“There was something in the water?”
Paige balanced Bobby in her left arm and knelt beside the Ironman backpack. She didn’t even have to unzip anything. She pulled out a pouch of material tied roughly with rope. “How much are you willing to bet this is a hex?”
“Someone poisoned my son?” Leslie let out a growl and snatched the satchel from Paige’s hand. “Who would have done that?”
“Les.” Paige looked up at her. “Last I checked, we were the only witches in town.”
“We’re not even close. There’s about a dozen of them around.”
That was news to her. “And how many of them hate you?”
“Hmm.”
“How many of them have a beef with you, enough so to poison your children?”
“Um.”
“Have you had any run-ins with any of them? Anyone who might be upset with you?”
“Well, there was Shelley, but I don’t think she’d hex my kids.”
“What happened?”
“She asked for a spell that would give her husband a run of really bad luck.”
Paige winced.
“She wants to divorce him, but he has all the money. And she’s the one who cheated on him, so she might end up losing the kids.”
Paige released a quick breath and stood. “Well, let’s get this to Grandma and see if she can’t counter it. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to clean up barf all night. Especially, baby barf. Kids, you can tell them to barf in a bowl and then to clean up their mess when they’re done.”
“Dear lord, Pea. You’re mean.”
“I work.”
Leslie glared on her way out of the nursery, the hex bag in hand.
Paige followed her down to Alma’s workroom. A large wooden table filled the center of the room and the three walls were filled with shelves that housed herbs, bottles, books, and other trinkets. Drying herbs hung from the ceiling. A large window dominated the east wall. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to cast a source spell on this hex.” Leslie pulled a map of the area out of a drawer that looked like it was filled with junk. She unfolded it, the creases worn, the edges ragged. Two corners were taped back in place and scorch marks littered several areas.
“What have you done with this map?” Paige asked.
“I’ve been busy lately.”
“What’s going on?”
Leslie didn’t answer. She set the hex bag in the middle of the map and grabbed a mortar sitting on a high shelf.
Alma walked through the door that led to her room. “What’s going on here?”
“The kids were hexed,” Paige explained. “A throwing up hex.”
“What?”
“I found this. Leslie is tracking it to see where it came from.”
“You think another witch hexed us?”
Leslie wasn’t listening. Her lips moved. She took a pinch of whatever was in the mortar and drizzled it over the bag.
Nothing happened.
Leslie frowned. “What?”
Alma grabbed the bag and started untying it.
“Grandma,” Leslie shouted, reaching across the massive table to stop her.
Unless she’d climbed on the table, she couldn’t stop her grandmother.
Alma finished untying the bag and spread the contents on the table. “I know this work.”
Paige tipped her head. “As in you’ve instructed this witch?”
“You could say that.”
“Who is it?”
Alma touched the material. “Do you recognize this?”
Leslie looked up at her grandmother, then down at the material. She shook her head. “Why would I?”
“Because this is your old shirt. This rope? Came off that ball of twine right over there. This? Is Mandy’s work.”
Leslie ran her fingers through her hair, straightening. “I’m—” She licked her lips and dropped her hands. “I’m going to kill her.”
Paige chased after her sister back up the stairs.
“What were you thinking?” Leslie shouted as soon as she opened the door to Mandy’s room.
Paige scurried out of Leslie’s way as she stormed back out of Mandy’s room and headed into Tyler’s.
“Amanda Lynn!” Leslie jerked Tyler’s door open. “What were you thinking?”
Mandy sat on Tyler’s bed, the two huddled together as they stared up at their mother.
Paige set her hand on her sister’s arm. “Les.”
She shook Paige off. “What were you thinking? Hexing yourselves? And your brother? And your cousin?”
Mandy shrugged, her mouth open.
Tyler pushed himself onto his knees. “We don’t want to go to school anymore!”
“Wow.” Leslie reeled backward, putting her hands to her head melodramatically. “I don’t want to go to school anymore so I’m going to hex myself and my brother so Mom will keep me at home.”
“You don’t understand!” Mandy glared at her brother, but returned her attention to her mother. “You’re the one who says we can’t use magick in school, but I had a knife drawn on me today, Mom. And I had nothing else to protect myself with.”
“Did you use magick?” Leslie asked, her voice dropping in octaves and volume.
“No. But I almost did. I’ve had my lunch stolen. My homework has been shredded. Someone peed on my school books.”
“What the—” Leslie stopped herself. “Why haven’t you told me about this?”
“You were freaking out because you were pregnant.” Mandy’s eyes were round. “I wasn’t telling you anything.”
“Hey, Home,” a male voice shouted from the front door. “I’m home!”
Leslie turned to Tyler. “And you? What about you?”
“Boys picking fights. They want me to cast on them. They’re daring me to give them pox.”
“And you’re not, right?”
“I could break their eardrums, Mom. I can’t give them a pox.”
Leslie licked her lips and glanced at Paige. “Fine. You’re not going to school, but, next time, talk to me before you hex yourselves. The two of you have baby duty tonight since your Aunt Paige and I had to clean up not only your barf, but theirs. Next time, think.”
