Page 15 of Brimstone and Broomsticks
Chapter 6
Cassandra
Clinton’s father, Dallas, answered the door. I’m pretty sure he would have slammed it in my face had I been some random person there selling magazines or soliciting donations for the local volunteer fire department, but I had two things going in my favor—I was a witch, and I was female.
Actually, I was pretty sure the last thing was the reason he didn’t slam the door in my face.
Not all the daughters of witches had magical ability, and of those that did, quite a few couldn’t manage more than a very specialized area of spellcraft. Some of us really got the short end of the magical wand—boil water with a touch, but only a few cups at a time, call an object from across the room, but only if that object weighed less than three pounds and wasn’t more than twenty feet away, invisibility, but only from twilight to dark and only if she had the forethought to put on camo or dark clothing first.
My sisters and I had a wider range of skills and abilities. None of us liked to completely show our hands, but being a descendant of Temperance Perkins meant the town residents, supernatural and otherwise, tended to regard me with caution. Well, they regarded me with caution after The Incident anyway. Before that, no one paid much attention to me at all.
Dallas was far more interested in what was between my legs than any magical power I might or might not have. He’d always been a letch. Didn’t matter whether someone was a werewolf, a harpy, a ghoul, or a witch, if they had boobs and a reasonably appropriate slot B for tab A, then he was game.
“Dallas. I’m here to talk with Clinton about what went on last night.” No sense in beating around the bush with this guy. Small talk would only give him the impression that he had a chance to get me in his bed in the next hour.
He leaned against the doorjamb and tossed his silver hair over one shoulder, stroking his reddish-blond beard with one hand. All the werewolves had long hair, men and women both. Men and the occasional woman also had an ample supply of facial hair. I think it was less to do with grooming trends and more to do with the fact that werewolves grew hair at an alarming rate, especially around the full moon. Their healing ramped up this time of the month as well. Last year Evie Howler had fallen face-first into a bonfire during one drunken party and come out of it looking like something from a horror movie. The next night not only was her skin completely healed, but her hair had grown back to past her chin.
“Sure you’re not here to see me instead?” Dallas continued to stroke his beard.
“Unless you’re the one pressing charges against my client for assault, then no.” I squeezed in past him and immediately regretted it as the guy copped a feel on my ass.
I’m a witch. I could have hexed his hand or cursed the thing right off his wrist joint, but I didn’t practice magic, and I needed this werewolf’s cooperation. For all his skeeviness, Dallas was pack alpha. I wouldn’t go so far as to sleep with him, but if grabbing my rear got him to insist Clinton drop the charges, then so be it.
“Clinton’s pretty pissed,” he told me. “Who the hell beat him up anyway?”
I shrugged, moving out of the range of the werewolf’s hands. “A newbie. Some tourist.”
He chuckled. “Some tourist? You see Clinton’s face? And Stanley wound up with twenty stitches in his head along with that broken arm. If he’d been human, he’d probably have been dead.”
I grimaced. “Stanley is the one who got his head shoved into the windshield, right?” Dallas nodded. “Well, if it’s any consolation, the guy in jail doesn’t look all that good either.”
Actually, he looked pretty damn good, and I wasn’t just talking about how attractive the man was. I’d seen people who’d been on the other side of Clinton’s fists before and it hadn’t been a pretty sight. Last month a werewolf had come close to killing one of the humans in town. We let the werewolves get away with a lot, but serious injury and death was where we drew the line. The sheriff had asked us to visit the pack compound as a group and make it quite clear to Dallas that the werewolf clan needed to follow the town rules. I’d been bouncing that stuff back on our elected officials for over almost two decades but for some reason I was in a bad mood and had decided to intervene. I’d marched up to the compound and told the alpha that the if someone died, every wolf in town would wind up a rug on our floor. Normally Dallas would have laughed in my face, but ever since The Incident, he’d seemed to take me a bit more seriously. Since The Incident everyone took me a bit more seriously.
Temperance Perkins hadn’t established this sanctuary and put these protections in place for supernaturals to turn into a bunch of bullies. Maybe Aaron was right. Maybe the town did need a witch to keep things in order. But why did that witch have to be me?
I know. Whine, whine, whine. But seriously, could I at least have ten or so years of my life where I didn’t have to do something that was imposed on me because of who or what I was? Or because someone else wasn’t up to the task?
“Well, Clinton’s spitting nails,” Dallas commented. “That guy might be a tourist, but he’s no newb. Man took on four werewolves and lived. What the hell is he, Cass?”
Like most supernaturals, Dallas underestimated the abilities of non-magical humans. And he underestimated how vicious a crazy person could be when provoked. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if Lucien really did have something demonic going on.
Or he was just really kick-ass at fighting.
“He claims to be the son of Satan.” I shrugged and held up my hands. “If that’s the case, Clinton and the boys are lucky they walked away at all from that fight.”
Dallas’ reaction was just as comical as his come-hither routine had been. The werewolf shuddered, his blue eyes wide. “A demon? I hate those damned things. Why you gotta let them in town, Cass? Why can’t it just be us here and the occasional newb and tourist without a bunch of hellspawn mucking things up?”
I blinked in surprise, and not just because he felt like I was the one that decided who got to stay in Accident and who got to leave. He’d encountered a demon before? There’d never been a demon in Accident as far as I knew. And as far as I knew, Dallas had spent his life here, outside the occasional hunting vacation in the Rockies or up in Alaska. Where had he encountered a demon? And why was he so worried?
“We’ve got to be welcoming to all sorts, Dallas,” I told him. “This town was founded to be a haven to all. If we’re going to open our wards to werewolves, gargoyles, mermaids, and silkies, then we need to let demons in as well. If you feel otherwise, then petition the mayor, not me.”
“You’re the witch,” he countered. “You’re the eldest female of the line. You’re the one that decides this stuff, not some jackass of a mayor.”
“Times change,” I informed him. “We’re not living in the seventeenth century any more. I might be a witch, but I’m not the duly elected official of this town. If you want to ban demons from Accident, take up a petition or talk to the mayor.”
“Don’t want them here. They don’t belong here. Demons aren’t like us,” he complained. “I don’t feel safe with one in town. I don’t trust that your magic can keep him under control, make him mind the rules, ya know? And when witches and demons get together…well, it ain’t fair. It ain’t at all fair.”
I tried to sort through his words, trying to determine what exactly was fueling his objection.
