by Deanna Chase
“Sit down!” Neko cried. “Here.” He topped off her glass again and saw to mine before he said, “I’ll bring one up. Won’t be a minute.”
I started to protest, but the mojito therapy was working its own magic, mellowing me out so that I didn’t really care to argue. Neko was out of the room before I could explain what a bad idea it was for him to bring anything magical upstairs. Well, I wasn’t going to read any spell from the Compendium again. And I certainly wasn’t going to light any beeswax tapers. I’d promised Montrose. And my life was complicated enough without adding to the witchcraft quotient.
Neko trotted back into the kitchen, and for a moment, I thought he was empty-handed. He certainly hadn’t lugged the Compendium with him. Instead, he set a small book on the kitchen table. It was no larger than a paperback volume of poetry. It was clearly old, though; the cover was bound in leather. Gold letters were stamped on its surface.
“A Girl’s First Grimoire,” Melissa read, and she burst out laughing. “What is that, like Pat the Bunny for the witchy set?”
Neko struck a pose. “You are too funny, girlfriend.”
Melissa turned to me. “So what do you do? Just read from the page?”
I looked at Neko, but he merely gave an elaborate shrug. His job might be to help me work magic, but he wasn’t about to answer all my questions. I could practically hear him whistling his innocence. “I’m still not totally sure,” I said. “Montrose said that the candles I used were important—they were pure beeswax. Also, I touched my forehead, and my throat, and my chest before I read. And I ran my fingers under the words.”
“Ran your fingers….” Melissa sounded amazed. Frankly, so was I. I mean, I must really have some sort of power, right? If my touching a page could make something come to magical life? Melissa shoved the grimoire toward me. “Read from this one!”
“I can’t! I promised—”
“Come on! It’ll be like a Ouija board! You remember when we used that at my ten-year-old birthday party.”
“I remember that you moved the pointer. You made the board say that John Goodnight would be the first boy I ever kissed.”
“John Goodnight,” Neko crooned, and I swore as my cheeks flushed. There was something provocative about the way he said the name, and I suddenly wanted to show him that he was wrong, that I wasn’t the goody two-shoes girl that he seemed to think I was.
I stepped up to the table. I would show Neko. I could read from a silly leather-bound book. I wouldn’t light a candle this time, wouldn’t touch my rapid pulse-points. I wouldn’t run my fingers beneath the words, and I definitely wouldn’t speak them aloud.
Neko smiled and opened the book, apparently to a random page. I squinted at the letters, but they seemed to shift in front of my eyes. I started to put my fingertips beneath them, but I pulled back as if the parchment burned when I remembered my promise to Montrose. Neko handed me the wooden stirrer from the mojito pitcher, giving it one quick wipe against a towel.
Feeling more than a little silly, I teased out the words on the page, saying them to myself:
Glamour, glamour, magic bind
Vision twist and veil unwind
Wrap my face in power hidden
Spark a love from man unbidden
Tie him to me ever more
Lock him up with grimoire’s lore.
And then there was that flash of darkness, more astonishing than the first time, because I had specifically worked to avoid the spell. I bit off a shriek and caught my breath against my teeth before I whirled around to face Neko.
“It couldn’t work!”
“It did.” He smiled and looked pointedly at my hand. I wasn’t holding the wooden spoon that I expected, the ancient utensil that had been nibbled by the garbage disposal in my old apartment. No, I was holding a smooth piece of wood. A dowel, really.
A wand.
“What the hell is this?” I asked him, and Melissa jumped at the anger in my voice.
“What?” Neko asked, trying to look innocent. “It’s just a little something I picked up while I was out and about this afternoon.” But even he could not carry off the happy-go-lucky charade as a loud knock sounded at my cottage door.
