Flint Lock (Witches of Karma #10) (7 page)

And this was a recipe book, too—well, of a sort. I was pretty sure that my Gran had never stirred up some ‘Moon Elixir’ containing a whole lot of herbs, and a good-sized portion of valerian. She might be a witch, but the most un-innocuous thing I’d ever seen her make was chamomile tea.

No, this narrow volume in my hands was obviously a Book of Shadows. I’d never had one of my own, though I knew several witches who kept their thoughts and ‘spells’, for lack of a better word, in the traditional book format. Some called them grimoires, some called them grammaries, some called them Books of Shadows. Whatever the name, they were all the same—personal spell books, usually bound to one person, or witch.

Maybe there was something to it. The Book of Shadows in my hands had the same warm, comforting presence as the rest of the room. I could almost see its maker, scented with herbs and mixing something in a mortar and pestle, pausing every once in a while to jot down notes with a quill pen.

It was a pretty fancy. I liked the idea that my farm might be haunted by the memory of a kind, gentle healer, like her Book of Shadows suggested she had been.

Books like this were usually handed down from generation to generation. What had happened here? Had the witch never had children or an apprentice that she could pass her work down to? What had happened to the woman who used to work here, that she had left everything in such a state of interruption?

I felt a shiver race up my spine.

Maybe it had been waiting all this time for me to find it. Maybe this room, and this book, were the reason why I had felt so drawn to the old farm in the first place.

“I’ll take good care of it,” I said out loud.

My voice was quiet, but I had a feeling that whoever was there—if there was anyone outside of my imagination—had heard me and was happy to pass the book’s legacy down to me.

I brushed the cobwebs off of my face as I sat down to peruse the pages more thoroughly. Some of the words appeared to be in Latin, or perhaps Gaelic, while others were difficult to pick out of the tight script.

Part of my marveled at my fascination with the book.

It had been so long since I had touched this part of my life. I had done so much, come so far, patting myself on the back for leaving that whole world behind. And here I was, reading a Book of Shadows, and feeling the cool tingle of my own magic under my skin.

I must have opened a door back into that world. Perhaps, when I stopped to help the stranger in the middle of the street. There could be no other explanation for the changes that were barging into my life, one after another, with no regard to my personal preferences.

What would have happened, if I hadn’t passed at that very moment? What if I hadn’t stayed to make sure the mare I’d been treating was progressing well? What if I had just left him there? What if I had followed my first impulse, and called 911 and left Flint to the hands of professionals?

And what, really, brought Flint almost to my doorway, right there where I would find him, in his darkest hour?

How long had we both been walking down this path?

Doors, I’d discovered long ago, were much harder to close than to open up. They were like Pandora’s Box. Doors were portals between worlds, between lives.

I could see Flint being my own personal Pandora’s Box—a tempting package containing mysteries, and definitely containing some horrors along the way.

Yet, I couldn’t seem to just walk away. There was a fascination there that I could not deny. It was like staring at the sun. Even if he left my life again, I knew I’d see the imprint of him there, behind my eyes, for the rest of my life.

“’If a stranger knocks on your door, it is wise to offer him bread and salt. Once he has eaten these, he will be your kindred’,” I read from the book. I leaned back, wrinkling my nose as the motion brought me back into contact with a cobweb. I didn’t mind spiders, but cobwebs gave me the heebie-jeebies. “Oh, I guess that’s what I did wrong. All I gave Flint was toast and bacon.”

FLINT

I
awoke to daylight streaming through a large picture window, heating the skin of my back. My head throbbed as I tried to move. My mouth felt like it had been stuffed with wool.

I groaned.

How much had I had to drink last night? I couldn’t even remember.

The linoleum was cold under my face and my belly. I was lying in the middle of the floor.

I looked down. Of course, naturally, I would be naked.

I heard a delicate cough from the doorway.

I turned my head to see Win’s bemused face. Despite the expression, she looked terrible. I was distracted from the curve of her lips, by the dark bruises that marred her face, neck, arms… pretty much everywhere that wasn’t covered by her clothing. I wondered how many more bruises were hidden beneath that covering.

I felt the dried husk that was all that was left of my heart sink into my belly. Had I done that to her? I must have.

Any jury in the country would convict me for attempted murder, if they saw her.

“While I’m glad to see that you are yourself again this morning,” Win said, her voice light and teasing, in stark contrast to her battered features, “I don’t think that sleeping naked… on my kitchen floor, may I add, is healthy this time of year. It’s still cold in the mornings, you know.”

