Wicked Souls (9 page)

Chapter Ten:

A Witch Can’t Change Her Spots

Upstairs in my apartment, Keisha and I went
to work getting ready for the meeting.
She was afraid to leave me
alone, and although I insisted repeatedly I’d be fine, underneath
my bravado I was glad she was stubborn and stayed with me.
When you
have an archangel, Lucifer, and the mother of mankind, who
apparently knows her way around the supernatural world, all after
you, you get a little nervous.
Especially when one or more of them
is messing with your cerebral cortex.

I’d bought a new leopard-print dress for the
ceremony.
I paired it with my favorite designer stilettos and black
satin jacket.
Keisha took her parrot-colored turban from her head,
shook it out and turned it into a skirt.
Since we had the same size
feet and similar taste in shoes, she traded her ankle boots for my
lime green kitten heels and wove several lemon yellow ribbons into
her hair.
Then she heated up my flat iron and commanded me to sit
on the toilet while she ironed my hair.

As she parted my hair into sections, I
asked, “Do you have any ideas on how I can get my soul back?”

She combed a section out, one corner of her
mouth quirking deep into her cheek as she thought.
She wouldn’t
meet my eyes, even in the mirror, and I had the feeling her next
statement wasn’t gonna be to my liking.
“Souls are extremely
valuable, but usually not as vulnerable as yours apparently is,
except at the moment of death.”

“Gabriel nearly killed me at the fire
station.”

Faint steam rose from the flat iron as
Keisha slid it down the section of hair.
She was focused on it, not
really seeing it, her mind circling the problem along with mine.
“That, combined with the Heavenly trace evidence I found, means it
has to be him, not Luc controlling your mind.”

Luc had said my will was very strong, too,
which was probably why I kept suppressing my magic in order to be
good and have a normal life with Adam.
But now, my magic seemed to
be gaining ground in the control department.
“But Luc’s controlling
my magic.”

Again, Keisha did the quirky mouth thing.
“I
don’t know, Amy.
There was no trace of dark magic in the bewitching
spell’s fingerprint.
It was ancient and very powerful, but not
demonic.”

Sounded to me like Eve was still my best
suspect there, but having been in Lucifer’s employ as well as his
bed for seven years, I wasn’t quite ready to let him off the hook.
He was as good at trickery and manipulation as he was with
temptation and sending people to Hell.
“Technically, Lucifer is an
angel, not a demon,” I reminded her and called on my
CSI
knowledge.
“I’ve never ran his magical prints before, but I’m
guessing they might resemble Gabriel’s.
They are brothers, after
all.”

“True.”
She slid the iron over another
section of hair.
“But from what you described, that means they’d
have to be working together, and the odds of that happening seem as
likely as you and Eve becoming best friends.”

There was no love lost between them, that
was for sure.
“I don’t know what to think, and every time I try to
sort it out, I my brain gets zapped.
At this point, I don’t care
who’s controlling either part of me, I just want them to stop.
You
have any ideas on how I can get control back?”

“What did Father Leonard say?”

“I have to turn everything over to God.
Soul, willpower, my entire life.”

Knowing me the way she did, I thought she’d
snort or even laugh out loud.
Instead she looked thoughtful.
“Sounds reasonable.”

“Reasonable?”
Was someone now controlling
her mind?
I stood up and glared at her.
“It’s the most
un
reasonable suggestion I’ve heard yet.”

She set the flat iron down.
“What are you
scared of, Amy?
Do you really think that would be worse than what
you’ve got now?”

The comment about me being scared stung.
I
hesitated, then told her the truth.
“Maybe.”

She wrapped her arms around me and gave me a
hug.
“I’m relieved Gabriel didn’t kill you.
That must’ve been
terrifying.”

I hugged her back, staring at my reflection
in the mirror.
My hair was straight and shiny, gold highlights
weaved in amongst the dark chestnut strands.
If only I felt
straight and shiny on the inside.
Like the leopard-print image in
the mirror, though, I was covered with spots.
Magical spots I
couldn’t seem to change.

A lump rose in my throat.
At least, like
Keisha said, I was alive.
“The last thing I thought of was
Luc.”

She drew back and stared into my eyes, her
hands firm on my shoulders.
“What you talking about?”

I shifted my feet and dropped my gaze,
embarrassed.
“When Gabriel attacked, there was a moment when I was
dying…” I hesitated, pressing my lips together, wishing this whole
unpleasant two days could be pressed into submission as well.
“My
dying thought was of Lucifer.”

