50 Ways to Hex Your Lover

by Linda Wisdom

  “Ever been invited to one?”

  “Again, no.”

  “Have you ever driven anyone up there?”

  “Third time, no.” She figured as long as he didn’t ask if she were ever going to drive anyone up there she’d be fine.

  He remained quiet for a moment, staring at her and idly drumming his fingers against the tabletop.

  “So tell me about your clients. Anyone with strange habits other than the one with mega-strength farts?”

  “I never talk about my clients, Detective Larkin. Discretion is my middle name.” She grinned. “Well, not really, but I’ve always wanted to say that. Look, you bringing me here is nothing more than harassment. You know it and I know it. Someone doesn’t like Dweezil and sicced the police on him. You didn’t like what happened to your officer, so you’re now coming down on me. Why don’t we agree I don’t know anything and I get out of your hair?” She pointedly didn’t look at his receding hairline.

  A tap on the door brought a scowl to Larkin’s face and a smile to Jazz’s lips. She was getting to the point where she was ready to use some magick to end this pointless conversation. She knew the detective was going the roundabout way in hopes of trapping her into saying something against Dweezil. Except she knew anything she might say against her boss wouldn’t help the cop at all. Dweezil was a sleaze and walked a fine line, but he tended to stay on the right side of that line, so he wouldn’t have to worry about police raids. Unfortunately, someone must have decided D was due some harassment.

  Her eyes glittered dangerously when two men walked into the room. One of them she instantly dismissed. The other usually meant some time spent in a jail cell.

  “Guy’s come to pick up Ms. Tremaine,” the detective announced.

  Jazz saw the subtle interaction between the three men. Cop acknowledging cop. The words “he’s a vampire!” rested on the tip of her tongue, but she left them there. She was hoping Nick truly was there to pick her up. She didn’t want to think he’d try something that would get her thrown in jail after all. If that happened there was no way in this millennium she’d kiss him again.

  “Nick Gregory.” Nick held out his hand to a now smiling and affable Larkin.

  She figured Nick was using a bit of vamp hypnosis on the detective. Larkin sure never smiled at her like that and she considered herself a hell of a lot cuter.

  “We’re about through here. Ms. Tremaine’s been very cooperative.” His gaze flicked over her. She flashed him her best “I’m just an all-American girl” smile as she rose to her feet. While she hated the idea that Nick was rescuing her, she’d eagerly accept his help in getting out of there. Plus she wanted to find out what was going on at Dweezil’s office. While there were times she didn’t like the creature, she wasn’t going to see him railroaded by the police for something he didn’t do.

  So for now, she would accept Nick’s help. She could go her own way once she left the building and returned to Dweezil’s for her car. She only hoped the police hadn’t towed it—even if the idea of Irma spending a couple hours in an impound yard brought a spring to her step.

  “Don’t look too happy about leaving here. They might think you’re guilty of something,” Nick murmured.

  “Isn’t it a little early for you to be out, Nick? Aren’t you afraid of getting a nasty sunburn at the very least?” She followed him through the bustling station. She was finding it easier than she thought being polite to him. Or perhaps it had something to do with all the uniformed officers milling around. Ironic that the last time they’d been surrounded by the police he had been putting her in jail and now he was getting her out.

  A faint smiled touched his lips. “How long do you think you’ve been in here?”

  “You know very well I have no sense of time.” She held up both wrists showing the lack of a watch. She had learned long ago that witches and timepieces didn’t work well together.

  Nick pushed open the front door and allowed her to exit first. She looked up, stunned to find it was past sundown.

  “I usually at least feel the shifts in time,” she murmured.

  “Detective Larkin must have been a fascinating conversationalist if you didn’t sense the hours passing.” Nick held out a hand toward the visitor’s parking lot.

  “They like you to wait around in a disgusting little room until they are ready to come in and talk to you about absolutely nothing,” she grumbled. “And they make really lousy coffee. I bet they do it deliberately so the suspects will confess in hopes the coffee in jail is better.”

