Something Wicked (49 page)

The sudden surge in business was directly related to Darrak coming into Eden’s life. While working as a psychic consultant for the police, she’d been possessed by the cursed demon after being present at the death of his previous host, a serial killer gunned down by a police detective right in front of her. It had been a fifty-fifty chance that he’d choose Eden as his new host.

Thanks to her psychic energy he was able to take solid human form during daylight hours. But when the sun set, he became incorporeal and had to possess her body. It wasn’t an ideal situation, to say the least, but Eden had made what peace she could with it. She’d recently had the chance to end his need to possess her, but it would have destroyed him completely. She didn’t want to hurt him. Her privacy was a great motivator to find a solution to their problem, but not if it came with such an expensive price tag.

Unfortunately, all roads in their search for mutually beneficial separation had led to dead ends. Some deader than others.

When Darrak first took solid form, he’d created a supernatural hot spot on the location of Triple-A, which meant Others, those who were not human, were drawn there automatically as the go-to agency for paranormal investigation. Although the current cases included standard investigations such as cheating spouses, the clients were very nonstandard werewolves, fairies, and witches—beings who lived side by side with unsuspecting humans.

“What?” Eden said, feeling the burn of Darrak’s close scrutiny. She finally tore her gaze away from the small screen of the phone to look at him. Her tight grip on the device increased at seeing the searching look in his ice blue eyes. “Darrak, I said nothing’s wrong.”

“Your phone is on fire.”

She looked down to see that a spark from her magic had ignited her BlackBerry. She shrieked and threw it away from her. It skittered across the breakfast bar and landed with a
thunk
in the kitchen sink. “Damn.”

She didn’t have a chance to move before Darrak was right in front of her. He pulled out the chain she wore around her neck so her amulet lay flat against her white shirt.

“It’s darker than it was yesterday.” It sounded like an accusation.

She clamped her hand over the visible state of her soul. It was quite simple, really. The more she used her magic, the more damage it did. A black witch started with a pure white soul, but it grew darker and darker every time she accessed her very accessible black magic. Eden’s amulet was currently pale gray, but it had darker veins moving through it, making it look like a piece of marble.

She shook her head. “I haven’t done anything.”

“Then what are these?” He brushed her hand aside and slid his index finger over the veins.

“A glitch.”

“A glitch,” he repeated skeptically. “Not sure it works like that.”

“Then I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Eden”—all amusement was gone from his voice—“I’m worried about you.”

She might normally laugh, but she didn’t. A demon from Hell worried about the state of her immortal soul. It sounded like a joke. But Darrak wasn’t any normal demon. And she wasn’t any normal black witch.

Once upon a time, Darrak had been just as bad as any demon who ever existed—as immoral as he was immortal, sadistic, selfish, manipulative, and deadly. He’d even conspired with a demonic pal to overthrow Lucifer in an attempt to take his power. They hadn’t succeeded.

Darrak was summoned to the human world by a witch over three hundred years ago and cursed, forcing him to possess humans ever since. A side effect of this was that he’d absorbed humanity, and it had infused his being. The demon had slowly developed a conscience. Morals. A sense of right and wrong.

In addition to being a black witch, Eden had recently learned she was a nephilim—human mother, angel father. By possessing her, Darrak had absorbed the celestial energy she hadn’t even realized she had. A lot of it. And slowly—very slowly—if he continued to soak up that heavenly essence that she naturally had inside of her . . . well . . .

The once evil and unrepentant demon would find himself a bit more . . .
angelic
. Whether or not he wanted to be.

Eden hadn’t shared this recent revelation with him. While Darrak had acknowledged that he’d changed permanently from his dark past and was a bit more open-minded about his infusion of humanity, he had no idea about the celestial side effects of living in Eden. Frankly, Eden didn’t think it was such a bad thing. But she knew Darrak. It would shake his confidence, not to mention his identity, and both were already shaky enough as it was.

She was waiting for the right time to break the news to him.

This was not the right time.

“Eden,” Darrak prompted sharply. “Are you going to talk to me or what?”

“Oh, you mean I have a choice here?”

“No. No choices. This is not a choose-your-own-adventure novel. Your amulet is darkening, and you say you’re doing nothing to cause this. Is that right?”

Her eyes burned. She didn’t want to deal with this, but sometimes fate didn’t give you a chance to catch your breath before it threw another bucket of water in your face.

She pulled her hands out of her pockets and looked at them. “I can feel it this morning. Even stronger than before. It’s right here waiting to be used. I—I don’t know if I can control it.”

“But you
want
to control it.”

“Of course I do.”

He took her hands in his and stared down at her palms for so long she thought he was going to tell her fortune. “I knew it wasn’t going to be long before this became an issue.”

She looked up at him with surprise. “You did?”

“Black magic is tricky stuff. It’s like it has a mind of its own. I’m not used to helping black witches, of course. You’re the exception to the rule. But I’ve been thinking long and hard about what to do when this became more of a problem for you. I’ve come up with a plan. I think.”

