Curse of the Witching Hour Page 3

  An airy breath sighed close by. Lucifer’s ears pricked with alertness. Someone else was in the greenhouse. If it hadn’t been for the fragrance of all the herbs and the plants thick in the air, he might have noticed the woman’s scent sooner. The air tasted of stream water and dusty books.

  Vega’s voice came out a growl. “I don’t have friends. I have allies.”

  “An ally, then.” Felix said. “I can’t imagine Elric has any understanding of what you must be going through.” His shoulders hunched as if he was carrying a burden of his own. Perhaps Felix hadn’t reached out to console her; he was the one who needed consoling.

  “You don’t know anything about my fiancé.”

  Prince Elric of the Silver Court was Vega Bloodmire’s fiancé? Lucifer didn’t know whom he was more sorry for, her or him.

  Lucifer only half listened to the conversation. He prowled closer to this stranger hiding in the shadows. With the growing darkness outside, he couldn’t make out who this was. He didn’t taste the dark malicious magic that came with the Raven Court, but he doubted all their spies were harpies. Some could be disguised as students and staff. Lucifer slipped closer to the woman where she stood in the shadows, watching Vega and Felix bicker.

  Lucifer was so intent on investigating, he lost track of what Felix and Vega were saying to each other. Lucifer couldn’t make out much of the woman’s form where she hid herself, other than that she wore a long dress and tall witch hat. She wrung her hands and occasionally fidgeted, but otherwise she remained still and silent.

  Lucifer wondered whether she was here to spy on Vega or Felix. A moment later, Vega stormed out of the greenhouse. Felix shifted from foot to foot uneasily, as if uncertain whether he should follow. The woman in the shadows stepped forward and then retreated, apparently unable to make up her mind.

  If she was a staff member and assassin, she might feel some qualms about murdering Felix Thatch on behalf of the Raven Queen. Or she might be fighting a spell to compel her to kill. It wouldn’t be the first time the Raven Queen had possessed someone into doing her bidding.

  Lucifer had no love for his brother, but he didn’t want him to die either. Mostly that was because he would never learn Abigail’s fate if he did. He strategically crept his way closer, blocking the aisle between the long row of tables so that the woman couldn’t get to Felix without intercepting Lucifer first.

  Felix strode out of the greenhouse. The woman picked up her skirts and followed. She truly must have possessed no ability to see in the dark because she walked straight into Lucifer. She bounced off him and stumbled back.

  He caught her arm. “Who are you, and what business do you have spying on Felix Thatch?”

  She steadied herself and wrenched her arm away. “I could ask you the same thing.”

  She whipped out a wand, a bright light flaring from the tip. The sudden light seared Lucifer’s eyes. He shaded his face.

  Lucifer realized the woman was Gertrude Periwinkle, one of the staff members. He couldn’t remember what she taught. She staggered back, her eyes looking him up and down. “Are you a student? Where are your clothes? Don’t think I won’t give you a detention just because I’m not one of your teachers.” Her tone turned authoritative and stern.

  He remembered where he had heard her voice, smelled her fragrance.

  This was the school librarian.

  Lucifer supposed being filthy and naked were not in his favor. He was fortunate he hadn’t been spotted by any students.

  “Don’t come any closer.” She held her wand higher. The light at the tip shifted from white to violet, smelling of starlight. She was readying a spell.

  Lucifer put up his hands and edged back. “I’m not stepping toward you.”

  Her brow furrowed. “You look like . . . is that a spell to make you look like Felix?”

  Ugh! Not another person who thought he looked like his brother. “I don’t look like him.”

  The fragrance of starlight increased, and sparkles drifted from him toward her. There was his magic again, magnifying someone else’s without him intending to do so.

  Gertrude stared at her wand perplexed. “How are you doing that?” She shook her wand, but it only grew brighter.

  More starlight sparkled around them. He hoped he wasn’t losing his stores of magic.

  That was when the first pang hit him. It lanced through his core and radiated to his every muscle, seizing him in cramps. He sank to his knees. He gagged and tasted bile, but he didn’t vomit.