I did know. I wanted to curl into a ball. I wanted to run away. Mostly, I just wanted to disappear and pretend that she hadn’t seen me like this.

I definitely didn’t want her seeing more of me. Well, at least not this way. There were better moments for nudity.

I wondered where that last thought had come from. Maybe I’d hit my head a few times, while under the influence of the demonic.

I tasted bile. How could she stand there and talk to me after what I had done to her? How could she just make jokes and act like everything was fine?

“You couldn’t look away?” I grunted, as I staggered to my feet. I grabbed the closest covering I could find—a tea-towel hanging by the sink—and used it to preserve what was left of my modesty.

“I could,” Win agreed. “I just like watching you turn red. I’ve never seen a big guy like you blush like that.”

I narrowed my eyes at her, suspecting her word choice had been deliberate. Her expression was all-too sweet and guileless to be real.

“Any idea where my clothes might be?” I asked, when a glance around the room showed neither hide nor hair of the one outfit I currently had to my name.

“In the laundry,” Win said, widening her eyes innocently. “Here, I grabbed you something to wear, while you wait for your own clothes to dry. I hope it fits.”

She pulled a fluffy, pink bathrobe from behind her back and held it up for my inspection. Her grey eyes danced with suppressed laughter—at my expense.

I snatched it from her hands. “Fine,” I growled.

Actually, I considered wearing a way too-small pink bathrobe as small compensation towards the damage that was all-too apparent on Win’s delicate frame.

Though I was sure, she would never see it that way.

Let her humiliate me as much as she wanted, I would take that and more, if only to be able to partially atone for what I had done to her.

“It’s not all from you,” she said, wincing as she caught the direction of my thoughts. I’d forgotten that ‘slightly telepathic’ thing. “I fell over a trunk this morning and landed on my face. The rest is mostly you, though.”

I cringed. The irony was not lost on me. I’d sworn never to let another woman come to harm around me, and now, here I was, attacking a tiny, delicate girl and leaving her black and blue.

“I’m not that tiny,” she protested. She winced. “You didn’t say that out loud, did you?”

I shook my head.

She pulled a couple mugs out of the closest cabinet and poured coffee. She evidently had been awake much longer than I had. I felt heat rush up my face again. How long had she just watched me lying there?

She pushed the coffee towards me and set to doctoring her own with one of those toffee-flavored sweetened creamers from the fridge. I shook my head when she offered it to me.

“I think we have a problem,” she said, after gingerly downing half of her hot beverage. “I mean; I think we have another problem. Apparently, we have several piling up around here.”

She tapped her fingers on the counter. I waited out her silence, drinking my coffee black as I always did.

“I can hear you much better now,” she blurted. “Yesterday, it was just a thought here and there—nothing out of the ordinary. This morning it’s… different. It’s like I can hear you in my head.” She touched her temple delicately with her finger.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. I didn’t even want to be in my own head. I felt bad that she had to listen in on my misery.

“It’s not so bad really,” she said, her face thoughtful. “Did you know that you smell like hazelnuts? Your thoughts almost taste like them, too.” She licked her lips, and snapped back to alertness. A faint trail of pink suffused her face, beneath the bruises.

“How badly did I hurt you?” I asked. “Don’t water it down for me. I need to know the truth.”

She narrowed her grey eyes at me. “For one thing, it was your demon, not you.”

“Semantics,” I scoffed. “Come on; let’s hear the worst of it.”

“I’m fine,” she said softly. “I’ve had worse coming off of a horse. Honestly, it looks much worse than it feels.”

That would have made me feel better, if she hadn’t winced on her way to dropping her mug off into the sink.

I swore. “I’m sorry. I should get out of here, before I end up hurting you even worse.”

She whirled around. “You can’t do that! You know you only have a short time before the demon ascends for good. You can’t just let it win!” The horror on her face was palpable.

“Maybe there is someone else that can help me.” I didn’t want to sound doubtful, but the bruises on Win’s face were evidence enough that she couldn’t protect herself from a demon, let alone banish one. If she could have stopped me, I was pretty sure she wouldn’t be standing there, looking like a CSI TV-show extra.

She grabbed my mug, never mind that it was still half full, and threw it into the sink. I heard it shatter as it hit, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“I am the best damned demon-evictor you will ever meet,” she growled. “You chauvinistic, sexist… prat!”

I stared at her. “I’m not sure I’ve ever been called a ‘prat’ before.”

