Black Magic Woman (24 page)

The Thing barely paused to register the impact. It just hissed and screamed and launched itself at him again.

Shit, what the hell was he supposed to do now?

Asher darted to the side, flipping his arm out to catch the Thing in the chest and knock it onto the floor. It sprang up again like a damned Weeble, but this time it hesitated, giving Asher an actual second to think. One glance at the Thing’s achingly familiar face was enough to tell him that Daphanie no longer occupied the shell facing him. Something else had taken her place, and that something wanted him dead. He had no trouble with the concept of defending himself, but he found he had a
lot
of problems with the idea of hurting Daphanie in the process, even if it was only her body and not the real her.

Damn it, he’d grown pretty frickin’ fond of that body recently, and he wanted to see it given back to the soul it belonged with so he could express that fondness again.

He had to find a way to stop the Thing without permanently harming the woman he loved.

And wasn’t it a fine time for his subconscious to let loose with that little bit of news?

The Thing and Asher eyed each other for several tense minutes, neither ready to make the first move. But Asher had love and patience on his side, and the Thing consisted of nothing but fury and hate. In the end, it inevitably struck first.

Asher saw it before it happened, knew, from the way the Thing tensed, what was coming. He betrayed not a flicker of surprise when the Thing shot a hand out behind it, grabbed a solid length of pipe from the pile on the table, and held it aloft as it threw itself at its enemy’s head.

Asher’s hand shot up, his fingers wrapping around the creature’s wrist and preventing the blow from falling. His arm trembled, making him blink. He hadn’t expected the Thing to be so strong. Daphanie was far from weak for a human, but she was only human, and a woman; the Thing that had taken over her body possessed easily three times the strength to go with its burning malevolence. Asher actually had to exert himself to keep the pipe from splitting open his skull.

Enough. He had to get this under control before one of them got hurt. If it was him, he wouldn’t live to tell about it; and if it was Daphanie, he wouldn’t
want
to live. It was time to get this done.

With a grunt, Asher straightened his spine and flexed his shoulders, feeling the blades shift and bend to make room for what was to come. He felt the unpleasant pull of skin splitting and the burning sensation of his wings emerging from his back, the muscles and tendons cramped from disuse. It always felt like waking a sleeping limb to free his wings after he’d kept them hidden. The appendages prickled and burned as he spread them and gave one sharp flap to get the blood circulating.

Then he gripped the Thing by the throat with his free hand and lifted them both from the studio floor.

The Thing within Daphanie hissed and struggled, but Asher’s grip compressed her windpipe, slowly cutting off its supply of oxygen. He clenched his teeth at the sight of his woman struggling for air. He wanted to release her or soothe her or breathe for her, but instead he continued to squeeze, exerting very careful pressure until the Thing dropped the pipe to claw at the hand around its throat. Asher heard the clang of the metal hitting the floor and eased his grip just enough for the Thing to draw breath. Then, before it could recover enough to go for him again, he shifted his grip to compress her carotid artery until Daphanie’s body went limp against him.

Asher returned them to the floor with a thump, pressing Daphanie against his chest with one arm and reaching for his cell phone with the other.

Damn it, that was the second time he’d had to knock his woman unconscious. If it came down to a third, he was going to get very cranky.

Sixteen

Common signs of possession include speaking in tongues (i.e., any language not known by the victim in life); feats of unnatural strength; unnatural signs of aggression; violence toward close friends, family members, spouses, or children; rapid, drastic, and unexplained changes in core physical appearance (eye color, facial features, skin color, or condition), and the occurrence of unexplained phenomena in the victim’s presence.

To quote one expert on the phenomenon, “There are a lot of things to look for, but when it comes right down to it, you just know it when you see it.”

—A Human Handbook to the Others,
Glossary

Rafe and Graham took the news calmly, but with a good deal of obvious unease. Asher couldn’t blame them. This time he might have phoned a warning, but it was the second time he’d carried the same unconscious woman into the alpha’s house in less than a week. She had regained consciousness once, only briefly, long enough to open her eyes and gaze unseeingly up at her concerned friends. Asher had been relieved not to see the malevolent force that had last occupied her gaze, but frightened not to see any sign of Daphanie, either.

Missy sprang immediately into action, tucking Daphanie’s still unconscious form into the same bed she’d occupied a few days before and sitting vigil by her side while they waited for Erica’s return.

The witch took one look at the insensible woman and grasped the silver amulet she wore around her neck.

“This isn’t good,” she whispered.

Asher resisted the urge to mention that he’d already figured out as much.

“We need to know exactly where we stand, Erica,” Rafe said, his tone as grim as Asher felt. “What’s happened to her?”

Erica laid a hand across Daphanie’s forehead. Asher already knew the skin felt clammy and feverish and that she seemed to quiver constantly, a sort of low vibration, like a tuning fork run amok.

“It’s much stronger than before, the curse. This has taken on characteristics that make it very nearly a form of possession.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Possession traditionally refers to a foreign entity taking up residence inside another person’s body,” the witch explained. “There are many forms of the phenomenon, from something as subtle as hearing a voice in the back of one’s head to a host’s complete psychic and physical transformation. But the form most people think of is one in which the foreign entity completely takes over the host’s consciousness, basically assuming control of that person’s thoughts, feelings, and actions.”

“I’d say that’s a pretty good description of what happened at the studio.”

“Yes, but you said that when she stirred after you brought her into this house, she didn’t renew her attack on you.”

“No. She didn’t renew anything. She just lay there. She opened her eyes, but it was as if she weren’t there.”

Truthfully, it had looked almost as if no one were there, and that scared Asher more than anything.