  “Throwing a biohazard bag filled with deadly smelling clothing into a Dumpster isn’t exactly nothing.”

  “It’s not like I can throw the clothes in the washer then give them to charity. Dweezil keeps a Dumpster out back just for those bags, so they don’t get tossed out on the landfill where the fumes add another ten layers to the smog.” She walked slowly, content to enjoy the cool night air that was considerably fresher than the recycled air she had inhaled for the past number of hours. “There is a good reason why the creature is called Foulshadow. Thank you for getting me out of there, however you did it.”

  Nick chuckled. “That didn’t hurt so much, did it?”

  Jazz picked up her pace. Once she reached the edge of the parking lot she stopped short.

  “You drove my car?” Thunder briefly rumbled overhead.

  “Have you ever thought of taking an anger management course?” Nick asked and then walked ahead of her to the passenger door and opened it. “Irma, my love, we will have to do some shifting around.”

  The ghost held onto her pocketbook as if her life depended on it. “I’m not moving.”

  “And I’m not sitting in the passenger seat of my own car.” Jazz headed for the driver’s side. She peered inside and noticed the seat was shifted further back. “How did you get it here? If you hotwired my car …”

  “I gave him permission to drive the car,” Irma informed her. “It was mine before it was yours. And if I give someone permission the car will start up for them without a key.” She looked up at Nick with a saucy smile. “Let her drive. You can sit with me, pookie.”

  Nick moved around the car, smoothly blocking Jazz from sliding onto the driver’s seat. While he didn’t touch her, she still felt the force of his power. She could have pushed past him, but she didn’t dare lay a hand on him. Touching Nick always got her into trouble.

  “A few days ago I would have accused you of setting the cops on Dweezil to get even with me,” she murmured.

  “You know better than that, Jazz. I don’t use third parties to achieve my goal.” For a moment his eyes seemed to glow with the same life as the moonstones in her jewelry. “I’m a very direct person.”

  “Yes, I know, and the thought faded as soon as it bloomed.” She purposely tried to forget the last two times they were together. Recalling his kisses tended to make her mind wander into forbidden areas.

  He blew out a breath and looked around the parking lot. “I suppose now you will put me off for tonight. Tell me something, what will your excuse be tomorrow night? A headache?”

  Jazz’s snarl was worthy of his.

  “Just do whatever he says, honey, so we can go home,” Irma whined. “I don’t want to miss House, M.D.”

  Jazz blamed the turmoil bubbling away in the pit of her stomach on not eating anything for most of the day and drinking bad coffee while waiting for the Sam Spade wannabe to get to the point.

  “You won’t be coming by my office tonight, will you?” He gave away none of his feelings.

  “I have to prepare for my trip to Moonstone Lake,” she said, not looking at him. “And right now, I have to get her highness home for her Hugh Laurie fix.”

  Nick straightened up to allow her to get into her car. Once she was settled behind the wheel, he closed the door and leaned down.

  “You can’t ignore this in hopes it will go away, Jazz,” he said. He leaned in and brushed a light kiss across her lips.

  A few d
ays ago, Jazz would have seriously thought about zapping him again even if it meant an additional sixty days tacked on to her punishment. Right now, she only resisted the urge to touch her tingling lips.

  “Come on, Nicky, we can squeeze in together!” Irma chirped up.

  He looked up and grinned as the ghost shifted over in the seat an additional inch or so.

  “I’m fine, Irma.” He looked back down at Jazz. A heat flared in his eyes that she felt clear down to her toes. Luckily, before she could do something stupid, like drag him into the car, he looked at Irma, blew her a kiss, turned, and walked off.

  “You didn’t have to be so rude to him,” Irma sniffed. “It doesn’t take you all that long to pack for that trip up to the lake.”

  Jazz started up the car and put it into gear. “I thought you wanted to get home to see House, M.D.?” She took a quick look around, but as expected, Nick was nowhere in sight.

