Witches of Bourbon Street (25 page)

“You!” I pointed, outraged. It had been Meri using Lailah to enter his dreams and sexually assault him in his office. “If you hurt him in any way, you’ll have me to answer to.”

Her high-pitched cold laughter grated on my skin. “I already have, white witch. His pain gives me almost as much strength as the angel does. I look forward to our battle. Imagine what I’ll be able to do once I’ve got you under my control.”

I stepped back, trying to put distance between us. If I could only find a way to snap out of the dream state.

Meri turned her gaze to Lailah’s prone form. “I was exactly like her once. So weak and eager to do God’s work.” She shook her head and focused on Kane. “Then I fell in love.” Her anger was so strong, I was sure if I’d been in solid form, I’d have been knocked over.

A rotten stench clung to her, something very close to death and decay. “Do you know what happens when angels fall in love?”

I shook my head, trying not to recoil in fear.

“They’re forever bound to their mate, even when they fall.” She jerked her head in Lailah’s direction. “She hasn’t suffered such a fate.” Her expression softened. She looked almost motherly, in a disturbing, twisted, creature-of-the-night kind of way. “Now she can live her life in Hell in peace.”

I shuddered. In Hell? Hadn’t Lailah said they were in Purgatory? I shifted toward Kane, fierce protectiveness running through my veins. “If you have a mate, what do you want with mine?”

“Him?” She glanced at him in disgust. “Nothing except his pain. It feeds power. I need to hunt down my cowardly mate who left me here to rot with only a few useless witches.” She waved a hand and a mystical window opened. Two women lay prone, unmoving in a stark stone room. I recognized them from the dolls. Priscilla and Felicia.

“What did you do to your sisters?” Loathing shuddered through me.

Fury blasted me. “That damn coven separated their souls from their spirits. Now they’re prisoners in time. And utterly useless. It’s hard to corrupt a soul that isn’t there.” She jerked her hand as if to wipe away their images and the scene changed, revealing a woman kneeling in a dirt-floor room. Her emaciated body seemed to sway unsteadily as she chopped a pile of dead leaves. Meri snapped her fingers and the woman’s head jerked up.

I stared into jade green eyes. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t. But then her face lit with recognition. My heart ached with desperate longing to run to her and wrap her in my arms. To snuggle up against her and smell the sweet wisteria perfume she’d always worn. To somehow grasp a hold of her and drag her back home. But I couldn’t do any of that in my useless non-solid form.

“No!” My mother stood and faced the demon, her frail body barely holding her upright as she shook with outrage. “You will not take my daughter. She will never succumb to your soul-eating black magic. She’s a white witch. Good. Pure. You can’t have her.”

“Now, Hope,” Meri patronized. “If you’d give in already and work the black spells like an obedient slave, I wouldn’t have to drain you so.”

My mother ignored the demon and turned to me, but before she could speak, Meri waved her hand again and the window disappeared. “Such a shame she’s so reluctant. She’ll see it my way soon enough. Especially once I add you to my collection.”

“She’s been here all this time?” Terror rooted me to the floor. “In Hell?”

“You do have a lot to learn. Don’t worry, you’ll catch on fast. This is Purgatory.” She indicated the room we stood in. “Hope spent the last twelve years here, frozen in time. But I rescued her shortly after the angel freed me. Now she’s in Hell. It’s only a matter of time before the black magic corrupts her.”

Fear squeezed my heart. If she fell to black magic, her soul would eventually be lost. “Open the window,” I demanded.

Meri took her time, studying me before she answered. “Give yourself freely, and I’ll take you to her.”

I glared at her. “What is it you really want?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Revenge.” Her tone deepened and her eyes turned into black saucers. “I was doing angel work with my mate and ended up getting stuck in Hell. I agonized for weeks, waiting for him to come back for me.” A thread of sadness escaped her cold demeanor then quickly shifted to betrayal. “But he never did. You have no idea how hard it is for a powerful angel to resist the call of black magic. It would have freed me in an instant, but we’re told so many things. That it will eat our souls. We’ll never be the same again. We’ll be lost to God.”