Anyone else wouldn’t have understood, or if
they did, would have questioned my sanity.
Not Keisha.
In the span
of a breath, she got all the reasons I was freaked out, scared and
angry over that dying thought, and she didn’t try some bullshit
logic on me about why I might be thinking of him rather than Adam
or even her.
That’s why she was my best friend.

That, and the fact she made one hell of a
triple chocolate cheesecake shake.

“I know being magic-free means a lot to
you,” she said.
“But are you sure it’s worth it?”

No
, my magic retorted.

I silenced it, calling up Adam’s face.
Stepping away from Keisha, I smoothed the leopard-print fabric over
my stomach and hips as I stared at my reflection in the mirror.
“I’m sure.”

Keisha stood behind my shoulder and met my
eyes.
“Then we better get going.
You don’t want to be late for the
ceremony.”

In my living room, we found Eve, in her
human form, sitting on the couch as if she owned the place.
Her
legs were crossed, the top one swinging lazily back and forth over
the other while she flicked through pages in my
Vogue
Magazine.

I didn’t bother to ask her what she wanted.
I already knew.
“Adam’s not here.”

She didn’t look up, didn’t still her leg.
“I’m not here for him.
I’m here for you.”

Okay, maybe I didn’t know what she wanted.
“If you’re the one messing with my willpower, stop.”

She closed the magazine and tossed it on the
seat cushion next to her.
“If you stay magic free for another hour,
you’ll get your soul back from Lucifer.”

Now she had my undivided attention.
“Come
again.”

Her gaze slid over me from head to toe with
the same laziness of her leg swing.
“You heard me.
Six months of no
magic of any kind will make your soul revert back to you.
Especially if that’s what you really want.
If it’s not, well, then
you’re kidding yourself.”

Keisha stepped forward.
“How do you
know?”

Eve gave her a dismissive look.
“I know a
lot about Satan.”
Her gaze came back to mine.
“If he’d had all of
your soul, it might be a different matter, but half?”
She shrugged.
“That’s why you have certain steps, certain goals in Witches
Anonymous.
The longer you go without using magic, the more in
control you are.”

It made a tiny bit of sense.
“Six months
magic free earns me a chip and half my soul back.
Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“What about Gabe’s half?
How do I get that
back?”

She rose from the couch, her perfect figure
jiggling in all the right places, her luxurious reddish blonde hair
falling over her shoulder.
“You give me Adam and I’ll help you with
Gabriel.”

Interesting proposition.
“No deal.”

Her snicker was barely audible.
“I told Adam
about you and Satan in the alley, and after yesterday’s incident,
he’ll be mine again soon, with or without your help.
If you don’t
give him up right now, you’ll have no chance at retrieving your
soul from Gabriel’s clutches.”
She shrugged again, but the very
effort at nonchalance gave her away.
“Your choice.”

I didn’t trust her, and I wasn’t in the mood
for blackmail.
“Get out.”

After she walked out the door, Keisha and I
stood silent for several seconds.
“Think she’s telling the truth
about Luc?”
I said.

“Only one way to find out.”
Keisha headed
for the door.

I followed, chanting,
no magic, no
magic
, in my head.

Chapter Eleven:

In the Name of Love

Keisha and I arrived at Immaculate
Conception fifteen minutes early.
Adam wasn’t there yet, but Marcia
was, busying herself with the meeting preparations while standing
at the pulpit as if she were considering a new calling in life.
The
very thought made me shudder under my satin jacket.

Father Leonard was in his study, talking on
the phone.
I knocked softly on the door to get his attention and he
waved me in.
“
Sei secure
?
You’re sure?”
He paused, listening
to the reply, and rubbed his eyes as if tired.
“
Grazie
,
Dante.
Arrivederci
.”

He hung up the phone as I crossed to his
desk.
“I didn’t know you spoke Italian.”

His face was strained, but his eyes shone
with their usual brightness, and he smiled.
“There is much about me
you don’t know, Amy.”

That was true, and in the back of my mind I
remembered how one of these days I was going to insist he tell me
everything about his skill set.
“Any progress on my soul
issue?”

“Afraid not.”
He dropped his gaze to the top
of his desk and shuffled some papers.
“In fact I just talked to the
Dean of Cardinals in Rome.
He assures me your soul is in the most
danger from Lucifer, not Gabriel.
He also was adamant that the only
way to extract your soul from either is to offer it to God.”

“You told the Dean of Cardinals about
me?”

“Hypothetically, of course.”
He found what
he was looking for—a cream sheet of paper with a large coffee ring
on it—and wrote a note on it before glancing up at me.
“I could
hardly tell him I’m sponsoring a witch who’s given her soul to
Lucifer and has Gabriel stalking her.”

