Witches Anonymous (6 page)

Lucifer walked into my kitchen and I heard the rustle of a bag. I knew that sound. My mouth watered. He returned and sat on the edge of the bed, holding out three squares of Dove chocolates. “I may be a fallen angel, but I’m still an angel, Amy. If Gabriel succeeds in creating a new Eden using you and Adam, he becomes the god of it, but I will never cease to exist.” He unwrapped one of the chocolates and held it in front of my nose. “And I will never stop tempting you to come back to me.”

I wanted to ignore the chocolate as much as the Devil’s words, but I found myself leaning forward to take both.

“Why?” I said around the smooth chocolate melting in my mouth a moment later. “Why am I so important to you?”

He smiled, but it was full of sadness. “Because, Amy…” One finger touched the bump on the side of my head. The pain vanished as if it had never been. “I love you.”

Chapter Eleven: Confession

Sunday morning, I sat at in my office and stared at the gremlin on my desktop. He smiled at me with jagged teeth and a lolling tongue and I was sure if I looked at myself in the mirror, I’d see his twin. My head seemed to weigh a hundred pounds and my mouth was dry as sin. Every noise, from trucks on the street outside rumbling by to the freezer motors in the ice cream parlor kicking on, made my stomach clench. I’d slept fitfully and woke to the worst non-alcohol-induced hangover of my life.

Keisha bustled into the office around nine, her hair wrapped in a psychedelic-colored cloth that doubled as a sarong. To save my eyesight, I focused on the gremlin instead. Keisha clucked at me. “What’s the matter with you? Too much par-
tay
last night? You look like you saw a ghost.”

“Close. I saw an angel.”

She snorted under her breath. “Oh, sweetie, I know Adam must seem like an angel compared to Lucifer, but he’s still just a man.”

Or not. I dropped my head into my hands. I wasn’t sure Emilia was just a witch either, but was she being possessed by one of Lucifer’s minions or Gabriel’s? Why would Gabriel want to possess Emilia? Was that even possible? “What do you know about demon possession?”

Keisha’s eyebrows had this way of pulling down in the center and rising at the tips when she was aggravated or confused. “Demon? You just said Adam was an angel.”

“I think Emilia’s possessed.”

“She is sleeping with the Devil, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“She stole my favorite pair of Dolce and Gabbanas.”

Keisha leaned on the back of the chair across from my desk. “Amy, even I would do anything to get my hands on your D&Gs. That’s
ob
session, not
po
session.”

“The shoe thing is definitely Emilia being Emilia, but she shows classic symptoms of possession. Her voice, her eyes.” Goosebumps rose on my skin. “She wanted to roast my new friend Liddy in my fire pit Thursday night.”

Keisha shrugged. “Not to be rude, but blood sacrifices are not out of character for Emilia, even when she’s a good witch. She’s threatened to disembowel you more than a few times.” She winked at me. “Now tell me all about the costume party and Adam the Angel.”

“Keisha, Emilia stole my spell book.”

Sliding around the chair, she dropped down in it, her eyebrows now up under her bangs. “You let her have the Atomic Sister Slave hex?”

“I didn’t let her
have
it. She stole it.”

“I thought you kept your spell book in a safe…” Her eyebrows crashed back down. “Wait a minute. Since when is Emilia and her antics more important to you than your sex life? You did spend last night with Adam, right?”

I laid my head down on my desk. “Sort of. Our evening got interrupted.”

“Let me guess, Lucifer.”

“Try Gabriel.”

Her hesitation lasted only a second. “As in
the
Gabriel, Angel of God?”

I made a small nod with my head.

“OMG. You met Gabriel? I can’t believe it! Is he fine?”

Lifting my head, I squinted at her and her rainbow head. “
Is he fine?
What kind of question is that? Do you think about anything besides
your
sex life?”

She ignored my jab. “Well, is he?”

I laid my head back down and closed my eyes. “He’s…different.”