“That sounds rather . . .
vague
.” She shook her head. “I mean, maybe I should just give into it now and then. The itch is so hard to ignore. It’s like a drug I’m addicted to. And if I make a conscious effort not to do anything evil with it, then maybe I can—”

“Eden,” he said. “Don’t be naughty.”

She laughed despite herself. “Advice from a demon not to be naughty?”

“I know. It’s fairly ridiculous. But I can’t help how I feel.”

“And how’s that?”

He stroked a long piece of auburn hair off her forehead, tucked it behind her ear, then cupped her face gently between his hands. “Troubled.”

She touched his hand but didn’t pull away from him. “I’ll be fine.”

“You think you can handle this because you’ve had to handle everything else that’s been thrown at you all of your life. But this is different. This is bigger and stronger and full of venom, and it’s trapped inside of you so I can’t protect you from it.” He swore under his breath. “I wish I could think of a better way to deal with this, but I can’t, so that’s just the way it’s going to have to be.”

“What way is that?”

He looked directly into her eyes. “It’s time to get some outside help.”

“Outside of what?”

“Outside of
us
.” He walked over to the kitchen counter and grabbed the cordless phone.

“Who are you calling?”

He held a finger up to her. She sighed and flopped down on a chair at the table, already exhausted by talking about something she would have preferred to just ignore, magically charred BlackBerrys or not.

“Stanley?” he said after a moment. “Do you know who this is?” A pause. “No, it’s okay. Don’t be scared. I’m not going to kill you.” Another pause. “Seriously, I’m not. Stop crying. Be a man.”

Eden cringed. This didn’t fill her with confidence. Stanley worked for just about any supernatural creature who paid or threatened him. He also created lust potions so desperate, lonely women would find him more attractive and have sex with him. All in all, he wasn’t Eden’s favorite guy in the city.

“Is he back?” Darrak asked. “He is? Why didn’t you let me know this? Stop crying.”

Eden’s hands were still tingling. She honestly wished the black magic felt bad, but it didn’t. It was so tempting to throw out a spell right here, right now. Witches came in a few varieties—the good and beneficial white witches, who worked with nature and animals and read spells from books. Gray witches, who blended both nature magic and destructive magic, and had the control to do this successfully. And, of course, black witches who could effortlessly use their magic—usually to destroy or cause harm—with a mere thought. So easy.
Too
easy.

“We need to see him immediately.” Darrak paced back and forth between her kitchenette and where she sat at the dinette table, her feet curled up under her as she watched him. “Okay. That sounds fine.” He sighed. “Why are you still crying? We’ll see you soon, Stanley.”

He hung up.

“You made Stanley cry,” Eden said. “I actually don’t have a problem with that.”

Darrak shrugged. “He’s still intimidated by my fearsome reputation. Nice to know somebody is.”

“Are you going to share?”

“We’re seeing Maksim. Today.”

She stared at him blankly for a moment. “The wizard master.”

“The one and only. He’s back from his vacation.”

Maksim the wizard master had gone on vacation after surviving a torture session by a demon—a friend of Darrak’s—a couple of weeks ago.

“You think Maksim can help me?” She didn’t want to hope for too much from a simple phone call. Disappointment was a heartless bitch.

“I think so. Wizards and witches go hand in hand. Didn’t you read
Harry Potter
?”

She just stared at him.

“I’m kidding, of course,” he continued. “I didn’t read the books. But I did see the movies. A previous host was a fan. He even wore dress robes and pretended he’d been sorted into a house. Hufflepuff, if you can believe it. Who liked Hufflepuff best? I mean, seriously.”

She didn’t speak for a moment. “I don’t think a knowledge of children’s literature is going to be much help here.”

“A wizard, especially one at Maksim’s level, will know about all kinds of magic and the practitioners of it. At the very least, he’ll be able to point us in the right direction to get help for you.”

She did see his point and that it was at least worth a shot. “Okay, so when are we seeing him?”

“Right now.”

“Now?” She glanced at the clock that read eight thirty. “But Andy’s going to want us in the office. He has a new case he wants to talk to us about and—”

“And it can wait a couple of hours. It can wait a whole day if necessary. This is more important, Eden.”

She took a deep breath. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right. Besides, the full moon isn’t until tomorrow night. Andy will be just fine on his own until then.”

They exchanged a knowing glance. Andy had been bitten by a werewolf recently and was in total denial about what that meant.

The denial would only last another day before the fur started to flow. That was, unless there was some sort of random miracle between now and then. Eden believed in a lot of things these days, but random miracles weren’t one of them.

“Fine.” She nodded with a firm shake of her head and clenched her tingling hands into fists at her sides. “Then we’re off to see the wizard.”

“Good. And, hey, maybe he’s somehow related to your horoscope this morning. That person from your past whose destiny is intertwined with yours.”

“I think I’d remember meeting a wizard master.”

Darrak glanced down at the paper now laying crumpled on the floor. “Then who do you think it was talking about?”

“Don’t know. Don’t care.”

Out of all the drama in Eden’s life at the moment, an entertaining, but silly horoscope was the least of her worries.