Smoke on the Water Page 23

  “Magic,” Raye said. “Had to be. His followers were chanting, so was he. One or the other or both of them together did something funky.”

  Bobby’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “Hypocritical asshole.”

  “Redundant.” Raye tilted her head and gazed at the empty seat that should have been Becca’s. “Henry says a demon isn’t human.”

  “Ya think?” Owen murmured.

  “Roland now has supernatural powers,” Raye continued.

  “Like not dying by bullets?” Bobby asked.

  Owen smacked his fist against his knee. “Would have been handy to know that before we shot him.”

  “Ya think?” Raye echoed. “None of us have dealt with a demon before. We’re kind of making this up as we go along. We need a new plan.”

  “Is there a spell to contain a demon?” I asked.

  “Contain how?”

  “If we evoke him again, we’re going to need to hold him in place or he’ll just disappear—be it by his own demonic power, or with a little minion black magic. I’d love to nail his feet to the ground, but only if it works.”

  Owen stared out the window. “I’d like to do it just for fun.”

  “We need more information.” Raye’s face was stark, paler than I’d ever seen it. I had no doubt mine was the same. “While we’re researching containment, we should find out how to kill a demon. You’d think a silver bullet would at least slow him down, but noooo.”

  “How to kill a demon might be something the Jäger-Suchers know.” Bobby turned onto the main road.

  “Nothing’s ever that easy,” Raye said.

  Silence settled over the car for the remainder of the drive. It seemed to take longer to get back than it had taken to get there. Wasn’t that always the way?

  We reached the cabin; everyone piled out. Owen opened the rear hatch for the wolves. Not having opposable thumbs must really be an ass pain, though having fangs and claws might make up for it. Especially when Roland was around. I wished he hadn’t gone poof before Becca and Pru had caught up with him. We wouldn’t be in this mess. Then again, if a bullet—make that two—hadn’t killed him, would wolves have been able to?

  Raye and I sat at the table. Bobby and Owen went into the kitchen and started pulling out bread, cheese, cold cuts. We’d missed lunch. Soon night would fall. The idea of darkness all around and Roland out there in it, looking for us, maybe using black magic to find us, made me want to be anywhere but here. However, I wouldn’t leave my sisters. I couldn’t.

  Sebastian went searching for first-aid supplies. We removed the now bloody strips of shirt. My cut began to well again. Raye’s did too. Becca’s paw appeared good as new—probably because it was new.

  “Do you think you could have sliced a little less deeply?” Sebastian sat between us. “These might need stitches.”

  “A bowl of blood doesn’t come about by drip-drops,” Raye said.

  Becca appeared at my side. She tugged on my shirtsleeve with her teeth, pulling my arm to the edge of the table. Before I could figure out what she planned, she licked my wound. I gasped as a sharp pain shot through me. I peered at my wrist.

  “It’s gone.”

  Sebastian, who’d been digging out antiseptic cream, glanced up. “What’s gone?”

  “The wound. All better.”

  He reached for my hand. I put mine in it. His eyes widened. “Hold on.”

  Becca, who had already moved around my chair toward Raye, lifted her lip in a silent snarl.

  “Calm down. I just want to watch.”

  She licked Raye’s wound, and the slice seemed to evaporate between one second and the next.

  “At least she still has healing powers in this form,” I said.

  “Why wouldn’t she?” Raye asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I just got here.”

  “Henry is a telekinetic ghost.” Raye continued to stare at her miraculously healed wrist. I was having a hard time keeping my eyes off my own.

  “Can Pru still heal others?” I asked.

  “No. Not all their powers remain. Henry hasn’t been able to affect the weather. Pru can still call in the wolves.”

  “Not much of a ‘power’ for a wolf,” I pointed out.

  “It must have been nice when she was human.”

  Pru yipped. Apparently it had been.

  “She can communicate telepathically with Henry and Becca—and now me. She can understand us. She’s not a normal wolf.”

  “Never said she was. What about her visions?”

  Pru shook her head.

  “That bites.”

