Spellbound Desire

by Angelia Sparrow

  I turned and kissed him. “Let’s shower, then you can buy me breakfast on the Witan’s dime and tell me all about that accident.”

  Chapter Five

  Bran

  She looked adorable wet when she came out wrapped in a towel. I suspected it was her only towel. Her words proved me right.

  “I got a spare sheet. Sorry.”

  “I’d offer to steal one from the motel when we get my things, but I think your sheet is probably cleaner and nicer.”

  She kissed me and handed me the sheet. It was plain white like the ones she had taken off and the ones she had put on the bed. She lived a Spartan life, this one. Murphy bed, hot plate, aging computer. I had a better laptop in my bag, for all that I was nomadic, going where the Witan sent me. She had about as many clothes as I did, all ugly, and I lived in the bag I carried. I wondered if business was bad or she spent all her money on alcohol. The latter seemed likely.

  In the shower, I decided to buy her a new coffee cup as well as a very nice breakfast. I expected she didn’t eat all that well.

  We were dressed and ready to go out. I opened the door, only to find her cousin still on the doorstep, his jaw slack.

  “He’s gobsmacked, Admire,” I told her.

  “You gotta turn down your aura, buddy.”

  “I swear, I didn’t lay an erg of mana on him.”

  She snapped her fingers under his nose. “Jinx, Jinx!”

  “You have a boyfriend.” The words came out mumbled and half-coherent. “You have a naked boyfriend.”

  “Yes, I do. Do you want breakfast, Jinx? Bran’s buying.”

  “You have a naked boyfriend named for a muffin?”

  “No, the cereal,” I said. I get that a lot. Bran may mean raven in the old tongue, but most people just think of oats. “Come on, Jinx. The big bad naked muffin is buying breakfast.”

  D.J. tucked her arm in mine, affectionate-like. I’d not had a woman so friendly the next morning before. Combat magery doesn’t lend itself to long-term partners. The Witan hadn’t led me to believe she’d be so willing or so friendly. Abrasive, unpleasant and difficult had been their kindest adjectives. And they had very, very carefully not told me she was a woman.

  The acid tongue made no appearance over a steam-table breakfast buffet. Jinx stared at my face and the six scars that mark it. D.J. ate like she hadn’t eaten in three days. She might not have. My information said she often drank her meals.

  At last she slowed and went to coffee. “Jinx, stop staring. It’s rude.”

  “The scars, dear Elvis, how did you live through them?” he asked me.

  “By being the most powerful mage in a hundred years and more. Demon tried ripping my face off. Popped my eyes out with his smallest talons, stuck his thumbs in my gob and yanked out, ran the other two talons down my face. Nearly bled out all over the fewking floor. Anyone else would have.”

  “Then what happened?” Jinx asked like a kid to a storyteller.

  “He ate me,” I grinned and got up for more sausages.

  D.J. laughed, a rusty sort of sound, like she didn’t use it much. Poor Jinx just looked puzzled. He wasn’t the brightest.

  I sat back down, counting the plates in front of me. I quit at four. I was hungry and I hadn’t even started casting. This town was going to be the death of me and I was hoping that wasn’t a premonition.

  D.J. leaned over and ran one finger along the scar across my cheek. I smiled at her.

  “Oeilett?” she asked. I nodded. She looked Jinx over and I could see the wheels turning in her head. “Jinx, you want to come to a get-rich-quick seminar tonight? It’s free.”

  His look back at her said he’d been invited along on one too many trips that had gone bad. “What’s the catch?”

  “No catch. You’re always complaining about bills and your landlady.”

  “Ah, Saraphina’s all right. She got her license back and does fortunes every day, so she’s making money again.” He thought it over, taking way too long. I was willing to bet my lady didn’t scruple at using him for bait.

  “So are you in or not, Allan?” I asked.

  He blinked, like he didn’t hear his name very often. “I’m in. Sure, I’ll come. If I get rich, I’ll buy a house and an office building and D.J. can have her own suite and never worry about Frau Blucher again. Want me to pick you up?”

  D.J. jumped in almost too fast then. “I’ll drive. Your piece of shit is lucky to get to highway speed.”