  He thought the pain was a spell of Gertrude’s doing until she spoke.

  “My goodness! What is wrong with you?” Gertrude stepped forward. She waved her wand at him. Violet and blue stars twinkled before his eyes. More energy fell across him, absorbed into his skin.

  He smelled freshly fallen snow, but the sensation that spread across him was warmth. He didn’t know whether that was from the change or from her magic.

  He panted, trying to fight the change. He attempted to hold on to his electrical magic, but he didn’t have enough in his system to keep this human form.

  Gertrude cast another spell, one he recognized from the days he had been an apprentice to Baba Nata. It was Casimir’s Hex-Detecting spell. She was attempting to diagnose what was wrong with him. The light around him shifted to green and smelled of rotten eggs.

  “You’re suffering from a curse?” Gertrude asked. She kneeled down beside him.

  He didn’t want her to know his secret. He didn’t want anyone to know, but the purple magic tingling over him confused his senses. When Gertrude spoke again, her voice was made of honey and silk. He couldn’t resist the urge to give in to her.

  She placed a hand on his forehead. “Why are you here? What is happening to you?”

  “I need sex, or else I’ll—” His voice ended in a feral yowl.

  Hair prickled along his skin, burning and itching. Molten pain spread into his limbs. He collapsed onto his side. His bones felt as though they were breaking. It was an effort to breathe as all of his human self was squashed into the body of a cat.

  The process took several minutes, most of which he was unaware of anything other than the pain. When he was lucid again, he found Gertrude kneeling over him. She stroked his fur and cooed at him.

  “I’ve seen you before. You’re Imani’s cat?” She picked him up and held him to her bosom. “But you’re no ordinary cat, are you?”

  * * *

  Lucifer didn’t know when Gertrude would have seen him with Imani, but it was true he spent more time with her than other students.

  Gertrude wasted no time in fetching her. She called the girl to her office in the library that evening. Lucifer lay at Gertrude’s feet, his ears pricking with alertness when he heard Imani’s voice. He was too exhausted to get up after his transformation and remained on the floor.

  The moment Imani rushed through the door, Gertrude stopped stamping library books and set them aside. “Imani, I have found something that belongs to you.”

  “My library book?” Imani squealed.

  Gertrude picked Lucifer up from the floor and set him on the counter. “No. Your cat.”

  “Oh.” She looked relieved. “He’s not really mine. I was just taking care of him for Ms. Lawrence.”

  Lucifer was still lethargic from his transformation, but not so much so that he missed the mouse skull nestled among flowers on Gertrude’s hat. He wondered whether she had killed the mouse herself. Her eyes were as cunning as a predator’s. He didn’t know whether he liked Imani standing so close to this witch, with only a counter to separate them.

  Gertrude leaned forward with interest. “Where did she get this…creature?”

  “I don’t know. I just found him wandering around after Ms. Lawrence disappeared.” Imani bit her lip. Her dark eyes flickered to him, full of such pity he had to look away. “He was sad and lonely, and no one had been feeding him. He’s Mrs. Lawrence’s—her mom’s. He’s her familiar.�
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  Gertrude adjusted her witch hat. “Are you certain?”

  “Yes. Every Christmas when we visited, we saw Lucy. He’s very smart. More so than most cats.” Imani petted him.

  He nuzzled into her hand.

  “I would believe it.” Gertrude tapped her fingers against the wooden desk. “Students aren’t permitted to keep familiars. If Mr. Khaba catches you with him, he will take him away. I’m surprised none of your teachers have reported you already. I am going to keep him in my room.”

  Lucifer froze. He didn’t know this witch. Gertrude had visited Abigail’s house once with Clarissa. She’d been crabby and terse—almost as bad as Vega Bloodmire. He didn’t trust her not to cut him up for ‘paw of cat’ or ‘eye of cat’ in some potion.

  Imani’s brows furrowed together. “But he has special needs. He isn’t like other cats. He might shred up the books if you keep him here.”

