by Michele Hauf
“He’s a demon,” Tamatha said. “And he’s been pulled into the murders of demons by—” now he was the one to squeeze her hand “—witches raised from the dead. I haven’t seen them. Ed has. He suspects they are Les Douze.”
Silence hummed loudly on the phone.
“Mom?”
“But Mom is... Your grandmother... She’s dead, Tamatha.”
“Not exactly,” Ed offered. “I’m sorry to speak so frankly, Madame Bellerose, but I was able to speak to a demon friend before he died—er, due to witches who attacked him. He said Les Douze was responsible.”
“So Mom is...undead? Someone raised her from the grave? Tamatha, she was ash. I stood there for a whole day following the burning, watching as they shoveled away the ashes and dumped them in the Seine. I was barely able to save some of her ash in a vial. I don’t understand.”
“I suspect a warlock is involved. Why she would have reason to raise Les Douze is beyond me. But these witches seem to be going after demons who are related to the very demons who accused them. Sounds like revenge.”
“Over two centuries later?” Petrina asked. “That makes little sense.”
“I know.” Tamatha sighed. “I’m sorry, Mom. This is weird. But we can’t let it continue. The witches have to be sent back to their place of rest or they will murder again.”
“I suppose you are right. If they are revenants...” The woman’s shudder was heard over the phone line. “Ed’s a demon? How did you two meet?”
“She ran into me one dark night,” Ed offered, “and before I could introduce myself, she bound me with a spell.”
“Good girl,” Petrina said. “Your diabology studies are coming along nicely. But the two of you have apparently kissed and made up. Is he good for you, Tam?”
“Yes.” She leaned over and kissed Ed on the cheek.
“Did you tell him the family motto?”
“Yes—Love Often,” she said quickly.
“Right. Hmm...” Petrina said. “Aristo died yesterday.”
“Oh, Mom, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine. We knew it was coming for weeks. The cancer was aggressive. I’ve his funeral arrangements to deal with and then I’m returning to Paris for a few days. I can’t let you deal with this alone. This is my mother, after all. She’s... What does she look like, Tam?”
“I haven’t seen her, Mom. Ed has. She’s not in a good way.”
“Of course not. If some warlock has commanded her and the others to her bidding, she can’t want that. She would welcome her destruction. I’m sure of it. You have to put her to rest, Tamatha.”
“I will. I just needed to hear it from you.”
“And maybe you can break the family curse?”
“How so?”
“Well, the ideas are swirling in my brain right now. If Grandma could be reunited with her demon lover, and he apologized...”
Ed gaped at Tamatha.
“If you can get us the name of her lover, that would put us on the path to such a reunion. It could work.”
“Yes, I’ll have to look for it when I return to Paris. I’ve her things stuffed away in storage. The two of you were drawn together by Mom’s magic,” she stated.
“You think so?”
“There are no coincidences, darling. If she’s in pain, if she wants free of the malefic magic controlling her, she may have very well summoned the two of you. Is Ed’s family related to one of her accusers?”
“Yes.”
“That makes sense. Oh dear, if it was his relative who was your grandma’s lover, then the two of you are reliving that union. Ed may bring your death.”
“No, Mom. That’s...” Yet Tamatha’s heart pounded. Her mother never speculated. She spoke from intuition. And her intuition was never wrong.
“I would never harm your daughter, Madame Bellerose,” Ed said. “I swear it.”
“Perhaps, but that matters little when family magic is involved. Tamatha, must you work with him on this?”
“Yes. We’re woven into this together. I trust Ed. He trusts me.”
“Then you’d better tell him the complete family motto. Oh, there’s the coroner’s car. I invited him over to discuss the arrangements. I’m not sure I can keep a tear from my eye knowing what I now know about Mom. Tamatha, please be careful. And, Ed.”
“I have your daughter’s back. Nothing will harm her.”
Petrina sighed. “I’ll try to get to Paris tomorrow evening. The next morning at the latest. Love you, Tam.”
