Page 32

Chapter

Thirty-Two

brIDGETTE

T he infamous witch of Gainsburg floated in front of me. She was incorporeal, which was no huge surprise considering she had been dead for close to two hundred years.

In our town of witches, there were many stories about its history. There was no story more notorious or spoken about, though, than the infamous witch. She’d had a single-minded goal of becoming the most powerful witch the world had ever seen. The story goes that she had grand designs to rule the world, and she had found a way to do it.

Taking another witch’s magic was forbidden, always had been. But that hadn’t stopped Glenda. She started with her own coven. The first victims had been the weakest, those with affinities with the elements, plants, and animals.

“You killed kind, innocent witches,” I growled as I clenched my fists at my side.

She did nothing but grin at my words. She would have been absolutely beautiful if it weren’t for the gleam of insanity in her eyes. I knew then that there would be no taking the high road and trying to talk her into giving herself up, even if that had been my plan to begin with. Her crimes were too great, and the reasons she had been sentenced to death hundreds of years before were the same now. She was too significant a threat with her grand schemes of power.

But… “How did you come back?” It was my curiosity that drove the question, but it was also a necessity to ensure she couldn’t do it again. Not now or another two hundred years from now.

She still didn’t speak; instead, she vanished, and I spun around, expecting her to be behind me, but she wasn’t there. No, instead, when I turned back again, she was hovering near my mate, the athame I’d sent by courier to the police precinct for Logan’s evidence pointed directly at his heart.

I prowled forward, moving through the storm of wind and flying merchandise. “I missed the signs.” I inclined my head toward the athame that was far too close to Logan’s chest. “I should have listened to Mortimer from the beginning. I knew he was trying to tell me something, but I waved it off as him being weird.”

I looked over at Mortimer as I passed him, seeing him slap his paw at a tourmaline crystal that got too close. “Sorry, Mortimer.”

He hissed at me before immediately going back to yowling at the dead witch. I was going to have to apologize profusely for quite a while before he forgave me.

“It took until cutting myself on your blade to finally put it together. But I know now what I missed then, Glenda. You killed good witches, sucking their magic from them through your athame.” I rounded the last shelf until I stood just a couple of feet away from her. “You’re pointing a blade at my mate.” I cocked my head and raised an eyebrow. “For that reason alone, I am going to crush every gem in it into dust before I melt the metal down and turn it into a paperweight.”

Her ghostly form snarled and lifted her hand, ready to plunge the athame into Logan’s heart. “I knew I needed more when it came to you,” she hissed down at me. “Your mate here is going to be the leverage I need to finally become all I was intended to be. I’ll take your magic and become more powerful than the world has ever seen.”

I stared at her, amazed that she thought it would be so easy. “You think I will just, what, lie down and let you kill me for my magic? Then what, Glenda? If I allow you to do that, you’ll destroy my mate and everything else that I love.”

With one long, bony finger, she pointed at a pentagram drawn on the floor that I hadn’t noticed through all the chaos. “You’ll do it because you’re good, ” she spat the word out as if it were a curse word. “Good witches don’t let loved ones die in front of their eyes. They allow themselves to be sacrificed to protect others.”

I shook my head. “Perhaps you’re right,” I allowed. “Good people, whether they are witch or human, won’t let another suffer if they could do it for them.”

Glenda looked positively giddy as I strode over to the pentagram she’d explicitly drawn for me, while Logan looked as if he wanted to strangle me. I could easily read in his eyes the demand that I not do what she’d said.

I stepped up to the circle and turned to face her again. “You wanted to know how I was able to return?” Glenda asked conversationally, thinking that she had already won. “It was you. You brought my athame here, in this place.” She looked down at her weapon, the tool that was supposed to aid a witch with their spells and rituals, not an implement of murder. “You let your magic seep into this silly place. You infuse every item with your power.” She grinned widely, too widely for a human, and it looked grotesque. “You bring them to life .”

Well, damn. I could admit that was a massive mistake on my part. I’d have to be more careful in the future. I glanced around to see my figurines that hadn’t been smashed huddling in fright. I would still bring a spark of life to my friends. I would just be a little more discerning going forward.

