Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 131708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131708 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 527(@250wpm)___ 439(@300wpm)
Realizing it had been the arrival of another text message that had woken her, Ella sat up and reached for her phone. The message was from Neve: Is Brock’s situation as weird as it seemed?
Checking the time, she swore. It was 11:45pm. She had fifteen minutes before Mary would appear. I’ll soon find out, she texted.
Ella tossed her cell back on the table, pushed off the sofa, and then went upstairs. Inside Brock’s bedroom, she confined herself in his closet. There she waited, still and quiet, alert for any noise.
It was when 12am hit that she heard it. The slightest buzzing sound. It was coming from the en suite bathroom, and she recognized it as being the sign of a portal opening. Not one that enabled people to travel from realm to realm, only from spot to spot within this realm.
Ella would need to act quickly to subdue her visitor or they’d escape her clutches by opening another portal. She called to her magick, not yet bringing it to the surface of her palms but letting it dance beneath her skin. The magick would otherwise be seen and heard; would glow through the door slats and slice through the silence with all its crackling and zapping.
The light patter of bare feet on tile came next. Each step was slow, deliberate, taunting. The bathroom door lazily creaked open, and mist spilled out of the room.
Mary then came into view. Petite. Dark-haired. Clothed in only a ratty nightgown that, like her hair and every visible inch of her skin, was streaked with blood.
Ella acted fast. She burst out of the closet and unleased her magick, chanting quietly as the shimmering ribbons of red, green, and yellow rushed at Mary and snapped around her like a full-body straightjacket.
“The fuck?” the newcomer burst out.
Ella gave her a polite smile. “Hello.” She walked over to Mary, easily noticing the spell that clung to her. Ella didn’t need to take any time to ‘read’, it, she’d seen many such spells before.
She focused on unraveling the magickal threads, picking at them; unwinding them; tearing them. Finally, they fell away … and the vision before her altered in an instant. The petite woman’s face morphed into another, her lank black hair turned a shiny golden-blonde, her old-style gown became pajamas dotted with tiny sheep, and every streak and dot of blood vanished from her body.
“Nice glamor spell,” Ella praised. “You’re PJ, Brock’s ex, I’m guessing. And a demon to boot.” A fellow incantor, as it happened. “But I imagine he doesn’t know that last part.”
PJ bared her teeth, struggling to free herself from Ella’s magickal hold. A hold so secure that it prevented PJ’s own magick from rushing to her rescue. “Let me go.”
“Just why did you want him to believe that he’d invoked a vengeful spirit?” asked Ella.
PJ jutted out her chin. “He deserved it. He fooled around with my best friend, and then he lied to me about it.”
Ah. “That makes him an asshole for sure. But all this? A little melodramatic, don’t you think?”
PJ’s ears turned red.
“Look, I don’t judge those who seek revenge. I do the same myself. But he hired my services, and I don’t let down my clients.”
“You can’t make me stop.”
Ella gave her a hard smile. “Of course I can. I wouldn’t have taken the job if I wasn’t sure I could deliver on my promise to ensure the ‘curse’ is undone. For instance, I can make it so that no glamor spells—whether cast by you or anyone else—ever work on you again.”
PJ’s lips parted, a reluctant admiration flaring in her eyes. “No way.”
“Yep way. Is he worth that?”
Her shoulders slumped. “No,” she mumbled.
“Don’t you think you’ve scared him enough? Do you really see a need to drag it out any longer?”
“He really pissed me off,” she groused.
“I can tell. But I’d say you’ve had your revenge. And surely you have better things to do with your evenings than come here every night. You’re giving him way too much of your time.”
PJ grunted, a that’s true look on her face. “Fine, I’ll stop.”
Ella flicked a hand, freeing the other woman from her magickal hold, and then held out the aforementioned hand. “I’m going to need you to shake on it.”
PJ blinked, realization dawning on her. “You’re going to bind me to my word, aren’t you?”
“Correct.”
“Devious. Brilliantly so.” She placed her hand in Ella’s. “I really don’t want to like you, but it’s happening anyway.”
Ella’s magick sparked from her to PJ, who solemnly swore she’d leave Brock alone from now on. The magick then sank into PJ’s skin, stamping the promise to her body; ensuring it could never be broken.
As always when it came to spells, Ella tangled it with a few others so that it would take a lot of time, sweat, magick, and incantors to ever unravel it. She liked giving such layers of protection to her spells.