Love Potions

by Michelle M. Pillow

  Charlotte walked down the stairs like a zombie—stepping and pausing, stepping and pausing. Her hands hung at her sides, and she gave a little moan.

  “That good, huh?” Lydia said. “What would you like? Tea or coffee?”

  Charlotte moaned again.

  “Charlotte?” Lydia frowned as her friend came closer. Her eyes were glazed and she carried a small blue bag clutched in her dusty hand. “Uh, Malina, help, please.”

  “What is it?” Malina joined them. “Oh, I see!” Matter-of-factly, she said, “Your friend has a hitchhiker.”

  “A what? The lidérc?” Lydia panicked.

  “No.” Malina smirked. “I’d say the grandma.”

  Lydia let loose her captured breath. “Gramma, put Charlotte back!”

  Charlotte’s mouth opened, and she drooled.

  “Gramma, now!” Lydia ordered. “Put Charlotte back and get out of my friend.”

  Charlotte slowly turned to make her slow way back upstairs. She dropped the bag on the floor. Lydia picked it up and peeked inside. A small cloth with blood and strands of her grandmother’s hair were inside. She tossed it on the table. “Ew.”

  “Malina, enough play, go get Lydia.” Erik’s voice actually made her smile. Lydia stepped where he could see her.

  “Fíorghrá, let me in,” Erik said, giving her a handsomely charming look.

  Lydia grinned. “No.”

  “But,” he glanced around the part of the kitchen he could see without getting too close. “Why’d ya reinforce the barrier spells? It had come down. I was in your house looking for ya the night ya disappeared, and I noticed ya had an infestation. I want to make sure those spirits are gone.”

  “Ah…” Lydia pretended to think. “No.”

  “They’re gone. We took care of it.” Malina offered, smirking at her brother as she leaned against the countertop. “Well, almost all of it. There’s a dead grandma in here wearing Charlotte, but we made her put the woman back to bed so it’s fine.”

  “Cum do theanga ablaich gun fheum, banshee.” Erik growled.

  “Thalla gu Taigh na Galla,” Malina retorted.

  “English,” Lydia demanded.

  “He told me to shut up. I told him to go to hell,” Malina translated.

  “What is this about, love?” Erik asked Lydia.

  “It’s the only way I can think of to make you stop and listen to me.” Lydia stood on her side of the barrier. Even though he was near the bottom of the outside steps, with his height she didn’t have to look down far to see him.

  “I’m listening,” he said.

  “We are not engaged,” Lydia stated.

  “But you’re my fíorghrá,” Erik protested. “Of course we’ll get married. I want to be with ya, forever.”

  “Fíorghrá means true love,” Malina piped in.

  “And I am not living in your mansion. This is my home. I’m staying right here and my business, for now, is staying right here.” Lydia crossed her arms over her chest.

  “But, the mansion is safer,” Erik said.

  “And full of crazy warlocks throwing magickal pranks on each other,” Lydia insisted.

  “She has a point,” Malian put forth.

  Erik glared as his sister.

  “If you want to be with me, Mr. MacGregor, then you need to understand I won’t be dictated to, no matter how cute you are naked.” Lydia pictured him naked and was instantly sorry for it.

  “Yeah, I’m not touching that one,” Malina mumbled.

  “Enough with the peanut gallery comments,” Lydia said, glancing over her shoulder to get the woman to shut up.

  Malina grinned, completely unconcerned.

  “Is this because I didn’t ask ya?” he inquired.

  “The MacGregor men are a bit dense, Lyd,” Malina said. “You’ll have to spell it out for him.”

  “Yes. You just assumed I’d say yes to everything you wanted to do. You didn’t respect me by asking me what I wanted. That’s not how this works.” She smiled at him, thinking of how his chest moved when they made love. Crap. Now her focus would go completely off course and she’d soon start coming on to him.

  “And ya couldn’t just say that? Ya had to block me from the house?” He again looked around, as trying to find a way in.

  Lydia leaned closer and lowered her tone. “That’s to keep me from falling for your charms and your magickal touch so I don’t lose myself again.”

