Naughty Karma: Karmic Consultants, Book 7 (21 page)

“Sure, Mia. I’ll come by in a few days.”

“If you’re done being dissected,” Jo said from the threshold, “Karma wants to do this in the lobby. She says it’s the only place there’s enough space for all the witches, but I think we’d all fit in here—she just doesn’t want to let the double-double-toil-and-trouble lot into the inner sanctum.”

“Can you blame her?” Chase said.

He and Mia headed for the door and Prometheus trailed behind, suddenly overcome by the need to drag his feet. He’d never been the uncertain type before—never really had anything to lose—but today was different. Today mattered.

He stepped out of Karma’s office and into a scene that couldn’t have been more different than the last one he’d seen. The witches were hugging, weeping and swaying—as if they might actually burst into a chorus of kumba-freaking-ya at any moment. Brittany stood in their midst, beaming at them like a proud parent. Karma looked like she was trying not to let anyone see how much she wanted to smack them all upside the head as she wrangled them into place. Prometheus caught her eye over the heads of the witches in front of her and she shot him a quick eye roll. He winked. Her lips twitched and she shook her head; he could almost hear her mentally calling him incorrigible. He’d been called worse.

Then the witches all settled into a circle with a plain plywood crate at the center and Karma was waving him and Chase over. Time for the moment of truth.

A full coven of witches was always a pain in the ass and today was no exception. She kept them on retainer because they could do things no one else on her staff had a prayer of accomplishing, but they weren’t
hers
the way the other consultants were—and they had an amazing capacity for generating useless, migraine-inducing drama.

The first warning throbs of a headache were building when Prometheus caught her eye and winked. And just like that she felt her headache ease, even as another tension replaced it.

What if this didn’t work? That was why it was so important they to do this today, rather than wait until closer to the deadline, so they had time for a backup plan, but having
time
for a backup plan didn’t mean she actually had the first idea what that backup plan would be.

Chase was confident—but he was always cocky. The witches seemed sure their part would work—but Karma had seen them equally assured five minutes before the Samhain ritual had exploded in their faces. Literally.

If she could will it to happen, today’s find and fetch would go off without a hitch—but even if her powers had been at full utility, that wasn’t within Karma’s powers. She didn’t know when this had become personal, but Prometheus had indeed become hers to save, though what she felt for him was still unclear and certainly in a different category than the way she cared for her consultants.

“How do you want me?”

His voice snapped her out of her pointless musings. She could worry about what she felt about him later; right now it was time to start the process of saving his ass. “You and Chase will stand here. As soon as he completes the find, the witches will pull the location from him and do the ritual to fetch the box containing your heart into this box.” She waved at the crate at her feet.

Prometheus frowned, squinting at the plywood box. She felt his power ripple out and over it. “What is it? Beyond some kind of cloaked grounding net?”

“It’s ingenious,” the witch spokeswoman Andrea bragged from her place in the circle. “The cloaking layer you noticed will simultaneously conceal it from the devil you’re stealing from
and
convince her it hasn’t been moved by projecting a false location. The grounding net will keep it from vanishing on us and keep the contents of the box intact—as long as you don’t open it.”

It had better do all that, for what they were paying for it.

“What happens if I open it?” asked Prometheus, who had probably never met a Pandora ’s Box he didn’t open.

“We aren’t entirely sure,” Andrea admitted. “The magic works along the same principles as Shrodinger’s Cat. As long as you don’t look inside, it’s both in there and not in there, but as soon as you open it, it’s only one or the other and we don’t know which way it will go. Cursed vessels aren’t exactly predictable. This was the only way we could think of to trick its natural magic.”

“Sounds foolproof to me,” Chase said, slapping Prometheus on the back. “Shall we do this?”

“I’ll get out of the way.” Karma retreated to stand next to Brittany, who was there for good luck, Mia, who was there for research, and Jo, who was there for the hell of it. The witches clasped hands and began to chant. The hair on Karma’s arms stood up as the power in the room shifted and coalesced. She could almost see it sparking in the air—electricity made visible and given a will of its own like miniature fireflies.

“Try to think about why you want your heart back.” Chase clasped Prometheus’s bare arm.

The warlock nodded. He met her eyes across the expanse of the circle and arched a cocky brow, but she could feel the tension radiating off him as distinctly as the magic in the air. He didn’t want anyone to know it, but he wanted this badly. That was good, because Chase’s ability would only zero in on the one thing the subject wanted most in the moment of the find.

“Here we go,” Chase said.

The witches’ chanting upped in volume. Karma held her breath.

And nothing happened.

Chase coughed and released Prometheus, shaking his hand like it stung. His lips twitched and he flicked a glance over to where Karma was standing with Mia. “Remember you need to focus on wanting the
box
.” He flexed his fingers and reached for Prometheus again. “Really focus.”

The witches’ chanting didn’t even have time to get louder this time. As soon as Chase’s skin brushed Prometheus’s, he said, “Got it.”

The energy that had been building snapped in, contracting on Chase and then flinging out through the ceiling like an arrow shot from a bow. The chanting reached a frantic pitch, the witches swaying under the force of the power, their circle closed by white-knuckled grips. The magic rocketed back, slamming into the box with enough force to make it shudder. The witches’ circle broke, the coven falling to sprawl on the floor, and Prometheus staggered back under the power blast, one hand gripping his chest. Karma swayed, her vision going momentarily black, while the others in the room remained unmoved—their power operating on such a different spectrum that they were unaffected.

In the sudden silence left when the chanting cut off abruptly, Jo’s voice sounded unnaturally loud. “Well? Did it work?”