“Different? What’s that supposed to mean? Different how?”

Finding the right adjective to describe the angel was hard. “Weird. Icky. Repulsive.”

She gasped. “No!”

“Yes.”

Silence fell as Keisha digested my news. “So why was he at the costume party?”

“For me.”

“Seriously?” She snorted softly again. “Man, you get all the good ones, you know that?”

“That’s the thing,” I said, lifting my head. “I’m not sure Gabriel is good.”

“Come again?”

I massaged my temples and closed my eyes. “Long story.”

Pushing herself out of the chair, Keisha left the office, shaking her head and muttering under her breath. Five minutes later, she returned with two cappuccino milkshakes. She plunked one down in front of me and dropped back into her chair. “Okay, spill it. All of it.”

Sitting back in my chair, I sipped the cold milkshake and told her about my visit to Eden and Gabriel’s missive. When I was done, she was staring, openmouthed, at my gremlin. “Your life is never dull.”

“Tell me about it. I can’t decide what’s worse—a demon-possessed sister with a slave hex hanging over my head or an angel of God dumping the future of good and evil in my lap.”

“This is bad. Really bad.” Keisha shook her head in a slow arc. “What are you going to do?”

Taking a long pull on my straw, I swallowed the cool, coffee-flavored ice cream and met her eyes. “It gets worse.”

All the muscles in her face tightened in fear. “Worse?”

“Lucifer told me he loves me.”

Her eyes lit up, her face muscles relaxed and she smiled. “I knew it. That man is fine, no matter what you say.”

“He is not
fine
. He’s the Devil.”

Chuckling under her breath, she stood and shuffled to the door. “Don’t you just love a happily-ever-after ending?”

“Happily ever after?” I slammed my milkshake down on the desk. “Do you understand what I’m dealing with here? I could snap my fingers and you could die. I could wake up tomorrow and have to clean dog poo off my sister’s shoes—
my
shoes—and tell her she’s prettier than Gwyneth Paltrow. Come on! My life
sucks
.”

Keisha and her psychedelic hair shook with laughter in the doorway. “Love conquers all.” She raised her milkshake cup to me and winked again before disappearing.

“That’s it?” I yelled at her. “That’s the best advice you’ve got? Love conquers all?” Growling in frustration, I kicked the side of the desk. “Just so you know, I’m hiding your romance novels!”

In the parlor, I heard her humming some silly love song. Gripping the arms of my chair, I spoke to the gremlin, still grinning widemouthedly at me. “Love conquers all. Bet you didn’t know that.” I gave a derisive grunt under my breath and rocked the chair back and forth with manic speed, staring at the ugly, unlovable talisman. “If that’s true, Gremmie, you and I both are in big, big trouble.”

Chapter Twelve: Redemption

Eight p.m. All Hallow’s Eve… Desperate, I stood in front of the Witches Anonymous group asking for their advice since Keisha’s had been so lacking. The tick of the clock on the wall made my pulse race—I didn’t know in what form temptation would appear or what I would do when it did. All I knew was I was running out of time.

“If I don’t keep Adam from giving into temptation, he loses his chance to redeem himself,” I told the witches. “If I do keep him from sinning, everyone ceases to exist. Poof.” I used Lucifer’s finger snap to emphasize my point. “Gone. Except Adam. And me.”

“That is so cooool,” Liddy said from the front row. Her eyes were twice their normal size, framed by her long curls.

“On top of that, I think my sister is possessed by something. Not Lucifer, but something evil nevertheless. I looked up demon possession on the Internet and she definitely shows symptoms. Anyone know a good exorcist?”

Liddy raised her hand in the air like a student trying to get the teacher’s attention. “There’s a priest at Immaculate Conception who does them.”

“They say he’s really good,” a gal in the back piped up. “And he’s cute too.”

Behind Liddy, Marcia exchanged an eye roll with the woman next to her. “That’s quite a dilemma, Amy. Good luck with that.” She stood, rubbing her hands in anticipation as she beamed at the group. “Who’s ready for our Drew marathon? Everybody to my house!”

