This Strange Witchery

As was necessary to any sort of spin job, he knew how to take rotten lemons and make spectacular lemonade.

Closing the laptop, he hummed a few bars from “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” and performed a side-to-side then forward swanky dance step into the kitchen. He opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of Perrier. He drank half and set it on the counter. The day had taken a turn. It hadn’t started out all that swell, with a tea hangover and the harpie attack. All because of the—

“The witch.” He’d forgotten about the witch in his bedroom.

Loosening his tie and humming his way down the hallway, Tor felt a new enthusiasm for this unexpected protection job. The witch needed his help. He was the man who could help her. It would be his last hurrah before entering the corporate realm of humans and all things mundane.

Opening the bedroom door, he stepped inside to find...no witch.

“Hmm...” To his left, the closet door was open. Had he forgotten to tell her not to touch anything? He never overlooked the details most important to him.

Tor stepped into the closet. “I’m finished—”

The witch, who stood at the end of the closet, turned abruptly, her smile exaggerated and her shoulders to her ears. She wore one of his vests over her red blouse. One of his black silk ties hung loosely about her neck. And in her hand was one of his fedora hats.

“Oops,” she managed.

Aghast, Tor took a moment to settle his sudden need to shout an oath. He put up a hand. “I don’t even want to know.” He truly did not.

He had to force himself to leave the closet, but—“Okay, wait.” Turning to face the witch, he planted his feet and crossed his arms. “I really do need to know.”

Melissande carefully placed his hat back on the shelf and made a point of aligning it as neatly as it had originally been placed.

“Why are you in here?” he persisted. “Wearing my things? Are you...mentally unbalanced?”

She gaped at him. “I got bored. I don’t do TV, and I wasn’t interested in your literary choices. And I figured if I worked some magic, it could get noisy. And you did reprimand me to be quiet.”

“I don’t reprimand—”

“Oh, it was definitely a reprimand.”

“So you decided to try on some of my things as a means to...?”

“I’m a curious person,” she defended herself. “And your clothes smell good. Cherry and tobacco. Like you, I presume. But I can’t imagine that you smoke. That’s not very attractive. Speaking of, you are much more attractive than I’d expected.”

“Than expected?” He had to ask. She had a way of teasing out his curiosity.

“Sure. I thought you’d have a gimp eye or, at the very least, a scar. You know, with the kind of work you do.”

He really did not know, and if he thought about it too hard, he might go down the path she followed. And that scared him more than a raging demon or a squawking harpie.

Melissande tugged the tie from her neck, and he rushed to grab it.

“I’ll take that.” He carefully folded it and placed it in the open tie drawer. A few adjustments to the other ties she’d obviously touched and moved out of order were necessary. “I’m sorry. The interview went long. The rest of the day I’m all yours. In fact, we need to sit down and discuss a game plan.”

“Good idea. But I’m hungry.”

“Of course you are, you harpie-banishing, vest-wearing witch. Let’s just get that vest off you...”

He helped her slip off the vest, and as he did so, Tor drew in the lush scent of her dark hair. Like lemons, but sweeter, almost candy. It was surprising how the scent attracted him. When she turned to give him an inquiring look, for a moment their faces were but inches apart. Exceedingly intimate. And...he had but to move his hand an inch to touch her hair...

“Right.” Tor backed away and hung the vest to distract his straying thoughts. Why was he so confused about whether to reprimand or kiss her? “I keep some prepared meals in the freezer. You might like the poached salmon mousse.”

“Sounds futuristically unappealing, but I’m in.” She marched out of the closet, leaving him in her lemon-scented wake.

She was a handful of kooky and strange, and she annoyed him in virtually every way. Trying on his clothes? He closed the tie drawer carefully. And yet he couldn’t think of a single reason to push her out the door and wash his hands of her crazy. So for now, he’d play along.

At the very least, she was entertaining.

Chapter 5

“If that was a job interview,” Mel said while prodding at her microwaved dinner, “I’m guessing it’s not your usual protection and cleanup work?”

“It’s a one-eighty turn from what I usually do. A job in an accounting firm. Completely normal.” Tor had finished his meal and was cleaning the plastic bowl for the recycle bin beneath the counter he’d pointed out to her.

