Halfway Hexed

by Kimberly Frost

  Bryn grabbed Merc’s collar and hauled him up. Merc twisted, and I winced as he scratched Bryn’s forearm.

  “Easy,” Bryn said in a low voice to Mercutio. There was a lulling quality to the magic that dripped from his tongue. Bryn whispered something else. It sounded soothing, but I felt the back edge of the magic and knew that Bryn had said something dark, like: “You can kill him later.”

  Mercutio calmed, though he opened his jaw in a snarl to show off teeth that were made to tear things to pieces.

  “If you bring anyone with you, they die and so does she. Better come back alone, Lyons.”

  When they were gone, I tried to relax my muscles. It didn’t work all that well.

  Raindrops turned to drizzle. Wet, cold, miserable, and scared. I’d had better days.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Let’s go,” Scarface said, pulling me backward toward the woods.

  “I thought you wanted the brooch!” I said, moving slowly, stalling our progress.

  Uneven ground made his body jerk as he nearly stumbled.

  “Hey, be careful! I don’t want to get shot by accident!”

  Just inside the woods, he shoved me face-first against a tree.

  “Don’t move,” he said, pushing on my back so that my belly, which was only covered by the thin layer of draped silk, scraped against the bark. A moment later, he grabbed my left wrist, and I felt a metal cuff snap around it. The next second, he whirled me around and jerked my arms up. He brought the links of the shackles over the tree branch. I struggled against him trying to stretch me upward, but he lifted me by my right wrist and closed the cuff around it. He let me go and I dangled, my toes just touching the ground, my torso pulled so tight it was hard to breathe.

  “If you cooperate, I won’t shoot Lyons. If you don’t do what I say, I will kill him where he stands.”

  My heart seized up at that. “You’re not supposed to kill me, are you? You used tranquilizers when you came for me alone. But when you come to Bryn’s property, you carry a gun with real bullets.”

  “You heard what I said.”

  I took a sip of air, feeling slightly dizzy. “Did you kill Gwen to get the brooch? Your boss, John Barrett, sure wants it back pretty bad. Want to know why?”

  “Quiet,” he snarled, pinching my chin viciously. It throbbed and I glared at him, trying to suck in a deep breath. My body swayed. Half dangling from the branch, it was hard to steady myself.

  I brought my hands together, cupping the thick branch and trying to get some purchase. I had to do something. Bryn was going to be back soon, and I was pretty sure Scarface was lying about not killing Bryn if I behaved myself. He’d tried to shoot Bryn the last time he’d been on the property. I was willing to bet that when he got the brooch back for John Barrett, he was under orders to kill Bryn.

  Lightning streaked the sky, and I jumped at the rumble of nearby thunder.

  I cocked my wounded foot, trying to stretch the bottom enough to open the cut. Blood can ignite magical energy, and, whenever I bled on tree trunks or roots, it seemed to help the trees understand English better.

  “I can’t breathe like this,” I complained, drawing in a ragged breath.

  “Shame,” he said coldly, making me dislike him even more.

  “C’mon,” I hissed. “Move me toward the trunk where the branch is a little lower.”

  Pain exploded in my jaw when he hit me with a closed fist.

  Yep, I thought dazedly, I hate this guy.

  “Make a sound, and they die,” he said before disappearing behind me, leaving me to stare into the dark woods.

  My left lower lip swelled like an inner tube, and bloody saliva filled my mouth. Yuck. The pain was like a miniheart beating in my face. I opened and closed my mouth slowly. No sharp pain. I didn’t think my jaw was broken, but that was hardly the point. He’d clocked me with his fist while my hands were chained over my head. Jerk! If I didn’t end up dead, I was going to get even for that.

  My mouthful of bloody saliva had to be dealt with. My stomach roiled, protesting the idea that I’d swallow any of it.

  I turned my head and spat. I felt something. Maybe just a rustling of leaves as the wind kicked up, but then again, maybe not.

  Blood on the roots. I sucked some more blood from my cut lip and spit it on the ground.

  “Hey, tree,” I whispered. “Tree?”