“If you haven’t, you should have been,” she said, her cheeks still flushed with her ire. “It’s the perfect word for you. Do you think that I want to waste my time trying to save your butt? Do you think I don’t have better things to do? Look, I’m not that keen to release a demon into the world. So, until it’s banished, you’re going to have to stay put.” She jabbed a finger at me.

“I don’t want anything to happen to you!” I shouted.

An awkward silence fell upon us for the whole of three seconds. The sound of my own voice startled me. I couldn’t remember the last time I had yelled at anyone. “Look at you! You’re covered in bruises—because of me! I can’t let you keep getting hurt and know that it’s my fault—that I could have prevented it. I’m not your responsibility! You obviously can’t protect yourself from the demon. I won’t stand by and watch you get hurt again. I can’t let you do this!”

Her eyes narrowed at me. “
Let
me? I think you’re misunderstanding the situation here, if you think you can dictate to me what I can or cannot do. This is my house. This is my life—and you can’t suddenly step in and decide what’s best for me.”

I rubbed my hands over my scalp with frustration. My stitches itched like crazy. My heart thudded. How could I make her listen? “Don’t you understand? You’re going to get yourself killed! I can’t let that happen.”

She studied my face for a moment, as alert as the slightly-vibrating dog by her side.

“Then, don’t,” she said.

“I don’t know how!” I turned away from her, so she wouldn’t be able to see my face. My hands curled into fists. I wanted to hit something, to knock something down. I wanted to tear something apart with my bare hands.

I froze.

I could feel that tingling sensation that preceded a demonic takeover. Now that I felt it, I could remember feeling it the last time I lost control. It felt like I was sliding under a thick sheet of ice, while the heat of the demonic presence surged forward through my blood.

I drew in a deep breath, trying to dampen the emotions that always seemed to draw it to the surface. Anger appeared to be its favorite food. It gobbled down the heat of my emotions, reaching its claws deep into my soul.

Win seemed to sense my dilemma. She placed a hand gently on my arm. I shrugged it off, not sure that I could hold it together if she touched me.

She wasn’t offended by the gesture, at least. Instead, she grabbed a container of chunky sea salt off of the counter and startled to sprinkle it around me.

I didn’t know if it was the salt, or just my bemusement at her strange behavior, but I could feel the demon sink lower into my consciousness and, starved of my rage and fear, go dormant.

I looked at the rough sodium-filled circle surrounding me and raised an eyebrow.

“I read it in an old book,” Win said with a shrug. “Hey, I figured it couldn’t hurt. I’m not exactly the kind of girl that can’t sit there and not do something when someone is about to get chomped by a demon.”

I bent down to pick up a salt crystal and popped it into my mouth. I crunched down on it. “Do you think, if I eat enough of these, that the demon will take off?”

Win chuckled. “Not before you died from sodium poisoning,” she said. “Believe me there are safer—and effective ways to take care of this problem.” She scowled at me suddenly. “You don’t still think you can refuse for me to take care of this, do you? Because I have anesthesia and I’m not afraid to use it—even if I’m not sure of the ratios for the human body. Just a risk you’ll have to take. You’re about the size of a St. Bernard.”

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. My head throbbed. I could feel my pulse through my whole body, as if every beat was being counted—every second before I turned into demon-fodder.

She snorted. The snort turned to a giggle.

I opened my eyes to her face, red with suppressed laughter. I failed to see anything humorous in our situation.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping the tears of mirth out of her eyes. “I just can’t take you seriously in that bathrobe.”

I felt the corner of my mouth turn up. “What? You don’t think pink is my color?” I would have attempted a twirl, but the robe was too short to attempt that and remain relatively modest. She may have seen me naked, but that didn’t mean I needed to put the family jewels on display.

“At least not like this,” that pervasive voice whispered in my head.

Win studied me with a look on her face that I thought—hoped—didn’t have anything to do with what I had just been thinking or the scantiness of my current getup. Until my clothes got out of the laundry, I didn’t have many options.

“How do you feel about being handcuffed?” she asked, her grey eyes wide and innocent, though I could see the light of mirth bubbling in their depths.

I opened my mouth, but couldn’t seem to speak. I licked my lips and tried again. “What?” I managed to sputter.

“You know,” she said casually. “Getting handcuffed? Chained? What, you’ve never tried it?” She raised one eyebrow.

I shook my head, trying to ignore the images that flooded my brain at the suggestion.

She grinned wickedly. “Excellent.”