Bewitched, Blooded and Bewildered Read online

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I concentrated on putting up shields, mine and his. It wasn’t like I had anything else to do at the moment other than wave my flaming sword in a threatening manner and talk smack. Picturing the link between us like the glow of a fiber-optic cable, I drew on my magic. The energy around me flared and expanded to envelop Zach. It even pushed farther to surround Lex and protect him too, not that he needed it, safe on the sidelines. A growl of annoyance made me open my eyes, and Rousseau circled Zach, testing his new shields. Go me. But then a ball of fire appeared in Louis’s off-hand, and I knew those shields weren’t going to last long at all.

  Ideas? I asked.

  Working on it.

  Oh, that was helpful. Rousseau circled us, and Louis eyed Zach as though he could see the invisible barrier, and then the fireball shot toward him. I expected the fireball to bounce back at its caster—I’d seen it happen before—but instead the fire hit the barrier and hung there, the flames snapping and crackling as they flattened into a thin disk. Zach tugged at my magic to strengthen the shield. The flames spread, encompassing the shields in a thin layer, until it all exploded.

  The force of the blast sent me flying, knocked my top hat off and sent it sailing into the crowd. Thankfully my glasses didn’t go with it, and I could still see as I landed with a startled thud. Rousseau leapt forward and stabbed Zach low in the side. Zach dropped his sword with a howl of pain I echoed as agony seared through me. I wasn’t sure what internal organ I’d just ruptured, but I bet it was important.

  Louis lunged forward, but I managed to shove my shields up again before he could stab me. I glanced at Lex for moral support, and I noticed Faust next to him. Again I was reminded of Tybalt, specifically his reminder that thanks to my faerie heritage I had frost in my blood. With Portia’s help I’d been working on mastering that magic ever since, and I decided that I’d had enough of this fire nonsense. Cold settled into my chest, and I exhaled a cloud of frost. I love faerie magic, because I don’t have to spout tree-hugging Seussian poetry in order to make it work like witch magic. I wrapped myself in power and thrust it outward. Zach jerked, and frost traveled through his body and up Rousseau’s blade. When it touched Rousseau’s skin he jerked the sword free and dropped it, shaking his hand with a hiss of pain. Zach tackled him, and it was teeth-and-claws time. Each bite, each scratch, tore into my skin, and I snarled like a wounded animal.

  Latching on to that pain, I lurched to my feet and went on the offensive. Like I said, Lex and I had been working on my combat skills, and I wasn’t half bad. The flames on my rapier flashed from orange to blue, and an icy chill shot through me. Louis’s eyes widened as I moved in a blur and stabbed the man in his gut.

  A hush fell over the room as Rousseau fell, a wound blooming red against his white shirt to mirror his minion’s. Zach took the opportunity to slash his claws across Rousseau’s throat, and our opponents crumpled. I expected Zach to walk away, but first he picked up his sword. Weapon in hand, he plunged the blade into Rousseau’s chest. Again Zach pulled at my magic, and spikes of ice shot out from the blade, destroying Sir Rousseau’s heart.

  Squaring his shoulders, Zach turned and stared at Councilman Vargas. The room was silent, eerily so, without even the brush of fabric or whisper of breath. Vampires are terrified of dying, because terrible things happen to their souls when they do. Maybe they’d been assuming Zach would show mercy. If so, they didn’t know him very well.

  Vargas nodded, his expression placid. “Councilman Harrison has defended his seat upon the council. Are there any others who wish to issue a challenge?”

  “I do.”

  My heart sank, and I searched the crowd for the speaker. I spotted a big, burly, gray-haired man who looked a lot like I imagined a grizzly-bear shapeshifter would. No good would come of that.

  Vargas nodded again. “Very well. Gregori Petrovich has issued a challenge for Councilman Harrison’s seat. We will meet again at the next full moon to resolve it.”

  Full moon. That gave me a month until the next duel to the death. If I wanted to avoid it, I’d have to find the spell to undo our special bond. There had to be a counterspell somewhere—anything that has been cast can be unmade. Zach didn’t think a counterspell existed, but freedom from Zach was my only hope for some semblance of a normal life and a future with my soul mate. I stumbled away, toward said soul mate, and Lex caught me and pulled me close.

