CHAPTER FIVE
HELENA
I WAS DEFINITELY TEMPTED to call Bevan right back here to protect me. But I also needed him to tell someone I was here alone with a broken ankle, or at least a bad sprain.
It’s probably the old man’s ghost. This house meant a lot to him, and his grandson ditched his stuff. Maybe he had something he needs to tell me before he moves on.
The footsteps were coming closer. I held my wand at the ready. My hand was shaking terribly. So much for my tough, I-can-do-it-all-by-myself attitude. I couldn’t believe I was going to have to ask for help.
Well, the least I could do was face a ghost calmly. I took a slow breath, focusing on the powerful wand in my hand instead of the pain in my leg. Just a simple shift of focus went a long way. I felt stronger as the pain retreated somewhat into the background.
I composed myself just in time to face the ghost—
Not ghost.
Not ghost.
Demon!
Red alert!
My brain fuzzed into complete terror as a full-on demon appeared in the door. Wings, big sharp curved horns, a tail, and amber eyes that seemed to glow just a little. His hair was dark and thick with an artfully untamed look, his skin a golden brown color. When I encountered incubi in the real world, they looked human—just extra sexy.
Not this dude. He was pure fantasy. He filled the entire doorframe with his half-spread wings and huge muscular shoulders. Technically, he was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and pants, but his muscles and his—uh—package—were all testing the limits of cotton and wool. But in contrast to this, his face was downright beautiful, like a dark angel.
An incubus, I thought. An incubus. Okay. They’re low demons. No big deal. No big deal. All they want is sex.
I really had no idea how to react to this. If I was healthy, I could definitely just cast a ward to keep him off me. It wasn’t like I was the kind of girl an incubus was really gunning for. They could have anyone they wanted. I wasn’t the sexiest witch out there, or the most powerful. I didn’t fall for enchantments easily either. Sure, the primal part of my brain had noticed that this was a very hot demon, but most of my brain was not primal. Most of my brain was just thinking that I would rather eat rats than get knocked up by an incubus. That was just so…trashy. And I had too much to do.
I remained completely frozen. I managed to open my mouth.
“You should leave this house,” the incubus said.
“Leave?” I gasped.
An incubus wasn’t supposed to ask you to leave. They were supposed to seduce you.
I couldn’t help but feel a teeny, tiny bit insulted. I mean, he could at least try.
“Yes,” he said. “Leave. I don’t know you.”
“I’ve broken my leg,” I said. “So…I’m waiting for someone to help me leave, and then…I’ll leave.” I remembered that this was my house, however. “For now. I bought this place. I own it.”
“This is your house?” he asked—or more like, demanded, stepping into the room and spreading his wings like he was trying to intimidate me with his size. “I don’t care by what means you think you made this house yours. This house belongs to the Capellos.”
“Well…senior is dead and junior isn’t interested,” I said. “I’m all you’ve got.”
“Young Graham simply sold off the house to a stranger? No. You should not be here.”
“I paid for this place, fair and square,” I said. “I paid for it with my last dime, because I love this house, even though it is already trying its best to destroy me. So you can try, but I know plenty of locksmith spells.” I winced, as I realized this was escalating. “Look, I didn’t mean to snap. I’m Helena.”
He started it, but I knew enough about dealing with pesky demons and spirits and…really, any sort of being with a connection to a place. I needed to wipe away his connection in order to sell the place, and so I had to reason with him.
“I knew it was a bad idea to leave the place to the boy,” the demon said.
I snickered. “I know it’s easy to lose track of time in the magical world, but Graham is probably almost forty now.”
“But still so innocent! He was lost to the mundane world. I told Fiore that he needed to bring the boy here, but he wouldn’t listen. He said Graham would come home when it was time, but the time is now past. So he has decided he doesn’t want this home at all?”
“No…” I realized that while I had killed most of the pain of my broken leg with a spell, my skin had broken into a sweat all over and little quivers of nausea were passing through me. Mild shock, maybe. I needed a real healer. I didn’t even know who Bevan could find to help me. I had a few friends from school that I kept in touch with. God help me if he contacted any family members.
“You really are hurt,” the demon said, now showing some concern. “Can I help?”
“No, thanks,” I said, trying to be polite, but all incubus magic had to do with sex, so there was no good way he could help me. “Help will come soon.”
The incubus raised an eyebrow at me. “I wonder if it will,” he said. “We are very far away from any other soul.”
“Bevan can go to the Ethereal plane and find another familiar and talk to one of my witch friends that way and then they might be able to travel through the Ethereal realm and come here.”
“If it’s that easy, it is certainly taking him a while,” the demon said.
“He knows what he’s doing.” I tried to move. Nope. As soon as I did, a lance of
