Double Alchemy: Climax (10 page)

Cade frowned. “Here I am trying to bloody seduce you and you find something funny? What gives?”

“I was remembering the first time we met, the time you were hiding behind a tree and you rushed at me like some kind of Amazon warrior and ended up flat on your face.” Quinn chuckled at the thought as Cade’s face darkened and he squeezed Quinn’s groin tightly, causing him to wince.

“I wasn’t hiding, and if it hadn’t been for the fact that you had your Withinner reflexes, you’d still be bloody singing soprano.” Cade tightened his grip.

Quinn took a deep breath as he fidgeted to get free of his lover’s rather demanding grasp. “If you plan on using that anytime soon, you might like to let go. It’s feeling decidedly threatened with that mean grip you have.”

Cade regarded him with sultry eyes but didn’t let go. He chuckled softly, making Quinn’s skin tingle with the sheer sexiness of the sound. The fact that Cade’s tongue was now trailing itself down the side of Quinn’s throat certainly helped the sensation intensify.

“Did your big, bad witch do this?” Cade whispered as his hands released their grip and now softly stroked the front of Quinn’s pants, causing him to groan softly. “Or this?”

There was a rasp as Quinn’s zip was pulled down and he gasped as Cade reached in, stroking him with teasing fingers. Instinctively his hips curved up toward the source of his pleasure. Cade laughed softly and stood up, removing his clothes with a sleight of hand Quinn thought might make him a magician too. He stood before Quinn, all lean male lines and strong limbs, and Quinn thought he’d never seen anything so blatantly sexy.

He hungered for Cade, wanted his body so close to him that they melded into one. “Big, bad witch be damned,” he whispered. “There’s only you, only ever you.”

Cade smiled as he proceeded to strip Quinn of both his clothes and all rational sense. Making love with Cade was always a journey, one that involved every body part, every slick, wet, heated movement the man could conjure up, every flick of a greedy tongue that assailed Quinn’s skin and most intimate places and left him gasping for breath and what remained of his sanity. If Quinn was a lion, tawny and majestic, Cade was a panther—lithe, limber and more than a little dangerous. Finally Quinn was spent and lay back against the couch as Cade smiled down from above him, still impaled on Quinn’s spent and tender, raw cock, both men sticky with their fluids.

“Christ!” Quinn gasped. “I still don’t believe it feels this way every time we make love. It’s always such bloody fun.”

Cade laughed quietly as he moved off Quinn’s body, reaching for his tee shirt and cleaning them both up as best he could. “It must be that Warlock-Fey attraction.” He murmured as he gently cleaned the semen from their bodies. “No matter what you tell me about the feelings getting less every time we do it, it still sometimes feels like the first time we made love. Rather, when you seduced me.” He grinned and tossed the rather sticky tee shirt to the floor as he curled, naked and cat-like next to Quinn on the couch.

“You’ll never let me forget that, will you?” Quinn drawled as he lay on his side, looking across at his lover. “I’ll always be the big, bad ravager of men to you, won’t I? Even though you wanted to do me just as badly from the first time you saw me.”

Quinn yelped in pain as Cade tweaked his chest hair fiercely. “Get over yourself. You had an unfair advantage. You know exactly why my insides turned to mush when I met you. Me, I just thought I was a total man whore.”

Quinn mock frowned as he reached over and trailed his fingers down Cade’s arm. “You are
exactly
that. I don’t have a moment’s peace with your rabid addiction to having sex with me. Not that I’m complaining.”

He forestalled Cade’s indignant response by claiming his mouth with his, pulling his warm body over on top of him, his soft hair falling across Quinn’s face, tickling his nose. For a while there was silence, broken only by the sound of a cat’s soft purr in the corner of the room.

Chapter 9

Jeremy Payton stood on the vast expanse of a flat Essex marshland in the village of Mistley. Shivers wracked his stocky frame and he pulled his grey duffel coat tighter around his body. The dwindling twilight made everything look colder. In the distance, boats anchored in mud stood stark against the skyline, looking like splintered skeletons, unloved and uncared for. Rowan Kirkpatrick, Jeremy’s companion, had permitted himself a quiet chuckle when he’d seen the boat wreck nearest to where they were standing, so aptly called “Magic.”

The swans sat immersed in the marsh whilst the seagulls and terns made raucous sounds and scrabbled for food.

