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“I’m sorry, Vika. There’s nothing I can do to change what happened. And I can’t claim no fault because it was me doing the bad stuff, despite my body not being completely my own during that awful moment.”
“Yes, but it wasn’t your fault. It was the menace demon who made you do it.”
“It was, but that you believe me means—wow. Thank you. Just, thank you. That means a lot.”
“I’ve had a few hours to think it over while I was waiting for the car to be repaired.”
“You got it in already?”
“Yes, well, a little persuasive magic never hurts, does it?” She winked and then touched her lips, as if rethinking that impulsive act. “I stopped by because I needed to know you’re not hurt. How are you?”
“Shaken and stirred, but all in one piece.”
“Same with me. I think we both need to get some rest. Can you … sleep? If a cloudy day brings up your demons, I can’t imagine what night does to you.”
“I’ve trained myself to sleep with all the lights on. Not the most relaxing, and I’m lucky if I doze for three or four hours a night. Noctambulatory, remember? Spend a lot of time bent over my workshop table, crafting spells that never work. Lately, I can’t manage more than allotriophagy or scrying. Don’t give me that look. You know someone has to practice dark magic to balance the light. I bet I seem a real basket case to you.”
“You do.”
He rubbed a palm down his chest. “Demonic possession tends to leave me a bit worse for wear. But I clean up nicely. Will you come in and let me make you something to eat? I can do amazing things with fresh veggies. I promise you will be impressed.”
“No, I—”
“Right. It’s not safe with me,” he added, stepping back from her defensive posture. “Probably it would be better if you drove to your little round, white home and put your spice rack in order.”
“It is in order. Alphabetized, too.”
“Naturally. Have you eaten?”
“No.” She sighed. Resisting the offer, surely. Scanning the tiled walls and ceiling, she avoided eye contact with him. He knew his eyes went red when a demon was in control, and he hated she’d seen him like that. “The lights are very bright out here,” she offered.
“I’ve replaced them all with the highest wattage possible. The residents bitch about it, but I’ve put a shock spell on the fixtures so if they try to change them—zap!”
“That’s cruel.”
“It’s called survival.” He clutched the doorknob. “Give me a few minutes to try to win back your trust after our harrowing experience this afternoon? Dinner and then a sip of chartreuse?”
“I am a bit peckish. And I prefer crème de violette. But I won’t stay long. You feed me, then I’m out of here.”
“Excellent. I happen to have crème de violette. I should warn you before going inside. There’s no real way to prepare a person. What I’ve acquired since returning to this realm, what I surround myself with, is a means to survival.”
She gave him a hopeful gaze, and his heart thudded hard. Those huge emerald eyes. He wanted to kiss them and savor them. Apologize to them and be worthy of their admiration.
“So try me,” she said.
“All right. But take it all in before you say anything. Promise?”
She nodded, and when he opened the door, the red witch stepped over the threshold and gasped, clutching her throat, as her eyes veered skyward.
Chapter 5
Head tilted back, Vika wandered into the huge loft apartment that mastered the sixth floor. Marveling, she took in all the busy wonders suspended above her.
“Prismatic light,” she whispered, her footsteps moving her slowly forward across the hardwood floor.
Everywhere hung chandeliers. Clear crystal chandeliers, colored and black crystals, all strung, attached and hanging upon silver, brass and black iron and steel fixtures. The entire rainbow dazzled. And bewildered. There were massive structures stretching over six, seven, even eight feet across, and smaller ones hung as if fruits laden heavily within an orchard.
Overwhelmed by it all, she clutched her arms about her and looked to CJ, who still stood in the doorway, ankles casually crossed and thumbs hooked in his jeans pockets.
“My home,” he offered.
“There are so many.” She spread her arms as if to take them all in, but it was impossible. “And all of them on all the time?”
“Yes, I never turn them off. Have a backup generator up on the roof in case the power goes out. It’s disconcerting at first.”
“I’ll say.”
She moved down the aisle toward the kitchen. The loft was spread across an open floor plan. To her left, a huge four-poster bed mastered what must be the bedroom, with a Chinese screen offering little privacy, save perhaps to stand behind to dress. The kitchen sat plopped in the center of the vast hardwood-floored area, the chandeliers above it all clear and casting a rainbow upon the counters and fixtures. Way over to the right a comfy gray couch and a few easy chairs gathered about a massive granite coffee table.
Behind her and around a long counter forming a half wall along one side of the entry looked like where CJ might do his spellwork. A scatter of magical accoutrements sat beneath crystal clouds of dazzling light.
Stumbling, she stepped aside a heap of jeans mounded on the floor and noticed other things lying about. An empty box here, a pair of boots over there. A tangled electrical cord and various screws and bolts, perhaps from the installation of a chandelier. Sigils had been drawn with what looked like white spray paint here and there on the hardwood, and she noticed some on the brick walls, as well, but had no clue how to decipher their meanings.