“I love you, too, Mom. I’ll be okay with Ed. Call me as soon as you get to town.”
They said goodbye and Tamatha clicked off the phone. Ed caught his head against his palm and watched as she paced the kitchen floor. “Your mother had no idea your grandmother’s lover was demon?”
“She was twelve when Grandma was burned.”
“Right. Again, I’m sorry. This has to be difficult.”
“It is, but like Mom said, if Grandma is being controlled, she must be desperate for her freedom. I have to give it to her. We need to contact Les Douze and hope that leads us to the warlock. I hope the others get here soon.”
“The coven about to invade my home.” He clasped his hands before his chin and offered a wincing smile to her.
She knew this was hard for him. Perhaps she should have done this at her place, but she felt comfortable here. And she wanted him to be a part of all magics involved. He had revealed himself to her. She would do the same.
“So what’s this about the complete family motto?” he asked.
Thinking of revealing secrets... Her mother had meant well to bring that up, but could she really tell him? On the other hand, if Petrina suspected Ed could bring her death, wasn’t it only fair to explain the dangers to him?
“Love Often,” she said. “That’s the part the Bellerose women always tell their friends and lovers.”
“But there’s another part?”
She nodded and kissed him. It was a slow, lingering kiss that didn’t need to deepen because the press of their mouths together was enough. A binding that went beyond bewitchery and seemed to combine their very molecules in a giddy bouncing bonding.
“Love often,” she offered against his mouth, “because they never last for long.”
Ed’s right eyebrow arched sharply.
“The curse my mom was talking about is that the Bellerose women’s lovers never last long. They either can’t handle dating a witch and storm off—those are the lucky ones—or they fall desperately in love and literally go mad with love. They have to be locked up. Or there’s the third option.”
“I’m not going to like the third option very much, am I?”
“Death,” she said. “Usually accidental. Sometimes we bring it on because we just want the man gone. It’s that organic magic Mom mentioned, like my OCD magic. It just...occurs. It can be natural, as well. Aristo, Mom’s current lover, had cancer. He developed it while dating her. When she said it was aggressive, she meant it. They’ve only known each other a month and a half. Again, part of the curse.”
“You believe cancer can be attributed to a curse?”
“He was healthy when she met him.”
He rubbed his chin. “So you hadn’t intention of telling me I might develop an expiration date the longer we are together?”
“I was kind of hoping the curse would avoid you. You’re cute. I like you,” she said in an attempt to lighten the mood. “I’d like to keep you around awhile.”
“I’d like to stay awhile. Besides the routine evil-overlord tasks to keep me busy, I do enjoy being with you. A lot. I’d have to be alive to continue to enjoy it.”
“Most definitely.”
“You don’t believe what your mother said about my bringing your death
, do you?”
Tamatha sighed. At that moment the door buzzer rang. “My mother’s intuition is never wrong,” she said as she went to answer.
Verity tossed her deep violet hair over a shoulder and smiled a huge, warm welcome. “Tamatha, it’s been too long!” She lunged over the threshold and the witches hugged. Verity was much shorter than Tamatha, so it was a good thing she hadn’t put on her heels yet.
“It has been a few years. You are pretty as always. Come inside and tell me all the details of your life. Oh, this is Verity Van Velde, Ed.” She skipped over to him and clasped his hand. “And this is Edamite Thrash, corax demon.”
“Is that so?” The witch’s amethyst eyes performed a once-over of the man. “Pretty.”
Tamatha could feel Ed’s blush, so she kissed him quickly on the cheek. “Libby will be here soon. And I told her to bring along Vika.”
“I thought you said you only needed three witches,” he protested.
“Well, I could hardly have invited Libby without her sister. You won’t even notice we’re here.”
Chapter 18
Trying to ignore the presence of four witches sitting in his living room, drinking wine, laughing, giggling and gossiping, was an exercise in never-going-to-happen. Not even notice they were there? Yeah right.
