This Wicked Magic

Chapter 2



“Vika, what’s wrong?” Libby sorted their cleaning gear in the supply room, placing their hazmat suits in the work sink designated for cleaning away the debris. The pink fringes dancing about her sleeves dusted the air. “I don’t think the guy saw anything. We had the whole area cleaned and everything packed up by the time he wandered onto the scene.”

Vika glided through the kitchen and pushed through the French doors leading into the living room. A spiraling stairway curled up to the second floor, matching the curved architecture of the house.

Intent on slipping out of her clingy work pants, Vika called down the stairway, “I know that, Libby. I’m just— He saw through the wards. And did you see the way he looked at me?”

“How could I?” Libby soared up the stairs behind her. “All that long black hair was hanging in his face. Poor guy must have been a derelict looking for a handout. Oh, snap, I should have given him the change in my pocket. Karma is so going to bite me for that one.”

Vika rolled her eyes at her sister’s worry. Witches and karma? Libby had a broad definition of the practice of witchcraft. On the other hand, it didn’t matter what a person called the union with the universe that enhanced their life’s path, so long as they respected its awesome power.

Unzipping her pants and tugging off the thin T-shirt in preparation to slip into a nice, hot shower, Vika paused near the open bedroom doorway. A clatter downstairs alerted her. It was a familiar sort of mild booming clatter she and her sister knew well. It announced his arrival.

Eyes widening, Libby pressed her fingers to her lips. “He’s here already?” She patted her hands over her purple skirt and ran toward her bedroom. “He always just appears! Why can he never announce himself or make an appointment? At least then I’d have a chance to comb my hair and freshen up my lipstick.”

“I’ll walk down slowly,” Vika called.

Tugging her shirt on and zipping her pants along the hip, she padded the high-glossed hardwood floor in the hallway. Thanks to lemon oil, it gleamed. Fresh, clean things made her feel good about herself. Peaceful.

The chandelier lighting the circular living room below glowed softly, yet it also blocked the view of their visitor. It had been over a week, so Vika expected him. Though never actually knowing the exact day or moment he would arrive, she did appreciate what he did for her.

She slid a hand along the white marble railing she kept polished to a shine. The house had been designed by Alphonse Fouquet in the nineteenth century and had been in the St. Charles family since. It was designed with eight walls in a round shape. Half the walls faced the four points of the compass, and the other half faced representative elements. The dwelling was very receptive to the angelic, which was a good thing, as far as their visitor was concerned.

Libby zoomed by her, taking the stairs as if in a track race, click-click-clicking in the high heels she’d slapped on. Without welcoming the visitor, her sister dashed into the kitchen. Vika smirked to know what she was up to.

“Reichardt,” Vika called in greeting to the stoic man attired in his usual black.

He stood beneath the chandelier, hands crossed solemnly before him. Broad and bold, he looked a misplaced warrior from a previous millennium who should be wielding an ax or some form of roughly forged iron weapon. He wore a goatee this evening, and the thick jot of blackness on his chin gave Vika a smile. The man had never a care for his appearance, though he was always neat, which appealed to her cleanliness fetish, so a little style was certainly a surprise.

“Looking rather chic this evening,” she commented.

Before she could ask after his new fashion statement, Libby breezed into the room and stopped beside her in a fury of fringe. Her sister, giddy with anticipation, held out a plate of chocolate chip cookies she’d baked earlier this evening before they’d gotten the cleaning call.

“Cookie?” she offered sweetly.

The soul bringer glanced at the plate as if Libby held forth a stew of rusty nuts, bolts and chirping crickets, and he wasn’t certain if one should eat it or build something with it.

Reichardt adjusted his attention toward Vika. “Take off your clothes.”

Sensing Libby’s pout, Vika tugged her shirt over her head again. “The cookies are excellent.”

“I grate chocolate into the mix,” Libby said proudly. “It makes them super chocolaty.”