  My body dangled, and I tried to swing to get my toes onto something, a root, a higher mound of dirt. “I’m hanging here. Can’t breathe too good.” I sucked in some air. “Can you help me? C’mon, tree, swing me up.”

  The thwack across my calves was like a cracking whip, and my body flew upward too fast for me to know what was happening. Afterward, I was lying on a branch. I clasped it with my elbows and knees to keep from losing my balance and falling off.

  “Thanks, tree. Thanks,” I mumbled and gave the bark a quick fat-lipped, slightly bloody kiss. I took a big breath and exhaled. “I’ve gotta get down.”

  I inched forward away from the trunk with the wind blowing under the silk toga onto my naked butt. I scowled, looking around. I supposed that doing magic naked, or nearly so, was a time-honored tradition, but I really felt that fighting evil—or anything else that I had to leave the house for—required underwear.

  The branch curved up and my legs tangled in the leafy offshoots. Moving was awkward, to say the least, and slow going.

  “Can you help me get down? Swing me off the end of your branch?”

  I gasped as I felt the branch jerk. I was bucked from the bark, and a sharp yank on the back of the silk toga sent me flying through the air.

  I only had a couple seconds to be terrified before I slammed into the ground.

  It felt like a bomb had exploded from the inside of my body. Everything hurt, and warm blood dribbled down my leg from the formerly clotted fence wound.

  My heart pounded painfully in my chest, reminding me with every beat that I had better breathe. I’d wanted to get back to the ground, but I have to say, when you ask a tree to help you, you’ve got to be careful what you ask for.

  Andre’s words came back to me. Gravity, she’s a tough mistress.

  “I have to get up,” I told my innards. “Sorry about that. Try not . . .” I breathed deep to brace myself and gripped my aching torso to steady it. “Try not to be bleeding in there.”

  A brush of fur made me turn my head sharply. Merc’s smooth head nudged me.

  “Where’d you come from?” I whispered, getting to my feet and wincing. That cut on the sole of my foot felt like someone was sticking a knife in it. I hissed in pain. Merc put steady pressure on my calf to get me moving.

  “I’m going,” I mumbled, staggering silently in the direction he was pushing me toward.

  “Tamara?” Bryn called.

  I didn’t answer. I had my eyes peeled on the ground along the tree line where Scarface would be lying in wait. I spotted the bastard. He was on one knee, his body hidden from Bryn by a tree trunk. His gun was already aimed.

  Bryn headed straight for me, probably drawn to my magic, but, to get to me, he would pass too close to Scarface. He was already too close, I realized with a start.

  I ran, hardly feeling the ground under my feet.

  Gotta get there!

  “Trees, help!” I whispered fiercely.

  A branch gave me a swoop and a fling. I sailed forward, like Tarzan without a vine. Some crazy primitive triumph gripped me. Yeah, I was going to land like twenty tons, but I was going to land on Scarface like twenty tons. And flying’s all right, kind of exhilarating when you get used to it. It’s only the landing that I could do without.

  I tried to yell “Stop!” but I didn’t really get it all out. My body nailed Scarface’s, and the gun went off.

  I’d knocked him facedown into the dirt. From his back, I jammed my hands over his head and jerked them so the handcuff chain caught him across the front of the throat. I dragged my arms back. Mercutio yowled.


  “Bryn!” I rasped, looking up sharply. Had he been shot?

  Scarface’s gun was only inches from his hand. Fury and anxiety roared through my veins. I pulled the chain tight, cranking Scarface’s head back.

  Footsteps slapped the ground, then Bryn stood over us.

  “Get the gun!”

  Bryn kicked Scarface’s gun away, and Bryn’s hand emerged from his robe pocket with his own gun.

  “Are you—” Bryn’s gaze darted to my face for a second. “Are you going to kill him?”

  “Nope,” I said through clenched teeth. “But he’s not getting the upper hand. Not again. Not if I can help it.”

  “He’s turning purple, Tamara.” Bryn’s voice was so calm, like whether I committed murder or not was up to me. Bryn was just letting me know about the purple, in case I didn’t realize.

  I hadn’t. I pitched forward, palms down on the ground, taking the pressure off Scarface’s throat. I heard his raspy intake of breath.

