Hex and Candy

by Ashlyn Kane

“You said it,” Cole agreed. “I’m getting a beer.”

  Chapter Seven

  BEFORE the curse, Leo hated working afternoons.

  When he worked days, he had a more or less normal life. Get up, go to work, go home, go for a run, eat dinner, hang out with a boyfriend, rinse, repeat. When he worked nights, he slept late, then got up and ran errands, had dinner with his boyfriend, then went to work. Afternoons felt like this weird in-between place. It was late enough when he got home that if he did have a boyfriend, he was usually asleep when Leo arrived and gone before Leo got up. He couldn’t go to dinner with friends. And he hated coming home in the dark.

  After the curse, afternoons became a blessing. Leo had a handy excuse not to go dancing. He could tell himself—truthfully—that socializing didn’t fit in his schedule. He wasn’t being pathetic. No one cared if he just came home and went to bed, then watched Netflix in his boxers until it was time for work.

  But for the past three days, Leo hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that someone was watching him in the dark.

  At first it was just the hair on the back of his neck prickling. He told himself it was nothing. His mind was playing tricks on him because suddenly the occult world had become part of his world.

  Tuesday night there was a strange car in the parking lot when he got home. That might not have been unusual at a larger building, but Leo’s apartment only had six units. And when he turned the light on in his apartment and glanced outside, the car’s headlights came on and it drove away.

  The next night he lay awake in bed for hours, exhausted and gritty-eyed, startling at every noise until finally he took a sleeping aid and closed the window.

  With the chemical help, he slept soundly. When he woke Thursday the sky was clear and the air was crisp, and Leo put his paranoia out of his mind and went for a run.

  Work went smoothly. He gossiped with his coworkers, prevented doctors from administering the wrong medication, taught a seven-year-old how to solve a Rubik’s cube, and joined the nurses’ fantasy hockey league, which would draft Friday. He even managed to sneak a few crackers with cream cheese and jelly from the fair for a snack. By the day’s end he was as exhausted as usual, but he felt cheerful.

  There were no suspicious cars in the parking lot when he arrived, wiping eyes bleary with want of sleep. He let himself into his building, made sure the door closed and locked behind him.

  The stairwell echoed with his footsteps as he dragged himself up to the third floor.

  And stopped.

  There, on the floor outside his apartment, sat a bouquet of flowers in a beautiful glass vase.

  “Okay, this is weird,” Leo muttered. He couldn’t go on dates or kiss guys or get laid, but people could send him flowers?

  Maybe he shouldn’t touch them. Maybe he should just turn around and go back to the hospital and sleep on a cot there. This whole thing would be ridiculous once the sun rose.

  But he wanted his bed, dammit. His whole body ached for it.

  Finally he huffed. There was no one in the hallway. So no one would think it was weird if he just—

  He pulled off his scrub top and wrapped it around his left hand. Then, careful not to touch it with his bare skin, he picked up the vase. He unlocked his apartment with his other hand and set the flowers on the counter.

  Moonlight spilled in through the balcony doors, limning the cozy space of Leo’s open-concept apartment in just enough silvery detail for him to avoid bruising his shins. He set his keys down next to the flowers and kicked off his shoes.

  The bright fluorescent kitchen light made him squint when he flicked it on, but he wanted to examine the flowers more closely. The kitchen drawer nearest the door held a first-aid kit, and he scavenged a pair of nitrile gloves. He’d have to ask Cole about spellproof materials, but for now….

  There was a card, nestled between stems of bright yellow daffodils and ferns and tiny blue flowers. Leo teased it out, but it bore only the legend Peaseblossom, the flower shop across from the café.

  Very, very weird, but not necessarily suspicious. It could just be a misdelivery. There was another apartment on his floor, after all. And wouldn’t someone who was trying to hurt him remove the shop’s card? Leo would check with the shop owner tomorrow and get the whole thing straightened out. In the meantime—

  His stomach grumbled loudly, letting him know there’d be no peace until he’d eaten.

  He pulled off the gloves and washed his hands thoroughly, just in case, before reaching for the half loaf of bread on the counter. He took out a slice and spread it with a thick layer of peanut butter, not bothering with a plate. Why dirty more dishes than he had to? There was no one here to judge him.

