by Tina Gower
“Please tell me you called Lipski.”
“Not until I got past the outer wards,” she replies. “He’s at least twenty minutes behind me.”
A few seconds later, Becker’s vise grip on his ears lessens. Ali digs into her jeans and produces a ketchup packet and says a quick spell. She breaks it open with her teeth and squirts a drop into each of his ears. She shoves the used packet under the couch.
He makes a face and goes to rub it from his ears. “Gross. Why did you do that?”
She pats his cheek. “Don’t wipe it off. They’ll think they succeeded and it will keep them from trying again.”
He sucks a dab that landed on his knuckle.
“Ali Hale, come out, come out, wherever you are,” a sweet voice coos from outside.
We all turn our heads at the same time to see a tall blond pregnant witch a few feet from the front now-missing door. She stands right to the edge of the protection wards of the house and strokes her overlarge belly.
“Hello, Dorcus,” my cousin answers. “It’s great that you enjoyed your coffee, but I don’t do house calls.”
She frowns. “That’s funny.” But she doesn’t look amused. “Resorting to name calling are we?”
“Name calling? That’s your name, isn’t it? Dorcus?” Ali makes a face like she can’t imagine why that would be a horrible name.
A monotheistic worshiper’s name for a Western pagan witch? Not to mention the unfortunate pronunciation that a ten-year-old would have a giggle fit over. Yeah, she might have been on to something to avoid using it.
Dorcus sniffs. “I scent the rot of failing wards and werewolf.”
“Blood magic working against the fates is making you sloppy. That rot is your own doing, Dorcus.”
She frowns as Ali punctuates her legal name. “I’m more powerful than I’ve ever been.” She lifts her nose at us, which isn’t hard since we’re huddled on the ground. “Stronger than any of you. And what are you going to do? Bake me a cake?”
“Cute.”
“Step out of that salt circle and we can see who’s the better witch.”
“There are two more out here,” Becker whispers to me. “One of them is circling the house.”
“Excuse me, Dorcus.” Ali straightens. “I’m a witch and a druid.” She says it with the same indignation as a doctor correcting someone who used Mr. or Mrs. instead.
Her smile is all teeth. “As long as we’re counting the eggs in each other’s ovaries, I’m a witch and an oracle.”
“Emmanuel?” I ask Becker.
Dorcus smirks—gods, Ali’s got me calling her that now, too—Dorcus is so focused on her shit-talk with Ali that she doesn’t seem to care Becker and I are talking in the back of class. “As an oracle, I’m privy to fate magic you’ll never have the ability to perform. I see you have everything you need for the biggest fate-casting spell ever performed. A time correction. A close-enough-to-full shifter and a fateless should really amp it up. I’m going to enjoy taking them to Wyrd so we can test that theory.”
Becker scoots closer. “Maybe. I smell him faintly, but it could be Dorcus, I mean Becky has his scent because his brother smells similar.” He shrugs.
“Like I’m going to just hand them over?” Ali blows out an unbelieving breath.
“Nope. They will come to me willingly.”
“What do we have?” I ask. I glance at Becker’s gun. “Maybe shoot her in the leg.”
“How’s that?” Ali asks our playground bully.
“Listen up, all of you.” She snaps her fingers to get our attention. We all stop talking, waiting for her list of demands. “So you did something to block my visions of you, but I’ve already unthreaded this little tale weeks ago. We know you’re working with that gremlin-troll cop—”
“He just made detective,” Ali informs her.
“Well, congratulations.” She places her hands on the top of her belly. “I don’t need to fate cast to know you’ve probably called him. We know you’re keeping this case out of the system. We’ve been careful to make it appear we have our people everywhere. Maybe we do, maybe we don’t. I won’t give up all my cards yet. Either way you reacted—and as frustrating as it was not to have a beat on you, we decided to adapt. Use it to our advantage. So you’ll only ask for the help of someone you trust. Someone you love. Manny is very talented. Do you agree?”
Ali scratches her chin as if she’s considering, then twists her lips to one side of her face. “Meh.”