A handful of women rose from their chairs, grabbed their coats and started for the door.

“But, what should I do about Adam?” I raised my voice above the noise of scraping chairs. “Don’t you have any suggestions for that?”

Liddy, still seated, raised her hand again, but before I could call on her, commotion erupted in the back.

The door swung open with a bang and Emilia blocked the exit. “I have a suggestion,” my Sister Dearest said. She was dressed in a black velvet gown, cape, and matching hat. Her eyes were solid black.
Supernatural
, here we come. “Redeem yourself and go to heaven so I can be rid of you.”

Silence bloomed in the room as every head turned to look at me. Liddy dropped her hand and her jaw. At the same time, her hair tensed.

Emilia was scary on normal day. Throw in demon possession and she was downright terrifying. Her angry energy poured and crashed in waves through the room, making the chairs spin.

“Good to see you, too, sis,” I said, masking the groan in my head. “What brings you here tonight? Don’t you have a house to haunt or a zombie to raise from the dead?”

“He kicked me out,” she snarled from between red-stained lips. I prayed the color came from Lancôme.

The women closest to Emilia took several steps back, their gazes now ping-ponging between us. “He kicked everybody out. Said he doesn’t want any witch but you.”

I didn’t have to ask who
he
was. While I’d been sincerely trying to ditch Luc for a couple of weeks now, the idea that he was pining for me to such a degree made me smile inside. “I made it very clear to Lucifer that I wasn’t going back to my old ways, Emilia. You know that.”

She took a step forward, her cape flowing around her, and the women moved backward in unison. “The only way he’ll get over you is if you’re gone.” Her voice rang with that eerie baritone echo. “Either redeem the world with Adam, or I’ll resort to desperate measures.”

It was obvious she hadn’t found the Atomic Sister Slave spell yet, or desperate measures wouldn’t be necessary. A spark of hope bloomed in my chest. There was still time to steal my spell book back. Unless, of course, she killed me in the next few minutes.

“If she redeems the world from sin,” Liddy said, her face a mirror of complex thought. “You’ll cease to exist, too. You do understand that, right?”

Emilia’s black eyes narrowed at the ex-Wiccan. “I’m a servant to the Devil. My soul is guaranteed to survive.”

Liddy chewed a cuticle and looked at me. A tiny bolt of energy shot from her finger and ricocheted into her hair. “Is that true? What about
our
souls? Will they cease to exist like our bodies?”

The technicalities were beyond my comprehension. “I don’t know for sure, but my guess is, if everyone born in sin ceases to exist, it doesn’t mean they die, it means they cease to exist, souls and all.”

Marcia pushed her way through the group of women, coming to a stop in front of me. “You are really something.” She shook her head in disbelief. “You have to be the center of attention at every meeting, don’t you, Amy?”

In the middle of my demonic-sister showdown and the clock tick-tocking away on the wall behind me, our lovely WA president wanted to pick a fight. “I’m dealing with your future here, Marcia, as well as everyone else’s. If I screw this up, you all pay the price.”

“There’d be no pain,” Liddy said in a dreamy voice. Her hand dropped back into her lap, but her hair still stood at attention. “No accidents, no sadness, no lonely nights waiting for the phone to ring. Sounds wonderful.”

Having given it a lot of thought, I had to add, “But all of the things people have created in this world will also disappear, Liddy. There’ll be no Beethoven’s 5
^th
or Springsteen’s “Born to Run”. No Emily Dickinson or Edgar Allen Poe. No Egyptian pyramids or Taj Mahal. No Orlando Bloom.” I paused to emphasize my next sentence. “No chocolate.”

Several of the women sucked in their breath. “No chocolate?” one of them echoed.

I nodded, my taste buds crying too.

Marcia turned on her and the others. “Are you listening to her? She’s Satan’s ex-girlfriend? Her sister’s possessed? She’s dating Adam, the original man? You can’t possibly believe this insane story.”