  He was just swallowing the first creamy, chewy, peanutty bite when he heard it. A low rumble, faint but somehow pervasive. For a second the hair on the back of Leo’s neck stood up.

  But the next second it was gone. Leo paused with his slice halfway to his mouth, straining his ears for the sound.

  He looked at the apartment door. He looked at the flowers.

  Nothing. Just a trick of the night and his own overactive imagination, which had a little too much fuel lately. That was all.

  He stuffed another bite of peanut butter bread in his mouth.

  There it came again, this time louder. And longer. And meaner. It sounded less like a rumble now and more like a growl, animal and threatening and ominous. Leo felt the hum of it in his teeth, in his bones. Hair rose all over his body.

  The sound went on, almost a howl, the frequency of it making the flower vase rattle on the counter. It sounded hungry.

  To hell with this, Leo thought. He grabbed his keys from the counter, shoved his shoes on, and booked it back to his car.

  FRANTIC knocking interspersed with continuous doorbell ringing woke Cole from a dead sleep. He sat bolt upright in bed, heart pounding; then he looked at the clock. The witching hour is upon us, he thought grimly.

  Niamh fluttered grumpily from her perch by the window. “Someone better be dead,” she squawked.

  “Bite your tongue,” Cole grumbled, wiping a hand over his face. “Do you see my slippers?”

  Still indignant, Niamh flapped to the open window.

  “Don’t you dare poop on whoever it is!” Cole shouted after her.

  He’d best hurry down the stairs.

  He found his slippers by tripping over them, but at least he wouldn’t spend an hour trying to fall back asleep because his feet were cold. He took the stairs three at a time, spurred on by the pounding that would not stop. At the bottom of the stairs, the rug almost skidded out from under him, but he caught himself on the front doorknob. He allowed himself half a second to recover before he threw the door open.

  Leo stood on his front step, shirtless, wearing only a pair of scrub pants and untied tennis shoes.

  Cole gaped.

  Who knew nurses had that much time to work out?

  “Uh,” he said. Apparently his brain was still upstairs sleeping.

  The slap of wings on air snapped him out of his trance. “Invite him in, dumbass. It’s freezing and he’s basically naked.”

  Right. Cole stepped aside, gesturing Leo into the house. “Come in, come in, sorry. What the hell happened? Are you okay? What are you doing here?”

  Niamh landed on Cole’s shoulder as Leo stepped inside, and Cole closed the door and locked it.

  Leo wrung his hands.

  Oh boy. Cole hoped he had some lemon fizzies in the cupboard. Leo was going to need them. “Why don’t you go and sit down and I’ll get you something to wear.” Not that any of Cole’s shirts were going to fit, exactly, but they could at least keep him warm.

  Leo went through to the living room, but he didn’t seem like he was taking much in. When he sat on the couch, Cole muttered to Niamh, “Keep an eye on him, okay? I’ll be right back.”

  “What do you think he’s going to do? Faint?”

  Cole seriously hoped not, but he made it up the stairs in
record time anyway. He grabbed the first clean T-shirt from the shelf in his closet, then took the quilt off his bed for good measure. This would be an excellent time to have a few magic tricks up his sleeve, but he’d have to do this the mundane way, for the most part.

  Leo hadn’t moved by the time he got downstairs. Cole couldn’t decide if that was a good sign. He handed over the T-shirt, which Leo put on as though on autopilot.

  The shirt was powder blue and read Fruitier Than a Nutcake. It stretched so tight across Leo’s shoulders Cole might never be able to wear it again—he swore he heard seams ripping. He could still count Leo’s abdominal muscles.

  Leo traced one of the pairs of cherries on the shirt. Then he looked up, seeming a little more composed. “Really?”

  Cole shrugged. “I thought it was funny.” He handed over the quilt, even though that felt like overkill now that Leo had color in his cheeks and clothes on his body. “You going to tell me what happened?”

  Leo let out a long breath as Cole sank down next to him. Niamh took off from her spot on the back of the couch to her perch near the fireplace. “It’s going to sound crazy.”

