Page 38 of Handcuffs and Hexes

I was usually able to tell that I was dreaming; the abrupt scene changes always gave it away. So why had this dream tricked me so easily?

Come to me, Seth.

I froze, my breath hitching in my chest. I knew that voice. It was The Breach. That nightmare must’ve been its doing. How was it reaching me in here behind all my wards?

No wards can hold me, wizard, because I am your every desire. I’m everything you’ve ever wanted.

“No!” The exclamation woke Liam and Hazel.

“Seth?” Hazel’s voice was a welcomed relief. She was real. She was here. The Breach wasn’t.

“Sorry. It was a dream.”

“I know exactly how to chase away bad dreams,” Liam murmured. “You can help, Hazel. I’ll hold him down for you.”

Then there were about a dozen hands on my body, touching me everywhere, all of them his. Several of them grabbed my limbs, holding me to the bed, my arms and legs in a large X.

“You mean a Seth free-for-all?” Hazel asked, her smaller and warmer hands joining the fun. “Count me in.”

Iwatchedindismayas the concrete several yards directly in front of me crumbled, and The Breach grew just a little bit larger right toward me. I’d just tried to shrink it with my magic and failed. It was like it had taken the magic I threw at it and used it to grow instead.

Yes, Seth,The Breach moaned in my head.Give me more.

I ignored the voice that had been whispering to me since my last visit, something I’d kept from everyone for fear that they’d take me off the case. This was personal now and I had to figure out a way to beat The Breach.

“I’m glad you only used a little magic,” Sybil said.

Sybil was the witch who ran Auntie Syl’s Wards & Witchery. Sylvana had been her great-grandmother, and while Sylvana hadn’t been particularly strong outside of her specialty of creating wards, Sybil had enough magic to have caught Desmon’s attention.

“That’s the same thing that happened when our wizards tried,” said Nina Kwan, the director of our local branch of the EA. “We actually had to lock two of them up after because they tried to turn on us and jump into The Breach.”

The mixed-race phoenix shifter was no-nonsense and easy to work with, and I rather liked her. Currently, Sybil and I were here for Desmon, and Nina didn’t even blink an eye when I showed up in my street clothes.

“Were they both wizards?” I asked. I wondered if The Breach had whispered into the heads of those wizards too. What had she promised them?

“Yes, they were,” Nina replied.

“So they all used wizardry. This thing only calls in male magic users. Maybe it’s impervious to wizardry.” It was a thought I’d been entertaining since realizing she could reach inside my wards. I’d been meaning to bolster the existing wards with some witchcraft but hadn’t had the time to do it yet.

“That’s right,” Sybil said, nodding. “Has anyone tried witchcraft?”

“We had several witches try, but nothing happened.”

I exchanged a look with Sybil. We both knew that the EA didn’t have particularly powerful witches on their roster. Sybil sometimes helped out, but only when no one else could do the work, and like me, she charged an arm and a leg for her expertise.

Up until very recently, the EA had been a bit of a boy’s club, much like every other organization in the world, and as such, had viewed witchcraft in the same way the WEC did, as less than. I’d heard that it was still that way in some parts of the world.

But even after the EA encouraged witches to join their ranks, they’d found it hard to attract those with stronger magic. Blame it on the witch trials of previous centuries and the lack of trust many witches had in the existing system, but the best and the brightest didn’t want to have anything to do with the EA. They preferred to hide in relative anonymity. Things were changing, of course, but slowly.

“I’ll give it a go.” Sybil rolled her sleeve up. “But let me set up some containment first, so if it does grow, it’ll go the direction we want. Away from us.”

“Good idea,” Nina agreed.

As Sybil worked, The Bitch spoke to me.

We can be so powerful together. Imagine taking revenge on everyone who’d ever wronged you. We can do it together. You and I. We can rule the world.

The image of my asshole father being drained of his magic the way he’d done to Mom for years flashed in my mind, and the high of utter satisfaction rushed through me.

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