Chapter 8
This time, David Montrose was dressed in casual clothes. In fact, he looked like he had just stepped out of a Land’s End catalog spread. His dark brown hair was ruffled, just enough out of place to prove that he was not overly vain. His slacks were a charcoal grey, the perfect contrast to his light blue button-down shirt. His sleeves were rolled up, displaying the corded muscles of his forearms. As before, though, his eyes were dark. His pupils were expanded by the night-time, or by the wild ride he’d taken to appear on my doorstep. “Miss Madison,” he said, and the formality of his words contrasted with his easy-going appearance.
I looked down to see that I’d brought my glass to the door. My empty glass. Where was a good slug of rum when you needed one? “Would you like a mojito?” I asked, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Montrose strode past me into the living room. “I thought we’d reached an agreement.”
“We did! I didn’t work a spell.” I thought of the flash of darkness. “Well, I didn’t mean to.” I remembered the electric tingle that had rippled down my arms. “Um, I’m not even sure that it worked.” Montrose just stared at me. That blue shirt really did contrast with his eyes, really made his face stand out. “I don’t even know what it was supposed to do!” I found myself saying, and I felt like I was going to my first confession, blurting out all sorts of sins that I hadn’t even committed, just so that Father Brennan would smile kindly and grant me absolution.
“And that is precisely why you should have some guidance. Some training.” He sighed and gestured toward the basement door. “You might think that this is all Bewitched and Charmed, but I can assure you that it is not. There are consequences for your behavior.”
“My behavior! What about Neko! He’s the one who made this happen. He’s the one who gave me the stick—”
“Neko.” Montrose raised his eyes to the kitchen doorway, where my familiar stood next to my best friend. The cat-man managed to look unabashed, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened, as if nothing out of the ordinary could ever happen when he was around.
Melissa seemed a bit more shocked—and intrigued. Again, I knew that expression. Now that she’d recognized the impossibility of snaring Neko, she was measuring David Montrose against her entire pool of First Dates. She was calculating his net worth, determining where he would stand in her ongoing home run derby. She didn’t understand, though. She apparently didn’t remember that Montrose was a warder, that he was a cosmic policeman. That he was here to monitor me and what I did.
In a flash, she ducked back into the kitchen, and before I could say anything else, she returned with a pottery plate in hand. “Lust?” she asked, and she managed to look bashful as she peered up at Montrose through glistening eyelashes.
He actually blushed, which made Neko gasp with delight. “Who is this?” Montrose turned to ask me, indicating Melissa with a cautious nod of his head.
“My best friend. Melissa White.” I sent her a glare and a vehement shake of the head behind Montrose’s back. “She’s a baker,” I added, as if that could erase Melissa’s come-hither glance. “Almond lust is her specialty. Look, I had a really crappy day, and she brought the bars over, and we decided to make some drinks, and she asked about the library downstairs, and Neko brought up one of the books.”
I realized that I was rambling, and I forced myself to take a deep breath. Montrose nodded, as if he accepted my explanation of what had happened, but then he turned to glare at Neko. The cat-man was suddenly fascinated by his empty glass. “Whoops!” he said. “Time for a refill!” He dashed back into the kitchen, leaving Melissa alone in the doorway.
I crossed over and took the pottery plate from her, placing it on the coffee table and waving everyone toward the hunter green couches. It w
as obvious that Montrose wasn’t leaving any time soon, and I decided I’d rather sit on an overstuffed cushion than stand to face an angry warder, especially on a mojito-filled belly, without any dinner to speak of.
Montrose followed my lead, sitting beside me with a casual sense of command. Melissa was forced to settle on the other couch with Neko, who joined us with a full glass. Montrose waited for both of them to grow still before he turned to me.
“This has got to stop,” he said. There was no room for argument, not even the protest that threatened to laugh past the lime taste at the back of my throat. “You don’t understand. Witchcraft is powerful. The surges that you released from the house tonight could be felt for miles.”
“Felt?” My stomach did a flip-flop.
“By warders. And other witches.” Montrose waved toward the door, toward the darkened colonial gardens that surrounded my home. “And by the creatures that seek them out.”
I rubbed away goosebumps from my arms as I raised my chin defiantly. “Now you’re just trying to frighten me.”
