This Wicked Magic

Chapter 8

This cleanup was weird.

Pulling on her gloves, Vika looked over the piles of ash. Normally, she was rarely called in for a vampire cleanup. The vamp was staked; he ashed, leaving behind just bits of clothing and personal items. Usually. This time, one particular pile of ash was only half-formed, sitting before the legs and hips of what had yet to ash.

“A young one,” Libby said, joining her side with dustpan and broom in hand. Clear goggles, that covered her nose as well, wrapped her head because the fine dust tended to fly up one’s nostrils. “That’s too sad.”

The young vampires didn’t ash as easily as those who had perhaps a few decades of vampirism to their arsenal. And the heat generated during an ash didn’t get hot enough to destroy clothing. Hence, the cleanup call.

“You grab the feet,” Vika said. “I’ll get what’s left of the hips. This shouldn’t take long.”

Libby handed her the black body bag, and Vika zipped it open as her sister inspected the shoes on the feet. “These are Louboutins.”

“Don’t think about it,” Vika warned.

“I know. Really bad karma to steal the dead’s belongings. But do you know how much those things cost? And they’re purple. I think they’re my size, too.”

“Libby.”

“All right, all right! Lift.”

They succeeded in getting the legs into the body bag without having to remove the shoes to lessen the weight. Libby tossed the bag into the back of the hearse.

“So he liked the cookies, eh?” Vika asked. She began to sweep the ash, Libby holding the dustpan and dumping it frequently in a hazardous waste disposal bag.

“He took two this time. Said he’d never had anything like them before.”

“Soul bringers don’t usually eat, do they?”

“Not sure. They’re from angel stock so they don’t have to eat, but they can. And he did.”

“That’s remarkable. That Reichardt had a sort of conversation with you. Well, two sentences, but still.”

“I know! Remind me to always have a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies available.”

“Something tells me I won’t need to remind you. But seriously, Libby, you are dating other guys, right?”

“Oh, no. What if Reichardt finally gets it into his head to ask me out and I’ve got a date with someone else? That would so not be smart.”

Vika pushed a small mountain of ash toward the dustpan. “I suppose not.” He wasn’t going to ask, because the guy could have no concept of what a date even was. “Maybe you should come out with me and Becky next weekend. Friday girls’ night out? Just for kicks.”

“You’ve never invited me along before. Would Becky mind?”

“Not at all. I think I should ask her about those shoes. She runs with the glamorous crowd.”

Vika suddenly couldn’t erase the feeling something more than a routine vampire slaying had gone on here. “I know most vamps are pretty well-off, but, I don’t know. Are they all females? Does this feel odd to you? I’m sensing some latent witchcraft in the air.”

Libby paused from brushing up the ash and closed her eyes, studying the air about her by opening her instincts to the electrical energies in the ether. She nodded. “I do, too. Most spellcraft would have faded by now. Must have been a powerful witch in the vicinity, and recently. That is weird.”

“Witches and vamps are on neutral grounds now,” Vika added. “And a witch would have no reason to take out vampires like this, not even for a source—”

“CJ is a powerful witch.”

She twisted a look to her sister. “What are you implying?”

“Huh?” Libby stopped playing with the tip of her purple glove and released it with a snap. “Oh. Well. I’m not implying anything. Sorry.”

Vika nodded and turned to her work.

“But he does practice dark magic,” Libby added.

Why her sister couldn’t get on board with her being interested in the ultimate of bad-boy witches was beyond Vika. He was exactly the sort Libby fell for. It was a good thing Libby wasn’t attracted to CJ. He was hers.

Really? Already claiming the guy, and you’re still not sure if you’re safe around him?

“Oh!” Vika gasped as a few corpse lights suddenly entered her body, one right after the other, as if rushing to the front of the line. They burst inside her and then faded until she felt not a thing.

“How many?” Libby asked.

“Three or four? I can never be sure. Probably all of them. I think there’s at least five dead vamps here, though I’m not sure that ash pile is one or two.”

After she’d taken on a soul, she felt nothing more. No sign from within that she harbored lost souls. The first time she’d realized she was actually collecting souls was when Reichardt had been at the scene of a cleaning. He’d watched as she and Libby had done their work and then pointed out the souls he’d come for were stuck to her. She had no problem agreeing to a regular scrub, while Libby had swooned and hadn’t been the same since.

“That smaller pile there.” She pointed out one moist with dark liquid, which she guessed was blood. “I’m going to make a call and say that was a heart. And why would it not have ashed at the same pace as the rest of the body?”

“Because someone had reached in and pulled it out to drink the blood,” Libby said. Witches had to consume the blood of a beating vampire’s heart once a century to maintain their immortality. “But why five vampires when one will do? Do you think all the hearts got grabbed?”

“I don’t see how it’s possible. Someone would have fought back. Unless there was more than one perpetrator.”

