Hex Appeal (2 page)

“And they ate a living being,” Rex reiterated. “That gives me the right to take them into custody. You're not the only one with witchy connections, missy, so don't give me any shit that just because you rescued their furry asses you can protect them.”

Missy?
What was it with men reverting to their chauvinistic ways? “They were with me all night.” She ignored her gargoyle's voice reminding her that the slippers had come into the room when she called them.

“They need to be taken before the Witches' Council and destroyed for their actions.”

Jazz felt her balance teeter as Fluff and Puff practically hopped off her feet in their agitation at Rex's words.

“They're not going anywhere until there's rock-hard proof that they ate Willie,” she said with a bravado she didn't feel inside. The Witches' Council wasn't her favorite place and she wasn't their favorite witch. She was on 100-year probation as it was.

“I have one of Willie's shoes with his blood on it and tufts of fur. Plus, I have this.” He held up the button.

“That's not saying it's his blood or their fur. I have the right to investigate the matter.” She felt the hole she was rapidly digging for herself. If the slippers ate Willie, she was going to throw them in a wood chipper herself! She had enough trouble with the Witches' Council without the slippers adding to the mix.

Rex paused.

“You know I have the right to invoke protection for them until the truth is discovered,” Jazz pushed.

“All right,” he said grudgingly. “You have two weeks.”

“The usual time is thirty days.”

“Two weeks and be grateful for it. All you're going to find out is that your
things
ate Willie. And make sure they don't go anywhere.” He turned and walked away.

Jazz's hand started to rise up, her fingers outstretched. “May you...” She abruptly snapped her mouth shut. “Oh no, you are so not going to be the cause of more banishment time for me.” She glared at Fluff and Puff, who'd been giggling and blowing raspberries at the retreating Rex. “You've really done it now,” she scolded. “Just wait until we get home.” She ignored their continued grumbles as she made her way to the parking lot. At the moment, all that mattered to her was that she'd had a few hours of good sleep and that her destination would offer her coffee and, with luck, a muffin.

It took Jazz all of ten minutes of scanning the empty parking lot to realize she had walked over to the boardwalk instead of driving.

Fear and anger still mingled inside her and her neck hurt like hell, even if she couldn't feel any wounds or find any sign of blood. Considering the sensation of feeling Nick literally rip her throat open, she should be able to see
something.
And her neck wouldn't be hurting if he hadn't done something there.

And Nick. Why hadn't he gotten sick when he took her blood? At the very least, he should have suffered from one hell of a case of heartburn, since a witch's blood is poisonous to a vampire.

“It doesn't make sense.” Her whisper hung in the air, creating questions she had no answers for.

Needing to think things out, Jazz took a circuitous route home, stopping at a twenty-four-hour Starbucks for a Venti white chocolate mocha for herself and ignoring Fluff and Puff's pleas for a cinnamon roll. With the charges Rex wanted to level against the slippers, she knew he had the right to demand they be taken into custody. But that didn't mean she didn't have more than her share of doubts about Willie's sudden disappearance. Were-carnies tended to wander more than mortal carnies did. If she wanted success she knew she'd have to start looking for the Wereweasel before he ended up states away.

She sipped the hot liquid, savoring the rich chocolate taste mingling with the caffeine as she walked past storefronts that wouldn't open for another couple of hours. That was fine with her, since she wasn't in the mood to stop and chat, or even shop.

“Why does Nick have to ruin things when everything was going so well?” she muttered, taking another swig of her drink instead of sitting down and giving in to tears.

Since they had vanquished Clive Reeves a few months ago, Jazz and Nick had taken up where they had left off over thirty years ago, but with one major difference. This time around they made love more than they fought. They'd even had actual conversations. Some of them ended up with verbal outbursts, but she didn't consider those times fighting. More a difference of opinion.