The teenager muttered to himself as he stood stomping his feet to keep him warm. “It’s a fucking joke, that’s what it is.” Jeremy scowled fiercely at the older man standing next to him. “He’s got us out here at the arse end of the world just to perform a ceremony that could have bloody been done somewhere a fucking lot warmer! Just because he doesn’t feel the bloody cold, he thinks it means we don’t either.”

Rowan regarded the boy without pity, his cold grey eyes flat. “Jeremy, firstly, don’t talk so disparagingly about the man you sustain. Remember what happened last time. Secondly, this particular place had great significance to Matthew when he was mortal. This part of Manningtree on the River Stour was where he had his base of operations. Some people believe his earthly body is buried around here.” He grinned nastily. “But we know better, don’t we? So please do me the kindness of stopping your whining and let Matthew tell you what he wants you to do next.”

Rowan Kirkpatrick regarded the young man with a sense of distaste. How the mighty Witchfinder General had ever had the bad luck to reside in this short, obtuse excuse for a young man was a mystery to him. He knew the boy was blood, but it was certainly an unfortunate circumstance that had led Matthew to where he currently resided.

Rowan was a self-professed expert on the works of the infamous Witchfinder General. He had a master’s in Religion in Contemporary Society from King’s College in London and had gone on to study further to the point where he certainly thought his studies and expertise allowed him to make such a claim. He’d been studying his subject matter for more than ten years. He was now thirty-five years old and wanting to move onto the next level. He’d never expected, however, to be contacted by this adolescent boy with an attitude and asked whether he wanted to be the new vessel for the reincarnated spirit of Matthew Hopkins himself. Rowan had to admit in his wildest dreams he’d never seen that coming. But after his initial scepticism that he was being trifled with, and a few very convincing displays of magyck and power, Rowan had accepted the honour with alacrity. He had few friends, little family and none that he really cared about, and his teachings were his passion.

Jeremy had been extremely aggressive at their first meeting, resenting the fact that his extra powers were going to be taken from him. But Hopkins had far greater ambitions that living inside a teenage body with all the angst and strife associated with it, blood descendant or not. He’d appeared to make that quite clear when he’d caused Jeremy’s ears to bleed and afflicted the youngster with such severe muscle cramps that he’d almost been bent backwards. After that little show of power, Jeremy had toed the party line with more grace.

Rowan had apparently been chosen because of his in-depth knowledge of the man himself and the fact he was “the right human vessel.” He didn’t really care how he’d got to this point, only that he had. Rowan was content to commit himself to the rituals Hopkins wanted to purify his body and prepare the vessel that was Rowan Kirkpatrick.

Since the beginning of October, nearly five months ago, Rowan Kirkpatrick had been leading a life of chastity, abstinence and, in his opinion, downright boredom. He’d been expected to abstain from sex, excesses of alcohol, smoking—all right, he wasn’t a smoker, but if he had been, he’d have had to give it up—and he had to make sure he was eating the right diet. Hopkins had been quite specific about the amount of red meat he had to eat—a lot—coupled with what in Rowan’s opinion was a really unhealthy obsession with cucumbers and quinces, both of which he heartily disliked. He’d also been given instructions to drink daily tinctures of the herb elecampane and eringus roots.

Rowan had been sick when he tasted them for the first time. He’d looked up their properties on the internet and stifled an expletive when he saw what they were used for in the seventeenth century. Eringus root was something used to prevent scurvy, which Rowan knew he didn’t and never intended to have. It was also a mild laxative and sometimes used as an aphrodisiac, which given his current state of celibacy was not a good idea. Elecampane was an overall tonic and stimulant that appeared only to be used in veterinary practices now. All in all, between running to the toilet half the day to relieve himself in all aspects, and having a case of blue balls due to the lack of sex—exacerbated, in Rowan’s opinion, by the Eringus herb—he’d lost weight. He also had a permanent heavy feeling in his groin which no amount of careful and intimate attention to his genitals when he was alone could permanently cure. He was looking forward to the day soon when he’d be able to put this all behind him and absorb the Witchfinder into his new bodily temple and perhaps get back to normal.

He stood now, watching Jeremy in his silent communion, feeling a prickle of fear for the first time. The special Mannacrux incantation they were about to recite on this day, the twentieth of March, had to be done just right for the start of his transition to begin.