“Or the witch had the other vamps in thrall while he methodically went from heart to heart. We have to report this to the Council,” Libby said. “We’re not detectives.”

“I know. I have no interest in getting involved in whatever this is. I have so many other things with which to concern myself at the moment.”

“Like the dark witch with the tattooed hand?”

“Who kissed me again.”

Libby gaped and pressed her gloves to her mouth, but her eyes were all glee.

“He’s invited me to the Council archives this afternoon. We’re going to search the grimoires.”

Libby’s glee dissipated. “Sounds like a real exciting date, sis. And you think I need to get out more?”

“It’s a work date. I’m determined to—”

“I know, clean him up. So what happens when all his demons are gone? You two go your separate ways? Because I so cannot see you hooking up with him, even if you two have kissed. He’s completely opposite your type.”

“You keep saying that, but I don’t have a type.” Vika zipped up the hazardous waste bag, and the two of them hefted the ash-filled container into the back of the hearse. “Do I?”

“Tall, blond and Nordic. You like them looking like Thor, not Thor’s evil nemesis.”

“Who is Thor’s evil nemesis?”

“Not sure, but I suspect he’d look like CJ.”

“Who has a look that bears a remarkable resemblance to your type.”

“I know.” Libby tugged off her gloves and took out the spell-sanitizing spray from a rubber container in the back of the hearse. “And yet, I’m not at all attracted to the guy.”

“Which, I have to say, I appreciate. You should see his home. It would amaze you. I told you he needs prismatic light to keep the demons at bay? He must have a hundred chandeliers hung overall.”

“Seriously? Like some kind of Tiffany’s on crack? Yet another weird feature about the dude that totally doesn’t add up to Vika material. You be careful, sister mine. I know your need to help and clean things up is the biggest compeller in this situation. Don’t fall so far you can’t see the light for his darkness.”

“That’s a bit dramatic, Libby.” Sounded like a line from one of the country music songs she was always singing at the top of her lungs.

“Yeah? But who’s the better judge of character between the two of us?”

Vika sighed. The answer was unnecessary; they knew it was Libby. Vika was too caught up in herself at times to notice the foibles of others, while Libby’s extroversion made her a people reader extraordinaire.

Was she taking a wrong step with CJ?

He had threatened her safety twice. Not him, exactly. The lust and menace demons had done that. And he’d been genuinely upset and apologetic. He was misunderstood, that was all. And so what if he didn’t look like her standard dating material? Maybe it was time she tried something new.

A walk on the dark side.

Her skin flushed in anticipation. Memory of his gentle kiss slowly growing bolder until her skin had felt like liquid fire, as if it was the watery candle flame. Yes, she wanted to delve deeper into Certainly Jones’s compelling darkness.

The archives were appropriately Gothic and stuffy, tucked into the basement of a building the Council had appropriated centuries earlier for storage. CJ had showed Vika around on a tour. Iron walls supported tunnels dug out of the limestone, and doors were operated with high-tech digital codes. Dry stone and mildew mingled with dust and what she sensed was burned wiring from decades gone by. Bats skittered in the rafters, and a chill enveloped her ankles as if walking over a fresh-packed grave.

She liked it.

Now they sat at the library table beneath a massive Swarovski chandelier fashioned with iron fixtures and crystals that gleamed in all colors. One of the first the company ever made, CJ explained. And it was haunted.

Vika kept looking toward the crystals, expecting to see them move or tinkle in the stillness. If the chandelier was indeed haunted, the spirit or ghost attached would surely sense the presence of ultrasensory entities, such as she and CJ.

Certainly cast her a grin from across the table. “We’re safe here.”

“I know.” She propped an elbow on the table, the black lace on her sleeve sweeping a stack of books. “But how is it haunted? I don’t know much about ghosts, but I’m ever curious.”

“My knowledge of the spirit world is on level with yours. And I adore your curiosity.”

She tilted her chin up pridefully. She felt his look glow upon her skin in a warm flush.

“I’ve been told a duke who hailed from Revolutionary Paris was tossed up on the chandelier by peasants and landed on the iron stakes. He was left there to bleed out. Supposedly you can hear a dying groan echoing down, but I’ve yet to hear it. Tea?”

“Oh, yes, please.”

He turned on a tea service at the cupboard against the wall, above which a long fluorescent light had been hung. He’d explained his lighting precautions since returning from Daemonia. He’d not divulged to the Council his sudden need for better lighting, but Council members rarely visited the archives, so his secret was for now quiet.

Vika paged through the ancient book of shadows she’d selected from the archives, hoping for words like demon, exorcism and Daemonia to jump out at her. When CJ had brought her into the special humidity-controlled room where they stored the grimoires, it had taken away her breath. The room was half the size of his loft apartment, and it had been stacked floor to ceiling with books of all shapes, sizes and bindings. No wonder they’d not been ordered and scanned. Where to begin?