Sitting in the kitchen, nursing a whiskey, Ed picked up that Verity was dating Rook, one of the founders of The Order of the Stake. He knew that man—a vampire hunter—and respected him. So the purple-haired witch checked out. One of the redheads, Vika, was married to Certainly Jones, who was a dark witch who also ranked respectably on Ed’s radar. Save for when it came to telling Tamatha bad things about him. Apparently, Jones had not the return respect, but Ed wouldn’t hold it against him.
It was the other witch, the curvaceous redhead with a booming voice and a tendency to dance as she talked, who he determined was married to a former soul bringer, who before that was a former angel. Those bastards were all-powerful. And he couldn’t ascertain if the dude was merely human now or just resting his abilities. Either way, he’d keep an eye on Libby Saint-Charles, at least, to make sure her husband wasn’t nearby.
The conversation had grown quiet, and Ed picked up a few Latin terms tossed about. They were talking about herbs and spells. And Tamatha pulled out the amethyst-hilted athame that she always carried in her book bag. When a clink of metal sounded in the living room, he suddenly felt a curious power fill the entire loft.
He spun on the kitchen stool to see all four witches had pressed the tips of their athames together. A brilliant white light surrounded them in a bubble and then it burst and it blasted him from the stool to land on the floor in a sprawl. His whiskey glass went skittering across the marble floor, leaving a dribble of golden liquid in its wake.
“What the—?”
Tamatha’s face appeared above him. “We’ve supercharged our collective magic. We’re ready to go to the Montparnasse cemetery to do a seek-and-find. Together, the four of us should be able to contact The Twelve. You coming along?”
“What about the warlock?”
“If she is involved, we’ll try to find out from Les Douze, but we want to avoid contact with her until we can be sure. Maybe it would be best if you stayed here.” She grabbed his hand and helped him jump to his feet.
Libby sidled over and eyed Ed up and down with a cheeky summation that ended in a smirk of her bright pink lips. “No, let’s bring him along,” she said. “He’ll make good bait.”
“Good idea,” Vika chimed in. She wore a long black gown and appeared most witchlike to Ed. Add a pointy hat and broomstick? Happy Halloween! “We’ll send him in first to lure out Les Douze.”
Ed stood there with an open mouth and a strange wonder as the foursome debated his value of serving as the worm on the hook. Tamatha was against it while the other three were perfectly willing to shove him to the vanguard to stand before the crew of zombie witches.
And so was he.
“I’m in,” he said. He clapped his hands together resolutely. “Let’s do this. You ladies going to transport yourselves to the cemetery? Should I shift?”
“We can do you one better.”
Tamatha grabbed his hand, and the witches all clasped hands, Vika finally taking his other hand. He didn’t have time to ascertain what their next move was but suspected it involved transport—
Landing unsteadily on dew-moistened cobblestones in the middle of a shadow-darkened graveyard, Ed’s next thought was that the witches were nowhere nearby. And he was glad he hadn’t needed to shift and fly there on his own. He didn’t feel at all drained. Now, if Tamatha could teach him that spell, he could get some good use out of it traversing across the city.
He cast a glance about. “Tamatha?” They must have landed elsewhere during transport.
He stood near a mausoleum that featured columns of stacked skulls around the stone entrance. An icy chill skittered over his arms and up his neck. His feather sigils shivered. The dark felt like ink, liquid yet staining. He could see shapes of tombstones and winged stone angels. Nearby traffic sounds were muffled. A raven cawed, sending a familiar vibration through his bones. It was a warning cry.
And then he heard the growl.
* * *
Tamatha could feel malefic magic thicken the air. Shadows of tombstones and mausoleums were barely visible in the fog that hung like steam about them. She clasped Libby’s hand, and she in turn took Verity’s hand. All four witches joined hands as the distinct scent of sulfur mingled with a rotting miasma.