  “Probably not,” Cole pointed out, trying to gauge whether he should have Niamh fetch the lemon fizzies. “Let’s hear it.”

  With a shake of his head, Leo pulled the blanket around his shoulders. “At first I just figured I’d given myself the heebie-jeebies.”

  Heebie-jeebies? Cole bit his tongue.

  “I could swear I felt someone watching me. That was Monday. Tuesday night there was a suspicious car in the parking lot when I got home.”

  Okay, that definitely sounded like heebie-jeebies. Maybe he’d just gotten a little too close to the paranormal world and it had freaked him out. Cole inclined his head toward Niamh.

  She ruffled her feathers but made for the kitchen without complaint. Cole heard the scrape of talons on the counter as she picked up the cloth bag of sweets he kept for emergencies—though this particular emergency he had not foreseen.

  To Leo, Cole prompted, “Go on.”

  Leo exhaled a long, slow breath, his cheeks puffing out. He was still shivering a little. “Tonight when I got home, there was a bouquet of flowers on my doorstep. There was a card from the flower shop, but no note. I don’t know who could have put it there. You need a key to get into the building.”

  Cole caught the bag of sweets and murmured a soft thanks to Niamh, even as a chill went through him. Perhaps Leo hadn’t overreacted. “Stand up.”

  Leo startled. “What?” He stood. “Why?”

  “I want to make sure you didn’t run into more trouble.” But a quick scan showed just the same old curse. No new dangers. Cole shook his head. “You’re clean. Well, apart from the one we already know about.” He held out the bag. “Take a yellow one. It’ll help with the nerves.”

  Leo did, sitting down again and pulling the blanket back around his shoulders. He still looked a little green, but at least the blue tinge was gone from his skin. “Thanks. Anyway, I thought the flowers were weird. But then I heard this… noise.”

  “What kind of noise?”

  “Hah.” Leo shook his head and popped the fizzy in his mouth. “I don’t know. Some kind of animal. Never heard anything like it. Like a growl but almost… musical? It freaked me out.” He closed his mouth around the candy and made a thoughtful face. “This is good.”

  “Thanks,” Cole said, glad to have something he could comment on. Tonight was a full moon, but a musical growl? Did Leo have a cryptid singer-songwriter for a neighbor? “Anyway, stay here tonight. I don’t have a spare room, but the couch folds out. It’s comfortable.”

  Leo sighed and leaned back into the cushions. “I probably won’t bother pulling it out. It’s long enough if I curl up.” He looked exhausted. And kind of… grimy.

  “Did you go right home after work? No shower at the hospital?” Cole didn’t know a nurse’s usual routine.

  Leo rubbed at his right eye. “Locker room shower’s about like you’d expect.” He quirked a rueful smile. “You’d think a bunch of nurses would be less gross, but no.”

  “I could draw you a—” bath, Cole wanted to say, but the word stuck in his throat. Apparently that was too sexy.

  Leo looked like he was about to laugh, but he held it in.

  Cole rolled his eyes. “Oh honestly. Do you want to take a shower? I have good water pressure and plenty of clean towels. I promise Niamh won’t spy. Might help you warm up.”

  “If you’re not offended, I think I’ll just go to sleep.” His eyelids drooped and he shook his head before narrowing his eyes accusingly. “What’s in those candies?”

  “Lemon and lavender, mostly.” Magic made the relaxing effects of lavender much more potent. “How do you feel?”

  He took a deep breath, his eyes closing all the way this time. “Tired,” he sighed.

  Cole patted him on the knee. “All right. Off to bed with you, then.”

  Niamh rode Cole’s shoulder as he got up to go to the stairs. By the time he put his hand on the railing, he could see that Leo had kicked his feet up on the couch.

  When the motion-sensor lights clicked off a minute later, they were both asleep.

  Chapter Eight

  LEO woke up staring into the beady black eyes of an American magpie. He wasn’t sure who screeched louder, him or the bird. Either way, not an experience he wished to repeat.

  Niamh flitted to the perch near the fireplace, having served her purpose. “Cole ran out to grab breakfast,” she informed him, and wasn’t that absurd? An animal was speaking to him. “He says there’s a clean towel in the bathroom if you want that shower. I can show you where.”