“Huh. But you do what you do so well. I don’t understand why you’d want another job.”

“I need normal. And let’s leave it at that. Deal?”

“If that’s the way you want to play it. Do I have to stay here while you’re protecting me?” The meal he’d taken from the freezer and reheated in the microwave was supposed to be some kind of wild-caught fish-mousse thingy with lemon sauce on green beans but—ugh. “Don’t you ever eat fresh food?”

“That’s fresh. The chef delivers it frozen. No time to cook, and I eat out a lot. Lots of fresh choices that way.”

“Depends on where you eat. I need to go home this evening and pack some stuff if you expect me to stay here. Not to mention bring along half my fridge. A witch can’t survive on tough beans and rubber fish.”

She shoved the food tray forward, finished. Hey, she’d given it a shot at least.

Tor took it and, using a brush, began the same meticulous cleaning under the running sink water. “As protector, I follow you,” he said. “If you need to go home, that’s where I will go. I’ll be the one who packs some things. And once you’re home, you can add a cloaking spell to that thing.” He nodded to the plastic container sitting at the end of the counter. “Apparently whatever ward you put on it—”

“I only had time for a quickie ward before the harpie flew in.”

The heart didn’t glow now. Through the pink plastic, it merely looked like a hunk of meat. Which was odd to Melissande. The artifact was the real heart taken from Hecate’s chest. But when she touched and held it, it felt like glass, save for its rubbery texture. If it needed cold storage and might get stale on her, she had better not only cloak the thing but perhaps also keep it on ice.

She sniffed the air, but didn’t notice a rancid smell. “That’s a good idea. A cloaking spell will enhance a ward. But I’ll need Bruce’s help since I’m still new to dark magic. Such skills are a lifetime endeavor. It’s always a learning process, no matter the magic a witch practices.”

“Does the floating—er, levitating frog help with your spells?”

“Of course. He is my familiar,” she stated as if he should know better.

She slid off the stool and grabbed the heart. “Let’s head out. I’m hungry, and I’ve got some fruit salad at home with my name on it.”

“Let me grab a few things before we leave. Won’t be but a few minutes.”

The man strolled down the hallway back to his bedroom, whistling as he did so. He had a long, easy stride that spoke of confidence. Something Melissande was always unsure she possessed. And that was the paradox of it, wasn’t it? If you weren’t sure you had it, then of course you didn’t.

Hugging the plastic box to her chest, she wandered down the hallway, cringing only a little that earlier he’d found her wearing his clothes. Everything had smelled like cherry tobacco. It was a deep, heady scent that had lured her to sniff his clothing. And wearing him on her had allowed her to submerse herself in his world. To feel, for a moment, what it must be like to be Torsten Rindle, stylish protector against all means of evil. She bet not a lot of slayers or cleanup professionals could work the bespoke suit like he did and still manage to take out the enemy with such skill.

Tor must have plenty of enemies. She hoped he didn’t consider witches enemies. A man like him must work for all breeds and species, so hopefully he didn’t discriminate. Yet if he did not, that could also imply he didn’t discriminate when it came to slaying one.

Peeking into his bedroom, she spied him zipping up a small bag. He startled at the sight of her. “Oh. Uh...” He glanced to the open closet door.

That man’s closet was a fashionista’s wet dream.

“I, uh...was thinking I should arm myself with a few extra weapons before leaving.”

“Sounds like a plan.” She remained in the doorway.

Tor stayed by the bed, peering into the closet.

“So?” she prompted.

He pointed toward the closet, then smoothed a hand down his tie.

“You keep weapons in your closet?” she guessed. “I didn’t see any when I was—well, you know.”

“My closet is a sort of personal stronghold to me.”

“Where you keep all things most important to you.”

He winced. “It’s not so much that—give me another few minutes.” He strode into the closet.

And Melissande followed.

“I said to give me a few,” he insisted as he spun to stand before a small panel on the wall he’d opened. She hadn’t noticed that when she’d been in here earlier.

“You have a secret weapon stash?” She slipped around him and studied the panel, which consisted of a few round buttons. “What does the red one do? Sound the alarm? Send out the hounds? Alert the dragons?”

