Odd Stuff

by Nelson, Virginia

  I wished I could have taken notes on that speech, as I was sure I was forgetting parts already. It had to all mean something, but it made no sense right then. Admittedly, I was kind of stuck on the betraying my friends part. That didn’t sound promising. “Where—” I began.

  “Canada. Mia is in Canada. And no, before you ask, she isn’t dead, but that is all I am telling you for now, so close your mouth back up.”

  I snapped it closed. I had been about to ask another question. She smoothed a hand over my hair again. “Sirens were such beautiful creatures. The world has been emptier without their song. Music can be food for the soul. Then again, you have figured out that much already.”

  Yes, music could be food, but I wasn’t going to be feeding my soul anytime soon, so I just smiled a wobbly smile.

  “Oh, and I almost forgot. Remember the rule of three—that which you do, be it good or bad, will come back to you threefold, or as Lewis Carroll said it ‘What I tell you three times is true.’ Your long living friend will explain that to you later. Our way, though it is not exactly your way, can teach you much. Listen to your heart, harm none, and try to return good for evil.”

  “That is a lot to remember.” I frowned.

  “You will remember what you need to when it is time. That is the way of my words.”

  “Okay.” I tried to keep my doubts from my voice, but I wasn’t sure I succeeded.

  She laughed at me. “Go, now, your future awaits you.” Emma began to speak with Old Mother, so I got up and turned to Julia.

  “She never talks that much. That was amazing.”

  “Remind me next time to record it. I hope I remember whichever bits will come in handy when I need them.”

  “Mia is in Canada, she said. What is she doing up there?”

  “I don’t know, but you can bet your G-String I am going to find out.”

  ~

  We loaded back into her car a short while later. I still wasn’t cold, but I’d come up with more questions about that. “So, since we are out in the weather, but can’t feel it, could we still suffer from hypothermia? Get frost bite? Any of that stuff?”

  Julia smiled, “Nope, but if the wrong witch stirs the potion, you could howl at the moon.”

  “Pardon?”

  “It is made with lycanthrope saliva. It raises your metabolism so your body temperature is high enough to negate any affects of weather.”

  “Lycanthrope…where have I heard that word before?” I chose to not think about the fact that I ate something made of saliva.

  “Girl, you really are behind on your supernatural lore. Lycanthrope, as in ‘were’.”

  “Wear what?”

  “Werewolf, were-whatever. Lycathropy…”

  “Oh, those are real, too?” I blinked at her.

  “You really gotta get out more.” She looked in her rear view mirror. I glanced back to see a State Highway Patrolman followed us.

  “He is awfully close to my bumper on these snowy roads.” Julia looked nervously again at the mirror. Silently, I agreed with her. We came to a light, and Julia tapped on her brakes a couple of times to keep from sliding.

  The State Boy didn’t. He slid and pushed us partway through the light.

  I snapped forward in my seat from the impact and so did Julia. We sat blinking, our shrieks echoing in the car.

  “I just got hit by a cop.” Julia sounded as shocked as I was.

  “You are going to be rich.” I shook my head. “They have got to have killer insurance.”

  We got out to survey the scene and two men got out of the cop car. One was hunched over funny. I wondered if it was from the accident.

  Julia apparently figured out more than I had caught on to. “Shit. It’s broad daylight. What kind of mess are you guys in, anyway?”

  The one who had been driving dove at us, waving his arm and crying, “I call the power of wind! Wind beat them, bring them down. Wind deny them, air burn—”

  “Shit,” Julia shrieked and ran around me in a circle. “Let my circle be a boundary, separate out from in, nothing to pass except my will— As the Virgin of the Circle of Dawn wills, so mote it be!!”

  I looked at her, “You’re a virgin?” She panted and glared at me as a circle of white light sprang up from the ground around us.

  Black light swirled out of the man and hit it, making it shimmer. But her circle held. “Um, why are the cops throwing spells at us?” I tugged a hand through my hair.

  “You tell me.” Julia waved an arm at the men. “And those aren’t cops, they are associates of Max. I recognized them when they got out of the car.”

