“Bevan! Bevan. Oh god. Why—why are you human? I’m naked!”
“You know I have the same eyeballs whether I appear as an animal or a human?” he said. “And I’ve seen you naked before?”
“Not since I was a kid!”
“The human body. Shock. Horror. Boobs. I might faint,” he said in a sardonic monotone. Then he waved his hand. “Sorry. That’s just my reflex. I actually don’t have time to joke around. Something very odd is happening in the magical realm.”
“Like what?” I tried to find my dress but it was probably still crumpled in the basement.
“I’ve been up all night,” Bevan said. “Familiars are separating from their wizards.”
I grabbed Graham’s shirt since I didn’t have anything else to wear. The guys were obviously all awake from the moment I screamed, but they looked as plastered as I felt. The Sullivans were in wolf form sleeping on the floor, but Jasper transformed back into a human to jump in with,
“Wait—for good?”
“Maybe,” Bevan said. “It started last night just when I went to bed. A familiar knocked on my door. She was very confused about where she was. And soon a few more of them showed up. To summarize the very long conversations we had, all of these familiars were being abused by their wizards, and it seems that when the worlds opened up, they jumped realms to escape, and broke the connection with their wizards.”
“How did they get to you?” Jasper asked.
“Well, obviously it was because Helena had a hand in opening the gates and I’m the only person who knows what was going on. They were looking for answers, so they were drawn to me because I had an answer. Well, sort of. I’m not sure what’s going on, but it seems as if the separation of worlds might actually have something to do with the relationship between witches and familiars.”
“So…you’re saying…now any familiar can just escape the connection with their witch or warlock by jumping into a different world?”
“I mean, I haven’t done a scientific study of it yet,” Bevan said. “But…I’m going to say yes.”
“Could the connection be restored if the witch or warlock taps into different magic?” I asked.
“Not sure yet.”
“You know, when I traveled back into the past, and I mentioned familiars, they said the witches of Cyprium didn’t engage in that sort of ‘slavery’,” I said. “So that would check out. Was the motive for separating the worlds, in part, to entrap familiars? Do you feel entrapped, Bevan? Do I…I don’t own you, do I?” I was freaking out on multiple levels now. I had never considered that Bevan might be serving me against his will, and yet even more horrifying to me was the idea that every familiar might just leave their witch forever. We loved and relied on our familiars. I had no idea any witch was capable of mistreating them, but I was learning a lot of unpleasant things lately.
“No, no,” Bevan said. “You’re the most independent witch I know. You don’t tell me what to do.”
“But I could. And you would do it, wouldn’t you?”
“I would argue, if I thought it was a bad idea.”
“But ultimately…?”
“Ultimately, well…yes, ultimately I do serve you.”
“See? I don’t like that!”
“Good, because apparently you just put an end to the entire system,” Bevan said. “I suppose I could break ties with you.”
“But…” I swallowed. “I mean, if you want to…”
“It’s the way things have always been done,” Bevan said. “We love each other, Helena. I don’t want to leave you. But the seven familiars who are currently huddled in my house in Etherium terrified and relieved are a different story. Since every witch and warlock ever born has a familiar at their side from that moment on, I suppose it stands to reason that a few would be twisted individuals with a victim at their beck and call.”
“That’s horrifying,” Graham said.
“Tell me about it,” Bevan said. “It was quite a shock to my wonderfully placid existence.”
“That makes sense, now that I think about it,” I said. “I had never known any witch to fall in love with their familiar, but my brother’s wife’s familiar is one of their bond-mates. He now lives a human life. Maybe that’s more common than we thought. And maybe the reverse would also be true…”
“You may all go down in history as the saviors of familiar-kind,” Bevan said, after a heavy pause. “And it seems you haven’t been attacked…yet.”
“Not yet,” Jasper said. “But it sounds like the wizard councils will have even more reason to be pissed…”
“All seven of those familiars would probably come and help you,” Bevan said. “I could send them here to guard the house and look for more.”
“Oh, Bevan! I could hug you! That would be so helpful!”
Bevan regarded me with his dark eyes—his coloring was darker than mine, matching his bat form, as familiars didn’t necessarily resemble their witches much at all. Then he opened his arms. “You may hug me. I deserve some adoration.”
“You do, Bev, you almost died for me.” I clutched him, although I’m not sure he was actually comfortable with hugs. He might not be blonde, but in that way he was definitely one of the family through and through.
“I’ll send help soon,” Bevan said, and then he vanished.
“Somebody fetch me my suitcase!” I said, looking at the naked men surrounding me—well, Graham had actually put on pajama pants before bed, and Jake was still a wolf, so…half-naked?—and suddenly feeling very wanton. I was trying not to think about how a little morning quickie didn’t sound bad either. But we had way too much to do.
“I’ll get it,” Byron said, striding out of the room without a stitch on.
“Billie doesn’t need to be seeing that!” I said.
He just chuckled.
I needn’t have worried. I threw on a t-shirt and jeans to work in, and Gaston was in the kitchen wearing a robe and warming a little blood on the stove.
“Where’s Billie?” I asked.
