The Witch With No Name

“The charm is fine,” he said, face red. He was lying; they did this charm at the dewar—more often than they wanted to admit—and that sickened me.

“Then what do I use to anoint the scarf and his feet? My finger?” I asked snarkily. The reason it wasn’t written down was plausible deniability. You couldn’t be brought to justice for a black charm there was no written evidence of.

“Ahh, I would think an aspen rod,” he said, and I took the pen out of his hand and added it to the list. “I’m destroying that before I leave,” he said, meaning the paper.

No you aren’t, I thought, but was smart enough not to say it. Damn it all to the Turn and back, people were crap. How can you respect a group who sacrificed babies to lengthen their own pathetic lives?

“Aspen rod,” I said, setting the pen down with an accusing snap. “Then what?”

Landon was eyeing me in distrust, and I gave him a sarcastic smile. “You do the same with the egg white, anointing the arms of the pentagram first, and then the recipient’s palms.”

“Using the same wand?” I guessed, and he nodded, flushed. “Can I use a chicken’s egg?”

“Not if you want it to work,” he muttered, and I took that as a fact. Eggs were a symbol of rebirth, but the Mayans used to believe that hummingbirds were the souls of warriors and would make an even closer tie. I could probably pick up one at one of the more exclusive charm shops.

“So let me guess,” I said, pulling the paper to me. It looked funny seeing the clearly old charm on fresh white paper. “Step three is to anoint the point of the pentagram and his forehead with his own blood?”

He grimaced, shifting from foot to foot. “I’d use the same wand again.”

“Then what?”

Landon hesitated, as if trying to decide only now if giving me this info was a good idea.

“What next, Landon …?” I intoned, and he tugged the paper back to himself.

“Roll the scarf into a cylinder and run it through the Möbius strip. Both loops.”

Big Möbius strip, check. I had one of those. I had two of them, actually. “What’s it made of?” I asked, and I almost saw him kick himself.

“Shit, I forgot that part,” he muttered. “Copper. Yes, copper.”

My fingers drummed on the counter. “You know what? I think I’ll just go to the library and find a nice reincarnation spell. Take my chances.”

Landon glared. “I know how to do this.”

“You sure?” I snapped, and both of us looked to the hallway at a pixy guffaw. No one was there, but a tiny whisper of pixy dust was slipping down.

Landon rolled up the paper, clearly ready to take his ball and go home. It was the lure of being the one who brought down the vampires that kept him here, kept him honest. “Most of this is all just to get the Goddess’s attention. It’s the thought that counts.”

I sobered at the reminder of the Goddess. Newt had assured me that the mystics and the Goddess herself wouldn’t recognize me even if I stood in a ley line and shouted for her, but she wasn’t called a goddess because she was impotent. “Okay, run the pentagram through the Möbius strip. Then what?”

My sudden meekness bolstered Landon’s mood, and I frowned when he tucked the paper into an inner pocket and went to get his hat from the table. “The scarf finds a neutral flow from the copper ions it picks up, so now you can shake the salt out and drape the scarf over the recipient’s face, blood spot at the forehead right where you anointed him. From there, you simply open the container holding the soul. Chanting the phrase will draw it forth, and the soul should go to him and fix into place. At least until he dies again. Burn the scarf to break the pathway and prevent the soul from escaping the body.”

He put on his hat, clearly ready to go. I nodded, still uneasy in that he might have forgotten something—intentionally. “You never said where the spiderweb fit in.”

“Oh! Right.” He hesitated in the archway. “Drape it over your shoulder for protection against an aggressive soul.”

Aggressive soul. Yes, I’d run into one of those before, but Al hadn’t used spiderwebs to help protect against them. Come to think of it, I’d never seen a spider in the ever-after, and I thought it pathetic that the elves and demons had polluted their world to the point where even a spider couldn’t survive.

“Ellasbeth, are you ready?” Landon called as he stood in the threshold between the kitchen and the hallway, and I heard her ask him for a moment. Frowning, Landon leaned against the frame of the opening.

“You sure you don’t want to add anything else?” I said, trying not to look at the pocket he put the charm in. I wanted it, wanted it bad.

“No.” Mood sour, he looked into the living room, then pushed himself forward. Steps fast, he came three paces in, eyes intent as he pulled the paper from his inner pocket, taunting me with it. I jumped when he tugged on the line out back, tossing the paper into the sink and igniting it with a single word.

