A faint smile flickered on his lips, cutting the tension just enough for them to realize how close they were standing. Emilie felt Daniel's breath on her cheek, smelled the warm masculine scent of his cologne, and let her imagination run free. She imagined those muscular arms around her, his lips bruising hers in a demanding kiss and...
Fantasy over!
She backed up a step, putting Pop's wooden magick box between them and tightly pressing it against her stomach to ease the sudden ache below her navel. “I'd probably better get home and start working on the problem."
Daniel held her gaze for a moment longer, then sidestepped to give her access to the stairwell. “Let me carry the box downstairs for you."
She gave it to him, and he waited while she descended.
Vance met them in the living room. He eyed the box and gave his brother a smirk. “I see you found a way to get rid of some of Pop's junk."
"Would you rather take it with you to your new place?” Daniel rummaged in the box before handing it back to Emilie. He had pulled out a thin bottle made of dark amber glass. Something rattled within the nearly opaque container. “I'm sure Beth can find a way to decorate with silver coffin nails."
"Ooh! I could use them. Put them back.” Emilie grinned at Vance and shot Daniel a sidelong glance.
"Not for my coffin, I hope,” Vance said, feigning a tragic expression.
"They may be useful for a potion. I've got some ideas. Give me a few days to work on them, and I'll give you both a call."
"If you need any help before that, I'm here all day,” Vance offered.
Daniel's brows knit together. If Emilie didn't know better, she would have thought he was jealous. “You had better call me first,” he said. “Bethany stays here a lot. She's on vacation from school and you never know when she might be hanging around."
Emilie's gaze bounced between the brothers. She couldn't decide if she should be amused or disconcerted by their power play.
"I'll just pretend you're a client. If I call you Mr. Jennings, that means I can't talk,” Vance said.
"Should we work out a code word and a secret meeting place, too?” she asked.
Daniel moved between Emilie and Vance and herded her toward the door. “As I said, call me. This way we won't have to worry about Bethany getting suspicious."
Emilie waved to Vance as Daniel let her out. He led her down the driveway and held the magick box while she opened her car door. The night was bright with the three-quarter waning moon and crickets sang in the bushes surrounding the house.
"I appreciate everything you're doing,” Daniel said.
Emilie settled herself into the driver's seat with the box beside her. She wanted to assure him that she'd find a way to help Vance, but in truth, she still wasn't sure she could. If she failed, would she serve only to prove to him that his opinions about the dangers of magick were well founded? She gave him a wan smile and started the engine. She had a lot of work to do. No sense wasting the evening with empty promises.
"I'll call you,” she said before pulling out of the driveway. And she hoped she'd have good news when she did.
CHAPTER 6
The yellow eyes of the wolf met Daniel's and bore into him, challenging him for supremacy. He flung the flimsy silver chain from his hand; it coiled around the beast's throat. When he pulled it tight, it failed to fuse together. Instead, the links broke apart, snapped by the sheer force of the creature's fury. It swiped a claw at him, catching him across the face. Hot blood trickled down his jaw. Rage built inside him. The creature howled in triumph as Daniel backed away.
When the beast lunged after him, Daniel swung his fist, aware of an unnatural weight in his hand. A gun—the pistol Pop had proudly displayed for a decade above the mantle when he and Vance were boys—gleamed against his skin. He didn't need to check the chamber to know it was loaded with silver bullets, poured in a special mold by a gunsmith in Geneva who specialized in weapons to fight demon beasts.
Without remorse, Daniel fired at the wolf...
The sound woke him. He sat up in bed, gasping and covered in sweat.
He would never allow it to come to that. He'd given Emilie all of Pop's werewolf-hunting paraphernalia except the gun and the bullets. He kept them in the drawer by his bed, not because he expected to use them, but because he wanted to make sure no one else did.
