Chapter Thirteen

Blake should have had a million things on his mind during the ride from Veteran’s Park to his place with Melodie clinging to his back. He should have been worrying about the Fremlings, the roving Ak’mir and the amazing array of demon breeds that seemed to be roaming the streets and back alleys of sleepy little Amberville.

At the very least, he should have been wondering how Melodie would survive any length of time hosting the dark power of the Cabochon.

Instead he spent those twenty minutes wondering if he’d left any dirty underwear in the living room, or if he had a clean coffee cup on hand to offer her something warm to drink.

He never brought women home.

Not that he hadn’t dated now and then. Nothing serious. It could never be serious. They usually got suspicious and dumped him when he refused to take them home to his place, figuring he was married or some type of deviate. Well, technically he was some type of deviate.

At least Melodie McConnell already knew that.

Fortunately at the moment, she didn’t care. She climbed off the back of his Harley when he pulled into his narrow driveway and made her way on unsteady legs up the small flight of stairs leading to his front door.

“This is nice,” she said, craning her neck to survey the faux-brick finish topped on the second floor by colonial gold aluminum siding.

“Thanks.” He stifled the urge to explain his parents had left him the house. It was enough she knew his secret. Sharing the details of the normal part of his life with her just seemed way too intimate. He plowed through the awkward silence and unlocked the front door.

“Here.” He handed her his cell phone before slipping ahead of her in the entry hall to turn on the lights. “Why don’t you call the bakery and see how Palmer’s doing.”

She nodded and dialed hesitantly. He led her to the living room, which, to his relief, was reasonably clean. He’d never considered himself sloppy, nor was he a neat freak. He figured the place looked no worse or better than she might have expected of a thirty-five-year-old bachelor.

Palmer’s voice exploded out of the tiny receiver, and Melodie held the phone away from her ear. “I’m fine…I’m…really sorry about what I—no, I do need to apologize. I don’t know what came over me. Well, yes I do know. It’s the demon thing, I’m…” Her words dissolved into a hiccupping sob, and Blake swiped the phone from her.

“Everything all right, Van Houten?”

“Yes. I’ve got most of the mess cleaned up. Calypso said she’d handle Melodie’s work for tonight. Thanks for leaving me here with a dead demon.”

“Would you have preferred being left with a live one?” Blake imagined Palmer’s expression and smirked.

“Is Melodie really all right?”

“She’s in one piece, and the blood on her clothes isn’t her own. That’s about as okay as can be expected at the moment.” He watched her cross the room and sit gingerly on his sofa. Overall, she looked helpless, scared, tired, beyond vulnerable, except for her eyes. Something shone in them that spoke of the power lying momentarily dormant within her. It would tear her apart if she held on to it for too much longer. “Calypso is going to have to smooth things over with Mel’s boss for a few days. I don’t think she should be out and about. She’ll stay here tonight.”

“Here? Where’s here?”

“My place.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry.” Blake dropped his voice to a whisper. “If she tries to seduce me, I know exactly how to handle it.” He didn’t hang on to listen to Palmer’s explosive diatribe. With a certain perverse pleasure, he shut the phone off and dropped it on the table beside the kitchen door.

“Don’t worry about a thing. Palmer and Calypso have it all under control.” He hoped that was close to the truth. The girl had enough on her mind without having to worry about losing her job too.

She glanced at him and shrugged. “Right now, I’m not worried. It’s…scary and liberating. I go through these little manic moments where it feels like everything is going to be just fantastic. Then, wham, it all hits me again like a ton of bricks.”

Blake crossed the living room and took a seat on the edge of his favorite recliner. “I don’t mean to upset you, but demons are capricious. They can be ecstatic one minute and morose the next. All the breeds are different, but they’re all known for being unable to control whatever emotions they possess.”

“Oh. That makes me feel so much better. I’d hate to be an abnormal demon.”

“You’re not a demon. The Cabochon is just making you act like one.”

“So then, aren’t you afraid I might become morose and take out my malaise on you?”

He laughed. “No. Actually, I’m banking on a theory. If I can’t hurt the one who possesses the Cabochon, I’m willing to bet she—meaning you, in this case—can’t hurt me, either. That would undermine the purpose of the spell which is for the witch hunter to suffer, and believe me, at this point, I might be tempted to let a demon take me out.”

Her eyes widened. “Don’t say that. There’s still hope to break the curse.”

He smiled and rose from the chair. “Good. Keep believing that. Now, I have some clean clothes you can borrow, and then I’ll see if I can round up something to eat.”

“I’m not hungry. I haven’t been all day.”

“You should try to eat and try to sleep. If you’re weak, the Cabochon will have a greater effect on you.”

That seemed to strike a nerve, and she sat up straighter. “I can fight it, can’t I? I can just sit here and let it take me over, or I can resist.”