Son of a bastard, I thought, grimacing at the sudden rush of shoes in the hall. Trent slid to a halt when he saw Landon standing over the fire in the sink, and he exhaled in relief. Ellasbeth click-clacked in behind him, coat over her arm, and Trent frowned. “Thanks for your help. You both have a flight out of here tonight, right?” Trent asked, clearly eager for them to leave.

Landon chuckled, turning the taps on to wash even the ash into the sewer system and out of my reach. “I’ve got a reservation at the Cincinnatian. Ellasbeth tells me it’s the only decent live-in hotel in the area.”

“Even if the staff is surly.” Ellasbeth’s mood wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad either. Trent must have given her something, but I bet it had cost her. Suddenly I felt as if both of us had been manipulated, even if it had been us who had called them.

“Do you have what you need?” Trent asked, and I nodded. The more satisfied Ellasbeth and Landon became, the more uneasy I felt. It technically wasn’t a curse if I didn’t have to kill anyone to perform the magic. There hadn’t been any indication that it required direct contact with the Goddess to do the curse either, but he could have left that out. He had before.

Smile stilted, Ellasbeth turned to Trent. “Thank you,” she said, and my pulse hammered. “I’ll be in touch as soon as I get a permanent address.”

My expression froze. Crap on toast, the woman was moving to Cincinnati. Shit, shit, shit! Why had I gone along with this? Made it sound like a good idea?

“I’ll wait for your call.” Trent put a hand on her shoulder and gave her a cold kiss good-bye on her cheek. My gut tightened. I knew I gave myself away when Ellasbeth leaned in to accept it, her eyes on mine and a mocking smile on her thin, lipstick-red lips. The tension rose. Landon clearly wasn’t happy either. I’m an idiot. My clear conscience wouldn’t keep me warm at night, hold me when I cried, or smile when I made a joke.

“Landon,” Ellasbeth said as she held her coat out to him, and he slowly moved to settle it across her shoulders.

“Bye now,” I said as I leaned against the counter and tried not to grimace. “Thanks for the soul-stealing charm.”

Her coat on, Ellasbeth waited a telling moment for Trent to escort them to the door, but when he ignored them, she turned on a heel and stalked off, shoes clicking on the hardwood floor. Landon lurched to catch up, already digging in a pocket for the car keys.

A shower of pixy dust sifted down from the overhanging rack. I hadn’t known Jenks was up there, but I wasn’t surprised as he gave Trent a thumbs-up and darted out after them.

Trent sighed heavily, and together we listened to Ellasbeth’s heels aggressively striking the floor in the sanctuary. “That woman is plotting,” I said softly, and Trent pulled me into a sudden, unexpected hug.

“Oh God,” he almost moaned, his arms tight around me as I scrambled to shift gears. “I think you are the only thing keeping me from going insane sometimes. You and the girls.”

But he had kissed her. “Really?” I mumbled. From the front, the door slammed, making the curtains over the sink drift.

Breath catching, he nodded, still staring at the ceiling as if the words he wanted to say were imprinted up there with pixy dust. “When everything seems to impact everything and there’s no easy answer, I ask myself: Will this decision take me closer or farther from you? And then it’s so clear. Even if it doesn’t make sense at the time.”

He thought this would bring us closer? My heart thudded. He had meant that kiss as show, but fear still lingered. Ellasbeth had brought everything back that I’d been ignoring, everything that Trent had been working his entire life for and lost because of me, everything his father had begun, everything that I couldn’t help him with and she could. I could do nothing as a flash of heartache lit through me. I love him. I can say that now. “You’re going to let her see Lucy? Trent, that’s so dangerous.”

“It was your idea.” He exhaled, pulling me closer so my head was against his shoulder and I could feel every inch of him pressed against me. “You’re right, though. It would be more dangerous not to,” he said, his words making my hair move. “Besides, I’m angry, not cruel, and I’m confident that Ellasbeth is now cognizant of what she gambled and lost by casually tossing that all-or-nothing choice down before me. If she wants to see Lucy, she’s going to make every sacrifice she would’ve made if she had married me in the first place, but now all she gets is to be a part of Lucy’s life, not mine. She will hate Cincinnati for the very things I love about it. My revenge is complete.”

