Chapter 10 #2
She led me out of the kitchen and to the basement, which still showed signs of the recent fire that someone had started in an attempt to burn down Cupid’s Confections a couple of weeks ago.
It smelled faintly of smoke and lavender, an oddly comforting mix despite the memories that the fire evoked.
Charred wood beams crisscrossed the ceiling, solid but blackened at the edges.
Here and there, soot stains crawled up the stone walls like shadows that never quite settled.
A large worktable, scorched around the corners, stood proudly in the center of the room. Mismatched jars covered its surface.
Lydia walked up to a locked cupboard. It must have extra magic protections on it because it was the only furniture in the room that looked unburnt. She gripped the padlock holding it shut and expertly twisted the dial. It popped open, and she smiled in triumph. “Mary is so predictable.”
She grabbed what appeared to be a journal from the cupboard and showed it to me. “Mary used it to help solve Isabella’s murder. It includes forbidden spells but also spells that require both witch and fae magic. My sister keeps it locked up, but guessing her code is always so easy.”
Witch and fae magic. Two things that normally weren’t combined.
Not because it couldn’t be done, but because it just wasn’t—mainly because fae used to believe that mixing the magics would taint fae power.
But the Bennet women were literally a combination of both, and they’d more than proven that it was fine.
“Here it is,” Lydia said, holding the book open and reading over the spell. She looked at me. “It takes fae magic to work, and because you’re the one who has probably come into contact with the killer, it will require your power and intention to direct the spell.”
She grabbed a couple of bottles and ingredients and started mixing them in a miniature cauldron.
“Can you get me the crushed siren pearls from the potion cabinet?” she asked me.
“Sure.” Crushed siren pearls. How hard could that be to locate? I stepped up to the cabinet and stared at the ingredients. Even though they were labeled, it was in a scrawled cursive that was difficult to read. I picked up a few and then set them back.
“Everything okay?” Lydia asked as she ground a leafy ingredient inside a bowl.
“Yeah,” I said. Was this similar to the situation of men asking for directions? Either way, I was determined to find the right one. At last, I saw a small jar that said crushed something, so I grabbed it and walked it over to her.
She didn’t even have to squint as she read the label. “This isn’t it. This is crushed dragon scales. A super rare ingredient, only for one potion really, and it’s only for emergencies. A removal potion.”
I took the jar and returned to the cabinet, resolved to find the correct ingredient. “What does that do?”
“It can transport a person to a new location. But it only works on witches, and the ingredients are so rare we’ve never actually brewed it, but rumor has it you can buy it on the magical black market for a lot of money.”
Despite being fae, it was sometimes wild to me what witch magic accomplished. I discovered what seemed to be the jar and carried it to Lydia. She smiled. “Perfect.”
In her stocking feet, she moved with precision, her sleeves pushed up as she added three small pinches of the crushed siren’s pearls and a spoonful of black salt. She put in a glowing greenish liquid and stirred, setting the cauldron on the Bunsen burner to heat it.
When the potion simmered and a soft lavender steam drifted up from it, she faced me.
“Okay, when you put your magic into the cauldron, think about the death and how badly you want to find the killer. We have to put your fae magic into it in three timed spurts. And then on the third time, you should hear a whisper in your ear that will tell you the race of the killer.”
“Just like that?”
“If it doesn’t work, you won’t hear anything. So yeah, just like that.”
“What if the killer is mixed race? Or a fae that has also been turned into a vampire?”
“The spell is sensitive enough to pick out those nuances. If it’s a fae-vampire or, like me, half-fae, half-witch, it should tell us.” She faced the potion. “We have to time it right, and you have to be focused.”
I cricked my neck, entering the headspace that I did before a music concert. “I’m focused.”
“Okay, ready? Now.”
I released my fae magic into the cauldron, a steady stream of dark blue.
I concentrated on the dead body on my doorstep and how badly I wanted to find the killer for both me and Lydia’s sake.
And for the victim, Albert Jones, who didn’t deserve to be killed.
The potion latched onto my power, pulling more and more.
My hands shook, and my legs became unsteady.
“And stop,” Lydia said, watching her phone, using it as a timer.
I cut off my magic and gripped the counter that the cauldron sat on.
“That takes a lot out of me.” Unlike fae, who could rest up and their energy would be restored, as a vampire the faster my magic was used up, the more desperately I needed blood.
I wasn’t expecting to spend so much energy in a single sitting.
“I’m guessing that there aren’t any rare steaks on hand? ”
“I don’t think so.”
“Okay.” I blinked in an attempt to clear my muddled thoughts. “Let’s do it again.”
She hesitated, looking worried. “Are you sure?”