“Ex-witch,” I corrected.
“Why?
Would that,
like, cost you your job?”

Father Leonard’s eyes sparked with dark
humor.
“More like earn me a complete psych evaluation.”

We shared a laugh, but mine was halfhearted.
I considered telling him what Eve had said about the expiration
date on my soul’s stay with Luc, decided to skip it.
I didn’t
believe her and I doubted a Catholic priest would like hearing Eve
was the mother of all witchdom and knew far more about Luc than the
Bible let on.
“What am I going to do?”

He rose from his chair, came around the edge
of the desk, and put an arm around my shoulder.
“First you’re going
to accept your six month chip and give a speech.”
He steered me
toward the door.
“We’ll talk about your soul later.”

So much for getting my soul back before the
ceremony.
“I’m supposed to give a speech?”

He squeezed my arm and a jolt of
encouragement ran up it.
“Of course.
At the very least, you have to
thank your sponsor.”

The double doors of the nave were propped
open, the members of Witches Anonymous gathering inside.
At the
pulpit, Marcia spotted Father Leonard and gave him a tiny wave.
He
waved back, in a non-flirtatious, but happy-to-see-you manner and
went to join her, and for once I felt less grossed out about them
liking each other.
Maybe Marcia had an honest attraction to him,
and maybe he enjoyed her puppy dog eyes and attention.
Love was a
funny thing.
It didn’t care about rules and policies.
Didn’t care
about right and wrong.
It happened where and when it wanted to and
nothing—not even the powers of the Universe—could stop it.

Thinking about love, I scanned the rest of
the group looking for Adam, but he was nowhere to be found.
My
heart sank a little, but a part of me knew he wasn’t going to show.
Eve was still hanging around and the only reason for that was Adam.
Ancient or new, love was love.
I didn’t blame her for trying to get
him back.
I didn’t blame him for loving both of us.

Still, if he missed this meeting, I was
going to kick his ass.

Using my cell phone, I called and left him a
message to that affect.

Keisha and Liddy were standing at a card
table set near the communion table, which they’d covered with a
white cloth.
I wasn’t sure, but it looked like a sheet cake was
centered on it.
There were also plastic cups and a punch bowl with
strawberry-colored liquid in it.
A party?
For me?
Aww.
That was
sweet and damn if I wasn’t going to enjoy it.
This was the moment
I’d been waiting for, and I was going to make my six-month
anniversary no matter what.
Half my soul might even depend on it if
Eve was telling the truth.
Which she probably wasn’t, but I could
hope, right?

As I stood in the doorway watching my fellow
Witches Anonymous members talking, laughing and bustling around, a
renewed sense of purpose lit under my breastbone.
In approximately
five minutes—and regardless of my soul’s status—I was going to be a
six month-er.
I took a deep, satisfying breath and smiled.

From the pulpit, Marcia’s high-pitched voice
rang out.
“People!
Quiet down.
It’s time to start.”

The first five pews filled with members as
Marcia continued to herd them from the pulpit.
A few sponsors
besides Father Leonard were also attending.
Once everyone was
seated, Marcia began the meeting with the usual, “First things
first.”
Updates, announcements and reminders.
She also threw in a
lavish thank you to Father Leonard for use of the church, being
sure to add the unnecessary fact that the reason we were there was
because the health inspector had closed down my shop.

That Marcia.
Always so supportive of me.

Keisha, Liddy, Father Leonard, Emilia and I
occupied the first pew on Marcia’s left.
After the group said the
WA version of the serenity prayer, she started the roll call at the
pews to her right.
While the other members stated their name, how
long they’d been magic free, and what step in Witches Anonymous
they were working on, I eyed the cake.
On top of the white frosting
were colorful icing flowers and the words,
Congratulations on
the Big Six, Amy!

I’d never had a fancy sheet cake before, not
even for a birthday.
This one was so beautiful and elegant, I
didn’t want to cut it.
That is, until Liddy leaned over and
whispered in my ear, “We had the baker shave Dove chocolates into
the fudge batter.”

My mouth watered and I checked the corners
for drool.
Phew.
Caught it just in time.

As introductions droned on, my stomach felt
empty.
Too empty.
I needed to eat.
How long was this going to take?
It was unusual for lots of members to attend, but I guess seeing a
fellow ex-witch achieve the six month mark was inspiring.
Cake and
punch didn’t hurt either.

