Heirloom Magic: Every Witch Way (5 page)

“What?” Jasper
asked, being purposely thick.

“You’re free. I
assume you won’t be pressing charges—since my grandmother has passed…” Harper
stood there awkwardly for a moment before babbling to fill the awkward silence.
“I apologize for what she put you through, but you can go…please.”

Jasper let out a
laugh that made Harper feel uneasy. “I’m not going anywhere. I live here.”

Shock made Harper
bite her tongue for a second, but only for a second. “I don’t think so—” she
told him with a shake of her head as she crossed her arms over her chest in
annoyance.

Jasper looked at
her as if judging if she was messing with him or not. “Oh joy. You really don’t
know,” he said sarcastically, turning off the TV and setting down the remote.
He patted the sofa cushion beside him. Harper stared at it for a moment before
shutting the door with a sigh. She ignored the couch entirely and grabbed the
chair she had previously been using to keep the ‘possum’ in the basement and
sat down.

“Well, this is a
bit awkward, but here it is. I’ve lived here with Elizabeth for the last forty
years—I have a coffin in the basement if you want to go check,” he said
defensively, and Harper stared at him in surprise.

“I don’t
understand,” she said at last, and Jasper sighed.

“Years ago I was sentenced
to death by the paranormal council in this town. Your gran secretly intervened
on my behalf and was assigned to carry out my imprisonment instead. I was a bit
of a wild card back then,” he flashed Harper a grin, and Harper suddenly became
a bit more afraid of him. What could he possibly have done to get sentenced to
death? “You’re scared of me now,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. Harper
nodded; there was no point in lying.

“Yes,” she
confirmed.

Jasper pointed to
the moonstone on Harper’s finger and Harper stared down at it, wondering what
it had to do with anything. Jasper didn’t fail to notice the way she had
started edging her chair away from him. “Don’t worry. She spelled that ring so
I can’t hurt you as long as you wear it.” Harper looked down at the devil ring
on her finger in surprise. “If you die, so do I.”

“This ring is
protecting me...from you?” she asked, and Jasper nodded.

“These days you
don’t need the protection, I’m just a big old pussy cat,” he flashed his fangs
at her and, despite the potion, Harper shivered. “There were a few times back
in the day when I tried to get the jump on dear old Gran,” he smiled
sardonically. “She kicked my ass six ways from Sunday,” he admitted, and Harper
had to giggle a little at the image of her tiny gran landing a roundhouse kick
against the handsome vampire’s face.

“She wasn’t old
when I was first imprisoned,” he added, like he knew what Harper was thinking.
“It was the year after your Granddad died, and Deacon had just left home. I
think she was lonely more than anything…” Jasper sighed and actually looked a
little sad for a minute before he carefully wiped all expression from his face.
“You inherited the ring. You inherited me,” he finished, and Harper made a
face.

“But I don’t want
to inherit you!” she yelped. “No offense…” Jasper held up his hand as though to
wave away the insult.

“None taken. I’m
not exactly thrilled about getting shackled to you either,” he huffed. “You’re
a witch, but your body is still as vulnerable as any other weak human being.
Any little thing could snuff you out, and then I’d be pushing up daisies right
beside you.”

Harper sat for a
while, digesting the barrage of information. “What would happen if I just took the
ring off?” she asked, and Jasper shook his head.

“I would wither
away and die within a week. I’m tied to your life force and the ring must be on
your finger to feel your pulse.”

Harper was not
thrilled with his answer. “Do you have a family member… could I give the ring
to one of them to wear?” she suggested, grasping at straws.

“I’m a 658-year-old
vampire. I have no family left, they’ve been dead for hundreds of years.”
Harper’s face fell. What a sad existence that would be. “Besides, it wouldn’t
work, that ring can only be worn by a Jones Witch. If you attempt to take it
off or give it away to anyone else, I will die.” Harper nervously twisted at
the ring on her finger, and Jasper’s eyes followed the movement like a hawk.

“I can’t get it
off anyway,” Harper admitted, tugging to show him, and Jasper let out a small
sigh of relief.

“What about…”
Harper started to suggest, and Jasper rolled his eyes.

“I’ve told you.
There is no way around it!” he snapped, but Harper ignored him and carried on
anyway.

“Could I reverse
the spell?” she asked. She instinctively knew that she was onto something when
Jasper sat up straighter in his chair.

“You know what, I
think you could,” he said, starting to look excited. He was off of the couch
and in front of her so quickly that she let out a yelp of surprise.

“Don’t do that!”
Harper said, clutching her chest. “You’ll give me a heart attack and kill us
both!”