I took one last look at Logan before turning my eyes away from his. I couldn’t look at his face anymore; it would be too distracting because I’d want to comfort him. Instead, I lifted one hand.

My movement froze her solid, even her old-fashioned dress from the era that she’d once been alive in froze mid-flapping in the wind she’d caused. It looked weird, and I couldn’t help taking it in. Glenda’s face was a frozen mask of shock as her cold, lifeless eyes took me in.

“How does it feel to be helpless, Glenda? How many witches did you take from? How many did you make helpless, draining their power before draining their lives?”

I gestured with my hand, and the athame flew into my palm. It felt angry, just as angry as its owner. Somehow, she had attached herself to the artifact; her soul was bonded with it. “This really explains so much,” I murmured as I looked down at the gleaming blade. The rage pulsing from it was thrumming so much that it was vibrating fiercely in my hand.“No one should have this much power.” I looked back up at Glenda, who was looking quite a bit less sure of herself as she watched me hold her life, her power, and her very soul in my hand.

Terror was suddenly pouring from her, easy to read because I felt the same coming from the blade. “I had been taught to hide my power since it was just so much, you know? I hadn’t realized until right now why the council would be so scared of someone who had that much magic. But there’s a difference between me and you.”

I looked into her eyes, letting her see my truth. “I knew I was going to be your next victim, Glenda. You wouldn’t have been able to resist. But here’s a little secret between us girls… You wouldn’t have been able to handle what I am.” I smirked at her, probably enjoying her fear a little too much, but knew the Goddess was proud of me and wouldn’t minda little enjoyment. “But, as I said, there is a huge difference between you and me. It’s that I don’t care about how much I own. All I want to do is run this store,” I waved my other hand, and immediately, everything stopped moving, the wind and chaos she had caused coming to an abrupt halt. The sound of rushing air silenced, and a calm settled over Oohs, Ahhhs, and Orbs. Everything that was still hanging in the air swiftly moved back into their proper places. Broken pieces of figurines fit back together seamlessly and joined the others. Within seconds, every bit of destruction she’d caused was reversed, settling the shop back into the quirky chaos I loved.

“And make a home with my mate.” I narrowed my eyes on her. “The one you threatened.”

With that, I was done talking. My magic flowed from me and into the crystals of the athame. It gave her a jolt of power, filling her impossibly full. At first, she was confused, but then that confusion morphed into unadulterated glee. She thought I was giving it to her. What an idiot.

Her happiness quickly turned back into terror as the magic filled her athame to bursting. The crystals didn’t explode, they didn’t shatter and fly apart. Instead, they just crumbled into the dust I had promised. Glenda didn’t have a chance to see the particles fall to the ground, though. As soon as the light winked out of the crystals, she disappeared.

“Damn,” I muttered, “That was kind of anticlimactic.” I stared down at the now dull, cracked, and brittle metal in my hand. With a final wave of power, the metal curled into itself until there was nothing but an ugly ball of tarnished bronze in my now fully healed palm.

“Are you really going to use it as a paperweight?” Logan stood, as naked as I had left him over an hour ago in bed. He had his arms crossed and was looking less than pleased.

I took my time gaining my courage before finally looking up at him, afraid that what he saw would make him run far, far away from me. “Nah, it’s too ugly,” I said, dropping it to the floor with the crystal dust. I stood there, unsure of myself, waiting for his judgment. I didn’t have to wait long.

He strode over to me and wrapped an arm around my waist. In a move he’d done so many other times before, he tugged until I fell into his chest. I immediately took a deep inhale of his spicy scent. “You’re a little badass, you know that?”

I chanced a peek up at his face to see him grinning down at me with pride. “Yeah?”

He kissed the tip of my nose. “I’m so glad to know that you can take care of yourself.” Then he swept me up into his arms and moved straight for the stairs to my apartment. “But I owe you a punishment for using sex to knock me out.”

My grin was wide as he carried me, and I could have sworn Mortimer gave me a saucy wink as we passed. Mildred was definitely chattering happily from her crooked position on the shelf as the crow in the corner fluttered his wings.