“Oh, it’s not insane,” Emilia said. Her red lips tilted in a ruthless smile. “It’s absolutely true. While Amy has always believed the world revolves around her, this time, it actually does.”

“Look,” I said to all of them. “I’m not making this up. Everything I’ve told you is true and if I don’t figure out what to do, we’re all in trouble.”

Emilia reached out and slammed the door shut. A new and powerful wave of energy zoomed around the room. “Too late. You and your group of freaky friends are already in trouble.”

A creepy, crawly feeling raced up the back of my neck. “What are you doing, Em?”

She snapped her fingers. “Poof, Amy.”

With a wave of her hand, she raised a protective bubble around herself. I saw her lips move in a silent chant through her wicked smile. The next moment, I smelled smoke.

“Emilia.” The voice in my head was screaming to get everyone out. “Stop it. Whatever you’re doing, don’t take it out on the others. It’s me you’re mad at.”

Outside the room, a fire alarm came to life. “So fight me, Amy,” she taunted. “And save them.”

Brushing by her bubble of protection, I grasped the doorknob and twisted it. Locked. Conveying calm I didn’t feel, I herded the women to the far corner. “She’s just trying to scare us,” I told them, trying to sound believable. “Stick together, and stay down on the floor. I’ll take care of her.”

Liddy grabbed my arm. White-hot electricity zinged over my skin. “She’s possessed, Amy. How are you going to handle her without using any spells or enchantments?”

Good question. Gray smoke seeped under the door. Taking off my jacket, I ran to the door and jammed it in the crack at the bottom. Then I looked around for a fire extinguisher. Nada. No extinguisher.

Break a window, I thought, and jump.

Nope, no windows either.

She could have wiped us out with one flick of her hand. Torturing us—me—was more fun. As smoke began seeping right through the walls, I returned to my WA compatriots and demonstrated what I wanted them to do. “Cover your mouths with your shirts. Breathe through the fabric.”

A few exchanged worried looks. Taking out my cell phone, I called Adam. He answered, out of breath. Sirens blared in the background. “Can’t talk now, Amy. There’s a fire downtown in the Golden Building.”

“I know,” I shouted over the background noise. “I’m in the building with my group. We were having our meeting and all of sudden a fire broke out.”

His concern touched me through the night air. “Damn. How bad is it?”

“Bad.” My eyes watered from the smoke and I used my shirt to wipe the tears off my cheeks. “We can’t get out of the room. We’re locked in.”

“Locked in? How did that happen?”

“Uh, I don’t know.” I shot a look at Emilia. Her red lips moved in her ghost-white face. “I guess the doorknob got jammed somehow.”

“Stay as close to the floor as you can. I’m only two blocks away. I’ll be right there.”

Something in me refused to lie on the floor with the others and wait. This time, I had to do the rescuing. After all, Emilia was
my
sister, possessed or not.

Handing my phone to Liddy, I gathered up momentum and charged Em’s bubble. Upon impact, I bounced back like a rubber ball, landing hard on my butt. “Ouch,” I yelped, rolling ass-over-broomstick backwards.

She clapped her hands in mock applause. “Oh, that was funny. Do it again!”

Like Liddy said, without my powers, I couldn’t hope to stop her. The fear in my stomach turned to self-righteous conviction. In my mind, the words of a spell formed. I didn’t try to stop them.

Before the first line of the spell could leave my lips, however, Gabriel appeared in the bubble behind Emilia. She didn’t seem to notice, she was so focused on doing me in.

Satan appears in many forms,
his cool, firm voice chided me.

Emilia was Satan, I’d give him that, but she wasn’t
the
Satan. Still, if this was the test, using my witchcraft would kill Adam’s chance at redemption. I racked my brain for another way.

My eyes continued to pour tears and my throat felt like it was stuffed with Brillo pads. “You set the other fires, didn’t you?” I yelled at her. Distraction had worked on her before.