“I hope that’s what I’m doing.” Montrose reached for my glass and set it on the table. One part of my mind noticed that his hand was warmer than I expected it to be. His fingers were smoother, too, not the rough flesh that I anticipated, given his gruff tone. Another part of me noted that he took care to place the glass on a slate coaster, protecting my coffee table from the evils of water rings.
“Listen,” he said. “We can end all this right now. The Covenants grant priority to any witch who actually possesses the materials—books, runes, crystals. You don’t have to take advantage of that presumption, though. If you’d like, you can give back everything in your basement.”
“Give it back?” Even saying the words felt wrong.
“The Coven would gladly accept the return. As it is, they will likely contest your ownership, but things move slowly in Hecate’s Court.”
Hecate’s Court. He made it sound like traffic or small-claims court. I laughed uneasily, overwhelmed by the strangeness of all this.
“Jane,” he said. “This is serious.”
Jane. He’d called me by name.
And all of a sudden, I was looking at Mr. David Montrose, Hecate’s Warder, a little differently. He wasn’t a bully, who’d come into my home to make me feel bad for fiddling with another person’s property. Instead, he was a protector. He was a teacher. He was one of the good guys.
Neko snorted, and the moment was ruined. Montrose turned to glare at my familiar. “Laugh all you want,” he said to Neko, “But will you report to Hecate’s Court when the dispute over ownership begins?”
Neko squirmed for a moment before looking away. I glanced back at Montrose, only to find that I couldn’t break his gaze. His eyes were brown, the color of dark chocolate. They were flecked with green, though, specks of color that gave them depth. All of a sudden, I was aware of the small creases around those eyes, the lines beside his mouth. He had a shallow cleft in his chin—just a hint of a flaw to balance a face that might have been too pretty otherwise. I could tell that he had shaved that morning, but chestnut whiskers pricked his skin.
And for just a moment, I imagined kissing him. I envisioned the feel of those whiskers against my cheek, and then the soft touch of his lips. I thought about his hands, those marvelously warm, smooth hands, moving down my arms, then one palm cupping the back of my head as he pulled me closer. I imagined my own fingers grabbing at his hair, closing around his curls.
“So,” Montrose said, and the spell was broken. I was back in my living room, sitting rigidly on my couch. I stared at the mojito glass on the table, wondering just how drunk I must be. After all, I didn’t know the first thing about Montrose. I certainly didn’t know him like I did Jason Templeton—how could I even think of letting the warder supplant my Imaginary Boyfriend?
Wait. No one was supplanting anyone. Montrose was here as a warder. He was here to teach me about my magic, to make sure that I didn’t break any bizarre astral laws, to help me keep the strange possessions that appeared to be mine. I might think that I was attracted to him, but that was probably just my old habit of developing crushes on men in power. I’d had my first crush on my fourth grade social studies teacher, Mr. Solomon. And a monstrous one on my freshman literature professor. And a killer infatuation with my first boss for a summer job, at the Springfield Public Library.
Whew. That was a close call. My entire career as a witch might be ruined, if I let myself have a crush on my warder.
My warder? My career as a witch? What was I thinking?
Apparently, I had made a decision. I was going to learn about this witchcraft stuff. I was going to find out what powers I had, and I was going to explore how to use them.
“So, what now?” I asked. I watched Melissa lean closer; I recognized the expression on her face as one of confusion. She couldn’t know all the thoughts that had just careered through my head. Besides, I probably looked pretty dazed myself.
Neko, though, was bouncing up and down on the couch. He looked like a little boy who had just been told that he was going to celebrate his birthday, the Fourth of July, and Christmas, all in one day. “Yes!” he exclaimed. “We are going to have so much fun!”
“What?” Melissa asked. “What’s going on?”
David looked at her, then at me. “Are you going to tell her, or shall I?”
I swallowed, surprised to find my throat so dry. “I’m going to learn about this.” I ran the next sentence through my head before I said it aloud. “I’m going to learn how to be a witch.”
