This Strange Witchery

by Michele Hauf

  He nodded. “I’m good.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Her eyes pooled with tears.

  “Mel, it’s okay. Trust me. Just need to walk it off. Get her completely out of my system.” He flung out his hand, shaking it, and then, stepping back from Mel, did the same with his other hand. A few jumps shook the lingering tendrils of nerve pain from his body as if sifting out toxins. “I saw her, plain as day. She’s beautiful. Like you. But she’s very angry.”

  “You had a conversation with her?”

  “She believes your mother murdered her.”

  “That’s wrong.”

  “I know that, but for some reason she doesn’t. You have the talisman?”

  “Oh, my mercy. I’m so sorry! You didn’t have it on you. No wonder you saw her. And that must be why she was able to touch you. To hurt you.”

  “I’ll survive.”

  She slapped the heavy crystal into his palm. “I’ve been clutching it desperately. You have to cleanse it with salt when we get home.”

  “First thing on my list.” He glanced upward, toward the top floor of the building. The ghost had been inside him. He had felt her fingernails claw across his cheek. Her touch had entered his bones. “She can’t...get out of the loft, can she?”

  “She has when the door has been left open, or a window. But we only have until midnight to make it all stop. I need to go home and practice the spell, and there’s the other thing—did you get the vervain?”

  He patted his pocket and nodded. “Let’s head home.”

  * * *

  Mel had asked for a few hours alone in her spell room to go over the spell for tonight. She handed him a pink plastic container of black sea salt for the talisman, so he put it in there to cleanse.

  With nothing to do but wait, Tor raided the fridge and found—situated around the plastic tub that held a dead witch’s heart—an abundance of fruits and vegetables, which he had no idea how to cook or bake or whatever a person did to make them look fabulous like Mel did. But he was hungry, so he’d figure something out.

  He grabbed a few carrots and a kiwi, then found a baguette and some soft cheese. Cutting and slicing, he ate until he was full while he prepared a plate, then set that plate by the entrance to the spell room. Calling out for a delivery, he left before the door could open and headed outside.

  After finally shaking off the heebie-jeebies that had been riding him since facing the ghost of Mel’s sister at the Joneses’ loft, he tightened his tie and wandered up the sidewalk to the van, parked in front of the property. From the back, he pulled out one of the pressure-release titanium stakes that had been designed by Rook for the knights in The Order of the Stake.

  He considered it a great sign of trust that Rook had gifted him with a few of these weapons. In preparation for later tonight, he tucked that inside his vest. He always made sure his tailor added special pockets and slip inserts for storing weapons. The man, who worked on Savile Row in London, never asked questions. He was good stock. Yet aging quickly. Who would make his suits in another few years after the old man had passed? Tor didn’t want to consider the snappish Parisian tailors.

  Shaking his head and laughing because he could actually find something to think about other than impending doom—and it happened to be bespoke suits, of all things—Tor surveyed the van’s inventory.

  The machete he’d used the other night gleamed. One of his go-to weapons. He gave it some consideration. He shouldn’t need it here at Mel’s place. As far as he knew, she hadn’t made a sacrifice to add efficacy to her dark magic, so he was on guard. He’d reserve the wicked blade for later, when they were on-site. Instead, he took out a pistol loaded with salt rounds and then closed the van doors.

  He scanned the neighborhood and took in the small yet idyllic green yards, the brick and limestone house fronts, terra-cotta chimney pots, and tight boxwood shrubbery that had been tamed to the horticulturist’s will. There was old money here in the 6th arrondissement. He assumed Mel had a trust fund, because he was never sure how witches made a living. She had mentioned something about being between jobs. The most enterprising paranormal he’d ever met was a billionaire werewolf who donated all his money to charity. But he’d come by his money through faery magic, not any sort of knuckles-to-the-grindstone work.

  The world needed all sorts of workers, craftsmen and handymen. And women. He wouldn’t question or argue his place in that hierarchy. He’d done what he knew how to do all his life. And now he was ready for a change, so he’d make that transformation. He could live a normal life. He just had to do it.

