Bewitching the Beast

by Tamara Hughes

  “It was nice, but he knew Leo pretty well too. They were business partners.”

  “Really?” Tess asked.

  “He sponsored Leo’s dragon expedition.” Mike reddened. “I would have helped out, but with two divorces behind me, I don’t have a lot to spare.” He took a long drink of coffee.

  “I’m fascinated by Dr. Meade’s work,” Ethan said as Tess retrieve her mocha from the counter. “I don’t suppose his excavation journals are open to the public.”

  “I don’t know. You’d have to ask my mother-in-law. She kept everything.”

  “Do you have a phone number?”

  “Sure.” Mike looked up the information on his phone, took out a business card, and wrote a number on the back.

  Tess peeked at her watch. “We need to go, honey. I promised my mother we’d be at the hotel by noon.”

  “Traveling with the mother-in-law?” Mike asked with a gleam of humor in his gaze.

  Ethan nodded as Tess rolled her eyes heavenward.

  Mike patted him on the back. “Good luck to you, man.”

  Chapter 12

  The drag of the broom’s bristles against her worn living room carpet gave Tess the shivers. “Wouldn’t a vacuum work better?” Somehow she’d expected a witch’s broom to have a gnarled handle and straw bristles. This one was fresh from the store.

  Her mother ignored the comment, too busy digging into her Mary Poppins carpetbag.

  Just like Mom, always prepared, except for when it came to raising me.

  With her hair in a ponytail and her yoga bod, her mother had a youthful quality. Hell, she looked like . . . Faith, except for the blonde hair. Faith’s had been a beautiful brown with big curly waves—before she went Goth.

  “Say the chant again,” her mother demanded.

  Tess barely heard her over Ethan’s pounding on the doorframe—doing his manly duty as repairman. She suppressed a smile. If you can do a manly duty with a pink hammer.

  “All right, I’ll chant again.” Without much thought, the verse sprang to her lips, like it had the last five times.

  “I sweep with this magical broom,

  All negative energy from this room.

  Sending all evil on its way,

  Only the good shall be allowed to stay.”

  “How much longer do I have to do this?” Tess asked. Had Faith learned magic this way, by sweeping the floor? She had her doubts. Faith had been strong and independent, a no-nonsense girl.

  “You can stop.” Her mother pulled a dagger with a jewel-studded handle from her bag, followed by two golden bowls and an incense tray.

  What next? A coat rack or a spoon full of sugar? “What’s with the knife?”

  “It’s called an athame. It’s used for Wiccan rituals. Now help me get the altar ready. Do you have your grandmother’s box?”

  Tess set the broom aside and headed to her bedroom, passing by Ethan. His jeans hugged his toned thighs as he bent over a home repair book, pink hammer in hand. Not exactly a natural born handyman, but she’d take what she could get. She grabbed Gram’s box from her bedroom dresser. On her way back, she couldn’t resist another look. This time she met Ethan’s deep-blue eyes as he watched her walk by.

  A warm fuzzy tickled her insides. Damn those warm fuzzies.

  Her mother grabbed more items out of her bag—three green canning jars filled with God knew what. “We’ll need a small table.”

  Setting Gram’s box on the kitchen counter, Tess studied her mother, remembering the constant fighting—Faith and Mom screaming at each other night and day. No wonder Faith had left. Old resentments she’d thought long buried surfaced like malevolent ghosts. After scanning the living room, Tess set her fake spider plant onto the floor and hefted the bulky stand that had been beneath.

  “Put it here,” her mother instructed.

  Yes, my queen. She positioned the stand in the living room, several feet from the coffee table and at the center of where the sacred circle would be. “Did Faith enjoy practicing magic?” With you.

  Her mother’s gaze sprang to Tess’s face. “I believe she did. Why?”

  “Was she part of your coven?”

  “Yes, she was.” Her mother carried the bowls she’d retrieved from her bag to the table. “And your grandmother had a hand in training her.”