Tyler rolled his eyes.
Leslie stormed back out of his room. “I’m going to grab my husband. We have a lot to talk about.”
Paige didn’t want to be a fly on that wall. She walked down to Mandy’s room and poked her head in. “Lee?”
They’d set up a make-shift cot in Mandy’s very girly, purple and blue room. Leah sat on the bed, though, a book propped up on her knees. She looked up. “Yeah?”
“You okay?”
She nodded.
“Hungry?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know what’s for dinner, but we’ll probably get it started soon.”
She shook her head again.
“Okay. Well, we’ll let you know when it’s dinner time.”
“’Kay.”
“And, hey.”
Leah looked back up from her book.
“Are we okay?”
The girl dropped her eyes back to her to book without changing her expression.
Blessed Mother, this was why people said the devil was in teenagers. And Leah wasn’t a teenager yet. Bloody hell.
Dexx was in the dining room, scanning the pages of Paige’s books. “Oh, hey. These are interesting!”
“You can read them?”
“Hell yes, I can.”
Paige tipped her head to the side. “No one else can, so how can you?”
Dexx quirked his lips at her. “Right here. It says that if you’ve killed a demon, you’ve earned the right to read these words. See?”
Paige took his word for it and sat down.
“Groceries are put away.”
“Excellent.” She didn’t even want to think about unpacking all the things they’d bought at the store. She was exhausted just thinking of
it.
“What’s for dinner?”
“Frozen pizzas.”
“Good. I’ll get the oven started.”
Paige let him and opened a book, starting at the beginning. In most of them, there were inscriptions, notes, prayers, cautions.
Dexx regained his seat. “Look at this. The Whiskey line.”
“Hmm.” Paige looked at it. Whiskeys with various spellings of the name all the way back to the early sixteenth century. “Is Leah on it?”
“Yeah. You are, too.”
Paige pulled the book toward her. It looked like a big, old family Bible. Above her name was Rachel Whiskey and Edwin Blackman. She narrowed her eyes. She’d never even had a name before. But there was Leslie’s father’s name. Jeffery Gossam. And Nick’s father. Wolf Marrs.
Who was Edwin Blackman? And why hadn’t Alma even talked about their fathers?
Interesting. She pushed the book back toward him. “That’s cool. Anything neat in the book itself?”
“No.” Dexx shook his head. “It’s actually quite dull. There’s just some really old spells. There’s dried flowers pressed into the pages. You know. Boring shit.”
Paige smiled at him and rested her head on her hand, thumbing through the book in front of her.
“What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know.” She had eight books in front of her. Those were eight books more than she’d ever had before. Before her memories had been banished, she’d been doing this job without any research resources. But now, with the help of these books, she hoped to—
To what? To do better? To save more lives? To get a better handle on the demon population? To find Heather’s killer? The list was too broad. Too encompassing.
Dexx pulled the corners of his mouth down and nodded. “Got it.”
She had no idea what he got. “You can read minds now?”
“Yours? Yes. I don’t need Kamden’s gift.”
“Hmm.”
He pushed the grimoire with the family tree away from him, still open, and dragged another tome closer to him. “Also, I know you and Leslie talked about you having sex with me when you were out.”
“How—” She bit off her question, her face flaming red.
Dexx grinned as the oven beeped, letting him know it was heated. He stood. “Three meat?”
“Sure.” She didn’t know how he did that, but it was kind of annoying. “You’re creepy. You know that?”
“Yeah. I know.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, I didn’t.”
Gah!
“But you smelled different when you came home and when you looked at me, I could smell your heat.”
“Smell my heat?”
“I can tell when you’re turned on and I don’t have to look at your pupils.” He grinned over his shoulder, popping the pizza into the oven. He walked back to the table.
“That’s gross.”
“You should smell the other shit I smell, then we can discuss gross. You smell great.”
Paige rolled her eyes. “We’re still not having sex tonight.”
“Oh, good.” Dexx rubbed his eyebrow, reading. “I wasn’t gonna have any of it tonight anyway. I’m not a meat stick that you can just take a bite out of whenever it’s convenient for you.”
There was no way to respond to that.
“What about this?” Dexx shifted the book closer to her. “This thing can shift shape.”
“Found that one. I don’t think it’s what we’re after, if you’re looking for Heather’s killer.”
“Why?”
“Time. It doesn’t mention anything about time.”
“Why are we even looking in these books?” Dexx asked. “Social worker said it was angels.”
“She said she thought they were behind it. But it’s largely because we don’t have angel textbooks.” Paige was desperate. She had no way of knowing if she would find any answers or not, but she had to try. She had to. “Also, demons aren’t angels, but there are a few angels that are demons.”
“Hmm.” Dexx flipped the page.
“I smell pizza,” Alma said, walking into the kitchen.
“Tombstones,” Dexx said.
Alma turned around and walked back out of the kitchen. “I’ll make something else later.”
Dexx shrugged. “Her loss.”