Nathan Garrison had stared down that very barrel once. Daniel often wondered if his grandfather had heard the shot that plunged a silver bullet into his chest. He'd read that often people who survived gunshot wounds reported never having heard the shot that hit them. Unfortunately, Pop hadn't survived.
Daniel flung off the twisted sheets and paced the moonlit room. Years had passed since he'd dreamed of the wolf, years since he'd woken up with his hand curled around the trigger of a nonexistent gun. He eyed the drawer and the brass key in the old-fashioned lock that held it closed. He crossed the room and twisted the key until it clicked in the mechanism, then pulled it out of the lock and moved to the window. After throwing open the sash, he hurled the key into the garden.
No one would get their hands on the gun.
Not even himself.
And no more Garrison men would die at the hands of the wolf.
* * * *
"You're going to turn my brother blue?"
Three days later, Daniel stopped by Mystikal Excursions just as Emilie was closing her shop. He had made it to Thursday before the urge to see her became overwhelming, and she'd made the mistake of showing him her progress.
In the back room, where the rune circle was now fully visible through three layers of gray paint, thirty black candles formed a circle around a pile of quartz crystals. Emilie deftly arranged three more candles in the circle and sidled past Daniel on her way to the front of the shop.
He followed. “Blue?"
"He's not going to stay blue,” she said, rummaging under the front counter for a lighter. She stopped and stuck her hand down the front of her T-shirt. Daniel watched, intrigued and a little turned on, as she yanked out an amulet and let it dangle against her chest. It looked like a tiny silk purse stitched with a protection rune. The weight of it pressed her T-shirt deeper into the V between her breasts and Daniel found it hard to look away from the enticing little valley it formed.
When they returned to the back room, several of the clear quartz crystals had turned black in the intervening few minutes and four of the candles had fallen over, seemingly of their own accord.
"Yes, turning blue is a side effect of consuming large quantities of colloidal silver. Yes, it's irreversible, but note I said large quantities. Vance will drink only one small potion—just a few ounces. This blue is a magickal side effect and it won't last ... long.” She bent to reset the fallen candles.
He reached for her arm. “How long?"
"A day or two."
A desolate howl emanated from the floor.
"A day or two?"
"I'm sure he can avoid his fiancée for forty-eight hours. Tell her he had to go on a business trip or something.” She straightened up and gave him a stern glare. “In the meantime, unless you want to meet the next batch of Creek's minions, I suggest you go home now. I'll call you later."
Daniel swept his gaze across the frigid room. He saw his own breath in front of him. Emilie lit the nearest candle, then, with a wave of her hand, she seemed to spread the flame around the circle. All thirty-three candles flared to life and the disembodied wail from the center of the evil circle grew louder.
"Why are you doing this alone?” He could have sworn a few more crystals turned black as he watched. “And why not sooner?"
"I didn't have all the ingredients for the spell.” From her jean pocket, Emilie pulled out a small clear vial. A thick black liquid rolled within it. “And it's complicated, but I need to do it alone."
"It looks dangerous."
"It is, so back up.” She shooed him toward the door.
He held his ground, bracing against the p
ressure she exerted with her hands on his chest. “I don't think so."
She pushed harder, but he pushed back, surprised by the strength in her tiny frame and the fact he enjoyed the feel of her warm hands on his torso.
Emilie grunted and gave up her attempt to physically move him out of the room.
"I'm staying. This looks too dangerous for you to be on your own."
As if to punctuate his words, one of the candles teetered. If it fell, the whole circle would probably collapse like dominoes in a ring of fire. Emilie stilled the errant wax pillar with nothing more than a stern look. The netherworld growled. She raised the bottle of viscous black liquid and hell itself seemed to whimper at her threat. Daniel felt her power, right in the solar plexus. His heart picked up the pace when she turned her smoldering gaze toward him.
"Fine. Just stand back."
"You and your coven fought Chester Creek last fall. That's thirteen of you. I don't understand why—"
"That was business. This is personal.” She gingerly spanned the candles and positioned herself over the pile of crystals. Legs wide, arms outstretched, she closed her eyes and tilted back her head.