“Still sleeping. I’ll wake her up for breakfast.” He splashed a little red wine in the saucepan.
I raised an eyebrow at him. I was getting a definite morning-after vibe.
“You won’t speak of my life and I won’t speak of yours,” Gaston said. He poured the blood into a soup bowl.
“I’m sure Billie will tell me.” I grinned. “But good on ya.”
“At least Billie and I can’t produce any little distractions to run around,” Gaston said with a shrug.
“I’m not producing any ‘distractions’! Um…” I whirled back toward Jake and whispered, “You have more of that birth control spell? I’m making a batch myself today. I got caught up again. Very bad.”
“Shit,” Graham said. “That’s my fault. I had condoms. I just thought…it was too magical to worry about anything. Subconsciously.”
“I think I felt that way too,” I said. “Plus I was just in the past having sex in a different body and I didn’t have to worry then…”
“Kids aren’t distractions,” Jake said. “At least, not for long. We were hammering nails by the time we were five.”
“Six,” Jasper said. “We were definitely six or seven before we were hammering nails.”
“Close enough.”
“I’m not going to have kids just so I can make them work,” I said. “But…good to know.”
Jake was frowning a little, but he wiped the expression.
“You want kids?” I asked, with lightness that was a little forced. Kids. I’d never thought about it much until recently.
“I definitely do,” he said. “But it could wait a while.”
“That’s good. I—I don’t know, to be honest.”
“Don’t worry about it, Hel. We’re new to this.”
“Yeah…okay.”
Billie woke up with a naughty little smile on her lips and she gave me this eyebrow waggle like, Last night, huh? “Vamp sex,” she whispered to me. “Girrrl…�
��
“Isn’t it cold?”
“Too hot to be cold.”
“Gaston is…you like him?” I had a hard time imagining Gaston being a red-hot lover.
“He’s so romantic when it’s just the two of us. He takes my clothes off really slowly and whispers to me in French…it’s like a movie. Voulez-vous coucher avec moi…” She was dancing around a little. “Was your night good?”
I put my fingers next to my head and mimicked my mind being blown. Jasper looked at us and shook his head. “Hey, gossip girls, the morning meeting is starting.”
“C’mon, Jake, give a girl a minute to chat over her coffee,” Billie said.
“That’s Jasper,” I said. I couldn’t believe she wasn’t able to tell them apart. By now they looked completely different to me.
“Oh. I thought Jake was the snarky one.”
“Jasper tries to keep up,” I said, as Jasper gave us both the finger. We laughed, our spirits heightened by the confusing mixture of triumph, danger, and hot sex.
We brought Billie up to speed on the new development. I broke it to her gently. I knew what she would be thinking.
“So my familiar…maybe wouldn’t have died…if…” Billie dropped her head into her hands. “Oh, no.”
“Sounds to me like a good reason why familiars should be free,” Jake said. “It always did bother me. Maybe being shifters ourselves, it seemed weird that witches had shifters who serve them.”
Bevan reappeared with the seven familiars right in the midst of the living room for a meet and greet. “They’re all going to stay in animal form so they don’t get in your way,” he said. “But they’ll just keep sentry around the house and if you run into trouble, they all will fight for their lives rather than return to their captors. I brought some grains and some lettuces so you have food to put out for them…”
“Aw, Bev! You’re like our nanny when we were kids, with the snack sack!”
“I am definitely not like your nanny. But I know you don’t have time to get them food right now.” I was still seeing a different side to my familiar, one that was so human that it actually shook me a little. I realized that as much as I loved him, I thought of him more like a talking bat mascot than as a person. I think that was how he wanted me to think of him, though. He never appeared to me in human form or tried to involve himself with my real life. And I never asked him about his either. What did he do all day? I had no idea.
“We’re so grateful for the assistance,” I said, looking at the nervous, huddled group who were all gazing at us nervously like they had never seen other people before. Maybe they rarely did. The witch and familiar relationship did tend to get very private from puberty onward, and I guess that made it very dangerous for these poor souls. I felt bad to even ask them to fight. We had a robin and a sparrow, a skink, a toad, a weasel, a chipmunk and a prairie dog. Sheesh. Not even one badass hawk or anything.
“We are so very thankful to you kind people for giving us shelter,” the chipmunk piped up. “We’ll fight for all we’re worth to protect the maps. I’d rather die than return to my master.”
“I just hope we’re of some use,” the skink said. “I know we’re a pretty pathetic group of familiars.”
“Don’t doubt yourselves. Don’t ever listen to the people who tell you you’re pathetic,” Graham said. “They’re wrong.”
“I don’t know…”
“It’s great to have you all on the team and I truly believe that when we all pull together, we can make a difference. This world might not always live up to our ideals, but when many people work toward a common goal, we can move mountains and build bridges. Nothing that has ever been accomplished in this world has been done without the efforts of the humblest of people, doing the smallest of actions.”
“Oh wow, is that really true?” the toad said earnestly in a little female voice. “I will do anything you ask of me, sir, if I can help accomplish something!”
“You don’t have to go that far,” Graham said. “Don’t do it for me. Do it for yourselves.”