He’s giving her a chance to fulfill her original role, I thought, tension winding through me. Trent wasn’t seeing this as a way for Ellasbeth to wind him around her finger, but I did.

Trent gave me a squeeze, but I couldn’t get myself out of my funk. He was bringing pieces back into play to try to regain his standing. I knew he wouldn’t sacrifice me to reach his end, but there was no way he could do it if I was beside him—and someday he’d realize that. He’d grow cold, indifferent. I’d seen it before.

“I don’t trust Landon,” I said, feeling my breath come back from him as my fingers defined the lines of his back. “I don’t trust Ellasbeth, and I certainly don’t trust them together. As soon as we’re no longer useful to Landon, and she realizes she won’t get what she wants, she’ll try to gain custody with a more permanent means, you know that, right?”

Trent let me go, avoiding me. Damn it, he did know, and yet he was giving her the very chance she needed to stick a knife in his ribs. “Trent—”

“You think Landon’s charm is true?” he interrupted.

He was still holding me, and I pressed into him. “I don’t like using a charm passed down by oral tradition for two thousand years,” I said, then added, “But I think they use it enough that as long as Landon remembered it right, it will work. Are you sure you don’t have anything in your library? He could be setting us up. That charm might take our souls for all I know.”

His reassuring smile only made me more concerned. “He wants an end to the vampires more than an end to me or you. We can trust that.”

“So we’re safe until the undead vampires are dead. I should probably write it down before I forget.” I reluctantly pulled from him to get a pencil and paper from Ivy’s desk. “Even if it will be in my handwriting and not his.”

“I think Jenks has it,” Trent said, looking out at the garden. “Jenks!” he shouted, startling me. “Where’s the charm?”

Pen in hand, I turned from the table to see Trent stretching to the hanging rack to turn the few hanging pots as if to empty them. “You had him copy it? Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Because you—” Spent dust spilled out of one, covering Trent in silver. He sneezed, missing the postage-stamp-size scrap of paper now drifting to the floor. It had to be the copied charm, and I picked it up, recognizing Jenks’s handwriting and the glyph of a pentagram. “There it is,” he said, seeing it in my hand and smiling. “Because you aren’t used to dealing with civil servants disguised as religious leaders.”

A smile found me. “Have I told you lately how wonderful you are?” I tugged at his belt, pulling him to me again. My arms went around his neck, and I beamed at him, the copied spell in one hand, the fingers of my other hand playing with the hair at the nape of his neck, stretching until I could just brush the arch of his pointy ears. Heartache swept me. How long could I hold on to him? A year? Two?

“Repeatedly, but I’m open to hearing it again,” he said, eyes alight with possibilities as he tilted his head and our lips met in a kiss.

Emotion spilled through me, heat tingling from our lips down to my middle, all the sweeter for knowing it could never last. My hand fisted in his hair, and his breath caught at the tight demand. He pulled me closer, his hands at my waist almost lifting me off my feet. The kitchen, I thought as my back hit the counter and his hand slipped under my shirt, his fingers both smooth and demanding, tracing over my skin. What was it about the kitchen that seemed to get both of us in a rush?

My eyes opened as our lips parted, but the tingling he’d started continued, making me move against him in time with his ever-moving hands, searching, rising to hint at finding my breast and send new tingles down to my spine. “You know what to do when you think of me, huh?” I said, thinking it was one of the most telling things anyone had ever said to me, making me feel loved and needed all at the same time.

“Always,” he breathed, looking at my lips.

“What are you thinking now?” I teased.

“I’m trying to remember why you haven’t moved in with me,” he said, and we slowly stilled, pressed against each other and content to just be.

Because I can’t take that hurt again, I thought, unable to say it. Because anything this good can’t last. Because I love you. Because Ellasbeth and he were talking again, and I knew that was what everyone wanted. Quen would be so-o-o pleased.

“Tink’s titties, you two aren’t pressing flesh again,” Jenks griped as he flew in at head height, saving me from answering. “God! I’m glad pixies dust instead of sweat. You should see the heat waves coming up from you.”

Trent started to let go, but seeing the doubt my silence had made, I pulled him back and found his lips, hungry almost as soon as I closed my eyes and let my fingers drift down his back to his tight, grabbable backside. Trent responded, and I don’t know what happened to Jenks’s copied spell as I suddenly found myself spun around and plunked on the counter.

