Hexed (The Gwen Sparks Series Book 4) (19 page)

I WAS CHEWING a bite of my chicken club sandwich while Reece and Bree sat across from me and kept watching me. I didn’t know what they were expecting me to do, but it made me uncomfortable. My eyes roamed over the small restaurant, a place called Nibbles. They served soups and sandwiches. The interior was encased in wood: wood floors, log walls, wood beams spanning across the ceiling and shiny wooden tables. A spiral wooden staircase sat toward the back, towering up to a loft above us. There was a large rock fountain in the corner, the bubbling water lending a relaxing soundtrack to the otherwise loud restaurant. There were also flowers of every kind sitting in colorful pots in every available space.

“How long have you and Dorian known each other?” Reece asked, his smooth Southern voice falling from his lips like honey.

I brought my attention back to the spirit walkers. “I don’t know.” I tapped my temple. “Zapped memories and all.”

Bree and Reece nodded in unison. Bree lifted her iced tea to her lips and took a small drink before replacing it on the coaster above her plate.

“How long have you two known him?” I asked, popping a fry into my mouth.

“I’ve known him for about four years,” Bree said with a small smile.

“Since eighteen,” Reece told me. “I grew up with my grandma in Texas, in a haunted house no less, and Dorian showed up one night. I saw him standing on the sidewalk outside, and I knew who he was, what he was. I thought he was there to take my grandma’s soul.” Reece chuckled to himself as he remembered the night. “Turns out he was just there to take care of the ghost haunting our house. He recognized what I was and stuck around a couple days to give me a few pointers. Over the years we’ve crossed paths and eventually became friends, though
friends
isn’t really the right word, more like acquaintances.”

I nodded, popping another fry into my mouth. The glances Bree and Reece kept stealing toward each other put me on edge. Could they sense something was wrong with me? More importantly, was lunch at Nibbles my last meal before they extracted my soul? While Dorian didn’t think the spirit walkers would be able to figure out my soul was expired, I didn’t share his feelings on the matter. They extracted souls for a living; surely, they were professional enough to recognize an unnatural soul when it was staring them in the face, literally.

“Do you still live in Texas?” I asked Reece. He was good-looking, and I had a feeling he knew it. His eyes sparkled when he watched me. I was sure that sparkle had caused more than one woman to lose her panties. I, on the other hand, preferred my men a little…edgier. At least, I thought I did. I thought about Dorian, the absolute power of his dominance and a nice little shudder trembled my bones. Yeah, edgier was more my style.

“Yeah, I moved into my grandma’s house when she passed,” he responded. “I moved out when I was twenty-one but memaw’s is the only place that’s ever felt like home.” The corners of Reece’s mouth turned. He cleared his throat and continued. “Besides, she’s still there. That old woman would have a conniption fit if I sold the house.”

My sandwich was halfway to my mouth when my hands stilled. I blinked over at Reece, setting my food down. “Your grandma is still in the house, like she’s haunting it? I thought spirits had to move on after they died?” I asked, baffled. “I mean, isn’t that what spirit walkers do, they escort souls unwilling to move on to…wherever?” I’d come across a small passage about spirit walkers in the Magick encyclopedia earlier today. From what I understood, we were Death’s little helpers. A small frown creased my lips as I realized that I had slept with the boss.

Bree and Reece shared a look, but it was Bree that responded. “No, this plane has a lot of spirits. As long as they don’t cause problems, we allow them to stay. Our job is to deal with the ghosts that are either openly haunting someone or have become so aggressive that their presence is no longer tolerable in this dimension. That’s when we escort them to the realm of the dead.” She paused, tilting her head in thought. “You really don’t remember anything, do you?”

I shook my head and shrugged. “Nothing having to do with my personal life, no. I know other things, basic things.”

“And why do you suppose someone took your memories?” Reece asked. He watched me with an interest that unsettled me. Did he figure out that my soul was expired? More importantly, was Dorian enough of a threat to the spirit walkers to keep them from removing my soul?

