“Fine,” he said and pushed to his feet. “I happen to know that if you choose to refuse to help them, they’re going to hold you accountable for his disappearance.”
“What? How can they do that?” I waved my hands around me, indicating the apartment at large. “Where would I have him hidden? They know I don’t have him. Why would I?”
“It doesn’t matter. You helped catch Rae. You’re the perfect scapegoat. They’ll make an example out of you, hoping that’ll make the real kidnappers come out or make a mistake so they can catch them.” He spoke so fast his words nearly ran together and he was taking steps closer to me, his hands held out.
“Hasn’t the kidnapper made any demands yet?”
“Not yet.” He shook his head, his hair shifted around his jaw. “They’re probably just keeping him and using his magic.”
“Oh,” I said softly. That hadn’t occurred to me. If they could imprison him, then they could get him to grant all their wishes with his magic and they wouldn’t need to demand a ransom.
“See, Mattie,” Owen said, now much closer to me than he’d been the whole time. If I wanted to, I could have reached out and touched him. “They’ll kill you if you don’t help.”
“They might kill me anyway,” I said.
“True, but at least this way you have a chance.” His voice was a whisper and he lifted his hand to reach for me. I watched his hand. His nails were finely manicured and smooth, just like I remembered. I felt my fingers twitch just before I started to reach for him. “I had to warn you, Mattie,” he whispered. The tips of his fingers touched mine. His skin was cool now – I remembered when it was warm with my blood.
“No, damnit!” I screamed and sparks flew from my hand, scorching Owen’s and making him snatch his hand back. His blue eyes flashed black in surprise. He tried to shake off the pain, but still took a step back from me.
“Mattie,” he started to say, but I shook my head roughly, making the short tips of my hair swing wildly.
“No, Owen.” I balled my hands into fists at my side to control the power threatening to shoot out in my anger. “You can’t just break my heart and disappear for two years and then show up here and talk to me like this! Like you give a crap about me!”
“But I do care about you, Mattie.”
“No!” I yelled, “Stop right now or so help me, I’ll blow your undead ass right through that wall! I don’t know why you’re here, but I’m sure Theo has something to do with it. I’m sure she’s in the Dunhallows’ pocket and she sent you here to manipulate me.” I saw the muscle of his jaw flex, but before he could get any words out, I screamed at him, “Get out, Owen, get out!” I squeezed my eyes shut against the sting of tears. I would not cry in front of him.
“Fine,” he said after a long silence. “I’ll go, but Mattie, please just think about it.” I held my breath and kept my eyes closed until I heard the door shut behind him. Then I crumpled to the floor and let the tears flow.
Chapter 4
It was raining the first night I met Owen. His hair was dark with rain and plastered to his head, water rushing off his jacket to make puddles around his boots as the door closed behind him, the bells jingling his arrival. Standing behind the counter, I was able to watch him as he looked around the crowded charm shop, clearly confused and a little intimidated. He was tall for me, five ten, give or take an inch and had a narrow frame. I could imagine the muscles hidden by his coat would be long and lean, just thick enough to get your hands around.
If I hadn’t offered to watch the shop for Ronnie, she would’ve been the one to meet this blue-eyed stranger. When he finally made his way through the maze of the shop, he approached the counter but kept a few feet back. The collar of his jacket was turned up around his jaw and the length of his hair hung around his face, which left very little face for me to see.
“Help you?” I asked.
“Um, yeah,” he said. He jammed his hand into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. Passing me the damp note, he said, “I need these things.” I pursed my lips as I read over the list and noted the very specific list of ingredients.
“You’re haunted?” I asked, the blunt question bringing his head up, and he blinked at me.
“Pardon?”
“These items, you’re gonna do a spirit banishing, right?” I turned from him to get the white mistletoe berries that Ronnie kept locked behind the counter because they were so expensive and difficult to get. She also hid them because they could be used to make a rather potent poison.
