Witch Upon a Star (A Midnight Magic Mystery)

by Jennifer Harlow

  “What the fu—”

  He reacted to my knee going for his groin, releasing me but turning to deflect the blow. With only a split second for us to both adjust our tactics, he was almost faster than me, slashing the knife toward my chest. Just as it was about to make contact, I raised my palm and shouted, “Lapsus!” as YaYa taught me. I’d never used the spell on a person before, so I gasped as Dario literally flew across the room, whacking his head against the corner of the cabinet then collapsing to the floor. His eyes remained shut the ten seconds I stood stock still, just staring as the blood began to pool around his head.

  I’d killed him.

  No, his chest slowly moved up and down but not in a steady pace. My mind ran so fast, a thousand miles a second, I couldn’t focus on a singular thought. So my body took control. While my brain remained screaming in that squat, my body ran me down the block to the first pay phone I spotted and punched in the emergency phone number. I almost fainted with relief when he accepted the collect call.

  “Anna?” Asher asked, that beautiful baritone shaky and desperate. “Anna? Is it really you?”

  “Asher,” I cried. The second wave of relief almost overtook me that time. I consciously had to will my knees from buckling. “I-I-I’ve done something really bad. He-he came at me with a knife. I-I think he’s dying.”

  “Are you injured? Are you safe?”

  “I-I’m fine. I-I used a spell, and he hit his head. There was so-so-so much blood. I didn’t know what—”

  “Anna, love, where are you?” he cut in. “Tell me where you are.”

  “A st-street corner in Rome.”

  “Rome? Then I want you to go to 27 Paradiso Piazza. Someone will be waiting to let you into my flat there. I shall arrive in about two hours. Do not leave. Repeat the address back to me.” I did. “And what is the address where this man is?”

  I rattled it off. “He-he was alive when I left. Should I call the ambulance or—”

  “No. I will take care of everything. Simply go to the flat and wait for me. I will be there as soon as possible, my love.”

  “Please hurry. I love you.”

  “I love you too. Now go, mo chuisle. I shall be with you soon. Go.”

  I hung up but couldn’t move. He’d take care of everything. Like he had with Sven and Andie. That thought tied a knot in my already fragile stomach. Despite the fact he tried to stab me, I didn’t want Dario dead. So despite Asher’s orders, I picked up the phone and called emergency services for him without leaving my name. He’d live to grift another day.

  The elderly woman in a housecoat at Asher’s building grumbled at me for waking her as she showed me up to the flat. It was stuffy, dusty, and sparsely furnished, but to me it was the Taj Mahal. The adrenaline rush I was surviving on ended the moment the woman shut the door. I could barely keep my eyes open as I took a quick shower to warm up with no luck. It did nothing to stop my quaking limbs. I was so uncoordinated I could barely tie the knot on my robe. Ten seconds after I climbed into that four-poster antique bed, I was asleep.

  The creak of wood drew me from dreamless slumber. He was outlined against the dim light I’d left on in the living room like a specter. Or an angel. “Asher,” I whispered breathlessly.

  “You seem so different. So frail. So old,” he said, shock and melancholy dripping from every syllable. “I-I am so sorry, mo chuisle. I thought it was the right … I am so sorry. I am so—”

  I threw off the covers and rushed to him, throwing my arms around him and holding him as if I were about to plummet off the edge of the earth into hell itself. Without hesitation, Asher clung to me with the same passion and desperation. With this one embrace, two years of misery and doubt melted from my weary soul. He hadn’t forgotten me. He missed me. He loved me. Truly loved me. Of course. Of course.

  “I love you,” I whispered against his neck before kissing that spot. “I love you.” The kiss moved up. “I’ve missed you so much.” To his cheek. “I love you so much.” To the corner of his mouth. “Never leave me again.” A gentle kiss upon his lips. “I’m nothing without you.” Another kiss on his still lips. “I love you so much. So much.” Another kiss, but that time his lips quaked against mine. “I’m nothing.” I gazed into those blue pools, now tinged red from his tears. I kissed the first drop away. Then the second on the other side before meeting his eyes once more. I licked my lips, taking a part of him inside me, the tang of his blood invigorating us both.