“We must keep going or the potion won’t work, right?”
She frowned down at the spellbook but nodded.
I flashed her one of my charming smiles. “Then I can take it.”
“All right, ready?”
“Yes.” I gathered my determination. I would make it through this.
“Now.”
I released my power into the bubbling potion again. The deep blue magic poured into it. I gasped as it sucked more and more out of me.
“Hold on,” Lydia said, her voice tight.
Despite shaking legs and blurry vision, I kept going. I thought about the dead body. I needed this spell, needed to know what creature was trying to expose me.
“Done!” Lydia said.
I turned off my power and tried to smile, but the world spun out of control and everything faded to black.
“Wickham, are you all right?” Lydia knelt in front of me, hands on my face, eyes filled with worry.
“Sorry, I guess that took more than I could handle.” My body ached, and my head throbbed.
There was soreness in the back of my throat that grew worse when I tried to swallow.
“I’m afraid I’ll need to eat before we can continue.
” I watched as her expression fell. “There’s not enough time for that, is there? ”
She shook her head. “We have to do another round in the next twenty minutes or the potion won’t take, and we’re almost out of ground unicorn hair, and I’m not sure when I can get more.
” She frowned, looking down at her arms, her gaze tracing the veins under her skin. “What… what if you fed from me?”
My head reared back in shock. “What? No.”
But Lydia was already nodding to herself in the way she did. “If you fed from me, then you’d have the energy you require, and we could do the next set of spell casting that we need within the time limit. It’s the only way.”
As a vampire, I avoided taking blood from people.
Both because it was an easy way to get caught and because I didn’t want to go down that path.
But even now, her rosy scent and her soft pulse called to me.
“No, give me a second. I can do the last one.” I pushed myself up into a sitting position, wobbling.
“If you don’t feed, you’ll pass out again,” she said, brushing my hair from my forehead.
I shook my head. “I won’t take that from you.”
She offered her wrist, her pulse fluttering like a bird under porcelain skin. “You’re not taking. I’m giving.”
I released a slow breath. I’d said she could help, and if I wanted to find this killer and protect her, then we needed this potion to move forward—for both our sakes.
Reaching out, I gingerly took her arm at the elbow and positioned it closer.
My fangs brushed her skin so lightly it felt like a whisper.
When I finally bit, I did it as gently as possible, my lips gliding over her like a gentle kiss.
Lydia let out a soft giggle. “That… doesn’t feel bad.” Her shoulders relaxed, and she sat on her heels.
Part of it was the effect of my vampire venom. One bite and I would be able to compel a human just as easily as my sire compelled me. And Lydia was a half-human witch, so she’d definitely be experiencing the effects.
When I sat back, I looked up at her, and she smiled at me, her eyes a swirl of diamond blue. She sat in my lap. “You can tell me what to do now,” she whispered.
The warmth of her nearness washed over me. “I would never.”
“Then can I tell you what to do?”
I hesitated, unsure how much was her and how much was my venom still coursing through her veins. “Depends on what it is.”
“It’s this.” She leaned forward and pressed her lips to mine.
The softness of her kiss was all I could feel.
Then her scent as it fell around me was gentle like an embrace.
I breathed her in, responding to the soft movement of her lips.
This woman. I rested my hand on the back of her hair, deepening the kiss between us.
I tugged her closer, loving her nearness, her minty wintery-green taste, and the hurried beat of her heart.
This wild, crazy, unapologetic woman was the most beautiful creature I’d ever met.
She pulled back. “Are you feeling better?”
“Better?” I muttered, still trapped in the magic her kiss had on me.
“You know, for the spell? I think we may be running low on time.”
Oh yes. The spell. “Let’s finish it,” I said.
I stood, invigorated. Lydia’s blood had worked wonders.
“Ready?” Lydia said, looking at her phone again. “Now.”
I sent my power into the potion. This time it pulled more than the others. It was good that I drank Lydia’s blood, or else I wouldn’t have made it through this last one. I thought again of the dead body, of whoever was trying to ruin my life, and of my chances at a normal, happy life.
“And done!”
I stopped, breathing hard, but that was all. Lydia spun to me, excitement in her eyes. “Well, did it work?”
I held up a hand, trying to listen. For an instant, I believed we’d failed. Had we done the spell wrong? Maybe I hadn’t met the person who was setting me up.
But then, words, as soft as a caress. The killer is fae.
I waited a moment, expecting more, expecting it to add vampire onto the end, but the voice died out. I looked at Lydia in shock. “The murderer is fae.” I could barely believe it. Sephira had been right. The murderer hadn’t been a vampire.
The creature, who’d somehow deprived his victim of blood to set me up, was fae.