  “I’m going to kill him,” he promised, his voice low.

  “Not…today…” I wheezed. The pain of Zach’s injuries ached through me, but there wasn’t much I could do about them.

  Zach grabbed the hilt of his sword and pulled it free of Rousseau’s body. Anthony appeared at his mentor’s side and handed him a white handkerchief to clean the blade. They crossed to us, and I glared at him.

  “Thank you, Catherine,” Zach said.

  “Can I go now?” I asked. My rapier shook in my hand, and I envisioned stabbing Zach with it. Not today. At the moment I could barely stand, much less sheathe my weapon. Lex took it, and for a moment it looked like he was going to stab him with it, but instead he sheathed the blade for me.

  “Are we done here?” Lex prompted. His tone didn’t leave much room for a no.

  “For the time being,” Zach answered.

  “Good. Don’t call us, we’ll call you,” I replied.

  “Lady Titania, Lord Oberon, it was good to see you again,” Faust said politely.

  “Yeah sure. Stay out of trouble,” I said. Lex scooped me up to carry me. “Wait, my hat.”

  “I’ll get it,” Faust offered. He vanished into the crowd, and I closed my eyes and concentrated on healing. I hate being stabbed. After a few moments he returned. “Here we are.”

  I opened my eyes and frowned at the sight of it. “What the hell? Those aren’t my cards.”

  The faerie turned the top hat and peered at the two tarot cards stuck into the band. The cards should have been Justice and The Moon, but instead they were The Devil and the Ten of Swords.

  “Strange. Would you like me to find your correct cards?” Faust asked.

  “No. We’re outta here. I’ll deal with that later,” I replied.

  He handed me my hat, and I groaned with pain as Lex carried me away. It was going to be a long drive home.

  I healed the worst of the damage by the time we got to Lex’s place. I was still banged up, scratched and bruised, but I was able to walk from the car into the house under my own power. Once inside, I unbuckled my belt and let the weapons fall onto the coffee table with a heavy thunk, tossed my hat onto the pile and collapsed onto the leather couch. I didn’t care if I bled on it because I’d never liked it. I wanted a new couch anyway. I’d just have to remember to clean the mess up before the real estate agent showed up tomorrow.

  Here, the twenty-four-hour Harrison channel was quieter, like the soft buzz of white noise. The connection was usually fainter inside, thanks to the wards around the building. We had so many wards the house could withstand a zombie apocalypse. Which might happen when I broke free from Team Evil and Zach threw an epic hissy fit. If I broke free… The leather creaked in protest as I leaned back against the cushions, but a dull ache throughout my body kept me from getting comfortable. Lex paced in front of the fireplace—another feature of the house that I didn’t like. Everything here still felt like it belonged to him, and I was just visiting. Not a good way to start a marriage. Then again, having your soul velcroed to another man wasn’t a good start either. Lex yanked out the tie that held his hair back and ran a hand through the long length of it. Even though he was furious, the gesture still made something flip, low in my gut. Lord and Lady, I loved his hair.

  “I hate this,” he growled.

  “I know.”

  “He’s using you.”

  “I know,” I repeated. This was not a new conversation. I heard the things he wasn’t saying as clearly as if he shouted them. If you’d called me, I could’ve helped you. If you’d trusted me, I could have
protected you. If you’d have said no to him, this wouldn’t have happened.

  It was true. This was my fault, and I owned it. Well, Zach was also at fault for being an evil, manipulative bastard, but I doubt he lost any sleep over it.

  “I’m sorry,” I said for the millionth time. “Look, if you need to go pummel your punching bag, I won’t argue.”

  There was a gym in the basement, filled with mysterious machines I had no interest in learning how to use but was anyway. I am opposed to exercise that isn’t fun. Running with the dogs is fun. Running on the treadmill isn’t. Unfortunately I’d married a man who’d lived his entire life doing his best to be prepared to fight any of the potential battles a guardian could face at a moment’s notice. (Constant vigilance!) As a smoker—former smoker—who hadn’t put any real thought toward exercise since high-school gym class, I wasn’t thrilled about this exercise thing. I’d made a deal with Lex. I put forth an exercise effort, and he didn’t comment on my greasy, fried diet, because I’d made it very clear that if he wanted to take my French fries, he’d have to pry them from my cold, dead hand.