Dropping her pants about her feet, Vika was thankful she’d worn a bra and panties today. Often, she forwent undergarments, preferring the sensual feel of fabric sliding against her skin. But when on a job, she wore as many layers as possible. Seemed to keep the unclean away for reasons she knew were superficial yet clung to anyway.

“Step back, please,” Reichardt said to Libby, ignoring the proffered treats.

Her sister dutifully complied, though Vika could sense Libby’s dismay at not being able to pawn off a cookie on the man.

Reichardt was a psychopomp, a soul bringer whose only job was to deliver the souls of the recently departed to Above or Beneath. The soul bringer put out his hands before him, palms flat, and drew them over Vika’s body, without touching. He utilized a form of catoptromancy—his silvered eyes were the mirrors—that would draw the wandering souls out of her body. He would pass over her many times, each time drawing up warmth to her skin and then pulling up a tickle as each soul left hers in a sparkle of phosphorescent light and attached to him.

Corpse lights, they were called in that moment of release from a body when they gleamed giddily. Yet they were lost and wandering souls not moved on to either Above or Beneath, usually due to a violent death—and an absent soul bringer.

Vika had a sticky soul, and when out on a cleaning job, she tended to pick up the wandering souls. It wasn’t purposeful; they attached to her for reasons of which she could never be sure. It was a condition she’d become aware of only since taking on the cleaning jobs.

She had developed an agreement with Reichardt years ago. Once a week he scrubbed her of the souls because they did belong to him, and he could not abide losing one. Which served her well because the idea of walking around with dozens of souls clinging to hers was weird. They didn’t hurt her and she didn’t notice their presence, save when they entered her soul or left it.

Feeling one last tickle, Vika let out a sigh as Reichardt stepped away from her. The man nodded, his eyes now closed, as he consumed the souls through his skin.

Vika winked at Libby, who winked back.

The man opened his kaleidoscope eyes, and the blade-sharp look he thrust at Vika made her gasp and press a hand over her lacy black bra.

“One’s missing,” he said in his deep, monotone voice that rattled in Vika’s rib cage.

“Missing? But—”

Oh, hell. The sneeze. She’d actually sneezed out the soul that had attempted to attach to her. How that was possible, she had no idea, but she innately knew that is what had happened earlier.

“I didn’t do it purposefully,” she offered. “It just— You see, I sneezed.”

“I need that soul.”

Vika felt Libby’s arm brush aside hers, joining her ranks in support, the plate of cookies still held in feeble offering.

“You will return it to me by next week’s scrubbing or...” Reichardt paused, bowing and shaking his head as if to lament her stupidity.

Or he’ll kill me? she thought dreadfully, fully expecting such an announcement from so ominous a being.

“I will take your soul in exchange,” he finally announced. With the speed of a homeless thief, the soul bringer nabbed a cookie from Libby’s plate and disappeared.

Libby squealed. “He took a cookie!”

Vika could but shake her head and grab a cookie from the plate herself. But she didn’t take a bite. Instead, she stared at the lumpy brown morsel as if it were her soul, all flattened, cooked and...not in her body.

Bending, she tugged up her pants. “Libby, how am I going to get that soul back? I don’t know where it is. It’s probably floating all over Paris by now. And he’ll know. Reichardt will know exactly which one it is if it isn’t in me next time he visits.” She took a bite of cookie. “Oh, great goddess, this is good.”

“I know, right? It’s the best batch I’ve made so far. I’m thinking of entering this recipe in the annual Witches Bazaar SpellCast and Cook-Off. Vika, don’t worry, we’ll figure it out. We’ve got a whole week. We need to return to the scene of the crime. I’m sure the soul is floating about in the vicinity.”

“Maybe.” She tugged on her shirt. At her ankles, a black cat with a white-striped tail snuggled against her leg and meowed. “Not now, Salamander. I need to think.”

Which meant...

