Chapter Seven
VIOLET
“Here’s what we know,” Olivy says. “You summoned the Devil with some kind of bidding spell, but there’s also—”
“Now that we’ve got that sorted…” The Devil, horns intact but handsome human face back online, offers us an award-winning smile—probably the same one that tricks helpless victims into signing over their souls. “Kindly reverse it so I can bid you adieu.”
“I wish I could,” Olivy says, “but this isn’t just a bidding spell. That’s what I’m saying. There’s also a binding component, among other things.”
“How is this even possible?” I ask. “I didn’t perform any spells. Not really.”
My sister’s eyes narrow. “Define ‘not really.’”
“I mean, I said a few lines as I was copying them over, and then the Devil card from Gigi’s Tarot deck sort of… caught on fire? When Sunshine knocked over the candle? But I wasn’t speaking a full binding spell. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“It’s not just the words, Vi. It’s the intent behind them. The spell itself, the Tarot cards, the candle… all that stuff just amplified your true intention. Which is why you… Oh, shit. Amplified.” Her eyes widen with some new revelation. “Yep, you’ve got an amplifier component in here as well, and the quartz crystals called in that magic like a moth to the flame.”
The Devil rubs one of his horns. “The proverbial moth in this scenario being…?”
Olivy glares. “The left one’s looking a little droopy, Horns. You might want to get that straightened out.”
“It’s straight enough to impale you, should the mood strike. Anyway, if you’ve got all the spells and components, isn’t that enough to create a counter-spell?”
“A spell is much more than the sum of its components.” Olivy shakes her head, her dark hair almost blue in the dim space. “Tell you the truth, I don’t think I could recreate this spell if my afterlife depended on it.”
The Devil puffs out his chest, his eyes glowing red again, lip curling into a terrifying sneer. “And what if it does depend on it, witch?”
“Really? We’re measuring dicks now?” Olivy crosses her arms and glares at him with a single raised eyebrow, a look half the men in this town have come to fear. “Do you honestly think there’s anything in this world I want more than to send you straight back to the bowels of Hell from whence you came?”
“I didn’t come here from Hell. I came here from Los Angeles, where I was enjoying an intimate gathering of friends in my own home when I was snatched away without warning and—”
“And what?” she demands, champion of witches great and small, my absolute hero, refusing to give an inch when the Devil wants to take a hundred miles.
Wisely, he backs off.
Score one for the witches.
Brushing the non-existent lint from his bathrobe cuffs, looking far more elegant than any Devil has the right to, he retracts the horns and says calmly, “I’m merely expressing my desire to bring this evening to a close post-haste so we can all get back to our regular lives. Separate regular lives.”
“And I’m merely expressing that you’re about to be disappointed.” Olivy returns to the laptop. “First of all? I’ve never even seen a spell like this, Vi. It’s like you combined parts of three or four different rituals and traditions, ancient and modern and some really experimental stuff all mixed in.” She continues tabbing through my files. “Damn, girl. This is some powerful magic. How long have you been sitting on this stuff?”
“Um… Forever? It’s just bits and bobs I’ve collected over the years. Some of it I use for teas and tinctures. Some I’ve just been… saving for a rainy day.”
A flash of lightning illuminates the space, and I swear I see a chill run through the man, head to toe. But when I meet his eyes, he looks away.
Olivy snaps her fingers, bringing the hearth fire back to life. The room warms considerably.
“So what, precisely, are we dealing with here?” the Devil asks. “I’ve been summoned, fine. With a possible binding component. But to what end?”
“From what I can piece together, you two are magically bound to each other until—oh, this is good. So fucking good.” Olivy grins, practically bouncing. “Until such a time when the truest desire of the witch’s heart is unlocked by an unlikely ally.”
“Me, being the ally?” he asks, and Olivy nods. Then their two heads swivel toward me, awaiting the answer to the final unspoken question in this night of epic magical fuckery.
