Chapter 5
It turned out she wasn’t blond. Heck, she wasn’t even that young.
She was at least my age, if not older. But she was pretty.
Really, really pretty. Her hair was raven black.
She wore it in a thick braid that stopped just shy of her hips.
Only her face betrayed her age, and even then it was in the form of a few crow’s feet and sun spots.
And holy schmoly, was she fit. The woman was pure muscle.
She had those special shoulders. The ones with rounded caps and perfect straight lines from neck to arm.
The kind that loved a slinky purse strap.
Meanwhile, I’d taken to crossbody numbers.
Anything else slid right down the slope of my shoulders like I didn’t have any.
“You’ve got a great body.” That was not the way I wanted to greet a new employee. But of course it’s what popped out. Real professional, Simone.
“Thank you.” She bowled over my compliment like it wasn’t a wildly weird thing for her new boss’s boss to say to her, clasping my hand in a firm shake. “I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. I’ve heard a lot about your power.”
Well, that was kind of a weird reply, too. Maybe we were awkward twins.
There was something in Nina’s eyes that made it difficult to look away.
They were such a dark brown they were almost black.
Round, giant obsidian gems that, when you stared into them, felt like looking directly into a starless night sky and finding a part of your soul.
But danger lay beneath the beauty. A kind of darkness.
Like the very air you shared with her was toxic.
Our hands parted, and I couldn’t mistake the relief that ran through me. I chided myself. She seemed very nice, and everyone else was greeting her like she was normal. But even as she chatted with Brianne, she seemed to watch me from the corner of her eye.
My nerves probably came from something else. Something more obvious. Cupid was on his way in for our second session of the week, and I’d not been able to reach Psyche. I’d barely recovered from the session two days prior but had to brace myself for another. That’s all it was.
Just then, an off-key, earache-inducing yowl erupted in the room.
Gumbo materialized in the center of our little circle, ear perked and eyes wide.
He’d painted his nails bright red, and his matching bow was so big it dragged along the floor.
Or it would have, if he weren’t propped on his back paws, his front paws reaching for Lauren’s new employee and meowing directly at her.
If you could call that a meow. My God, that sound. It would wake the dead. And piss them off.
“Gumbo, this is Nina.” I tried to bellow over his noise, but he either couldn’t hear me or couldn’t stop. She looked at me, one eyebrow lifted. “Um, this is Gumbo. He protects the Magnolia.”
“Gumbo!” Nina screeched in a way that made every hair on the back of my neck stand in an attempt to escape my body. “Who’s my new favorite kitty? Is it you? It’s you. That’s right. You’re my favorite kitty.”
She’d dropped to her knees and dumped her purse to the side so she could scratch him with both hands.
She cooed and lifted her voice into some kind of torturous baby talk while she scritched under his chin.
Gumbo’s purrs rumbled along the floorboards until the very ground beneath me vibrated with his love.
“My sweet kitty. What a great kitty. The best kitty.” She repeated the words, gradually transitioning from a chant to some kind of song, until she was singing to Gumbo as if there were only the two of them in the room.
He was completely lost in the trance of her song.
And it was trancelike. But it didn’t sound like singing.
It was almost a whistle. It raised goose pimples along my arms and legs.
And not the good kind. It was rusted nails on a used chalkboard.
A dry finger across taut plastic. Pots and pans clanging together.
At least it was to me. To Gumbo? He was on his back, that big fat belly of his rolling to the sides until he took up twice his normal space. Front and back paws were stretched obscenely long to give her access. The cat had no shame. And she was eating it up.
Her nails dug deeper, rubbing all of that fat. Gumbo made noises that were straight up obscene, while the rest of us watched. After a full five minutes of nonsense, I lost hope it would end. Plus, I was beginning to feel like I was intruding on a private moment for them. My whole body shuddered.
“I should prepare for my first client. Great to meet you, Nina. Let me know if you need help getting settled. Or, let Brianne know. She’s better with that.
” My instinct had been to invite her to our coven lunches, an odd instinct.
We had plenty of employees at the Magnolia, and we loved and respected them all, but they weren’t coven.
I stopped myself just short of offering her the world.
Weird, given how grating the sound of her was to me.
With an awkward smile, I headed to my office.
“Have a great rest of your day, Simone.” She was no longer talking to Gumbo.
Instead, she whistled a tune that sounded like the sweetest melody on the planet.
I stopped just before my hand turned the knob as a strange new sensation filled me.
Now that was what a singsong voice was. Her voice curled around me and settled into my chest, warming my heart and giving me little belly flutters.
“I’m looking forward to getting to know you better. ”
I turned to her as if in a trance. Her hands were still giving Gumbo that same vigorous rubdown, but her eyes were on me. They’d somehow darkened, and her had jaw elongated. She lifted her lips into a smile that transitioned into a leer. Sharp, jagged teeth emerged on the top and bottom.
And I suddenly wished I was Gumbo. I swallowed. Hard. Something, not lust but a definite kind of want, inflamed my body. It was like my fingers and toes tingled with it. My mouth went dry, my heart pounding with the unmistakable fear of danger. But, like, a good danger. An exciting danger.
Exciting danger? Was I going mad? I didn’t care. I wanted the madness.
Then the fire alarm went off, which was odd because I had no idea we even had one. Cecelia sent all of her force to me, as if tugging me away. I slammed my hands over my ears, but that only made the alarm louder.
Nina straightened, brushing invisible lint off her clothes. Her long black hair draped down to her legs like a silk curtain. She wore the slightest of scowls.
Aside from Nina and me, no one else was reacting to the alarm. Well, except Gumbo. He looked around and shook his tiny head like he didn’t know how he’d gotten there. With a tiny kitten grunt, he popped out of sight.
“Excuse me,” I managed to whisper. Then I scurried to my office, where Cecelia had a glass of water waiting. In the large bay window that reflected the view from Bridge Island, a storm brewed in the distance.
Norbert the gator swiveled his tail before lumbering to the shore. “Hey, Norbert.” He tipped his snout by way of greeting. “She’s trouble, isn’t she?”
Norbert only had one eye, but the look in it told me everything I needed to know. Nina was more than she appeared.