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“And they’ve come directly from Dae—er, the place of all demons, instead of being summoned here through a conjuring, so I suspect that makes them stronger, as well. A witch can only control a demon they have conjured personally.”
“Exactly. Yet they can’t access my magic, which is a good thing. Just wish I had more control over it.”
“There must be something. Some spell?”
“I haven’t had a lot of free time to research in the Council archives, though I wonder if the answer isn’t there.”
Vika stopped before him, crossing her arms over her chest. The position emphasized her small breasts and revealed the hard peaks of her nipples beneath the thin fabric. Sexy, yet controlled, and perhaps a little curious. CJ entertained mussing her up. She would be a challenge he wasn’t prepared to take on because his record with women—well, he hadn’t established much of a record over the decades.
You need to change that, buddy. But probably not with a witch who called him a derelict and couldn’t even utter the name of Daemonia. Much too uptight for him, though he’d seen glimpses of the sensuality she probably tried very hard to keep under control.
On the other hand, he needed intimacy, plain and simple. Dare he imagine he could find it with this beautiful creature?
“You’re staring at my breasts,” she said drolly. A shadow passed over her face as the sky darkened.
“I am.” He spread his hands before him. “They’re nice and neat. Just like you.”
“That’s the strangest thing a man has ever said about my breasts.”
“You prefer suckable? Lickable?” Her eyebrow lifted. “Sorry, that was vulgar. I’m not up to speed with accepted comments on a woman’s anatomy. But isn’t that what most men think? Hell, it’s what I’m thinking, but I thought we were still on polite terms.”
“I think you’ve moved on to lewd and tasteless.”
“Woman, get off your broom.”
“Seriously? Did you just say that?”
Before he could retract the callous comment, she marched to the driver’s door and opened it. “We’re finished here, Monsieur Jones. Do not return to my home, because I warn you, it will be warded against asshole witches from this day forth.”
And she drove off, leaving Certainly shaking his head and laughing. Yet deep inside, he felt the gang of demons curl their fists and shout triumphantly.
Once the hearse reached the end of the alleyway, Vika stepped on the brake and slammed a fist against the steering wheel. “I will not let that arrogant man get to me. He doesn’t know a thing about me.”
So why did she feel as though the dark witch had peeled away a layer from her, and what he’d exposed beneath was still as pin-neat as the top layer? Uptight? She was not. And she was hardly a prude. Men had spoken much more vulgar things to her, and often she warmed to the dirty talk. Let it not be said she didn’t enjoy a lusty make-out session with a sexy man.
But she was not aroused or interested in Certainly Jones. Because he was wrong. Tainted by devious demons.
“Someone has to keep a tight grasp on sanity around here.”
She checked the rearview mirror. The dark witch stood at the end of the alley, hands in his jeans pockets, looking her way. She couldn’t see the expression on his face. Was he waiting to see if she would back up? Or was he laughing that he’d sent her running with her tail between her legs?
Maybe it was the demons? Had it been a demon spouting crude comments about her breasts back there?
“He said he was fine in the light.” Most light, anyway. Prismatic light protected him best? “Interesting.”
Everything about the man tweaked at her curiosity. He was scruffy and pale, while she preferred her men neat and sun-kissed. When she looked in his eyes, she couldn’t see beyond the flat jade there. Most men’s eyes gleamed and gave away their thoughts before they had them. And his unabashed willingness to say what he thought offended her, but only because she was taking offense.
If she did not take offense, then he had no power over her.
Vika shifted into Reverse but didn’t take her foot off the brake.
Certainly Jones. What a name. Must be English. He did have the slightest hint of a British accent. Accents did appeal to her carnal passions, as they did Libby. Yet she was calm and cool when around an attractive man. A wise woman never let loose and gave away too much too soon.
She didn’t need him to find the missing soul. She could attract a wayward soul on her own, thank you very much. Not that she’d been successful at it thus far.
He’d turned, and the silhouette of him, head bowed and arms slack at his sides, looked pitiful. A lost boy trying to fight off the real demons in his life. The Catholic Church couldn’t help him? She was surprised he’d set foot on holy ground. She didn’t know for sure, but she guessed he must have worked extremely foul magic to have been able to set foot in Daemonia.
“He deserves whatever he’s gotten,” she whispered.
And yet, he’d pleaded for her to help him. He was desperate. The man couldn’t go into darkness for fear of a demon taking over his body.
“There must be some spell,” she mused. “And if there is, I want to find it.” She eyed him in the rearview mirror. “You ready for me, CJ? Because I always accomplish what I set out to clean—I mean, help.”
Uh-huh. She’d meant clean.
Vika took her foot off the brake and backed down the alleyway. Shadows glanced off the white hood of the car sandwiched between three-story buildings. When the hearse sidled alongside the man, she rolled down the passenger window.
“Get in. I have a lot of work to do, and the day isn’t getting any lighter.”
