Mandy M. Roth - Magic Under Fire (Over a Dozen Tales of Urban Fantasy)

by Unknown

  In his own deluded way, the creature had loved her.

  She held her breath. Waiting for the collapse. This was her doing. Her mistake. She owed it to him to watch him go back to ground. As if forcing her to witness what she'd done, the moon chose that moment to emerge from behind the cloud. It shone full once more on the man Amie had condemned.

  Amie waited for the end.

  And waited…

  And waited.

  Instead of crumbling to powder, he straightened and stood over her, looking gorgeous and unkempt with a smudge of dirt along his cheek.

  Amie stared at him.

  Damn the man. He should have been dead. She couldn't mess this up too. She chewed her lip as she ran through her spell in her mind. She'd done it correctly.

  So why was he still here?

  "I ask you again"—he took a powerful step toward her—"my love." He ground out each word as she took three steps back, scattering her candles across the pavement, "Are you trying to kill me?"

  Amie froze. She dug her fingernails into her palms as dread blanketed her. She was trapped. In a cemetery. With the undead. A second later, she snapped.

  It was too overwhelming, too intimidating, and frankly—too absurd. "Of course I'm trying to kill you," she said, her voice an octave higher than it should have been. "What am I saying? I'm not killing you. You're already dead! You see your name on that tombstone? I do. Dante Montenegro. Dead."

  He gave a mirthless laugh. "What does that have to do with anything?"

  He had to be kidding. "It has everything to do with—everything. I can't be with a dead man."

  "Ah!" he said, the twinkle back in his eye. "Every couple has issues they need to work out."

  "Work out?" Amie stammered. "This isn't a question of whose parents we see on Thanksgiving or what side of the bed you sleep on or…"

  "Left," he said.

  She rubbed at her temples. "What?"

  "I like the left side of the bed." He leaned against his tombstone, clearly amused.

  Anger rocketed through her. "Oh is this fun for you? Well, this is not fun. This is wrong. This is unnatural. I don't know how I got this kind of power, or how I called you up, but you are going back into the ground!"

  The zombie hitched his thumbs under the waistband of his borrowed pants. "All evidence to the contrary."

  Of all the cocky… "You think I can't do it?"

  "Your bag is on fire."

  "Ohhh!" Amie rushed to where one of the scattered candles had ignited her mother's pink striped sack. She stomped out the blaze.

  If he thought this was the end of their conversation, then maybe he'd been reanimated without a brain.

  "Don't you understand?" she said, refusing to even spare a glance at the smoldering remains of the bag. "This is one giant horrible mistake. I'm not kissing you. I'm not picturing you naked." Where had that come from? Never mind. Amie plowed forward. "I'm not marrying you, so you might as well admit that your usefulness has ended and you can rest in peace."

  He towered over her, angry now. "You called me," he said, as the night breeze scattered the torn hearts down the narrow path. "You burned a resurrection symbol into my grave."

  "I didn't know," she said, her hope for an easy answer spinning into oblivion with those hearts. Even if she chased them down, she'd never be able to recover enough pieces to perform the spell again.

  What would it matter anyway? It hadn't worked. Everything in her tidy little world was hopelessly, horribly out of control. And here he stood, all gorgeous and…dead, expecting her to accept that. She just couldn't do it. She raised her chin. "I thought I wanted you, but obviously not you."

  He cupped the back of her head, his fingers threading through her hair, drawing her close enough to kiss. "Listen, sweetheart. It's not my problem that you don't know what you want."

  Her lips parted. Abruptly, he let her go. He strode past her and took the last lit candle.

  "Hey! Give that back!"

  "Come and get it, darling," he said, ducking back into the tomb.

  Amie wanted to bang her own head against the nearest vault. What kind of a zombie-killer was she if the zombie started taking her spell ingredients? And she couldn't imagine what she was going to do now that her spell hadn't worked. Now that he knew she wanted to end him. She'd have to find another way to put him down and, frankly, that might be tough.

