This Strange Witchery

Yet the glow from the heart, seeping between her fingers, did intrigue him. Something like that should be under lock and key, kept far and safely away from humans. And should it fall into the hands of the Archives, whom her uncle Certainly Jones headed? The Archives wasn’t as beneficent as they were touted to be. The things they stored weren’t always left to sit and get dusty. Tor didn’t even want to think about all the nasty happenings that occurred because something the Archives had obtained had been used.

Yeah, so maybe he had stepped into that circle of danger with one of the Jones brothers. Whew! He knew far too much about the ominous power of dark magic. And yet he had lived to breathe another day.

“You want me to protect you and that thing?” he asked. “You know the Agency would take that heart in hand and put it under lock and key? In fact, if you want to hand it over, I guess I could take it right now—”

“No.” She lifted the heart possessively to her chest. Tor squinted at the maddening glow. “Can’t do that. I need it for a spell that I can’t invoke until the night of the full moon.”

Which was less than a week from now. Tor always kept the moon cycles in his head. It wasn’t wise to walk into any situation without knowing what phase the moon was in. Had tonight been a full moon? That werewolf would not have gone down so easily for the slayer. And burning it would have roused every bloody wolf in the city to howls.

Tor rubbed two fingers over his temple, sensing he wasn’t going to be rid of her as easily as he wished. “Why me? What or who directed you toward me and suggested I might want to help you?”

“If I tell you, you’ll think I’m weird.”

“I already think you’re weird. I don’t think a person can get much weirder than stealing a dead witch’s beating heart and then breaking into a stranger’s van to beg for his help.”

“What makes you think I stole this?”

“I—I don’t know. Is it a family heirloom you dug out of a chest in the attic? Something dear old Granny bequeathed to you on her deathbed?”

“No.” She hugged it tightly to her chest. Guilty of theft, as he could only suspect. And he had locked the van doors. He never forgot.

“People only find me because someone has given them my name,” he said. “And I always know when someone is coming for me, because that’s how it works. I want to know how you learned about me.”

“Fine. This evening, after I’d gotten home with the heart and sat out on the patio to have a cup of tea—I like peppermint, by the way.”

“I’m an Earl Grey man, myself.” The woman did go off on tangents. And he had just followed her along on one! “You were saying what it was that led you to me?”

“Right. As I was sipping my tea, a cicada landed on my plate. It was blue.”

Now intensely interested, Tor lifted his gaze to hers.

“Cicadas always look like they’re wearing armor. Don’t you think? Anyway, I didn’t hear it speak to me,” she said. “Not out loud. More like in my head. I sensed what it had come to tell me. And that was to give me your name. Torsten Rindle. I’d heard the name before. My dad and uncle have mentioned you in conversation. Cautiously, of course. I know you stand in opposition to them. And they know it, too. But they also have a certain respect for you. Anyway, I knew you could help me.”

A cicada had told a witch to seek him out for help?

Tor’s sleeves were still rolled to the elbows. Had the light been brighter, it would reveal the tattoo of a cicada on his inner forearm. The insect meant something to him. Something personal and so private he’d never spoken about it to anyone.

“How did you know—”

A thump on the driver’s side window made Tor spin around on the seat. A bloody hand smeared the glass.

“That’s the zombie,” Melissande stated calmly. “The one you told me didn’t exist.”

Chapter 2 (#u2c642c33-4ad2-5409-a129-4da84c389f75)

Melissande observed as Tor swung out of the driver’s seat and darted into the back of the van. Heavy metal objects clinked. The man swore. His British accent was more pronounced than her barely-there one. He again emerged in the cab with a wicked-looking weapon. Actually, she recognized that hand-sized titanium column as one of those fancy stakes the knights in The Order of the Stake used to slay vampires. Was that supposed to work with zombies, as well?

“Stay here,” he ordered. Tor exited through the driver’s door, slamming it behind him.

Crossing her arms and settling onto the seat, Melissande decided she was perfectly fine with staying inside the nice safe van while the hero fought the creepy thing outside. Zombies didn’t exist? The man obviously knew nothing about the dark arts.

A hand slapped the driver’s window, followed by the smeared, slimy face of something that could only be zombie. One eyeball was missing. From behind, Tor grabbed it by the collar and swung it away from the vehicle.