  A thread of jealousy wove itself around Tess’s heart. “Did she become a powerful witch?”

  “She only had two years of training before she disappeared. Why do you ask?” Her mother frowned. She’d never been one to talk about Faith much. “Help me put these things on the altar.”

  Tess scooped up the jars. “I’ve never understood why she left.” Although who was responsible seemed pretty obvious from where she was standing.

  Her mother fiddled with positioning everything exactly so on the table. “Faith didn’t leave. Vance took her.”

  Here we go again. “She packed up her things.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Her mother brought over the last of the supplies. “I never liked her boyfriend. I knew he was trouble.”

  True, he’d been the wedge that had widened the gap between Faith and her mother into a chasm. What had Faith seen in him? “I know you want to believe she was kidnapped, but Faith was no pushover, and Vance was a schemer, not a bully.”

  “We’ll need three chairs.” Her mother bent over the altar, pouring what appeared to be salt or sugar from a jar into a golden bowl.

  Tess dragged two chairs to the table.

  When a small mound of white lay inside the bowl, her mother screwed the lid on the jar and paused, her hand resting on its top. She released a long breath and met Tess’s gaze head-on. “I suppose you deserve to know, especially now with all this.” She set the jar aside and grabbed another. “Faith had the gift of prophesy, like your grandmother.”

  Of course she did. She’d been privy to the family secret, might as well have special powers too.

  “She had a vision of your grandmother’s death.”

  Holy crap. Faith could have that gift. “Are there no happy prophesies? Why is it always death?” Tess brought over another chair and sat down. “What exactly did she see?”

  “I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me.” Her mother poured a clear liquid from the jar into the second bowl, her hands a little shaky. “Our relationship wasn’t always the best. Those teenage years wreaked havoc on the whole family,” she muttered, pulling an incense stick from the final jar.

  The hammering started up again.

  “Your grandmother knew what Faith had seen. Faith told her.” Using a match, her mother attempted to light the incense. Her fingers shook, making the task harder than it should have been. Her mother scowled in Ethan’s direction, almost cringing with each strike of the hammer. Eyes narrowed, she moved her lips with unspoken words until—

  “Son of a . . .” Ethan hunched over, his finger clenched in one hand, and his face screwed up in pain.

  “You all right?” Glaring at her mother, Tess rose from her seat.

  “Hm. I’ll be fine,” he muttered and marched to the bathroom.

  “Not very nice, Mom. I thought spells weren’t supposed to harm anyone.”

  “I can’t concentrate with all the noise.”

  “You could have asked him to stop.”

  “Okay. You’re right.” Her mother tried again to light the incense, her trembling worse than before.

  Tess took over, lighting the stick and setting it into the golden tray, before returning to her seat. “What did Gram do when she found out about Faith’s vision?”

  Wiping the back of her hand across her brow, her mother motioned for Tess to pick up the incense tray. “Nothing. Faith wanted your grandmother to leave town, to run from her fate.”

 
“And Gram wouldn’t go.”

  Her mother nodded. “She didn’t want to leave you.”

  “What?” Tess’s breath caught in her throat.

  “Your grandmother had prophesized the beasts months before.”

  Guilt crept up Tess’s spine to sit like a two-ton weight on her shoulders. Gram risked her life for me? No, Gram hadn’t been a stupid woman. She would have left if needed. “Gram died of natural causes. Faith was wrong, and Gram knew it. She would have told her not to worry. That couldn’t have been the reason Faith left.”

  “Tess, Faith was fifteen and upset. In her way of thinking, she belonged to a family of witches who seemed to sit and wait for bad things to happen. She felt we needed to fight to change the future.”

  Hell, Tess couldn’t blame her. She wouldn’t sit back and be killed by a beast.

  “She disagreed with the coven when it came to teaching you magic, and she disagreed with your grandmother’s decision to stay.” Her mother straightened the chairs.