  He eased back out of the grave, looking triumphant, a gold wedding ring in hand.

  "You're married?" she gaped. Well, that solved everything, didn’t it?

  "I was." He placed the candle on the ground and made a move to slip the ring onto his finger. "Now look. It will not fit anymore."

  The ring seemed to resist as he drew it over his finger. It stopped less than an inch down, refusing to go farther.

  What did that have to do with it? "Maybe your knuckles swelled."

  Anger flashed across his face. "No. I can no longer wear this because I have found my one true love," he said, gripping the ring between two fingers, holding the shimmering gold band between them. "That is you. Why do you find this so hard to accept?"

  "Oh, I don't know. Because it's impossible?"

  He looked mad enough to spit. "It is true!"

  "So you say."

  "So I know! I feel this with every breath in my body and I will not stop until you understand what it is you mean to me."

  Amie's gaze drifted down the path. She had asked for a guy who would stick around. "How did I get into this?"

  "Quiet." He stiffened, his eyes fixed out into the night. "Do you hear it?"

  Amie strained her ears. Yes. She heard a definite crunching coming from the graves to the left. This was too much. She'd better not have called up a whole army of lovers. How would she explain a harem to poor Isoke? He'd lose his tail and his top feathers too.

  Amie crouched closer to Dante's grave. Her breath quickened as she saw two scarlet shadows fall across the path in front of her.

  Oh no.

  She'd heard of this—residual ghosts called up by voodoo magic. But she'd kept her magic contained.

  Until it had escaped down the path.

  Holy hoodoo.

  How could she have been so careless?

  "This is my fault," she said under her breath, warning him. She didn't know what was coming, but it couldn't be good.

  He stood next to his grave, waiting. "Quiet. I’ve got this.”

  She glanced at the long, dark path behind her. It would feel so good to run. The kicker was, there was nowhere to go. Besides, she had to fix her mistakes. She glanced at Dante. Okay, she'd fix the most recent mistake.

  Gripping her bottle of Florida water, she crouched low. One hand curled around the moldering brick tomb. Her heart beating low in her chest as the red shadows grew longer.

  They were going to find her. She stiffened, unscrewing the bottle with shaking fingers.

  By Papa Ghede! She gasped as a pair of thugs stepped out onto the path in front of them. Their eyes glowed red with possession.

  A chill ran though Amie. She's seen the dead possess the living during voodoo rituals. The chwals she knew only allowed themselves to be taken by clean spirits. These men hadn't done as well.

  "I believe these are the men we heard before," Dante said under his breath. “Only…changed.”

  They moved like predators, and they were armed.

  "What do they want?" Amie stammered.

  Dante hesitated. "You."

  As they drew closer, she could see their gang colors and the fiery burning of their eyes. The one on the left snarled, his face a mass of anger and hate.

  This was her fault. She'd never dared practice death magic. She didn't know what could happen if it escaped. She'd been too rash in coming here.

  Amie's fingers tightened around her blessed water. They were looking straight at her.

  She could exorcise the spirits if only she had a bottle of 151 proof rum and a live chicken. Without those key ingredients? She'd have to do t
he best she could. Amie poured her Florida water onto a patch of dirt, rubbing her fingers frantically into the mud.

  "I command you to the earth," she said, low in her throat. She focused her power and dug harder. "I command you to the earth."

  The one on the right laughed. It was a hollow, menacing sound. He turned the barrel of his gun toward her. As if the world had slowed to contain only that moment, she watched the thug's trigger finger squeeze tight.

  Dante slammed into her as the shot cracked the night air, ringing in her ears. Her cheek hit the ground as she watched blood splash onto the white gravel in front of her.

  "Oh my god." She landed hard.

  Dante leapt for the first possessed man, knocking the gun from his hand.

  Amie scrambled for the gun as her zombie barreled for the second man. Dante kicked the gun out of his hands and crashed into a crumbling brick vault. The second gun skittered into the night as Amie closed her hands around the first.

  "Freeze," Amie commanded, aiming the weapon at the men. "Leave now or I'm going to send you straight to hell."