Melissande let out her breath in a gasp, then tucked the heart she still held into her bag on the floor. Growing up in a household with a dark witch for a dad and a cat-shifting familiar for a mom, she should be prepared for unusual situations like this, but it never got easier to witness. Dark magic was challenging. And sometimes downright gross. She was surprised she’d accomplished her task today, securing Hecate’s heart. But she hadn’t expected it to attract the unsavory sort like the one battling Tor right now. Earlier, that same creature had growled at her and swiped, but she’d been too fast, and had slipped down the street away from the thing in her quest to locate the one man she knew could help her.

Anticipating the dangers of possessing the heart, she had known she might need protection. She couldn’t ask her dad, or her uncle. And should she ask her cousins—the twins Laith and Vlas—they would have laughed at her, saying how she’d gotten herself into another wacky fix.

She did have a knack for the weird and wacky. It seemed to follow her around like a stray cat with a bent tail. She didn’t hate cats, but she’d never keep one as a pet or familiar. When one’s mother was a cat-shifter, a girl learned to respect felines and to never take them for granted.

The not-zombie’s shoulders slammed against the vehicle’s dented hood. Melissande leaned forward in time to watch Tor slam the stake against its chest. The zombie didn’t so much release ash as dechunk, falling apart in clumps, accompanied by a glugging protrusion of sludgy gray stuff from its core. Gross, but also interesting. She’d never witnessed a zombie death.

With a sweep of his arm, Tor brushed some chunks from the hood. He tucked the stake in a vest pocket, then smoothed out the tweed vest he wore. Shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows revealed a tattoo on his forearm, but she couldn’t make out what it was in the darkness.

He was a smart dresser, and much sexier than she’d expected for a jack-of-all-trades human—because she had expected something rather brute, stocky and plain. Probably even scarred and with a gimpy eye. Tor’s short dark hair was neatly styled (save for the blood smeared at his temple and into his hairline). Thick, dark brows topped serious eyes that now scanned the area for further danger. With every movement, a muscle, or twelve, flexed under his fitted white shirt, advertising his hard, honed physique. And those fingers wrapped about the stake...so long and graceful, yet skilled and determined...

Melissande’s heart thundered, and it wasn’t from fear of a vile creature. The man did things to her better judgment, like make her wonder why she had never dated a human before. Maybe it was time to stretch her potential boyfriend qualifications beyond their boundaries.

“Did you get him?” she yelled through the windshield.

Tor’s eyebrow lifted and he gave her a wonky head wobble, as if to say, Did you not see me battle that heinous creature then defeat it?

She offered him a double thumbs-up.

He strolled around the side of the van. The back doors opened, and he pulled out something, then came back to the front. A shovel proved convenient for scooping dead zombie into a body bag. He was certainly well prepared.

After the quick cleanup, he again walked to the back of the van. Melissande glanced over the seats into the van’s interior. When he tossed in the bag and slammed the door, she cringed. The driver’s door opened, and Tor slid inside. She noticed the blood at his neck that seeped onto his starched white collar. It looked like a scratch on his skin. If that thing had originally been a vampire, it could be bite marks. Tor slammed the door and turned on the ignition.

Melissande leaned over to touch his neck. He reacted, lifting an elbow to block her. But she did not relent, pressing her fingers against his neck. “I’m not going to bite,” she said. “I want to make sure you didn’t get bitten.”

“It’s just a scratch. The thing didn’t get close enough to nosh on my neck. Sit down and buckle up.” He pulled away from the curb as she tugged the seat belt across her torso.

“Was it a vampire?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. Hard to determine with all the decay.”

“Zombie,” she declared.

“Not going to have that argument again. Probably a revenant vamp.”

“I’ve heard they’re rare. And don’t live in the city.”

“Dead vampires who live in coffins and have no heartbeat? Most definitely not common. And generally not found in any large city, including Paris.” He dusted off some debris from his forearm. “Though I didn’t notice fangs. And usually decapitation is required. Whatever it was, it’s dead now.”

“You’re driving with me in your van,” Melissande remarked cheerfully. “Does that mean you’re going to protect me?”

“No. That means I’m going to take you home and send you off with a pat on your head and well wishes. Where do you live?”

Pouting, she muttered, “The 6th.”