While I appreciated all their support, a
prickly sensation was inching its way under my skin.
Goose bumps
rose in response.
A moment later, I realized the empty feeling in
my stomach wasn’t from hunger, but dread.
Without warning, a
nervous twitch set up shop under my right eye.
How annoying.
I
pressed a fingertip against it, trying to make it stop.
It twitched
harder.
My magic reacted, and began pulsing along with the nerve
tic.

My magic, like me, didn’t lie.
Doom.
Disaster.
Catastrophe.
Something was about to happen.

I glanced over my shoulder, scanning all the
faces in the nave.
No demons there.
No angels either.
And
definitely no cats.
My gaze went to the double doors in the back.
Father Leonard had closed them and beyond their stained-glass
windows, the vestibule was dimly lit but showed no approaching
trouble.

Stop being neurotic, Amy.
My nerves
relaxed a bit and I went back to staring at the cake.

The introductions finally reached me and I
faced my counterparts.
“My name is Amy Atwood, and I’ve been magic
free for six months.
Tonight’s my anniversary.”

Everyone clapped and Marcia motioned for me
to come forward.
She met me in front of the altar with a red ribbon
that said
Six Months
in bright, shiny gold letters, which
she pinned to my jacket.
Then she pulled the matching red chip from
her pocket and held it up for everyone to see.
It glimmered under
the overhead lights.
“Today, we celebrate our friend and Witches
Anonymous colleague’s success on her six-month anniversary.”

This was my cue, as I’d been told by her
previous to this meeting.
“
I am responsible,”
I began the Responsibility Oath.
“When any witch, anywhere, reaches
out for help, I want the hand of Witches Anonymous always to be
there.
I am, in essence, Witches Anonymous.”

To which the group responded in unison,
“
This we owe to WA’s future: to place our
common welfare first; to keep our fellowship united.
For on WA’s
unity depends our magic-free lives and the magic-free lives of
those to come.”

Marcia, still holding the chip high, turned
back to me, a reluctant smile on her lips.
She was about to hand me
the chip when a light as bright as an atomic bomb burst into the
nave through the double doors, illuminating every corner and
blinding us all.

A startled cry went up from those in the
pews.
As she stumbled backwards, Marcia threw up the hand holding
my chip in a gesture that was more to protect herself than to shade
her eyes.
The chip went sailing but I couldn’t track where it fell
because I, too, was in duck and cover mode, tumbling to the floor
and covering my face with my hands.

I could hear people scrambling around,
yelling at each other in a total panic and trying to find their way
out as if someone had yelled “fire!”
in a movie theater.
The blind
leading the blind.
I owed the cliché jar a dollar for the
thought.

“Gabriel,” I shouted, taking a chance I knew
who the culprit was.
“Turn down the wattage.”

Believe it or not, he listened, and a second
later the blinding light lessened to something more akin to a
summer day in the Sunshine State.
I took my hands away from my face
and blinked my eyes open.
Sure enough, the archangel was striding
down the aisle toward me, looking madder than a cat whose tail had
been stepped on.

But he wasn’t glaring at me for once.
His
attention was riveted on the front pew where I’d been sitting.
“Angel of the Lord, reveal thyself.”

I followed his gaze to my friends and
wondered if he’d gone off his rocker.
Emilia and Liddy were hugging
each other, while Father Leonard was bent over at the waist as if
trying to hide.
Keisha was the only one sitting up straight and
staring at Gabriel head on.
There was a definite light in her eye
and it wasn’t because Gabriel was glowing.

If anything, he looked worse than he had in
my bedroom the night before.
The smattering of whiskers had turned
into actual beard growth and his hair hung in straight, chunky
sections.
His wings, while fully extended and brushing the pews as
he walked, were tattered and dirty.
His white robe was no longer
white, but dirty and torn in places.
He stopped next to the pew and
turned, smacking me with one of his wings.
He saw Keisha and did a
double take, something passing between them I recognized.

Gabriel dragged his attention away from
Keisha and glared at the person sitting next to her.
His hands
curled into fists and he set them on his hips.
“Angel, you will
reveal thyself to me.”

Father Leonard continued to duck, while
Emilia, Liddy and Keisha exchanged looks over the top of his head.
I batted Gabe’s dirty feathers out of my face and stood up,
understanding prickling the back of my head.
“You’ve got to be
kidding me.”

Father Leonard lifted his face, only it
wasn’t really his face anymore.
The eyes and ears and cheekbones
were in the same place and format, but they were all giving off
light, turning his complexion porcelain clear and bright.
He gave
me a sheepish smile.