  Lex paused as he considered my offer. I bet it sounded real tempting. “You’re sure?” he asked, sounding skeptical.

  “Yup. Have at it. I’ll hang out up here.” He needed to burn off the anger, and I wasn’t up for our usual solution to the problem—hot, sweaty, possessive sex. As newlyweds, we had a lot of sex. As newlyweds with issues, we had epic amounts of sex. At least we were, until his little sister moved in two months ago.

  “Do you need anything?” he asked.

  “Aside from a new spleen, no.”

  Nodding, he stalked off, his coat billowing behind him. Was it designed to do that? Maybe dramatic-coat effect was included in the guardian abilities he’d been allowed to keep…another thing that was my fault. Lex’d given up his job as a guardian to be my Oberon, and now he wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself. The Titania and Oberon gig did keep us occupied, but it wasn’t the same. He was used to kicking butt for the higher powers, not undoing imp mischief and settling squabbles between faerie-blooded magicians. I wasn’t used to any of it. After being cast out of the witch clique, my only magician contact was my buddy Mac. Now I was all up in everyone’s business 24/7/365. Or I would be, if the majority of local faerie-blooded magicians weren’t avoiding me.

  Bubba, Lex’s German shepherd, trotted into the room, hopped up on the couch, and climbed into my lap. I grunted, wincing as he flattened my legs. A lap cat I didn’t mind, but over one hundred pounds of slobbery lapdog was something else. I scratched him behind his ears.

  “Did you miss Mama? How ’bout you go fetch Mama some aspirin?” I suggested. His ears pricked up at the idea, but he didn’t dart off like Rin-Tin-Tin. I didn’t fault him for it—my cats wouldn’t have done it either.

  I indulged him with more petting, even though I was pretty sure he’d cut off all my circulation, and I glanced at the top hat on the coffee table. Some undead asshole was trying to scare me with a cheesy warning. The Devil was easy to figure out. The man and the woman on the card are chained to the devil, just like Lex and I are tied to my evil vampire overlord. Stupid Harrison. He was probably off partying with his apprentice, snacking on bimbos, and living the vampire high life. The Ten of Swords wasn’t a cheerful card either, depicting a poor dead bastard with all ten blades jammed into his corpse. Real subtle. With my cards missing, I was going to have to buy a new deck to replace them or consider picking new ones out of the deck I already had. I’d worry about that later, after I acquired painkillers.

  I nudged Bubba away and he thudded to the floor, wagging his tail. He followed as I limped toward the bathroom in search of aspirin. Magic was great, but sometimes you needed better living through chemistry. I popped some extra-strength pills and headed into the study. My tiny, cheap computer desk was shoved awkwardly into a corner, like a clearance item at IKEA. I checked my calendar to make sure there weren’t any conflicts with the pummeling at the next full moon. Nothing planned yet, and it would be after Thanksgiving. Maybe it would be the last throwdown. Maybe Zach had proven he was willing to send the competition straight to hell, and they would back off when he killed this Gregori guy too.

  Nah.

  The vamps would keep coming until he was dead. They liked him fine enough when he just hosted expensive parties, but they couldn’t let one of Laura’s boy toys have a real position of power. Hell, they’d been pissed when Laura’d had a position of power.

  I skimmed through a few e-mails. Most were spam, but Mac had sent me an update on Simon’s progress, or lack thereof, in finding me a cure for the Zach plague. Poor Mac, trapped in Casa Dracula. He seemed okay with the idea of signing up for chronicler training, but it wasn’t like he’d really had a choice in the matter. During the process of being kidnapped and used for leverage against me, Mac had been declared dead. He couldn’t go back to business as usual, so he’d joined the Order of St. Jerome. I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of my best buddy becoming a vampire librarian, but he was head over heels in love with Simon’s library. I fired off a quick reply to give him the highlights of the evening and to let him know I was still alive, and then I headed to the kitchen. I needed mass amounts of comfort food to fuel the healing process.

