Black Magic Bayou (26 page)

I swallowed hard, thinking about the girl at the party with the floral-print dress who looked exactly like Tansy only all wrong somehow.

Heidi continued to stare at me, unflinching. “She said if anyone who looked like her set foot in our room again, we’d be better off killing ourselves because what it would do to us was so much worse.”

I considered Tansy’s doppelganger, and Cash saying Tansy was with him. I pictured the girl in the alley who had killed the man and stolen the instrument of his death. My head swam.

I’d thought of a dozen different ways to explain how there were two identical girls, but until now I hadn’t been able to make any of those explanations fit.

“Santiago.” My body went leaden, and I sank to the ground. Wilder and the witch were both at my side immediately. “The blood in the salt…it wasn’t Alexandra’s.”

“What do you mean?” Santiago was leaning close, so close I could smell the cinnamon gum he was chewing.

“The second line. I thought the salt was mixed with Alexandra’s blood. I thought it was to keep the demon in.”

“Yes. It looked like a binding ward.”

I shook my head so vigorously it made me dizzy. I braced myself with one hand on Wilder’s leg, the other on the grass next to me. “It wasn’t. The salt was the ward. The blood is Tansy’s.”

His expression was vacant, not getting it, so I inhaled sharply through my nose and said, “I wasn’t sure which one it was inside. Her, her possessed, whatever. But it was Gamigan pretending to be her, I’m sure of it. It used her to get out, and now it’s taking her form.”

Santiago was quiet for a moment, then got to his feet. “Girls, get to my car please. Go, go.” He pushed Laura ahead, then ushered Heidi after her. “Lock the doors.”

Wilder was still crouching next to me, waiting for me to make the final connection for him. He hadn’t been in the basement; he didn’t know how this kind of magic worked. To be honest, it was pretty new to me, and to Santiago as well, it seemed.

I squeezed his thigh. “I thought there was a ward keeping the demon trapped.”

“Right, you’d sealed the door with a protection spell.”

“I did, but that’s not what I mean. There was something in the basement, and I thought because the lines weren’t broken the demon was trapped.”

His color began to fade, and his Adam’s apple bobbed slowly while he swallowed. “And it’s not?”

Maintaining my grip on him, I forced myself back to my feet. Santiago grabbed hold of one arm when I teetered, and Wilder’s hand was on my waist again. I was already trying to get as much distance from the house as I could.

When I glanced back one last time, I saw the shape of a woman standing in one of the windows, and it made my entire body spasm with fear.

“No. It’s not trapped anymore. It used Tansy’s blood to break her own circle. And now it can take her form. Meaning it’s not stuck in there. It can move freely now.”

“So, basically…” Wilder drifted off mid-sentence, following my line of sight to the upstairs window.

Santiago finished the thought for us.

“We run.”

Wilder and I took his bike, following Santiago as he easily navigated the streets in his aging BMW. It was probably a bit risky for me to get on the motorcycle given my wobbly condition, but the scare of seeing Gamigan-Tansy standing there watching us had been enough to kick-start my survival drive all over again.

We parked in front of Santiago’s Garden District mansion moments after he had pulled up with the girls.

He left his car unlocked and herded Laura and Heidi towards his front door. The big house looked different than when I’d first seen it. With all the lights off it didn’t have the same magnetic pull, begging me to enter. There was no easy comfort to be had, no mystery through the windows.

Now that I knew what was inside, it wasn’t quite the same.

Once we were through the door, he tossed his keys on a small table at the entrance, flicked on a few lights, and waved his hand towards the living room facing the front street. “Make yourselves comfortable, ladies, but try not to touch anything that looks like it might be magical.”

They paused inside the arch leading into the living room and glanced around nervously. I couldn’t blame their hesitation. The room was basically decorated head to toe in things that might be otherworldly.

“Just watch TV for a bit,” I suggested.

My wobblies had started to wear off, and I could walk on my own now. High-five for lycanthropy and its glorious healing factor. I suspected if I’d been human, all the magic I’d done tonight would have left me in a coma. Or, more likely, dead.

