Witches for Hire (Odd Jobs #1)(9)

The revenant’s arms magically glued themselves to her sides, and the sheet and tarp encircled the whole body.

The wand swung toward her bag, and a long chain with several locks dangling from its links circled the blue mummy. Click after click, all the locks closed.

“Babysit while I go get the car.” Simone walked away, leaving Jeremy behind as if nothing had happened.

His fingers itched. Jeremy glanced down to see power flickering to life like tiny green lightning bolts. Balling his hand into a fist, Jeremy took a deep breath. I will not lose control. I just have to get through tonight and then I’ll tell Clive never to assign us together again.

The outside door opened minutes later. “I got the car out front and running,” Simone said as she turned the corner into Jeremy’s view.

“About time.”

“I could have been slower.” Simone bent and picked up the revenant’s legs. They walked sideways until they reached the doors. Simone led with her back against the door. They quickly dumped their burden on the floor of the backseat and then got themselves situated in the car. “We can dump her in the woods off—” Her phone ringing interrupted her. “The kids better not have broken anything.” Simone pulled out her phone and frowned at its display. She put the phone to her ear. “What’s up?”

Unbloodybelievable, Jeremy thought.

Less than a minute later, Simone cradled the bridge of her nose in her fingers. “Yeah, I’ll be there. Okay, yeah.” She ended the call. After putting her phone away, Simone slammed her fist into her steering wheel.

Jeremy looked at her with a wide grin on his face. “Trouble in werewolf paradise?”

Simone let out a shuddering breath, as if she had a right to be angry, and then became composed again. “The only thing I need you to do is shut up while I drive. Rudy’s hurt, and I have to go pick him up.”

Jeremy faced forward with his chin on his hand. “Werewolf politics are the punishment you deserve.”

“Fuck off!”




SIMONE’S FINGERS tensed and relaxed over and over again. She hadn’t really tried to kill Jeremy. Her intention had been to scare him enough that he wouldn’t treat her like a weakling again. Okay, a contagious revenant might not have been her greatest idea, but being forced to look at his stupid face for an hour had been her limit. And now this. Simone knew that despite the injuries Rudy’s friend described on the phone, he was fine… ish. She could hear him talking in the background, barely lucid from whatever painkillers they had dosed him with, and with werewolves that meant a shitload of drugs. When she finally turned onto a barely paved road lined with several cars and ice chests full of beer, her hands trembled at the thought of what she might find. “Keep quiet,” she ordered Jeremy as he walked beside her down the driveway and to a stone path.

“I’m not the one to be worried about in this situation,” Jeremy said. “I have kept a cool head all night.”

I should have let the zombie eat him. Simone knocked on the front screen door. Several people inside shouted at two women on a giant TV trying to knock each other’s heads off.

A man mumbling, “Why won’t she take it to the floor?” came to the door in a white tank top and jeans. He opened it and stuck his thumb to the side, where the car-filled driveway led to the backyard. “Ricky, Jones!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Help Simone lug Rudy to her car.”

Simone heard two men answer, and then the man at the door rejoined his buddies inside. He was quickly replaced by two boys in their late teens.

“His leg is torn up, so you might want to start working on it as soon as you get him home,” the first boy said.

“What happened?” Simone asked. As a human, Rudy was hipster nerdiness with a dash of cute. In werewolf form, the only wolves who could beat him were the wolf lined up for pack leader and the elders. “Did an outsider do this?”

“The match for a new pack leader got rowdy.”

Because a regular voting system is too modern and boring. She stared straight ahead while they walked so her breath wouldn’t hitch when she laid eyes on Rudy. Why give the werewolves another reason to see her as an outsider? Surprisingly, Jeremy’s silence was her strongest motivator. If he could keep his mouth shut, then so could she. But her plans of playing nonchalant witch faltered when the boys led her past the thick tree line. Gesturing wildly to a group of men surrounding him, Rudy was the life of the party even with a blood-soaked bandaged leg.

Rudy turned sheepish when he saw her. “I’m sorry the other guy doesn’t look worse.”

“I’m sure you tried.” Simone watched the two boys gallantly choose which side to lift and boost her husband in the air.

One of the werewolves still sitting shook his head. “The fight shouldn’t have ended that way. And him being able to hurt you so badly when you stopped him from killing Ethan? It was plain wonky.” He pointed his beer bottle at Simone. “Would you do us a solid and try sensing any magic on Rudy? A cheater winning pack leader is the last thing we need.”

Simone nodded. “I’ll run tests on him after I have his leg settled.”

“I’m not too shabby myself,” Rudy muttered. “I didn’t sense a thing.”

“What did you guys stuff into him?” Her husband’s pupils were too blown for her to see his irises, and as his blood dripped off the edge of a bandage onto the grass, he continued speaking as if the hurt leg had happened to someone else. Simone let Rudy slur out his good-byes and followed the boys to her car.