Curse of the Witching Hour Read online

  To “cure” a curse, the victim has to figure out the trigger and avoid it.

  Lucifer showed the passage to Gertrude.

  She rubbed her eyes and yawned. “What do you think triggered your curse?”

  “The first time?” He struggled to remember details from thirty years ago. “I left Baba Nata’s mentorship with Abigail. I went with her into the Morty Realm, even though Baba told me not to. It didn’t happen right away when we passed out of the Faerie Realm. I think we ate dinner and fell asleep first.”

  “And the second time?”

  He had been in the forest with Vega, mating as a cat when he’d changed back into a man. He couldn’t recall whether they’d been on school grounds or passed through the almost invisible portal to the Morty Realm. It had been dusk, the forest filled with shadows. He hadn’t eaten or fallen asleep. It was afterward, as he walked through the forest as a man, that he’d changed back. It had been dark by then.

  “Vega assumed I changed back because I didn’t have enough magic stored up to break the curse for more than a minute or two,” he said. “That might be part of it, but it might have been because it was night. Or because we passed into the Morty Realm.”

  “That was what Baba Nata wanted you to avoid, wasn’t it? Leaving the Faerie Realm?” Gertrude tapped her nails against the hard cover of a book.

  He’d always known his punishment had been because he’d gone to the Morty Realm with Abigail, but he had assumed Baba had come up with the curse at that moment, not ahead of time with a trigger set in place.

  “It would make sense,” he said. “But there’s also the component of night every time I’ve changed back. Baba never told me her affinity. She’s good at everything, but I suspect she is a Celestor, even if she is a hedge witch, and most hedge witches are Amni Plandai or Elementia. I think her powers are strongest at night.”

  She nodded. “It’s very possible she used your own magic to make her affinity stronger.”

  “That means I’m safe from turning back into a cat as long as I don’t enter the Morty Realm and I keep my affinity charged at night. That was when Baba’s spell would be strongest.” He thought about the time Clarissa and Felix’s magic had accidentally changed him back and he’d been with Abigail for hours. Sexual activity might have staved off the curse for a little while, but he probably would have needed to have sex all night every night to keep from changing back if he had stayed in the Morty Realm. The last time he’d gone to the Morty Realm with Gertrude he’d been fine for a while, but as the witching hour had approached, his curse had returned. The two biggest triggers were night and being in the Morty Realm.

  The realization thrilled him and anguished him at the same time. For thirty long years he had remained as a cat. If bountiful sex had been all it would have taken to keep him human, he could have been with Abigail somewhere in the Unseen Realm between the Morty Realm and Faerie Realm. He could have spent that time with her.

  He might have been able to protect her when the Raven Court attacked.

  “We have to test this theory,” he said, rising from the bed. Returning to the form of a cat didn’t thrill him, but he had to know whether this was how Baba’s curse worked. If it did, there was a chance he could work around it. There was a chance he wouldn’t set it off again in the process of rescuing Abigail.

  “Where are you going?” Gertrude asked.

  He hesitated at the door. “I’m going to walk to the Morty Realm. Then I’ll wait to see how long it takes to turn back to being a cat.”

  “And then what?” Gertrude asked. “You’ll have to wait until the next full moon for me to change you back.”

  He could see her point, but he was anxious to test out this theory. He couldn’t very well help Abigail if he was at risk of turning into a cat at any moment. He needed to experiment with the limits of this spell.

  She patted the bed he’d only just vacated. Grudgingly, he returned to her side.

  Over the next two days, he was restless reading books. He snuck out early one morning before students and staff were awake so that he could slip out of the school without being detected. Gertrude was still asleep when he left. Had she been awake, he knew she would have talked him out of going—or used the honey of her voice to convince him not to go.

  The journey to the Morty Realm only took about twenty minutes through the forest. He hadn’t forgotten the signs to look for that surrounded portals. He’d always been good at seeing the ley lines invisible to Morty eyes. It only took one thread as thin as spider silk to lead him toward the portal. More lines of energy jumbled with it, crisscrossing and weaving together like Celtic knotwork as he came closer.

  The doorway to the Morty Realm reminded him of an arbor, two trees on each side of the path arched together and interlacing where they met above his head. Orange leaves as vivid as Abigail’s hair crowned the boughs. Lucifer stepped through, feeling the subtle shift in the air. It was daylight and autumn on the Morty side of the portal. Lichen hung from mossy limbs. Nothing looked different.