“You need an assistant,” she said, standing and reaching for another from the stack they’d carried out as the most likely to contain what they were looking for since their covers depicted demons or had been fashioned from human skin.

“So I’ve been told. You in the market for a job?”

“I already have one I enjoy. And I don’t think I’d get to the grimoires because all this dust, well...”

She sighed at the sight of every surface dulled with dust. The old, rich woodwork screamed for a good oil polish. Should have brought in her cleaning cart from the hearse. She could still go out and get it....

“What if I had the place cleaned up before you arrived?” he suggested from over a shoulder.

“Would never work. I’m far too busy with my business.”

“Jiffy Clean,” he said with a chuckle.

“That’s Libby’s joke. I didn’t notice the sticker for weeks, and I have no idea how to remove it from the hearse without ruining the paint job.”

“Something the Martha Stewart of witches can’t clean?”

She tried to think of a comeback, but the sudden sweep of CJ’s hand across the nape of her neck made her stand up straight. It was followed by the warmth of his breath. The nuzzle of his nose tracing the length of her neck stirred her heartbeats.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

“Your hair spilled away from your neck, and I had to touch it. To learn this little space of skin.” A kiss tendered below her hairline. It branded her softly. “Is that all right?”

She nodded. “Don’t ever ask me again if your kisses are all right, dark one. They always are.”

Her fingers brushed the surface of a grimoire bound in violet suede and then curled over the edges to tickle the pages.

CJ’s mouth barely touched her skin. She felt him enter her pores and heat her being. Her fingers curled tightly, her nails cutting the edges of the brittle paper. He touched only her neck, not his hands on her arms or his body against hers. It was deliciously erotic and frustratingly confounding. She wanted him all over her, and she did not. This subtle tease wakened her sensory longings and brewed them to a slow, wanting purr.

Pressing her palms to the softbound grimoire, Vika tilted back her head and her hair swept over CJ’s face. He brushed it aside and over her shoulder and then dashed his tongue down her neck. A touch right there at the base where it curved into her shoulder, and then he retreated, as if testing her, tasting her.

Vika sighed. She shifted her hips, tilting to the side, and found his solid form strong and sure as she glided against him. One of his hands swept around and about her waist, pulling her closer. Slowly but surely, as if demanding and he would not allow her to resist, but yet so measured she couldn’t be sure she wasn’t agreeing to all this herself.

The teapot whistled and he managed to reach behind—his other hand still clutching her about the waist—and remove the pot from the burner. “We’ll let it cool.”

His voice tickled her senses with a deep baritone. So manly. She couldn’t imagine refusing anything he should request. And she had not thus far. Perhaps he worked a subtle magic on her? A wicked magic for sure, because she could not figure how she was falling for this man. This positively dark man who held no qualities that attracted her. Save for the way he touched her.

“You are the Mistress of Subtle Yet Insistent Distraction,” he murmured against her skin.

His tendency to give her silly titles thrilled her. Another point to his favor.

A kiss traveled to her dress neckline, which was wide, cresting at the curves of her shoulders. His palm moved up her stomach, gliding over the black lace, which married the fabric to her suddenly warm skin.

She pushed the book away on the table.

Gripping her possessively below her breasts, he pressed his teeth to her shoulder, not biting, not digging in, but hard enough to make her gasp and grasp at the air, yet finding nothing with which to anchor herself. He’d grown daring since their encounter in her spell room, this man who had confessed a preoccupation with magics and not relationships.

Head falling back and aside his, Vika whispered, “Hold me tightly, CJ.”

With his teeth he tugged at the neckline of her dress and managed to slip it off her shoulder. Hand firmly at her chest, he pressed his hips against her derriere, and she felt his erection, his long, wicked hardness, hug against her body. A wanting murmur hushed across her lips.

Moving lashes of tongue and bites along her shoulder and neck, CJ avoided the necklace with the nail that may warn him away. Instead, he tempered her faltering patience with lingering pauses and silences or a careful touch to her flushed skin that made her shiver in anticipation. Her breasts rose and fell with need. His hand was so close, yet he’d not moved to touch her there, where her nipples tightened and tingled.

A momentary glance above verified they stood well beneath the chandelier’s glow. Safe. For as much as she wanted safety. Or what if she did not, and instead she decided to remain open to anything he should offer, attempt to take from her? Not so tidy then, eh?

Vika clasped his hand and moved it higher, squeezing her fingers over his. He pinched her nipple through the silk-backed lace. Her moan dusted the tea-spiced air, and it felt good to voice her desire. To speak to him with the sound of her want.

“You like my touch?” he whispered.

“Oh, yes. Touch me everywhere, dark one.”