  She told herself that she wasn’t going to be able to put Nick off forever. It wouldn’t solve a thing. Still, helping him would give her the chance to settle things between them and, as he said, she would face her past. If she could face Clive Reeves and not want to kill him, she was sure that action alone would take a hell of a lot more than sixty days off her banishment. More importantly, she would feel whole for the first time in a long time.

  Fine, she would talk to him when she got back.

  Then she would tell Nick it was best they never see each other again. She needed to tell him there could never be anything between them.

  She looked down the length of her nose. She was positive it had just grown a fraction of an inch.

  Nine

  Moonstone Lake

  The First Night of the Full Moon

  The three women wore pale blue robes that moved with the night breeze as they walked along the lake’s edge until they reached a flat-topped boulder that jutted out over the water. They walked with sure-footed grace along the length of the large stone’s surface until they stood on the tip of the rock. They presented an ethereal picture as the full moon cast silver rays over them.

  “May our sanctuary provide us with continued protection and strength,” Stasia Romanov intoned, taking multi-colored dust out of a gold mesh bag and sprinkling it over the water. The breeze caught up strands of her sunny brown hair, giving them a life of their own.

  “May our sanctuary give us sustenance and nurture us.” Blair Fitzpatrick followed with a pinch of silvery dust. Her own darker brown hair with auburn lights displayed the same sense of life.

  Jazz was last with her copper hair hanging past her shoulders in loose waves. “During this full moon we ask that our sanctuary always be there for us in our time of need.” She opened her bag with its dust spilling forth the color of creamy pearls. As it touched the water, the color of the lake turned the rare translucent color of a moonstone, which echoed in the gemstone pendant each woman wore. At that moment, all three women’s moonstone pendants and rings glowed bright. When a star shot across the velvety night sky, the three women looked at each other and burst into joyous laughter.

  “And thank you for making sure the lake monster didn’t rise up and eat us!” Jazz shouted across the shimmering water as she spun in a tight circle.

  “That’s right, Jazz, encourage it to seek out a late night snack,” Blair chided her.

  As they later retraced their path along the lake’s edge, Stasia looked out over the water. A faint ripple appeared in the center, the watery rings moving in ever-increasing circles toward the water’s edge.

  “Do you think it’s true?” she asked.

  “What’s true? That we have a monster living in the lake?” Blair followed her gaze. “You’ve been reading too many of those fantasy romances you sell, Stasi. All you’ll find out there are fish, pieces of broken boats, and miles of snarled fishing lines caught in the weeds.”

  “That doesn’t mean there isn’t something living in the lake,” Jazz said, pausing to look out over the lake, which now remained quiet other than a few lingering ripples. “Has there ever been a sighting of anything strange and unusual?”

  Stasi shook her head. “High school kids like to come out here at midnight and claim they see a creature’s head pop up in the water, but nothing has ever been verified, so everyone assumes they’d been drinking or something.”

  “At least no one comes out on the nights of the full moon. If they knew we were out here and why, they would probably expect us to be dancing naked around a bonfire,” Blair joked.

  “Oh right, on a night like this?” Jazz groused, shivering under her thin robe. “It’s got to be twenty degrees. I’ve got long underwear on and I’m still cold!”

  The other two laughed and bumped shoulders companionably as they hurried along. They didn’t notice the faint outline of a scale-covered head popping out of the water and looking in their direction.

  Following their own time-honored custom, the women arose to watch the sun greet them with colors of red, orange, and gold. This way they enjoyed the early morning hours together before Jazz returned to her city life.

  When Stasi and Blair stumbled onto Moonstone Lake in 1854, the mining town was aptly named Last Chance. It slowly died when the mines played out and some residents moved on in search of wealth, while others remained because they desired stability. Stasi and Blair stayed, working as waitresses in the small café and eventually purchasing it. By the time they left the town, claiming family matters, they also owned the building the café was housed in. Over the years, Stasi and Blair took turns returning as a granddaughter or grandniece to make sure the building was kept up for the times they wished to return.