Tor sighed and gripped the little door that had concealed the buttons. “It reboots the system should an electrical failure occur due to lightning or power outage.”

“Oh.” Melissande dropped her shoulders. Sounded a lot like her place. It was an old house in desperate need of new wiring. There wasn’t a storm that occurred that did not leave her sitting in the dark, from a few minutes to hours. Not that she minded. Candles were always better than electric lighting. “So show me. Oh, come on—it’s not like I don’t already know your secret identity.”

“My secret—” Shaking his head, Tor pressed the topmost button, and the panel that displayed his ties in neat rows swung open. Inner fluorescent lights flashed on to brightly illuminate another room. He waggled an admonishing finger at her. “No touching.”

She sighed dramatically, then conceded with a nod and followed him inside.

This secret closet was as big as the clothes closet. The longest walls, parallel to one another, were covered with a mosaic of weapons. Melissande’s jaw dropped as she swept her gaze over pistols, rifles and semiautomatic weapons in all sizes and calibers. The knife section boasted the smallest pocketknife to a machete the size of a man’s arm. Garrotes were neatly coiled and hung with precision on the gray microfoam-padded wall. Dozens of wooden stakes were neatly stacked on the marble counter. An entire section featured vials of what she assumed were either spells or vile concoctions designed to injure or even kill. The vials with crosses etched onto the glass must be holy water.

Behind her, Tor took down a handgun and checked the bullet cartridge. “You will not tell anyone what you’ve seen in here.”

“Of course not.” She ran her fingers over the smooth matte-black finish of something that resembled a rifle but could also be a crossbow. She wouldn’t have the first notion what to call all these weapons, let alone gossip about them.

But thinking about gossip...she really needed to get together with the girls and tell them about her studly new protector. Tuesday was living with the handsome vampire Ethan Pierce. And Zoe had been shacking up with the gorgeous slayer Kaspar Rothstein for years. It was high time Melissande got to brag about a sexy man.

But first she needed a better reason to brag than that she was paying him.

“Can you not touch?”

“Of course I can. I mean, cannot.” She pulled back her hand and watched as Tor fit a knife in the inside pocket of his suit coat. A box of shells and another Order-of-the-Stake-issue stake were grabbed and tucked away in various pockets or loops on his attire. “What is everything for, exactly?”

“Vampires, werewolves, demons.”

“Mermaids?”

“I have a suffocating lariat should I encounter a vicious mermaid.”

He ran his fingers over a small iron sphere that had spikes coming out of it.

“What’s that for?” she wondered aloud.

“Dragons. They need to swallow it, and it’ll explode in their gut. Messy.”

Wow. Melissande had never seen a dragon. He lived an exciting life. Gossip-worthy, even.

“Faeries,” he recited as he moved his gaze over various weapons. “Reptilian-shifter. Angel. Kitsune.”

“What about ghosts?” Melissande tried.

Tor turned his gaze directly on her. “I don’t do ghosts.”

“Oh, but—”

“No ghosts,” he repeated firmly. And he brushed his fingers over the crystal talisman hanging from his belt. She was about to ask what it was for when he said, “Ghosts are just... No. Now come on. And don’t touch that!” he called as he filed out of the room.

Melissande made a point of gliding her fingers along a bayonet-like weapon after he’d called out the warning. She barely slipped out into the fore-closet as the door swung shut. Tor gestured for her to vacate the room, and she felt like she was being directed around like a child. She wouldn’t have ruined a thing in that room. How could she, a tiny witch, manage to do that?

“You have trust issues,” she concluded as she followed him down the hallway and into the living area and kitchen.

“And you are far too trusting,” he countered. “Where’s the heart?”

She caught herself before saying oops. Holding up a staying finger, she then dashed down the hallway, grabbed the plastic container from the end of his bed—took one more moment to inhale his uniquely sexy scent—then rushed back out to the man who waited by the open front door.

“Don’t worry,” she said as they exited his place with her bags in hand. “We’ll sync onto one another’s wavelength. I’m already dialed into yours.”

“Is that so? Right.”

She turned right as they walked outside and remembered he’d parked in that direction.