  Gertrude’s lips pressed together like an old woman’s. “You can write me a list of his needs, and I will take care of it.”

  Lucifer cuddled closer to Imani, meowing so she would fight to keep him. He trusted her. Abigail had liked this girl. If he couldn’t be with Abigail, Clarissa was his second choice—even if it meant putting up with his brother—and Imani was his third choice. Not this stranger.

  The moment Gertrude stroked him behind the ears, his agitation eased away. He melted into her touch. He flopped onto his back and allowed her to pet his belly. Gertrude could charm someone as easily as an incubus. That was dangerous.

  What kind of witch was she?

  * * *

  Lucifer was helpless to resist Gertrude’s cuddles as she carried him. He wanted to fight her—he knew he should have at least squirmed away—but his body betrayed him. Whether it was his touch affinity making him a slave to petting or because Gertrude was using magic against him, he was putty in her hands.

  Gertrude carried Lucifer into her office, through an almost invisible door in the stone wall, and down a short passage to her private quarters. He had been in Gertrude’s room once before with Abigail during a party, though he hadn’t known it was Gertrude’s at the time. Unlike the other teachers’ rooms that only had enough space to contain a bed or two and a few modest furnishings, this room had a small kitchenette and its own bathroom attached. An easy chair was placed before a fireplace. The frame of the bed was made from books. Tall stacks rose from the floor in columns so high they disappeared into the shadows of the ceiling. For a brief moment, the only light in the room came from the skylight above. Then Gertrude snapped her fingers, and strategically placed candles glowed to life.

  Lucifer didn’t like the idea of being held captive by a witch. He had escaped Baba Nata’s apprenticeship with Abigail. He hated the idea that he had fallen into the lap of another witch who might have figured out what he was and how to use him.

  He considered spraying her precious library books and clawing at her to get away, but she hadn’t actually done anything to hurt him. It didn’t help that Gertrude was gorgeous and was adept at stroking him behind the ears in such a way that he melted into a puddle on the floor.

  He stored that touch magic so that he could use it later, but often he found himself so intoxicated by her touch it was difficult to think like a human—and a Witchkin. The very touch that he needed so that he could fuel himself to become a man threatened to send him deeper into a carefree feline mindset.

  Gertrude was like catnip laced with crack.

  “You have a curse, and it happens I have studied curses in depth, as well as how to break them. If any library has a book on the topic, it might be ours.” She tapped her chin. “If I can get to it.”

  He tilted his head to the side, eyeing her with curiosity. Did she truly mean to lend aid to him? He couldn’t imagine what reason she had to help a stranger. Unless she wanted something. Witchkin never performed good deeds for anyone—not without expecting something in return.

  She set up a litter box in the bathtub of her restroom and fetched him a meal of leftover dinner from the kitchen. The meat had been cooked for so long it had turned to mush, and it was spiced so heavily he couldn’t tell what it originally had been. He ate, filling his belly, though it hardly touched the true void eating him from the inside out.

  He wanted Abigail.

  “I’m going to keep you here with me tonight,” Gertrude said. “Tomorrow I’ll send you to play outside if you promise to return. If you don’t, just know I won’t be able to help you break your curse.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Put the Cat among the Pigeons

  Lucifer knew one thing he needed to do in order to break his curse. He needed to store up touch magic. He started by cuddling up to Gertrude that night. The following day, he ran to the forest and hunted. The kinesthetic movement fueled him incrementally, though it would have been faster to charge his affinity to mate with another cat.

  He couldn’t smell the pheromones of female felines near the school as he had in the past. The farther he ventured, the more mysterious scents tickled his nose. The forest was full of magical creatures. The deeper he traveled, the more he felt the forest magic shifting around him. When he remained on the path, the trees remained stationary and silent. But in the shadows, the trees danced and whispered. They shifted around him, disorienting him. It wouldn’t take much to lose his way.

  He didn’t want to be lost in the forest. If he did, he would surely end up at Baba Nata’s cottage, and she would claim him once again.

