Witches for Hire (Odd Jobs #1)(107)
The bathroom door creaked open. “Good, you’re not dead yet.” Rosaline smiled as she stepped inside. “Mirror spells are more enjoyable if you take your time. Cut your chest.”
Jeremy slashed just over his left nipple. His hand slipped, and the knife fell in the water, gashing his thigh before hitting the bottom.
Rosaline tsked. “You must keep it straight, so you can do it right.” She wiggled her fingers, and the knife sailed out of the water back into Jeremy’s hand. “Now cut your neck like a good boy.”
Specific words like cut were the only reason Jeremy brought the knife down the side of his throat without killing himself immediately.
Rosaline kneeled by the edge of the tub and ruffled her fingers through Jeremy’s hair. “I was very annoyed when I found out Levi wasn’t the one who cursed me. All that effort to kill him for nothing. Slice down your cheek, deeper. And then I give a young man the perfect opportunity to move up in the world making portals for me, and that didn’t pan out either.”
Jeremy closed his eyes. He had no idea who she was talking about, but that didn’t stop his hand from cutting so deep that he almost touched bone. He groaned as his head rolled to the side.
“Do it again.”
He struck a similar cut down his cheek next to the first one.
Under Rosaline’s skin, dark veins flashed mutely like a neon sign covered by curtains. “Now I have to find a black-market specialist in portals with a happy childhood, kidnap their parents, and threaten to rip out their hearts.”
Jeremy blinked sleepily at the cursed power flowing through Rosaline’s body, ignoring her endless prattle. My doing. He tried to think, but Rosaline trailed her finger up his neck to the cuts on his face.
She pressed against both wounds. “No one can just die. They have to be vindictive shits.” She leaned down, her hair falling across Jeremy’s face. “Such the little liar,” she whispered. “No wonder Levi didn’t trust you enough to tell you he was working with Desmond.”
The finger on his face thickened, and Levi hovered over him instead of Rosaline, destroying his moment of clarity. “I hate seeing you hurt another good man with your lies. You won’t be happy until Clive dies too.”
His soft voice used to make Jeremy feel at ease, but those were words Levi would never say to him. Not after that night. She had no right to take it away. The anger of using Levi to crush his mind cut through the numb emotions, burning into rage and clearing Jeremy’s mind. Levi was gone, and Rosaline’s hand hovered in a claw over Jeremy, close to where his heart lay. He closed his eyes and pictured the deep reservoir waiting to be tapped inside him. “Wrong,” he murmured.
“Hm?” Rosaline bent closer.
Jeremy launched himself up, clamping her arms to her sides. Skin sloughed off away from his fingers, losing its human flesh tone to hit the floor in thin lizard sheddings. “I said you’re fucking wrong, bitch. Desmond isn’t the one who cursed you. It was me.” He stepped out of the tub without releasing Rosaline as the tainted magic responded to his touch and opened all of his controls.
Rosaline struggled to break free, but Jeremy’s magic commanded her still, and she relaxed like a puppet just like he had been in the tub.
Jeremy smiled bitterly. “Next time you imitate someone, make sure it’s not a man whose last words to that person were that he loved them.” Jeremy had stood in shock after hearing them, and then Levi kissed him. In that moment, Jeremy wished there was a way he could love the man back just as deeply. Black cobwebs of dark energy fueled by Jeremy’s hatred spread along any of Rosaline’s skin he saw. Like soldier ants linked to a queen, his magic seized control of Rosaline’s mind, telling him everything it learned about Rosaline from the day it originally spawned on her body after attacking Jeremy’s cursed bait. They told him the spell placed on him and Desmond was a curse meant to increase inhibitions, so the afflicted would murder themselves.
What I need to do is lower them. Jeremy didn’t have specific ingredients to do it the clean way, but shabby would suffice when he didn’t know how long his lucidity would last. Jeremy sucked in Rosaline’s magic as she had done to countless others and let it sway the curse to lifting. The curse clung because Jeremy didn’t have the photo, so he pressed his head against Rosaline harder and absorbed more of her magic. She screamed as her bones snapped and her skin wrinkled. “Not so fun when it’s you, is it?”
The compulsion to end his life finally vanished, leaving a lingering euphoria in its wake. One more pull of energy, and he would be free of the whole curse. At least Desmond had likely returned to his right mind, so he felt no fear. Desmond would be healed and come back to him. Jeremy would deal with Clive in his own way, and fuck everyone who stood in his way. Jeremy frowned at Rosaline. “How do you and Desmond do it?” He licked his lips and let go of her arms as his fingers on one hand formed a claw. “It’s something like this, correct?” He stabbed his hand through her crumpling chest, closing around her beating heart. Jeremy was dimly aware that he had lowered his inhibitions too far. Rosaline’s body slumped to ashes on the floor. He kicked at the pile of dead psycho bitch. Who cares?
As he turned the corner out of the bathroom, his clothes squished with every step. That won’t do. Jeremy shook himself. The cuts, blood, and water disappeared. “I should go have fun.”