  Only a Witchkin like him would notice the lack of magic. In its place, electricity hummed through distant powerlines, singing a song of warning to any Fae or Witchkin who might wander too close. The rumble of an occasional car passed on a road nearby. It was more difficult to see the ley lines leading to the portal on this side with all the interference. Someday Morty-made chemicals, plastics, and electronics might encroach on this spot and vanquish the portal altogether. For the moment, Lucifer didn’t worry about returning.

  He sat himself down against a tree and took a nap. Hours later, he was still human. He was hungry, but he hadn’t thought to bring himself anything to eat. He wondered whether his impulsive decision-making was due to all his years spent as a cat or because he had always been this rash.

  Lucifer supposed he could have walked back to the school to steal food. Hunting sounded more appealing. He stalked a baby bunny in the brush, but once he’d caught it, he couldn’t break its neck to kill it or sink his teeth into the flesh and eat it. It trembled against him and stared up at him with trepidation in those large eyes. He found the bunny’s mother and reunited them. It was what Abigail would have wanted him to do.

  Eventually night fell. Having an empty belly turned out to be to his advantage. His stomach didn’t cramp when he changed into a cat again. He didn’t fight the change this time. He realized he should have removed his clothes somewhere back in the Unseen Realm so that he could retrieve them more easily later.

  Gertrude would surely be vexed with him for losing another set of clothes. He was going to have to start planning ahead. He would never be able to help Abigail if he was so thoughtless.

  Something rustled in the brush. His belly growled. It smelled like rabbit. As a human, his conscience had kept him from hurting another living creature. Now that he was a cat, he was a predator, and he had no such qualms.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Education of an Incubus

  It was almost another month before Lucifer turned back into a human. In the time he was a cat, he roamed the school and forest freely, and he charged his affinity. When he returned to being a human, he loathed being cooped up in Gertrude’s room. He read books she set before him and tried to learn the human mannerisms she taught him.

  “Don’t lick your hand like that, pet,” Gertrude said in her sweet voice, ruffling his hair when she caught him behaving like a cat. “Humans don’t do that.”

  “Right,” he grumbled from where he sat in bed. “I suppose you’ll tell me I have to wear clothes because that’s what humans do.”

  “Only when you leave my room.” She kissed his forehead.

  He didn’t look up from the book he was trying to read. “And I shouldn’t have wild animal sex with you because humans wouldn’t do that.”

  She laughed, the sultry sound luring him from reading. “No. Actually, they do.”

  Lucifer tried to learn to be human again—for Abigail’
s sake. If he could be human after being a cat for so long, surely she could return to being human after being a tree again. He could help her get through it.

  He wanted to be human again for her, but there were moments he detested his human skin and the needs of his body. When Gertrude slept at night and wouldn’t be able to object, he escaped from the small stuffiness of her room to roam the school.

  Sometimes his feline instincts surfaced, and he stalked students who were out of bed when they shouldn’t have been, imagining they were mice or birds. His senses weren’t as sharp as they were when he was a cat. The smell of fear in the air as students realized they were being followed wasn’t as strong as what he could sense as a cat, and he was losing his ability to hear their heart thrumming with anxiety, but his sight was just as keen. He knew when a student’s footsteps quickened once he or she realized someone was following.

  Lucifer supposed he must be as wicked as his name implied, because he enjoyed terrorizing naughty students who were breaking school rules. When he was feeling especially daring, he used the secret passages he’d discovered as a cat and cut students off from escaping, growling at them and sending them back toward their dorm rooms. It was always hard not to laugh at the horrorstricken expressions on their faces.

  Scaring Imani was another matter. The night he caught her sneaking out of her dorm room, Lucifer couldn’t imagine why a good student like Imani would be up out of bed, sneaking around the school at night. He didn’t like startling her, but he didn’t want her getting in trouble either.

  So instead of following her, he simply blocked her path, though he kept mostly in the shadows. “Go back to your dorm room, Imani.” His voice came out especially gruff.

  She halted in the corridor, her eyes scanning the shadows but not seeing him. “Who’s there?”

  “The bogeyman. Go back to bed.”

  She withdrew her wand, buttery light emanating from the stick of wood. Lucifer sank back into the shadows. He didn’t want her to see his face. The last thing he needed was more questions, especially those concerning his relatives. Or worse yet, for her to tell Felix about him. Imani thought far too highly of her alchemy teacher. She was too trusting of everyone.

  “Are you the new security guard?” Imani asked, stepping forward.

  A smile twitched his lips. “Indeed.” He sank back into the shadows before she could see his face. “Go to your room before I give you a detention.”

  She gasped.

  A detention must have been the magic words at an academy for at-risk youth who were witches. She turned around and returned to the dormitory.

  When he related the story to Gertrude, he expected her to laugh.