“You would do that
for me?” he asked earnestly, staring into her eyes, and Harper blinked.

“Sure. I don’t see
why not,” she said, shoving her chair back a bit. She was starting to get
uncomfortable with the vampire’s lack of personal space.

“I could kiss you
right now!” Jasper said with a huge grin, and Harper frowned.

“Please don’t.”

Jasper rubbed his
hands together in excitement. “I was speaking hypothetically,” he assured her.
“When do you want to get started?” he asked, and Harper shrugged.

“Why not right
now? The sooner the better,” she told him, and his face split into one of the
largest grins she’d ever seen in her life. “Just tell me what to do and I’ll do
it,” she told him and watched the smile melt from his face.

Jasper froze, his
heart sinking along with the first thread of hope he’d had in forty years. “You
don’t know how to perform the spell?” he asked, and Harper shook her head.

“Of course not. I
only found out I was a witch this afternoon.” Jasper stood up suddenly from
where he had been leaning in towards her and tossed her a dirty look.

“It won’t work
then. A spell like that would take years of experience. You probably don’t
possess enough magic in your entire body right now to boil a pot of water,” he
groused as he used his vampire speed to zip away so fast that her eyes couldn’t
follow his movements. Harper heard a door slam in the basement and winced. He
obviously hadn’t left for good; he’d just gone to his room like some sort of
sullen, bloodsucking teenager.

Harper took a deep
breath before going into the kitchen to make herself a hot cup of tea. She’d
always found tea to be soothing, and she definitely could use a cup now. What
was the point of being a witch if she couldn’t get rid of one vampire squatter?

Harper stirred her
tea and wondered how her life had gone from being nice and average—borderline
boring—to believing she was a witch, seeing a werewolf transform in her
basement, and somehow getting shacked up with a 658-year-old vampire with an
attitude problem?

Harper blew on her
tea and picked the singed letter off the table to read it one more time. It, of
course, had no mention of Jasper. Gran could never make it that easy.

Crap.

Chapter Five

The more Harper read, the more surreal everything got. The spell book was
old and worn, with authentic leather bindings that seemed to suggest it was
from a bygone era. Harper traced her finger across the thick parchment pages
and squinted—despite the potion, she was starting to get a bit of a headache—though
it had nothing to do with the concussion. All of the spells were in Latin. Of
course, it could never be as simple as bippity, boppity, boo.

Harper pulled out
her phone and downloaded a translation app. The first spell in the book that
she flipped to was for…boiling water. Harper thought about Jasper’s taunt and
snorted. Unbelievable. “I guess we will see, won’t we?” she muttered as she
quickly filled a pot of water before she could lose her nerve. She set the pot
on the stove element, just to be safe, then she nervously chewed her lip as she
examined the spell:

et vapor sizzle, turbent
ut aqua, his ulcus magicae potionem.

Harper tapped the
foreign words into her new app and grinned. Great, magical spells rhymed,
apparently. Steam to sizzle, water roil, magic makes the potion boil. Harper
read the translation out loud in English and as the last word left her mouth,
she felt a jolt of power ripple through her body that made her feel more alive
than she’d ever felt before.

The pot on the
stove hissed to life, the water instantly boiling out of control. Harper jumped
back to avoid being hit by the spitting, angry drops of hot water, but a large
drop landed on her arm anyway, forcing a small cry of pain from her lips.
Harper turned to the pot, puzzled. She was far enough back that it was
impossible for the water to reach her. Unless… she heard an angry hiss to her
left and turned to find that the bouquets of flowers that had been delivered
after her gran’s funeral were also boiling out of control. The flowers, six
vases in all, were limp and wilted as the water continued to scorch them
mercilessly. Even the sink was steaming as the stray beads of water clinging to
the stainless steel began to heat up and evaporate.

“No!” Harper cried
as the flowers lit on fire and became six separate, small infernos. Harper
raced to the sink as the fire alarm started going off. She turned on the
faucet, but as soon as the water came out it was influenced by her magic and
evaporated into steam. Sweat began to pop out on Harper’s body and began to
sizzle and heat up as well.

“Oh my God!”
Harper shouted, having no idea what to do. She’d only just inherited this house
and now she was going to burn it to the ground and herself along with it.

“God isn’t the one
here with a fire extinguisher…” his words startled Harper, and she turned to
find Jasper standing in the doorway of the kitchen with a perplexed look on his
face. “…So I told you that you weren’t ready to boil water, and it’s the first
thing you decided to try?” he asked with a quirk of his dark brow. Harper
wanted to smack him, but her entire body was heating up the more she sweated
and the fire was starting to spread from the flowers to the countertop. She
released a deep breath, trying to calm herself enough to quit sweating so
profusely—it didn’t work.