“Oh God!” Jenks complained as I wrapped my legs around Trent, imprisoning him. The bare hint of stubble pricked over my fingertips as I traced his jawline. “Stop it, will you?” Jenks griped. “Just ’cause there aren’t any more kids in the church doesn’t mean you can …”

Breathless, I pulled from Trent. My lip unexpectedly caught between his teeth for a bare instant, and a flash of passion lit through me even as we parted. “Can what, Jenks?” I said, letting my feet fall from around Trent so he could turn to look at the disgusted pixy hovering before us. I’d found Trent to be a surprisingly attentive lover the last three months, the tabloids going crazy at kisses over sparkling wine at Carew Tower, and his casual touch as he tried to teach me how to golf, and though the passion had been real, I knew the intent behind the last thirty seconds had only been to shock Jenks. It made me love him even more—he was a part of my life, and I hadn’t seen it even happen. Now all I had to do was hold on until it fell apart.

Trent’s smile slowly faded as reality came slipping back, drawn by Jenks’s orangish dust and the spell in his hand. “Thanks, Jenks,” he said as he moved away. I suddenly felt alone as I sat on the counter, the bitter smell of cold coffee coming from the coffeemaker. I slid down, having to tuck my shirt in before I opened a drawer for my magnifying glass. I had like three of them, and I handed Trent the largest.

“No problem,” Jenks said as he got over his huff and set the spell on the counter. “You guys never look up, and Jrixibell had a pencil lead stashed up there already.”

Jenks’s wings seemed to slow their hum at the reminder of his youngest daughter, now out on her own and raising a family. Jax, too, had left again after only a few weeks. I intentionally bumped into Trent as we clustered over the scrap of paper, and I relaxed at the scent of cinnamon and wine hiding under Trent’s aftershave. Jenks’s sketch was more precise than Landon’s, having none of the crossed-off instructions and with the ingredients in order. Even better, it would be harder to link this to me since it was in Jenks’s handwriting.

“I’m not liking the spiderweb,” Trent said, frowning as he used one finger to hold the paper from moving from our breath. “It’s the only thing that doesn’t match from what I remember when Bancroft taught it to my mother.”

“You know it?” I exclaimed, following that through to an uncomfortable conclusion. “You know how to strip an infant’s soul from it and paste someone else’s on it? Why did you make me go through that?” But what disturbed me most was why he knew it at all.

Trent was grinning when he looked up. His expression flashed to panic as he guessed my thoughts. “Oh, Rachel, I was ten when I heard it, listening at a door where I shouldn’t have been. I’m sorry. I didn’t even remember it until seeing this.” He hesitated, and I frowned when he touched my arm. “Really, I didn’t. But I don’t remember the spiderweb.”

My shoulders eased, as much from Trent’s obvious distress as from Jenks’s shrug. “Maybe you should skip that part,” Jenks suggested as he took it and rolled it into a tube.

“Maybe,” I said, when Trent ducked his head and winced. “Aren’t spiderwebs supposed to be for protection, though?”

“Protection through concealment.” Trent dropped back to lean against the counter in thought, looking especially yummy when he crossed one ankle over the other. “I think it’s okay. I probably just forgot.” His focus shifted to me. “I still think giving an undead a soul is a bad idea, but if you don’t, Ivy will suffer. Be careful what you wish for, yes?”

“Because it might come true,” I said softly. At this point, I honestly didn’t care if they all died out, but having seen the chaos in Cincinnati when the undead had been sleeping was a stiff lesson to swallow—or whatever.

I jumped when Trent’s arm went around me. “We’ll see it through,” he said, and Jenks rose up with the charm, presumably to hide it. “No matter what it takes. Soon as we get the charm prepped, we’ll go collect Felix’s soul. It’s probably still lurking about the ley line at Eden Park. We could have this done by the end of the weekend, no problem.”

Somehow I didn’t think it was going to be that easy. “Thank you.” I turned into him, head falling to his chest as he wrapped his arms around me and held me, grounding me in a way that no one had for a long time. I felt his certainty, but my doubts lingered even as I soaked him in.