They all looked to the crate. Prometheus’s black gaze locked on Karma, his face unnaturally pale, his usual laughing expression blank and sober.

Then she heard it, more a hum along her magical senses than in any audible way, but there, distinctly, subtly there.

The distant, echoing beating of a heart.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The Lovechild of Xena and Thor

“How long have you been hooking up with Prometheus?”

“You’re banging
Prometheus
?” Jo gasped. “And you didn’t tell me? Naughty, naughty Karma.”

Karma shushed Chase and Jo, shutting the door of her office and glowering at the pair of them. Many of the witches—notorious gossips, every last one—were still in the lobby, gathering their things and migrating slowly out to the parking lot under Brittany’s direction. Mia had already left to return to her lab and process Prometheus’s blood work. The warlock himself was sprawled on the waiting area couch, staring at the box like it might spring open and melt his face off at any second.

None of them needed to hear Chase and Jo’s speculations on the state of her love life.

“Would you be quiet? I am
not
hooking up with Prometheus.”

Chase’s eyebrows shot up. “Does he know that?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I only picked up a few flashes, but when people fantasize about stuff they want in a vague haven’t-had-it-yet way, the images don’t tend to be quite that sharp and, uh, graphic.”

Karma’s face heated. “I’m sure he just has a very precise imagination.”

Jo sighed. “You really aren’t hooking up?”

“No.” Her blush intensified at the lie and she added, “I don’t know.”

“You are!” Jo crowed. “I love it. He’s so…scary. And you’re scary. Dude, it’s like if Xena hooked up with Thor. Your kids are gonna be leaping tall buildings from the cradle.”

“We aren’t having kids. We aren’t even dating. It’s nothing, okay? It’s…casual.”

Chase and Jo turned identical expressions of disbelief on her.

“What? I can do casual.” Which was a complete lie. She didn’t know the first thing about casual. Or serious, for that matter. She didn’t really do relationships—and she didn’t have the first idea what she was doing with Prometheus. She hated not knowing where she stood with him. She wasn’t even sure where she wanted to stand. She hadn’t expected to like him on any level, much less find herself attracted to him and respecting him. Karma closed her eyes and took a deep breath, but it didn’t help. She still felt unresolved. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she admitted.

Jo nodded sagely. “Admitting you have a problem is the first step.”

Karma glared at her. “What is this, the twelve-step program for dating?”

“I thought you weren’t dating.”

“We aren’t. We’re just… Hell, I don’t know.”

Chase grinned. “Just remember to pace yourself. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

“But a faint heart never a true love knows,” Jo intoned with mock solemnity. “Go for it. Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

“All’s fair in love and war,” Chase added.

“The course of true love gathers no moss,” Jo chirped helpfully.

Karma glared at the pair of them. “You two are enjoying this far too much.”

“Can you blame us?”

“It isn’t every day the mighty Karma allows us puny mortals to see her human side.”

“You’re pains in my very human ass. Get out, both of you.”

They were laughing, completely unrepentant, as they filed obediently toward the door. It was habit for Karma to stay behind, to take a few minutes to herself to meditate and clear her head, but she realized belatedly that she didn’t need it. She didn’t feel the visions battering at her control. She actually felt
fine
.

“Karma?” Jo hovered with a hand on the door, Chase already gone.

“Yes, Jo?”

“I know we were giving you a hard time, but I meant what I said. I think you should go for it. You need someone to remind you that you are more than just Superwoman for all of us. If he can do that, jump on him and don’t let him up until he agrees with you. If anyone can reform that bad boy, it’s you.”

“Thanks for the thought, Jo, but I think I’ll leave reformation to some other lucky girl.”

The ghost exterminator grinned. “In that case, enjoy the hell out of the bad for as long as you can.”

The door snicked shut behind her.

Enjoy the hell out of the bad
. She’d heard worse plans.

Prometheus couldn’t stop staring at the box. It was freaking him the fuck out. His heart was in there. Inside two layers of impenetrable magic, but in there. That just wasn’t natural. Strangely he’d never felt that not having a heart was unnatural, but looking at the box holding the box that held his heart—that was unnatural as hell.

He could
feel
it in there. Hear it beating. And that most
definitely
wasn’t natural.

The witches were gone. Jo and Chase had left the building. Brittany was at her desk, answering phones with an excited little chirrup. Karma was hiding in her office. Everything at Karmic was back to normal—except for the fact that there was a giant plywood crate in the middle of the lobby which happened to contain a beating heart.
His
beating heart. There was no normal there.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, staring at the box. He was vaguely aware of Brittany saying goodbye to him and the rest of the office staff heading home for the day. Then an icy glass was pressed into his hand.

“Drink,” Karma commanded as she sank down on the lobby sofa beside him.

The vodka went down smooth. She refilled his glass without comment, pouring the last of the bespelled Stoli into it, but Prometheus couldn’t be bothered to care that he was drinking trust me juice. Karma clinked her glass against his and they sat in silence, contemplating the box and sipping vodka.

Some time later, when the glasses were empty, Karma murmured without taking her eyes off the box, “You okay?”

“I’m always okay.”

She nodded and the silence wrapped around them again. He didn’t know if it was the vodka or Karma, but his panic—if that’s what it had been—was abating. She was easy to be with—and the Stoli didn’t hurt either.

“Ugly thing, isn’t it?” he said at length, indicating the crate with his glass.

Karma’s lips twitched. “Not exactly the piece I would have selected as a stylistic center of the room,” she agreed dryly.

“Can we move it?”

“The witches say as long as we don’t open it, we can do whatever we want with it.”