“Fast has its advantages,” Paige offered, skimming over the text of the book in front of her. Djinn. Nasty assholes in the demon world. “Taste isn’t one of them. Okay.” She sat up straighter. “Get this. Shifts shape.”
“How many do that? Like, all of them?”
Paige shook her head. “Nearly. This one is capable of creating a time warp.”
“What is it?”
“Djinn.”
“Weren’t we just talking about that? Like, yesterday?”
Paige nodded. “Gomez. Druid.”
“What’s the likelihood?”
“Good?”
“Feels like coincidence.”
“Meh.” It did a little. “Okay. But, question: If the angels were after Bobby to kill him, why would they hire a djinn?”
“Unless the angels aren’t the only ones after Bobby?”
Paige gave Dexx her full attention.
“What if the whole reason angels are trying to kill prophets is so they don’t end up in the hands of the demons?”
“Why? We have psychics. They can tell the future. What’s so special about prophets?”
“Sometimes, it’s like you’ve never actually read the Bible, Pea.” Dexx leaned his elbows on the table. “Prophets speak to God. They get visions from God. They’re not just seeing the future. They’re seeing what God wants them to see to drive the future He wants, or what God wants to prevent.”
“Seriously.”
“I thought you were a better pagan than this.” Dexx mock-frowned at her. “I’m disappointed. Yeah. So, yeah. Demons after a prophet? After an ear of God? I could see it.”
“But why wouldn’t the social worker know that? She’s an angel.”
“You think all angels are built the same or that they know all?”
Paige shrugged. She really hadn’t thought about it.
“They’re probably a lot like humans.” Dexx ducked his head, widening his hands. “In that they have some that are quicker on their feet than others, you know.”
“Hmm.” She ran her fingers over the pages that gave her more information on djinn than she’d ever had before. “I’ll call Henry in the morning and let him know.”
“Does it say how to track it?”
“You don’t. The thing can form in any innocuous shape. It could be a picture, a ball, a dog, a cockroach.”
“Oh. Crap.”
“Could be that, too. Imagine being able to be anything. There’s no limit to how he left or where he’s going.”
“Would you be able to track him?”
“Maybe. He is a demon, but I can’t draw any attention to us.”
“You’re really going to let Heather’s killer go free?”
“If it means keeping Bobby and my family safe, then, yes. Now, if he somehow does find us, I’m pretty sure I can protect us.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“Djinn aren’t like normal demons, though. They’re not fallen angels. They don’t live in Hell. There were born here, but this is their plane. They have no pull to the Gate.”
“And that means?”
“That I can’t deal with them the same way I can a normal demon.”
“Normal demon,” Dexx scoffed. The oven dinged. “Well, normal demon slayer, dinner is served.”
The next morning, Paige woke up ridiculously early. The sun hadn’t even risen. She checked on Mandy and Leah. They were still in bed. She even checked to make sure the blob on Leah’s cot was actually Leah. She didn’t want to have to go looking for the girl right before the hearing. The whole lynch pin to her case was that she had physical custody of her.
Tha
t wasn’t the only thing Paige had going for her, but it was the best. She couldn’t concentrate. For that matter, she couldn’t focus long enough to get Bobby’s bottle ready.
“Here,” Dexx said, finally. He put his hands on Paige’s shoulders and moved her out of the way. “Let me do this. You just sit down. Get Bobby ready and I’ll get the bottle to you.”
Too many emotions ran through her, like a freight train all thought. This was the moment she’d been waiting for.
What if she fucked it up?
What if she forgot something?
Well, what the fuck did she need that she might forget? She needed to go grab it and put it in her bag.
Her bag. What bag was she going to take? If she took the computer bag, wouldn’t that make her look too professional? Too career focused? That was a bad thing when it came to mothers and their children. No. She needed to show the judge that she was a worthy mother, one capable of loving her child.
Fuck that shit. She had to show that she was an adult. She could maintain a job.
Shit. She’d just been fired. She didn’t have a job.
Oh, goddess. What was she doing? They had to stall. She needed more time. To get settled. To get a job.
She couldn’t get a job in Portland. Not now. She had to wait. What if the courts thought she was flight risk? What if the courts decided she had to stay?
They hadn’t made Rachel stay. Her home had been in New York.
But that hadn’t been real that time. This time, it would be. As far as Paige knew, there wouldn’t be any angels in play. Rachel wouldn’t have had time.
Or would she? Would Michael come when she called?
Rachel wasn’t an angel summoner. She was an angel whisperer. She could hear the angels. She couldn’t make them come when she wanted them to.
Okay. So, should Paige summon some demons? Balnore, maybe?
Dear, gods, it was tempting. She was panicking. She needed someone there who would keep her feet on the ground. She was a homicide detective, for fucks sake. She should be able to keep her shit together.
Except that she’d lost this fight already and she’d put the same feet forward then as she was this time. She was a good mother, a caregiver, a provider. She was solid, steady. And she’d still lost.
A Barrel of Whiskey - (An Urban Fantasy Whiskey Witches Novel) Page 15