The place was a mess below, but above? Some kind of crystal heaven. And she didn’t subscribe to the idea of a physical heaven.
“You take a look around,” he said. “I’m going to start something for supper, as promised. You like the tiny tomatoes?”
“Love them.”
“Caprese salad, it is. I’ve fresh mozzarella and capers and a delicious red wine vinaigrette from a local artisan who lives just down the street.”
Reaching up, Vika touched a particularly low crystal hanging in the center of a chandelier that spanned five feet in diameter. Tucked among the behemoths were smaller, more personal light fixtures one might see above a dining room table. There must be hundreds.
She walked down the aisle along a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows where old wooden shelves harbored dusty vials and pots and vases of herbs and potions. A gorgeous ruby crystal chandelier captured her attention, and she stopped below it and caught the red reflections dancing on her palm.
The overall result of chandeliers filling every space in the air above her was both gorgeous and terrible. It was as if Versailles had been slapped together with a cheesy Las Vegas casino. Kitschy. Disturbing. Strangely sexy—like the man himself.
She hadn’t seen anything lovelier. And at the same time, never had she seen something so monstrous. These light fixtures had been hung in an attempt to fend off the demons infesting CJ’s soul. And the man slept with them on all night?
“I would go mad,” she whispered.
More so, if she lived in this place, the disorder would send her to madness faster than the cacophony of light. The urge to tug on some rubber gloves and mix up an herbal cleaning solution tweaked at her sense of order as she ran her fingers over the light coating of dust on the well-pocked butcher-block worktable.
Behind a curtain of crystals strung on thin wire that served as a sort of veil instead of cupboard doors, sitting on the shelves were dusty bottles of vampire ash, faery ichor, angel dust and bat brains. Standard spell ingredients. And then the less standard, such as a newborn’s cry, demon scales and the air from a corpse’s hollow skull.
Distracted by an open grimoire, she checked over her shoulder to ensure CJ was still in the kitchen. Flipping back to look at the cover, she saw his book of shadows featured the three faces of Hecate: snake, dog and horse.
“Without death there can be no new life,” Vika whispered, recalling Hecate’s teachings.
Leaning over the red leather-bound book, she inspected the page that put out the slightest odor of chicory when touched. The spell name, In Which the Dark Is Stopped, was scrawled in tiny ink marks.
Most grimoires promised the impossible. Only a truly powerful witch could achieve something so grand. He’d said he had mastered many magics, yet was weak. Perhaps CJ would be powerful had he not a soul weighed down with so many hitchhikers.
She perused the required ingredients. A few common herbs, and some less common: rat’s spine and troll blood. The process was something else entirely. It required the name of an angel who had extinguished heaven’s light. Angel names were not easy to come by.
“Impractical, yes?”
Jarred from her intent study, Vika spun around and squeaked out a distressed cry.
“Sorry.” He stood before her, a kitchen butcher knife in hand. “Just checking you didn’t fall under the spell of bedazzlement some do when they stroll under the lights.”
“They certainly do have the power to dazzle.” She pressed her fingers on the top of the blade he held and directed it downward to his side. “Be careful. If you want my help, you’ll need to keep me intact.”
“You’ll help? I thought I’d frightened you away for sure. Or that Menace had.”
“I’m much tougher than you believe. Most certainly wary, but also fascinated for reasons beyond my ken. I trust you are different from the demon who has shown itself to me.”
“Thank you for that trust.”
“You have earned my cautionary trust.”
“I’ll accept that.” He nodded toward the grimoire. “You think you can work the spell?”
“I don’t know. It is impractical. To erase darkness from the world for twenty-four hours?”
“True. And what good would it do me to gain but twenty-four hours? I want these bastards out, not merely pacified.” He pointed to his chest with the knife, which made Vika cringe. “It was just a consideration. I’ve many more grimoires to go through, but not a lot of time in which to browse them.”
“Your job at the archives keeps you busy?”
“That, and trying to stay in the light and alive.”
Such a simple goal—to stay alive. One she took for granted daily. Surely, a grander challenge than merely protecting one’s soul from an angry soul bringer.
Pleased she’d decided to stop by and had gotten a glimpse into this fascinating man’s life, she took the knife from him and walked toward the kitchen. “Do you need help? Oh.”
A bowl of salad waited and two plates had been set out on the round, glass-topped table. A sexy purple bottle of crème de violette sat in an ice bucket. It was a quaint, romantic scene, one that stirred her heartbeat faster. Totally unexpected, and yet it prompted her wariness about the man’s intentions.
But overall? Nice.
Certainly reached around and grabbed the knife from her grasp. “Dinner is served, mademoiselle.”