He shifted his weight from foot to foot, his hands in his jacket pockets as he tried to casually look around the store.
“Look,” I said as I measured out the berries, “you gotta tell me, or I can’t sell you anything.”
“Why?” he demanded, looking at me again. This time I saw the spark in his eyes, but his power of persuasion wouldn’t work on a witch, so I didn’t look away.
“It’s the law, Blue-Eyes.” He blinked at me again. The corner of his mouth twitched in an almost smile. Finally he nodded, answering me, so I went to gather the other items he would need.
“Have you ever performed a banishing before?” I asked, crouched behind a shelf as I looked for the alcohol-infused carnation petals.
“No,” he replied, his voice muffled by distance and shelves.
“They aren’t easy,” I said as I came around, the petals in one hand and the bundle of black candles in the other. “Ghosts are stubborn, especially if they don’t know they’re ghosts. You be sure to mean it when you do the spell. Most people can’t perform spells like these unless they’re witches or psychics, you know?” He didn’t respond, just stared at me, making me feel twitchy. I was just glad he blinked occasionally.
“Um,” the paper bag rattled as I placed his items inside, “do you have red storax oil?” He glanced up at me, pausing in his motion to take out his wallet.
“Do I have what now?” He furrowed his brow at me, and I found myself staring at the dimples it caused on his forehead.
“Red storax oil,” I repeated. “I’m pretty sure I know what spell you’re using. After the ritual, you’re supposed to keep some of the berries in that oil.”
“Oh,” he said, moving his eyes to the cash register. I punched in his items. The machine let out a loud chime as the total came up. He tossed a few bills on the counter and snatched the bag. Before I could give him his change, he turned away to make his way toward the door.
“Hey,” I called after him, “your change?”
He came back, faster than my eyes could track, and his fingers suddenly brushed the back of my hand as he took the cash I held. I jumped back when I finally realized he was there and dropped a few of the coins on the glass countertop. The coins spun where they fell until they twirled to a stop. I held my hand to my chest and stared wide-eyed at him.
“Red storax oil, you said?” he asked, his voice a little softer than it had been before.
“Yeah,” I managed, my voice caught in my throat. “We, ah, we don’t have any right now. The apothecary down the block should have some though.” He glanced to his right as if he could see the apothecary shop through the very walls of Ronnie’s shop. He nodded his head toward me when he pulled his eyes from the wall.
“Thanks,” he said, softer still. I felt a pressure over the swell of my shoulder, grazing my skin along the muscle, as if his very voice carried the caress of warm fingers.
“Sure,” I said. My face was warm and flushed.
He turned on his heel again and left the shop, the bells jingling. I swallowed my heart and braced myself on the cool glass countertop. You’d think I’d never met a vampire before.
That was three years ago, and it had been almost two since I had seen him last. One night I woke up in an empty bed, not so much a note on the pillow to explain his absence. Not that I needed a note. I knew where he had gone: back to Theodora, his maker. Vampires crave company. For all their powers, immortality takes its toll as they watch those that t
hey love die and they simply go on. But as their years pass, they slip further and further from the humanity they once had, so they cling to the warm and the living.
Unfortunately, that means leaving the ones who made them, master vampires like Theodora. Theodora would not be rejected for the likes of one insignificant and mortal witch, like me. As Owen’s affections grew, so did Theodora’s jealousies. Toward the end, Owen started visiting Theodora’s lair more and more, answering her call. And I couldn’t deny her. After all, if she hadn’t made Owen, he would have died over a century ago, and I would have never met him. I would have never known his love.
But it was because he loved me, because he clung to my warm, beating heart, that Theodora called him back to her. Owen had been sharing blood with only me in that first year of our relationship. Because of that, he had begun cutting off the ties that bound him to Theodora. That was something she just couldn’t have.
Everyone knew the risks of falling in love with any of the immortals, but sometimes that’s a risk you just couldn’t help but take. After that first night, seeing Owen looking a little lost, a little afraid, the touch of his power on my skin, I knew it was a risk I was willing to take.