"How personal?"
She sighed and peered at him from under lowered lashes. “We all had our assignments. Six to gather the minions he unleashed. Five to cleanse the premises. Audra, the coven priestess, performed the banishing spell on Creek. That's heavy magick, not to be taken lightly. I was assigned to close the portal.” Again, she closed her eyes and threw back her head. “The spell I used was weak."
"Can't you ask for help?"
"I shouldn't have to. I should have done a better job. I should have pulled out all the stops, but I was afraid."
"And now you're not?” He had to give her credit. Standing on what was obviously an entrance to hell, ready to do battle like a warrior princess, she looked invincible. Something stirred in him. He should have been afraid for her, but instead he grew hard.
She didn't answer him. All the crystals in the pile had turned gray or black. Several candles seemed to burn faster than the others and disintegrated into puddles of black wax. The dark liquid, which resembled the stuff in Emilie's potion bottle, had begun to run in rivulets toward the center of the rune circle.
It didn't look good.
"Can we conclude Twenty Questions later?” Emilie said after another deep, cleansing breath. “I'm a little busy."
Before Daniel could come up with a pithy reply, Emilie's head fell farther backward and an agonized sound escaped her lips. Her body went rigid, and every flame in the circle flared several feet high.
Daniel waited only the space of a single breath before hurling himself over the leaping flames.
* * * *
Emilie felt the cold, black emptiness of the netherworld envelope her as it had once before. She'd vowed the first time to never again put herself through this torture, yet here she was, rooted to the center of the rune circle in the back room of her shop, caught in the throes of evil as Chester Creek's portal to hell struggled to open beneath her feet.
The girls would have had a fit if they'd known what she was attempting. Her cousin Charlotte would kill her, if the banishing ritual didn't do the job first.
Stupid pride, they'd say. Yes. Emilie knew she suffered from a form of hubris born of insecurity. As the least powerful witch in her family, she'd grown up with something to prove. The fact that the Swanson clan unconditionally loved their youngest, least talented daughter became immaterial. Emilie wanted—needed—to measure up.
Failing to fully close Chester's portal the first time haunted her. Audra had given her the assignment in good faith, and Emilie owned her sister-in-magick her best effort. She'd taken the easy route, the weaker spell because it was less painful. It demanded less of her and she had known, without a doubt, that her power was equal to it.
That made her a bad witch. And a bad witch wouldn't be able to help anyone. So she had to do this alone, to prove—especially to herself—that she had it in her. Only then would she be able to help Vance and show Daniel that Cypress Park wasn't better off without her.
Despite the cold, desolate hollow that crawled up into her gut, she managed to tighten her grip on the potion bottle.
A blur of movement passed through the corner of her limited vision.
She tensed. Had something already escaped from the portal?
The demons that the warlock Creek had brought forth had been small, wrinkled, hairless creatures with gnarled fangs and bat-like ears. Personal-sized nightmares, the kinds of things children feared lived under their beds or lurked in dark basements and dusty attics. The mischief-makers had proven fairly easy for the coven to catch, however, but alone and immobilized by the terrible cold from below, Emilie would be easy prey if one had gotten loose.
Daniel? Where had he gone?
Something brushed against her hand. She found the strength to jerk away from the chilling touch. The words of the incantation she'd memorized formed in her mind, and she spoke them, slow and deliberate, as she squeezed the potion bottle in her fist.
Malachus in severus!
This incantation forms a seal, what lies below to banish.
Bind the power that stirs within
And make the portal vanish!
A screech, like nails raking across a chalkboard, ripped through the room. An icy gust of fetid air followed. Emilie repeated the incantation, louder this time, as the wailing from below rose in pitch.
Malachus in severus!
This incantation forms a seal, what lies below to banish.
Bind the power that stirs within
And make the portal vanish!