It felt too easy. A little bit right. And not at all wrong standing next to Vika and washing dishes like an old married couple. Graceful in her movements, she did not set a plate aside for drying until it had been scrubbed sparkling. She was easy to talk to now they’d gotten past her mistrust of him. Not completely, though. CJ knew she wasn’t going to let down her guard around him, and he expected as much.
When they’d finished, she washed out the sink and dried that, too. Was he supposed to do that after dishes? Whoda thought?
Vika folded the drying towel and placed it neatly on the counter, then straightened the chairs before the table and blew out the beeswax candle, squeezing the homemade wick to a fine point. When she blew, her lips pursed and CJ had to lick his lips at the sight. So kissable.
“Have you a broom?”
“Huh?” Snapping up from his stupid stare, CJ twisted his thoughts around her strange question. If he let her go much longer, she might start picking up the clothes on the floor, and he did own a vacuum somewhere in this mess.
Vacillating on the pros and cons of letting the witch go to town on his disaster of a life, Certainly decided he couldn’t let it continue. Not on the first date. That was for making a good impression, not tricking the woman into manual labor. And yes, he was calling this a date for his own personal fulfillment.
He didn’t do dates. One-night stands, casual encounters leading to sex and no returned phone calls, were his standard. Busy with work, always, and never inspired to seek consistent companionship, Certainly had lived up to his best friend Lucian’s nickname for him, Brother. It implied a monkish lifestyle, and CJ could not deny it.
Though he did desire. And since returning from Daemonia, his aspirations and life outlook had changed. He wanted—no, craved—closeness with a woman. And standing not ten feet from Vika, having watched her smile and chatter about the spells she and her sister were practicing over supper, and now feeling her wonder as she inspected the chandeliers, he felt the desire rise and the need to explore the tender and wanting emotions he’d ignored over the years.
“No broom, and I insist you stop trying to clean the place. Let’s have an after-dinner drink.”
He poured a small narrow glass of the crème de violette for her. It smelled of violets, but he preferred the spicy chartreuse, which he poured for himself. They clinked glasses, and Vika sipped hers, while he swallowed his measure in one tilt.
“Isn’t chartreuse made by monks?” she wondered. “And so many herbs in it. I think the taste would get lost.”
Pouring another draft, he offered her his glass. “Smell.” She leaned in, closing her eyes, and drew in the aroma. It took all his control not to reach for her porcelain cheek and brush a finger along it. Not yet. “Each time, you smell something different, taste the tarragon, and then the anise, or even the mountain lavender.”
“I’ll stick with my sweet liqueur,” she said, curling her wrist toward her as she sipped the violet concoction. “I like things sweet. Now, you are a little bit sweet yourself.”
“Me? Sweet?”
“You’ve a decidedly cedar scent that rises above a mix of many other herbs. I like it.”
“Must be from the herbs I use for spellcraft. I don’t pay much attention.”
“It must be difficult for you, if you’re such a powerful witch, to have that power depleted by the demons.”
“It is, but they cannot deplete the greatest of my powers.”
“Which is?”
“Well, it’s been said a witch’s greatest power is not theirs to wield. Rather, it exists in the minds of others.”
“Oh, yes. What someone believes you are capable of may be the power that holds them back, whether or not you possess such power. It is the power of the mind.”
“Belief,” Certainly chimed.
“I agree with that.” She smiled freely, tipping her glass to his in a bright ting.
Paused in the center of the kitchen looking about—for more cleaning work, he presumed—Vika set her glass aside as he reached her. He moved in for a kiss. It was quick and a little off her mouth. A hint of violet liqueur hushed out at her startled gasp. He’d screwed it up, and he pulled back with a wince.
Mouth open, she gave him a stunned once-over. “What was that?”
“It was an awful, botched attempt. A horrible kiss, as far as kisses go. Sorry.”
“Never apologize for a kiss.” She clutched the front of his shirt, pulling him down to her mouth, and kissed him.
More intrigued than startled—although he was still kicking himself for such awkward first contact—Certainly stepped in closer and slipped an arm around behind her slender back. All he’d needed was a test kiss and an acceptance from her. He relaxed now, and Vika’s mouth melded against his. Of course, he should expect nothing less than perfect from her. Perfect looks, perfect life, perfect kiss. And suddenly he wanted to mar that perfection, to imprint it with his own rough and messy darkness.
Hand gliding up against the back of her head, his fingers diving into the soft garnet braid, he deepened the violet and chartreuse kiss, clutching her tighter and teasing her to answer his force if she dared. She didn’t balk. The witch wrapped her sorcery about his intentions and pulled tight, taming his sudden wildness until he moaned into her mouth. Her hair, silken and slick under his exploring fingers, pulled free from the updo and tumbled over his face and neck. It spilled endless streams over him, ensnaring, capturing, tying him up in her delicious net.
