Witch's Wrath (Blood And Magick #3)(3)

“Is anyone hurt?” Remy asked.

“No,” Nina said. She had gotten up and hobbled over to where we were, but I had been so focused on Tamara I hadn’t even registered her presence. “The others are asleep. I checked.”

“Good,” Remy said. “I’ll get to work on waking them up.”

“I’ll help you,” Nicole said, and they both rushed off to help the fallen witches.

“What was that all about?” Nina asked.

“You heard the woman,” I said, “Looks like there’s a new bitch in town.”

“We gonna kick her ass?”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” I said, though I could already tell this woman was looking for a fight; and if she poked hard enough, she might just get one.





CHAPTER TWO


After the incident with Tamara, I had seen the other witches out of the house and come back to the ballroom. Now I stood at the door, hesitating probably a couple of seconds too many before opening it. My trepidation wasn’t justified—Remy had donated his house in the Garden District to our cause, and to the witches of New Orleans, in its entirety; I should have gotten used to the place by now. But being without other witches at my side always made me nervous.

The door didn’t croak as I pushed it open, and I could smell the fresh coat of paint as I went past it. Paint cans sat on a tarp on the floor, just inside. I shut the door behind me and stepped further into the room.

Paint brushes worked without hands to control them throughout the ballroom, diligently coating the walls with a fresh, cream coat. Standing with his back to me, Remy held a paintbrush in his hand with his sleeves rolled up, directing the brushes like a conductor. Beside him, a small radio mounted on a stool played soft jazz. I glanced over at his suede shoes and noticed he wore red socks under his dark gray trousers. This was the only man I knew who could rock a pair of red socks. On anyone else, they would have probably looked ridiculous.

He hadn’t waited long to start fixing the damage Tamara had caused. He turned to face me as I approached, then let the paint brush slip into the palette on the floor next to him. The others continued to work without his direction.

“You should have waited for me,” I said, “I would have helped.”

“That’s alright,” Remy said, “What good is magick if you can’t use it to help with the chores?”

A smile crossed my lips. “This place is coming along great.”

“Thank you. It’s good to see a little color back in the old girl’s face.”

I scanned the room around me. “How long has it been since the house had any use? Before we started using it, I mean.”

“Almost thirty years, give or take a few. I stopped having a need for it a while ago.”

“And to think, all this time you were sitting on a big, old house too.”

“This is one of the things I love the most about Louisiana—all the old houses.” He paused. “About what happened earlier, with Tamara…”

“Yeah, what was that about?”

“She’s a… former acquaintance of mine. More like an ex-wife. Things didn’t work out very well, so we went our separate ways.”

“Didn’t she say you kicked her out of town?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. Tamara was trouble. I knew it from the moment we first met, but I’m a sucker for dangerous women, and I fell for it all. That was, ‘till I figured out she was trying to stage a coup, wanted to take everything I had. Almost succeeded too.”

“What stopped her?”

Remy narrowed his eyes. “I may have been keeping things… the way I liked them… but I had friends, back then. She was always too self-obsessed. In the end, I had backup, and she didn’t.”

“Do you know what she’s gonna do now that she’s back?”

“Honestly, no. But we should probably forget about her for now, don’t you think?”

“Sure,” I said, though I wanted to talk more about Tamara—the woman who had Remy’s heart once upon a time. Remy gestured to the center of the ballroom, and I started moving toward it. When I reached the chandelier, which stood at the center of the room, I stopped and turned to find Remy holding what looked like a cat carcass in his hands.

“What the hell is that for?” I asked.

“Relax. It ain’t going nowhere. In fact, that’s part of the reason why I brought it in here. Less places for it to hide, at least until we move the furniture in tomorrow.”

I examined the cat from where I was without getting any closer. It was a calico; black, white, ginger, and thin. “You’re telling me that cat isn’t dead?”

“Oh, it’s dead alright; probably about six hours dead, now.”

“You didn’t—”

“Nah, I found it nearby.”

Craning my neck around to study the empty room, I asked, “So, how is it going to…?”

Remy set the dead cat down on the floor. It had been semi-wrapped in a tarp, and he stretched this out, now, so the cat was lying on a square of fabric. I didn’t want to look at it—the poor thing’s eyes were bulging, its jaw hung open, and its tongue and gums were already starting to blacken. I turned my eyes away from it and focused on Remy.