  Pulling my chain free, I dug my knee in his back as I climbed off him. I glanced at Mercutio, who was gnawing on the guy’s calf. Served Scarface right, but . . .

  “Merc, remember how you’re an ocelot, not a tiger?” I caught my breath, the adrenaline we aring off slowly. “He’s too big for you to eat. Except for maybe a foot or hand or something.” I shrugged at Bryn’s surprised expression, but I guessed it was kind of an odd thing for me to say.

  I felt weird, shaky, and things began to ache. It was like I was becoming human again, but then what had I been before? I gazed up at the trees, whose curved branches looked like smiles to me. Their canopy kept most of the rain from drizzling on my head, and I knew something that I couldn’t explain in words. It was like they were beckoning me, like they were telling me I could curl up in the crook of their branches and I’d feel okay. Part of me wanted to.

  “Thanks, trees. Thanks for everything,” I whispered.

  “Tamara,” Bryn said, drawing my gaze back down to the world of men. The cold, damp air seeped into my bones, making me shiver. He studied my face. “Your eyes are glowing gold.”

  “Yeah, I think—” My teeth chattered, and I looked down at Scarface. “I’ve got some of my dad’s blood. It’s in me for sure.” I bent down to check Scarface’s pockets for the handcuff keys. “I’ve really gotta be careful about it, or I’ll end up living in the woods in a Clan of the Cave Bear outfit with dirty fingernails and twigs in my hair. Johnny and Rollie would be so furious.”

  Merc purred.

  “Yeah,” I said, looking at Merc’s tawny eyes, which I knew were a lot like my own. “I know you’d stay with me, Mercutio. You’re a wild thing, too.” I plucked the key from Scarface’s pocket and stood up. My body throbbed a protest, but I moved forward. Bryn pocketed his gun and took the key. He unlocked the cuffs, and I rubbed the scraped skin of my left wrist with my other hand.

  Bryn bent down and cuffed Scarface’s hands behind his back and whispered a spell. The magic curled around the shackles.

  I gave him a questioning look.

  “So that he can’t use magic to get out of them.”

  “Oh, right. Good thinking. That’s probably how he got loose the last time I handcuffed him.” I picked up Scarface’s gun. “Did you bring the brooch?”

  “Of course,” he said, taking it out to show me. “There is nothing that I have that I wouldn’t have traded for your life.”

  “Will you trust me with her? I think maybe I can free her if you do.”

  “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

  I couldn’t be partners with him. I could barely concentrate while I looked at him. I kept thinking about the prophecy, believing it and not wanting to believe it. My heart ached for what I could never have with Bryn now that I knew the truth.

  “You trusted me before to save your life. I know you didn’t have a choice then, but you know me. I’ll do everything I can to help her,” I said.

  He leaned forward and slipped the brooch between two folds of silk that were lying across my left shoulder and upper chest. He pinned it to the fabric, so it was hidden from sight.

  “Thanks,” I said and took a few slow steps out of the woods. Adrenaline gone, everything hurt.

  “Tamara, wait,” Bryn said. “It doesn’t have to be this way. Whatever you heard—” He shook his head. “Won’t you at least tell me what it was?”

  The temptation was like a weight pressing down on me. Tell him. He’ll convince you it’s not true. You know you want to let him convince you.

  Except . . . you’ve heard it over and over. Lenore is never wrong.

  I turned my head toward him, licking my puffed-out lip. Bryn studied me intensely with his glittering blue eyes. He was so handsome and so what my body craved that it was hard to look at him.

  “Not everything we want is good for us,” I whispered.

  He clenched his jaw stubbornly. Exactly why he was dangerous. He refused to accept that I might know something important that proved what he didn’t want to believe.

  I touched my fingertips to my mouth and then extended them toward him in a makeshift long-distance kiss. “Try to let me go,” I rasped.

  I turned and shuffled into the whipping wind and falling rain, but still managed to hear his single spoken word.

  “Never.”

  Chapter 34

  As we hurried back to the house, I poured my heart out to Mercutio. The heavens had opened up and sheets of rain were coming down so hard that I had to yell over the noise.