  The thugs spasmed as the spirits shoved their way out of the human hosts. Their eyes rolled up into their heads. Two red masses shot into the night before the men crumpled to the ground.

  Dante climbed to his feet and put his fingers to the neck of the closest man. "He's not dead, just out cold."

  Heart hammering, Amie hunched next to the other man and lifted his eyelid. The pupils were clear. He'd have a massive headache, but he should be awake by the time the first tour group rolled through in the morning.

  "Come." Dante reached a hand down to her. His wide shoulders shook with tension and his left arm was a bloody mess.

  "Oh my goodness."

  He ignored her. "We have to go."

  Amie laid the gun on the path next to her and grasped the neck of the Florida water bottle. It was mostly rubbing alcohol anyway. But it had been smashed on the ground. She used the broken edge to rip a strip of cloth from the bottom of her skirt. She closed her eyes for a moment, fighting the fabric. When she had enough, she wadded it into a bandage and touched it to his arm.

  "Ow!" He jerked back.

  "Calm down," she said, her own pulse racing as she wiped the blood. "Hold this on there. We can clean it out at my house."

  He gave her a long look. "As long as you promise not to try to kill me."

  She rolled her eyes as if she hadn't been attempting that very thing a few moments ago.

  Only before, he wasn't quite human. Now, she didn't know.

  By Gedhe, this was such a mess.

  Amie watched Dante seal the guns in his vault and grab the ring. Who was this man who had burst into her life, kissed her silly, and brought her here?

  Is that what he was?

  A man?

  She didn't quite believe it. In fact, this entire night had been one big surprise after another.

  "Dante," she said, watching him startle as she called him by name for the first time, "let's get out of here."

  5

  P ain seared his upper arm, but Dante didn't care. Pain meant he was alive. As for her attempt to kill him, he'd deal with that soon enough.

  Amie moved with liquid grace, strong yet undeniably feminine as she dialed in the alarm code at the back of her building. She was all curves and substance, with large almond-shaped eyes, gorgeous caramel skin, and a lush mouth. But what he really liked was her squared-off chin. It was bold, defiant. Too bad she'd grown from delectable to downright infuriating. She seemed to sense his anger as she opened the door to the storage room.

  "Hell-o!" A Kongamato lounged in what looked to be a pit of mud and sticks.

  Amie cringed. "Dante, this is Isoke."

  If she was counting on the creature to save her, she was sadly mistaken.

  Dante bowed toward the Kongamato. The beast sat up, positively beaming.

  "Isoke, this is Dante."

  He showed a double row of teeth. "Charmed, rafiki. She is quite a catch, no?"

  She would be, once she understood what was happening. Dante ran a hand down Amie's back, pleased at the way she stiffened. She might not accept him, but she still wanted him.

  Isoke launched himself out of the tub, sending sticks and pieces of moss flying. "Would you care for a soak? I was just going to go for a cool-down swim in the Mississippi." He waggled his brows at them like a proud uncle as he shook a wet leaf from between his toes. "This mud is good for your pores, no? And very romantic."

  "We have to go," Amie said, leading Dante through the door to the shop.

  "Have fun, kids!" Isoke called. "And just so you know, I will not be leaving gifts in your shoes if you are busy making love!"

  She seemed embarrassed. "I'm sorry. He's just…"

  "A Kongamato." Dante had seen voodoo mambos in the cemetery.

  "Right," Amie said, avoiding his gaze. They were back to being polite. It would not do.

  "This way," she said, leading him upstairs to her apartment.

  Her living space was as colorful as her shop and stacked with books and various homemade oddities. Yet instinct told him there was more to this woman than she'd revealed.

  He would get to the bottom of it.

  She led him into a small bathroom off of the library and flipped on the bright overhead light.

  Amie gasped when she saw his injury clearly for the first time. "I'm so sorry."

  The wound was ugly, his olive skin ripped and torn.

  He shrugged and immediately regretted the move as hot fire shot down his arm.

