Something Wicked

Rick’s stare remained frozen out the window, as still and unmoving as his lips.

With a frustrated huff, Josie slipped into the bathroom, hoping a splash of water would clear her fuddled brain. Notwithstanding what had happened last night, she didn’t want to alienate Rick. He wouldn’t be as easy to track now that he knew she was on his trail.

And besides, she’d miss him. Even before they’d spent all night making love, she’d felt a connection to him she couldn’t quite understand. Yes, she felt partially responsible for him. He had, after all, helped in Mac and Lilith’s operation to interrogate the defense attorney at her encouragement. But it was more than that. From the time they’d met, Rick had accepted Josie for who she was. He didn’t judge her by her chosen religion or by her less-than-legal past—two secrets he’d used his finely honed cop skills to discover even before he’d asked her out. Despite her weird background, he still liked her. He enjoyed her company. He valued her in ways no man ever had before.

Even last night, he’d said she was an angel. Other women might have found the comparison condescending, but Josie couldn’t help relishing the idea that she’d been sent to save him. After their one conversation, however, the rest of the night had been spent communicating with their bodies. She’d been no angel, that was for sure. And he hadn’t seemed to mind.

She’d just finished borrowing Rick’s toothbrush—hey, they’d swapped more than spit the night before—when he knocked on the door.

“Yeah?” she said.

The door opened, but the only thing that came into view was a hand offering her an energy drink. She took it and placed it on the sink.

“It’s warm,” she mock-complained.

He pushed in a plastic tumbler filled with ice before she’d even finished the brief sentence.

With a grin he couldn’t see, she took the cup and said thanks. But before his hand disappeared, she snatched his fingers.

“Don’t leave,” she asked.

Even from around the door, he managed to caress her face before he left her to her privacy. She knew he wouldn’t go. At least, he wouldn’t sneak away while she took a shower.

One look at the condition of the tub, however, changed her mind. Instead, she threw a towel on the floor and washed up as best she could from the sink. As she was fiddling with her hair and wondering if the dark circles underneath her eyes made her look like a raccoon, the warm sensation between her breasts started again, precisely where the Valentine’s charm was touching her skin.

Was it warning her?

When she went back into the bedroom, Rick was dressed. The sheets had been stripped and folded and her clothes were piled neatly on top. He was no longer by the window, but sitting on his bed, carefully rearranging the innards of the duffel bag he’d kept near the door. She dressed without saying a word, then sat beside him, not surprised to find the bag stuffed with more dark clothes like the jeans and black T-shirt he wore now, as well as various weaponry. A gun. A Taser. Two knives, one she recognized as a ceremonial athame, not unlike the kind she sold at her shop.

“Mac and Lilith did what they had to,” he said finally.

“But you didn’t have to leave Chicago. Mac joined up with Regina. He’s fighting with her, not against her.”

He shot her a confused look.

She wasn’t sure how much to tell him. She didn’t want to encourage him to continue to fight in any way, but he needed to hear the whole truth. She supposed she couldn’t complain if he joined her friends to battle the uglies from the underworld. At least he wouldn’t be alone.

“In the witching world,” she explained, “there are groups. Protection squads, they’re called. They’re highly trained witches who fight evil. From what Regina told me, the squads have become, well, rare, but she’s working to build them back up after decades of complacency.”

“That’s why they didn’t help back in Chicago?”

She shook her head. “Lilith guessed—and she was right—that the defense attorney who killed that snitch of yours was actually a witch. A black witch. Black magic. He was under the control of the warlock who tried to kill Lilith.”

“You mean the guy I voted for as mayor?”

Josie nodded. The newly elected mayor had tried to secretly merge his magical world with the mundane, with him as head of all. But Lilith and Mac had stopped the plan dead. Literally.

She turned and faced him straight on. “The mayor wanted to use Lilith to get to Regina, so Lilith never called for help. When she finally wanted to, there weren’t any protection squads to come to the rescue. Lilith and Mac improvised and managed to kick warlock ass, but now, they’re both working with the squads, training and increasing their number.”

“Mac is training and fighting with witches?”

“It’s hard, since he’s a mundane, but—”

“But it’s not impossible,” Rick supplied with a humorless chuckle. “I’ve done my fair share of damage without any magical intervention.”

“Mac has Lilith. He’s a part of the magical world now. You’re not.”

“And I don’t want to be!”

He spun off the bed, causing his duffel to tumble to the floor. Josie flinched, half-expecting the gun to go off and kill them both. Closing her eyes, she willed her heart to slow down, but all she felt was the increasing heat of the amulet on her chest.

“Then don’t,” she said finally. “Come back to Chicago with me. You’ve killed how many supernatural beings?”

His eyes widened, then narrowed with determination. “Not enough. And not the one I’m looking for.”

Josie swallowed thickly. She’d known Rick had been trolling the supernatural underworld, hunting for demons and warlocks. She hadn’t known he was searching for a particular one. “Whose trail are you on now?”

He ran his hand over his smooth jaw. “You don’t want to know.”

“No, I don’t. But whether or not I want to know isn’t a consideration anymore. Ignorance is no longer an option. All that changed for me last year, same as you, when we were dragged into a world we didn’t know existed. Frankly, I wish we still didn’t know. Life was so much simpler.”

“Ignorance is bliss.”

She didn’t miss the yearning in his voice. Holding out her hand to him, she lured him back to the bed. He slipped his palm in hers but didn’t sit. His fingers were stiff, his muscles twitching, as if he was ready to tug away at a second’s notice. She pulled him forward and flattened his hand over the amulet.

“It’s too late for ignorance,” she said, loving how his dark skin looked against her fair flesh, remembering how much pleasure he’d wrought with those fingers just last night. She couldn’t help but wonder if she possessed enough feminine power to keep him close, lure him back, save his life. And perhaps, his soul. It was a lot to take on. She was, after all, just a semi-successful Wiccan shopkeeper with a sordid past and a penchant for choosing men who couldn’t possibly love her in return.

“It’s not too late for you,” he said.

“I may not know everything that happened to you, Rick, but I know enough to believe this isn’t your fight.”

“You’re wrong. It’s mine more than anyone’s. You weren’t there. You don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?”

“What it feels like to fight off some sort of dark entity that is trying to take over your body—probably even your soul.”

RICK CURSED. He hadn’t intended to tell her. By giving her too much information, he was dragging her more deeply into his fucked-up life.

“What do you mean?” she asked, shock evident in the breathiness of her voice.

“Do you know how warlocks are made?”

She had to close her gaping mouth for a moment before she replied. “They’re born. The mother is a witch and the father is human, though he has to be particularly nasty to spawn an evil entity like a warlock. Criminal or psychopath. That sort. Warlocks don’t receive their powers until late in life.”

“So you have read those books in your back room,” he said.

“How did you know—”

He cut her off with a hand. “Do you know how they die?”

“They’re half human. They die the same way humans do.”

“The body does, yes. Like the mayor. But not, necessarily, the spirit. That one Lilith killed was an old soul. An evil one. He died physically that night, but his essence, the blackest shadow I’ve ever seen, tried to invade my body.”

Her eyes were as wide as her open mouth, which she covered with a shaking hand. He hadn’t wanted to tell her the truth, but maybe this was best. Maybe he’d frighten her enough to send her running back to Chicago without a backward glance.

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