“Can you help me
or not?” she demanded as her shirt started to smoke, and Jasper nodded,
suddenly serious. He produced a fire extinguisher from behind his back and set
to work putting all the fires out. It only took him a minute as he moved
through each one like a terminator, and then the flowers were extinguished and
he was standing in front of Harper with the nozzle pointed in her direction.

“You look a little
hot—do I need to spray you down too?” he asked, only half joking. His
expression turned serious as he took in the tiny burn marks all over her body
and the smoke roiling from beneath her t-shirt. She was about to go up in
flames any minute!

“I don’t know!”
Harper cried, unable to figure any of this out.

Without another
word, Jasper doused her. “Close your eyes,” he warned a second before she was
covered in white foaming coolant. Harper spluttered and coughed and turned away
from the direct blast, and Jasper sprayed her back down too.

“Ugh!” she screeched
as she spit and spluttered until she was finally able to talk once again.
Jasper looked her over casually and shrugged.

“It worked didn’t
it?” he asked, and Harper opened her mouth to yell at him, but then shut it
again. It actually had worked. Nothing else was on fire, and besides the burns
she’d already suffered, she didn’t feel any new ones popping up.

“What happened?” she
asked.

“You mean besides
you almost burning yourself, and me by proxy, to death?” Jasper snapped. Harper
felt her temper flare, but she could also see where he was coming from. She
would hate to have her life tied to someone else’s the way his was.

“Yeah,” she said,
a bit meeker this time.

“Spraying you
distracted you from the spell. It severed the connection. You’ll need to learn
a few basics before you just start casting spells all over the house,” he
lectured her. Harper’s knees buckled and she sagged against the floor. Her body
ached like a bad rash from the burns, and a couple spots were already starting
to blister up.

“I’m sorry,”
Harper admitted, her throat a bit hoarse from smoke inhalation, and Jasper
sighed. It was obvious that he wanted to tear into her some more, but she was
also so pathetic that he felt a stirring of pity. He sighed and went over to
the sink and brought her back a glass of water, holding it out to her. Harper
shied away from it.

“Apology not
accepted,” he told her as he reached his fingers into the glass and shook the
cool drops in her face to show her that it was no longer boiling. Harper’s
fingers trembled as she took the glass and greedily chugged the entire thing.

She looked up at
Jasper and let out a tiny burp. “Oh!” she exclaimed, slapping her hand over her
mouth and wincing when it hurt her burns. “Excuse me.”

Jasper looked down
at her and couldn’t help shaking his head. She was as red as a lobster; he
couldn’t even tell if she was blushing or just burnt.

Jasper offered her
a hand up, and after a moment she took his hand, letting out a little squeak
when his palm closed around her burnt wrists. “You got lucky, this is really no
worse than a bad sunburn,” he remarked as his eyes travelled calculatingly over
her body, assessing the damage. “I can help you heal,” he offered, holding his
wrist up to his mouth and nicking the skin with the point of his razor-sharp
fangs. His blood bubbled to the surface, red and frothy, and Harper winced.

“Yeah. This part
is just like the movies. My blood will heal you.” Jasper started to crowd
closer to her, and Harper kept backing up until her back was pressed against
the counter. He held his wrist up to her mouth, and Harper’s entire being
rebelled against the idea of drinking blood, especially vampire blood. She
didn’t know enough about it to even make an informed decision. Would it turn
her into a vampire?

“I don’t want it,”
she managed to get out as he pushed his wrist closer. Harper pressed her lips
together tightly and shook her head.

“Do you always
have to be such a stubborn girl?” the vampire demanded, pinning her in place.
Harper knew a vampire had to be strong, but she was shocked by just how much
strength he had. She shook her head and tried to squirm away, but he was
immoveable and she only succeeded in smearing the blood across her face, making
her splutter and spit.

Harper panicked
and the self-defense training she had taken last year at her company’s team-building
retreat kicked in, and she brought her knee to the vampire’s groin as hard as
she could. She didn’t know if it would work on a vampire, but she was glad when
he groaned and stepped back, cupping his family jewels, and bent over.