  “Oh, well, that explains it.” I nodded. “She is trying to kill me.”

  “Swell.” Julia blew out a breath, making her auburn hair fly up in the front. “I can’t believe this. We are in downtown Ashtabula during the day and these goons are throwing death spells at us. I just threw a circle in broad daylight in the middle of the street. This is insane.”

  “It’s been that kind of week.” I shrugged.

  “What now?”

  “You’re the one who does all the weird stuff. You tell me.”

  “I am Wiccan. This is about all I do.” The men were together now, and the hunched one jumped onto the circle and bounced off.

  “Ouch.” I watched as he smacked onto the pavement. “I got nothing.” Cheerfully, I smiled.

  Julia glared at me and pulled out a bag. Glancing over her shoulder, I saw it was filled with white, sand-looking granules. Probably, like, ground dragons scales or… “Sweeten the tooth, raise the cake, sugar is used in hearth and ache. Sweeten the air, make it sticky and still. Slow them down with the power of my will.”

  “Is that sugar?” Julia ignored me, and she poured some on her hand. I stared and she blew it at the men. “No, really. Tell me you didn’t just blow sugar at them.” Table sugar wasn’t my idea of a uber powerful spell ingredient.

  But it was working. They were moving really slow. It was like they walked in syrup. “So, what good does that do?”

  “Oh, come on,” she hissed and dropped her circle.

  The driver opened his mouth, and I think he was going to say something, but he moved way to slow to understand. We got back in the car and left.

  “Was that sugar?”

  Julia looked at me, then at the road, then back to me. She blew out a breath and hit me.

  ~

  Back at Odd Stuff, I curled in my favorite chair by the window. It had started to snow again and out the window the flakes fell on the harbor. The scene was pretty, like a snow globe of a sea scape with confused looking seagulls. The lift bridge rose and lowered once, and I watched the cars stop and let the boats pass, and then the cars went and the boats waited.

  I didn’t hear so much as feel Vance come in. Tonight he dressed the closest that I had seen him dressed to a normal guy—a button down shirt done in blues and a pair of khakis. His leather jacket looked so soft that I wanted to touch it. Okay, maybe I just wanted to touch him. Flowing around him like black water, the silken night that he called hair finished off his ensamble.

  I was so not his type. He should be with someone with a body like Reese Witherspoon and a face like Aubrey Hepburn. Not some almost-forty-year-old with dishwater blond hair, hazel eyes and stretch marks. He knelt in front of me, resting his head on his crossed arms, which he plopped casually on my knees.

  Well, if he is dumb enough to want me, I certainly was smart enough to humor him. I slid off the chair and into his arms, allowing my legs to circle his waist. He cupped my face and closed his lips over mine.

  “You want to get me naked, admit it.” His voice slid over my skin after a few breathless moments.

  “Nope.” I got up and tried to practice enough self control, since it was a challenge not to rip his clothes off.

  “I am all that you think I might be and more.” He tugged at my hair.

  “I’m sure.” I smiled demurely.

  “And you want it, admit it.”
r />   “Nope.” I shook my head.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m playing hard to get,” I smirked.

  He laughed.

  I proceeded to fill him in. Mia was in Canada and alive. We needed to go there and get her back. Witches can make you not feel wind chill factors and can use sugar, and God only knows whatever other foods, to beat bad guys. The basics, really.

  He sat and listened and then pulled me into his lap. “I brought you a present. Two, actually.”

  I dug my nails into his chest. I am a quick learner. He seemed to get into the nail thing.

  “And you aren’t going to get them if you force me to seduce you before I can give them to you.”

  I pondered for a moment. Okay, I want the presents. I put my hands in my lap.

  He pulled a book out from his jacket. So, that was what was poking me.

  I took it. Bound in what looked to be leather, the pages were so old, I worried they would disintegrate from my touch. “Shouldn’t I handle this with gloves or something?”

  “I don’t think there are any librarians here, so you are probably okay,” he replied, dryly.

  “So, what is it?”