“You want me to get out your cleaning bucket?” Libby asked.

“Please.”

While Libby retrieved Vika’s cleaning supplies, Vika bent and slipped the slender cat into her embrace. Sal nuzzled against her chin, rubbing his soft cheek against her. He’d always been a faithful guy, even when he’d once been human.

“I wonder about that man.” Vika’s thoughts raced through the night’s events as she absently stroked Sal’s back. “The derelict. I sneezed directly at him. Could he...?”

* * *

The archives in the basement of the Council’s Paris base were vast, stretching half a mile in labyrinthine twists and turns similar to the catacombs that surely hugged up against the subterranean walls. The occasional skull even appeared embedded in the walls, of which some had been left in their natural limestone state.

CJ felt at peace here beneath the fluorescent lights he’d had specially installed a few months ago after his return from Daemonia. If it hadn’t been for his twin brother, TJ, he may still be wandering the bleak and torturous landscape of the place of all demons. The lights had been a necessity and, he admitted, were out of place in the ancient archives normally lit with soft lighting to protect some of the older books, parchments and manuscripts that lay scattered everywhere.

There were stacks of grimoires—books of shadows—and ancient texts CJ had marked on his mental list to get scanned for easy reference, but he estimated such an arduous process would take decades. He had the time but not the patience or the technical know-how. An assistant was necessary, but a call for job applicants was out of the question. Assistant to the Keeper of All Things Paranormal wasn’t exactly a position one could interview for. He had the notion he’d know the perfect assistant when he met him or her.

The Council was an organized body of various paranormal breeds that kept watch over the paranormal nations but notoriously tried to never act in a violent manner to stop wars between nations or petty crimes among the breeds. They suggested, smoothed over and made nice—or so that was their claim.

They’d done plenty to interfere over the centuries, but CJ couldn’t think of a time when the interference hadn’t been necessary.

Now he searched the computer archives of known paranormals on a shiny silver Mac computer. Before entering the archives he always warded himself against electricity so his magic would not react and burn out the wiring or the fancy new computers. This database had only recently been computerized thanks to Cinder, the former fire demon—now vampire—who did security and IT work for the Council all across Europe.

CJ scanned through a list of cleaners the Council employed nationwide. None displayed the pentacle with the vacuum cleaner symbol. Jiffy Clean? He suspected it a joke on the cleaner’s part. The white hearse had been a kick, as well.

“Two women,” he muttered as his eyes scrolled down the list. “In Paris.”

Most cleaners worked a specific city or country. Paris was large enough and hosted a massive population of paranormals, so it listed half a dozen cleaners—but only one under a woman’s name.

“Viktorie St. Charles,” he said. “In the fourth arrondissement.” One of the oldest parts of Paris in the old Marais neighborhood, laid out in the shadow of the former Bastille. “Hmm, not far from where the vampire, Domingos LaRoque, lives. Quiet neighborhood. Gotcha.”

“Hey, CJ!”

Think of the devil, and one of his former minions walks through the door. Cinder strolled in, his height forcing him to bend to pass through the doorway built at the turn of the eighteenth century. He also had to turn slightly to manage his broad shoulders. The dark-haired man patted the top of the computer. “How’s the system working?”

“Very well. I appreciate all the work you’ve done. Makes it easy to find things around here, at least the few lists and files I’ve been able to enter in the database.”

“Great. You need an assistant.”

“The right one will walk through that door someday.”

“Uh-huh. Don’t hold your breath, buddy. How about you? You look...” The former angel, who had long ago been forcibly transformed to demon, and who then centuries later became mortal, and who was now only recently vampire, gave him a discerning once-over. “Not terrible.”

CJ smirked. He looked like hell and hadn’t been right for months, since his return from that damnable place, Daemonia.

“You have a talent for compliments. I’m learning to control...things.”