I shrugged again in response to Reece’s question, all the while thinking about what the woman in the mirror had told me. Whoever she was, she knew what Dorian had done and that I was living on borrowed time. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I needed to tell Dorian about what happened. We were all on edge with the threat of the NAWC, but what if this woman was the real threat.

“So how’s the cleanup coming along?” I asked, desperate to change the topic. I was almost positive that Bree and Reece had suspicions about me, and I needed to distract their attention away from me.

“It’s going,” Reece stated. “I’ve never seen anything like what’s happening here. Has Dorian or your friends found a reason behind it?”

Shit. He’s not going to let this go
, I thought. “They assume it’s whoever took my memories,” I told them.

“There is some seriously unnatural magic at work here,” Bree added.

My stomach twisted. “What do you mean?”

Bree sat forward, resting her arms on the table. “Death is as natural as life,” she explained. “It’s hard for people to see that because one brings joy and the other sorrow. People rejoice with new life and crumble when their loved ones pass away.” She sent me a small smile. “Death is actually just as joyous as life though; it brings peace to the suffering. The living have a hard time understanding that though because they feel left behind when they lose someone.”

“Get to the point, Bree,” Reece said, popping an onion ring into his mouth. Bree gave him a sideways, acrid glare, but he kept his eyes on me, a hint of a smile on his mouth.

“Anyway,” Bree continued, “As you may know, it’s unnatural for people to still be up walking around and talking after they should be dead. Not to mention unsettling. Whatever magic is trapping their souls in their body is causing some serious damage to their auras.”

That caught me off guard and all of a sudden I felt like every pair of eyes in the restaurant were on me, accusing me. I was, after all, responsible for people not being able to move on.

“How so?” I asked. I eyed the remaining food on my plate and shoved it away from me. What food I had eaten was quickly souring in my stomach.

“Well,” Bree said in thought, “souls know when it’s their time to move on. The souls of the…let’s call them
affected
, feel the need to leave their hosts’ bodies but are unable to. It’s a terribly frustrating thing for them, to be prisoners.”

“Prisoners?” I murmured to myself. Bree made it sound so horrible and that only intensified my guilt. A thought wandered through my mind:
did my soul feel like a prisoner and would I even know if it did?

“Aside from the souls not moving on,” Reece interjected, “other weird occurrences are popping up all over this town.”

I was too afraid to ask, but I didn’t have to because Reece continued talking without noticing my unease.

“The pixies are unable to keep any plant life alive, and the fairies and elven people have stated that performing nature magic is growing increasingly harder to accomplish. Actually, all magical creatures, witches included, have stated that their magic is unpredictable. We had one woman who ended up blowing up her house when she tried to magically light candles.” Reece paused, his green eyes thinning the slightest bit as he watched me. “She’s lucky to be alive.” He paused again, watching me as though waiting for a specific reaction. I kept my face impassive, and then worried that that made me look unsympathetic toward the woman. Allowing the tiniest bit of unease onto my face, I nodded toward Reece to continue. If he thought my reaction bizarre, it didn’t show on his face.

“There’s also that
little
imbalance of energy,” he finished. “If we don’t fix it, and soon…” He shook his head, allowing the silence to finish his line of thought. If we didn’t fix the imbalance soon things would only get worse. And it was all my fault, all the suffering, botched magic and imprisoned souls. Was I really willing to watch all these disasters occur just so I could live? The answer was simple: no, no I was not.

“AREN’T YOU HUNGRY?” Fiona asked Gwen. She had ordered two large pizzas, but Gwen hadn’t touched any of it. She sat on the sofa next to me with her legs curled underneath her and held a throw pillow in her lap. Her eyes were distant and blinked at the sound of Fiona’s voice. Something had happened at lunch with Bree and Reece today, but she wasn’t talking to me, which meant I would have to talk to the spirit walkers.