Jazz was still convinced The Protectorate wanted Nick to rejoin their ranks. Especially after Flavius's death. Nick had taken the loss of his sire, and close friend, hard. Jazz gave him time to mourn the vampire's passing but refused to allow him too much time. Not when there was a chance The Protectorate might try to use Nick's guilt to persuade him to carry on Flavius's work. She had always felt the group, set up centuries ago to govern the vampire race, used Nick's strong sense of good and evil to further their own cause. That they would use him until there was nothing left but an empty husk.

As a former noble Roman officer, Flavius had thrived in the environment. Nick's human role as a Slavic soldier meant he was well suited to his role as an investigator in The Protectorate, but Jazz hated his working for them. Hated how they used him. She wanted to believe him when he told her he'd left The Protectorate, but then he let slip they'd hired him to find out who was destroying vampires. She saw it as their chance to lure him back into the fold. She found it difficult to believe his claim that he only took the assignment for the hefty retainer they offered and once he received payment after Clive Reeves was killed by his victims and his mansion imploded, he was out of it.

Jazz found no compunction in checking his answering machine messages on the sly. As suspected, The Protectorate still called with offers. She wondered what would happen when, like the Mafia, they made him an offer he couldn't refuse. To ensure that couldn't happen, she deleted the messages before he could hear them. She just hoped he never found out what she did. Nick was big on privacy issues.

As she headed home, one thing stuck in her head. Her cell phone hadn't rung once since she left the building.

“Stubborn vampire.” She lobbed her empty cup into a nearby trashcan and scuffed her way down the sidewalk.

***

“Stubborn witch,” Nick muttered, tossing a bag of O neg in the microwave and setting it to warm. “What makes her think I'd risk my stomach, not to mention my existence, in taking her damn poisonous blood?” The minute the microwave dinged, he opened the door and withdrew the plastic bag.

He knew some of his kind who drank directly out of the bag, but he preferred to be more civilized than that. He kept a variety of beer bottles as his beverage holder of choice, his own little way of keeping his life somewhat normal...as far as human standards of “normal” go.

As he lifted the blood-filled Schlitz bottle to his lips, a memory jogged his brain. Flavius laughing at the Heineken bottle Nick used one night while his sire chose a Baccarat crystal wine glass.

The heart that no longer beat twisted a bit in his chest. Before, it could be years between times he and Flavius saw each other, but Nick always knew that the elder vampire was somewhere in the world. Available by phone or e-mail. If Nick needed him, he was there. Then a madman used evil magick to turn the powerful vampire into a shade and it took the combined efforts of Nick, Jazz, and even Irma to send Flavius to the land of shadows where vampires went when their lives were extinguished.

Nick knew many vampires, but Flavius was more than that. He was his sire. His brother.

And now Nick was alone.

As he lowered the bottle, his eyes settled on a photograph tacked to the refrigerator by a magnet shaped like a fortune cookie—Jazz sitting on the wooden railing on the boardwalk pier, the setting sun a brilliant blaze of orange and gold behind her and just as dazzling as her smile. Denim shorts displayed legs that seemed to go on forever while her turquoise and white checked crop top trimmed in lace was feminine and flirty. Her hair was piled high in a messy knot with ends drifting in the ocean breeze.

Anyone looking at the picture wouldn't believe that she was 700-plus years old and had more magickal power in her fingertips than many had in their entire bodies.

No one, not even Flavius, made Nick feel well and truly alive the way Jazz did.

But, other than great sex, what did he give her? Make her feel? Even after all these years, did they truly have what was required between a couple? Especially when that couple was made up of a witch and a vampire?

He swallowed the rest of the rapidly cooling blood. His appetite was gone, but after last night, he needed the nourishment.

And he needed rest.

He returned to his bed, to sheets that smelled of Jazz's perfume. He quickly stripped off his jeans and climbed into bed, burrowing against the pillow she'd used.

The pull of daybreak wasn't strong, but he hadn't rested much lately, so his eyelids drooped quickly.

“Perchance to dream,” he murmured, as his body shut down for the daylight hours.