  Pru huffed.

  “You should eat.” Bobby set a hand on Raye’s shoulder. “Both of you. You’re too pale.”

  “Blood loss and shock.” Raye got to her feet. “Cheapest high in the world.”

  “I feel fine.” Though I was pretty hungry.

  “I don’t,” Sebastian said. He was pale too.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  He gave me a dirty look, went into the bedroom and shut the door.

  “What did I do?”

  “You scared him,” Bobby said.

  “Me?”

  “He had the same heart attack both Owen and I had. When that bastard didn’t die, and then he pulled a gun and pointed it at you.”

  “He pointed it at Becca.”

  “From where we stood, we thought he was going to shoot all three of you. Bing. Bang. Boom.” He punctuated the final three words with a gun finger pointed at me, Raye, and Becca in turn.

  “I guess it would be pretty hard for Sebastian to explain two dead patients.”

  “Considering that kiss earlier, I don’t think that’s what he’s upset about.”

  “Me either,” Raye said.

  The two of them went into the kitchen and filled their plates. Owen sat on the floor, feeding Becca and Pru pieces of roast beef. Now that I thought about it I’d never seen Pru eat before. I assumed she was hunting when she took her outdoor jaunts, and she must have been. I wondered how long it would be before Becca started to become more wolf and less woman. Hopefully we’d never have to find out.

  “When will Franklin and his wife get here?” Owen asked.

  “Morning at the earliest.” Bobby took a bite of his sandwich.

  “You think she can put Becca back the way she was?”

  Both Becca and Pru swung their great, furry heads in our direction. They cocked them in the exact same way, but in different directions. It was both freaky and kind of sweet.

  “I think that if anyone knows who to call it’s Nic Franklin.”

  The Ghostbusters theme song began to play in my head. Great. Now I wasn’t ever going to get it out.

  “If he says his wife is the best person to bring,” Bobby continued, “then she’s the best person to bring.”

  Owen didn’t look convinced; he looked terrified. And for a man who’d hunted IEDs with his dog in a place most of us feared to tread, that was saying a lot.

  “Good enough for me.” I hoped my cheery, upbeat agreement would help Owen feel better. I don’t think it did. Nothing short of Becca without a tail probably would.

  I made a sandwich, glanced at the closed door again, then made another. “Should we recast the protection spell?”

  Raye looked first at me, then at Becca. “I’ll do it.”

  “I can—”

  “She can’t. Besides, I’m just boosting it.” She waved her hand at the door. “Run along. You know you want to.”

  And since I did, I did.

  *

  Sebastian sat on the bed, his back to the door. When I came into the room, he didn’t even glance my way. Which gave me time to sprinkle the rosemary. I didn’t want his sister, or anyone else who might be floating around, to hear this.

  “I brought you supper.”

  Nothing.

  I approached with the plate held out as an offering. “You need to eat.”

  “So do you.”

&nbs
p; At least he was talking, though he still wasn’t looking at me.

  “I will if you will.”

  He snatched the sandwich from the plate and took a bite so huge he couldn’t speak, even if he’d wanted to. Which he obviously did not.

  I sat next to him and took a much smaller bite. We remained side by side, silent except for the chewing, until both of us were done. Then I took his plate, set it on mine, and placed them both on the nightstand. I had to lean past him to reach it, and when I leaned back my forearm brushed his stomach, bared by the strips of material he’d chopped off to make bandages.

  I froze as my skin prickled with awareness. He stilled as his breath caught.

  “I was so scared,” he said.

  I set my hand on his thigh. “I’m all right.”

  “For now.”

  “Sebastian.”

  He turned to me at last.

  “Now might be all we have.”

  He took my shoulders, and I thought he’d kiss me. I even puckered up. Instead, he pulled me against his chest, wrapped his arms around me and held on. I slipped my hands around his waist. He seemed to be trembling.

  “Hush,” I whispered. “Hush.”

  I listened to the beat of his heart. Steady and sure against my cheek, it was familiar in a way that it shouldn’t be. I wished I could give him the same comfort, but I wasn’t sure how.

