An American Witch In Paris. Michele Hauf

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СКАЧАТЬ It wasn’t like he needed to talk to the artificial intelligence to make conversation. He used it merely as the maid he liked to have available at all hours of the day, yet didn’t want a human stumbling around in his life discovering that he didn’t need to sleep and eat. And he’d bitten a maid once. Early nineteenth century? It was best not to drink from the help.

      Tuesday returned, flipping her hair over a shoulder, and stretched out on the sofa. “Where’s my stuff?”

      “On the kitchen counter. You can’t leave a trail of bread crumbs wherever you walk.”

      “I don’t need to. We’re attached at the hip. If you should lose sight of me, you’ll find me soon enough. Bring me my bags.”

      “Get them yourself.” He settled onto the big leather chair with the wide wooden arms. The wood was worn from decades of use and connection to life. And more than a few frenzied bang sessions. “Dazzle me with your witchy magic and this demon map you said you could conjure.”

      “I don’t dazzle on command.” She wandered over to the counter and pulled out things from the bags.

      “Then how do I get you to dazzle me?” Ethan asked. “Is there a magic word?”

      “Please seems to work most of the time.”

      He pressed his fingers to his forehead. He should have left the witch in the cage.

      On the other hand, she couldn’t hex him and he did need help with this case. He had absolutely no clue how to lure in the demon otherwise, so he would take her sassy mouth and... Well, he’d kiss her again if need be. Heh. That kiss had set her off-kilter.

      But the return kiss had surprised him. And then he’d accepted it for the retaliation it had been. Now a kiss from those grape-stained lips would give him what he wanted from her. Another taste. A teasing test of his abilities to remain completely unaffected by her charms and attraction.

      She had some. Somewhere in that scatter of spangles, sass and black eye shadow.

      “Black salt and raven’s ash.” She waggled between them two vials of a dark substance that she’d purchased from the candle shop. “This will do the trick.”

      She wandered over and pushed the narrow coffee table up against the sofa. The wide dark-stained plank flooring was the original from when the building had once been a millinery factory. Ethan liked it because he’d known a man who had worked here in the 1920s. He’d taken immense pride in the cut of a woman’s hat, or even the specific froth of a silk flower adorning a sweeping brim. He’d also asked Ethan for vampirism after learning that the mercury used to cure the felt for his creations was driving him insane. Ethan had convinced him an insane vampire would be worse than a human prematurely dead from bleeding out.

      In all his centuries, Ethan had never created another vampire. And he didn’t intend to do so anytime soon. It was too much power to simply give away as if a holiday gift. And besides, he was blood-born, not a created vampire. His breed were superior to those who had been transformed in a back alley or at a lover’s lusty request. And he wasn’t about to tarnish the line. If he ever desired to procreate, he would have a child, who, depending on its mother’s lineage and paranormal species, would very likely be born vampire. He preferred to mate with another vampire, but he wasn’t rigid in that stance. Love was actually his key requirement to a happy, lasting relationship.

      But love was fickle and...well, he’d take it if it came his way, but he wasn’t on a quest to track it down.

      Ethan leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees and watched as Tuesday sprinkled black salt in a pattern before her on the floor. He was curious about witchcraft, and knew it was powerful. No man should mess with a witch. But he was feeling cocky with the protective bind against her. So long as it lasted until they found the demon.

      Leaning over the scattered salt, which designed a pentagram inside a circle, Tuesday closed her eyes and spread her arms wide. She chanted words that Ethan would never try to decipher. Witch words. Dangerous words. Yet he could feel them forming sentences in his veins, warning that she could take him out if he dropped his guard.

      With a snap of her fingers, the salt suddenly illuminated and jittered on the floor, moving, ordering and aligning. The tiny grains jumped and crackled. The scent of salt tinged the air. And when it settled and continued to glow, Tuesday sat back on her heels, hands propped on each thigh.

      “A map of Paris,” she said with a gesture over the salt. “What do you think?”

      Ethan leaned over to inspect the map. It included both the right and left bank, and the Seine and the main island. It even showed faint demarcations for the twenty arrondissements. “You’ve dazzled me, witch. Now where are all the demons? Or just the one in particular?”

      “That requires more intense chanting. And an elemental callout. You stay there. Don’t move, because I don’t want the bond between us to tug me out of concentration. Deal?”

      “I am a captive audience.”

      She looked at him a moment, and he couldn’t decide if she thought she was peering into an idiot’s eyes or, in fact, seeing beyond his irises and into his very soul. He’d witnessed it when she’d peered into Certainly Jones’s soul. Was it a skill they could only perform on other witches? Or need he worry, too?

      “What?” he finally asked.

      “There’s something about you, Ethan Pierce. Something that keeps me from stabbing you through the heart with this athame.” She twirled the knife she’d bought from the store. The hilt looked to be carved from opal. That was why the bill had registered in the hundreds of euros. “I’m not sure what that is, though, so I’m going to keep the blade close.”

      “Whatever works for you. You couldn’t harm me if you tried.”

      “Probably not. But you are racking up the points against you for when the bond is lifted. Know that.”

      “I’m not afraid of a witch.”

      Her head tilted and her gaze narrowed as she said simply, “You should be.”

      And Ethan realized she was right. But he wouldn’t show his anxiety.

      Casting her focus over the salt map, she moved up on her knees, spread out her arms and began to chant.

      * * *

      Tuesday felt the presence of every demon inhabiting the city prick at her skin. It wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t painful, either. Rather a sort of vehement and inner knowing. The elemental spell had been successful. She opened her eyes and looked over the map.

      Ethan kneeled on the opposite side of the map and scanned the results as well. “What are all the glowing red salt crystals?”

      “Demons,” she said.

      “There’s so many. Thousands.”

      “Are you surprised?”

      “No. But how is this going to help our search?”

      “Hold your horses, big boy. The real magic comes next.”

      Tugging loose the ribbon ties at the bodice of her new shirt, Tuesday tossed the obsidian crystal over her shoulder СКАЧАТЬ