***

“You are in so much trouble,” Jazz told Fluff and Puff, setting them on her chaise then heading for her closet. She stomped all the way to the rear and placed her hand against the back wall. “My secrets are here. My secrets are dear. I ask that you open for me.” The wall trembled under her touch and silently slid to one side. A faint light shimmered inside, illuminating the interior that held magickal items Jazz rarely used, and one item she never thought she would have to use. She paused at the entrance, taking several deep breaths to calm her racing pulse. She walked over to one dark corner that was faintly illuminated by the glow coming off a fair-sized cage. Magick covering the bars prickled her skin as she picked it up and carried it out of the room. The wall silently slid closed.

Fluff and Puff's chatter ceased as they watched her carry the cage into the room and set it on the bed. Jazz ignored their squeaks and cries of alarm as she murmured the words to release the cage door.

“I have no choice. Do you realize what will happen to you if I can't prove your innocence? Rex can go to the Witches' Council and demand you be destroyed. And I would have no option but to give you over to them.” When she picked up the wildly struggling slippers, angry sparks flew around the room as they fought her every step of the way. Jazz gritted her teeth against the painful magick skimming up her arms. She hadn't been leading Rex on when she said they were protected. Magick did shield Fluff and Puff, and the slippers were drawing on that power now. She knew she'd have a major headache by evening. “So sad. Bunnies been bad. Don't let me fail. Bunnies must go to jail. Because I say so, damn it!” She pushed them into the cage and quickly secured the seal on the door before they could escape. Sparks from bunny tantrums bumped up the atmosphere in the room to the point of suffocation. “Stop it! Do you think I want to use this?” She swallowed the anguish she felt. “I know Dyfynnog used this cage to keep you two prisoner, but I have to keep you secured. Or would you rather I hand you over to the Witches' Council like Rex wants?”

She took their sudden silence as their assent. Their black eyes shot accusations at her as she moved around the room. In the end, Jazz escaped to the bathroom so that she didn't have to listen to their angry muttering. She had a feeling their incarceration wouldn't be pleasant for them or for her.

***

“Why isn't there a mark?” Jazz leaned across the graceful, deep, rose-colored bowl that doubled as her bathroom sink to peer into the oval mirror. All she saw was an unblemished neck. She knew a vampire could lick a bite and it would heal instantly, but she had jerked away from Nick, so a mark, if not a lot of bruising, should still be visible. She touched her fingertips to her neck, felt tenderness along the skin's surface, but that was all. Her moss-green eyes widened at the memory of the pain she felt at the time, but even there she couldn't find the answers she was seeking.

She straightened up and ran over to the tub, turning off the water before it overflowed. She had decided a long hot bath was in order. The silence from the bedroom was deafening. She was positive Fluff and Puff were pouting big-time, since no one pouted better than her bunny slippers. Well, unless it was her. She had a pretty good idea once they were freed they'd be taking vengeance on anything of hers they could reach. It was up to her to vindicate them of a crime she was certain they didn't commit, but she feared in the end she'd be the one punished. The slippers knew how to hold a grudge and even more how to make someone suffer. She made a mental note to put heavy-duty wards on her closet.

“Choices, choices.” She ran through her large selection of body washes and body creams, most of which smelled like a bakery. Since she wanted comfort, she chose a body wash inspired by the scent of creamy hot cocoa and set aside a like-scented body cream and a shimmering body powder that reminded her of marshmallows. When she was in total witch mode, she wore a heavier, spicy scent. Otherwise, she stuck to what she called the “fun stuff.” The many bottles and jars in the bathroom cabinet were proof of her addiction to good smells.

The rubber duckies lining the edge of the tub perked up as they watched her ready her bath. When Blair gave Jazz a collection of rubber duckies last summer, Jazz didn't expect the duckies to pretty much take over the tub anytime they could. Many an evening she walked in to find it filled with water and the duckies playing their own version of
Battleship.

“All right, guys, behave,” she gently scolded them, as one rubber ducky wearing Joe Cool dark sunglasses emitted a squeaky wolf whistle before hopping off the ledge and into the warm water. The others followed him into the bubbles, quacking their pleasure as they bobbed up and down in the mild waves.