Just what is my heart’s truest desire?
I could tell them I’m looking for a soulmate or for world peace or for someone to fix the potholes on Birchwood Lane.
But the magic would know. It always knows.
“Swear you won’t tell the sisters,” I say. “Or the aunts. Or the Peen Beans minions or anyone in Wayward Bay, magical or mundane, or—”
“Violet,” Olivy says, “what in the goddess’s wine hole is going on with you?”
“Swear it!”
She rolls her eyes, then grabs a knife from under the counter and slices her palm, pressing the bloodied hand to her chest. “I swear by the blood upon my heart, what you say tonight stays between us.”
Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes. “Seriously? Why are you like this?”
“Are all the witches in this town so unstable?” the Devil wants to know.
“Answer the question, Vi.”
“His or yours?”
Olivy glares again. She’s really got it down to a science.
“Money,” I whisper, shame stealing my voice. “My truest desire is a hundred thousand dollars to get myself back in the black, in thirty days, or Kettle and Cauldron is done.”
I dig out the stupid letter from behind the aprons and hand it over. Olivy’s face falls as she reads it. “Is this accurate?”
“Yep. Plus the credit card debt and loan stuff and taxes and… yeah. Might as well be ten million.”
“Oh, honey.” Olivy pulls me into an uncharacteristic hug, which only underscores the severity here. Olivy is not a hugger—not unless she needs your blood or hair for a curse. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
“Shame?” I say. “Fear? Stubbornness? Take your pick.”
“But you know we’ll help you figure something out. You don’t even have to ask.”
“I can’t ask, Ols. I won’t. And you can’t say a word.”
“But this is—”
“You made a blood oath!”
She lifts her hands in surrender, the cut still gleaming with blood. “My lips are sealed. But for the record, I don’t like it.”
“Noted.”
“So this whole magical mishap is about money?” The Devil scoffs. “You’re a witch. A powerful one, apparently, despite all appearances to the contrary. Why don’t you just…” He makes a wand-waving gesture, as if I can zap away my problems with a flick of the wrist and a “so mote it be.”
“That’s not how magic works,” I say. “We can’t create things out of thin air.”
“You conjured me out of thin air, did you not?”
“I transferred you here from Los Angeles, where you already existed.”
“So?”
“It’s the same principle. If I magic up a pile of money, it has to already exist somewhere else, which means my spell would be taking that money from another person’s possession and transferring it here, into mine.”
“I’m… not seeing the issue.”
“It’s stealing!”
“Ah.” He drops onto the purple couch, feet propped up on the coffee table, hands behind his head like, just make yourself at home, Devil man. “So your problem isn’t magic. It’s morals.”
I smack his feet off the table. “Morals are only a problem for people who don’t have them.”
“For people who don’t have yours, you mean.”
I swear Olivy snickers. Apparently, we’re top-notch entertainment tonight.
“If you’re so smart and upstanding and moral,” I huff, “why don’t you give me the money and be done with it?”
“Firstly, I never said I was any of those things. Secondly, I don’t have a dime to my name.”
“Right. Even your bathrobe looks expensive.”
“Smoking jacket. And it was expensive.”
“How did you pay for it if you’re so broke?”
He flashes the textbook definition of a devilish grin, making my insides all hot and gooey. “I don’t trade in human currency, witch. Never have. The Devil trades in favors. So, in a very roundabout sort of way, yes, I suppose I can solve your problem. The question is—what are you willing to give me in return?”
“Look around. Unless you want some tea and scones, I’m drawing a blank.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, mushroom. Even a hot-mess witch such as yourself has something to bargain with.”
“Quit instigating her,” Olivy snaps. “We all know the price for a Devil’s bargain, and my sister is not paying it.”
“You’ve summoned me to help you,” he says, as if he’s trying to reason with a small child throwing a tantrum. “Ergo, you must allow me to do just that. Using my influence is the shortest distance between two points—A, the witch losing her beloved shop, and B, the witch saving it.”