He’d told Cinder about the demonic passengers that occupied his soul, yet despite having worked at the gates to Beneath for millennia, the guy hadn’t a clue how to get the damned things out of him.

“I think I found the one person who might be able to help me. Viktoria St. Charles,” CJ said.

“I think you mean Viktorie. Or Vika, as her friends call her,” Cinder said, pronouncing it Vee-ka. “It’s a Russian name. She’s the pretty little witch who lives in the round house.”

“Round house?”

“That’s what some call it. I think it’s actually a hexagram. It was designed by a witch to perfectly align with the planets, stars, the moon and whatever else you witches worry about. I’ve been told it’s a cool place to see. Probably comparable to the spectacle you live in.”

“My flat is not a spectacle. It’s a means to survive.” A horrible, mind-eating, depressing means to survival. But his current mode of decorating style was the one bit of luck CJ had discovered to keep back his nasty passengers.

“So you’ve told me. Still seeking prismatic light?”

“Always.”

“What’s got you looking up the St. Charles witch? Or I should say witches. They are three sisters, but I think only two live in the round house. Gad, I hate calling it the round house. A hexagram is so not round.”

Cinder was some kind of numbers whiz, due to the fact he was originally the angel who created that sort of stuff—the whole mathematics shebang.

“If she is the woman I ran into last night,” CJ said, “then she was able to exorcise one of my demons.”

“Just like that? Without a hello, how do you do?”

“It was an auspicious sneeze, actually. And no, no introductions. In fact, she fled the scene soon after the accidental exorcism.” CJ rubbed a hand along his jaw. “She’s a cleaner, eh?”

“Yes. Nasty job.” Cinder gave a dramatic shudder. “Especially for two pretty women.”

“Speaking of pretty women.” CJ closed out the program and leaned back on the creaky office chair. “How’s the little woman?”

“You mean my tiny vixen?” The vampire grinned a mile wide, revealing the points of his fangs.

“That good, huh?”

Cinder nodded. “Love is the coolest thing, CJ. You should give it a try sometime.”

“So I’ve been told by my best friend, Lucian.”

“Bellisario? I haven’t seen that vamp in a while. And what about your brother? Didn’t TJ and his little kitty cat just get married?”

“Yep, and expecting a litter, I’ve been told.”

“A litter?”

TJ’s wife was a cat shifter, and CJ liked to tease his brother he was going to have a litter instead of a baby, which was unfeasible but still fun to joke about. “You know, she’s a cat.”

“I don’t think it works that way, man.”

“Just kidding. No one ever seems to get my jokes. So you in Paris for a while?”

“Parish and I have relocated here for the summer. I will be updating more hardware for the Council. Might even get a fancy scanner in here to scan books without breaking the spines. Bet that would make your day.”

“It would. The ancient grimoires are delicate. But I’ve no time to work on such a project. Now I’ve got the witch’s address, I’m on my way out.”

“All right, man, take it easy.”

“Say hi to Parish for me,” CJ said as he walked Cinder out of the office and headed for the fourth quarter.

* * *

Libby breezed into the bright, spotless spell room, swooshing a flutter of purple ruffles in eyesight, as Vika bent over a mortar of crushed lavender. The spider’s eyes listed in the ingredients she doled out carefully. Only needed half a dozen.

“Working on a sleeping draft?” Libby asked, leaning on the cool, white marble counter. She snapped her banana-scented gum. She cocked out a hip, hitting a pose as always. Rock star was Libby’s innate M.O., despite her lacking fame and the ability to carry a tune.

“For Becky. She’s been sleeping less than a hour a week lately.” The vampire, who was Vika’s best friend, had a lot to deal with, her dad being the devil’s fixer. Becky worried about him constantly. “I don’t need help. I know you had plans for today.”

Libby’s mood perked. On the other hand, when wasn’t her mood perky? The dress she wore was vintage, and the cinched skirt with wide white plastic belt reminded Vika of an old baking ad she’d once seen while paging through her grandmother’s magazines from the fifties. Always so spiffy, those pre-feminism women, when doing household chores.

