by M. J. Scott
"Not long. A week."
Cassandra put the deck down and reached for my hand, fingers skimming over the shield ever so gently. "And the convulsions started after the implantation?"
"They only happened once. But yes, I've never had a seizure before."
"Anything else unusual happen since you've had the chip? Any symptoms?" She released my hand, but her eyes were still fastened on my wrist.
"I've had some headaches. I don't understand. How can the chip break a magical binding?" I stared down at the seal for a moment, then pulled my sleeve down to cover it.
"How does it work, the chip? I know what it does, kind of, but tell me how. Explain it to me exactly."
I had to think about it. About how to break down the concept. I mean, I understood it at a high level, but it wasn't like I knew all the technical details. If she wanted that, she'd have to talk to Damon. Or Dr. Barnard. "The chip interfaces with my nervous system, so a computer that links to the chip can talk directly to my brain."
"The signals travel via the nerves? Piggybacking on the electrical impulses they send?"
I nodded. "That's right."
Cassandra grinned. "Then maybe it's that simple."
"You've lost me."
"I'm not sure if this will make sense to you, but everyone has an energy pattern—a signature, if you will. It's part of you, like a fingerprint. Your aura, your thoughts and feelings, the very pulse of your brain through your body. It's unique. Witches work with energy. And a binding, to put it very simply, chains one energy signature to another in a very specific way. I think the chip may have altered your energy pattern slightly. The extra impulses it sent would be small but possibly enough to make a difference."
I stared at her. "So the spell didn't work anymore? Just because this energy pattern was different?"
"Obviously it took a while for the change to actually break through. That's probably why you had the seizures—some sort of energy backlash." She looked thoughtful. "I wonder if that could be prevented."
"Can we worry about that later and focus on me right now? You're saying that I had a demon somehow joined to me for years, and then because I stuck a chip in my wrist, the whole thing blew up."
"Yes. It's simple. So simple no one has thought of it before. Most witches don't get chips, of course. The effect would be minute. Like I said, it seems to have taken a few days for the changes to be big enough to weaken the spell. The small changes would amplify over time."
"Like a sine wave resonating? Setting up a vibration that can tear things apart?"
"Exactly." She smiled in approval. "You'd have to be using the chip a lot."
"I was."
"And when you had the convulsions?"
"I was playing a game. Full immersion."
She nodded. "What happened exactly?"
I tried to remember. Damon had mentioned me firing at something they couldn't see on the screen. I struggled with the wisps of sensation I could recall. Danger. Panic. My hand drifted to my cheek as it twinged with a phantom of pain. I caught a flash of claws then . . . nothing.
"I don't really remember," I said slowly. "But I think there was a creature. It attacked me."
"A game creature?"
I rubbed my forehead but couldn't bring back anything more. "I'm not sure."
"You need to find out."
"Why?"
"Because if it wasn't a game creature, then it might have been the demon."
"How does a demon get into a game?"
"Demons feed from energy. They are energy in our world. That's why they work through others. A computer game is largely electricity. Energy. It could have piggybacked off your bond somehow. "
"I thought you said the bond was broken."
"After you got your chip. Had you played the game before?"
I nodded, feeling sick, remembering my reaction the first time I'd played Archangel. Had that been the demon too?
"Then that could be the answer. Though it worries me that a demon can figure out how to manipulate one. It would have to be clever. And very powerful."
I remembered what she'd said about a demon getting powerful enough to come through, and my stomach twisted. "How powerful?"
"Let's worry about that later on. You need to find out about the game." She stood and beckoned me to follow her. "In the meantime, I'll put together some things for you to start cleansing."
I followed her downstairs on slightly wobbly legs, leaning against the counter for support, thoughts racing as I watched her bustle around, gathering herbs and oils, pouring and grinding. She added white candles and several different crystals to the pile assembled on the counter.
Demons and witches and spells. Energy signatures. Danger. My thoughts bounced around like hail on a hot roof, making no sense.
I doubted there were enough herbs in the world to ground me at this point. I felt like I might just fall over or float away, like I wasn't quite in my body.
Cassandra peered at me as she passed by, then reached out and handed me a chunk of something. "Hang on to this."
I closed my fingers around it automatically, feeling it smooth and cool before it started to warm. "What is it?"
"Smoky quartz. Keep hold of it while I finish."
I did as she told me and slowly started to feel a little more together. Cassandra nodded as she poured oil into a bottle. "That's better. Put it in your pocket and keep it close for a few days."
I opened my hand and stared down at the translucent stone. "You're going to tell me crystals can affect energy patterns or something, aren't you?"
"Smart girl."
My mother's daughter. The thought rose unwanted, and I almost dropped the crystal.
As I slipped it into my jacket pocket, another even less pleasant thought struck me. "What's to stop the demon from fixing the binding now that the chip is gone?"
"If I'm right about your energy signature changing, then the spell would have to be redone. Refocused on who you are now. Your energy field won't be quite the same, even without the chip. And this time you would have to consent."