“No, I had a big lunch,” Gwen replied with a weak smile.

I reached out and squeezed her thigh, but she wouldn’t look up at me. Her distant behavior was starting to scare me, an emotion I wasn’t used to. If she’d only tell me what was wrong, confide in me, I could fix whatever troubled her. If Reece, or even Bree, had offended her in any way I would personally drag them here and make them apologize. Something told me that that wasn’t the problem, though.

I dropped my hand and set my plate on the coffee table. “How’s the search for the ingredients coming?”

Fiona glanced at Ethan before looking over to me. “Harder than expected. We were able to procure two out of the ten items today. The spell needs to be recited on a full moon as well. If we don’t obtain all of the ingredients in the next four days, we’ll have to wait a whole month.” Fiona’s shoulders sagged in defeat while Ethan stared down at his pizza.

“Then do whatever the hell it takes to make sure that doesn’t happen,” I snapped. “It was your guys’ idea for the time travel spell, and now you’re telling us that you can’t do it?”

“That’s not what we’re saying,” Ethan said. “It’s just that we need some of the items from people and most are unwilling to help after finding out what type of spell we’re working.”

“Why?” I asked, my eyes flicking over to Gwen. She was staring at Fiona, listening.

“Because traveling through time comes with serious ramifications,” Ethan replied. “One wrong move and it could alter the future. Most don’t want to toy with something like that.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, annoyed and frustrated. “Isn’t that what I said when you two suggested this idea? You should have checked into getting the ingredients before getting our hopes up.”

“We’ll get them,” Fiona promised, a wrinkle forming between her eyes.

“Well it better be fast because Micah has already received a call from the NAWC,” I said and then shut up. I hadn’t meant to spit it out like that, especially not tonight after seeing the funk Gwen was in. Three heads snapped up as everyone stared at me in alarm.

“What do you mean?” Fiona asked.

“What did they want?” Gwen said.

“This can’t be good,” Ethan mused.

Exhaling, I leaned back against the couch and looked over at Gwen. My earlier uncertainties regarding my feelings toward her faded as our eyes connected. The pressure in my chest tightened at the worry reflecting within her gaze. I would make everything better, fix things, and erase that worry. I had to.

“They asked Micah to detain Gwen until they arrived,” I finally said, still watching Gwen. Her blue eyes widened somewhat before they fell to her lap.

“He’s not going to, is he?” Fiona questioned. “I mean, he wouldn’t. Would he?”

I shook my head. “No, he’s on our side. But what little time we had has decreased even more. I’m not sure when the NAWC will arrive, but I’m assuming it’ll be sooner rather than later.”

Fiona and Ethan shared a look and then nodded at each other. I arched a questioning brow in their direction. I still wasn’t sure whether to trust Ethan or not, but at this point I didn’t have much of an option. Besides, if he betrayed us I could easily remedy that by torturing him within an inch of his life.

“We’ll head out again tonight and try to get the other items,” Fiona said. She and Ethan stood up, and when they passed behind the sofa, Fiona squeezed Gwen’s shoulder in reassurance.

“Should I come with you?” I asked. “I have ways of making people rethink their decisions.”

Ethan snorted, a scornful look crossing his face. “Yeah, your unlawful ways are why we’re in this mess. I think Fiona and I can handle it.”

I stood, moving the few feet that separated us. “Can you?” I asked. “Are you two really willing to do whatever it takes to obtain the items for Gwen’s sake?” I paused a moment to let my question sink it. I wasn’t asking lightly, and they needed to understand the importance of the situation, that if they failed, Gwen was as good as dead.

“Look,” Ethan started, “I feel bad for Gwen’s situation but we’re not about to break any rules and put ourselves in danger.”

You gutless bastard
, I thought. I’d known people like Ethan in my time, always walking the straight and narrow with their noses in the asses of their superiors. Their sense of right and wrong was always marred by their need to follow the rules set before them.