Blake nodded, though he wasn’t at all sure it was possible to resist the power of the Witch’s Curse. He hoped for Melodie’s sake it was. “I have a feeling you’re a lot stronger than you think you are, lass.”

 

 

Mel wished she shared DeWitt’s faith in her inner strength. Right now, the last thing she felt was strong. Sitting in his cozy, if sparse, kitchen, dressed in a pair of his sweatpants and an oversize white T-shirt, she felt lost, as though she were wandering through a dream world.

She’d felt that way for a long time after her divorce, as if she was stuck in Jell-O. Life went on around her, slightly muffled and wiggly, a little out of focus and monochromatic.

Right now, the only part of her world in Technicolor was Blake DeWitt, and she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

He sat opposite her, sipping black coffee. Her own—mostly milk and sugar—had gone cold while his still steamed. He held Palmer’s crossbow on his lap and was examining it with the reverence of a lover.

“I have to give Van Houten credit. This looks handmade, and it’s excellent workmanship. It fires like a dream. I took out two Fremlings with one arrow.”

“Mmm?” She sipped the tepid coffee. He’d also made her a piece of buttered toast, which did nothing to entice her appetite out of hiding. The one bite she’d taken had tasted like sandpaper. “You seem to know a lot about demons and how to fight them.”

He caught her questioning gaze. “After ten years trying to discover the one that held the Cabochon, ten years poring through old journals and letters left by the men in my family, I’ve learned a lot.”

“So you were what, twenty when—?”

“Twenty-five. I inherited the curse from my grandfather. He died in 1998, five years after my father. My dad was the one DeWitt heir who never had to suffer the curse, because he died too soon.”

Raw emotion gripped Mel, and the next lukewarm sip of coffee burned going down. “I’m sorry. Did your grandfather have a chance to prepare you for…”

His eyes darkened, and his lips thinned. “It’s a hard thing to prepare for. Like most men in my bloodline, once the curse is transferred, the…cursee sort of fades out of society. It’s hard to have a life or deal with family or children, if you can never be around during the daylight hours. I suppose it would be easier to be a vampire. I hear they can at least move around during the day, even if they can’t go outside.”

“You believe in vampires?”

He laughed again, and Mel clung to his brief smile. She’d come to crave any moment that brought a sparkle to DeWitt’s golden eyes. “I killed six demons tonight and saw the rotting corpses of two more. You think vampires are a stretch for me? I’ve never met one, though I’ve had my suspicions about a few of my old co-workers back when I lived in Baltimore.”

“So you haven’t gone outside during the day in ten years?”

“I haven’t seen daylight in ten years. I turn to stone at sunrise and back again at sunset. I used to think my grandfather was eccentric. He went a little crazy, they said, back in 1949. That was the year his father died and transferred the curse to him. Everybody said it was grief.” He placed the crossbow on the table between them and sat back in his chair before continuing.

“My father was fifteen at the time, and he didn’t understand. My grandfather never told him because he hoped he’d never have to, so instead he let everyone believe he just stopped wanting to be part of the family. My grandmother left and took my dad with her a few years later. My grandfather lived alone for the rest of his life. I didn’t see him much, but when my parents died, he came over from Scotland to find me. He’d decided it was time to tell me what I had to look forward to, and he gave me all the information he’d accumulated about the curse over the years.”

“So you knew what was going to happen to you, and you couldn’t stop it.” Hopelessness washed over Mel. How could she survive this? Feeling every emotion so acutely was already taking its toll. Her limbs felt like lead, and her heart ached so fiercely for this man she hardly knew that she wanted to rip it out of her chest.

“I figured in time I’d work it out. I have more resources than any of my predecessors did. And right now, I’m probably closer than any of them ever came except for Wendell Blake. He died in 1863 and his journals tell about an encounter he had with a dying demon. He had his hands on the Cabochon, but he couldn’t destroy it in time. He didn’t know how. All he could do was pass the curse on to his nephew, Calvin DeWitt, rather than his own son. That’s how the curse changed from the Blake to the DeWitt bloodline. I, at least, have a witch who’s willing to see about having the curse removed. I don’t know much about Calypso, but I get the impression she usually doesn’t take no for an answer.”

Mel shrugged. Cal had her weaknesses, but DeWitt seemed to have pegged her. She was relentless when she wanted something. If anyone could make a case for the Witches’ Council to break the curse, she could.

DeWitt rose then, collected their coffee cups and placed them in the sink. “I don’t have a spare bedroom. You can sleep in my room.”

Mel raised a brow. “Oh, really?” Dare she smirk at the implication? One innocent glance from Palmer had her ready to climb inside his clothes with him. How would her capricious demon psyche react to the possibility of sharing a bed with Blake DeWitt?

He didn’t miss a beat. If he entertained even a fleeting naughty thought, it didn’t show. “I don’t sleep.”