  He grinned. Now that detail he seemed to fully understand. “I don’t care if we live here, but you’ll have to let me in.” His eyes shimmered with meaning and she felt him trying to seduce her.

  “I do plan on living here. I’m not sure where you’ll live.” She arched a challenging brow.

  “Well, then,” he lifted his hands to the side in a small gesture, “will ya marry me, Lydia Barratt?”

  “No.” She smiled victoriously.

  Erik frowned. “But…”

  Malina’s hard laughter cut him off. Even his brothers and cousins chuckled at her answer. Iain said, “Ma is going to be so mad ya messed this up, Erik.”

  “That’s not a proposal,” Lydia said. “That’s a question in the middle of a forced conversation. I want a proposal. I want a story I can tell my friends. I want a ring and I want to feel special and I want to announce it together. I want to feel all giddy inside not irritated that my man is so dense I have to spell out the obvious to him.”

  “But…?” Erik tried to speak.

  “Oh, you heard her,” Malina said, whipping her hand forward to slam the kitchen door in Erik’s face. The blue barrier lit up a few times as Erik knocked on it. Malina touched her shoulder. Her tone uncharacteristically serious, she said, “Good for you, sis. It takes a stubborn woman to put a MacGregor warlock in his place. You truly are his fíorghrá because you know just how to handle him. Make him sweat it a bit. I can guarantee he’ll never take your opinion for granted again.”

  …

  Lydia waited up for hours, expecting Erik to show up with flowers and candles to recite bad poetry on her lawn, or even—heaven forbid—sing her one of his horrible ballads. The proposal never came. Malina went home to the mansion. Charlotte slept in her new room. Gramma Annabelle pouted at the kitchen table staring at the spell bag she couldn’t move for about an hour before disappearing.

  “What? There was an empty place in Charlotte where they took her memories. I just slipped in.” Annabelle had defended her actions. “Charlotte will never know the difference, and I needed a body.” Apparently, the ghost had been attempting to walk the spell bag outside to expand her haunting territory. Lydia wasn’t sure letting her grandmother loose on the town was a good idea.

  Now, as she lay in bed alone, Lydia missed Erik. She knew she had to make a point, but it was hard. After all she’d been through, she just wanted to snuggle into his arms and never leave them. She was still awake as the clock flicked over to 3 a.m.. The window was open so she could better hear outside and the curtains rustled in the breeze. She turned on her side to stare at the night when she detected a small sound from downstairs. Frowning, she sat up and tilted her head to better listen.

  Something was off. She could feel it.

  “Char?” she called softly. Lydia crept into the hall and went to open Charlotte’s door. The woman still slept. “Gramma?” She tiptoed to the stairs and made her way slowly down.

  Her nerves prickled with awareness, but not the kind of tingling Erik caused. This was a warning. A cold chill swept over her, filling her with fear. She couldn’t run, couldn’t leave Charlotte alone in the house. Her eyes were used to the dark, but it was still hard to make out details in the shadows. She remembered the spine-chilling spirits. Had they found their way back in?

  “Get out of my house,” she stated loudly. “I command you to leave. This is my house. You don’t belong here.”

  She heard a shuffle near her front door and quickly ran to the kitchen. Foolish though it was, she flung open a low cupboard and grabbed a cast iron s
killet. Supernatural things hated iron, right? She wasn’t sure but it sounded like something she might have heard once…on television.

  Footsteps came toward her. She held the handle tight. Brad appeared in the doorway. He looked at her with possessive eyes. She let go of her captured breath, relieved for a brief moment that he was human and not demonic. Then she realized he’d broken into her home in the middle of the night.

  “Hi Lydia,” he said. The smarmy tone of his words made her skin crawl. She never did like this guy. His friendship with Joe had been his only redeeming factor and she’d discovered that had been forced.

  “What are you doing in my house?” She thought of the barrier spell, but knew Brad must not have been magickal if he made it inside. No, he was all human scumbag.