“What happened?” I whispered.

“He. Never. Came. And I fell. Became a demon.” Her eyes returned to their normal size and her tone became conversational. “It wasn’t so bad after that. I ceased to care about all the whimpering souls I’d been tasked to look after.

“Everything was going all right,” she continued. “I was moving up the demon ranks, gaining power. Then,
bam!
My connection to my mate kicked in, and I knew he was finally coming for me. I embraced his energy, welcoming him here. But then do you know what he did?”

I shook my head, overwhelmed by the demon’s confession.

“He helped the coven trap me in limbo. The bastard let them use his connection to me to bind my spirit in some horrific craft project. For
twelve years
,” she stressed. “Until your angel found me. You see, only an angel has enough power to awaken a bound demon. Lucky break. Now I’m stronger and coming back full force. Soon enough I’ll find that traitorous mate of mine. And you’re going to help me.”

“Think again, demon,” Kane spat. I hadn’t noticed him regain consciousness. Now he sat leaning against the hearth. “Jade will never be yours. She’ll never give her soul over to you or your black magic. Not as long as I’m around.”

Meri whirled in his direction and lashed out.

Kane’s eyes locked on mine.
Go
, he mouthed as my world tilted and once again faded into nothing.

Chapter 19

I woke breathing heavy, my heart pounding. Clutching my chest, I squeezed my eyes shut, as if to block out whatever torture Meri was inflicting on Kane.

Don’t think about it. Not about Kane and not about Mom. Time to make a plan.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the pale, early morning light. I’d expected Pyper to be lying next to me, but I found her and Ian sleeping in a chair in the corner of the room. Ian was stretched out with his feet on the bed, and Pyper had draped herself over him. If I hadn’t been so frantic about my dreamwalk with Kane and Meri, I would have tiptoed out of the room to give them privacy.

Instead, I shouted, “Wake up!”

I was already in the bathroom, pulling on my clothes when I heard a thump on the floor, followed by Ian’s voice. “Sorry.”

I poked my head back in and found Ian helping a hobbling Pyper to her feet. “What happened?” she asked.

“In the kitchen in five. I’ll get Bea and Gwen.” I turned to leave.

“They went back to Bea’s house last night,” Ian said.

“What? Why?”

“They wanted beds.” Pyper tugged Ian’s hand. “Come on, let’s go.”

Right before we left, I argued we should grab the portraits on the way to Bea’s so I could contact Felicia. My interaction with Meri didn’t explain how Dan was involved, but I suspected she’d put a spell on him, too. Lailah had been his angel. She had access. And she’d said every demon needed more minions. Right?

But Pyper and Ian overruled me. They weren’t doing anything without Bea’s input. Of course, once we woke Kat and filled her in, she’d agreed and I was the odd woman out.

I’d been surprised Gwen had gone home with Bea. She would never have left me after the awful day I’d had, using such a flimsy excuse as needing a bed. Kat would have gladly given her the spare room. She must have been keeping an eye on Bea after what she’d seen in her vision.

A cold chill ran down my spine.

Black magic. Was Bea capable of succumbing to such evil? On some level I knew all witches were, but I’d come to believe, despite Bea’s health the last few months and her brush with poison, that she was all-powerful. I’d watched her strip an angel of her power, for God’s sake.

Once we arrived at Bea’s house, we roused her and Gwen from bed.

“Wake up, sleepyheads,” Pyper said from the kitchen. “The kids have some answers.”

Gwen wrapped a thin arm around my shoulder. “Did you find him?”

“Sort of.”

She gave me a tight hug and whispered in my ear. “I’m glad to see you strong this morning. You scared me yesterday.”

I gave her a sad smile. “I scared myself. But this witch needs to deal with being a witch. People are counting on me.”

She gave me another tight squeeze. “That’s my girl.”