  “Generous lad,” I said. “See you tonight. Now it’s time for a wee bit more of that private time for your cousin.”

  He turned bright red and got up, stuttering his thanks for breakfast. “See you tonight.” He didn’t quite run out the door, but it was near.

  D.J. scooted closer to me in the booth. “Promise on the private time?” She shook her head and shoved away. “I’m sorry. God, I’m never this bad.”

  “It’s the mana. Let it work and we’ll be done soon enough. Meanwhile, ride it for what it’s worth.”

  We got up and I paid the bill with the Witan’s card, the one they gave me for emergencies. Let them worry about the money.

  D.J. let me wrap an arm around her as we walked back to her place. I hoped the mana didn’t let go. I liked being with her. I liked the way she talked, her sexy accent with just a little drawl and a lot of movie tough-guy influence, the way she listened, the way she looked at me without being horrified by my face.

  “You only told Jinx part of the story. Was it at Chernobyl?”

  I nodded. “I was young, stupid and full of myself. I thought I would do better letting Oeilett manifest than simply disrupting it. He got his claws in me, I got my knives in him. As he vanished, he ripped my face off.”

  “Jinx already asked, why didn’t you die?”

  I gave her a squeeze. “Anyone else would have. I might have, but I still had plenty of demonic energy coursing around and it kept me going until I could clot up. I heal fast, like movie-in-reverse fast. There’s some on the Witan as jokes it would take decapitating me to kill me. And others who bet if you got my head back on my neck fast enough I’d come back from that too. I’m in no hurry to find out who’s right on that bet.”

  “So the reactor story was just a cover-up?”

  “Oh aye. Most industrial accidents are. Some are real, but most are demons or Nightsiders gone bad. You know normals, won’t see it when it slaps them in the gob.”

  “Chernobyl.” She gave a low whistle. “I was in high school when that happened. Lots of people died.”

  “On my head,” I whispered, my face aching and the memory of the fifty who died immediately stabbing through me. The ache for the millions affected by my failure followed hard on its heels.

  She turned in my arm and kissed me, right there on the street. Not ashamed to be seen with me, not afraid of my face or power. I wanted to keep her, if the mana would let us.

  Chapter Six

  D.J.

  Breakfast had been really nice, even with Jinx along. But now we had a whole day to kill. I took Bran to the motel for his gear and then back to the office. He shook out his bag at the Lamplighter before putting it in the car. Once home, he didn’t unpack anything.

  “Now, you may be traveling on the Witan’s card, but I still have to make a living. So, let’s do this up formal-like, shall we?” I dug out the boilerplate contract and filled in all the lines. “This says that you, Bran McKay as a representative of the Witan of Wizards, Sorcerers, Mages and other Mana-Users, have hired me, Dixie Admire, of Admire Investigations Ltd., to investigate the matter of the Roark seminar and potential associated demonic activity. My usual retainer of seventy-five dollars a day, ten days guaranteed, to be paid up front. Mileage, expenses, and further retainer to be paid at the end of the case.” I signed in my spot.

  “Oh aye. And does a case of condoms count as a business expense?”

  “Ambitious sheep fucker, aincha? No, those you buy up front. I’ll drop in at Planned Parenthood this aftern
oon and see about something for me.” I offered him the pen.

  He took it with a look that said I had really overstepped myself. “The money’s no trouble. And your idea is better than unplanned parenthood any day. Especially with you being a weirdness magnet and all,” he said as he signed. “And who’s been gabbing about me pervy past? Sheep lie, you know.”

  “Sorry, bad habit.” I almost never explained and never did apologize. This guy had me completely off balance. “So, how pervy of a past is it?” I leaned over him and kissed the visible beads I could see at his throat, noticing they were intricately patterned with knotwork and runes.

  “Come on to bed, love, and I’ll show you. A guided tour of my many sins. You see, the only remedy to magical boot camp is sex. Sex with other mages until you blow the roof off the dorm. Sex with anyone, including yourself. Since I’ve more power than most, I’ve more marks of my pleasures than most.”