Jeremy turned to him with the usual scowl on his face. “Right, Ichabod. He says to stand in front of me whilst I repeat the words he tells me. It has to be exactly seven p.m. when the chant starts.” He looked up at the sky. “Everything is in place.”

Rowan hated the nickname the teenage had given him, in his view an insult to his tall, crooked, spare frame, which, in Jeremy’s opinion, resembling the unfortunate Ichabod Crane of
Sleepy Hollow
fame.

“What exactly does this chant do?” Rowan asked, ignoring the sneer in Jeremy’s voice.

“It prepares the body you’ve been nourishing for the eventual psychic take-on of his spirit. That will only be done exactly forty-nine days from now, seven times seven, a very powerful number for the Witchfinder.”

Rowan narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “For a being that professes to hate witches and everything they stand for, there seems to be an incredible Wiccan significance to what we’re doing.”

Today was Ostara, Lady Day, the day of rebirth. Rowan still didn’t quite know why the Witchfinder General had planned this for a despised Wiccan sabbat, a sacred day for the very people he’d pledged to destroy, but he’d been assured that the magyck of the day was needed to make it work, to work against the witches. Hopkins had called it symbolic.

Jeremy glared at him. “The number seven is a powerful number in the Bible too. God created the world in seven days, remember? The seven deadly sins. The seven contrary virtues. The seven sacraments. The list of biblical references is endless. And anyway, March 20 is the feast day for various saints. Matthew knows what he’s doing. So don’t be all po-faced, Rowan. We’re doing this with reference to
our
beliefs, not those dirty witches’ ones.”

It was probably the most educated and impassioned speech Rowan had ever heard from the young teenager, and he looked at him in surprise. Jeremy stared back impassively.

Rowan shrugged. “Well said. I apologise for doubting you or Matthew.” He looked at his watch. “We have ten minutes before seven o’clock. Are we ready for this then?” He regarded Jeremy carefully. “What can I expect when this chant starts? Will it hurt, will I need to say anything myself?”

Jeremy nodded, a glint of satisfaction in his eyes. “It will hurt. But you need to stay silent through the chant. He says to stay calm, accept whatever happens and keep your mouth shut.” He grinned wolfishly. “Matthew says you can open your mouth to scream if the pain gets too much but he’d prefer it if you didn’t.”

Rowan’s heart beat faster. This wasn’t something he was looking forward to. He took a deep breath as he readied himself for what lay ahead.

“Stand before me.” Jeremy commanded. “Close your eyes and hold out your hands.”

Rowan stood, towering over the younger man. Jeremy laid his hands on the other man’s and waited patiently for seven p.m. They stood in silence until finally Rowan’s hands tingled as Jeremy started the incantation. His voice was low, making no sense and Rowan didn’t recognise the words or the language. The tingle intensified, spreading up his arms, into his chest, making it tight as he struggled to breathe. His jaw ached as if he’d been hit hard. But the worst pain of all was in his head. He envisaged it like a thousand nanobots so often seen in the movies, invading his brain, circling aimlessly inside, their sharpened teeth bared to shred his brain to pieces.

He wanted to scream but the pain was too intense to even do that. All he could do was stand there like a marionette being pulled by invisible strings, his head jerking and his hands shaking. Jeremy kept up his chant, his words growing louder and more guttural.

Rowan knew he couldn’t stand much more of this. Dimly, he heard the younger man’s tones soften and finally fade away and then there was nothing more than a blinding whiteness, searing his eyeballs like looking into a nuclear explosion. Then there was blessed darkness and the pain disappeared; his chest opened up and he was finally able to breathe.

“It’s finished.” Jeremy’s curt words cut into the silence of the marsh, overshadowed by the cries of seagulls as they flew above. Rowan opened his eyes and immediately wished he hadn’t. They were terribly sensitive, prickling like pins and needles, and he saw nothing but darkness. He reached up a hand to touch them to find them wet with something. He gave a strangled cry, and reached out blindly to Jeremy.

Jeremy grasped his hands. “Relax. Your vision will come back. Give it a while.” Rowan nodded, gasping with anxiety and Jeremy let go of his hands and reached up to his face. The teenager used what a handkerchief to wipe the wetness from his eyes.