I had a seven-day nap coming to me after this.

“Genie, a little help?” Santiago was already in the kitchen.

The familiar way he said my name made Wilder frown. I was just happy he hadn’t used the stupid nickname. It was bad enough having one guy give you a slightly condescending pet name thinking it was cute. Having two guys do it might give me some sort of complex.

Though, admittedly, I kind of liked it when Wilder called me Princess. Not that I’d ever tell him that to his face.

Considering I never corrected him when he used the title, he probably already knew.

“Can you keep an eye on them?” I asked.

He nodded slowly, watching without a word as I turned to leave the room. Then, just when I thought he had nothing to add to the interaction, he snagged me by the wrist and pulled me back towards him, spinning me so I was facing him when my body bumped against his.

The expression on his face and the light in his eyes didn’t show the slightest indication of jealousy, just concern, and a deep, instinctual protectiveness that was rooted right down to the very core of his being.

He released my wrist and cupped my face in both hands, rubbing rough thumbs over my cheekbones.

“This is going to get worse before it gets better, Princess.”

I smirked. This man and his timing.

“I’m starting to think that’s sort of how our life is going to go from now on. You still sure you want to stick around?” I said it like I was teasing, but as soon as the words were out I was terrified he might take the out seriously and cut his losses.

Being a werewolf mechanic in St. Francisville was a lot less risky than being the boyfriend of a were-witch who managed to piss off demons when she wasn’t even trying. There was such a thing as being
too
interesting.

“Oh, sweetheart, I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

He dipped his head, closing the small gap between us, and kissed me in a slow, languid way that was usually reserved for Sunday mornings when lovers had all the time in the world.

I melted into his embrace, leaning my whole body weight into his so he had to let go of my face and hold me up with strong arms around my waist. Oh, what a glorious feeling it was, to let myself
feel
. The world stopped for a moment, and there was nothing but his kisses, his taste, his perfect, perfect smell.

When I broke away, my dizziness had returned, but for entirely new reasons.

I tried to catch my breath and had to push him back from kissing me again. Last time that happened we didn’t make it past my living room. I wasn’t about to have sex with him in Santiago’s foyer, but it was way too easy to get carried away when this dude’s smooches were involved.

“Watch them,” I whispered. “I’ll be right back.”

“Tell him to keep his mouth to himself.” He was smirking, but there was an honest edge to the words, even though they were said in jest. It was going to be awhile before the Santiago situation didn’t upset him, but it seemed like we might be making headway.

The witch saving my life had gone a long way to appeasing my man.

My man.

Huh. I liked the way that sounded in my head. I was going to need to give it a try out loud. If we survived long enough.

Yes, first thing on my post-demon to-do list was to call Wilder my boyfriend.

And then maybe we could finally go on a real date. One that didn’t involve anyone dying, or any evil monsters, or false religious leaders, or
anyone
ending up in jail.

Man, what did a normal date consist of anyway?

Santiago popped his head back in the room, giving me a stern glare. “Any day now.”

Wilder nodded to me—not like he was giving permission, more like he was saying
You need to do this, I get it
. I followed Santiago into his big kitchen and found he’d cleared away much of the debris from the previous night. The island had been stacked high with various ingredients, some of which I recognized, while others were a mystery.

Some of this stuff wouldn’t be out of place in Ezekiel’s basement.

I picked up a bundle of sage, holding it to my nose and taking a deep breath. The familiar, slightly sweet herbal smell was its own form of comfort. Being around all this spellcraft over the last two days had made me miss
Memere
something fierce. If anyone would know what to do with this mess, it would be her. She’d have whispered, like, two words, and the whole thing would be over.

Times like this I wondered if I’d done the right thing, coming home with Secret. If I’d stayed with
Memere
instead of listening to Callum’s request to return to the pack, would I have been better prepared for this sort of disaster?

Would I even be dealing with it in the first place?

I tried to picture what my life would have been like if my sister hadn’t come into it, and it was impossible. So much had happened since then, things that had changed me in fundamental ways. Things would doubtlessly be different, but I couldn’t begin to imagine what that existence looked like.