“Exactly. That’s very significant,” Erica said. “The type of total submersion of the host personality and the violent outburst you describe would normally be the hallmarks of a traditional possession, but we already know that what is affecting Ms. Carter is more akin to a curse.”

“Do we know that for sure?” Missy asked. “Is it possible that we might have been mistaken before?”

Erica shook her head. “I don’t believe so. I can feel the taint of the magic in her. It’s definitely a power rather than an entity that is affecting her.”

“What difference does that really make?” Asher asked. “Either way, some outside force is making her do things she wouldn’t normally do.”

“It makes a great deal of difference. Because it is a curse and not an entity possession, it won’t be dispelled with an exorcism. If it were that easy, I would already have begun a ritual to drive the entity out. A curse is much more complicated, and a voodoo curse such as this one still requires that you find the
bokor
responsible for laying it and destroy whatever object he has attached to Ms. Carter’s spirit.”

Rafe’s mouth tightened. “Believe me, Erica, we have been working quite diligently to accomplish that very thing.”

“Good, but you must work faster. I would say the good news is that she’s fighting it, but a battle like this can cause almost as much harm as the possession itself, if it goes on too long.”

“How long is too long?” Asher demanded.

Erica shrugged. “It’s difficult to say. Such things depend on the individual. A weak person can be depleted in minutes; a strong one could last days.”

“Daphanie is strong,” Graham vowed, clapping a hand on Asher’s shoulder. “You know she is.”

He did. But then, the force possessing her was strong as well. The question was, which would prove stronger?

“What can we do?” Missy wanted to know. Always practical, she focused on Daphanie’s immediate needs. Asher felt a rush of gratitude.

“Keep her warm. Keep her hydrated.” Erica hesitated. “I wish I could offer something more, but none of my potions or protections can do anything with the curse as long as the
ouanga
—the power object—is still out there.”

She left a subdued group behind her in the little guest room.

“I think our search for D’Abo just took on a new urgency,” Graham murmured, his eyes fixed on Daphanie’s still form.

“But what if Rafe is right and D’Abo isn’t the one behind this but is being used as a dupe to throw us off the track?” Asher could barely speak, but he forced the words out from between clenched teeth. He felt helpless and hobbled, unable to save his woman, unsure he even understood
how
to save her. It made him want to rip something into pieces.

Small, bloody pieces.

“Even if I am right, I still believe finding D’Abo is our best chance to discover the identity of our mastermind,” Rafe said. He turned a serious expression on Asher, and when he spoke again, his tone had taken on the solemnity of one speaking a vow. “We will find him, Asher. And when we do, we will see that he pays for what he is doing to your woman. You have my word.”

Asher gave a small, viciously controlled nod. It never occurred to him to contradict the Felix’s calling Daphanie “his woman.” What point was there in denying the truth? Their relationship may have begun as one of a Guardian protecting a human, but he believed that the events of the night before demonstrated how far past that things had gotten.

He pushed the memories from his mind. If he let himself linger on the feel of Daphanie in his arms, he would be too distracted to do what needed to be done to keep her safe.

He looked at the Felix calmly. “How do we find him?”

“You and Graham have already been to his place of business without success, so I suggest we begin at his home.”

“We tried to get his address from one of his employees, but no dice,” Graham said. “I checked the phone directory and tried a few search sites online but no luck. D’Abo is apparently a man who values his privacy.”

“Give me a moment.”

Asher watched while the Felix drew a cell phone from the pocket of his trousers, flipped it open, and punched in a number. “Hello, my friend. I will apologize in advance for my rudeness, but I’m feeling a bit pressed for time. I had hoped you would be able to provide me with a piece of information.”

There was a brief pause. “Nothing so complicated. I need an address, a home address, for an individual with some concerns for privacy. Charles D’Abo.”

Asher looked at Graham and raised an eyebrow. The alpha shrugged.

They both waited.

“Thank you,
compadre
. I owe you one.” The Felix flipped the phone closed. “Four eighty-nine East Eleventh Street.”

Asher just stared.

“Apartment three A,” Rafe added helpfully.

“How did you do that?”

“I didn’t. My friend did.”

Graham cursed. “Misha. Damn it, I should have known.”

“Yes, but I did, so all is well,” Rafe said. “Dmitri Vidâme. There is no information he cannot get, except for that which he already has at his fingertips.”

“And he got D’Abo’s home address that quickly?” Asher asked in disbelief. Hell, if he’d known the information could be had in the space of seconds, he would have had it by now. There was more to the story than money, though he knew Vidâme had a lot of it. If not most of it. “That’s impossible.”

“Not for Misha,” Graham said, his tone distinctly envious. “One of the hobbies he apparently picked up over the last thousand years—well, okay, the last thirty—was computer hacking. And it turned out he had a talent for it, plus enough money to buy the kind of machines that make the guys who run supercomputers turn a little green. I should have gone right to him. It would have saved us a lot of time.”

“There is no point rehashing our decisions,” Rafe said. He slid his phone back into his pocket and waved toward the door. “The important thing is that we act on the information now that we have it. Gentlemen?”

Asher held up a hand. “Just a minute.”

Turning back to the bed, he nodded at Missy. “Would you be willing to stay with her until she wakes? I don’t like that she’s still unconscious, but I don’t want to delay, either. If we were to miss a chance to find D’Abo…”

Missy smiled and shooed him away. “Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of her. You heard Erica; Daphanie is a fighter. I know she’ll be fine. And I’ll be with her when she wakes up. I’ll tell her where you went. In the meantime, you just go find this D’Abo character and put a stop to this. It’s the best thing you could do for her. For both of you.”