Naughty Karma

“I haven’t had a physical in twenty years.”

Mia looked at him like he’d announced puppy drowning was his favorite hobby. “Sit down and take off your shirt.”

Chase lolled back in his chair. “A less secure man might be insulted that his wife’s first priority on getting back from her honeymoon is to get another man’s clothes off. Aren’t you glad you married me, cupcake?”

Mia ignored her spouse, her frown locked on Prometheus. “Why aren’t you stripping?”

He looked to Karma for assistance but she arched her brows with studied innocence. “I’d do what she asks. Consider it payment for the find.”

He wasn’t used to feeling indebted to anyone, so he immediately reached for the hem of his shirt, to even the scales. But he kept his eyes on Karma as he did, grinning wickedly when he saw her gaze snag at the ward tattooed just above his waistband. “Anything to get my shirt off, eh, angel?”

She rolled her eyes. “Be good and do what Mia tells you. I’m going to check on the witches.”

Karma strode out of the room without a backward glance, leaving him alone with a surfer chaperone and the mad scientist who was pulling all manner of strange devices out of the bag at her feet, cooing over each one like a favorite child. “I’m so glad I brought the portable EEG.”

“The witches are ready.” Jo opened the door to Karma’s office and her eyebrows flew up. “Nice six- pack.”

“Damn.” Mia pulled off the last of her sensors and stepped back, glowering at him.

“Thanks,” Prometheus said to Jo before returning his attention to the mad scientist. “Was that damn, we’re out of time or damn, you’re on the verge of death?”

“Damn, you’re normal.” Mia pouted as she began to pack up her things. “Your pulse is wrong, but everything else is entirely within natural ranges—with the exception of neural activity which is highly elevated in the region which may or may not relate to psychic ability. I’ll know more once I’ve examined your blood work, but so far everything is standard.” She spat the word like a curse.

Prometheus reached for his shirt. “I’ll take standard.”

“You won’t be putting your heart back in for a few days, will you? Would you be willing to come by my lab for a few more tests before your anomaly goes away?”

Before your anomaly goes away. Prometheus was jolted again by how close he was to having his heart back. He hadn’t missed it, these last twenty years, until he’d realized his time was running out. He’d kind of liked being the only man in the world—that he knew of—walking around without a heart in his chest. Now everything was going to change. One way or the other, things would be different. If everything went according to his plan, he would be whole—and with enough power that he’d be virtually immortal. With a little less luck, he might be limited to mere survival, no more power. And if they failed, if Deuma had her way, he might succeed in getting himself killed a couple months early. Either way, he wouldn’t be an anomaly anymore.

“Sure, Mia. I’ll come by in a few days.”

“If you’re done being dissected,” Jo said from the threshold, “Karma wants to do this in the lobby. She says it’s the only place there’s enough space for all the witches, but I think we’d all fit in here—she just doesn’t want to let the double-double-toil-and-trouble lot into the inner sanctum.”

“Can you blame her?” Chase said.

He and Mia headed for the door and Prometheus trailed behind, suddenly overcome by the need to drag his feet. He’d never been the uncertain type before—never really had anything to lose—but today was different. Today mattered.

He stepped out of Karma’s office and into a scene that couldn’t have been more different than the last one he’d seen. The witches were hugging, weeping and swaying—as if they might actually burst into a chorus of kumba-freaking-ya at any moment. Brittany stood in their midst, beaming at them like a proud parent. Karma looked like she was trying not to let anyone see how much she wanted to smack them all upside the head as she wrangled them into place. Prometheus caught her eye over the heads of the witches in front of her and she shot him a quick eye roll. He winked. Her lips twitched and she shook her head; he could almost hear her mentally calling him incorrigible. He’d been called worse.

Then the witches all settled into a circle with a plain plywood crate at the center and Karma was waving him and Chase over. Time for the moment of truth.

A full coven of witches was always a pain in the ass and today was no exception. She kept them on retainer because they could do things no one else on her staff had a prayer of accomplishing, but they weren’t hers the way the other consultants were—and they had an amazing capacity for generating useless, migraine-inducing drama.

The first warning throbs of a headache were building when Prometheus caught her eye and winked. And just like that she felt her headache ease, even as another tension replaced it.

What if this didn’t work? That was why it was so important they to do this today, rather than wait until closer to the deadline, so they had time for a backup plan, but having time for a backup plan didn’t mean she actually had the first idea what that backup plan would be.

Chase was confident—but he was always cocky. The witches seemed sure their part would work—but Karma had seen them equally assured five minutes before the Samhain ritual had exploded in their faces. Literally.

If she could will it to happen, today’s find and fetch would go off without a hitch—but even if her powers had been at full utility, that wasn’t within Karma’s powers. She didn’t know when this had become personal, but Prometheus had indeed become hers to save, though what she felt for him was still unclear and certainly in a different category than the way she cared for her consultants.

“How do you want me?”

His voice snapped her out of her pointless musings. She could worry about what she felt about him later; right now it was time to start the process of saving his ass. “You and Chase will stand here. As soon as he completes the find, the witches will pull the location from him and do the ritual to fetch the box containing your heart into this box.” She waved at the crate at her feet.

Prometheus frowned, squinting at the plywood box. She felt his power ripple out and over it. “What is it? Beyond some kind of cloaked grounding net?”

“It’s ingenious,” the witch spokeswoman Andrea bragged from her place in the circle. “The cloaking layer you noticed will simultaneously conceal it from the devil you’re stealing from and convince her it hasn’t been moved by projecting a false location. The grounding net will keep it from vanishing on us and keep the contents of the box intact—as long as you don’t open it.”

It had better do all that, for what they were paying for it.

“What happens if I open it?” asked Prometheus, who had probably never met a Pandora ’s Box he didn’t open.

“We aren’t entirely sure,” Andrea admitted. “The magic works along the same principles as Shrodinger’s Cat. As long as you don’t look inside, it’s both in there and not in there, but as soon as you open it, it’s only one or the other and we don’t know which way it will go. Cursed vessels aren’t exactly predictable. This was the only way we could think of to trick its natural magic.”

“Sounds foolproof to me,” Chase said, slapping Prometheus on the back. “Shall we do this?”

“I’ll get out of the way.” Karma retreated to stand next to Brittany, who was there for good luck, Mia, who was there for research, and Jo, who was there for the hell of it. The witches clasped hands and began to chant. The hair on Karma’s arms stood up as the power in the room shifted and coalesced. She could almost see it sparking in the air—electricity made visible and given a will of its own like miniature fireflies.

“Try to think about why you want your heart back.” Chase clasped Prometheus’s bare arm.

The warlock nodded. He met her eyes across the expanse of the circle and arched a cocky brow, but she could feel the tension radiating off him as distinctly as the magic in the air. He didn’t want anyone to know it, but he wanted this badly. That was good, because Chase’s ability would only zero in on the one thing the subject wanted most in the moment of the find.

“Here we go,” Chase said.