  “It is a vampire text written a long time ago. The cover is human flesh.”

  I gulped back a gag and told myself not to pitch the book across the room. “And I want it why?” Okay, vampire boyfriends give lousy gifts. Good to know.

  “Chapter six.” His grin turned elusive.

  “Chapter six is something I want why?”

  “Just open the book.” He sounded amused.

  I opened it and found chapter six. The heading read, sirens and their powers. “Neat.” I traced my finger along the text. Reading, I found a section on sirens coming to power. “I thought we just had the power. No one told me I had to come to it.” I muttered out loud without really meaning to.

  “Yup. It says that if you drain auras three times, basically you are stuck. So, what you did at the bar can be gotten past by simply not draining anyone else.”

  “I can get out of being a freak?” I read on, and saw that if I sang now that I had drained somebody, I would have to drain somebody, or I would starve and die. Basically, now that I had done it once, I could walk. If I tried to sing again, I would have to feed it. If I fed it three times, I was stuck for life.

  I felt a twinge that couldn’t have been regret. It’s not like I liked singing. But to never sing again…I bit my lip. “That was what Old Mother meant when she quoted Carroll.” I snapped my fingers.

  “Carroll?”

  “Lewis Carroll. You know, Alice in Wonderland, Carroll? ‘What I tell you three times is true.’ Still, that leaves me one freebie in case of emergency. I have only fed it once.”

  “We will have to try to keep it that way.” He kissed my forehead.

  “What is my second gift?” I hoped it wasn’t a human skin jacket or something else of that nature. I mean, a siren manual was handy, but human skin was not my idea of book binding. I was more a kill-a-tree, not a person, kind of gal.

  “Here.” He handed me a CD.

  “A CD?” You gotta admire a guy who can carry really old books bound in skin and a CD in the same pocket. I mean, talk about diversified interests…

  “Yup. Sven called me. He and Vickie are grabbing a pizza with her friend on their way here. They will be another hour or two. He said you wigged out earlier when Van Morrison was playing.”

  “I did not wig,” I replied haughtily. I wigged.

  “I think that you need a new Van Morrison memory.”

  “No, thanks. I’m not into seventies music. I mean, Sven said you liked him, and that is nice, but—”

  He ignored me and plucked the CD out of my fingers, moving to the CD player. He selected track two and moved to take me in his arms.

  “Really, I don’t like—” He kissed me. A slow sweet kiss that left tingles in my toes and made heat coil up from my belly. The music began to play and sounded like a soundtrack to a ballroom dance number. I whispered to Vance, who spun me in his arms to some fancy dance moves that I was swept along with, “I don’t like it and it isn’t October like the song said. It is December.”

  “Shhh,” and he dipped me.

  “We could order a pizza. Mabe catch a movie,” I tried.

  Our feet left the ground. I shrieked and clung to him. Thank God, Mia had cathedral ceilings, was all I could think. “Don’t let go,” I hissed.

  “Wasn’t planning on it. Now, listen, siren, and I will sing to you.” He began singing with the CD. His voice had me as spellbound as any siren’s song could. I held onto him, enchanted, and listened as he sang. Can I just have one more moon dance with you, my love?

  He dipped me again, which is enough to make your stomach flip when hovering in the air. I laughed and clung to his shoulders. He pulled my face close to his and sang the next lines softer, Well, I wanna make love to you tonight, I can’t wait till the morning has come.

  I grinned. No kidding. Morning, vampire…get it?

  He continued, undaunted by my amusement, and I shivered at the sexual intent in his eyes. Every time I touch you, he emphasized the lyric by running one hand down my body from neck to stomach. I trembled, all jokes washed away by need. You just tremble inside, and I know how much you want me that you can’t hide.

  We began to sink slowly back to the floor as he kissed me. He pulled our bodies into tight contact and slid one hand up my shirt. He removed my T-shirt to reveal my plain white bra, then he traced my stretch marks with his elegant fingertips. Self consciously, I tried to cover them.

  “Beautiful,” he whispered.