  There didn't seem to be any major damage, but he bled quite a bit. Her fault, but he wouldn't get into that right now. Her knee bumped against his leg. This was the closest she stood to him—voluntarily—since she'd kissed him.

  "I'll fix it," she said, earnestly.

  Dante's anger eased as he watched Amie wrestle with an impossible number of tubes and jars in a miniscule cabinet over the pedestal sink. That's not to say anything was out of place. If he wasn't mistaken, the items were actually lined up by size. He just didn't understand why a woman would need that many.

  Some things never changed.

  He turned her to face him. "Forget the bandages. We need to talk."

  She seemed wary, afraid. It was ridiculous.

  He'd proved to her tonight that she was his one true love. He'd shown her the mark on his tomb. He'd been unable to wear the wedding ring his former wife had given him. Despite that, Amie had rejected him outright.

  She might have reacted with shock at first, as any woman would. He had not expected her to progress to joy and absolute glee right away. But outright denial? He never would have imagined it.

  Why fight a chance at true happiness?

  What more proof did this modern woman need?

  Her gaze fell on his arm. "We do need to talk. But not with you looking like that."

  "Amie," he warned.

  She turned back to the medicine cabinet.

  His fists clenched and his shoulder burned. He wanted to be a gentleman, but, at the same time, he needed to get through to her. "I'm finished with excuses."

  Amie was supposed to be his one true love—a once-in-a-lifetime connection—a woman who could call him back from the grave and give him a second chance at love and at life.

  She was passionate. Her kiss at the door had proven that. His body tightened just thinking about it.

  So why was she fighting?

  It was insulting as hell. "Why did you call me?" Why put him through this for nothing?

  She didn't answer. Her lips pursed as she selected bandages and clanked through the bottles in the medicine cabinet—as if that was the most important thing they had to deal with.

  Damn it, he wouldn't be cast aside.

  He reached for her, ignoring her squeak of surprise as he took her by the waist and set her down on the edge of the sink.

  "Ow!" she protested.

  "It does not hurt." He brushed his fingertips along the trembling at h
er collarbone. "Mi corazon."

  Her breath quickened. She tried to avoid him, her thick hair falling over one eye. "Don't you manhandle me."

  Hands on her hips, he pulled her up against him so that she was forced to see him. "Don't play games with me."

  She drew a careful breath, her fingers absently tracing the velvety soft skin he'd just touched.

  He'd have a conversation with her if it killed him. What he hadn't counted on was the hot lick of desire that slid down his spine.

  He pushed closer, just to test her and watched the rosy flush creep up her cheeks. "Tell me. Be truthful," he ground out. "Why did you call me?"

  She touched her lips together nervously.

  Madre de dios. His whole future hung in the balance and this woman, this savior of his couldn't even answer a simple question.

  She chewed at her delectable lower lip, her eyes wide, her hair damp around her face. "Look," she said, "I made a mistake."

  No. "That kind of power doesn't come from accident. You did this on purpose."

  At first he had been amused that her need for his love could be so powerful that she could call him and not understand what it meant. But if she didn't want him anymore, that was downright terrifying.

  "Why do you need to know?" she demanded.

  He fought the urge to touch her hair. "Because it's not supposed to be this way. Not for me."

  Dante had never been an overly patient man, but he'd haunted the cemetery for two hundred years. The only thing that had kept him going was the one in a million shot that his ideal girl would call him back and give him another chance.

  Tears filled her eyes. "Just let me fix you."

  He stepped back. "I am afraid that is impossible."

  Dante sat on the edge of her tub, his head in his hands. He had to make her understand.

  She leaned over him, her yellow sleeve brushing his cheek, her nose red. "This won't hurt a bit," she said, right before she poured what felt like molten lava down his arm. He cringed.

  She sniffed and wiped at her eyes. "It's iodine," she explained, dabbing at him again with the cotton ball. "It'll help, I promise." She swallowed. "I was actually hoping you'd be healed by now."

  "And why is that?" He asked, teeth gritted.