She pointed her pale, well-manicured index finger at me. “You slept with Lucifer even after you told me it was over between the two of you.”

The wail of fire engine sirens outside overrode the smoke detector’s blaring ring. Another minute and I’d have help. “Technically, he showed up in my bed, but nothing happened. I was sleeping.” I coughed and croaked out the rest. “I just woke up and he was there.”

Reasoning with Emilia was like reasoning with Paris Hilton. “You lured him there,” she yelled at me. “I know it’s your fault.”

Coughing hard again, I pulled my shirt over my mouth to filter some of the smoke before I continued. “Emilia, if you kill my body, my soul will still spend eternity with Lucifer. Neither one of us wants that.”

Gabriel, watching the exchange, nodded his head, an almost-smile on his lips. Suddenly, I was sure he was behind my sister’s over-the-top craziness.

Emilia’s forehead creased as if my logic rang true to her. “I never thought of that.”

At that moment, an axe hit the door from the outside, wood splintering in every direction. Emilia screamed, Gabriel rippled his wings and I dropped to my knees in relief. Adam to the rescue. My hero.

The moment he came through the door in full protective gear, Emilia waved her hands and I heard the sharp crack of wood splintering. A ceiling beam overhead wobbled. “No,” I yelled, powerless to stop it from falling.

Adam’s gaze locked on mine a second before the beam hit him, knocking him to the ground. His ax slammed into the floor, and his helmet skidded behind a chair. The oxygen mask on his face slipped sideways.

Scrambling on hands and knees, I reached for him. “Adam.” He was out cold. I shook him hard. “Adam!”

Flames licked the now-open doorway. Pushing at the heavy beam, I tried to free him. I yelled at the women behind me to help. Liddy and several others broke from the group.

Dodging the flames and coughing our lungs up, we heaved the heavy beam off Adam and pulled him away from the door.

Unfortunately, that was our only way out. A wall of fire leapt from floor to ceiling, blocking our escape as completely as the locked door had done. No other firefighter appeared.

I had no choice. I could not let Adam and the WA women die because of my jealous sister, redemption or no redemption.

Time running out, I cradled Adam’s head in my lap, restoring the ring of the oxygen mask over his mouth and nose. The floor, ceiling and walls were cracking and popping in the blistering heat.

“I’m sorry,” I said in his ear over the roar of noise. “I can’t save humanity or change the balance of good and evil. The only thing I can do, at this moment, is save you.”

Laying his head back down on the floor, I rose, coughing, and faced Emilia in her bubble. Calling all my particles into the center of my body, I raised a hand and spoke. “Flames extinguish, stop this game…”

Emilia’s frown deepened. Gabriel extended his wings, his face turned to stone.

Ignoring both of them, I raised my voice. “Free Adam from all blame, and return the deceptive angel of God…”

Before I could complete the spell, Gabriel flew at me. The sight of him, wings fully extended and a look of utter hate on his face, made me jump back. I tried to duck, but he was too fast. He picked me up by the neck with one hand and slammed me against the wall. Heat seared through my jacket and into to my skin. I smelled my hair burning.

His grip was so tight on my neck, I couldn’t swallow. His eyes, a golden brown a moment before, now burned a deep red. There was no air in my lungs, but I forced the words to my lips, whispering, “…back to the realm from whence he came.”

Gabriel disappeared in a flash of white light. I fell to the floor in a heap and lay there, every bone in my body mush. The room was deathly quiet.

No smoke. No flames. Just blessed peace.

And then, out of nowhere, a lone person began to clap.

I sucked fresh air into my lungs. Raising my head an inch, I saw Lucifer sitting on the refreshment table. He smiled at me, his hands continuing to clap at my performance. Emilia had disappeared. With Gabriel? I wasn’t sure. The fire was out. The members of Witches Anonymous sat on the floor hugging each other, still stunned by their recent brush with death, a demented angel, and my ruthless, possessed sister.