  “Stretch marks?” My breath caught in my throat. His fingers worked a sorcery over my skin.

  “You are talking to a guy who will never have kids, remember?”

  The CD player must have been set to random, because I could hear the machine whir when it changed CD’s as the song ended. The beating of my pulse matched the heavy rhythm of the next song that started.

  I tugged at his shirt and he removed it, gifting me with an excellent view of muscled male chest. I slid my hands over his skin and tugged at him as he roved his lips over my body. His shoulder muscles bunched, and I whispered, “How long will Vickie be?”

  His eyes glowed blue, and he yanked my pants off in one move that made me suck air between my teeth. “I took the liberty of telling Sven to call when they were close. More than an hour, minimum.”

  “Well, I guess, since we have all that time to waste, anyway…” His expression was predatory and all male. Why does the woman always end up being the first one naked in this sort of thing? In a moment though, he was revealed to me, all perfection and smooth skin.

  He bit my breast, and I writhed into him. “I can try to occupy you so that you don’t get bored.”

  I found him with my hand. He sucked in air, caught my wrist and kissed it where my pulse beat. “I am going to go very, very slow.” He promised. “I am going to distract you so well that time itself will be given pause.”

  “Arrogant.” I moved in his arms, restlessly.

  “It isn’t arrogance when you have had hundreds of years to practice for one night.”

  Oh, my. His long black hair hung around us like a living tent of darkness. I stretched out an arm and hit air, rather than floor. I shrieked and grabbed onto him with both arms and legs.

  “Why are we floating again?” His hands slid up the outside of my thighs, and he kissed my jaw. We were hanging in the air again, and as I looked we moved to a floating standing position. His hair shifted to fall over my skin as gravity moved it, and I shivered against him from the cool feel of it. He slowly removed one of my earrings, kissed the earlobe and dropped the earring, then took out the other with the same treatment.

  “I dunno.” He kissed his way across my collarbone.

  “But what if we fall? What if you get too distracted and we fall and…”

  He licked and nibbled his way down one arm. When he came to
my fingers he took one into his mouth. Laying a kiss on my palm, I was clinging to him again from the burning inside me rather than any fear of falling. “I don’t think we are going to fall.”

  “You don’t think—” I began. He slid those long clever hands down my spine, nails gently tugging the skin along a path lower, lower. “But you don’t know,” I gasped as he touched me.

  “You were saying?” His breath tickled my ear as we spun, circling in the air. Dizziness from him and the movement washed over me. He ground his body against me and I writhed into it. I was almost crazy with the need growing in my stomach and places lower, he was so close. And yet he didn’t finish it. He hung there, waiting, tempting, driving me up, and up, and…

  We hit the skylight, or rather he did. Since it was snowing outside, I was guessing it was cold on his exposed back because he gasped and bucked into me.

  “That was cold,” he grumbled. I laughed, and it came out husky.

  “Then why did you do it?”

  He muttered something that sounded like, “Didn’t expect her to do that,” and then he flipped us, hands braced on the glass of the skylight.

  “Don’t put me on that window—” I began.

  He moved one hand off the window to slide it from my collarbone to the tip of my breast in a feather light touch. His fingers, chilled from the glass, made me shiver. I closed my eyes, and I think I stopped breathing.

  “You were saying?”

  “I have no idea.” I moved my body in a wave against him, needing, wanting.

  “What? Can’t think straight?” He arched his body again, moving it against mine, which he had pinned to the window. The cold of it suddenly didn’t matter. It was just another feeling, another layer of the magic, in a flood of desire.

  “If you can, I can fix that,” I replied and bit his shoulder.

  This seemed to be some sort of big vampire turn on because he was suddenly not joking. He pinned my arms above my head and pushed into me.

  I threw my head back and groaned.

  He connected our minds when he connected our bodies. I almost cried out from the double wash of feeling. All at once I sensed all that he felt, as well as all that I was feeling. I bit my lip and wriggled, needing…something. No that was him and he wanted… “Bite me.” I whispered it but my soft words did not hide the need in my voice.