That Old Black Magic

FOURTEEN

Eden had a hell of a hangover. Somehow, somewhere, she’d drank way too much and now had to pay the price.

Her eyelashes fluttered as she opened her eyes.

“Eden, sweetie,” her mother’s brand-new voice said softly. “You’re awake. Good.”

“Give her a minute,” Ben said. “She’ll be woozy for a bit.” Her throat felt like sandpaper. “Wh-what happened? Where am I?”

“You’re safe.”

She was confused, but her vision began to come into focus. “You… have you taken me to the Malleus?”

“No, of course not,” Ben said. “This doesn’t have anything to do with them. They don’t need to know about this. It’s safer that way.”

Safer. Sure, now he gets cautious when it comes to those jerks. Maybe he’d learned a few things in the last little while.

Wait a minute.

She tried to push herself up and looked around the small enclosed space. “Where am I?”

“In a van I rented,” Ben said.

“A van. So you…” She felt her shoulder where the injection went in. “You drugged me and threw me in the back of a van?”

Her mother’s currently young and beautiful face loomed in front of her. “Seemed like a good gathering spot on short notice.”

“And what is this? Your intervention?”

Ben cleared his throat. “Yup. Kind of amateur, I’ll admit it, but it worked well enough.”

Unbelievable. How many times did she have to say she didn’t need anyone’s help before they’d leave her the hell alone?

“I don’t have time for this.” She glared at them. “You have no right to approach me ever again, you hear me? I swear to God, if you do then you’re both going to be sorry. I don’t want your help or your stupid intervention.”

“It had to be done,” Ben said. “You’ll see that eventually. Maybe not today, but soon. And you’ll thank us for this.”

Her eyes narrowed on him. “You know, I once thought you were a really nice guy, Ben. Someone who wanted to do the right thing, even at a cost. I heard you’d left the police force.”

“Couldn’t balance things as well as I thought. Had to choose.”

“I guess that brand on your arm made that choice nice and simple for you.”

“I know you think the Malleus are evil, but they’re not. Not all of them, anyway.” His jaw clenched as if he didn’t entirely believe his own words.

“Let me out of here. Now.”

They exchanged a look. Great, Ben and Caroline had forged a bond of some kind. United to save Eden from the big bad demon. How did they even meet?

She felt magic spark in the palms of her hands, ready, willing, and able to be used whenever she liked. “You have three seconds to get out of my way. Three, two, one.”

When they didn’t do anything, she cast a focused look at the back doors of the van and they swung wide open. She scooted toward the exit before she noticed something that made her gasp out loud and her heart start pounding hard in her chest.

“Why is it dark out?” She didn’t get an immediate reply so she turned to look at them. “What time is it? How long was I out?”

Caroline pressed her lips together and glanced away.

Ben held Eden’s gaze steadily. “It’s six o’clock. You were out for a little over an hour.”

Eden began to tremble. “No… but — but I need to—”

She leapt out of the van and scanned the parking lot. They hadn’t gone anywhere. They were still here, next to her Toyota. Next to Triple-A. She ran so fast she nearly twisted her ankle. The door was locked and she yanked on the handle so hard it hurt her hands.

Fumbling in her pockets for the spell, she realized with a horrible sinking feeling that it wasn’t there anymore. Suddenly, Caroline was next to her, the paper clutched in her hand.

“We had to do it to save you, Eden,” she said, her voice shaky. “It’s going to be better now. You’ll see.”

Tears blurred her vision, and she snatched the paper away, quickly speaking the Latin words to break the spell that had sealed the office up. There was a slight swell of light to show it worked.

She grasped the door handle and pulled, bursting into the office. “Please, please still be here.”

A large doglike creature scrambled toward her, and she reacted instinctively, balling her hand, ready to unleash magic to protect herself if the werewolf attacked. Instead, it sat down on its haunches in front of her and whined, raising its front leg to paw at the air.

“Andy… what happened? Where’s Darrak?” She turned in a circle. “Darrak! Where are you?”

Andy tilted his muzzle back and howled mournfully.

And then she just knew.

Darrak wasn’t here. He’d been trapped inside the office by the spell. He couldn’t possess Andy since he was a shifter. Darrak had nowhere to go when he lost solid form.

He was gone and she hadn’t felt a thing. Nothing. She’d felt nothing. Not even when she’d woken up — not even a twinge of pain to signify what had happened.

But she felt the pain now.