  “Did you dream of me?” he asked.

  “Sometimes.”

  Once I’d begun to have visions of him, the dreams had soon followed. I’d been a young girl—I still was—with no one, nothing but the promise of him.

  Though I wanted nothing more than to continue to listen to his heart, hold him and have him hold me, the time had come for the truth. All of it.

  I pulled back. His hands slid down my arms, his fingers tangled with mine.

  “My first vision of you came fifteen years ago. You were big and strong. I knew you’d protect me. That you would save me.”

  “From this?”

  “What else?”

  “You’re the psychic,” he said.

  “You’ll save all of us, Sebastian.”

  His shoulders slumped. “How?”

  “I don’t know. But you will.”

  He let out a breath, then lifted his gaze to mine. “The first time we met you said ‘It’s you,’ then you fainted.”

  “I’d been waiting forever, and there you were. Just like I’d imagined.”

  “You didn’t imagine. You knew. You’d seen.”

  I tightened my fingers around his. I hadn’t realized how wonderful it would be to have him believe.

  “I had, but until you arrived, how could I be sure?”

  “You knew about the Venatores Mali?”

  “No. I’d seen the guy I stabbed—the ring, his knife. But I didn’t know what that meant. Especially after he showed up and he didn’t have either one of them. Visions can be like a puzzle. Or maybe a movie with holes in it. I see pieces and flashes. Not the entire thing. Sometimes it starts late, or ends early. There are feelings and premonitions. There are even scenes that I don’t remember I’ve seen until an instant before they happen.”

  “That has to be difficult.”

  “There’s a reason I was in a psychiatric facility.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. I sounded crazy. I acted crazy.”

  “But you weren’t crazy. You aren’t crazy.”

  “Thank you.”

  He stared at our joined hands, rubbing his thumb over my palm. I wanted him to rub his thumb everywhere else. From my visions, I knew that eventually he would, but I wasn’t sure when. Our first time was in a room lit only by the moon, which made it pretty hard to identify, even if I could remember much beyond the taste of his skin and the shape of his biceps beneath my palms.

  “I feel as if I know you,” he said. “Better than I can know you. Like I’ve always known you. Like we were … destined.”

  “We were.”

  He shook his head, and my chest began to ache. He was going to deny this, deny us, and then what would I do?

  “This is…” His lips tightened. “I want to say insane, but it’s … not. What would be insane would be to continue to refute everything I’ve seen, all that we’ve done. All that I feel.”

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” I said.

  “I didn’t know it, but I was waiting for you too.”

  He drew me closer, kissed my nose, my cheeks, my chin. I held my breath, hoping he would kiss my lips. And then he did. Gentle at first, as if he wanted just a taste, our mouths met, his tongue tickled mine. Gooseflesh erupted all over, and I shivered.

  “Willow?” he whispered.

  “Shh.” I nipped his lip.

  His eyes flared. His tongue shot out to lave the tiny hurt. Then he cupped my face with his big hands, tilted my head and kissed me until everything but the taste of his mouth went away.

  Since this wasn’t the right place, the right time—the room was too bright and where was the moon?—I wasn’t nervous, thinking about sex and condoms and virginity. I wasn’t thinking about anything but him, and that was as it should be.

  I sucked on his tongue, tasted his teeth. He nibbled my lip, my chin, rubbed a thumb along the underside of my breast. I arched into that touch, and he cupped me with his huge palm, then rubbed that thumb across my peak.

  At first I thought the wail of the wind was merely my blood pumping through my veins to the beat of my wildly excited heart. Then something thudded against the wall on the other side of the curtains and I jumped. Why were there curtains over a wall?

  “Just the wind,” he said as he sucked on my ear.

  “Wind,” I repeated. There was something about the wind I should remember.

  Then there was a zzzt, a thunk, and the lights went out.

  Sebastian was testing his teeth on my collarbone. I had my fingers in his hair. He lifted his head, which I only knew because I felt him move. I couldn’t see a thing.