  Two years ago, they decided to return to the small town where they renovated the building and opened businesses to cater to the tourists who stopped off on their way to the ski resorts further up the mountain. They also joked they were there to watch over the lake and the mystical monster that supposedly inhabited it. Stasi and Blair took it one step further by sprinkling “not interested” spells throughout the forest that partially surrounded the town. Many developers had visited the area with thoughts of building resorts there, but they always left deciding it wasn’t for them. But since the two women were also aware there could always be someone who might slip under the spell’s radar, they took further precautions by purchasing the land around the lake under a false corporation’s name. This was their own little paradise, and they intended to keep it that way.

  For now, Stasi enjoyed running her lingerie boutique that also offered romance novels, while Blair utilized her playful side with a shop specializing in retro—whether it was a Madame Alexander doll from the 1940s, chrome tables from the 1950s, or tie dye clothing from the 1960s. It was easy for Blair to keep a varied inventory when every sister witch had storage units all over the country filled with personal treasures and liked to clean them out every so often.

  During the winter, the town was busy with tourists heading up the mountain to the various ski resorts, while the summer season attracted trout fishermen and hikers.

  Stasi and Blair never lacked for male company if they so wished, but out of self-preservation they kept their secrets close and deliberately cultivated no long-term relationships. Jazz came up every month for the moon ceremony along with any witch who might be in the area. For the last few months, it had only been the three visiting the lake the first night of the full moon.

  Each holding their morning macchiatos, the three sat in comfortable chairs on the building’s flat-topped roof, a pair of binoculars within reach on a nearby table.

  As Jazz related the events of the past few weeks, she prepared herself for the worst when she mentioned Nick’s name. She wasn’t disappointed.

  “Wait a minute. You used witchflame and missed him? Girlfriend, you have lost your touch if that happened.” Blair shook her head. “The fangy sleaze at least deserved singed eyebrows.”

  “Except he’d end up looking more like a sparkler on the Fourth of July than a man with no ey
ebrows,” Stasi said softly. “Vampires and fire don’t go together very well.”

  “There are ways,” Blair pointed out. As one gifted with some pretty nifty revenge spells, she should know. “Do you want some help cooking something up?”

  “No, thanks, right now we sort of need each other,” Jazz admitted reluctantly, although the idea of picking up a few revenge spells from Blair was a good idea. She wished she hadn’t mentioned Nick’s return to Stasi and Blair. Now that they knew he was back in her life, they would demand all the gory details. They knew something bad had happened to her back in 1932, but she had never told them the whole story. That was a night she preferred not to discuss with anyone, not even those closest to her.

  “I guess I don’t need to ask you if Nick has changed,” Stasia said with her gentle smile. “He’s still gorgeous and all coplike, right?”

  “I don’t think he would change much even if he wasn’t a vampire,” Jazz said, sipping her macchiato. “His wardrobe is more updated, but he’s still a cop at heart—even if he left the Protectorate.”

  “You are kidding! I thought he was surgically grafted to that group. Darth Vader with fangs.” Blair snickered. “Nick, I am your destiny,” she intoned in a deep voice that had the other two laughing.

  “Great, now I snorted my macchiato!” Jazz wheezed, rocking back and forth in her chair, accepting the handkerchief the always-prepared Stasi carried on her person.

  “We had a Star Wars marathon a couple weeks ago. Easy to think Vader when you’ve seen him in four movies,” Blair explained.

  “Ha! Don’t believe her. She was too busy ogling Han Solo in those tight breeches,” Stasi teased.

  Jazz looked at her sister witches and felt warm and soothed. She had needed this. She needed the ceremony at the lake to center herself and her power, and she needed to be with those closest to her for emotional centering.

  She liked to act the part of scary witch or smart-ass witch, but here, she could be herself. A witch who was still in the process of finding her true self. Who knew? She might even impress the Witches’ High Council so much they would lift her banishment. Yeah, that’ll happen. The same day the earth rotates in the opposite direction.