  “Thanks.” Leo sat up and stretched slowly, surprised to find himself refreshed. He hadn’t woken the whole night, despite the troubles he’d had all week. Apparently his subconscious felt safe here.

  Ugh, he couldn’t believe he’d gone to sleep without his shower. “Bathroom’s upstairs?” he guessed.

  Niamh flapped over to the railing. “Follow me.”

  As Cole had said, she left him alone once she’d shown him the bathroom. Leo took advantage of some very nice toiletries—he was pretty sure the soap was handmade—and the promised excellent water pressure. The water stayed hot too. Maybe it was magic, he thought with a little laugh.

  He was just drying off on a very thick, soft bath mat when he realized he didn’t have any clean clothes.

  Fortunately being a nurse had cured him of most of his body shyness. He wrapped the towel around his waist and opened the bathroom door.

  And came face-to-face with Cole, who gave him a pained look. “Is accidental casual nudity going to be a thing with you?” But then he grinned to show he was teasing, or maybe he was just surprised he’d managed to get the line out around the curse. Maybe this was part of it loosening. “Follow me, I’m sure I can find something to keep you decent until we can raid your apartment for clothes that actually fit.”

  “You read my mind,” Leo said wryly.

  Cole waved that off. “Nah, not my trick.”

  Leo followed Cole into his bedroom, which was done in soft, soothing blues that felt mature rather than boyish. The bed was missing its quilt—which was probably downstairs on the couch, folded into a neat bundle, where Leo had left it. Cole, Leo noted, slept on the right side. Leo was a left-side sleeper himself.

  He really needed to stop looking at the bed, and the barren left-side nightstand.

  “Here.” Cole opened a set of double doors into an enormous walk-in closet, which Leo thought was pretty hilarious, because he’d never seen Cole in anything but a T-shirt and jeans, give or take an apron. “Let’s see….”

  Cole bestowed Leo with a green T-shirt, this one featuring assorted vegetables and the slogan Lettuce Turnip the Beet, sweatpants that wouldn’t reach Leo’s ankles, Saturday day-of-the-week socks, and a pair of Andrew Christians. Leo could have done without knowing Cole went around wearing fancy underwear beneath his otherwise p
lain wardrobe. Or at least, he’d have preferred to find out under other circumstances. “Thanks,” he managed.

  Cole’s mouth worked soundlessly for a moment before he said, “Oh for fuck’s sake, I’ll be downstairs when you’re done.”

  This time Leo couldn’t hold back the laughter.

  When he’d dressed and went down to the kitchen, he found Cole swaying as he hummed tunelessly, setting out fruit and yogurt and bagels. “You hungry?”

  Leo thought briefly of his aborted midnight snack, and his stomach rumbled.

  “Thought so.” Cole gestured to a couple of plates and bowls. “Help yourself.”

  Leo did, being extra generous with the yogurt particularly. “So what’s the plan for this morning?”

  Cole popped a bagel in the toaster. “Well, I have to open the shop, but I asked Danielle to come in early. Then I figured we’ll check out your apartment, make sure it’s safe. Investigate the source of your weird noise. After that, I guess we’ll see.”

  Nodding, Leo spooned yogurt into his mouth. If he didn’t say anything, he could trust his voice not to betray the anxiety he felt at the idea of returning to his apartment. Which was silly. What could happen to him in the light of day, with a trained cursebreaker at his side? Cole wasn’t going to let anything happen to him.

  Cole’s bagel popped, and he hot-potatoed it onto a plate and reached for the peanut butter. “Bagel?”

  Why not. He deserved six hundred calories of carbs after what he went through yesterday. “Please. Sounds great.”

  They met Danielle at the shop at quarter to nine, and Cole unlocked the door. At ten to, they pulled into the lot at Leo’s building.

  Leo fidgeted in Cole’s diminutive passenger seat.

  Cole turned the car off, but when Leo didn’t move right away, he looked over. “You want me to go in first?”

  Surprisingly, Leo did not. He unbuckled his seat belt. He didn’t want Cole going in alone any more than he wanted to do it himself. “No, that’s… I’ll come in.” He tried for a smile.