“Yes,” she said. “You’re controlling, precise and closed. I might be able to work with that.”

They arrived at his van, and he opened the passenger door for her. “You don’t need to work with anything. Just be you. Cloak and ward the heart. Go about your normal—whatever it is you do. And let me do my job. Deal?”

As she slid up onto the seat, Melissande turned and stuck out a foot to prevent him from closing the door on her. “How much is all this going to cost me?”

“We’ll come to an agreeable arrangement.” He shoved her foot inside and closed the door on her.

The man could be intolerable. But that made her smile. He was a tough one. She would enjoy peeling away his layers to get to the soft mushy stuff in the middle. Because everyone had that mush. Some even wore it on their outermost layer.

She did. And she knew she had to toughen up for the unavoidable trial that would arrive in a few days. She could do this. Her mother needed her. And her father would be so proud.

“Maybe I can learn to toughen up from Tor,” she muttered. Behind her, he deposited his supplies in the back of the van and closed the door. “Time to step up, Jones. Your family needs you.”

She smiled when Tor got in and fired up the engine. She had made the right choice in choosing her protector. But no ghosts, eh?

That could prove to be an issue.

Chapter 6

“Carrots, celery and an onion.” Melissande set the vegetables on the counter before the cutting board and handed Tor a knife. “When you’re finished, I’ll get the mirepoix simmering for soup. Meanwhile, I’m going to the spell room with Bruce to put that cloaking spell on the heart.”

“Please do.” Tor grabbed a carrot. “Peeler?”

“Nope, I leave the skin on. It’s better for you. Nutrients and all that.”

He gave an indecisive tilt of the head at that statement. “What is it that you do, anyway?”

“What do you mean?”

“Earlier, when I said you should go about doing what you do. I—Do you have a job? Will I be guarding you while at work? Or are you just...a witch?”

“Oh, I work! I mean, most of the time. I’m a bit of a jack-of-all-trades, like you. I worked at Shakespeare and Company for a few months. Then I got a gig at the ice-cream shop around the corner. I loved that place. They didn’t love me giving out free samples. Oh, and just last month I was taking tickets at the d’Orsay, but the manager fired me for letting in tourists on expired city passes. I’m sort of between jobs right now. Which is a good thing. I’ll be focusing my attention on perfecting the spell this week and making sure I’ve got it ready to go. Which means we’ll be spending a lot of time together! Come on, Bruce!”

The witch scurried out of the kitchen on a sweep of fluttering black hair. Tor paused before touching the knife to the first carrot.

Bruce floated through the kitchen, passing eye level with Tor. The frog delivered a judgmental croak. Then he floated out. Or levitated. But wait—wasn’t levitation more a nontraveling action? It was floating that moved a person—or frog—from one place to the next. Levitation merely moved an entity up and down. Maybe? He wouldn’t argue with the witch about it. She was just weird enough to have a completely rational explanation for it.

And he was just curious enough about her to want to engage in such a chat.

“Right, then.”

They’d be spending a lot of time together. Tor wasn’t sure how he felt about that. While she was definitely pretty to look at, and wasn’t at all a threat to him, he wasn’t sure her wackiness could be endured for more than short bursts at a time. He did value his privacy and alone time. He had his...ways. And he didn’t like when they were disturbed. Like finding his silk tie hanging about her neck. Even if she had been the cutest thing ever—

Well, she had been.

Tor remembered the time he’d had to protect a celebrity singer from the vampire she’d attracted by mistakenly answering a text she had thought was a tease to drink her blood. That woman had clearly defined high-maintenance to Tor. He would never live down the trips to the beauty salon for seaweed wraps if anyone learned he’d had to accompany her there.

He should be thankful Mel was seemingly self-sufficient and didn’t seek the spotlight or have too many friends. He liked to keep what he did a secret. It was a necessity.

He turned back to the task. Chop vegetables? Not a problem. He eyed the length of carrot, took a moment to calculate his slices, then began. She hadn’t told him how many carrots to chop. There were at least ten in the bag. And as much celery.