  As if to answer her own question she got a flash of him standing outside her window where the rose bushes used to be, masturbating. He was the one who’d ordered the flowers replaced and he wasn’t pleased when the storm blew them away. Brad had been watching her since he’d first seen her. She thought of him pinning her picture over his wife’s head before he fucked the woman.

  Brad used her moment of distraction to step closer. “I think you know what I’m doing here. We’ve been dancing around this moment for a long time.”

  This man was evil. She felt it in him, so much more sharply now that part of Erik’s magick resided inside her. Erik’s powers gave her the ability to see him for who he was. A rush of images flooded her, every gesture she’d given him blown out of proportion, every word, every look. He’d been stalking her, creating a relationship where there wasn’t one. Oddly, the lidérc’s agenda had kept the man’s natural tendencies at bay, but with the creature gone, Brad was free to be Brad. And she wasn’t his first victim. He’d done this to another woman in the town he’d lived in before Green Vallis, and another in the town before that.

  Brad’s hand strayed to his pants and she saw him rub at his erection through his jeans.

  Lydia dropped her arm and smiled, not letting go of the pan. “You’re right. We have.”

  She’d shocked him. His hand stopped stroking. He tilted his head to the side as if accessing his options.

  Lydia stepped closer, lowering her chin to give him the most seductive look she could muster. “I have wanted to get you alone for a very, very,” she paused, coming to stand before him, “very long time…”

  He opened his mouth to speak and Lydia took her chance. She gripped the handle and swung the cast iron skillet at his head. The pan made contact with his skull with an awful crack.

  “…to tell you to shut the hell up and stop looking at me, you creepy asshole.”

  Brad didn’t have time to react. He slammed into the doorway and dropped to the floor. A knife fell near his hand. Lydia had no doubt he’d planned on killing her and doing unspeakable things to her dead body as he had his other victims.

  Keeping an eye on him, she set the pan on the table and went to the phone to call the police. Her hands shook as she dialed. Now that the danger had passed, she felt tears sliding down her cheeks. Lydia stretched the cord as she went to a drawer to pull out a butcher knife. She inched toward his fallen body and stretched out with her toes to drag his knife out of his reach.

  …

  Erik ran down the hill. He’d been trying and failing to sleep as he attempted to work out just how he’d get Lydia to say yes to him. He hoped he was up to the challenge and every detail of his proposal had to be perfect. With the barrier spell so newly in place, he was finding it hard to detect Lydia inside the Victorian. And then he’d felt her, as if she called to him. At first he’d smiled, thinking she was having one of her erotic dreams. Then he heard the police sirens in the distance.

  His heart nearly stopped as Lydia’s home came into view. Sheriff Johnson already stood on her lawn, out of uniform, and deputies were walking around the perimeter of her house. Two paramedics pushed a gurney toward their ambulance.

  “Lydia?” He ran onto the lawn in worry only to have guns drawn on him. His eyes followed the gurney. He lifted his hands.

  “It’s all right,” Lydia said.

  The words filled him with relief as she found her unharmed next to the sheriff. He didn’t move as he kept his hands up. The bullets didn’t worry him, but concealing his identity did. “What happened? Are ya injured?”

  “Erik,” she said, his name coming out on a sob.

  “Let him through,” the sheriff ordered. “That’s the fiancé.”

  Erik went to pull Lydia into his arms. She trembled and buried her face in his chest. “What happened?”

  “That’s one brave lady you have there,” Sheriff Johnson said. “She fought off an attacker. Brad Williams broke into her home tonight and had her at knifepoint.”

  Lydia lifted her head. Tears flowed down her cheeks. “Stalker.”

  The sheriff nodded. “It would appear that way.”

  “Sheriff,” one of the deputy’s called. Both men turned to look. He carried over a bag and held it open. Erik saw rope, knives and a gun inside. Hugging Lydia tighter, he kept her from looking as he stroked her hair. “I found this close to the front door.”

  “Get it into evidence,” Johnson said.

  “No,” Lydia managed, still gripping Erik’s arms. “He is a stalker. He, ah, he told me. I’m not the first. There were others. He killed them. You have to look in the woods near water. He likes to wash up after. One in each town he’s lived in. Ask his wife, she’ll know where they’ve lived.” Lydia took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. “They’ll look like me.”