I tilted my head toward Bea. “Is she okay?”

“So far, so good.”

It didn’t take long to fill them in on what had happened. By the time we were done, Bea had turned white. “I did this to her,” her voice was barely audible. “I revoked her power. She had no way to fight it.”

“You don’t know that,” Ian soothed. “She’d poisoned you. She probably was already compromised.”

“You did what you had to do,” I said, not knowing if that was true. What did I know about coven protocol? I’d shunned the Idaho witches.

Bea gave us a half-hearted nod then straightened. “I need to see this portrait.”

“I told you—”

Pyper’s glare cut me off, and I swallowed the rest of the sentence poised on my tongue.

Bea stood. “Let’s go.”

***

Pyper pulled to a stop in front of The Grind. I cringed, remembering I was supposed to work that morning. “Did you find someone to cover for me?”

“Holly. Don’t worry. She’s got it covered,” Pyper said.

“That’s good,” I said, relieved. Holly was the assistant manager and a college student. She could use the extra money.

Pyper turned to the backseat and handed the keys to Ian. Her face transformed into a sultry pout. “Would you mind parking it for me? I told Bea she could park in my space around back. You wouldn’t want all of us to get soaked, would you?” On the way from Bea’s, the skies had opened up into a steady rain storm.

Ian didn’t even hesitate. “You got it.”

He waited for us to find refuge under Wicked’s balcony before he quickly moved to the driver’s seat and sped off. I noted the fresh rain had already washed away the rotten orange smell that usually lingered on Bourbon Street after a large street party. Being so close to Halloween meant the crowds had been in full swing.

Pyper pulled her keys out and went to work on the numerous locks on the club’s front door.

“Why are we going in there?” I stared longingly at The Grind, wishing for a hot chai latte.

“Kane locked them in the storage room, remember?” She disappeared inside. I was about to follow when a grip on my arm made me jump back. The door slammed closed with a thunk. I lashed out with my other arm, but only found air when my attacker ducked.

“Whoa!” Holly cried, holding her hands up in a defensive position. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Jesus. What are you doing scaring me like that?”

“I didn’t mean to. I called your name, but I guess you didn’t hear me over the rain and the racket.” She glared at a group of giggling twenty-somethings stumbling into the café. They obviously hadn’t gone to bed yet after a night of partying on Bourbon Street.

I gave her a sympathetic look and hoped none of them lost their pastries on the café floor. It happened at least once a month. “Sorry for bailing this morning,” I blurted. “I’d help if I could, but we’re having a sort of emergency. So unless it’s important, I really need to run.”

“I know, sorry, but there’s someone who’s been waiting for you. He’s been ranting kind of crazy about that friend of yours, Lailah. Plus, he’s insistent he has information for you about Kane.” She pointed over her shoulder. “He’s inside.”

Someone shifted, unblocking my view, and my whole body tensed at the sight of Dan.

Holly apparently noticed. “Or I can call nine-one-one.”

I quickly shook my head when I saw her fingertips poised over the screen of her phone. “I know him. How long has he been in there?”

“Since we opened.” She touched my arm. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah,” I breathed. “It’s fine. You should go back inside.”

She gave me one last questioning look before reluctantly heading back into The Grind.

Shortly after, Dan appeared on the sidewalk. The nausea I always experienced around him came on strong, though I wasn’t sure if it was due to my normal physical reaction or the high anxiety the sight of him caused.

He carefully worked his way through the small crowd of girls hovering together to stay dry. His movements were stiff and unnatural. Oh, Lord. He was still being controlled by a witch…or demon.

I backed up to the entrance of Wicked and grabbed the door handle. Locked. Damn it! Where was Pyper? Hadn’t she noticed I wasn’t with her?

Dan stopped a good five feet from where I stood. I would have breathed a sigh of relief if I didn’t think I’d lose the little bit of food gurgling in my stomach. “What do you know about Kane?” I demanded.