Okay. That made me feel fractionally better. Because consenting to a demon didn't sound like anything I was likely to do any time soon. Still, my fingers played with the stone in my pocket.
"Which doesn't mean it won't try," Cassandra added. "It won't like having lost a healthy power source."
"You really do need to work on that bedside thing," I told her, wondering why I didn't feel more shocked. Maybe my nerves had just had all they could take for one day. "Sometimes being a mushroom is just what the doctor ordered."
"Be a mushroom on your own time," she said with a shake of her head as she started bundling things into a carrier bag.
I gripped the crystal tighter. "You mean a demon could be coming after me?"
Cassandra nodded. "But it's okay. We'll be watching your back."
"That's the ‘we’ you haven't exactly explained? Isn't that kind of making me a mushroom?" I protested.
"Even people don't need to know what they don't need to know." She handed me the carrier bag. "Start with this. We'll talk more tomorrow."
"I can't wait," I muttered as I headed for the door.
Damon's car was parked outside the store. Not the one that had brought me here but the big black one that I'd ridden in with him all those other times.
Fuck. I should've known he wouldn't leave me alone. He had to do things his way.
I scowled at the dark windows, turned on my heel, and started walking in the opposite direction, in no mood for company after the revelations I'd just been through.
I had a vague idea where the nearest Muni station was. I'd get home under my own steam.
Where I'd have a very long hot bath in Cassandra's oil, drink her herbal gunk, and then hopefully fall asleep for a week or two.
Behind me a car door slammed, then came the sound of rapid footsteps.
"Where are you going?” Damon asked.
"Home," I snarled. "I'm tired."<
br />
"You're in no fit state to walk."
What did he know? If what Cassandra had said was true, I was going to be feeling healthier than I ever had in my life now that a demon wasn't sucking my energy away.
I didn't want to think about anything else she'd said.
"I'm in no fit state to keep anyone company, Damon. Go away." I kept walking, speeding up even though my legs felt like I was wearing concrete boots.
"No." He overtook me in two long steps, turned, and blocked my path. "What did she say to you?"
Where would I start? With the part where I'd been bound to a demon? Or the part where Cassandra thought my mother may have been the one to do it? Or, better yet, the part where the demon might just be coming for me again to turn me back into its personal snack bar?
I had no intention of telling him any of it. I tried to go around him. "It doesn't matter."
He moved with me. "Yes, it does. Tell me."
"Back off. This is my shit." I waved my wrist in his face. "And seeing as I don't have a chip, I'm no use to you. So you don't get to tell me what to do anymore." And I could kiss my paycheck and my hopes for the house goodbye. Not to mention any tech that needed a chip.
"You think I'm firing you?" he asked incredulously.
I stared at him. "Aren't you?"
"No. You have to figure out this static generator issue."
"How? No chip, remember?"
"We'll do it the old-fashioned way. You can still search the code with a headset. I still need your help, Maggie." He put a hand on my arm, and I wanted to let myself move closer and just rest against him for a moment.
God. I couldn't even think about code right now.
"I need a drink," I muttered.
He dropped his hand with a wink. "That I can arrange. Dinner even," he added. "It's been a long time since breakfast, and you've been through a lot."
Understatement of the century.
Despite myself, my stomach rumbled at the thought of food. And Damon could definitely afford better-quality alcohol than me. Plus he had that very nice car to drive me home afterward.
It couldn't hurt to let him take charge, just for one dinner. To let him take care of me and wrap me in his nice safe world where I could pretend witches and demons didn't exist. Just this once . . .
"I want steak," I said. "And scotch. Single malt. Very, very old single malt."
The grin that spread across his face was very “master of the universe gets his way.”
"Is there any other kind?"
Chapter Nine
Turned out my instincts were right. Two hours, a steak as big as my head, and one and a half scotches later, my mood had lifted to comfortably numb rather than totally freaked out.
"Ready to talk about it yet?" Damon asked, reaching for his half-empty glass. The light from the candles on the table sent shards of red reflections from his pinot noir dancing across the table.
What remained of the ice in my scotch clinked softly as I considered the question. I'd been waiting for him to steer the conversation in this direction. I hadn’t expected it to take several hours for him to get around to it. Hours that had slid by very easily with us just talking about anything other than chips and games and witches.
Maybe too easily. Talking to him was like talking to an old friend. But I'd had a little too much scotch to decide how I felt about that. It might take even more before I was ready to deal with all the shocks of the last day or so. "Not really."
His eyes narrowed, but then he seemed to decide to let it slide. He took a couple of swallows of wine and eased his chair back from the table.
Wise man.
We were the only two left in the tiny Nob Hill restaurant. The antique analog clock on the wall told me it was close to midnight.
The witching hour.
I slapped the thought away, swigged whiskey, and tried to think about a bath and Cassandra's herbs. Tried not to think about how good Damon looked right now. Or how Cassandra had said sex would be good for me. The warm glow of scotch was making it hard to remember why I shouldn't just follow her advice, especially while Damon's eyes held a glinting light that even slightly tipsy me couldn't pretend was strictly professional.