He slid inside but didn’t offer a gregarious I’ve won smile, as she had expected. Instead, he winced. In fact, he struggled to keep his jaw from opening, or maybe he was fighting a shout. And when he turned a frown on her, his face looked different. Not so slender.
And his eyes glowed red.
Vika heard the lightning crackle the air before darkness swept the sky.
CJ grabbed the steering wheel and slid his boot over on top of her foot. “Let’s go for a ride, sweetie.”
Chapter 4
Vika struggled to control the hearse as it careened down the street and toward the main avenue, where there would be hundreds of tourists in danger should CJ manage to steer against her—so far—firm grip. His foot pressed over hers on the accelerator, and though they were going only about twenty kilometers an hour, it was too fast for the looming touristy area.
And it wasn’t CJ. Some kind of demon controlled him. Didn’t matter. She had to fight them both to maintain control.
The demon hissed and slid closer, cramming her body against the car door as it tried to take over the seat. It gripped the steering wheel and wrenched the car sharply to the right. Vika kept her eyes on the road, and both hands were still on the wheel. So far, they’d hit nothing.
A hot tongue licked up the side of her face, and CJ chuckled in a breathy, evil rumble. “Strong witch. But driving down the middle is not fun at all. Obstacles must be crushed!”
CJ jerked the steering wheel to the left. With her vision blocked because his body was in the way, Vika didn’t see the parked car. The hearse’s bumper scraped along the side of the vehicle, the noise crunching and loud. She elbowed CJ in the gut, connecting with hard muscle, and he flinched. His foot left hers, but his hand remained on the wheel.
If she could find a well-lit area, the demon may flee. It was day. Though the sky had suddenly darkened, there was no rain, and no streetlights had flickered on yet. Ahead lay the main avenue and, beyond, the River Seine.
Attempting to brake was impossible because the demon-possessed witch tugged her out of the seat and, switching places with her, shoved her onto the passenger side. Now she lost track of where they were headed. In a last effort, Vika scrambled upright, grabbed hold of the shift and shoved it into Park.
The hearse squealed and spun, the engine making an awful hissing noise. The back of the vehicle swung around. A car horn honked. Vika braced for impact against the chest of the man, who hooted and beat the ceiling of the car with a triumphant fist.
The hearse stopped with a dull, crushing metal noise. Stretched across the front seat, Vika landed flat upon CJ’s chest. She winced, anticipating a crash from another car. What a horrible way to die, sprawled across a man she barely knew and trusted not at all.
When the impact didn’t come, she immediately opened the glove compartment and took out the flashlight. Clicking it on, she shone the bright light at the dark witch’s eyes. “Get out, you bastard!”
Crawling backward and kneeling, yet keeping the light aimed on the witch, she shoved at his knee as he struggled to untangle himself from under her. When he was free and gave a hefty exhale, she did not relent with the light.
CJ put up a palm to block the light. “It’s okay now. It’s gone. I’m me again, thanks to your quick thinking with the light.”
“Yeah? Well, get out! Right now, dark one. I don’t need your kind of trouble. We could have harmed innocents!”
“Vika, I’m sorry, I had no control—”
“Damn you!” She slapped his shoulder with the flashlight. “My car is probably totaled. Get out!”
“Okay!” CJ opened the car door, which slammed against the concrete barrier fronting the river. He had to ease his way out through the narrow space.
Around them, a crowd had started to gather to assess the situation. Smoke hissed from the hood of the hearse.
“It was the menace demon,” CJ said, bending to offer the weak explanation. At his temple a streak of blood glistened. “The shadows in the alley were enough to give it control. Vika, please, let me help you with this. Can you start the car? Let me drive it off the street and deal with the authorities.”
“I said to get away from me,” she said firmly, directing the light at his eyes again for the annoyance factor. “I don’t want your kind of mess in my life. Please, walk away. I can handle this myself.”
He put up his hands and stepped back. A bystander approached him and asked if he was hurt.
Vika settled in the passenger’s seat and blew out a breath, anticipating dealing with the concerned mortals outside. She could hardly tell them a demon had been in control of the car.
“Goddess, I hope it’s drivable. I do not need a repair bill right now.”
Opening the door, she nodded she was fine, but when the ambulance arrived on the scene, she realized it would be better to submit to their triage than try to walk away, as Certainly had.
He was out of her life. And life would be better off without his danger.
So why, then, did she search the crowd in hopes of spying his dark tangle of hair and regretful eyes?
Ian Grim looked up from the crushed raven bone he was preparing to burn along with rowan bark and amber in the mortar. Perched over his spell table all afternoon, daylight had slipped away from him. His lover for centuries, Dasha, was away to Venice photographing a piece for a Gothic magazine. When the cat was away, the mouse did like to play.
Candlelight flickered, yet he had to blink a few times to adjust his focus on the tracking spell set before the windowsill.
It was moving.
“Finally.”