The thrill of
victory quickly turned to gut-clenching fear when Jasper looked up at her with
eyes that glowed red. He was obviously pissed. “Hey!” she yelped, holding her
hands up in surrender. “Take it easy. You’re not allowed to kill me!” she
reminded him as she scuttled past him. He caught her wrist and pulled her back
towards him, his fangs drawn and his eyes still shining blood red. “Please
don’t hurt me!” She threw her pride away and finally begged. Jasper stopped in
his tracks as her words sunk in, and he blinked, his eyes returning to their
regular vivid blue.

“That was not very
nice,” he told her succinctly told her as he retreated a couple steps away to
put some much needed distance between them, and Harper winced.

“Neither is trying
to force-feed someone your blood,” she pointed out, never knowing when to keep
her mouth shut. His eyes flared red again for a minute before he got control of
himself. He surprised her by grinning at her finally, though it wasn’t a very
nice smile at all.

“Go ahead and
suffer through your burns, healing the old-fashioned way, see if I care.” He
gave her a nasty look. “It could be fixed in minutes, but if you’d rather
suffer for a week or more, be my guest.” He burst out laughing as he surveyed
her. “It will be much longer before your hair grows back though,” he informed
her, not sounding the least bit upset about it, and Harper felt her heart thump
painfully within her chest.

“My hair?” she
asked, her voice going all high and squeaky as fear creeped into her belly. Her
eyes went wide as she dashed to the bathroom and let out an angry yowl.

The woman staring
back at her was a stranger. Her skin was red and blistered, so much that she
resembled an angry crab, and her hair—. Harper winced. Her hair was never going
to be the same. Large chunks had been burnt off, leaving her singed scalp
exposed—and that was just the part she could see. The rest of her head and body
were covered in fluffy white foam from the fire extinguisher, but everything
ached, so she knew instinctively that she was burnt there as well.

“Your blood…it
could fix my hair?” she asked, trembling as she turned to the vampire who had
followed her into the bathroom to enjoy the show.

“Good as new,” he
agreed, examining his fingernails casually as he leaned against the door jam.

“Will you help
me?” she asked, nearly choking on the words, and the vampire gave her a
thoughtful look.

“Of course,” he
said at last. “I already told you I would before you rudely kneed me in the
balls.” He managed to say this with only a hint of anger tinging his words this
time, and Harper hesitated.

“Why would you
still help me?” she asked, unable to leave it alone, and the vampire frowned.

“I’m not helping
you. I’m helping myself. What if one of your foolish blisters gets infected?
You could catch sepsis and die, selfishly taking me along with you.” Harper
eyed him suspiciously, not believing his excuse for a minute.

“Thank you,” she
said, meaning it. She could handle a lot of pain, but her vanity would not
allow her to walk around with singed, bald patches of scalp for all the world
to see.

“Pride go-eth
before the fall,” the vampire quoted as he bit into his wrist, and Harper swallowed
visibly at the sight of the blood.

“Could we put it
into a glass or something?” she asked, hesitating, not really wanting to suck
on his wrist. Jasper pretended to think about it for a minute.

“I’m afraid not.
It’s more potent straight from the source,” he fibbed, and Harper frowned.

“Why?” she demanded,
planting her hands on her hips. She was certain he was being intentionally
unhelpful.

“Because I said so,”
he snapped, eying her as he began to pull his wrist away. “If you’re not
interested, just say so, I’m growing weary of biting holes in myself.” Harper
panicked, terrified he was going to deny her his blood.

“Okay!” she said,
stepping forward, and Jasper gave her another one of his smug looks. He held
his wrist up and Harper grimaced as she settled her mouth around the pulsing
wound.

She expected it to
taste coppery and disgusting, but it was the polar opposite. The moment the
blood hit her tongue, it tickled every endorphin in her brain, making her gasp
and clamp her teeth down harder, greedily drawing more down her throat.

“Easy tiger,”
Jasper cautioned as she sucked at his wrist. He let her go for another full
minute before he gently pulled away. Consuming vampire blood was a heady
experience that would heal almost any wound, but it could also be destructively
addictive.

Harper felt a
little disorientated as the blood was jerked away. She licked his blood from
her lips and forced herself to meet Jasper’s eye. She was embarrassed by her
actions, even as her eyes drifted hungrily back to the wound. It was already
healing, right before her eyes.

“Sorry,” she mumbled,
wiping her hand across her jaw to remove the stray droplets, and Jasper
shrugged.

“Nothing to be
sorry about. That’s what vampire blood does to everyone,” Jasper reassured her.
“I actually know of a couple vamps that are selling it on the internet.” Jasper
shook his head. “I doubt I’ll ever understand new technology.” Harper blinked
up at the vampire, wondering what someone as old as Jasper considered to be new
technology—guns, cars, grocery store meats, or just the internet?