“I figured I should stick around,” Libby said. “When do you want to head back to the crime scene to look around for the will-o’-the-wisp?”

Will-o’-the-wisp was another name for the corpse light or wandering soul that usually stayed firmly attached to Vika’s soul until the soul bringer arrived to scrub her clean.

“Soon as I’m done here. But I can do that myself. Really, Libby, go and have fun.”

“I wish you’d come along with me. The witches bazaar is always a riot.”

“I know. You’ve told me about all the eligible young witches.”

“I’m sure there’s a few to catch your eye. I know you like them tall, muscled and blond.”

“The opposite of your thick, brute and dark,” Vika answered with a grin. She tapped the last spider eye into the mortar and rolled the marble pestle over the contents with a satisfying crushing noise. “You think Reichardt liked the cookie?”

“Oh, Vika.” Libby sighed. “I dreamed about The Taking of the Cookie last night. You don’t want to know.”

“Yeah, you probably better keep that one to yourself. Would it matter if I said, once again, how wrong having a crush on a soul bringer is?”

“Nope. He’s the guy for me. I know it.”

Good luck with that. The guy was thousands of years old and hadn’t cracked a smile in a millennium, Vika felt sure. His life consisted of collecting souls, all day, all night, all the time. She imagined he did not have a social life, or even a concept of what socializing implied. And to consider love or romance? Forget about it.

“If they’ve any vetiver for sale today, would you pick me up a pint? I’m fresh out. Salamander got into the plant out in the garden and mowed that down smartly.”

“Will do.” Libby leaned in and kissed her on the brow. “Talk to you later, sis. Good luck tracking the soul. But if you can’t find it, I’ll put in a good word for you with Reichardt.”

Libby flounced out of the spell room, and Vika sighed. “If only that were possible.”

She knew well if she didn’t find the soul, Reichardt’s retaliation would be swift and just. She didn’t particularly favor the idea of having no soul, but she knew she could live without one. A soulless body grew cold and emotionless. Soulless would leave her open to all sorts of untold evils. She would not be the same witch of the Light, and she didn’t know if she could live with the consequences.

“Um, Vika?”

She looked up to see Libby peeking into the room, her smile gone. “You forget something?”

“There’s someone here to see you,” her sister whispered covertly. “The guy from last night.”

Vika dropped the heavy marble pestle in the mortar. “The derelict?”

“Derelict?” A tall man with coal hair and an easy stance walked around beside Libby and crossed his arms. He looked only one step up from derelict, with his black clothing hanging on his broad frame and his jeans hems scraping the hardwood floor. He gave the spell room a once-over, drawing his eyes from the walls of glass-fronted cupboards to the inset halogen lights that fashioned the space into the ultimate clean room for concocting and conjuring. “This is your spell room? It’s very...”

“Clean?” Vika offered hopefully.

“Sterile.”

“Thank you.” Pleased with the comment, she stood and gestured her sister to leave. “It’s okay, Libby. The problem may now be solved.”

Her sister winked and made a kissing gesture behind the man’s back before giggling and dashing off to spend the afternoon trading spells and herbs with the local covens at the weekly bazaar.

“Viktoria St. Charles?” he asked, stepping down into the room. His boots clicked the highly glossed marble floor.

The man inserted a void of darkness into the clean room with his presence. He wore black from head to toe, and the room was white upon gray marble. As much as black was her preferred color scheme, Vika always wore pale colors in this room to honor the pure atmosphere. Today, it was a soft heather, fitted to her body from shoulder to ankle in a corseted maxi dress that flared out from the knee.

“Viktorie,” she corrected. “As in successful. It’s an old Russian name.”

“Oh, yes, Viktorie. I’m sorry.”

“Why are you here, monsieur...?”