“Thank you, sir, but I am just a humble servant and it would be a waste to do anything for myself. It would please me greatly if I died in your service.”
“Damn,” Graham said under his breath. “I still don’t really understand this wizard familiar thing, but whoever told you that is a piece of shit, okay? You are not going to die for me or anyone else in this room.”
The toad looked a little cowed, but nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“My campaign speeches might come in handy after all,” Graham said to me. “Except that last part, that was the ad lib portion, and the part I would get in trouble for later…”
“I think they might need one every day,” I said. “But I guess this is a start. And I guess we might as well get to work on this house while we wait for shit to go down.”
“Not much else to do,” Jake said. “We’re not bringing the fight to them, that’s for sure.”
The familiars all scattered outside, perching themselves in hidden spots around the yard so they could alert us if they saw anyone approach or teleport in.
“Demo day,” Jake said, rubbing his hands together.
“Can’t wait,” Billie said. “Helena, you want to help me bring in my tools?” She winked at me.
I wasn’t sure I wanted a private chat to talk about boys, but I guess it was part of the deal. I couldn’t put it off, could I? I followed her to her truck. “I’m still sorting things out, really,” I said.
“Sorting out…last night?” Billie took my hand. “That’s okay! I just thought we should get our minds off of it all for a moment and go take a look at the run-down house down the street.”
“Ohhh.” I laughed. “I thought you were going to rope me into dishing.”
“I guess I will at some point, but we have other priorities, right?” Billie grinned back and then her face fell a little. “Honest to god, Hel, I don’t know what I’m doing either. I had a good night with Gaston but being reminded that my familiar died for me just…puts a real damper on everything. It’s worse and worse the more I think about it. Like he don’t even got a choice…” She added hastily, “Doesn’t. Doesn’t have.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not the grammar police,” I said.
“I don’t want you to think I didn’t learn anything at our school,” Billie said.
“If you did learn anything between the bullying and the drama, good for you. I’m not sure I did.”
“Yeah, right. You were one of the best in the class.”
“But I wasn’t the best,” I sighed. “So…my mother was terribly disappointed in me.”
“And here we are now,” Billie said. “Giving all of it a big eff you and doing our own thing.”
“That’s right. And look at this place! Aw, man. I know the guys don’t want to get involved, but…”
The other house for sale in the neighborhood was close to the beginning of the street, so it wouldn’t have as much of a view, and it needed a lot of work. Just at a glance I saw roof damage, so probably water damage inside—hopefully not too tragic, but that was all the more reason someone needed to snap this baby up, because the bones were great. The front had a walled courtyard with a little Japanese style rock garden. The door had three rectangular panels while two long rectangular front windows looked out over the rock garden. I peered in. The house was cleared out, the hardwood floor in rough shape, but I saw a long living room with a cool wide fireplace made from stacked rock. It didn’t have the lumpy “faux rock” look of Bel Tramonto but was more like sleek rock strata.
“Ooh! She’s nice,” Billie said. “Wonder how much they want.”
“We really don’t have time.”
“What if the asking price was under three hundred?”
“In California? I’m sure it’s not.” I paused. “And we better not find out.”
We reluctantly pulled ourselves away from the house and channeled our nerves into demo.
The first thing to
go was the orange carpet. It was just skanky and no one had a single word of mourning as we pulled it up. Billie started dragging all the furniture out to the yard.
“It’s not like it’ll rain out here,” Billie said. “So we can just leave it out overnight and if someone steals it they’re doing us a favor.”
“Good point.” The surrounding hills were covered in desert scrub, and the sky was blue and cloudless. “We can get someone to haul it away later.”
“I do like that green wallpaper,” Billie said. “It’s so psychedelic.”
“This whole room looks like a drug trip,” Graham said.
“Well, you could save a piece and frame it,” Jake said.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Billie said. “But I don’t trust myself to get it down without ripping it up.”
“I’ll do it,” I said. “I am the queen of delicacy.”
“Not last night you weren’t,” Jake said under his breath, and I made as if to hit him with a hammer. I was having a blast, though. This space was so huge that we were all working together, Billie and Gaston using their vampire strength to move out the remaining furniture, the Sullivans ripping up carpet, and Graham and Byron pulling out the kitchen cabinets while I moved a ladder to the wall.
“I love this room, though,” Billie said.
“I don’t love how that fireplace is dead center,” Jake said. “It divides up the space. I’m wondering if we can take it out, maybe put in something along that wall where the wallpaper is. A little woodstove maybe. Does it get that cold here? Maybe I’m just thinking with my Boston brain.”
“No way, it’s a focal point,” Billie said. “And it’s just such a great design element! This room is big enough to handle something that breaks up the space because you have so much open space otherwise.”
“I have to agree with Billie! You can’t rid of the pure 1970s sexy curve of that fireplace,” I said. “It’s like a lava lamp and a cone incense burner and some kind of hippie clay oven had a baby and…”
“And that’s a selling point?” Jake said. “Buyers actually have to live there.”
Phantom of the Library (Paranormal House Flippers Book 3) Page 8