Dorcus doesn’t seem to be fazed by Ali’s review of her brother-in-law/ex- boyfriend/ perhaps lover. If witches were more powerful in threes and they were experimenting in blood magic, three-way sex magic wasn’t too far of a stretch.
Dorcus opens her arms to indicate the area around her. “We set up some road blocks on every road leading here. Wasn’t hard since we know our way around—as you know, we live just down the way. Guess that makes us neighbors.” She giggles as if this occurrence was a happy accident. “So whoever drives to your rescue will be hit with an unfortunate accident. A tire strip? Black ice? Each direction has its own special Magical Exploding Device surprise.”
Becker goes straight for his cell phone.
Dorcus’s eyes light up with a look of but-wait-there’s-more on her face. “Edu’s specialty is in the elements. Metal in particular…”
Becker checks his screen. “My battery is drained.” He drops the thing in his lap.
“Do I have your attention yet?” Dorcus asks. “Because I’m not done. I haven’t even gotten to the finale. In twenty-seven scenarios he survived our plans. Tough guy. After you all went dark and we couldn’t forecast you, we had to add a backup. There’s a thin, undetectable magic field around each hazard, and when he gets up to run the rest of the distance—oh, believe me, that gremlin-troll was impressive in every vision with his dedication to getting to his friends. So he’s hit hard with a sudden heart attack. You saw what we did with Beatrix Morrison? That wasn’t even our full effort.”
Becker’s hand finds mine. He grips me tight.
“I will give you time to think about your options. Your nonexistent options.” She takes a few steps away from the door and off to where we can’t see her from our view in the center of the salt-circled living room.
As soon as Becker nods that our witches are a safe distance away, we all speak at once. I stomp my bare foot on the hardwood floor to call our meeting to order.
I point to Ali. “What do we have?”
Ali’s expression falls. “I don’t know.” She shrugs. “My whole plan centered on waiting it out until Hank got here with the police to take them out.”
Becker shakes his head. “No, we can’t let them kill Hank. He’s got kids. A wife.” He gives me a desperate look. “He’s my best friend. He’s pulled me out of more messes than I deserve. They want me? Want my blood? They can have me. If they let Hank go unharmed.”
I frown. “I don’t like that plan.”
Ali nods. “Me either. You’ll basically give them exactly what they want. And save Hank just to have him or thousands of others get potentially killed in whatever they plan to unleash. Uh, tell me where your plan will solve anything.”
“In your plan Hank dies. Right now.” His muscles tense and he pins her with a sharp look. “Excuse me while I could give a shit about the rest of the population at the moment.”
She pulls at her hair. “Ugh. Why are you so dramatic? Would Hank want you to do this? Do you really think he’s going to walk into their trap? Should we take their word? They’ll say anything to get both of you in their possession.”
I press my thumb to the bridge of my nose. “We’ve been searching for these guys for months and now we have them. We can turn the tables on them. Make them play our game instead.”
Becker crosses his arms. “If you’ve got a plan, let’s hear it.” But from the tightness in his jaw, he’s already decided that he’s not going to like it.
He’s got to know that whatever plan we come up wit
h it won’t involve me wrapped in bubble wrap safely stored in a secret hiding place while he singlehandedly rips out each of the witches’ throats.
“They can’t fate cast on us. They’ve given that little bit away. So we’re all fateless. You’re all like me.” I raise an eyebrow. “They planned on blowing Becker’s eardrums out so they can talk in private and sneak up on us. But we have the element of surprise.”
“Except there are three witches out there, Kate. Three.” Ali grabs my arms and her eyes widen in a plea. “There’s only one of me.”
“You have a true fateless.”
“You have a nearly full-blooded wolf,” Becker adds.
Ali blinks, understanding. “No. You both have to be truly insane if you’re asking what I think you’re asking.”
“Do you know the spell she was talking about? The one they’re going to use to change a moment in time?” Becker watches her for some nonverbal giveaway. “Is that even possible?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know. Given what they’ve done so far, I don’t doubt they’ll try. Which ends in two people I care about being drained of blood in the process.”