  And yet tonight he would accompany a witch on a quest to invoke dark magic to raise a person—her own sister—from the dead. There should be something wrong with that. And yet there was nothing whatsoever strange or unusual about it when compared to his usual routine.

  And that was the kicker. His normal was severely cocked up. He lived beyond slightly eccentric, or even wild and adventurous. Which was why he didn’t have friends. How to have human friends when a man could never engage in conversation about a day at the office but instead about the night out cleaning up dead paranormals? He’d always been a loner, and...it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

  A night at a friend’s house tilting back some brews and watching a game? He couldn’t imagine it. But he’d like to.

  “Yep,” he muttered as he strode up the walk to Mel’s house. “Ready to leave it all behind.”

  Mostly. Maybe? Hell, he wasn’t sure anymore. Because, by staying in the thick of things for a few more days, he’d met Melissande Jones and now...

  Now he really liked her. He could go so far as to say he had fallen for her. He couldn’t imagine not having run into her. His life would have a hole in it without her. How crazy was that?

  Mel represented the part he wanted to excise from his life. So what was he thinking? He couldn’t have it both ways. Normal life and witch in his life. It just couldn’t work.

  Rook had been right to suggest he utilize a memory spell. If he couldn’t remember ever having met Mel, then he could do this. It was absolutely the only way he could do this.

  Tor nodded. It would be tough, but he’d do it. He had to.

  Instead of going back inside the house, he decided to patrol around the perimeter. It was sprinkling, and clouds had darkened the sky. Most of his jobs occurred during the night, although the rush jobs were generally because some creature was stalking during the daylight—or had been found dead in a place where any human could stumble onto it.

  A job in an accounting office would keep him out of the sun, as well. Tor could do the math. An office job wasn’t nine to five, but usually eight to whenever a guy could drag himself away from the desk. He’d miss the physical activity his current profession afforded. He’d have to request the tailor take in his shirts to compensate for muscle loss.

  Who was he kidding? He’d up his workout program. He wasn’t going to abandon these guns just because he worked in a cubicle.

  Would his target skills decrease? And what about his machete-throwing skills? How about his time for cleaning a dead werewolf? Or his knowledge of which chemicals removed blood and dissolved fur and bones the fastest?

  He did possess strange and esoteric knowledge. But he didn’t know a thing about the flowers of which he currently strolled beneath. A canopy of soft pink petals dusted his head. They hung from a wrought iron trellis connected to the kitchen side of the house. Tor closed his eyes and drew in the scent. Sweet as Mel’s kisses.

  A duck’s quack startled him, and he stepped out from under the trellis and into the backyard. “Hey, Duck. What’s up?”

  He’d just said hello to a duck, and...had started a conversation. Without so much as a blink. Tor ran his fingers through his hair. That witch. Did he really want to forget she had been part of his life?

  Sitting on the edge of the concrete patio whe
re a patch of moss tried to climb over the stone and take over, he picked a long blade of grass and remembered how when he was a kid he’d used it to whistle. Placing his thumbs together with the grass between them, he managed a screeching yet wobbly whistle. Duck tossed him a wonky look (as wonky an expression as a duck could manage, anyway).

  “I’m much better at wolf howls,” he said to the fowl. “But I don’t want to call any werewolves to the neighborhood.”

  “Why not?” asked a male voice from under the floral canopy.

  Tor jumped to a stand, pulling out the pistol, and aimed it at the smirking werewolf.

  Chapter 21

  Mel combined the vervain and black salt and the whiskers from a hairless cat. Crushed rose petals soaked in rosemary oil topped the concoction. She whispered the words that would imbue the potion with a spell that would take away memory of which all things a human should not be aware.

  It was the worst spell she’d ever concocted. But it had to be done. If Tor intended to walk away from this life, from this world she had always occupied and would continue to live in, then he couldn’t know about her. It would be too painful for her if he ever returned and she knew he didn’t want to have a relationship with her because of what she was.