David nodded, and I watched Melissa swallow a dozen questions. “First things first,” he said. “No more alcohol.”
“For tonight?”
“For good.”
Melissa laughed and said, “Well that’s not going to happen.”
I glared at her. After all, I wasn’t exactly a lush. I always knew exactly how much I was drinking, and I made a decision for every separate glass. I looked over Melissa’s shoulder into the kitchen. Toward the empty bottle of rum. Toward the wand, sitting on the counter. Well, I usually make a decision. When my familiar isn’t pouring with a heavy hand.
“It will,” David said evenly. “If she wants to learn more.”
All of a sudden, it seemed important for me to stake a claim here. I mean, I’d spent eight years with Scott, with him telling me what to do and when to do it. I wasn’t about to let some new man, some stranger, take charge of my life, without putting up a fight. Even if he did know more about witchcraft than I did.
“I won’t drink when I’m working with you. I won’t drink when I’m being a witch.”
Neko’s guffaw sounded like it was from a sitcom laugh track. “As if you’re the one setting the rules!”
I scowled at him and turned to David. “I’m serious,” I said. “It’s not like Melissa and I get drunk every night. But I can’t let this witchcraft thing take over my entire life.”
“This witchcraft thing,” David repeated, and he shook his head. “You don’t understand—”
“And I’m not going to, if you set rules that change who I am.” I was arguing with him like a Shakespeare comic heroine, hoping to match my Beatrice wit to his Benedick scorn. “I won’t let you lock me up in a convent.”
A convent? Where did that come from. No one had said anything about a convent, about sex, about any other restrictions. We were talking about a few drinks. My face reddened as I continued to stare at David.
I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was my struggle to cool my burning cheeks. Maybe it was my sudden determination. Maybe it was just that the hour was getting late, and David was ready to go back home, or wherever it was that he stayed when he wasn’t waiting for me to work some errant spell. But he nodded and said, “Very well.”
“Very well?” Neko squeaked, which was a good thing, because I wasn’t certain what David had just agreed to.
“Very well. You may have a drink, or two. But not when you’re workin
g magic. And not when we work together.”
I extended my hand, as if we had just negotiated some major business deal. My lips curled into a wide smile, but I wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was the mojitos talking, but I think that it was something more. I think that I was proud of myself, proud that I’d said what I wanted and stuck to my guns until I got it.
David took my hand and pumped it three times in a classic business handshake. I couldn’t help but look down at our fingers, and when I tried to glance back at his face, I couldn’t meet his eyes. “We’ll start tomorrow, then,” he said. “After dinner.”
“After dinner.” I sounded as if I accepted invitations for witchcraft training all the time.
David nodded and stood up. He had almost opened the front door—his hand was on the latch—but then he turned back. He moved quickly, like a shepherd dog closing in on a rambling, errant sheep. I watched in surprise as he lifted one of Melissa’s confections from the pottery plate on the coffee table. He took a bite, and his teeth flashed white against the shortbread and chocolate.
“Mmmm,” he said, chewing carefully and swallowing. “Lust, indeed.” I glanced at Melissa and saw her jaw drop, but it was my face that flamed with embarrassment. David’s eyes met mine. “Until tomorrow.”
“Until tomorrow,” I echoed, and I closed the door after him. I took a moment to compose myself before collapsing into Melissa and Neko’s arms. Surrounded by their excited squeals, I wondered why they were cheering. Was it for me, because I was a witch? Or for me, a friend who had outwitted a demanding guest? Or for me, a completely exhausted and more than a little intoxicated homeowner and librarian and friend?
What did it matter? They were my friends, and they were happy for me. Almost happy enough not to complain that we were out of mojitos.
Chapter 9
Someone had emptied an ashtray into my mouth. Probably the same someone who had pounded my forehead with a ball-peen hammer. The same someone who had placed ten-thousand-kilowatt lightbulbs outside my bedroom window.