  “I do care about him so much, but that’s not the point, is it?” I shouted as we got to the screened porch. The door opened, making me jump back, but it was only A ndre and Steve.

  “Where is he?” they both asked at once.

  “He’s out there with the Conclave bad guy. You could help him bring the guy in, Steve.”

  Steve pushed past me.

  “You might want to take an umbrella,” I said.

  He kept going without one. Andre yanked the star-chart quilt off the sofa and wrapped it around me.

  “I’m okay. I just need a fast, hot shower and some dry clothes. And a raincoat or hooded rain parka,” I said through chattering teeth. I shuffled into the house leaving muddy, bloody footprints.

  Andre trailed along with me, mumbling in German and rubbing my arms to warm me up. Mercutio howled, and I looked up at the sound of pinging and popping on the roof.

  “Hail,” I said to Merc.

  Then the alarm went off, and the phone rang. Mercutio yowled a complaint.

  “I know it’s loud. What do you want me to do?” I demanded.

  The sound of crashing glass made me jerk my head toward the front. “That wasn’t hail,” I said, swinging around. I pushed Andre behind the kitchen counter and shoved his shoulder. “Get down.”

  He crouched down, and I shrugged off the quilt to get my arms free. He grabbed my hand.

  “You down as well.”

  “No.”

  “Wait,” Andre said, standing up when I started creeping toward the kitchen door.

  “Get down,” I hissed at him.

  “No. I will help you.”

  I waved off his offer of help and opened the swinging door a crack. My eyes widened. One of the decorative windows that flanked the front door had been smashed, and Lucy Reitgarten was climbing through it.

  “For the love of Hershey,” I muttered as she opened the front door for her prayer-spouting posse. They were dressed in trench coats and cowboy hats and armed with shotguns.

  I darted back into the kitchen.

  “Change of plans,” I whispered, rabbing Andre by the arm. “Backyard. Now.” I glanced over my shoulder. “Mercutio, c’mon!” I shouted in a whisper.

  Merc glanced at me and then back at the kitchen door.

  “C’mon,” I snapped. No matter how outnumbered we were, the concept of retreat was unappealing to Merc. Andre was more reasonable, and I pushed him out the back door.

  “Merc!”

  Mercutio dar
ted across the kitchen and outside. I was backing out the storm door when the inside door swung open.

  “Tammy Jo Trask!” Boyd said.

  I grimaced and raised my gun with the rain pouring down on my head. Boyd didn’t have a gun pointed at me though. Boyd had a gun pressed against Johnny Nguyen’s neck.

  For pete’s sake! It was just one hostage situation after another these days.

  “You come on back in,” Boyd said.

  “I sorry, Tammy Jo,” Johnny said.

  I knew Merc was behind me. If he got into the kitchen, he’d attack, and Boyd would definitely try to shoot him.

  I waved off Johnny’s apology with my gun, stepping back inside. I pulled the door closed so Andre and Merc, who I didn’t think Boyd had seen, were left outside.

  “Hey there, Boyd.”

  “I want my wife.”

  “Yep, I can see how you would,” I said, my voice sweet as peaches in syrup. “I’m sure she’ll be back anytime. You know Johnny does Jenna’s hair? You really think she’d approve of you shooting the only person in town who knows how to get her highlights right?”

  Boyd scowled at me. “You put that gun down and get over here,” he said.

  Other people appeared behind him in the doorway. Things were getting more and more out of control. I needed to defuse the situation fast.

  “I’ll sure take you to Jenna on one condition. Y’all have to leave Johnny here. He’s got nothing whatsoever to do with anything. You’ve got to understand that.”

  “Put your gun down and walk away from it,” he said.

  “And you’ll let Johnny go?”

  Boyd nodded.

  “Your word?”

  “Hand to God,” he said.

  I set my gun down on the counter and stepped away from it.

  “Okay,” Johnny said. “We talk this out, Mr. Boyd.” Johnny tried to push down Boyd’s forearm to lower his gun, but Boyd shoved him aside and waved me over.

  I sighed and stepped forward. “Go on now, Johnny. You get behind the counter. I’m gonna be all right.” I walked to them, and they grabbed my arms.