Dropping the steel pestle in the mortar, Grim rushed to the windowsill and leaned over the brass pendulum. It was suspended from a fine chain above a map of Paris. Paris being the most likely place to find Certainly Jones. It was his home, after all, and a man rarely strayed far from home. But since Grim had become aware of Jones’s return from Daemonia six months earlier, he’d been off the grid. The dark witch had warded himself into a literal black hole. And only Jones was capable of concealing himself with such powerful magic.
Grim had been patient. This vita spell utilized a strand of hair he’d gotten off Jones and had been saving for decades. It sniffed out Jones’s DNA.
“So you’ve been injured,” he muttered, studying the map below the pendulum. It pointed to a spot along the Seine and didn’t move from there. “Just a drop then. Not trailing blood in your wake.”
Unfortunate, because it would not ultimately lead him to Jones, unless of course, he’d been injured where he lived. He doubted the witch would allow that to happen. But having his blood would make it easier to break through the wards, perhaps even conjure a battering spell. No matter, with the witch’s blood he could concoct a successful tracking spell.
“I will find you, Jones. And then whatever you took from Daemonia—” and he had his suspicions “—will be mine.”
Vika had the hearse towed to a local car repair shop. Other than the broken headlight and a wicked scrape in the metal down the passenger’s side, everything was in working order. The brake pads needed changing soon, the repairman suggested, but could probably go another few months if she needed to save for such an expense.
Vika thanked him and drove away. The sun cast a thin pink ribbon along the horizon as it dipped below the dark silhouette of a city park. While waiting for the repair work to be done, she’d sat in a café across the street, nursing a pumpkin mocha latte. She was hungry now but felt antsy. Heading home to make dinner was not tops on her list. She wasn’t ready to explain her harrowing experience to Libby and get the big sad eyes from her or the admonishment for hanging out with such a dangerous man.
CJ wasn’t dangerous; it was the demons infesting his soul who harbored the danger.
“Infested,” she muttered.
It sounded wicked and not at all appealing. And yet, he could not control the demons. And she couldn’t get the sight of his sad jade eyes out of her thoughts.
The man could be a perfectly nice, kind soul if she’d give him opportunity to prove that. Not to mention his compelling sensuality. When he’d been in her spell room, he’d seemed so grounded, comfortable in his skin. She’d been attracted to his power, against her better judgment.
“What are you doing?” she whispered. “Don’t try to talk yourself into liking the guy. Just move on.”
Right. She could find the missing soul by herself. Didn’t need a witch who knew every magic in the book to help her. Much as she’d like to delve into his magical knowledge, she knew that way lay disaster.
“So his intelligence appeals to you,” she reasoned out loud as she navigated the streets, taking a bridge across the river to the Left Bank. Not the side of the city she lived on. “Because it certainly isn’t his looks. Dark, wicked, evil-looking man.”
And yet his hair was so glossy it gleamed like hematite in the light, and despite that odd tattooed hand, his fingers were long, graceful and full of expression. A man’s hands told so much about the owner. And his eyes—goddess, but he was attractive in a sad, pleading way.
“I was hard on him after the crash. He could have been hurt. Oh, I wonder if he was?”
The emergency crew with the ambulance had told her she checked out, and then cautioned her to have someone stay with her tonight and keep an eye on her in case of a concussion. But what about Certainly?
“If he was hurt he could be lying on a street somewhere, bleeding out. If he lays there too long, it’ll grow dark and then—”
Her heart sped up at the thought of CJ’s demons rampaging the streets of Paris. It would be her fault, too, because she’d dismissed him so quickly and so angrily.
“I shouldn’t have taken my anger out on him. It wasn’t his fault.”
Stopping at a sign, Vika remembered he’d told her his address. It was a nice neighborhood in the fifth, and she wasn’t far from there. She turned the hearse toward his building.
“Just a quick check. I need to know he’s not dying.”
Then, she could put away her worry for Certainly Jones and be done with him.
Certainly trampled down the stairs from the building’s roof and into the brightly lit hallway before his flat to find Vika poised to knock on his front door. In a flash of red hair and heather skirts, the witch turned to him and offered what looked like a forced smile.
“This is an unexpected pleasure,” he offered. “Or is it?”
“I couldn’t rest without checking to see if you were all right.”
“Thoughtful of you.” Yet he was leery. She’d raged at him after the crash. As she’d had every right. The trouble he could give her was not something he wanted to unleash on her quiet, perfect life. “I’m good. Not even a scrape.”
“Then you haven’t looked in a mirror. There’s blood on your forehead.”
He touched his forehead, feeling the crusty trail of blood and examining the crimson flakes on his fingertips. Damn. He’d been cut? He hadn’t felt it or realized it until now because he’d gone straight up to the roof. Had he bled at the accident sight? Not good. Extremely not good if he’d left behind even a single drop of blood.
“Are you all right?”
He nodded absently, not wishing to let on to his alarm. This was something in which he must never involve Vika. It was too dark for her brightness. Thanks to the menace demon, he’d already rubbed a black mar along her life.