“Maybe he’s got a point, Olivy.”
“He doesn’t. Trust me.” She brings the laptop over and sits on the red couch across from him. “Anyway, the spell won’t allow it. This has to be a genuine, no-shortcuts effort to unlock her heart’s desire. Any attempts to circumvent it with magic or manipulation will only make things worse. For both of you.”
I drop onto the couch next to him, head in my hands. “As if anything could make this night any worse.”
“Is that a dare?” he asks. “I’ll give it my best shot, though I’m not sure I can compete with this grade-A cockup. Is there any more rum slushy? The night is only getting longer, and I’m not interested in being sober for it.”
“No one cares what you’re interested in,” I snap.
Olivy snickers again. “Let the record reflect that I called it first, but you two are totally gonna bone. As for the parameters of the spell, there’s—”
“You are literally the worst,” I say. “You know that?”
“I’m not the one who summoned the hellspawn.”
“Another point to the dark and creepy one,” says the hellspawn. “And excuse me—Hell King, if you please.”
“If you think I’m calling you highness,” I grumble, “you’re about to be disappointed again.”
“Says the woman who needs my help cleaning up her terrible credit. Which, by the way, I haven’t even agreed to yet.”
“You don’t have a choice,” Olivy says.
“The Devil always has a choice,” he huffs. “The Devil makes the choices.”
“The Devil overmuch talks in the third person,” Olivy says, “but if he refuses to carry out the spell, then he’ll be stuck in Wayward Bay for the rest of his life. Which won’t be that long, since he’ll also become a mortal and die, so we’ve got that to look forward to.”
“Olivy!” I gasp, guilt blazing through my gut.
She rolls her eyes. “Fine. I added in the dying part to drive the point home. But the stuck in WB as a mortal guy part is true. Which means he will die. Eventually.”
“A mortal? In this town?” He scowls, pressing a hand to his heart. “A fate worse than death. You probably don’t even have a proper airport.”
“There’s a bus depot,” I add helpfully.
“Oh for fuck’s… No. This won’t do. If you and I are to be handcuffed together—not in the fun way, wasted opportunity if ever there was one—then you’re just going to have to come home with me.”
“Home, as in…” I swallow hard. “Hell?”
“Worse than that, I’m afraid.” He grins again, cold and calculating, far too tempting, reminding me of his namesake Tarot card. “California.”
“Hate to burst your bubble again,” Olivy chimes in, even though the smile twitching at the corner of her mouth tells me she’s really enjoying all this bubble-bursting, “but you two can’t leave the Bay. Not until the task is complete and the spell is broken.”
“Guess again, Creepy. You say we’re bound? Fine. We’re bound. To each other. That doesn’t mean we’re stuck here with you.” The Devil grabs my hand and gets to his feet, hauling me up with him. Then he lifts his other arm, drawing a complicated sigil in the air. Magic sparks faintly, but nothing happens.
He tries two more times. Whatever he’s attempting, it doesn’t seem to be catching.
“Can’t get it up, hellspawn?” Olivy asks. “Pretty sure they make a pill for that.”
“Pretty sure I invented that pill.” He drops my hand and tries again, double-fisting it this time. Still, no dice. “Why isn’t my portal magic working? My intention is to bring her with me. Still bound, still enlisted in Operation Heart’s Desire. It shouldn’t matter where the desire-unlocking happens.”
Olivy sighs. “One more time for the folks in the back. The spell Violet cast was an insanely powerful one. It summoned you to Wayward Bay, bound you to her, and wrapped it all up with a wishes-really-do-come-true bow. The wish being her desire to wipe out her debt and save Kettle and Cauldron, which is also the location where the binding spell was cast. So until that happens, I’m afraid you two crazy kids are stuck. Here. Together.” She grins at him, her eyes shining. “Welcome to Wayward Bay, Horns. Try not to blow anything up while you’re here.”