Page 43 of Hell and Hexes
I nodded, and we made our way closer to the road, trying to be as quiet as we could. We weren’t in place more than ten minutes when I saw the mob marching up the road.
No advanced scouts. No attempt at stealth. Either Dallas was incredibly sure that he’d be able to easily take the other werewolves down without any effort at surprise on their part, or he was secretly hoping to provide enough warning to his son’s pack that they could be prepared and maybe retreat off the mountain.
I was hoping for the latter.
Closing my eyes, I mouthed the words of my spell and felt the small thread of energy spark to life then die out. Sliding my hand in my pocket, I touched the button charms and tried again. This time, the energy roared through me with such force that it would have knocked me on my back if Eshu hadn’t been behind me.
He put a steadying hand on my shoulder, and I drew in a ragged breath, hoping the spell worked as I’d intended.
Adrienne gave me a nod and wiggled her fingers. Instantly, the air swarmed with hundreds of hornets, every one of them descending on the werewolves. I clapped a hand over my mouth to stifle a laugh as the werewolves danced around, cursing and slapping themselves as they tried to ward off the stinging insects. Some of them dove into the nearby bushes that I’d hexed, only to shriek as they found themselves in huge patches of wolfsbane. A few of the werewolves raced forward instead of retreating, and with a wiggle of Adrienne’s fingers, a murmuration of starlings swooped from the sky, dropping a thick load of bird poop on the werewolves. It was working. The mob of werewolves turned and ran back home with only one werewolf remaining to shout after his fleeing pack.
It was at that exact moment when my luck ran out. The wind shifted, and just as Dallas was starting to head after the others, he stiffened, turning around and lifting his nose to the air.
I froze, but the gig was up. Dallas snarled, his eyes glowing bright yellow as he turned and looked straight toward where we were hiding.
I’d knew there had been a chance that the werewolves would scent us out and know we were behind this. Even if they didn’t, I still knew there was a good chance they’d put two and two together and realize that a swarm of stinging insects and dive-bombing birds were magically coordinated. I just assumed Dallas would realize that we Perkins witches weren’t going to let this sort of violence happen inside our wards any longer, and that he’d concede the battle to us, if not the war. What I didn’t anticipate was how incredibly pissed off he’d be.
I’d seen werewolves angry before, but never this angry. A sane, rational Dallas would realize that if he killed us, he’d be sealing his fate, but this wasn’t a sane, rational Dallas. This was a werewolf who’d steeled himself to possibly kill his son and former packmates tonight, only to be stung by dozens of hornets, covered in boils from the wolfsbane, and coated with a large quantity of slimy bird crap. I reached inside my pocket to grip the button charms, hoping there was enough juice in them to get the three of us out of this.
Dallas took a step toward us, claws lengthening from his fingers, his jaw extending outward with the appearance of huge sharp teeth. “This. Is. War,” he roared.
Crap. I squeezed the button charms, trying to do something, anything. Make him slip and fall and injure himself enough to give us time to flee. Anything.
“Wish I’d brought a lion,” Adrienne muttered.
“Lion. Got it,” Eshu said.
The words were followed up by a roar that answered Dallas’s, and I felt myself knocked aside as a giant tawny-furred animal leapt past me and into the road.
It was a lion, but not like any lion I’d ever seen at the zoos. He was six feet at the shoulder and probably around a thousand pounds. He was a lion the size of a huge horse, and he was chasing Dallas down the road away from us and back home.
Eshu. The guy could shapeshift. Now that would have been a good thing to know before we headed out on this excursion. But I wasn’t too upset because he’d clearly saved us—for now.
“Think he’ll kill the werewolf?” Adrienne asked as the two figures vanished into the dark.
“I hope not.” I winced. “Either way we’re screwed. Dallas caught our scent, and I doubt he’s going to let this go.”
Adrienne stood up and brushed the dirt off her jeans. “Well, he’s got a choice. He can tell everyone in the pack we thwarted his attack plans, or he can keep mum about it and take revenge on us some other time. Or he can let the whole thing go and be grateful we gave him an excuse not to have to kill his son.”
“For tonight,” I reminded her, getting up as well. “He could easily regroup and do this again. We can’t be up here every night protecting Clinton’s compound. Next time he’ll be ready for us, and we might not have Eshu-the-giant-lion to drive him off.”
“Speaking of which, that was freaking awesome.”
I agreed, and as we headed back to the car, I thought about how amazing Eshu had been. He’d let us take the lead but jumped in when we were in trouble and needed help. And I’d done magic. Yes, I’d needed to steal some energy from the button charms, but I’d still managed to pull off a successful spell. That meant a lot and made me feel as if someday I might actually be back to normal—or at least as normal as a witch who’d died could ever be.
The pair of us were on high alert as we walked, but I still nearly jumped out of my skin to see a figure standing next to our car. It was only when he turned to me and smiled that I realized it was Eshu.
Running, I jumped into his arms and planted a kiss on him. I was aiming for his lips but in my enthusiasm missed and instead ended up kissing his nose instead.
“Thank you. He was so angry, and I wasn’t sure what he was going to do to us, and I was all tapped out of energy. If you hadn’t jumped in, I don’t know what would have happened to us.”
“Hey! I wasn’t tapped out. I was planning on…I don’t know, summoning some earthworms or something.” Adrienne came up behind me and crushed me in the middle of a quick three-way hug. “Thank you, Eshu. You were even better than the lions at the zoo. But don’t tell them that. They’re real divas.”
“I wasn’t going to let my couch-witch get mauled by a werewolf.” Eshu placed a kiss on my forehead. “Or her sister, either. Now if that Cassie sister had been here, I might have decided on a different sort of action, especially if she had Lucien with her.”
I laughed. “If Cassie had been here with Lucien, they would have been fully able to take care of Dallas themselves. She’s more powerful than the rest of us, even without Lucien by her side.”
Eshu smoothed my hair. “You’re more powerful than you think. Your luck isn’t just magic, it’s part of who you are, and no exploding microwave can take that away from you.”
I looked into his dark eyes and felt something beyond lust. Yes, he was funny. He made me laugh, made me dissolve into a puddle with one touch, but the gossamer strands that pulled us together had strengthened over the last few days and I realized I really wanted him by my side. Maybe forever.
Adrienne cleared her throat, yawning as I turned to look at her. “I’m beat and I need to deal with a vulture problem tomorrow. Can we get going? You guys can continue this love-fest once we’re back in town and I’m on my way home.”
I gave Eshu another quick kiss, this one on his lips, then dug my keys out of my pocket. Yes, I totally wanted to continue this love-fest, but I’d need to do more than drop Adrienne off at her car out front of my house. I’d need to call Cassie and let her know we were safe—andlet her know what a complete and utter mess we’d made of things.