  “So she ran away with Vance.”

  The misery in her mother’s eyes transformed her face into a mask of despair. “Yes. The night before she left, we had a fight about your grandmother, and you.” She picked up the incense tray and handed it to Tess. “Now go. We need to consecrate this area.”

  The earthy smell of sandalwood wafted around Tess in white furls of smoke as she followed the perimeter of the sacred circle.

  “I walk with the elements of air and fire.

  Cleansing this magical circle is my desire.”

  When she returned to the table, she set down the tray. “Have you tried to scry for Faith?”

  “Every night since the day she disappeared.” Her mother handed her a bowl of liquid.

  “Have you ever gotten a reading on her?”

  “No, not a trace.”

  Her mother’s defeated look gave Tess the willies. She couldn’t be thinking Faith was . . .

  As if her mother could hear Tess’s thoughts, she added, “I think she blocks me somehow.” The lack of confidence in her voice didn’t bode well. “Now the water.”

  Tess stepped forward, her mouth speaking the necessary words, but her mind praying Faith wasn’t dead, wondering how she could find out for sure.

  “I walk with a bowl of water before me.

  To purge this space of negative energy.”

  She stopped at the table and set down the bowl. “Can I try?”

  “Try what?”

  “Scrying.”

  “Now? We’re in the middle of . . . We still need to do the salt.” Her mother lifted the remaining bowl, her voice tight.

  One thought pounded inside Tess’s head—maybe Faith didn’t block her mother’s attempts, maybe her mother didn’t want to know, was afraid to know. “I want to scry. Teach me.”

  Her mother stood frozen with the dish clenched in her hands.

  Tess tugged away the salt bowl and set it on the table.

  “All right.” Releasing a shaky sigh, her mother strode to the kitchen and took a drinking glass from the cupboard. “We’ll start with this.” She filled the glass half-full of water and sprinkled Italian seasoning inside.

  Tess followed her to the dining room table and took a seat as Ethan returned, a huge gauze bandage over his finger. He picked up the little pink hammer and began having it out with the doorframe again.

  “Bring yourself into a calm state, similar to last night, only not as deep.” Her mother set the glass in front of her. “Look for signs of any kind in the leaves—shapes, movements, patterns. Let your thoughts flow with them. Let them inspire you.”

  Tess stared down at the glass. A thick layer of green floated on top of the water. The herbs smelled good, sweet and, herby. Other than that, nothing was happening. Tess waited for inspiration to hit.

  “I’ll be over here finishing up.” Her mother crossed the room and picked up the salt dish.

  Still nothing. Not relaxed enough? Not that anyone could relax with the door bashing going on across the room. Ethan’s shirt was stretched tight over his muscular arms and back, and the way those jeans fit . . . Love those jeans. Okay, stop. She faced forward again.

  Relax. Wiggling her shoulders, she took a deep breath and focused on the herbs and water.

  Nothing. “Can I tilt the glass?”

  “Sure.” Her mother waved the question away.

  As Tess swirled the water in the glass, her mother walked the sacred circle, chanting and sprinkling salt on the floor. And after Tess had just swept.

  Some of the leaves stuck to the top of the glass, their patterns random, while others sank below the waterline to float in the liquid like flecks of paper in a snow globe—a dirty snow globe. The water turned murky green. Like salad dressing.

  She’d gotten more inspiration from her glimpse of Ethan. Of course, that inspiration had nothing to do with finding Faith.

  Tess stared harder at the glass, willing it to reveal something, anything, and the first pangs of a headache bloomed in her head. Oh hell.

  ~ ~ ~

  Dread settled in Ethan’s gut. The more he thought about channeling, the less he liked the idea. Seated at the small table, he studied the bizarre assortment of objects before him, the jeweled dagger catching his eye. “How do you plan to talk to The Beast? I’ve never heard him speak before, at least not in a language I could understand.”