“Sweetie,” her mother said from the doorway. “Come on, let’s leave. Get a good night’s sleep. Things will be better tomorrow.”

“Things will be better tomorrow?” she managed. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done here?”

“Yes,” Ben said. “Something that should have been done weeks ago.”

“It’ll be okay now,” her mother soothed. “And… uh, why’s there a big scary-looking dog in here? Where’s Andy?”

A moment later, the glass door shattered into a million pieces. Caroline shrieked.

Eden turned to face her mother and Ben, the two people who’d taken Darrak away from her. They’d decided to save her from the demon who possessed her and they’d gone ahead and destroyed him.

“I’m going to kill both of you. Right now.”

Power surged into her hands. Lucas once told her that using black magic to kill a mortal would turn her soul jet-black. She’d be hellbound with no chance for redemption.

At this moment, she honestly couldn’t care less. Darrak was gone, and it felt as if her heart had been torn right out of her chest.

She did love him — utterly and completely. But she’d been afraid to admit the depth of her feelings for him, even to herself. She hadn’t known how she’d truly felt until it was too late.

He was gone, and nothing else felt like it mattered anymore.

“Don’t, Eden.” Ben held his hands up. “We did this to help you!”

“I loved him. And you took him away from me, you self-righteous son of a bitch. I want you to suffer. I want to watch you bleed.”

“Eden!” Caroline snapped. “Don’t do this. He was a damn demon who’d corrupted your soul. How could we not do anything we had to do to help you?”

“He wasn’t just a demon. Not to me.” Her voice was eerily quiet. The flood of black magic had given her that much — cold, emotionless resolve. “He was everything. He was a part of me. And now there’s a hole where my heart used to be — a wide, gaping chasm of darkness.”

“Oh, don’t be so damn melodramatic,” Caroline snapped. “And don’t aim that nasty magic toward us. I raised you better than that.”

In another life, another universe, that might have made her laugh.

Andy whined, and gently tugged at the corner of her shirt. It was enough to snap her slightly out of her bloodthirsty and mindless need for vengeance.

Tears slid down her cheeks. “See? I knew you were going to make a nice werewolf.”

He nudged her magic-filled hands with the top of his furry head.

She shook her head. “I can’t help it. I need to do something or I think I might die over this. All I have left is my magic.”

He nudged her again.

Andy didn’t want her to do anything she was going to regret. Using this magic, feeling the way she was, it wouldn’t end well. For anyone.

“Damn it.” She took a deep breath and pushed back against the power at her disposal, the darkness that threatened to overtake her if she waded too much deeper into it. The moment she did, the steely, calm reserve she’d had a tentative hold on peeled away and all she felt was raw pain.

Her stomach lurched violently. She managed to make it to the washroom before she threw up. The flu had been waiting for this exact moment before it decided to make its presence known in full force. One more thing for her to deal with.

It took her a while before she cleaned herself up, ignoring her churning gut and her puffy, red-ringed eyes in the mirror. She expected to be alone when she entered the office again, the cold wind moving in through the broken glass door. Ben was gone now — smart guy — but her mother still stood there.

Eden cast her a dark look. “Go away if you know what’s good for you.”

Caroline wrung her hands. “You just puked.”

“The flu’s been circling me for days. I hardly ever get sick like that.”

“The only time I ever had bad nausea like that was when I was pregnant with you.”

She wanted to be alone. “Not really in the mood for a walk down memory lane right now.”

“So what do you think you’re going to—?”

“Leave,” Eden growled. “I don’t want to see you again. Ever. Get it? Ever. I hate you.”

Caroline flinched as if she’d been hit, but she wasn’t stupid. She finally got the hint and slinked out of the office, leaving Eden and Andy alone. Eden’s knees gave out and she crumpled to the ground, cold and empty and not sure what she was supposed to do next.

Andy sat down next to her. She could feel the heat from his large furry body.

A hot tear slid down her cheek. “I loved him, Andy. I didn’t even realize how much. More than anything. Anything. And he’s gone forever.”

He whined again and pawed at her leg.

Eden slid her hand over her stomach, hating the thought that she was getting sick, especially now.

Then she went very quiet. There was no sound at all except the thud of her heart in the cool, silent office.

“The only time I ever had bad nausea like that was when I was pregnant with you.”

It couldn’t be. It couldn’t.

But Eden suddenly knew with total and complete clarity that it was true. She wasn’t nauseous because she was coming down with the flu.

