“Oh, gosh, yes. The cauldron crowd!” I nearly sprayed beer out of my nose because it was just so cathartic to know I wasn’t the only one dealing with this stuff. “Gotta make those spell in a cauldron. No stock pot for the purists. Excuse me while I just whip up an entire cauldron size hearth in a 1950s ranch house. And it’s always like a twenty-eight year old witch who homeschools.”
“I’m like, just buy some land and put the cauldron outside on an open fire and they’re like, but I need to be in walking distance of restaurants!” Jake said.
“I don’t want to have to keep up with a big yard,” I whined, mimicking the hip witches who didn’t want to relinquish all the cool powers of their ancestors but also really just wanted a human lifestyle.
At some point, this fun had to end. I had work to do. They had an eight hour drive back to Massachusetts.
We stood in the parking lot and I didn’t know quite what to say. They both looked at me like they wanted a kiss, but then they looked at one another and a little spark of competition crackled between them.
“Look—uh—this was really fun,” I said. “I’m glad we just hung out for once. Thanks for the beers and, you know—rematch sometime? I’m not going to let that ass kicking stand.”
This is good, right? Just keep to a ‘one of the boys’ vibe.
“And you’re sure you’re okay in that large, poltergeist and imp infested mansion?” Jake asked, with a slight tilt of his head that reminded me he was a wolf. It was the same tilt our family guard dog used to give us whenever we told him we were leaving. It was cute on the dog. Cuter on him.
“Yep. I’m going to call some guys tomorrow about the brick pointing and the bathrooms.”
“You are putting in a second bathroom, then? Good. I was going to tell you my thoughts on that,” Jasper said.
“Oh, obviously.”
Jake made the smallest grimace. I think I was witnessing him fighting off an animal instinct to just grab me, and the human awareness that this would make for an awkward time with his brother, and not impress me either. “Okay, well—no need to pay us, as long as we get another date after the next auction.”
“May the best woman win.” I smiled.
Jake slapped Jasper’s back and opened the driver’s door of their truck.
“Fuck it,” Jasper said, and he suddenly grabbed me and gave me a swift but surprisingly soft and warm kiss on the lips. His hand was at my waist and it felt so good to be close to someone, to feel desired. “I wanted you first,” he added. “And I’ll still want you long after Jake has turned his eyes to some chick at a Red Sox game.”
Jake threw up a hand and as soon as Jasper pulled back from me, he gave Jasper’s hair a very aggressive ruffle. “All right, I’ll give you credit, that was a power move. But he’s wrong, Hel, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, touching my lips, still tasting Jasper, and while we obviously both tasted like beer, there was something that I guessed was just him. I shook it off, for now. “I’ll see you guys around.”
Halfway home, I pulled over on the side of the very empty country road and fished my vibrator out of all the crap piled in the back seat. Enough thinking about guys. I’ve gotta get my head back in the game. The quicker I can turn over this house, the better.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
HELENA
I HAD a couple days of relative normalcy. The incubus would pop into my dreams now and then, but I kept the garden gate locked. All I needed was a nice date and a little me time alone, I thought, convinced that my sexual energy had cooled down enough that he was no longer as drawn to me.
I knew a contractor based about two hours from here and asked if he knew anyone who could deal with old bricks, and he hooked me up immediately. He knew a plumber too, so I could get the wheels turning on the new bathroom. Then I found some roofers to give all that a once over, crossing my fingers that this big old house didn’t need a new roof. That would be devastating to my budget, but Bevan felt it was in decent shape. If you were lucky, slate roofs really could last forever.
Every night, I kept coming back to that protection spell in the bedroom. Even after I should be sleeping, I was fussing with the tangled spell, trying different patterns and spell words to chip away at it.
These protection spells were usually made to be broken within a couple hours. The idea was that, if some other wizard or magical folk robbed your house, they wouldn’t want to stop to break a tangled spell. It was like if you could somehow tangle every electrical cord in your entire house into a big pile and they could only steal your TV if they got the whole bundle pulled apart.
This one was especially stubborn, so I was getting excited. There had to be something really good under those floorboards.
“Or something really bad,” Bevan pointed out. “You should be careful… He was a dark warlock.”
“Oh, I don’t know. It’s worth the risk.”
At this point, I felt very cozy with Lockwood House and I had some idea of the character of old Mr. Capello. His beautiful garden, his love of pulpy novels, the absolute abundance of different expired pasta shapes imported from Italy that I found in his pantry… I was sure that he’d been banished from Etherium because he fell in love with a succubus. And I wasn’t scared of a romantic reason like that.
I was thinking about this as I finally cracked the spell. I pried