  Mrs. Edwards set a flaming match to the wick of a thick, white candle. The flame took hold, casting shadows around the dark living room. “When you channel a spirit, you put yourself into a trance, so the entity can slip into your body and use it for its own will.”

  A flicker of panic overpowered the dread. “You let it take complete control?”

  “In a sense, yes. The spirit can use your knowledge of speech to—”

  “No.”

  “What?” Mrs. Edward’s voice held a note of annoyance.

  Ethan looked across the table at Tess, the light of the moon through the window casting a silver glow about her. “I can’t do it.”

  “But you said . . .” Mrs. Edwards objected.

  “No. I thought you wanted to use spells or potions on me.” Ethan pushed back his chair. “The Beast is already too close to taking over. I can’t risk giving him the chance to finish the job.”

  Tess settled a hand on his arm. “Then one of us can channel The Beast. Right, Mom?”

  “Or we could scrap this idea and try something else,” Ethan suggested, although he couldn’t deny the idea of talking to The Beast, understanding it on some level, appealed.

  Mrs. Edwards ignored his comment. “I suppose that’s true. One of us can channel the spirit.”

  Tess frowned. “You’re saying us when you really mean me.”

  “Didn’t you suggest the same thing?” Her mother smiled back.

  “Touché. But you’re the more experienced witch.”

  Mrs. Edwards leaned forward. “Do you know how to talk someone into a trance?”

  Tess made a rotten-egg face.

  “I didn’t think so.” Her mother motioned Ethan closer to the table.

  He stayed where he was. Tess taking on The Beast didn’t seem much better. “How important is this?”

  “Know thine enemy,” Mrs. Edwards replied, opening a spell book.

  Tess sat back and crossed her arms. “Yeah, know him. Don’t let him crawl inside your head.”

  Mrs. Edwards flipped through a few pages. “We’ll protect you from a total takeover and shield your knowledge of magic from The Beast.”

  Ethan joined them at the table. “Can you do that for me—protect me from total takeover?”

  Running her hand down a page, Mrs. Edwards glanced up with sympathy in her eyes. “I’m afraid not. It’s
already a part of you.”

  He nodded. That would have been too easy.

  “Are you ready?” Mrs. Edwards asked Tess.

  Tess sighed. “I suppose so.”

  “No, wait.” The thought of The Beast inside of Tess . . . Damn. “I should be the one.”

  Tess took his hand in hers. “You can’t do it. I might never get you back.”

  Her touch warmed him, and her words . . . She didn’t want to lose him. Somehow those words made seeing her go through this even harder.

  “She’s right,” her mother agreed, although she didn’t look too happy with Tess’s reasoning. “Let’s link hands.” She faced Tess. “Ready?”

  Tess squeezed his hand. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  Her mother’s voice filled the room in a low hypnotic command. “Focus on the candle flame and nothing else. Clear your mind of all thought.”

  Tess stared at the flame, the fire dancing in her eyes.

  “Relax your body and mind,” her mother continued. “Let peace flow through you from the top of your head to your shoulders, your hips, your toes.”

  A pulse of magic flowed through their hands like a current.

  Resting back in her chair, Tess gazed at the candle with drooping eyelids, her entire body going slack.

  “Now close your eyes,” Mrs. Edwards said. “Steady your breathing. Feel cool air enter your lungs and exhale slowly.”

  Ethan held tight as Tess’s hand went limp in his, and her head slumped forward.

  “Tess, remember, you may wake from this trance at will.” Mrs. Edwards watched Tess another minute, and then peered up at the ceiling.

  “Dear Lord and Lady,

  make Tess a conduit for the spirit known to us only as The Beast.

  Through Tess, he may speak and speak alone,

  taking no knowledge and leaving no trace.”

  Mrs. Edwards met Ethan’s gaze, the worry in her eyes unmistakable. She gripped his hand tighter and referred to the spell book lying before her.