Witch's Wrath (Blood And Magick #3)(5)

The cat hissed loudly, a sound I could hear even from where I was standing. My heart was pounding so hard it caused my vision to shake. I thought my knees would give way and send me crashing to the floor.

I checked the cut on my palm and noticed it had mostly healed, but the blood I had drawn had pooled in the crevices in my hand and was on my fingers now too. When I looked up again, Remy had started to approach with a cat quietly sitting in his arms. It looked a little startled—its pupils were dilated, and its ears were pointed backwards, a clear sign of agitation—but otherwise looked like a normal cat.

Remy pulled a pouch of cat treats from the duffle bag he had with him and brought some up to the cat’s nose. The cat sniffed the treat, then licked it, and then started to take little bites out of it. A moment later, it started to purr.

“No fucking way,” I said, allowing the words to slip out of my mouth unfiltered.

“Good job,” Remy said, looking almost as smug as the cat in his arms.

“We didn’t just bring a cat back from the dead.”

“We didn’t—you did. The process was a little rough, but you’re a blood witch; it’s to be expected.”

I noticed then the wind had stopped howling, too. “So, now what?” I asked.

“Now we find this guy a home. I suspect he died of some illness, but he seems happy and healthy now.” Remy sniffed the cat’s head. “Even if he does need a bath.”

Daring myself, I extended my hand toward the little fluff ball suckling and taking bites out of a cured meat treat. It sniffed me, then rubbed its cheek against my fingers, and went back to eating.

“That’s… incredible,” I said.

“It is,” Remy said, “This magick is widely misunderstood because, in the hands of the wrong kind of witch, it can be an incredibly potent weapon to be turned upon the innocent.”

I stared Remy in the eyes. “You’ve come a long way from the first time we met,” I said, “But you can’t expect me to believe you’ve never used blood magick in a less than altruistic way.”

“No, I’ll concede I haven’t always been on the level. A man doesn’t grow to be over two hundred years old without acquiring some enemies and personal antagonists. But I know the lighter side to my dark magick, and I’m willing to share that with the right person.”

The cat finished eating its treat, and Remy set it down on the ground. It arched its back high into a stretch, then shook wildly, sending a shower of dirt in all directions before trotting off and finding a good spot to sit down and start grooming himself. There was blood on the floor, too. I hadn’t noticed it before, but the wound I had cut into my hand had dropped little flecks of it here and there.

“Dammit,” I said, “The floor just got waxed a few days ago. We shouldn’t have done this in here.”

“Relax, we’ll clean it up.”

“We’d better. Otherwise the decorators are going to have questions when they come over tomorrow.”

“There won’t be any need for you to worry about that. I’m making sure the house is in the best possible shape for our masquerade ball. I’m actually looking forward to this big event you’ve put together.”

“Are you?”

He nodded and gestured over to an inner door on the far side of the room. “I feel like, slowly, the witches of New Orleans are starting to see me as just another witch. It’s starting to almost feel like acceptance.”

“I think they’ve just been through so much—with the demon bloods and the vampires—they’ve realized you’re not the worst thing to have ever happened to them.”

“I’m sure some do still think that, but the good thing about masquerade balls is that they provide a certain level of anonymity. It’ll be good to be able to walk around a room without getting judged for once.”

We reached the other end of the ballroom and went through the door, then into an adjacent hallway. At the end of this dark hall was Remy’s office, the door ajar, a rectangle of light spilling out to mark its position. He gestured toward his office, opened the door, and allowed me to walk in first.

“Let me remind you that there will be vampires at this ball,” I said, “Vampires who, two hundred years ago, stuffed themselves into coffins just to get away from you. A little judgment will be inevitable.”

“I haven’t forgotten that,” he said, his voice suddenly taking a turn for the dark, the grave. “I plan on making amends for what I did. They’ll never understand that what I wanted was to protect the city I loved, to keep this sacred place safe from the predations of their kind. Everything I did, I did to ensure our species had a future here.”

“You know what they say about the road to hell.”

“I do, and when my time comes to walk it, I’ll do so fearlessly.”

I took a deep breath and surveyed Remy’s office. The room was modest in décor, if not in size. Remy hadn’t moved in here long ago, so all he had was a desk and a bookshelf—the essentials. But I found myself looking forward to seeing what Remy would fill the room with. Trinkets from years ago? Books long forgotten but immensely valuable? Masks of indeterminate origin and purpose?

“So, I guess we’re done for the day,” I said.

He nodded and, from his desk drawer, retrieved a small pouch. He handed it to me. “Open it,” he said.