I scoot closer to her, whispering, “What if we try a fate-casting spell?”
“I don’t know shit for that kind of blood magic. Just theories. I never planned on pissing off the fates.”
“What can you do?” I glance at the too-far-away kitchen. Ali can do any spell if she relates it to food, but for this she’d have to be creative. “You have everything they need. Let’s beat them to the punch.”
“Tick, tock,” Dorcus calls from outside.
Ali covers her face with her hands, digging her palms into her eye sockets. Hopefully she’s completely focused on finding what spell she can use.
Dorcus appears outside the exposed entryway. Her accomplices flank her on either side this time. Emmanuel Brazil and someone who looks eerily similar, probably his brother, Edu. It’s like a reverse three little piggies. Except the pigs are witches and we have the wolf behind a house of salt.
Edu lifts his arms and the wind kicks up again.
I’ll huff and I’ll puff…
I hide a giggle. Becker gives me a half-confused-half-glare look.
Ali releases a sharp breath. “I’ve got something.”
She turns around to face us, her back to our unexpected company. She makes a motion for us to cut ourselves. But we don’t have a knife. She curses.
“What are you doing?” Dorcus asks, not at all concerned, mostly just amused.
“Please,” Emmanuel says. “We don’t want to harm anyone. Becky comes on strong, but if we wanted you harmed we could have done that already. This is all for the greater good of society. If you come with us we can explain. You will understand.”
“Why don’t you explain it to us,” Ali suggests. “We’re having a hard time seeing your point of view after the way you’ve presented your case until now.”
Ali and Dorcus continue to fling insults at each other. Meanwhile Becker and I go to work on bloodletting.
Becker digs in his pockets for a knife. This guy always has no less than a dozen weapons on him at all times and the moment we need a knife he’s fresh out? Then I remember that a few short moments ago he was nearly naked on the bed and barely got pants on at all before Ali came running into the house. He eyes his gun as if he’s considering shooting himself in the leg for the blood. But the gun’s barrel is melted shut. Ali was right about guns and magic.
I smack his arm to get his attention. “Bite me,” I whisper.
“What?” He flashes me a that’s-crazy look.
I arch an eyebrow. Seriously? He was about to shoot himself for the same goal. I hold out my wrist and he angles himself so our intention is hidden from view. He sinks his teeth in. It’s not pleasant. Pain zings up through my elbow. I clamp my other hand over my mouth, biting down to keep from screaming out. He has trouble breaking through the skin. His teeth saw back and forth against my flesh. His gaze locks with mine, desperate with apology. He hugs me close, chewing harder.
“Hey, hey!” Emmanuel calls, to get our attention. He glances to Ali. “What is the wolf doing to our fateless?”
Ali twists around for a second, seeing the problem, and flings around just as quickly to retort, “It’s their kink. You know how wolves are.” She makes a disgusted but also suggestive sound.
Becker manages to draw blood and he quickly attempts work on his own wrist. Except if breaking someone else’s skin is difficult, breaking your own, on purpose is impossible. Ali reaches out, and with one quick flick of her fingers and she slices her nails just below Becker’s jawline. He jerks away in shock. It produces the tiniest of paper cuts. But she has our blood. She swipes it from his face and with the same finger dips it into my wound.
Edu laughs. “You don’t have enough. You have to drain the wolf for the blood magic to work.” He slaps his brother’s shoulder and they exchange she’s-an-idiot expressions at each other. “At the very least you should come with us so we can teach you the proper way of it.”
Ali ignores them and chants, smearing the blood between her thumb and index finger. She closes her eyes for concentration.
Dorcus crosses her arms. “This is just insulting now. You’re not even doing the incantation correctly. And what is that you’re mixing in with the spell? Is that Japanese?” She blows out a frustrated breath. “She doesn’t even know you can’t mix magic. This is ridiculous. I can’t watch.” But she does. She juts her chin out and squints as if she’s attempting to decipher gibberish.
Ali flicks her bloodied fingers. North. West. East. South. Then straight above.