  He didn’t have to tell me twice. On the other hand, there was money to think about. “Seven hundred fifty, up front. It’ll keep this place air-conditioned and booze on the desk while we explore The Thousand and One Nights of Bran McKay.” I tried to sound as hard-edged as I usually was during money negotiation, but it felt weak and soft coming out of my mouth.

  “Aye, must make sure of that first bit. How do you folk live here without melting?” Bran dug in his bag and pulled out a bankroll that would get him mugged in any city in the world, if the mugger was both mana-blind and really dumb.

  He laid seven portraits of old Ben on my desk and crossed them with a Grant. I made the money vanish into the locked cash drawer.

  “Thank you, darling. This will make your stay much more comfortable. And prevent further intrusion by Frau Blucher.”

  “A most fearsome lady. And do you not suppose you could persuade her to allow in some lesbians while you were at it?”

  I kissed him just to shut him up. I wasn’t sure I liked how hot the taste of my own juice had made me.

  “So about our Thousand and One Nights,” he said, and nipped my neck.

  “Bed, now,” I managed around the orgasm that was already threatening.

  “Oh indeed.” In one smooth move, he stood, scooped me into his arms and carried me to where I hadn’t folded the bed back into the wall. “And what about all your planning then?”

  “They’re open until six. Just use the damn rubber until then.”

  The smug bastard glanced at the clock. “I think you might be overestimating me, lass. But I’ll give it my best.”

  I yanked him down by the leather vest for a kiss. He pinned me to the bed with his body, getting a leg between my thighs. I pulled more of him, wanting to feel his weight on me. The kilt left his hard cock free to dangle. It came to rest against my belly as I rubbed up against the bare skin of his thigh. I’d had him before breakfast and now I seemed determined to wear him out before dinner.

  He kept kissing me, his tongue busy and sweet in my mouth. I moaned around it, rubbing harder until I came all over his thigh. He ripped open the thin cotton peasant blouse and shoved my bra down, then fumbled with my jeans.

  The edge taken off, I rolled him to his own back. “Guided tour time.” I shoved the vest open to see the rosary had already drawn up to the base of his throat. “Tell me everything, you pervert. Better, show me.”

  I licked the scars that scored his face, up the inside vertical scar, down the outside and in to kiss his mouth. “Oeilett.” I did the same on the other side, fighting the urge to do it again and again, feel the puckered skin under my tongue until I came just from the taste of him. But there was more, so much more, to his skin and I needed to know all about him.

  I tasted each bead of the rosary, ran my tongue over the triskelion and then the spiral. I watched it tighten more, turning his face red. His cock stood up hard enough to make the heavy leather of the kilt tent up.

  “Seventeen. I’d found that cutting my air made me come faster, so I got the tat and dumped extra mana into it. You remember how it was at seventeen, love?”

  I remembered, all right. I only had a dab of mana, not enough to train to be a mage, too much to ever leave the Nightside. But in the throes of puberty, I had set fires with a glance, called tornadoes at a thought, and beat off three bullies without raising a fist. I could only imagine how much worse it had been for him.

  “I fucked anyone that would have me, any hole I could find to make the endless ache go away. If it moved, I fucked it, if it didn’t, that was even easier. And if I could get off quicker, I had a clearer head to study for a while. It’s a triskelion, love, endless knot that shows the elements and the Goddess and the God and heart, mind and magic all in one. Over the years, I used it and kept putting mana into it and it took on a life of its own.”

  The talking made the necklace relax a bit. I kissed the three beads that formed the chaplet, and then the triple spirals where a crucifix should have been.

  “That’s connecting me to the magic. It lets me focus it better.” I kissed it again and it drew up a little. “See how you make me want, darling?”

  “But it can’t kill you, so you’re one up on the stupid boys who hang themselves in their closet.” I kissed it again, and he tipped my face up to kiss my lips.

  “‘Twould be why I like the mouth pleasure so much, because it lets me enjoy you, but not come off like a lightning bolt myself.”

  I kept kissing. Odd scars marked his chest and ribs, including one that looked a little too deep near his heart. I tasted that one first. The cool, firm ridge met my tongue.

