. I’m good. I promise.”
“Back soon!” She kissed my forehead and headed for the dance floor.
She, Abben, and Kianna all shook their stuff under the lights, making sure to attract as much attention as possible. I was jealous in a way. Not because I wanted to be on
the floor acting like I hadn’t a care in the world but because I could see so many other hot lycanthrope guys out there, each one smiling and having a fun time. Nicco deserved that. He deserved so much that I’d been too reluctant to give him.
I took the phone from my pocket and began once again staring at that damn symbol, the one that had, since the moment I saw it, caused me nothing but grief and frustration. I traced my hands along the edges just as I’d seen the witch doing. You know, before she tried to murder me . . .
It was so intricate, so ornate and complex, that I began to wonder just how she would have even had time to carve the thing. She must have started the second Nicco walked through the door. Maybe it was like Edward said. Maybe she was afraid and was trying to repel Nicco. Perhaps she’d caught sight of the small scars on his fingertips, the ones you get from having claws push their way through your skin over and over. Or maybe she was just as sensitive to the Lycan pheromones on his skin as I was.
I placed the phone on the bar, watching as Babbs and Kianna danced side by side in matching skirts. It was such a good idea she’d had, to flip the design and use it in another way. That’s the thing about magic. Sometimes, even witches don’t know what it’s capable of. It’s like how an artist sometimes has to take a step back or leave the room for a while before they can see what to everyone else is obvious. Once you’re as close to something as I’d been to magic my whole life, well . . . you kinda start to miss things.
I just couldn’t take my eyes off those skirts. Not because they were pretty, which they were. It was because of the magic. It was so interesting how turning the design around could change to way the way a spell worked. The more I began thinking about it, the more common it seemed. I’d just never noticed before.
Take, for instance, the spell to cast light in the darkness. I now realized the one to cast darkness in the light was basically the same thing, only flipped around on its head. Could it all be that simple? Was magic nothing more than a two-lane road I’d been driving my whole life and never realized it?
Magic & Mini Skirts Page 10