“I looked you up on the Council database. I’m Certainly Jones.” He offered his hand to shake, and she did so, quickly, finding his grip sure.

The man recoiled, shaking his hand as if he’d been stung. “What the hell was that?”

She had no idea what he’d felt. Pressing a hand to her throat—ah, yes. “My grandmother’s nail.” She lifted the leather cord she always wore about her neck. A centuries-old nail was twisted about it as a pendant. “It was taken from her grave after she’d been buried by the villagers.”

“Don’t tell me.” He winced as he studied the necklace. “Nails had been pounded around her clothing to keep the witch down so she would not rise from the grave?”

“Actually, this one, and the one my sister wears, were taken from her jaw.” The practice had been a cruel and unusual attribute of the witch-hunt madness of the eighteenth century. “Her magic is contained within this nail. It protects me from dark magic.” She lifted a defiant brow.

“It’s powerful. I felt it.”

“That means you practice dark magic.”

“It does.” At her silence, he added with a splay of his hands, which revealed his left was covered in a tight assortment of black tattoos, “Someone’s got to do it.”

Uh-huh. She’d never had a dark practitioner cross her threshold before, and she wasn’t sure she liked it now. Best to get rid of this one quickly.

“So, Certainly Jones,” she said. “I’ve heard of you. The Council’s resident librarian.”

“Archivist, actually. My job involves much more than cataloging books. And you are a cleaner who is also a witch? This spell room is so...”

“Impressive?”

“Sanitary.” He looked about as if a dark angel lost among the clean and pure. Rubbing a palm up his arm, he gave a noticeable shiver. “Derelict, eh?”

Vika walked along the marble counter, trailing a fingertip along the cool, curved edge. A means of grounding herself, because she suspected the witch was powerful and wielded much darker magic than she could imagine. It hummed from him, and it felt wrong in the air.

It disturbed her, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

“Derelict? You did present a bedraggled appearance last night. As well as now—”

“And you look like a dream. Green eyes. I was right about that.” A wink surprised her.

“Ahem.” She was not so easy to win over, despite the lucid warmth she felt from his soft stare. “You look as if you’ve seen better days, Monsieur Jones.”

He pushed a hank of hair away from his face. The motion revealed a tattoo on the side of his neck, but she didn’t look too closely. He wasn’t unattractive, Vika decided, just...not neat. Rumpled and scruffy. Her skin prickled to wonder at how ill-kept his home must be if this was the appearance he presented to the world.

“I have seen better days,” he said, followed by a heavy sigh. “And I’m hoping you can return those better days to me. I need your help, Viktorie.”

She tilted up her chin. The call for help always tweaked at the protective bone in her body. She strived to be her best, always, to help others, and to do right by the witch’s rede. But she was having a hard time relaxing around this man. His presence prickled across her bare arms, and it wasn’t an altogether uncomfortable feeling. Persuasive, and yet warning.

She didn’t need the warning; dark magic was something with which she refused to associate.

“I don’t understand how you think I can help you, Monsieur Jones.”

“Please, call me CJ. Last night you did something incredible for me. I’m hoping you’ll be able to do it again.”

“I didn’t do a single thing for you. I saw you. I got in the car and drove off. But I’m still not sure how you saw me. That area was warded to keep bystanders from seeing us while my sister and I cleaned the crime scene.”

“The carrion drew me. Strange, because I’m a vegetarian. But your little ward wasn’t powerful enough to blind me.”

Little ward? Vika stiffened, putting her hands to her hips. He was wearing out a welcome she’d not granted him.

“You sneezed,” he offered.

Vika turned away. That damnable sneeze! It had put her on the soul bringer’s most-wanted list and now brought this practitioner of dark magic into her sacred spell room. She said over her shoulder, “And you’ve come to say gesundheit?”

“How about I offer you a blessed be? Far too late, but well meant, I promise.”