He swept a hand around her and pushed the grimoire across the table, clearing a spot and then lifting and turning her to sit before him. She stared up at him, a man who could command her with but his breath. Mouth open and eyes arrowed on hers, he asked her for something, daring her to relent.

Vika grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him in for a kiss. A hard, bruising connection that opened his darkness into her and spilled down her throat in a lush sigh. He tickled up her skirt, taking his time, inching it slowly, his fingers tapping and sliding at her thighs, and all the while, feeding her hungry kisses with his.

CJ’s kisses poisoned her need for control, to make order. She wanted him to mess her up, to ravage her clean spirit. She nibbled his lower lip, tugging not too gently. He groaned and shoved her skirt high to her thighs, where the ruffles collected with a shush in her lap. Exploring fingers lightly traced the inside of her thigh, as if the ghost from the chandelier had managed to substantiate touch.

A sensual alchemy of her sighs blended with CJ’s groan as he opened her mouth with his tongue and bit the inside of her lip. It hurt sweetly. She clasped her thighs about his hips and clung with her fingers to his shirt, pulling, clutching, needing so desperately to fall.

Falling, falling, deep into his mystery. She spread her arms wide in her mind and let the moment sweep her to oblivion. He gripped her chin and held her head so she could not look away from him. His lips were reddened from their kiss. She imagined her hair must be mussed and her cheeks and lips as stained with passion as his. Oh, but her skin needed him to deepen its color all over, stain her with his magic.

“I can’t stop touching you,” he said. “You’re the one magic I haven’t yet explored, and I need to learn it now.”

He lunged for her neck, roughly kissing at her vein and moving up along her jaw. And he slid a hand between her thighs. Her panties were tiny, sheer and black, and he snagged the thin elastic waist and tugged. The airy fabric slid over her aching mons, and she shifted her hips expectantly.

“I’m going to touch you everywhere, Vika. There are no demons in this world who can hold me back.”

“Just as long as you can hold them back.”

“We’re in the light. Trust me?”

“Yes.”

He lifted one of her legs, gliding his hand along her sinuous length, and propped her ankle against his shoulder, kissing the inside of her calf and drawing his tongue to her anklebone. Ultrasensitive there, Vika wriggled. Her bare skin soaked up his heat with every kiss, every lick.

He gripped the hard black leather shoe, and when she thought he would pull it off, he slipped his tongue between the space under her arch and the leather. The electric touch scurried through her system, and she tilted her shoulders against the stacked grimoires. She lifted her breasts, and her head landed on a thick book as pillow. Slowly, lazily, he stroked her arch, playing her arousal to a glowing, pulsating peak.

Gliding a hand down her bare leg—the tattooed hand shimmered across her skin with magic untold—he followed with kisses to mark her flesh, as if a witch hunter searching for the telling sign. None would find it, for Certainly’s kisses were indelible; only she could read and interpret them with her sighs.

His fingers played over the sheer panties, each stroke slow and sweeping. He held her gaze and she his beneath the dazzle of crystals constellating above them. Hot breath seeped through her skin and skittered delicious tingles through her groin and up and down the insides of her thighs. His jade eyes, bold and sure, asked permission.

Biting down on her lip, Vika closed her eyes, waiting, anticipating...

A hot kiss pressed against the black panty. Breaths hushed over her folds. He kissed her there, through the sheer slip of fabric, tonguing along the delicate, elasticized edges and finding her skin hot and moist.

Vika clutched the tumble of her skirts at her hips. Soft breaths were punctuated by teasing lashes of tongue traveling the length of her entrance. His hands clung to her ankles, each one propped at his shoulder. His hair tickled her stomach. Spiced tea perfumed the dusty air, and above, the crystals tinkled as if a cavalcade processional to a faery march.

He tugged her panties with his teeth, slid them down her legs and quickly over her heels, and then knelt before her, positioning the spike heels of her shoes at his shoulders.

She thought she heard him whisper, “Fuck, yes” when she dug in her heels, but her mind reeled with the clatter of crystal, the perceived whispers of the ghost and the shift of papers as her movements unsettled the books stacked around her.

She clutched a book and dragged it to her chest because it was all she had to hold, an anchor, a means to keep from floating off on a blissful wave. As CJ’s tongue mastered her trembling loins, her fingernails dug into the leather cover, surely carving divots in the ancient tome. Her core jittered, as did her entire being. So close she soared to the edge, to crying out at the command of her lover. Her legs quivered, her heels digging into his shoulders. Muscles in her belly tightened, anticipating the storm.

And when she came, her body arched upward and her hips bucked. Her cry was soft and kittenish, a top note to the satisfied moan roiling from CJ’s throat.

“Yes, so perfect,” he muttered, biting her thigh gently. “My perfect little witch has been undone.”

Vika felt the heat redden her cheeks, and her sigh exhaled delicious exhaustion. That was what she had wanted—for him to redden her. To undo her.