  “Nothing pervy to tell of that one. Things explode in battle. Often. That one did pierce my heart, but not clean through. Lovely Nyabinghi was close to hand though. She’s a fine healer mage and saved me more than once.”

  I kissed the raven over his heart right next to the scar. I couldn’t read the Gaelic around it, especially not when it was done in the old Uncial-style calligraphy, all loops and swirls like the knotwork itself. “What’s this one?”

  “My name. And that word you’re so busy licking, you might not want to. It says Morrigan.” I backed off the tattoo fast. The Celtic battle goddess was no one to fool with if you weren’t one of hers. “The rest says I’m in service to Her. All us Celts are.”

  I nodded. Most of the ethnic groups had their own battle deities, and it made sense that the Celtic combat mages would serve the Morrigan. She was not just the battle, but the peace after it.

  “So you’re pagan?” I knew quite few. There were more in Memphis than one would expect, what with us being Bible Belt and all. He talked about the Morrigan the same way they did, as if she was a vicious auntie with an unpredictable temper, someone who’d whacked him with a wooden spoon a time or two.

  “Who, me? I’m a nice Presbyterian boy. But Herself gets touchy if we don’t take Her on too, and all the saints can say nothing about it.”

  I kept licking and kissing, avoiding that tattoo. The scars on his ribs varied, some barely breaking the skin, others deep enough furrows I knew they had reached bone. I kissed them all.

  “Appendectomy,” I said. I had a scar just like it over my right hip. I licked it anyway and opened his kilt. I could smell him. The leather trapped his scent and added its own. And I could tell he lived in it, although he kept clean. It wasn’t a dirty smell, but a strong scent of man, the kind I wanted to bottle and sell for all the poor slobs who weren’t him.

  I gave his cock a lick, just because I wanted to. It bobbed and I smiled. “Later,” I promised it. Then I saw the line of script at the base, almost hidden by the graying hair.

  “That would be the newest, my ring. A lot like the rosary, but I still have control of it.”

  I licked the line of writing at the base of his cock. I considered blowing him, but that would just end up with me getting fucked again and he had more tattoos.

  I moved on to the armbands on his biceps. These were written in runes, basic Futhark by the look of them. Those I could read.

  I managed th
e first four words of the protection charm and looked up at him. “Really? ‘From ghoulies and ghosties’? Really?”

  “And long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night, may the good Lord deliver us. Aye, ‘twas me gram’s charm and it always worked for her.” He smiled at me and I could almost believe the old rhyme might work.

  “Is your whole family mages?” Magic did run in families. I traced out each rune with my finger. He twitched when I got to the soft inside skin.

  “Aye. Gram’s been gone twenty years now. Da passed about ten. Mum’s still running her talisman shop at ninety. She gets by on Da’s pension from the Witan. My sibs, they’re all around and we’re all getting up there.”

  “How many?”

  “Thirteen. Mum and Da went for an even dozen.”

  “And you’re the seventh son of a seventh son?”

  He laughed at that. “No, I’m the sixth. My baby brother’s the seer. We have healers, and bureaucrats and all. My third sister used to ride with the Latter-Day Boadiceas, the female Celtic combat mages, but she’s old enough to retire. We’re the only two with this calling.”

  “Sounds like a motorcycle gang,” I teased and kissed the vambrace on his wrist. All combat mage units sounded like motorcycle gangs. The vambrace was in Ogham, which I couldn’t read.

  He chuckled. “Then you weren’t reading the back of my vest. We all have our groups and we all mark them on the armored leather. Anyone with any mana can read it.”

  “Not trained, remember?” I kept kissing, too busy for my usual annoyance. I could feel his pulse through the big vein just under the skin of his inner arm and I licked it.

  “But when it says ‘Ladies from Hell’ in letters three inches high, I’d think you could see.”

  I yanked the vest out from under him and turned it over. I saw spider-thin silver tracery I’d never noticed on the leather. It did indeed say Ladies from Hell. I knew the combat mages had taken up biker culture back in the early sixties, and it amused me to no end that magic users would enjoy something so macho and yet so prosaic. “So why Ladies from Hell? You’re not gay or a drag queen.”