  As limiting as it was to remain on the path as a human would, Lucifer did so. He didn’t find a female cat to mate with. When he returned to the school in the early evening, he followed Imani’s scent until he found her with a group of her friends in the forgotten wing of the school. It was run-down and drafty, the walls crumbling and covered in graffiti.

  There was something different about the air here. It tingled with electrical magic. He liked the feel of this place—which made sense for one with a Red affinity who was at home with electrical impulses, touch included.

  What was stranger was that Imani practically glowed here. If she was a Red affinity like him, he could see why Imani might have been drawn to this section of the school. It would be comforting to a Red affinity if that’s what she was.

  It was dangerous for Red affinities like them. Fae and Witchkin alike might use them to intensify their magic, or kill them because Fae didn’t want such a powerful weapon to fall into an enemy’s hands. Lucifer couldn’t tell whether Imani knew what she was.

  The other girls she sat with weren’t like them. They seemed on edge in this section of the school. Their affinities shrank inside them as if afraid to come out and play. He couldn’t imagine why they met in this wing, painted with surreal murals that reminded him of Alice in Wonderland.

  He padded up to Imani and nuzzled against her. She picked him up and petted him. “Looks like someone escaped Miss Periwinkle.”

  He touched his nose to hers to ask for her forgiveness for abandoning her. She continued to stroke him. He purred against her. This recharged his affinity far better than chasing mice. Especially in this strange wing of the school thrumming with electrical magic.

  When Baba Nata had mentored him, she had given him information about his magic in small miserly doses. It had taken years for him to understand what a touch affinity meant, but he didn’t think that was the full extent. The component of movement seemed to make his affinity stronger. In those early days of being a cat when his brain had still been capable of digesting larger chunks of reading at a time, he’d perused books on physics and mechanics, wondering whether his magic wasn’t so much about being an incubus, and it was instead about generating electricity.

  Eventually Imani grew distracted by her conversation with her friends and stopped petting him. He nudged her to remind her he wanted to be petted. She resumed stroking his fur but stopped a minute later. He approached Hailey Achilles next, the athletic girl with chestnut hai
r. She eyed him suspiciously, even though he’d never scratched her when she stayed with Abigail during the holidays. Though he had scratched Felix enough she might have wondered if he would do the same to her.

  He nudged her hand, and she petted him. He was wary of her affinity for fire, especially since he’d heard about her “accidents.” She complained the entire time that he was getting cat hair on her.

  His ears pricked at the mention of Clarissa’s name.

  “I hope Ms. Lawrence is all right. Have you heard anything about her?” Imani asked.

  Hailey rolled her eyes. “Mr. Thatch said she has the flu, but he’s obviously lying. He lies about everything.”

  Lucifer snorted in agreement.

  Maddy Jenning said, “I tried divination. I think she’s alive but sick, just like he said.”

  Lucifer didn’t know whether he should be relieved Clarissa was alive or worried Abigail’s adopted daughter was ill. If he had been a man instead of a beast, he wondered whether he could have muddled through his feelings better.

  For all he knew, he was turning feral and his soul was decaying into an animal’s.

  Lucifer moved on to Maddy, the beautiful blonde water siren, next. She snuggled him and cuddled him as though he were a baby. He enjoyed the taste of her magic, cool and refreshing like stream water, not so different from Gertrude’s. With her blonde hair and blue eyes, she looked like she could have been Gertrude’s sister or cousin.

  Lucifer cuddled with Greenie last, the Amni Plandai girl with plants growing in her hair. Her magic tasted the most like Abigail’s, which left him feeling depressed. She wasn’t Abigail. Fueling his affinity this way so he could be a man to rescue her would take forever.

  If she was still alive. He didn’t know that she was. He wished he hadn’t hesitated before and had simply asked his brother.

  One hour with these teenage girls and their abundance of loving provided Lucifer with far more strength than all day in the forest. Still, it wasn’t enough. He needed more. It had taken months of storing up magic. This method wasn’t fast enough. He couldn’t afford to wait that long again.