"We should get going," I said, holding on to my sense of self-preservation with an increasingly slippery grasp.
"Okay."
His easy agreement stung. And those instincts of mine that I kept such a tight rein on muttered low in my belly, everything female and interested and in need of some . . . grounding, rebelling. I wasn't quite ready to let him disappear into the night yet. Apparently scotch and surgery and unpleasant revelations didn't exactly enhance my ability to be logical. "Can we stop at my office?"
"At this hour?"
I held out my shielded wrist. "If I have to do the rest of your job the old-fashioned way, then there's some stuff I need. It won't take long." Just long enough for me to grab things and check in with my service.
Now that I was chipless and likely to remain so, I needed to think about my next client. Even if Damon was serious about wanting to keep me on for now, I wasn't going to be much use to him in the future with no chip.
So I needed to start planning. No rest for the wicked after all.
Damon paid the check with a minimum of fuss, and twenty minutes later, I let myself into my tiny office, waving the lights into half-life. Any brighter would just wake me up, and I was enjoying the nice floaty feeling I had going on.
It stopped me from thinking too hard.
Damon stood near the door, watching me as I powered up my system. Light and shadow from the adscreens on the opposite building played across his face and my breath caught.
Damn. The man was hot.
He caught me looking. "What?"
I ducked my head. "Nothing. I won't be much longer."
"Maggie." His voice was a low rumble in the darkness. "You're avoiding."
"Discretion is the better part of valor." I looked up and found him right next to me. Warm. Solid. Smelling like man and strength and spice and, ever so faintly, of wine. In other words, yummy.
Heat scorched over my face. I looked back at the screen, but the letters and images made no sense at all.
"Maggie," he repeated. "You can talk to me."
His voice rolled through me like heavy bass, sinking through my skin and lighting fires as it did. Talking so wasn't what I wanted. And I was worried that I might just be dumb enough to reach out for what I'd been trying to deny all week.
He moved closer still, and his arm brushed mine.
"Oh, what the hell," I said, making my mind up for once. Sex with Damon Riley had to be better than ceremonial baths with stinky herbs. I grabbed his tie and pulled his head down to me, seeking oblivion.
Our lips touched and I tasted him. Then his tongue moved against mine, and things got a little blurry in a way that had nothing at all to do with scotch. I pulled back when they finally cleared and stared up at him, breathing hard. "What was that?"
Damon grinned, seeming somewhat stunned. "I don't know. Let's do it again."
He kissed me again, and things got way beyond blurry as I let myself let go. I wanted his hands on me, but at the same time felt like I might explode if he touched me. My nipples ached as I wrapped my arms around his neck and hung on for dear life, riding the heat.
His hand slid between us and flicked open the top two buttons of my shirt. He barely paused before his hand was inside the fabric and brushing the lace of my bra. Two fingers captured one nipple and rubbed it exactly right. I purred against his mouth, unable to stop myself.
"Like that, do you? Good," he muttered and did it again. At which point my Sara side took over and sanity fled the room.
I reached down and did some unbuttoning of my own, dispatching zippers and layers of cloth until I had him, hot and hard against my hand.
"Jesus, Maggie. Are you trying to kill me?"
"No, just fuck you." I tightened my grip.
He didn't need much encoura
gement. He lifted me in one swift movement and turned. The edge of the desk bit into the backs of my thighs, and several stacks of miscellaneous desk crap slipped and crashed to the floor as he swept the surface clean. He kissed me harder and we did the blurry thing again, though this time it didn't clear when he stopped. His hand slid under my skirt, and the other arm pulled my hips toward him. He pressed hard against the fabric of my panties even as his hand moved to shove the barrier aside.
He paused one last time as his cock slid against me. "Any last words?"
I looked at him and smiled. "Yes," I said, then arched to take him.
"You got it," he said and began to move.
Is this what grounded feels like?
The thought drifted across my mind sometime later as I lay on my back on the floor, breathing heavily and feeling no pain. I would've thought grounded meant solid and real, not boneless and floating.
But I couldn't bring myself to care too much about the definition. Not after what we'd just done.
Or who I'd just done. Damon Riley. Right here in my office. On my desk. And it had been fabulous.
A grin spread across my face and I stretched. Besides me, Damon stirred and rolled onto his side. The look on his face made me smile harder.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi, yourself," I replied and moved closer.
"I think we should do that again." I nodded before I could think. He sat up. "But not here." He laced his fingers into mine and pulled me to my feet.
"Where are we going?" I asked, not caring.
"My place," he said, releasing my hands and kissing me quickly before bending to pick up his clothes.
I followed suit, finding my jacket and shoes and skirt, fastening my bra and buttoning the shirt. Not the easiest task given several buttons had gone AWOL. I was still hunting for my panties and stacking things haphazardly on my desk when Damon came up behind me.
"You're taking too long," he growled into my ear. I forgot all about underwear and organization and turned into his embrace. This time the kiss was longer and hotter.
"Patience," he said, breaking for air. I made a sound in protest, but he just grabbed my hand and led me toward the door, snagging my bag from the chair as he passed.