  Half an hour later, the memory spell settled in the thin glass vial before Mel’s disappointed gaze. She was upset because it was complete, and it had proven to serve her what she’d needed: a sacrifice. By concocting the spell with the intent of giving it to Tor so he could take it—to forget about her—she had given the dark forces of magic what they desired most.

  And she knew that because the dead ivy currently climbing along the inside of the spell-room window turned greener and more vital with every second. She’d performed a dark magic spell to bring something back to life. And it had worked. Too well. Next, she’d recloak the heart for even more practice.

  Which meant tonight she should have control over the dark magic she needed.

  But at what cost?

  “Him,” she whispered, then tucked the vial into her skirt pocket.

  * * *

  “This property is warded,” Tor announced. “How the hell?”

  The wolf crossed his arms and leaned against the trellis support beam. He was as tall as Tor, yet a wrestler’s build beefed up his torso and widened his shoulders beneath a loose T-shirt. Dark brown hair clung close to his scalp, and a nick in his left eyebrow suggested an injury that he might be more proud of than upset about. Wolves rarely scarred, so this had to have been serious. On his neck, a tattoo of two small red spots resembled bite marks and—maybe they were actual bite marks. Because Tor had never met a werewolf who wasted time on tattoos. It wasn’t like the ink stayed put on a shapeshifter’s skin. Get a tat of Mom in the center of a heart? A couple shifts later, friends would question who “Norm” was.

  His finger not moving from the trigger, Tor asked, “Who are you?”

  The wolf thrust up a placating palm. Tor didn’t sense aggression from him, but he wasn’t going to let down his guard.

  “Name’s Christian Hart,” he offered. “I was in the neighborhood and got some squicky feelings coming from this house. I like to keep an eye on the old neighborhood. Keep things calm. But I see you’re on the job, eh?” One of his nostrils flared as he breathed in the air. “You’re just human though.”

  “And who is Christian Hart?” Tor asked.

  “Just a regular guy.”

  “A werewolf who likes to get bitten by a vampire,” Tor guessed, and lowered the pistol, but he wasn’t going to tuck it away.

  “You think you’re so smart?”

  “I am. Those are bite marks on your neck.”

  The wolf shrugged. “Maybe so. My girl’s a vamp. No way around it. But you’re avoiding the obvious. What’s going on here?” He shook out his arms like a prizefighter readying for a fight. “I can feel death creeping up my spine. Feels like I’ve got it watching me from every which way.”

  “Got it under control,” Tor said. “The hounds can cease and vacate the property.”

  Hart lunged and gripped Tor by the tie, snarling to reveal his thick canines.

  “Settle,” Tor said. He slid the barrel of the pistol aside the wolf’s hip. “The heart is making you wild. My suggestion is you leave the area, and quick, wolf.”

  “The heart?” His eyes searched Tor’s, but he didn’t release him. And Tor felt his growing anger. He could smell it. He shouldn’t have used the hound reference. Werewolves were so sensitive about being called dogs. “What is the heart?”

  “It’s a...witch thing.”

  Hart released him and stepped back. His gaze quickly took in the garden and then the back of the house. Like an animal, he saw it all and probably smelled it all, too. “This is a witch’s place?”

  Tor nodded.

  “I don’t like witches.” The wolf mock shivered. “They are a nasty bunch.”

  “Then you should leave. And I won’t have to see how well salt rounds work on werewolves.” Tor waved the pistol warningly.

  “I could take you out with one swipe, human.”

  “Yes, you probably can. But you won’t, because the aggression you’re feeling now? It’s not you. It’s a crazy dried chunk of muscle that once belonged to an ancient witch that’s attracting all the dead things to this yard, and—I’m not sure why it attracted you, but like I said, if you leave you’ll feel much better. So why don’t you slowly back away and get the hell out.”