I hadn’t wished for Trent in my life, but now that I had him, I was more confused, more heartbroken than I’d ever been. Trent was willing to sacrifice everything for me, but I didn’t know if I could let him.

Seven

Ellasbeth’s light perfume lifted from Trent in the tight confines of his car. My head hurt, but if it was from that, or Cormel’s vampires tailing us, or Nina fidgeting in the back, or that I was on my way to Eden Park to capture a master’s soul with an elven black charm that Landon had given me, I didn’t know.

“So much to choose from,” I whispered, my grip on the wheel tightening as I glanced at Trent. He was slumped against the window, eyes shut and chest moving slowly in the faint light reflected from the twilight-gloomed sky. My irritation eased, and I stifled the urge to rearrange his hair. He looked charmingly vulnerable when he slept, and because of his nature, I often caught him catching a few winks around noon and midnight. It made me feel loved every time.

The scent of angry vampire was growing stronger, and I opened a vent. Behind us, Cormel’s thugs accelerated to close the gap as we neared the interstate’s off-ramp. The window would have been better, but that would’ve woken up Trent for sure.

“I shouldn’t have left Ivy,” the nervous woman said, expression tight as she looked out the window. The car following us was almost on my bumper, and I flicked on my turn signal way ahead of time hoping they’d back off a little. Cormel knew where we were going, and I thought the escort was a bit much.

“They might try to kidnap her,” Nina said, her motion vampire fast as she fiddled with her hair, pulling the heavy wash of rich black out of its thick clip and redoing it. “He said he wouldn’t kill her. He never said he wouldn’t kidnap her.”

Grimacing, I took the curve off the interstate, pumping my brakes to get the vampires behind me to friggin’ back off. Trent took a deep breath as I slowed for a stoplight, blinking himself awake. His flash of confusion vanished as he sat up, looking entirely accessible in his rumpled, relaxed state.

“Kalamack’s security has too many holes,” Nina muttered, and Trent’s smile vanished.

“I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” he said as he looked out at the shadowed Cincinnati riverfront and placed himself.

“I like it when you do.” Eyes forward, I eased into motion when the light changed.

Trent’s hand landed on my leg with a contented pop. I let go of the wheel to take it, giving his fingers a squeeze even as I kept them right where he’d put them. My pulse quickened, but it wasn’t from his touch. The distance that he’d always kept between us had gradually—almost shyly—dissolved over the last three months, evolving into a surprisingly tactile nature. Casual touches and meaningful looks had become as natural as breathing. But it was different now because I wanted it to last forever.

And burn my cookies if I didn’t think he sensed the change when he cocked his head and leaned across the space between us, whispering, “What?”

The thought was still painfully new, and I shook my head, flustered. “Nothing.”

His eyebrows high in question, he glanced at Nina as if she might be to blame for my mood, and I shook my head, staring straight out the front window as we wound through Eden Park’s outer drive. I wished things were different, that my life was easier. But then I might never have had the chance to see Trent slumped against his car door, smiling as he opened his eyes and found me watching him. Good with the bad, I thought, hoping they would equal out in the end.

“Leaving her alone was a bad idea,” Nina said again, stewing as she filled the car with the scent of unhappy vampire.

“She’s not alone,” I muttered, thinking that between Quen’s security and Cormel’s promise, she ought to be safe. My mood lifted when we passed the town houses and then where I’d left my car yesterday and I saw it waiting. It hadn’t been towed, but it wasn’t as if we could stop and get it. Frustrated, I cracked my window, neck tingling as the draft pushed everything to the front. “Ivy is fine,” I grumped, glad when Trent opened his window as well and the cloud of pheromones finally found a way out. And if Ivy wasn’t fine, I was going to spend tomorrow polishing my stakes and amulets.

I had to believe that Ivy was okay—at least until midnight—and I didn’t mind at all that Nina wasn’t with her, the edgy vampire coming with us to be the bait in the Felix-soul trap. I had a lingering concern that Nina was out for what was important to Nina, not Ivy. That she loved Ivy wasn’t in question. What she’d do to keep her was.

Trent sat up as we wound up the long drive to the overlook and the limited parking. Head down over his phone as he texted, he said, “Not very subtle, is he?”

My gaze flicked to the rearview mirror and the big black car. There were at least five heads in there, maybe more. Nina’s slow growl made me more nervous than the car did.