In response, the portal convulsed beneath her. Emilie's knees buckled. As she fell forward, she slammed the potion bottle onto the floor with all her remaining strength. At the moment it shattered against her palm, hell hiccuped.
The black liquid oozed onto the cracks that had formed in the floor and mixed with candle wax, crystal dust and her blood. The conglomeration solidified into an unbreakable seal that formed a black sunburst pattern across the floor, obliterating the circle of Chester Creek's satanic runes. One by one the candles guttered as the dark marks faded.
Emilie smiled at her handiwork. Not bad, she thought, just before a bomb exploded behind her eyes.
The world went icy black, and she passed out.
CHAPTER 7
"That was impressive,” Daniel said when Emilie's eyes fluttered open half an hour later. He'd stretched her out on the floor of the back room and placed his folded jacket under her head. A cool compress of paper towels from the bathroom rested on her pale forehead.
"Thank you. It was some of my best work,” she responded with a shaky half-smile. She brought her injured hand up to her face and surveyed the bandage he'd cobbled together from her meager first-aid supplies.
"I don't mean the spell.” He lifted each of her eyelids to check the pupils. “I meant that you managed to shatter that bottle in your hand and not need stitches."
He gently turned over her palm and looked at his work. No blood seeped through the layers of gauze he'd wrapped around her hand.
"What's important is the spell worked, right?” She sat up and tried to look past him.
He pushed back her shoulders and helped her adjust the compress on her head. “Take it easy. You've been out for a little while."
"I'm fine. Except for ... the blinding headache and mild nausea.” Her voice faded as she settled her head onto his makeshift pillow.
"Is plain aspirin okay? It's all you have in your medicine cabinet."
He rose and retrieved the glass of water he'd prepared and handed her four small, white tablets. Her hand shook a little as she reached for the glass, so he held it to her lips.
She cringed as the pills went down. “Thanks."
He gave her a dark look and tried to maintain his ire, which wasn't easy since he'd never seen her look sexier. With her hair spilling wildly around her face, a smudge of otherworld
ly soot above her left eye, and the fingers of her bandaged hand idly toying with the protection amulet on her chest, she appeared invincible and vulnerable at the same time.
It bothered him that he felt every ounce of her power, and seeing her in action, holding back the forces of darkness, had given him a raging hard-on. His blood ran hot at the thought that she might have tried this spell all alone and failed.
She blinked up at him, all innocence. “What?"
"This is exactly what my petition was about. Reckless magick."
"Reckless?” She bolted upright, then grabbed her head and moaned. “I closed a portal to hell,” she said through clenched teeth.
"By yourself. What if the potion bottle hadn't broken? What if I hadn't been here to pull you out of the hole?"
"What hole?” She looked around him again at the expanse of intact, but dirty, floor.
"The hole that opened up under your feet. The one you sank into about knee-deep."
She stared at him for a moment, obviously dumbfounded, then winced and rubbed her head. “I don't remember that part."
"I'll never forget it. Thanks."
When she struggled to her feet, Daniel forced himself not to go to her. He wanted to stay mad and make her fully understand how dangerous her plan had been. And he wanted to kiss her until she couldn't breathe and demand that she never put herself in that kind of danger again.
His resolve crumbled when she put her hand on his shoulder. Her touch electrified him. She still resonated with the power of her spell, and the energy in her body shot through him, straight to his heart.
"Thank you..."
Her voice was a whisper over the pounding of blood in his ears. He could have sworn sparks flew between them as she leaned closer and grazed her supple lips over his jaw. He turned just slightly, wondering how easy it would be to capture her lips with his and taste the power that emanated from her.
But she pulled away before he had a chance. “Now we're even."
"Even?” He backed up a step and glared at her. Sinful thoughts of taking her in the middle of the floor dissolved into frustrated anger. “How do you figure?"
Wolfsbane: Aspect of the Wolf Page 4