“Not at all?”

“It seems a waste of what little time I have.”

And it did seem a shame to waste the night with small talk. Melodie rose and took a step toward DeWitt. He didn’t try to back away, but his posture stiffened as if he guessed her intent. Once again, the world became bright and inviting. His eyes smoldered, and his full lower lip begged for her attention just as Palmer’s had.

Before she could make another suggestive move, he had her wrists crossed firmly behind her back. She struggled halfheartedly, shocked by the swiftness with which he’d captured her and pleased by the sensation of his firm thighs pressed against hers.

“I was afraid this might happen. Palmer told me about your little indiscretion back at the bakery.”

“I was hoping you’d be a little more of a man than he was.” The words slipped out, and the still-lucid part of her brain regretted them instantly. Later maybe, when she wasn’t so turned on, she’d take time to be properly ashamed.

“Oh, I’m a lot more man, but just like the demon hunter, I won’t take advantage of a lady who’s not in her right mind.” His lips caressed the shell of her ear, sending shivers down her spine and all points south. “We both know, in the real world, you wouldn’t have eyes for the dark, dangerous boys. You’re Palmer’s type, all squeaky clean. As much as I might like otherwise, as long as you’re under my roof, you’ll stay that way.”

She growled and tried to wriggle free of his viselike grip. “I can think of things I’d rather be under than your roof.”

“I’m sure you can. But for now, you’ll just have to settle.”

Step by torturous step, he marched her through the house to his bedroom.

 

 

She offered only nominal resistance tempered with halfhearted pleas delivered in a sultry voice that didn’t match her girl-next-door looks.

“Are you going to lock me up? Tie me down? How are you going to keep me from being naughty, witch hunter?”

He might have bristled at the taunt. In this moment, he had half a mind to become just that. If Calypso couldn’t convince the Council to finally break the curse, he’d find someone who could free an innocent woman from sharing his torment.

“I should do both of those things for your own protection, but I don’t have time. It’ll be daylight soon.”

“I don’t mind a quickie.” She writhed in his grasp, reminding him just how long he’d been without a woman. A lesser man might have crumbled. A man pushed almost to the brink of madness would certainly have accepted the wordless invitation when her hips ground against his.

Perhaps Blake hadn’t yet reached the point of no return, but God knew he was close. So close.

He tossed her on the bed, which undulated beneath her sinuous form. She grinned. “Oh, the fun we could have on a water bed! Come on, DeWitt, show me a good time.”

“Don’t tempt me.” He didn’t wait for her to try, merely turned around and left the room, closing the door behind him. With no way to lock the room from the outside and no way to block the door, which opened in, it wasn’t much of a prison.

She could walk right out, but she didn’t. He held the knob tight for a moment, feeling his pulse beat double time in his fingers as they tightened on the brass. After a silent moment, her quiet sobs filtered through the door.

He refused to go back into the bedroom. If he offered her comfort now, he might not be able to leave in time. Dawn would break soon, and whether the rays of first light touched him or not, the transformation would occur on schedule. He needed to be hidden away, safe from eyes that would look on him with pity or disgust.

Hopefully she’d stay put and fall asleep. If she didn’t, he would be at her mercy.

 

Embarrassment left Melodie immobile in the middle of Blake DeWitt’s water bed. Shame settled over her like a layer of ice, heavy and stiff.

Why couldn’t she at least have the good fortune to forget her indiscretions? Twice now, she’d thrown herself at men while in the thrall of some demonic spell. If the shame of that didn’t kill her, the humiliation of being rejected twice certainly would.

Deep down she didn’t want Palmer or DeWitt. Well, maybe under better circumstances or… No. She didn’t want either of them. Whatever had taken over her mind was forcing her to act on any emotional impulse, no matter how slight.

How would she cope?

She tried to move, but the weight of her own indecision held her down. Her eyes drifted closed, and she let them. She hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours, and she’d believed DeWitt when he’d said physical weakness would make her more vulnerable.

DeWitt. She’d never be able to look him in the eye again.

Heat washed over her cheeks at the memory of his hard body pressed against her, the knowledge that he’d been aroused by her movements. The tickle of his breath against her ear and the commanding pressure of his hands on her skin had left her wanting. The complete loss of touch with her carefully constructed reality left her bereft.

Exhaustion claimed her before her hot tears dried on her cheeks.

 

 

Screams of vengeance filled the night. In their wake, Percival Blake walked the dark streets of Devon Crook. He noted with satisfaction the tightly shuttered windows of the thatched-roof houses. The God-fearing citizens of this tiny village knew well to keep themselves hidden on the Devil’s night.

The nobleman’s weary steps brought him to the cobbler’s shop, where he’d been judiciously renting a spare room. It was not that he didn’t possess enough gold to purchase a room at the inn, but he preferred anonymity when he hunted witches.