  Sheriff Johnson nodded grimly. “All right, Lydia, I promise I’ll look into it.”

  “And he did the mushrooms,” she added weakly. “I don’t know why.”

  “Charlotte’s in the living room with one of my men,” the sheriff said. “Is there some place you ladies can go for the night?”

  “They’ll come home with me,” Erik said.

  “I’ll get the crime scene clean up guys out first thing in the morning. They’re from out of town so it takes them a few hours to get here. They’ll make it look good as new.” The sheriff went to some of his men.

  “Crime scene? Were ya injured?” Erik asked.

  “I hit him on the head with a skillet. He bled.” She trembled. “I didn’t know what else to do. I just kept seeing all his victims through his eyes, and I knew what he was going to do to me. I had to tell the sheriff something so I lied and said he bragged about it.”

  “And the mushrooms?”

  “Those two Williams boys have had it hard enough with a father like that. They don’t need to be blamed for the mushrooms too,” she whispered. “Omigod, and Charlotte. These things can’t keep happening to Charlotte. She’s already so confused.”

  “Come on, let’s get ya ladies to the mansion,” Erik said. Even with everything going on she was thinking of others. There was no way he’d ever let his woman go. If he spent an eternity begging, he’d get her to marry him. But for now, all that matter is that she was safe. “I promise, Charlotte is going to be safe. Ya need to worry about yourself, love.”

  …

  “Ya poor things,” Margareta declared as Erik brought the women inside. Lydia didn’t even bother asking how the woman knew what had happened. Niall and Rory came from the dining room. Rory carried a glass of whiskey. Niall held the bottle.

  Charlotte stood close to Lydia. “So tonight is real? Brad is a stalker and you killed him.”

  “He’s alive,” Lydia answered. Though, the paramedics didn’t seem to think he’d live through the night. She’d whapped him pretty hard. She tried not to think about it, not when everyone was looking at her for a reaction.

  “Anything to handle?” Niall asked gruffly.

  Erik shook his head. “No.”

  Niall nodded and swung back the bottle to drink.

  “Niall, show Charlotte to a guest room,” Margareta ordered her son. She snatched the bottle from him. “And use a glass. You’re
not a Neanderthal.”

  “Come on then,” Niall said to Charlotte.

  Lydia nodded to her friend that she should go. Charlotte didn’t protest. After her friend disappeared upstairs, she said, “I don’t like this. She’s not herself. She doubts everything.”

  Margareta came forward and placed her hand on Lydia’s cheek. “Time is sometimes the best magick of all. Give her that.” Then to Erik, she said, “And there is also great magick in rest. Niall will make sure Charlotte is safe. He won’t be great company, but then I imagine she’ll just want to rest. Ya two go to bed.” When Margareta removed her hand she took a few strands of Lydia’s hair with her. Lydia flinched in surprise but it didn’t hurt. The woman continued, “Rory will find Euann, and they’ll do a sweep of the property just to be sure. I’m going to my lair.”

  Erik nodded in understanding.

  “I could really use a shower,” Lydia said as they walked up the stairs. She moved slowly and he paused long enough to sweep her up into his arms to carry her. She leaned her head against his shoulder. “I really miss normal.”

  “My mother is going to make sure the danger has passed for ya once and for all. We won’t see much of her for several days. Such future telling magick takes a lot out of her and is rarely performed, but as perfect as Green Vallis seems to be, we’ve already encountered many threats. Such is the way with places of great power—all sorts of people, both good and bad, will be drawn to it.”

  “Perhaps they just follow you,” she said.

  “Brad was here before we were,” Erik countered.

  “You’re right.” Lydia sighed and closed her eyes. “If you hadn’t of come, I wouldn’t have had the ability to detect what he truly was until it was too late. Your magick saved my life.”

  “Lydia, ya are my life,” he whispered, kissing the top of her head. “All I want is to protect ya, forever.”

  Lydia felt his love for her and held him close. Who cared if he was a little domineering? She loved him and wanted to be with him. Everything else would work itself out.