This Wicked Magic. Michele Hauf
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am a bit peckish. And I prefer crème de violette. But I won’t stay long. You feed me, then I’m out of here.”
“Excellent. I happen to have crème de violette. I should warn you before going inside. There’s no real way to prepare a person. What I’ve acquired since returning to this realm, what I surround myself with, is a means to survival.”
She gave him a hopeful gaze, and his heart thudded hard. Those huge emerald eyes. He wanted to kiss them and savor them. Apologize to them and be worthy of their admiration.
“So try me,” she said.
“All right. But take it all in before you say anything. Promise?”
She nodded, and when he opened the door, the red witch stepped over the threshold and gasped, clutching her throat, as her eyes veered skyward.
Chapter 5
Head tilted back, Vika wandered into the huge loft apartment that mastered the sixth floor. Marveling, she took in all the busy wonders suspended above her.
“Prismatic light,” she whispered, her footsteps moving her slowly forward across the hardwood floor.
Everywhere hung chandeliers. Clear crystal chandeliers, colored and black crystals, all strung, attached and hanging upon silver, brass and black iron and steel fixtures. The entire rainbow dazzled. And bewildered. There were massive structures stretching over six, seven, even eight feet across, and smaller ones hung as if fruits laden heavily within an orchard.
Overwhelmed by it all, she clutched her arms about her and looked to CJ, who still stood in the doorway, ankles casually crossed and thumbs hooked in his jeans pockets.
“My home,” he offered.
“There are so many.” She spread her arms as if to take them all in, but it was impossible. “And all of them on all the time?”
“Yes, I never turn them off. Have a backup generator up on the roof in case the power goes out. It’s disconcerting at first.”
“I’ll say.”
She moved down the aisle toward the kitchen. The loft was spread across an open floor plan. To her left, a huge four-poster bed mastered what must be the bedroom, with a Chinese screen offering little privacy, save perhaps to stand behind to dress. The kitchen sat plopped in the center of the vast hardwood-floored area, the chandeliers above it all clear and casting a rainbow upon the counters and fixtures. Way over to the right a comfy gray couch and a few easy chairs gathered about a massive granite coffee table.
Behind her and around a long counter forming a half wall along one side of the entry looked like where CJ might do his spellwork. A scatter of magical accoutrements sat beneath crystal clouds of dazzling light.
Stumbling, she stepped aside a heap of jeans mounded on the floor and noticed other things lying about. An empty box here, a pair of boots over there. A tangled electrical cord and various screws and bolts, perhaps from the installation of a chandelier. Sigils had been drawn with what looked like white spray paint here and there on the hardwood, and she noticed some on the brick walls, as well, but had no clue how to decipher their meanings.
The place was a mess below, but above? Some kind of crystal heaven. And she didn’t subscribe to the idea of a physical heaven.
“You take a look around,” he said. “I’m going to start something for supper, as promised. You like the tiny tomatoes?”
“Love them.”
“Caprese salad, it is. I’ve fresh mozzarella and capers and a delicious red wine vinaigrette from a local artisan who lives just down the street.”
Reaching up, Vika touched a particularly low crystal hanging in the center of a chandelier that spanned five feet in diameter. Tucked among the behemoths were smaller, more personal light fixtures one might see above a dining room table. There must be hundreds.
She walked down the aisle along a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows where old wooden shelves harbored dusty vials and pots and vases of herbs and potions. A gorgeous ruby crystal chandelier captured her attention, and she stopped below it and caught the red reflections dancing on her palm.
The overall result of chandeliers filling every space in the air above her was both gorgeous and terrible. It was as if Versailles had been slapped together with a cheesy Las Vegas casino. Kitschy. Disturbing. Strangely sexy—like the man himself.
She hadn’t seen anything lovelier. And at the same time, never had she seen something so monstrous. These light fixtures had been hung in an attempt to fend off the demons infesting CJ’s soul. And the man slept with them on all night?
“I would go mad,” she whispered.
More so, if she lived in this place, the disorder would send her to madness faster than the cacophony of light. The urge to tug on some rubber gloves and mix up an herbal cleaning solution tweaked at her sense of order as she ran her fingers over the light coating of dust on the well-pocked butcher-block worktable.
Behind a curtain of crystals strung on thin wire that served as a sort of veil instead of cupboard doors, sitting on the shelves were dusty bottles of vampire ash, faery ichor, angel dust and bat brains. Standard spell ingredients. And then the less standard, such as a newborn’s cry, demon scales and the air from a corpse’s hollow skull.
Distracted by an open grimoire, she checked over her shoulder to ensure CJ was still in the kitchen. Flipping back to look at the cover, she saw his book of shadows featured the three faces of Hecate: snake, dog and horse.
“Without death there can be no new life,” Vika whispered, recalling Hecate’s teachings.
Leaning over the red leather-bound book, she inspected the page that put out the slightest odor of chicory when touched. The spell name, In Which the Dark Is Stopped, was scrawled in tiny ink marks.
Most grimoires promised the impossible. Only a truly powerful witch could achieve something so grand. He’d said he had mastered many magics, yet was weak. Perhaps CJ would be powerful had he not a soul weighed down with so many hitchhikers.
She perused the required ingredients. A few common herbs, and some less common: rat’s spine and troll blood. The process was something else entirely. It required the name of an angel who had extinguished heaven’s light. Angel names were not easy to come by.
“Impractical, yes?”
Jarred from her intent study, Vika spun around and squeaked out a distressed cry.
“Sorry.” He stood before her, a kitchen butcher knife in hand. “Just checking you didn’t fall under the spell of bedazzlement some do when they stroll under the lights.”
“They certainly do have the power to dazzle.” She pressed her fingers on the top of the blade he held and directed it downward to his side. “Be careful. If you want my help, you’ll need to keep me intact.”
“You’ll help? I thought I’d frightened you away for sure. Or that Menace had.”
“I’m much tougher than you believe. Most certainly wary, but also fascinated for reasons beyond my ken. I trust you are different from the demon who has shown itself to me.”
“Thank you for that trust.”
“You have earned my cautionary trust.”
“I’ll accept that.” He nodded toward the grimoire. “You think you can work the spell?”
“I don’t know. It is impractical. To erase darkness from the world for twenty-four hours?”
“True. And what good would it do me to gain but twenty-four hours? I want these bastards out, not merely pacified.” He pointed to his chest with the knife, which made Vika cringe. “It was just a consideration. I’ve many more grimoires to go through, but not a lot of time in which to browse them.”
“Your job at the archives