I set the sage down, suppressing the urge to sigh. I had to distract myself before this became the mopey Genie show. Self-doubt could wait.

“How can I help?” I started poking at the items on the counter, and Santiago hovered nearby, watching me. The weight of his gaze was so tangible it might as well have been his hands. He said nothing as I picked up each jar and baggie on the counter, inspecting the contents.

A little silver cup caught my eye, and I lifted it to smell what was inside. I coughed once, surprised by the pungent odor, then smelled again to confirm my suspicions, wrinkling my nose this time in spite of being prepared.

“Is this—?”

“Piss.”

I had known the answer before he said the word, yet it wasn’t until he spoke it aloud that I forced myself to put the cup back down and wipe my nose to chase away the lingering scent.

“But it’s
tiger
urine.”

“Mmhmm.” He came to stand next to me, rearranging some of the items I’d touched. “Impressive nose.”

“Werewolf,” I reminded him. “Where did you get tiger urine?”

“Zoo.” Didn’t even skip a beat, just said it matter-of-factly. “Why, where do you get yours?”

“Uh.” I glanced up at him and found he was grinning with a kind of joyful madness that made it hard to dislike him. “God, you’re annoying.”

“Infuriating. Enchanting. Maybe a little irresistible.” He bumped my shoulder with his.

I did not give him the pleasure of agreeing with any of those statements, no matter how true they might be. Actually, “I’ll grant you infuriating. That one is spot-on.”

“I’m also one of the best. Probably
the
best you’ll find in Louisiana, with the exception of
La Sorcière
.”

“You’re not giving
me
a lot of credit here. I’m the one who trained with her.” My ego was a tiny bit bruised that he wouldn’t acknowledge how awesome what I’d done back at the house was.

And then I remembered he’d done the exact same thing minutes before that and had managed to pull it off without needing any extra power to draw from.

Fine, whatever, he was super impressive. No need to get braggy about it.

“Seriously, though, what do you need tiger pee for?”

“It helps increase the potency of the lure. There’s a very specific combination of things we’ll need to have in place to get the demon to freely put itself inside our chosen prison.”

“Urine.” I raised an eyebrow at him, letting him know I wasn’t buying the explanation.

“You’ve never smelled a hell dimension, I take it.”

“I have Febreze for that.”

A snort. “Let’s just say when you’re surrounded by fire and brimstone and shit and despair all day, piss has its own unique appeal.”

“You know a lot about this for someone who has never encountered a demon before.” I narrowed my eyes at him, wondering if he might let something slip that he hadn’t previously.

He lifted his chin. His formerly tidy hair had become unkempt with all our running around, and long tendrils of shiny black curls were falling in his eyes. A very obnoxious and vocal part of me wanted to push those curls back, to touch them and find out if they were as soft as they looked.

Yeah, I wasn’t nearly as ready to be alone around Santiago as I wanted to be.

A day wasn’t enough to chase away the lingering initial attraction. Go figure.

He must have seen the way my expression shifted. His sly, joking manner changed into something darker. He didn’t move or do anything that could be construed as an advance, but the look on his face spooked me, offering its own kind of danger. There was an awareness there that bothered me because it meant he was recognizing something in me I was trying super hard to pretend didn’t exist.

Finally, just when I was ready to bolt out of the kitchen, he cleared his throat and took a deep breath through his nostrils like he’d forgotten to breathe for too long.

“I know a lot of things.”

It took me a minute to realize he was responding to my last comment and not anything more scandalous. I
thought
.

“Well you do have an extensive library.”

This made the corner of his lip curve up. “Stop flirting with me and focus.”

“I wasn—”

Santiago handed me a jar filled with blood. “Hold this.” He withdrew an elastic from his jeans and pushed his hair back from his face, tying it in a small, messy bun at the back of his head.

Ugh, he even made a man-bun look good. Someone needed to put this guy on a rocket and fire him into the sun. At least then I’d have a good reason not to stare at him.