  From the rumble of bass through the floor, I knew Lex was still in the gym, damaging his hearing with angry music, but I found his sister Marie in the kitchen making a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. There was a new shiner poking out from behind her cotton-candy-pink bangs, and I hoped that whatever idiot had been stupid enough to take a swing at her was dead, because if not, Lex would murder the culprit when he saw it.

  “Rough night?” I asked.

  “Yeah. You too?” Marie quirked a brow, which had also been dyed pink. At least I assumed it was dye. She might have a spell that did it.

  “I lived. Lex continues to want to punch through Harrison’s face. We’re about par for the course.”

  She snickered, shaking her head, and I started looking for something to munch on. I needed something substantial, but was craving cookies. I settled on a bowl of sugary cereal instead.

  “Did you send any bad guys to magician jail tonight?” I pointed my spoon in the direction of her black eye.

  Like the rest of her family, Marie was a guardian. She’d been reassigned from her post in Denver to fill the spot Lex vacated when he became my Oberon. Until she found a place of her own, she was staying with us. In theory I didn’t mind it, but in practice we had enough stress as it was, without Lex’s baby sister around.

  “Drunk teen alchemists. They wanted to brew butterbeer, and it got out of hand. I blame Harry Potter.” Marie smiled, and it reminded me of Lex. There wasn’t much of a physical resemblance between the two—apparently he took after their dad and the girls all looked like their mother. Except for Marie, who looked like an anime character. Or a rock star. Even their accents were a little different. Lex’s drawl was smooth and smoky, and Marie’s was sassy.

  “Kids today,” I tsked. “Any new apartment leads?”

  “Yeah, there’s a condo in Oak Park that I’m lookin’ at. Would really cut down on the commute,” she replied. “But there’s somethin’ else I should mention.”

  “Great. Now what happened? You’re not sleeping with that chronicler you’re always talking about, are you?” I asked bluntly. Marie was a free spirit, and I often wondered if her late nights were due to more than just guardian business.

  “Didn’t Lex tell you I date girls?”

  “Yeah, but you could be bi.”

  Marie blinked at me, her blue eyes wide. She swallowed her mouthful of sandwich and leaned back in her chair. “You know, you’re the first person to have thought of that. I dated boys back home in high school, and my family assumed I was straight. I switched to girls in college, and they thought I was a lesbian. No one ever considered I just might like both.”

  I shrugged. “Not a lot of people do. Consider it, I mean. You’re either g
ay or straight in the movies or on TV.”

  “True enough. But no, I’m not sleeping with Brian. I might. I’ve considered it. Don’t tell Lex— he’ll have an aneurysm.”

  “No kidding.”

  I hadn’t met Brian Dannaher, but I knew he was the third chronicler living in the area. I liked Michael Black well enough, and Simon was…well, I didn’t hate his guts. If Marie liked Dannaher, he must be okay. Though her taste was questionable—she had pink hair, after all.

  Marie set her sandwich down. “That wasn’t what I wanted to tell you. After I dealt with the alchemist kids, I had a call forwarded to me from an old summoner couple. Grandparents. They hadn’t heard from their son and his family for a few days and wanted me to check up on them.”

  “Doesn’t sound like guardian business.”

  “It’s not. Not usually, anyway. Their council wasn’t answering their calls and…” she trailed off, wincing.

  “And?” I prompted.

  “They didn’t want to call you. Family’s faerie-blooded.”

  I frowned down into my bowl of cereal, listening to its soothing crackling as the milk tried to drown it. “They say why not?”

  “Yeah,” she replied, but didn’t elaborate. Marie didn’t have to.

  I’d heard it often enough, ever since my first day on the job. Most magicians didn’t want to work with me. For one, I was a kinslayer. Killing your own didn’t bother magicians as much as it used to, but the sad fact was we were still outnumbered by the straights, and historically magicians got twitchy about killing each other (with the exception of sorcerers, vamps, and shifters, who are special cases). Even though my dad deserved a death sentence, the kinder, gentler opinion was that I should have spared him. Shown some sort of mercy that would prove to the world that I was a good person.