This Wicked Magic

“Are you sure the soul I sneezed at you moved through you? What if it’s still inside you?”

She could get back the missing soul!

“No, I definitely felt an exit.”

“Could have been the demon leaving.”

“No, that followed immediately after I felt the brightness pass through me.”

Ah. The brightness. Yes, that was the indefinable feeling.

“It was … wondrous,” he said softly. “As if a divine presence had, for but a moment, brushed against my soul. Trust me, there’s no way I’m carrying a wolf soul around inside me. Just a lust demon, a war demon, menace and grief, and a few others.”

“I need that soul back,” Vika said.

“Because of the soul bringer?”

She nodded. “He’s particular about receiving all the souls in his territory.”

“Then let’s make a deal, shall we?” He tilted a hip against the counter and eyed her up and down, for the first time showing some interest in her for more than what she could do for him.

She liked when men looked at her with blatant desire. Made her feel sexy. Never a wrong feeling. But Certainly Jones made her uneasy. It was the darkness surrounding him. Much as she trusted her grandmother’s nail would protect, she didn’t want to step too close to him without a shield ward to protect her own soul. Nor did she trust her impulsive desire to touch his power.

“What did you have in mind?” she asked.

“I must have a connection to the werewolf soul. Maybe?”

“If it’s still in the vicinity of its death, it may be compelled toward you. On the other hand, it may try to reattach itself to me. I was headed there now—”

CJ clasped her hand. “Let me go along with you. If I can help you locate the soul, will you agree to expel another demon from me?”

“But I don’t think I can.”

“It’s the only thing I’ve got going for me right now. You. Please, Vika. Help me.”

She dropped open her mouth because never had she heard such a sincere plea. And while her neat and ordered heart cringed at the idea of letting this unruly, bedraggled mess into her life, the part of her that squealed over creating order and establishing calm wanted to take the man in hand and clean him up, body and soul.

She nodded, and replied without reservation, “It’s a deal.”

“Thank you.”

“But just this once. If we don’t find a soul, I’m not obliged to help you further in any way, shape or form.”

Chapter 3

In all his long life, never once had CJ sat inside a hearse, and he hoped to never repeat the experience when dead because he intended to prolong his life with the classic witch’s immortality ritual—consuming the blood from a beating vampire heart once a century.

Setting the morbid thought aside, he admired the car’s beige leather interior. It was surprisingly clean for an old model. Vika said it was from the seventies. It looked brand-new and smelled like lemons. Certainly was afraid to touch the dashboard for fear of leaving behind the slightest oils from his fingers.

Viktorie St. Charles’s round house and the spell room had been equally as immaculate. He had gotten a chuckle over the little plaque inside the front door that had read A Clean House Is a Happy House. The woman was all about cleanliness. And her appearance reflected the same motto.

Her bright red hair was pulled into a tight braid down the back of her head, not a strand out of place. Her face was like porcelain, her narrow brows perfectly arched and her lipstick red. All contrasted exquisitely with her inquisitive emerald eyes. And the dress she wore was a tight sheath wrapped about her slender figure in a dusty purple color, as if a bunch of roses bound with ribbon.

She was gorgeous, in a tidy way. He shouldn’t think to muss her. But oh, to unloose that hair and watch it fall over the purple satin and down her narrow back. CJ’s oft-ignored sensual desires hummed for attention.

“What are you looking at?” she asked as she turned the hearse down the alley, their destination.

“Perfection.” He turned and faced forward, not sure if he’d meant it as a compliment. “Was that your sister who answered the door when I arrived? Libertie?”

“Yes, Libby left for the witches bazaar. You ever go there?”

“The one behind the Moulin Rouge? No, it’s a bunch of old hags selling mandrake and love spells.”

“Times have changed, CJ. Now they’re into cyber-spellcraft and digital conjuring. When was the last time you’ve been?”

“Decades. Digital conjuring?” What the young witches wouldn’t think of next. He hated to admit he didn’t know about a particular magic.

She nodded and pulled the car over to park. “You said you know many magics. Is digital one of them?”

It would be as soon as he could dig up some information on it. Cyberhacking, he’d heard of, but to use the computer to digitally conjure magics? Truly, he’d been stuck in the archives too long.

“I’m adding it to my arsenal soon. So this is it? How does the Mistress of Neat like you find herself on the cleaning end of a spattered werewolf? And are you always dressed so elegantly for such a messy job?”

“When I’ve a call, I wear simple clothes under my hazmat suit. And this isn’t elegant. It’s my normal dress. Cleaning is my passion,” she said in a tone that invoked more sensual means to passion for CJ. She opened the car door. “Come on. Let’s see if your dark and weary soul attracts anything.”

“Certainly won’t be an uptight witch,” he muttered as he stood up from the car and closed the door.

“What was that?” She pursed her gorgeous lips and eyed him narrowly over the top of the car. “Did you call me uptight?”

He braced his forearms on the top of the car and smiled at her. “I did, oh, Beauty of the Bizarre and Unnatural Cleaning Jobs. But now you’re going to cut me down for the comment and make me feel like the dirt you think I am, right?”

She tilted her head, considering. “Not worth it. I haven’t made up my mind about you.”

“So not a derelict.”

“That’s apparent. You’ve a job working for the Council. I assume you’ve a home. Derelicts can’t usually claim as much.”

“Your home is a fascinating study in white and roundness,” he said, moving around to the front of the car to lean against the front quarter panel and watch her walk the bricked-in area in small paces. “That spell room of yours. It was so …”

“You said sterile.”

“To a fault. Tell me why someone who is so into cleaning chooses white? I mean, wouldn’t it be easier to keep a darker color clean? Or even wood or steel?”

“It appeals to me,” she said without looking at him. Arms held out, she walked the area as if trying to capture something in an invisible net held between her arms. “It gives me satisfaction to do a job well.”

“I can say the same.”

“What does your job involve, CJ? I’ve always thought librarians—”