  The wolf looked over Tor’s shoulder and narrowed his eyes. Tor saw his biceps tighten and his jaw pulse. Just as he sensed he would leap, Tor lifted the pistol. Hart soared toward Tor, but his aim was high and he cleared Tor’s head and landed on the vampire who had stalked up behind him.

  * * *

  The wolf scuffled with the vampire, snarling and growling too loudly for Tor’s peace of mind. This was a populated neighborhood—though Mel’s shrubbery was higher than his head. It had gotten darker, and now the rain threatened to become a downpour. He needed to make whatever this was end. Right now.

  Tor pulled out the stake and stalked around the two battling creatures. Apparently, the wolf was on his side. Maybe? He could have let the vamp attack him from behind, so Tor gave him the benefit of the doubt.

  Surprisingly, the vampire managed to fling the wolf off his shoulders and toss him into a nearby shrub pruned in the shape of a cat.

  Yes, a cat. Oh, the irony.

  But Tor didn’t take any more time to snicker over it. Plunging the stake against the vampire’s chest, he compressed the paddles, and the titanium stake entered the asshole’s heart. Ash formed about the stake’s entry point, but the rest of the body merely shivered, convulsing.

  “A bloody revenant,” Hart said from the ground. He was tangled in the cat’s shrubbery tail. “What the hell? How do you kill one of those things?”

  “Keep an eye on it!” Tor called as he swung out of the backyard and around the side of the house. Should have grabbed the machete after all. He secured the weapon from the back of the van and sped around to the site where the vampire lay convulsing. The werewolf stood over him, growling.

  With one swipe of his arm, Tor brought the machete down. The vamp’s head severed from its body. The whole thing finally ashed into a pile of steaming gray flakes. Rain pattered the pile, sluicing it into a sludgy mess on the grass.

  “How do you know that one was revenant?” Tor asked.

  “Because I can smell its stench.” Hart tapped his nose. “Superpowers, don’t you know?”

  “You know a lot for a wolf.”

  “Yeah, but what I don’t know is, Why was it here? What did you do to attract that thing? Was it that heart you were telling me about?”

  “Dead things are attracted to what the witch inside is using for a spell.”

  “Yeah? Well, I’d like to lodge a protest agai
nst dark magic in this neighborhood.”

  “Good luck with that. Thanks for having my back. Literally.”

  “No problem. And you are?”

  “Torsten Rindle.” He made to offer his hand, but the wolf flinched as he raised the machete, so he transferred it to the other hand and then made the offer. The wolf had a good, steady clasp.

  “I’ve heard of you,” Hart said. “And it wasn’t good. You caged a friend of my girl’s a few years back. Domingos LaRoque. Vampire.”

  “I remember him. Poor guy. But I didn’t cage him.” That vampire had been tortured by werewolves and now had an extreme aversion to sunlight. Not necessarily a bad thing for vamps. But, as well, he was not always there in the head. Crazy was putting his condition gently. “I helped him after his escape from the pack who had tortured him.”

  And that was all he’d say about that. Client confidentiality was key.

  “I should get going,” Hart said. He tossed his head sharply, flicking the rain from his face. “You’re right. The vibes coming from this house are beyond wicked. But how long will it last?”

  Tor tilted the dull side of the blade against his shoulder. “Should be over by morning. Full moon tonight—” He glanced skyward. Rain spattered his cheeks. Clouds covered the moon, which would later be shadowed by the earth. “But then, you know that. Which begs the question—what are you doing in the city?”

  “I’m headed out to our château later,” Hart said. “But I’m sticking around town as long as my growly side will allow it. My girl’s due to give birth any day now and has been staying with a healer in the area who’s keeping a close eye on her. I want to stay close, as well.”

  “Congratulations.” Tor could hide his wince like a pro. A child born of a vampire and werewolf? Yikes.

  A scream from inside the house alerted them both. Tor ran onto the patio and opened the glass door. Behind him, the werewolf followed close on his heels. “I got this,” Tor called as he raced through the living area.