As he chopped, he decided this activity was a weirdly soothing task that occupied his brain in a way that allowed him to focus. So often, he had a dozen things going on at once in his temporal lobe. Where was the dangerous creature? How many? Was he surrounded? Where were the escape routes? Had he loaded enough ammunition? What chemical was required to clean up sticky, tar-like demon blood? And would he get a call for the second interview?

He felt the Skype interview this morning had gone well. And hoped to hear back within a few days for another in-person interview. He’d doctored his résumé as best he could, leaving out the parts where he did spin for a group that slayed vampires and, in turn, spinning his skills to show that he worked with the local news outlets and reported on current events that could impact the residents. Spin was making the unordinary sound ordinary. Vampires? Get real! It’s just a bunch of satanic idiots.

And while the accounting firm employed number crunchers, someone in the human resources department didn’t require such skills. So he was safe there. And he could make nice with humans and paranormals alike. Changing a man’s mind after he’d witnessed a werewolf tromping through his gardenias in the backyard? Not a problem. Did he know that gardenias gave off an intoxicating scent that was actually studied and determined could alter a person’s thoughts and give them illusions? No? Well, it was true.

Fake science worked every time.

Tor took pride in what he did. Every single thing he did. He pushed aside the growing pile of orange carrot cubes and eyed the bag of celery.

Everything.

Half an hour later, he set down the knife after a round of near-tears with the onions.

Mel bounded into the kitchen and set the container with the heart on the counter. When she eyed Tor’s work, her jaw dropped.

Behind her, Bruce floated over to levitate above her shoulder. The reptile croaked in the most judgmental enunciation Tor had ever heard.

“That’s a lot of vegetables,” Melissande declared at the sight of the piles that Tor had heaped onto the countertop on a piece of waxed paper. She noted the empty plastic bags that the carrots and celery had been in. “You chopped them all.”

“You didn’t say not to.”

“True. And...” She bent to study the meticulously chopped bits of orange, green and white. All remarkably uniform. “Did you use a ruler?”

“I have very good spatial awareness. I like things in order.”

“I guess you do, Monsieur OCD. It looks like a machine did this.”

“Thank you.”

Mel didn’t really care what she was going to do with a shit ton of veggies all chopped into perfect half-inch squares. This was too wonderful. The man was a marvelous freak. And she could fall in love with him right now if he wasn’t holding the cutting knife like he intended to defend himself against her.

“You trying to decide whether or not to stab me with that thing?” she asked carefully.

“Huh?” Tor noted the knife he held, blade facing outward and arm pulled back as if to stab. He quickly set it on the cutting board. “Sorry. Force of habit.”

“Right.” She pulled a big soup pan out of the cupboard, and with a swish of her fingers, she swept a third of the vegetables into the pot. “Thanks to you, I’ll have mirepoix for weeks! I should invite you over more often.”

“Always happy to help. What sort of soup are you making?”

“Whatever strikes my fancy. I’ll get the veggies simmering then toss in whatever is on hand. I’ve some gnocchi and chicken stock. Toss in some spices and spinach and there you go.”

The man straightened his tie, watching as she went about the motions of adding oil to the pot along with the veggies and a good helping of butter, because life wasn’t worth living without lots of butter. She and her family bought all their dairy products from a witch who lived an hour outside Paris. She milked her cows by hand and churned butter and made her own cheese. It was heavenly.

Meanwhile, she handed Tor a couple of plastic freezer bags. “Hold those open for me, will you?” He did so, and she again swept the chopped veggies into the containers with but a few magical gestures.

“Handy,” he said, sealing the lockable bags.

“It’s just...me,” she decided. “Kinetic magic. Never known any other way of life. We witches got it going on.”

“I’ll say. Makes normal look so...”

“Normal?” She leaned a hip against the stove. “How long have you been in the know with us paranormals?”

“Most of my life. Like you, I haven’t known much different. But I feel like it can be better away from all this...supernatural insanity. It’s hard to explain. It’s something I need to do.”

Unconvinced, Mel shrugged. “I’ll have you know I’m the normal one in my family.”

Tor’s eyebrow lifted in question.

“It’s all about perspective. Family full of dark witches? Then there’s little ole sparkly me.” She winked at him, knowing her purple glitter eye shadow caught the sunlight. “Do you know what it’s like to be the odd witch out?”