The morning I woke up and he was gone, I knew he had shared blood with Theodora, renewing her hold over him. I never thought I would see him again. It was a little disappointing to get my first glimpse of him in over two years at the corner market, lurking by the carrots and celery. I always imagined running into him in a crowded room. The noise, the people, everything else would fall away and there would only be us, his blue eyes staring into my own. Our fingers would touch, and he would remember my embrace. His lips would find mine and he would remember my kiss. He would remember me.
Instead, he had stalked me as I shopped for cakes and lunchmeat. And I tripped over myself, spilled my groceries, tried to get away from the creeper I could feel staring at me. Sometimes life was a bitch.
Wine, that’s what I needed, lots and lots of wine. My glass sat half-empty on the kitchen table as I pulled the cork out of a second bottle. Ronnie sat at the far end of my small circular table, her own glass held by the tips of her fingers as she watched me fill my glass before holding out the bottle for her. Ronnie had just stepped off the elevator when she heard me scream for Owen to leave and was standing outside my door by the time he’d walked out. She came inside, sat on the kitchen floor with me, and waited for the tears to stop with her arm around my shoulders.
“So, why do you suppose he wants you to take the job?” Ronnie asked as she swirled her wine, tilting the glass toward her nose for a sniff.
“No idea, but I am curious how he even knew about it in the first place,” I said. I untwisted the cork from the corkscrew and tossed it into a glass vase, the cork landing on a growing pile of corks inside.
“That is curious.” Ronnie nodded with her eyes still on her glass before she took a sip.
“I mean, he’s a vampire. These are fae,” I said as I took my seat across from Ronnie and pulled one foot up under me. “Are they working together now?”
“You know how the immortals are,” Ronnie said, “they always end up together, eventually.”
“I guess.”
“They understand each other, they come from a different time, and they’re doomed to watch the world change around them.”
“Eh.” I shook my head, swallowing a sip of wine. “That’s vampires. The fae have their own world. Even though they like to come and go from our world and play with the stupid mortals, they’re not part of our world.”
“That’s true,” Ronnie conceded.
“Vampires are part of our world. They were all human once, so it’s their world that’s passing them by. You’d think they would actually hate the fae,” I said.
“Okay, fine,” Ronnie said, waving one hand in the air to dispel this circular argument. “Fine, enemies, friends, frenemies, whatever they may be, why did Owen come to you and tell you to look for Roane?”
“I don’t know,” I said, tapping a fingernail against my glass. “But I will tell you this. I know Theo has something to do with it.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because she took him from me and she would never let him come around me again unless she was going to get something from it.”
“So maybe not all vampires are in bed with the fae, but Theo is,” Ronnie said slowly.
“I think so.” I took another sip of wine. I could feel the flush of heat starting to rise in my cheeks from the wine. “She’s playing some sort of game and she knew it would be hard for me to see Owen.”
“Do you think maybe Theo has Roane?” Ronnie asked.
“Why would she send Owen then?”
“To throw you off. If Owen’s here telling you to look for Roane, you won’t think the vampires have him.”
“Sure, I guess,” I said, but Ronnie was on a roll.
“Or maybe she thought if she sent Owen here to tell you to go looking for him, you’d be so pissed off after the way he treated you, you would refuse just because Owen said you should.”
“Yeah,” I nodded, “that would probably work.” I was a little embarrassed to admit it, but the wine made my tongue loose.
“So maybe you should look for Roane,” Ronnie said.
“Not you too.” I slouched in my chair, dropped my head back, and stared at the ceiling.
“No, no, hear me out,” Ronnie said quickly, leaning toward me. “What if Theo does have Roane? Wouldn’t it be great to catch her and throw her to the fae?”
“Sure, but –”
Ronnie cut me off again. “I would love to see what the Lord and Lady of Dunhallow would do to that blood sucker.”