He opened the wooden door with a bloodstained hand, and a breath of cold air stirred the graying hairs at his temples. He froze on the threshold, listening.

The coven leader was dead. He’d left her hanging from a willow bough in the churchyard by a six-foot length of the strongest hemp. Even her dark master would be unable to resurrect her now. Her sisters in sin still keened over her. Their grief would prevent them from following him this evening, but tomorrow night their period of mourning would end, and they would come for him. He planned to reduce them to ash, though, before the full moon set again.

Dismissing the chill wind, he stepped inside his room. He was eager to wash the stains of his vocation from his hands and lie down on the straw-stuffed mattress the cobbler had graciously provided.

He felt her presence only after he’d closed the door, sealing them both in the darkened room.

“You’ve murdered a good woman tonight.” The voice that accused him was thick with grief and rage. “And you’ve taken an innocent life.”

Percival stiffened. Only his eyes moved, sweeping the dimness for the intruder. He wondered if he had the strength to fight again so soon. His forty-year-old bones had begun to protest his late-night activities. “She had congress with the Devil. There was no innocence there.”

A lithe form stepped out of the deep shadow in the corner near the tightly shuttered window. She held a stone in one milk-white hand and a tallow candle in the other. Percival’s eyes widened when a flame hissed to life around the wick. The Devil’s concubine had merely inclined her blonde head, and fire rose to her command.

Percival swore he tasted brimstone. He shivered but refused to be cowed by her power.

“Our kind have no compact with Satan. He’s part of your world, not ours. And the innocent life you took was the babe she carried. Will your God forgive you for cutting that life short?”

A lie. The witch he’d killed tonight was not a married woman. Any babe in her belly had to be the spawn of evil. Percival squinted at his accuser. “I do what I am called to do. If the witch’s babe was innocent, the Lord would have protected it.”

Apparently offended by his words, the woman narrowed her eyes and threw back her head, exposing the graceful column of her throat. In the flickering candlelight, she was undeniably lovely, but her beauty served only to harden his noble heart. His one true love had been like her—golden-haired and fine-boned with dark, intelligent eyes. He’d adored Rebecca until the day he found her kneeling in the glen, praying over a five-pointed star etched into the top of a tree stump and offering wine and rose petals to the goat-horned god of the underworld.

He’d known not a moment’s peace since that day two decades ago.

“Percival Blake, you will stop killing witches. Beyond the lives of the women you’ve murdered, you’ve sinned unforgivably tonight.”

“I will atone for my sins come Judgment Day.” Percival reached for the still-bloody knife he carried beneath his overcoat. The sweet, coppery smell of death that clung to his weapon haunted his dreams, as would the terror he’d seen in the dark blue eyes of the coven leader when he’d plunged the blade into her soft flesh. He regretted having to do it again so soon, but…

The well-worn handle fit his palm perfectly, smooth and still warm from its earlier use, but before he drew the weapon free of his breeches and coat, the witch let loose the stone from her grip. Percival thought to dodge the ineffective assault, but the object didn’t fly through the air to strike him. Instead it hung suspended above the ground, slowed in its flight as if the air had grown too thick to allow its passage. Equidistant between them, it spun, glowing the pure blue of a summer sky.

He stared, transfixed by the spectacle. The witch uttered words that might have been Latin, but he couldn’t make them out. He turned and flung the door open, his terror winning out over pride. To run from a mere girl was cowardly, but to stand and face the Devil’s own wrath was foolhardy.

“You won’t see Judgment Day, my lord,” she said as he stepped into the street. “In fact, you will never see daylight again. You skulk in the night like vermin, so from now on, you shall live only in darkness, forever.”

He might have responded, but his throat closed, his eyesight dimmed and his feet grew too heavy to take another step.

All was blackness for him after that.

In the morning, the villagers crowded around a strange addition to their provincial surroundings. None was more surprised than the cobbler who could not explain how a statue of a fierce beast had sprung up in the street before his shop.

Women hid their faces from the evil countenance, and children clung to their parents, sure to suffer nightmares from looking at the frightful face wrought in dark granite by a mysterious sculptor. Man-shaped and of greater than average height, the beast had fangs protruding from his mouth and curving down toward his chin. His pointed ears swept back from a hairless skull, and heavy brows hooded wide, wild eyes that glared at the curious onlookers.

His hands were gnarled claws, and his legs ended in cloven hooves. A forked tail hung from his backside, its sharp tip resting in the mud. A terrible beast indeed, made all the more frightening by the fact that he wore a nobleman’s greatcoat and finely tailored breeches.

All that day, the villagers of Devon Crook gave the statue a wide berth, and that night they hid in their homes again, still fearing the man who had come among them to hunt witches, though he never returned to their quiet northern town.

Sometime after moonset the following night, the statue disappeared, and it too was never seen again.