They all find great mirth in this. They scoff and murmur to each other variations of “now she’s calling down the moon? What in the seven hells?”
Ali then lifts her shirt and makes three dots across her stomach.
Becker and I breathe in a collective breath.
And…
Nothing.
The three witches find this the most hilarious of all.
“That was great, Ali Hale.” Dorcus gasps, catching her breath between each giggle. “Kiko would have been proud of your efforts. But thank the goddess she’s likely unaware of your failures. How you’ve been utterly unable to live up to the hype of your bloodline.”
Ali stares at the blood on her stomach. Completely still.
“Ali?” I ask.
She doesn’t respond. Won’t look at me. She closes her eyes, shoulders slumping.
“Ali—”
Becker wraps his arms around me, his lips to my temple. “I have to turn myself over. I can’t let them hurt Hank.”
“No.” I shake my head, not allowing that option. “If you go to them, they’ll kill you. Your blood is more valuable than your life to them.”
“I can’t. We’re running out of time—”
“No.” I hold him tight, thinking this will prevent him from leaving me.
Ali whispers something.
Becker tilts his head. “What? Now?” He gives me an unbelieving look as to what she requested of him.
“What did she say? What is it?”
He looks at my lips, swallows.
Kiss. She told him to kiss me. It’s not blood magic Ali is calling on, it’s sex magic. She needs the boost.
I grip the back of his head and pull him to me. His eyebrows rise in surprise, but it’s not long before his instincts take over and his mouth covers mine in a lingering hesitant kiss.
There’s a crisp snap in the air. I’m not sensitive to magic. I’ve never really been adept or aware. There’s not a drop of mage blood in me; Ali got all that from her mother and our fathers were half brothers, so she gets her druid from the half I’m not related to—I even went to an inner city school where you couldn’t move three inches without touching a witch. Yet, sex magic has always been different. Moved by hormones and subtle changes in the atmosphere. Any memory I have of high school is tinged with a fuzzy rose glow of sex magic hanging in the ai
r at parties. The light scrape along the skin that tugs at the most intimate part of my soul.
As a wolf, Becker is more prone to its influence. Usually shy, this setup would be less than ideal for him. Kissing while four witches act as critiques and voyeurs? Not sexy.
Becker twists his body to shield me from view, running a light knuckle along the side of my neck. I sense him pulling away. His head tipping down and withdrawing. It’s not enough for the magic. We have to go bigger. I catch my cousin’s disappointed gaze. Her hand covered in blood shaking, holding the spell she cast until it can gain momentum. Ali grits her teeth against the urge to let it go. We can’t fail her.
I unfold my legs and wrap them around Becker’s waist. He leans back to question me, but I cover his lips before he can, thread my fingers through his hair, and moan against his mouth. Every woman masters the art of the fake orgasm and I’m no different.
It works, maybe too well. Becker speeds the kiss up, that rosy glow behind my eyelids flames an orange-red. The heat waves off him and soaks into me as though we’re lying out in the sun on a beach. A tingle flares from my spine to my fingertips and toes.
I know when the magic grips him when that hesitation melts away into blind need. Becker flips me onto my back and hikes my leg up, grinding against me, his hips pressing into a suggestive rhythm that matches the beat of each kiss he places along my jaw.
The static charge of magic hazes around us. Every hair on my body points to the object of my desire. Becker is pulled to me in a similar way. His large palms cover my breast and he moves the fabric of his flannel shirt I’m wearing, the only thing covering me, to glimpse a peek of skin. He places his tongue there.
He groans. “I have to stop. I can’t…” But his body disagrees. It very much insists he can. He also doesn’t stop; instead he speeds the pace. I arch up, palms on the ground, intensity building.
Ali’s eyes are closed, concentrating. She wiggles her fingers, slowly, slowly. “Come on, just a little more.”
Becker pulls against the buttons of his shirt I’m wearing. One pops off. He drops his forehead to my chest, panting. “Please,” he wheezes between breaths. His eyes are intense, glowing gold. He hooks his thumb in his waistband as if he’s contemplating shoving them down and fighting taking them off at the same time.