“Ronnie,” I said her name, then snapped my fingers to make her blink and bring her attention back to me. “You do remember that Theodora is, like, a thousand years old, right?”
“So?”
“So? Are you kidding? You have no idea how much power that woman has.” I pushed my wine glass away, afraid I’d knock it over in my state.
“You have power too, Mattie.”
“Not like her,” I said, shaking my head. “Owen and I had been sharing blood for a year, Ronnie, a year, and she was still able to call him to her like that.” I snapped my fingers for emphasis. A spark of silver power ignited briefly.
“Is that such a big deal?” she asked. Ronnie had hardly spent any time around vampires; most witches didn’t. Vampires generally didn’t like witches because their mind tricks and compulsions didn’t work on us, so they kept their distance.
“Yeah, it is. Sharing that much blood with just one person? No one should be able to break our bond, but,” I sighed and tried not to think of that last night we spent together, “she was able to do it pretty easily. I mean, it did take a couple of weeks, but she got him in the end.”
“Are you scared of her?” Ronnie asked.
“No,” I said, thinking about it before I went on. “I mean, she’s still a vampire and she can’t use her little mind tricks on me, but…” I paused, letting the sentence hang there.
“But what?” Ronnie finally asked, unable to take the silence.
“But she just shouldn’t have been able to pull Owen away from me, so I don’t know what other powers she has, you know? I’ve never actually met her. Hell, I haven’t met any vampires as old as she.” I shuddered involuntarily.
“Yeah,” Ronnie finally agreed with a nod, “I guess that is a little scary. But, Mattie, is she scarier than the fae?”
“That’s a very good question.” I pushed away from the table, stood, and went into the kitchen to look for some food. The brownies were cool enough to cut, but I needed some real food, not just sugar. I was bent over, my head in the fridge, when I heard the knock at the door.
“Do you usually get customers this late?” Ronnie asked. It was nearly three o’clock.
“Not usually, but it happens,” I said as I shut the fridge door and moved through the apartment toward the fro
nt door. The caller pounded frantically on the door before I reached it, making me hesitate. Jimmy had knocked like that when he came asking for that seeking spell. So help me, if it was that troll, I’d have his fuzzy little head on a stake.
Just as I reached for my baseball bat, I heard the high pitched voice of a young girl call out my name, muffled through the door. “Mattie! Mattie! It’s me, Joey! Please!”
“She sounds desperate,” Ronnie offered from her seat in the kitchen.
“Joey,” I said as I started to unbolt the multiple locks on the door, “what is the matter?” The tiny waif of a girl rushed in when I had opened the door a mere couple of inches. She was a blur of pink as she darted past me. A half-pixie half-human, Joey was so tiny, she was shorter even than Ronnie, and if she weighed over a hundred pounds, I would be surprised. Her hair was a shock of bubblegum pink that sprouted from her head in every direction, ending in soft spikes with tiny pieces framing her lavender eyes.
“Um, I, uh,” she stammered as she looked around my apartment. Her eyes landed on Ronnie. Joey turned back to me and blinked her wide eyes slowly.
“Ronnie’s cool. What’s up?” I asked as I shut the door, threw the locks back into place, and touched the knob with my finger to trigger the freezing spell.
“Yeah, okay,” she said quickly. When I had first met Joey, I thought she had a meth problem because of how erratic her speech was and how quickly she moved, but it was just the pixie in her reconciling with the permanent human size. Her mother was a pixie and her father a human. The combination had turned out pretty enough, but Joey didn’t have all the transformative powers pixies usually had. She was stuck at human size, as small as she was at four foot nine, but she moved like a hummingbird, and I worried one day her heart was going to burst in her tiny chest.
“Come, sit, have some wine,” I said, taking her by the shoulders, guiding her over to the kitchen table, and urging her to take my seat. I poured a third glass of wine and held it out for her. Joey took it with trembling fingers, but after the first sip, she was visibly calmer.
Wytchcraft: A Matilda Kavanagh Novel Page 4