  “Hold on.” He got up.

  I wanted to yank him back down, but he was fast for such a big man and he slipped away.

  The sound of curtain rungs across a rod sliced through the wail of the wind, and I understood why there were curtains on a wall. The wall was a window, through which the moon spilled down, casting the room, the man, the bed, and me in silver shadows.

  I’d seen this before. I knew what would happen, what we would say, how it would feel, how I would feel. Pain and passion, both novelty and memory, nothing to be afraid of. Everything would be all right.

  It would be better than all right. For both of us.

  “I thought it might be a storm.” Sebastian stared out the window.

  “Wasn’t me.”

  “It’s just wind. The sky’s clear or it wouldn’t be so bright.” He reached for the curtain.

  “Don’t.”

  His arm fell back to his side.

  “I want to see you.” I moved up behind him and slid my hands around his waist, settling my palms on his solid stomach. “All of you.” I flicked the button on his jeans, slid down the zipper. The sound seemed to drown out the wind. I dipped my fingers beneath the waistband of both his jeans and his skivvies and touched him there for the first time.

  Except it wasn’t the first time. I knew every step. I didn’t feel like a virgin. I wasn’t unsure. I took him in my hand. He was hot; he was hard and yet so soft. I curled my palm around him, then used my thumb across his tip. The added slide of his bare waist across my inner arm was nearly as arousing as the solid feel of him in my hand.

  “Take off your shirt,” I said.

  He started to pull away, and I tightened my fingers. His breath hissed in—pain or pleasure? Perhaps both.

  “You can take it off without me taking this off.” I pumped my hand just once. He took off his shirt.

  He had a beautiful back, big and smooth and ripply with muscle. Beneath the moon he sparkled silve
r-gray. The trees still rustled, casting spidery shadows over his skin, which I traced with the fingers of my free hand. When he got gooseflesh, I used my teeth.

  He cursed and grabbed my wrist, pulled it free, spun. “If you keep that up, we’ll be done before we start.”

  I smiled because he’d said exactly what he had in my vision. I felt like I’d finally come home.

  Holding my gaze, moving slowly as if he were afraid he’d spook me, he drew my shirt over my head. Then he traced a finger down the curve of my waist. My nipples tightened, a sharp spike against my bra. His eyes flicked there as if drawn by a wire. Then he lifted his hand and drew his fingernail along the clearly visible bud beneath the padded cotton.

  I let him until I couldn’t stand it a second longer, then opened the clasp and my breasts sprang free. He stooped and took my entire breast into his mouth. Probably the first time I was ever glad to be so slight. I was sure it wouldn’t be the last.

  My legs wobbled. He lifted his head.

  “Don’t stop.”

  He scooped me into his arms and deposited me on the bed. Then he stood with the moon at his back. I couldn’t see his face. For a minute he was an outline, a stranger, whose shape, scent, and taste were so familiar. He was the man I’d been waiting for. I’d never been afraid of him. I’d always known that with him, I didn’t have to be.

  He finished undressing me. The brush of his fingers, his nails, his palms made me shiver.

  “Now you.” I still wanted to see all of him.

  I thought he’d argue, but he lost the rest of his clothes as quickly as he’d gotten rid of mine. The twin thuds of his shoes excited me almost as much as the sheen of his skin in the silver light.

  I beckoned, but he didn’t join me. Instead he stayed where he was, a shadow lover—fiction until he became fact.

  “I want to remember you just like this. Your hair is silver. Your skin is alabaster.” He tilted his head. “Maybe. I’ve never seen alabaster. More like ice.”

  I beckoned again. “I won’t melt.”

  He put his palm around my ankle, ran it up my calf, my thigh, my flank, my hip. The bed dipped as he reclined at my side. “You don’t feel like ice.” He leaned over and suckled my breast. “You don’t taste like ice either.”

  “Maybe I will melt.”

  He chuckled and the puff of his breath along the dampness left by his mouth made my breath catch. I set my hand against his chest and pushed. “Let me touch you.”