Page 37 of Strike It Witch

Weret-hekau Maleficium

Weret-hekau definitely sounded Egyptian, which meant my guess about the curse was spot on. Any magic having to do with the ancient Egyptian gods tended to be cursed in some way, though there were always ways around a curse—even a buyer’s curse.

Ideas on how I might get around this one zinged through my head. I whittled them down to ten, then five, and then one. I’d need to cash in a favor, but it could work.

Maybe.

“Tell him I’ll take the job.”

“What?” Ronan bolted upright. “You didn’t ask why he wants the book.”

“Oh, he thinks it will give him some sort of magical power over his enemies.” I waved my hands around vaguely to illustrate what I was saying. “It won’t, but whatever. If it’s the only way to get Gladys into the park, I’ll do it.”

“This is a mess.” Ronan glanced at the stainless-steel watch on his wrist. “We’ll talk more tomorrow—er, later today. I’ve got to get home. Rory’s supposed to call before her morning classes. She’s attending M.I.T. this year, you know.” He sat back on the seat, chest swelling with pride.

Ronan’s half-sister might’ve been the visual opposite of him—brown skin and dark hair to his white skin and auburn hair—but they were more like each other than they were their sharedfather. I’d met Aurora Pallás a few times, and I’d been struck by how fiercely intelligent, kind, and caring she was.

How an evil son of a bastard like Floyd Pallás had ended up with these two, I had no idea.

“When you talk to your father, tell him I’m renegotiating the deal. Gladys is free to move in here, and I’ll expect to be paid a finder’s fee for the book,” I said. “Thirty percent.”

“That’s going to piss him off.”

“It’s good for the man to rage a little. He’ll make a ten percent counteroffer, we’ll settle on twenty, and he’ll feel like he won, which will be important for when he actually loses.”

Ronan groaned. “You seem sure he’s going to agree to that.”

“There’s no way he’d offer if he had any other choice. He’ll agree, because he really wants that book.”

And to be rid of me forever.

Ronan thankedme for the tea and cookies and left.

Exhausted, I stripped off my bathing suit, took a shower, and went to bed. My dreams were acid-trip weird. An auburn-wooled wolf in sheep’s clothing served wine in a bubbling cauldron to a witch in a pointy black hat. The witch wore blood red lipstick and a poisonous camellia in her hair.

Ida knocked on my door at seven a.m.

“Found this on your front step.” She handed me an envelope with an ornate wax seal. “Black stationary with royal gold wax? What’s that ostentatious old demon up to now?”

She made coffee while I got dressed and slapped on some moisturizer. I penciled in her eyebrows then sat down to drink a cup. The radio played Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love,” one of Mom’s favorite songs.

Ida snapped her fingers to the beat. It was one of her favorites, too.

“Aren’t you going to open the letter?” She picked up her coffee mug and blew on the surface before taking a sip.

“Yeah.” I studied the envelope from Sexton. It smelled like old soil and anise. I prodded the seal with my index fingernail, and the letter opened, scattering fine dirt like glitter.

I read the letter and passed it across the table to her.

“The soil spoke one word: Vita.” She read it again, this time to herself. “Well, that was underwhelming.”

“Nothing less than I expected,” I said.

Ida scowled over the rim of her mug. “What the heck does it mean?”

“It’s Latin for ‘life.’ Given the way Mom’s soil feels about me, it probably means it wants to drag me underground so it can snuff out mine.”

My phone buzzed against the table. I read the text message and groaned. “It’s from Sexton.”

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