“It’s gone,” Emric said. “I destroyed it.”
“No,” said Maisy, or whatever she was. The protection spell Emric cast seemed to disappear, and she easily walked into the house. “You wouldn’t do such a thing.”
“I can, and I did,” Emric said. Damn it, why didn’t he know more about demons and how to fight with them?
Because you don’t deal with dark magic, and those practitioners don’t seek you out.
He was an idiot. A naïve idiot.
Maisy strode for the stairs and Emric lunged for her. She easily pushed him off with a strength he hadn’t guessed she possessed and kept ascending them, Emric at her heels. “Grace!” he said. “Lock the door!”
It wouldn’t deter Maisy for long, but there was a window in the bathroom that Grace could use to escape by crawling down the trellis that hugged the house. As if on cue, he heard the lock click and the window scrape open.
The air upstairs seemed to have changed, become almost thicker. Emric didn’t know if it was because of the grimoire’s destruction or the presence of Maisy herself.
He concentrated as best he could, gathering the weird energy permeating the house, and directed it into a spell. He aimed his wand at Maisy, now clawing at the locked bathroom door, and managed to send her sprawling bodily against the wall. She snarled and jumped to her feet, then launched her own spell. The bathroom door slammed open, revealing the open window. Cool autumn air filtered the stink of the destroyed grimoire’s ashes.
Maisy’s enraged howl nearly split Emric’s eardrums.
He ran down the stairs and through the open door. Just as he’d hoped, he saw Grace clinging to the trellis, carefully climbing down in bare feet. She turned around and saw him. “I did it,” she said. “Washed it away.”
“Thank you,” he said. He held out his arms. “Jump. I’ve got you.”
She looked a little hesitant, but let go of the trellis. Emric neatly caught her and held her closely to him, wrapping his arms around her as if he was afraid she would dissolve into thin air.
Maybe Maisy could make that happen. He didn’t know anymore.
Headlights in the driveway had him turning around, still holding Grace. Claudia James let herself out of the driver’s side of a minivan, along with a man and woman he didn’t recognize. Definitely spellcasters, based on the magic he could sense from them. He set down Grace but held on to her hand, and they quickly ran over to the car. “Oh, thank all the gods,” Emric said. “Maisy…”
“We’re pretty sure we know what Maisy is now,” Claudia said brusquely. Bright light exploded in one of the upstairs windows and Emric cringed. “Evan and Mandy are here to help, but we need you, too. We’re dealing with a witch who made a deal with a minor demon.”
Emric had been close in his assessment of Maisy. “I thought she was a demon.”
“She’s possessed by one,” the man named Evan said. “That’s what happens when you try to cheat the system that gave you power in the first place. Claudia says you don’t deal with possessions.”
“I sell potions and spells to good witches.”
“That’s all well and good, but you should probably bone up on your demonology. Stay behind us and follow our leads.”
Emric nodded. He kissed Grace. “Stay on the porch, okay?”
She nodded, face pale.
Maisy was back in the foyer when Emric and the others walked back in the house. Her face was a mask of frustration, her normally fine features exaggerated and grotesque. She snarled at the sight of Claudia.
Evan started chanting, while Claudia and Mandy directed all of their energy toward Maisy. Emric did the same, concentrating hard enough that beads of sweat popped up along his body.
Maisy’s face contorted, eyes bulging. The air around them grew thicker and dirty-tasting until it became hard to breathe, but Emric didn’t stop concentrating. Emric wasn’t sure how long it actually was—it felt like hours—but she finally collapsed to the floor, unconscious.
The heaviness in the air around them slowly dissipated, and all four of them lowered their wands. Evan checked her pulse. “She’s alive,” he said. “But she’ll be out for a while. And the demon’s gone.”
“She’s going to have to face the tribunal,” Claudia said. “Damn it, I hoped to have this weekend to myself and now I have to deal with this.” She looked like she wanted to kick Maisy for good measure.
Being an independent sorcerer, and one who dealt strictly with good magic, Emric never had to deal with the witches’ tribunal, nor any of the punishments they doled out. He was happy to keep it that way. “How did you know about Maisy being possessed?” he asked.
“She tried to steal an old grimoire of mine last night, too,” said Evan. “I picked up the demon vibes right away. Emric, you really need to bone up on demonology.”
“Maisy turned me into a cat a few weeks ago,” Emric said. “The curse was broken last night.”
“How did that happen?” Evan asked.
“I adopted him from the animal shelter,” Grace said, appearing in the doorway. She shivered in the cold, and Emric immediately wrapped his arms around her.
“You aren’t a witch,” Claudia said, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.
“It’s okay,” Emric said. “Grace isn’t going to say anything to anyone.”
Grace nodded in agreement.
“You’re sure about that?” Mandy said, speaking for the first time.
“Yes,” Emric and Grace said simultaneously. Emric was thinking about the tribunal, and how he’d get to stand before it should Grace ever say a word.
She wouldn’t. He trusted her that much.
Claudia didn’t look entirely convinced, but she shrugged anyway. “Okay,” she said. She looked down at the still-unconscious Maisy. “Well, we’ll take her off your hands.” She bent down and lifted Maisy’s shoulders, and Evan her feet, and started walking out of the house. “Emric, we’ll be in touch.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“My next wolfsbane and wormwood orders are going to be on the house, right?”
“Oh, hell,” Emric said. “You’ll get a fifty percent discount on everything for life.”
He watched as they shoved Maisy into the backseat of Claudia’s car, and closed the door behind them. He and Grace checked upstairs for damage, finding some scorch marks on the walls and a heavy stink that would take hours to air out. They returned to the kitchen.
“It’s over,” said Grace, and Emric’s heart sank. But she continued. “Maisy’s really gone, and we can finish our first date.”
She gave him a saucy wink, then picked up the plates to reheat them in the microwave.
Epilogue
Six months later
“They’re all so cute,” said Grace, a sigh in her voice.
This time, Emric held the carrier as they looked at the cats waiting for new homes at the Cedar Hills Animal Shelter. “None of them are magical,” Emric whispered in her ear.
“What about in the figurative sense?” Grace made a beeline for a cage holding a large black cat with a white tuxedo bib, not unlike Emric in his cat form. “I like this one.” A card clipped to the cage said his name was Wally, four years old and surrendered due to allergies.
“Another black cat?”
“They’re the least likely to be adopted. Hey,” she said, putting herself at eye level with Wally. He immediately nuzzled the cage bars, and she lifted her hand to pet him as best she could. Her engagement ring sparkled in the overhead fluorescent lights. “How’d you like to live in the country with us?”
Grace was happy to live with Emric, and now enjoyed a much larger home studio in his home than she’d had in her condo. For the first time in either of their lives, they were crazy, head-over-heels in love with someone, and their wedding was only two months away. Evan the demonologist was going to officiate. Who knew sorcerer demonologists could also be ordained officiants.
Wally meowed, then reached out a paw to touch Grace’s hand.
She stroked his toes, and looked up at Emric, a wide smile across her face. “This one,” Grace said. “This is the cat for us.”
“I invented that trick,” Emric said.
The End
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Her Purrfect Match (Romance on the Go Book 0) Page 5