His manner was too kind to fit his appearance. And his presence. She didn’t like how he made her feel unsure in ways that inappropriately warmed her skin. She slid her hands along her hips down to her thighs.

Did she feel attraction for the man? No, impossible. Maybe the tiniest bit of curiosity. The man was just so...there. Never had she felt another person’s energy so strongly. And for as much as it was dark, it also pleaded. Which set up all kinds of warnings in Vika’s wanting heart.

“Now if that’s all you’ve come for, I do need to get back to work. I’ve a spell—”

“I need you to do exactly what you did last night, Mademoiselle St. Charles. Please. You sneezed, and then I felt something move through me.”

Vika gaped. She turned to face him. Had the soul she’d sneezed away passed through this man? To consider it briefly, it may have been possible, since, if the corpse lights could permeate her, then they could certainly enter another.

She stepped closer to him and studied his deep jade eyes for a lie. “Are you sure? You felt it travel through your body?”

He nodded. Not a flinch or a blink. He was being truthful. “What was it that I felt move through me?”

“A soul,” she said softly, and then snapped her mouth shut. She’d said too much. She knew the man not at all. Yet, if she were to find the soul, he was the last person to—not have seen it, but rather, have touched it.

“A soul.” He nodded. “That makes weird sense. It chased the demon right out of me.” He grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Do it again. Please?”

“I, uh...” She wrenched her shoulders free from his possessive grasp and stepped back, stumbling against the stool. Her hand upset a pile of rosemary, and the earthy scent renewed in the air. Rosemary for remembrance and for a clear mind. She was anything but clear at the moment. Clasping the nail at her neck for strength, she said, “No. I can’t. It was a fluke. A demon? And as I’ve said, I’m busy. Please, I want you to leave now.”

He approached her, and the dark menace in his eyes grew apparent. Vika would not cry out like a frightened child. She was strong and had stood against many much more frightening than this man.

“I command you out! Xum!” She pronounced the air spell etz-oom.

With a dramatic gesture of her hand, Vika flung air magic at him, and it managed to sway his upper body, but he maintained a firm stance.

The dark witch grinned. “I warded myself before entering your little round house,” he said, rubbing the palm of his tattooed hand. “Not as well as I thought. You shouldn’t have been able to move me.”

“Xum!” She flung more air magic his way, but this time it managed only to swish the hair away from his face. And it revealed the deep violet bruise at the side of his neck opposite the side of the tattoo.

He noticed her hard stare and stroked the bruise with his fingers. “It’s a demon mark,” he said. “Been there for six months. Ever since I returned from Daemonia.”

“You went to...?” She daren’t even whisper the name of the foul destination. To do so felt sacrilegious. The place of all demons was not a place she liked to think about, let alone put into voice.

CJ nodded. “On a quest to find something.”

“Did you find it?” she asked quickly, so unbelieving he had actually survived to return to this realm in one piece.

“I did.”

“And you’re...fine?”

“Fine is a subjective definition. It doesn’t matter, because all my energy has been focused on one thing since my return. Surviving.”

“Surviving what?”

“If I tell you, will you promise to help me?”

Vika had never been intrigued by secrets. Even less so by one involving the place of all demons.

“I promise you nothing,” she said. “Tell me, and then I’ll ask you to leave.”

“You’re the only one who can help me, Viktorie. I’ve not had any luck expelling these demons in six months.”

“Have you spoken to an exorcist?”

“Many. No luck. When I returned from Daemonia, I unknowingly brought along a few passengers. About a dozen, as far as I can determine. These demons are firmly affixed to my soul. Or so I thought until last night, when with a simple sneeze, you did what I haven’t been able to accomplish.”

She did not wield such power. A witch had to study for years, decades, to learn exorcism. “It was a fluke.”

“I’m sure it was. Yet even my brother, TJ, who has mastered persuasive exorcism and releasement, couldn’t get these bastards out of me. And believe me, we’ve tried many times. You know what is tried after all else fails?”