  His face, his body, every inch was trembling, crumbling along with his resolve. “Anna, this is no—”

  He wasn’t getting away from me. From us. Not again. I kissed the rest of the sentence away. His mouth parted as I invaded it, with my now expert tongue but once his began to play with mine I tore away to whisper, “I need you. I need you, my Asher. Please. Please.” And with those words and one more kiss, he was mine. All mine. I possessed him mind, soul, and after I lowered us onto that bed finally in body.

  Mine.

  _____

  We lay in bed afterward with my head resting on his bare chest as he played with a strand of my hair. It was something out of a dream. A perfect moment. Well, almost perfect. “Stop it,” I said.

  “Stop what?” Asher asked.

  “Feeling guilty about making love to me. There’s no reason for it. As of yesterday, I am legally an adult in Italy. Besides, let’s face it, I seduced you. If anything, I took advantage of you. I’m the one who should feel guilty, but I don’t because there is nothing to feel guilty about. I love you. You love me. Nothing else matters. It never did. I just feel so damn lucky I found you so young that I didn’t have to wait an entire lifetime to meet my soulmate like some people have to.” I stared up at him. “Do you feel lucky to have found me?”

  His eyes grew cloudy with sadness and love. “Oh, mo chuisle, how can you not know what a miracle you are to me?”

  “A miracle?” I chuckled.

  Asher didn’t smile back, he just gazed down at me with his usual intensity. Oh, how I’d missed that gaze. The one where it was as if a thousand years had passed since he’d last laid eyes on me, and was afraid I would vanish once more. “Before we met, I …” He trailed off into his own head for a few seconds. “I have been in existence for more than eight hundred years. I have circumnavigated this earth so many times I lost count eons ago. There was nothing I had not seen, nothing I had not done or experienced. And because of that there was simply nothing. Purgatory. For over a year I arose each night wishing I had not. Life was naught but a vacuum of darkness. Then one night I decided hell was preferable to the abyss. It was then I made up my mind to feel the warmth of the sun one last time. To leave this wretched world. I just could not depart without seeing her once more. My Jane. To apologize. To cleanse my soul of at least one of its sins before the devil claimed his rightful due.” Asher gave me a rare, brief smile. “Then I met you,” he whispered, caressing my cheek. “This beautiful, fierce, intelligent, damaged almost to the point of no return wonder. You stepped into view, and I sparked back to life. I knew, I knew I was meant to help you. To shape you. To guide you to your fullest potential. To love you even though I had forgotten how.

  “And I fought, oh how I fought to carry out my plan in spite of the gift presented before me. I left you with those monsters and drove to the lake where Jane and I consummated our love the first time, waiting for the light to take me. But you followed me there. Haunting me with your need. Your love. Every time I attempted to push you from my thoughts, you returned with the force of an exploding star. You called me back to you. Mo chuisle, you saved me. You brought me back to life. And these last two years without you … I began craving the sun once more.”

  I leaned up to kiss the lips that gave me those beautiful words. I didn’t think it possible, but I loved him more after this confession than ever before. He kissed me back, cupping my face with the tenderness he’d always showed me. I broke the seal first, resting my forehead against his. “Then don’t ever do that to me again, okay
? Don’t ever, ever send me away again. Not for any reason, especially not if it’s only for my own good. It isn’t, not for either of us. You need me just as much as I need you. You are mine and I am yours until the end of time, and I don’t want a single night squandered; I don’t want to spend a single night where I am not by your side. I’ve experienced this world without you, and you’re right. It is hell. Don’t send me back into hell. Promise me. Promise me, no matter what, no matter what, you will never leave me. Never.”

  My Asher smiled. “Never. You have bested me. I have finished fighting a battle I honestly never desired to win. I lay my sword down at your feet, my love. My blood. My Anna. I am yours ’til the close of the dream. ’Til death, I am yours.”

  “And I’m yours.”

  We sealed our covenant with a kiss.

  Most pacts with the devil are.