“Oh, my God,” she said out loud. “I’m pregnant.”

Ben wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Maybe shock for a bit, followed by an outpouring of gratitude as Eden realized she’d been saved from a fate worse than death by two people who cared about her.

He was such a fool.

“I need to go,” he said to Caroline outside of Triple-A. The front window of the van was cracked down the center from Eden’s surge of magic that had made his blood run cold with fear. The rental agency wouldn’t be happy about that but at the moment he couldn’t care less.

Despite his initial reluctance, he’d teamed up with this drifter — a wandering soul inside a stolen human body. Together, with the same goal, it had felt so right. But now it felt wrong.

Everything felt wrong.

“It wasn’t a mistake,” Caroline told him. “She’ll see that in time.”

Even she didn’t sound so sure about that anymore.

Ben’s throat felt thick. “I have your number. I’ll call you later to make sure you’re okay.”

He drove away, barely able to focus on the road. All he saw was the look on Eden’s face when she realized Darrak was gone. She’d been a study in grief, in rage. He’d seen emotion that strong before. It was when someone lost a loved one in a senseless tragedy.

There was no arguing with it anymore. Eden had loved Darrak. Truly loved him. And that love had not been forged out of something vile or impure as Ben had always believed. It was as real as anything he’d ever witnessed.

Eden had been ready to kill him and Caroline on the spot for what they’d done, but she’d let them walk away. He was still surprised by that.

Ben drove to the Malleus headquarters. He had a meeting with Oliver.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Oliver said. He had a large, richly decorated office, done in shades of gray, silver, and black, and he was seated behind a large black lacquered desk with his fingers templed in front of him.

“Where else would I be?”

“Are you well? You look distracted.”

“I’m fine. What do you need me to do?”

“Fetch the shifter. Bring her to interrogation room three. Tonight we’ll get to the bottom of everything. Find out exactly how she and Eden Riley are connected. See if she can give us any insight on the demon and how the angelic energy has affected him during the possession. I need answers.”

Ben nodded. “Fine.”

“You will take the lead in this questioning, Ben,” Oliver said. “And you are to use any means necessary to extract the truth from her. It can’t wait another day. Do you understand?”

“I understand.” Ben was once a man, but now he was a monster. Might as well prove that just a little bit more than he already had. “Can I ask you about something, sir?”

“What is it?”

“I want to know about the angel you have imprisoned downstairs.”

Oliver’s composed expression didn’t give anything away. “An angel?”

“Yes.” Ben’s gaze wanted to move to the single white feather that lay on the floor next to Oliver’s desk, but he forced himself not to look.

While he waited for a reply, the office felt as if it chilled a few degrees.

Oliver fixed him with a steady smile. “You’re working too hard and beginning to see things that don’t exist. There are no angels downstairs. That makes no sense at all. Why would I imprison an angel?”

“That was what I wondered.”

“Soon I’ll be able to authorize a two-week leave for you, Ben. I think you need a vacation. But there are important matters to deal with first. Go get the shifter.”

He knew better than to argue. No one wanted to tell him the truth about what he’d seen, so much so that he was beginning to question his own memories.

Ben went downstairs and his hard-soled shoes made an echoing sound against the floor. The walls were narrow down here. A guard accompanied him. He glanced down the hall at the silent cell that held the winged man to whom he’d spoken only once.

No time to think about that. He had other matters to attend to.

“She’s pretty hot,” the guard said. “Maybe after you’re finished with her later, I can play a little bit.”

Ben’s lips thinned. “Maybe.”

The guard slipped his key into the lock and swung the door open. “Hey, little shifter. Looks like your time is finally up.”

The woman cowered in the corner, her knees drawn up to her chest. Everything about her signified that she was afraid… except her eyes. They blazed with indignation. With challenge. With pissed off fury.

She wasn’t going to give up without a fight.

Quite honestly, Ben gave her five minutes max before she started telling them anything they wanted to know — and then some. He’d already been shown some of the interrogation tools the Malleus deemed worthy for use on prisoners. Not much had changed since the Salem witch trials hundreds of years ago.

“She’s all yours,” the guard said.

“Thanks.”

Ben slammed his fist into the guard’s face, then grabbed him and whacked his head against the metal door. That was more than enough to knock him out cold.

Then Ben looked in at the woman in the corner — this so-called evil creature he was scheduled to torture for information in a few short minutes.

“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded.

He held his hand out to her. “We need to get out of here. Now.”