“What?”

“Physical beatings. But the pain demon inside me enjoyed that too much so we ditched that method. Fortunate for my aching ribs.”

The man had subjected himself to beatings in an attempt to clear out his demons? “I can’t help you—”

“Yes, you can! Listen, the demons that cling to my soul take over my body when the light does not hold them back. You expelled a carrion demon last night. The bastard was on a quest for raw meat.”

“The werewolf,” she whispered in disbelief.

She clutched her arms to her chest at the notion this man had been seeking the bloody and scattered remains of what she and her sister had cleaned up.

“Is that what you were cleaning? The demon smelled it. It wasn’t me.”

She shrugged, noncommittally, not knowing the man and not wanting to believe he could have been compelled to such a disaster. What would he have done had he arrived before they’d cleaned up the mess?

He approached, and Vika hustled backward until her spine hit the wall of lighted drawers in which she stored herbs and potions. “Stay back!” She put up her hand, and CJ stopped, his chest against her palm. She could feel his heartbeats against her hand. Frantic. Excited. Nervous.

Desperate.

And beneath the desperation hummed his darkness, like a hive of trapped insects seeking escape.

“Powerful magic,” he said softly of the nail at her neck, yet he didn’t move from her touch.

Instead of pulling away from him, Vika spread her fingers, staring at her hand as her palm took in the beat of his life beneath the wrinkled shirt. What witch purposefully journeyed to Daemonia? Gaining access must have proved a monumental feat. And to have survived?

He must be so powerful.

“Tell me what you went there for.”

“I can’t. It was selfish. Vika, please.”

She met his eyes, her mouth falling open in a startled gasp. She was pretty sure Libby had not called her Vika in front of him. How could he know about that nickname? Only her family and friends called her Vika, a Russian shortening of her name.

Breathing out, she shook her head. “I don’t understand what you think I can do for you. So I sneezed. I shot a soul through you, and it expelled a demon. Do you think I have souls to hand? Do you think it’s a process I can duplicate again?”

“Possibly. How were you drawing the soul into you? Was it from the body you’d just cleaned up?”

“Yes, it was the werewolf’s soul. But I didn’t purposely draw it into me.” She slid to the right to get away from his intense closeness and paced toward the door. A shiver traced her spine. Against better judgment, her innate magic was attracted to the man’s power. “I have a sticky soul. It tends to catch lost souls that linger after death.”

“I’ve never heard of that before. That’s cool. So you’re full of stray souls?”

“No, a soul bringer scrubs them from me every so often.”

She turned and saw he looked over her work and the mortar but kept his fingers interlocked behind his back. It was polite not to touch another witch’s work unless invited to do so. As he leaned over her book of shadows to scan the spell, his hair dusted the paper, and she flinched because it was as if she had felt his hair brush her skin.

“You should increase the belladonna,” he suggested. “It’ll jack up the potency, and you’ll need less lavender. For nocturnals to rest, yes?”

“That’s a wise observation.” She strode to the counter and wrote it down on her notebook. “Thank you. I will try that. You said you practice the dark magics. I can’t imagine a simple sleeping draft would be of interest to you.”

“I’m noctambulatory myself. Though I haven’t utilized any spells against it. I’ve come to terms with the night, and it me. Spellcraft is a particular expertise, both dark and light. Though, since I’ve taken on these demons, my power has decreased measurably. I can barely throw air. It’s pitiful. Please.” His hand clasped over her forearm, a warm touch that belied his bedraggled appearance. “If you can replicate the process, I beg you to try. I can’t go into the dark. I need to stay in the light to keep them at bay. I rarely sleep. I fight them daily. These demons inside me...they’ll kill me.”

It was an awful thing to endure, she felt sure. When even one incorporeal demon occupied a soul, it could overtake the person, drive the person mad or kill him or her. And he said many lived within him?

If the soul had moved through him...

“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.”