Anya Bast - Witch Blood

Adam sat with Isabelle at a card table to adjust the equipment. Isabelle had her long jean-clad legs crossed and she’d hooked her hair behind her ears as she worked. Thomas had noticed she had an adorable habit of biting the tip of her tongue when she concentrated.

Isabelle set the headset aside and turned to Thomas. “So why do you think the demon has chosen to live so near the Coven?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself.” Thomas smoothed out the last of the warding and grunted. “We don’t even know if Alexander is the demon. If he is, he likely did it deliberately. It’s too much of a coincidence otherwise.”

“Maybe he got a kick out of being so close to us,” added Adam.

“Maybe.” Thomas murmured an incantation — words he’d imbued with his personal power. The last of his concealing wards snapped into place. “Done.”

His tattoo tingled, tapped of some of the magickal energy he’d stored there. Fire, air, and water witches could just draw straight from the seats of their magick in the center of their chests, but earth witches had more preparation to do. Unless he used his magick to exert control over something directly of the Earth herself, like the ground or a tree, a charm had to be created beforehand. Earth witches had to anticipate the spells they’d need, cook them up, and transfer the pure resulting energy to their bodies to be accessed later. Because of the planning involved, earth magick was the least convenient of the four types of power, but also the most flexible.

Earth witches were the most stereotypical breed of the four elements. They were more what the non-magickals imagined when they thought witch . No one understood why earth witches were different, though there were plenty of theories.

“I hope the wards hold,” said Isabelle, looking doubtfully out the window toward Alexander’s apartment.

Yeah, so did he. They were in new territory with this one, having never done surveillance work on a suspected demon before. Alexander was at work now, which had given them some time to get the spells in place.

“I made the warding hard to detect,” Thomas answered. “The upside is that if Alexander sniffs them out and comes after us, we’ll know for sure he’s the demon.”

Isabelle raised a brow. “That’s an upside?”

“Yeah, I’d rather not find out that way,” groused Adam.

“We’re about to know one way or the other because he’s home,” murmured Isabelle. “I can feel it through the water in his apartment. That was none too soon.”

Adam slipped on his headphones and Thomas went to a small table nearby and did the same. The shades were drawn on the windows of their apartment and the wards were locked down tight. From what they knew about demon magick, theoretically, the creature shouldn’t notice their spying. According to Micah, demon magick and elemental magick were fundamentally different and one shouldn’t be able to detect the other.

Of course, they really didn’t know for certain.

Micah had successfully obtained the digitized books Stefan had provided and was feeding them information as he scoured and gleaned it. Unfortunately, this lead on Alexander had popped up so soon Micah hadn’t had a lot of time to do research. They were flying blind and had to take as much care as possible.

They settled in to listen. Through the magickally imbued headset, they heard Alexander cough, blow his nose, go to the bathroom, open and close the refrigerator, pop the top off a beer, and then settle down on the couch with the sigh of one happy to be home from a long day at work.

The TV flipped on. “ Wheel…of…Fortune !” sounded the television audience.

Adam looked over and gave him an eye roll.

Thomas took the headphones off and laid them on the table in front of him. “This may be a false alarm.”

Isabelle slumped her shoulders. “When I tune in remotely to him, using the water in his body, he doesn’t feel like anything more than a non-magickal human male.” She paused and looked morose. “Not even a witch.”

Thomas nodded. “If he were the demon, you’d know it.”

Adam pulled his headset off one of his ears. “And I don’t think he’d be watching Wheel of Fortune , if this was our guy. I don’t think demons like Pat Sajak.”

Isabelle sat up a little straighter. “He could just be playing with us. The demon has to be able to seem convincingly human. Otherwise witches would be spotting him all over the place. Maybe he knows we’re watching and he’s masking. Or maybe he’s become humanized during his stay here and he’s grown to like TV game shows.”

Thomas and Adam only stared at her. “I think you’re reaching,” Thomas said finally.

“I’m just trying to think outside the box here, guys.”

Adam leaned toward her. “Isabelle, I think outside the box with the best of them, but I still suspect he’s a non-magickical human male just home from work with one hand down his pants and a beer in the other.”

She tossed her headset to the table in front of her with force. “Damn it!”

Thomas considered her for a moment. “It’s not over yet. Mira heard this man’s name for a reason. He could be connected in some way with the demon.”

“Maybe.” Isabelle chewed the side of her thumb and slumped in her chair.

“I need to talk to Isabelle alone, Adam.”

“Okay. I’ll keep listening to Wheel of Fortune ,” said Adam with a sarcastic thumbs-up and grin. He placed the headphones to one ear. “I think I know this puzzle. Buy a vowel!”

“Let me know if anything unusual happens or if he leaves.”

Adam nodded. “Sure thing, boss.”

Isabelle looked confused, but Thomas led her into the other room anyway. Only a long worktable stood in what would be the formal dining room. Wadded up painter’s drop cloths lay discarded in the corner. She stood near the table, crossed her arms over her chest, and looked at him expectantly.

“I just want to make sure you’re okay with all this,” Thomas said. “I know you’ve been traumatized by the death of your sister and I need to make sure that you’re not going to—”

She raised her eyebrows. “What? Freak out? Break down and cry at a critical moment?”

“I don’t think you’re the hysterical weeping type. I just want to make sure you’re all right.”

“I appreciate your concern, I really do, but I’m fine, Thomas. In fact, I’m more than fine now that I’m aligned with the Coven and helping to find this demon. And we will find him. This Alexander guy might be a dead end, but that doesn’t mean we won’t have other promising leads.”

Relief swept through him. It was nice to hear her being positive. “I’m glad you feel that way—”

She uncrossed her arms and her expression softened. “Now what’s with your hair?”

He blinked at the abrupt change of subject. “Excuse me?”

“I’ve established that you do, indeed, possess pupils, but what’s up with the hair? I mean, it’s beautiful. It’s so long, glossy, and sexy. I want to thread my fingers through it every time I see you. But it seems strange on a man like you because you’re all about work and never about play.”

He blinked again. “My hair is about work, actually. It holds power for me. Earth witches don’t hold magick in the center of our chest the way fire, water, and air witches do.”

“I’ve dated earth witches, so I know you guys do that but I’ve never really understood how.”

“My hair is charmed to hold a reserve of power for me, like you hold your magick in the center of your chest. Except we have to cook up the spells we’ll need beforehand, draw the energy off them, and manually store it on our bodies in places that have been charmed to hold reserves…like my hair.”