  AGE 17

  VIENNA, AUSTRIA

  WHAT ON EARTH WAS I thinking? White was never my color.

  All the other debutantes were visions in their white ball gowns and gloves, but with my snow-white skin thanks to my nocturnal habits and pale blond hair, I was Casper the Friendly Ghost haunting the opulent, gilded Vienna Opera Ball. My blood red lips were the only factor that kept me from being completely washed away. Asher loved that color on me. Practically all I owned was red lipstick. The color matched the ruby and diamond necklace Asher presented me before we left for the night. Part one of my birthday present. I was dancing away at my second.

  The year before we’d been invited to the ball by an old friend of Asher’s, the Lord of Vienna, but had to cancel because I fell ill with the flu. Given the choice of staying home watching the event on TV, while wrapped in Asher’s arms as he nursed me back to health or actually attending was a no-brainer. But in the grips of fever I made the offhand comment about how it might be fun to debut. To wear the white dress, dance all night with the man I loved. Why, it would be like a fairy tale come alive. Or a wedding. A few months later my excited paramour surprised me with the application, the name of my partner, another consort, and a left waltz dance lesson. He was so excited and proud of himself for setting it all up, I couldn’t say no. So the night of my seventeenth birthday I found myself waltzing around the massive oval dance floor under centuries-old fresco murals in front of five thousand socialites, politicians, royalty, and a large percentage of the European vampire community. Not bad for the daughter of petty thieves.

  The waltz ended, and I curtsied to my angered partner Gerhardt before the announcer called everyone to dance. I was officially out in European society. Bully for me. Stupid fever. One of the other boys I met at rehearsal, who came with a harpy from my former boarding school, asked me to dance, but I declined. Prince Albert of Monaco or John Travolta could have queried and received the same response. My dance card was full with one name.

  “You were astonishing,” Asher said after a quick kiss. “I would swear you were literally gliding on air.”

  “Where is Heinrich?” Gerhardt asked of his real escort.

  “Catronia dragged him to the dance floor,” Asher said, sliding his arm around my waist. “She shall return him relatively intact, I am sure.” He pecked my temple. “There are more people I wish for you to meet, my love,” Asher whispered. “Excuse us, son.”

  Asher led me toward the foyer where we passed Grace Kelly and her Prince husband chatting with Princess Anne. I still regret not meeting them. “Are you enjoying yourself?” I asked halfway up the red carpeted stairs to our box on the third level.

  “Are you?” Asher asked, nodding to yet another vampire as we passed.

  “I’d be having more fun at a private party for two back at our suite,” I teased with a seductive smile.

  “As would I,” he replied with the same grin, “but we must not be rude to our host. He has not forgiven us for last year’s abandonment. My kind are legendary for nurturing even the most minor of grudges into a murderous rage. This is one night, I am afraid, you cannot have me all to yourself.”

  “I am counting the seconds.”

  I learned my lesson after London. We were happiest just he and I alone in our country oasis. Or at least I was. Asher agreed to leave Milan where he’d been hiding from me, and we settled into domestic bliss in a small, two bedroom cottage in Holland. On the evenings I didn’t have ballet class, I’d wake with enough time to heat his blood from the butcher shop and tidy a little. After his warm meal, he’d attempt a new recipe from Julia Child’s cookbook for my supper, then keep me company as I ate, followed by television, reading together, my studies, or simply talking until dawn. Really it was just as before in Galway except we now shared a bed. Old married couples would be bored around us. And I loved every millisecond of it. The nights of blood and roses.

  Asher did not share my enthusiasm for domesticity. Eventually, after a few months, he grew restless in the constraints of our dark paradise, and insisted we spend a few weeks in a new city. Rio, Moscow, Tokyo, among others. On occasion we’d meet his old friends there and attend a concert or play, but I put my foot down with the private parties like those in London. He swore he didn’t care, he didn’t want even a moment where my attention wasn’t solely directed his way, but I could read his face when the invitation came. Just a momentary flash of light at the prospect, quickly snuffed out by my reluctance. I’d also learned in London to pick my battles, so when his wanderlust grew almost constant, I suggested we attend a party or two with strict rules applied. An introvert can only constrain an extrovert for so long.