“Ed?” Tamatha called.
“Over here. Where are you? I can’t see much— Ah hell. They’re here.”
Heartbeats thundering, Tamatha fought the urge to rush forward to protect him. Instinct settled her. He was a big boy. He could take care of himself. And she would lose her protection if she dropped the others’ hands. Together their magic was a force.
“I can’t see them yet,” she said aloud to the witches. “Let’s focus. Call out their master.”
Libby began a low humming tone and her sister Vika matched it with a harmony a few octaves higher. Verity whispered Latin for a channeling spell. It would connect them to Les Douze if the creatures were open.
And Tamatha finally caught a glimpse of Ed. He ducked a sweeping hand that clawed for his face. The hand was connected to something. She couldn’t make it out, but it didn’t look human.
* * *
While the witches appeared to be reciting Sunday afternoon chants, Ed fought for his life. Les Douze, minus at least two, that he counted, came at him full force.
With a sweep of his hand, he repelled the vanguard with a dusting of black sulfurous smoke that should cause most to gag and tear up or even go blind for a few minutes.
Apparently these dead things were not most.
While a few dropped back and began their zombie shuffle toward a tombstone to the left, the others roared toward him. Ed tried a flick of his fingers to repel them. Half went tumbling backward, a few spilling over the remaining who stood.
One particularly aggressive creature flung herself at him, grabbing him by the shoulders. Metallic black gunk leaked from her gaping mouth. It looked like melted hematite, but smelled like the worst rotting fish. He gagged and struggled. Claws cut into his skin. The witch ward burned to his bone. Shoving at the thing didn’t manage to push it from him, but it did disconnect one of its arms, which then dangled, caught in his assailant’s tattered clothing.
“Bait,” he muttered. “What was I thinking?”
Anger suffused his veins.
* * *
Tamatha chanted the warlock’s name, entreating her to show if she indeed mastered Les Douze. Her fellow witches’ powers bolstered her own and made her voice clear and strong. She felt the air change and sensed the malefic presence, but she cou
ldn’t know if it was from the zombie witches attacking her boyfriend or if indeed the warlock was nearby.
And then she felt the burn on her wrist and saw the dark line tracking her veins. She shook her arm, even while still clasping Libby’s hand. The red-haired witch saw the black tracing up Tamatha’s arm and swore.
“She’s here,” Vika said, and the witches silenced. “Show yourself, warlock!”
The zombie witches howled and cawed like banshees. Ed yelped. A furious wind ribboned through the cemetery, redirecting some witches who had gone off course of the demon toward him. Yet they hissed as if they’d been stung by the wind, which had to be the warlock.
Verity dropped hands with Vika and Tamatha and slapped at her palms, which flamed blue. Her fire magic had activated against her will. She couldn’t control the flames. Vika, a master of water magic, doused Verity’s hands with a shower that instantly steamed to nothing, leaving the fire lesser but still amber flames.
The warlock was here, and her power was too strong. Perhaps she even tapped into the combined witches’ powers. While the remainder of Les Douze retreated behind tombstones and some into the dark maw of an open mausoleum, Tamatha felt her magic drain. She tapped her first fingers together, but instead of earth—which she hoped to use to smother Verity’s flames—a sputter of smoke hissed out.
Libby cried out. Red claw marks cut through the witch’s neck. And Vika clasped her shoulder as blood oozed through the serrated fabric at her hip. Verity fell to her knees clutching her stomach with smoking hands. She spit out a beetle and cursed.
The icy pain of talons cut across Tamatha’s cheek. Losing strength in her legs, she was the final one to drop. Their magic dissipated and the graveyard fell silent.
Ed, who lay sprawled behind a grave, twitched. And then his entire body quaked and she smelled the sulfur. Shifting, the demon slapped a thorned hand onto a nearby tombstone and pulled himself up, ebony horns cutting the midnight air. He growled and clenched his fists. Red eyes searched the darkness.
