Michele Hauf - This Wicked Magic

She was gorgeous, in a tidy way. He shouldn’t think to muss her. But oh, to unloose that hair and watch it fall over the purple satin and down her narrow back. CJ’s oft-ignored sensual desires hummed for attention.

“What are you looking at?” she asked as she turned the hearse down the alley, their destination.

“Perfection.” He turned and faced forward, not sure if he’d meant it as a compliment. “Was that your sister who answered the door when I arrived? Libertie?”

“Yes, Libby left for the witches bazaar. You ever go there?”

“The one behind the Moulin Rouge? No, it’s a bunch of old hags selling mandrake and love spells.”

“Times have changed, CJ. Now they’re into cyberspellcraft and digital conjuring. When was the last time you’ve been?”

“Decades. Digital conjuring?” What the young witches wouldn’t think of next. He hated to admit he didn’t know about a particular magic.

She nodded and pulled the car over to park. “You said you know many magics. Is digital one of them?”

It would be as soon as he could dig up some information on it. Cyberhacking, he’d heard of, but to use the computer to digitally conjure magics? Truly, he’d been stuck in the archives too long.

“I’m adding it to my arsenal soon. So this is it? How does the Mistress of Neat like you find herself on the cleaning end of a spattered werewolf? And are you always dressed so elegantly for such a messy job?”

“When I’ve a call, I wear simple clothes under my hazmat suit. And this isn’t elegant. It’s my normal dress. Cleaning is my passion,” she said in a tone that invoked more sensual means to passion for CJ. She opened the car door. “Come on. Let’s see if your dark and weary soul attracts anything.”

“Certainly won’t be an uptight witch,” he muttered as he stood up from the car and closed the door.

“What was that?” She pursed her gorgeous lips and eyed him narrowly over the top of the car. “Did you call me uptight?”

He braced his forearms on the top of the car and smiled at her. “I did, oh, Beauty of the Bizarre and Unnatural Cleaning Jobs. But now you’re going to cut me down for the comment and make me feel like the dirt you think I am, right?”

She tilted her head, considering. “Not worth it. I haven’t made up my mind about you.”

“So not a derelict.”

“That’s apparent. You’ve a job working for the Council. I assume you’ve a home. Derelicts can’t usually claim as much.”

“Your home is a fascinating study in white and roundness,” he said, moving around to the front of the car to lean against the front quarter panel and watch her walk the bricked-in area in small paces. “That spell room of yours. It was so...”

“You said sterile.”

“To a fault. Tell me why someone who is so into cleaning chooses white? I mean, wouldn’t it be easier to keep a darker color clean? Or even wood or steel?”

“It appeals to me,” she said without looking at him. Arms held out, she walked the area as if trying to capture something in an invisible net held between her arms. “It gives me satisfaction to do a job well.”

“I can say the same.”

“What does your job involve, CJ? I’ve always thought librarians—”

“I’m an archivist, and I handle all the records for the Council. That includes all grimoires written throughout the ages, all spells and potions, objects of magical means and nature, contained creatures of mysterious origin, etcetera, and so on. I also keep the database on the paranormal nations.”

She paused, bent over, the gorgeous lines of her body playing deep shadows in the folds of the dress at her knees and hips. Mmm, the woman needed to be bent over the end of his bed...

“All of us?” she prompted, whacking him out of the sudden and illicit fantasy of foreplay on his big, comfy bed.

“Witches, werewolves, vampires, demons, familiars, mermaids, trolls, imps, shape-shifters. The whole lot.”

“No faeries?”

“Absolutely not. The sidhe can take care of themselves, and more power to them.”

“That’s quite a monumental task, keeping track of us all.”

“And I do it well.” CJ spread a hand over his gut and cast a glance skyward. Daylight waned due to what he suspected would be rain before evening. A twinge in his elbow confirmed the weather prediction. “That is, when I’ve not a soul full of demons trying to take over my body and fucking with my magic.”

“Are those spell tattoos on your hand?”

“Yes.” He tucked his hand along his torso. “I’ve quite a few all over. You ever hear of Sayne?”

“Yes, he’s an ink witch who travels Europe. I’ve never thought it an effective form of magic.”

“My tattoos are powerful. Much like your grandmother’s nail.”

“Sure.”

He sensed Vika wasn’t warming to him in any way. And why should he care? He only meant to use her to see if another exorcism was possible. And yet, CJ’s interest continued to stray to the woman beneath the sexy gown, and her sure voice and the confident tilt of her head. Tidily gorgeous. Not his type of woman at all.

You don’t have a type, Certainly Jones.

True. But it was high time he got a type. One of the things he realized he’d been missing after his return from Daemonia was a life. A life shared with others. And if on his bed? Hell, yes.

“So, you feel anything?” he prompted.

“No, but you could walk around and help. See if the soul is attracted to you.”

CJ wandered the enclosed area, focusing, eyes closed, to see if he could sense or feel the same brightness he had last night. What he did sense was the demons inside him chuckling and writhing in accusatory glee. Idiot witch, they screamed at him. Just wait until nightfall.

Perhaps by nightfall Vika will have exorcised another demon from him. It had to be possible. He wanted nothing more than freedom from the bastards inside him. And if he needed a stray soul to do so, he’d stand here all day waiting for the little bugger to attach its intangible essence to him.

“So when you’re in the light the demons don’t bother you?” she asked over her shoulder as she strolled along the brick wall blocking in the small parking area.

“Mostly. The incandescent stuff only works for so long. Daylight is iffy when the sky clouds up.” He glanced skyward. Many gray clouds. Should he be here? “A few months ago, I discovered prismatic is the best kind of light to deter demons, keep them back, if you will.”

“And what happens when the demons take over? Do they do it all at once?”

“Fortunately, no. Usually there’s an inner struggle I feel, as if the lot of them are ripping at my insides, and then one comes to the fore. Takes over my very being. I’m aware of what it’s doing and not. Depends on how strong it is. The damned lust demon took me out to a nightclub last month and I ended up—”

Yeah, he wasn’t going to finish that one. He’d never had sex with a dryad before. Wasn’t sure how it had gone down, and he didn’t want to think about it now. At the least, it had broken his dry spell with women. If she had been a woman. Yes, she’d been female. It was too wrong to think any other way.

“So you’re not in control of your body when the demon comes to the fore?”

“Not one hundred percent. It’s different each time. Some are more powerful than others. I can fight the demon, but it looks like I’m spazzing out, and sometimes it’s easier to surrender. I never stray too far from home.”

“Which is where?”

“In the fifth. I live in the DeMarck Building.”

“I know that place. Gorgeous iridescent tile work on the outside?”

“That’s the one.”

“You said it’s been six months since you returned from...that place?”