  Augustus’s entourage had expanded in size as I made my debut, spilling into the hall, one person more pale and gorgeous than the last. I clung tight to my Asher as we joined the undead bacchanalia. The compliments on my debut bombarded me as we made our way inside through the pit of vipers. Lord Augustus of Vienna held court by the balustrade to watch the twirling dancers three stories below like ballerinas in a music box. He was one of only a handful of vampires I’d ever met who would never turn heads. Short, plump, with thinning brown hair and chubby cheeks.

  “There she is, our very own debutante,” our large host said as I curtsied. “You know what that means, do you not? It is now acceptable for Asher to make an honest woman of you, as they say nowadays. Bring you into the family. I was only a year older than you when I was turned. You do not want to wait too long, old friend. The bloom only remains on the rose for so long.”

  “I shall keep that in mind,” said Asher graciously.

  “And if he will not give you the gift, I am more than willing,” Augustus said, brown eyes undressing me. “And it would solve problems like missing balls due to illness.”

  “You are most kind, Lord Augustus. And I do apologize for last year. I so wanted to meet you all.”

  Augustus’s eyes jutted to Asher. “You have trained her well, old friend. Just one of her many tricks, no doubt.”

  The group tittered at his asinine joke. It took a lot not to slap his lecherous face. I just took it with a smile on my face. Give a vampire an inch, and they will begin flaying you right there. “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, be sure to save me a dance.”

  “I shall save you two, your lordship.”

  “Speaking of dances,” Asher said, stepping beside me to hold out his hand. “I claimed the next. Excuse us. We shall return.”

  When we were far enough away near the stairs, I sighed. “Why do they always do that? Treat me like a literal piece of meat after a three-second conversation?”

  “Well, you are most appetizing,” he said before kissing my neck. “I should know.” He squeezed my hand. “And you handled him masterfully. As always.”

  “I hate vampires,” I muttered. “Present company excluded, of course.”

  “Do not say such things,” he chided.

  “But I do! I’m sorry, but I really do. Your friends either ignore me, try to bed me, or threaten me. They don’t talk to me or try to engage with me unless the topic is fashion, our sex life, or gossip. They’re all j
ust so … shallow and selfish. Will that happen when you turn me? I’ll become a vapid, entitled monster? Because if it is, I may reconsider.”

  After working up the courage for a week, I broached the topic one night. Even as a child I always assumed he’d eventually turn me. We decided to wait until my twenty-first birthday at the earliest, later if I desired to have a child. He brought that subject up all on his own. Vampires are sterile. Once I turned, I could never conceive. But at seventeen it didn’t matter to me one way or another. Nothing mattered but him. I could be swayed either way. If he wanted a child for us to raise then I would have one, and if it kept us at home as a family more’s the better.

  “You do not give them a chance, Anna,” he snapped harshly. He was so incensed he stopped in the middle of the hallway walking to and fro, and frowned. “As much as I love you, as much as I wish to cater to your every whim, and more often than not do, on occasion I do crave the pleasure of other people’s company. I crave an evening spent not bored to tears in front of a television or performing menial chores but out in the world among laughter, and music, and the chattering of old friends and new. It is not an affront to you, it is simply … what I need. I have spent close to a millennia a certain way, with certain people, whom I happen to miss. I adore you. I love you above all others, but you are smothering me. Whether it be that you fear I shall leave you or simply pure selfishness, you must push it aside and allow me to breathe. You must trust me.” Asher leaned forward and kissed me. “And, if given half a chance, you may find yourself actually enjoying yourself. Will you try? For me?”

  He was right. I wasn’t giving them a chance. I never had. Vampires were nothing more than competition. The image of him on that couch in London sprang to mind whenever a pretty pale face approached him. My imagination and insecurity ran rampant with one smile not directed my way. It wasn’t fair to him to be so distrustful or to bring his mood down when he wished to enjoy himself. He sacrificed a great deal for me, I could do this one thing for him. I could try. For him.