  Instead she said, “You could see Mr. Khaba about a job. He’s our new principal. I’m sure he’d hire you for security if you wished. Especially if you told him about your situation.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “I don’t want anyone to know about my situation.” It was bad enough Gertrude knew. At least she was willing to help him. Khaba was a Fae. He couldn’t be trusted. Abigail had never trusted him.

  “He won’t tell Felix if that’s what you’re worried about,” Gertrude said. “He is very discreet.”

  Lucifer opened and closed his fists, the claws that were no longer there itching like phantom pains. “No,” he said again.

  She didn’t ask him why he didn’t want to tell his brother. She wasn’t like Abigail, always trying to convince him of his brother’s good character. He supposed that was why he liked Imani; she was like Abigail, always seeing the good in people, even when there was no good to be found.

  Gertrude was a different kind of person all together. He couldn’t tell whether she didn’t trust Felix or there was something more between them that she wasn’t saying. She didn’t pry into his reasons. He didn’t pry into hers.

  As the months passed, Gertrude taught Lucifer how to cook simple foods in her kitchenette and how to use rudimentary domestic spells to clean. Lucifer was wary of spending too much magic. He didn’t want to be forced back into his cat form. He kept up an ample supply of physical magic to charge himself. He also tested the boundaries of his curse to see how long he could stay in the Morty Realm before he turned back into a cat.

  He was fine if he returned at nightfall most occasions, but only if he fueled his affinity to be stronger than Baba’s Celestor spell.

  On one of these occasions that he was human and stalking through the shadows through the school, he found Imani sneaking into a hallway again.

  “Where are you off to this time?” he asked from the sanctuary of darkness.

  She lifted her chin. “You can’t give me a detention. I’m going to see a teacher.”

  “After hours? Is this teacher a lecherous old man?” He really hoped she wasn’t going to see his brother. If she was, he’d be forced to reveal himself when he punched Felix in the face.

  “No!” She crossed her arms. “I’m going to see Hailey Achilles.”

  He snorted at that. “Hailey is not a teacher.”

  “Yes, she is. She’s a substitute. Just until Ms. Lawrence comes back.” Her heart lurched, and the pain was so palpable in her voice, he could sense it.

  Lucifer had always been sensitive to physical pain, but rarely did he feel emotional pain like this, even when it manifested so strongly in the body.

  “Where is Clarissa Lawrence?” he asked softly.

  “She’s in a coma. The Raven Queen did something to her. I spent time with her this summer. I read to her every day. They say people in a coma can hear you sometimes.” Tears filled her eyes.

  He wanted to step into the light of her wand and hug her, but he didn’t dare.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “And Vega Bloodmire? Where is she?”

  “She took maternity leave and decided not to come back.” She quickly swiped her tears away with the back of her hand. “Who are you really?”

  “I work for security, remember? I can give you a detention if you annoy me.”

  “If you worked for the school, you would know what happened to Ms. Lawrence and Ms. Bloodmire.”

  Outwitted by a student. Forming coherent answers and believable lies was so much harder as a human this time around than it had been thirty years ago.

  He drew in a deep breath, uncertain he could trust Imani. He wanted to trust someone. “If I tell you, will you promise not to tell anyone?”

  There was a spark in her eyes, a hint of cunning squashed a second later and replaced by concern. “Why don’t you want me to tell anyone? Are you a spy?”

  “I’m a cat. Or I was a cat. I don’t want anyone to know I’m human.”

  “Lucy!” she squealed. “Mrs. Lawrence’s cat?”

  She was a quick one.

  “Indeed. Hush. Before you wake someone.”

  She rushed forward into the darkness, her wand not even lit. She would have tripped and probably fallen down the stairs if he hadn’t grabbed her.

  She embraced him and petted his back as if he were still a cat. Awkwardly he patted her shoulder, uncertain how to respond to a teenage girl hugging him when he was a human man. Sometimes things were easier as a cat.

  When she raised her wand and lit it to see him, he closed his fist round the tip of the stick before it could illuminate his face.

  “Don’t do that,” he said.

  “Why don’t you want me to see you?” She drew back.

  “Because I’m ugly like Quasimodo,” he lied. The moment she recognized his features, she would know he was related to her alchemy teacher, and then there would be no stopping her from telling Felix.

  She snorted. “I doubt that.”

  “I just can’t let you see what I look like. Give me your word you won’t tell people about me. Please.”

  “Fine.” She held up her pinky. “I’ll pinky swear.”

  It had been too long since he’d done any binding bargains or magical oaths, so he settled for that. He still
didn’t show her his face, but he walked her to Hailey Achilles’ room in the teacher dormitories in the dark.

  * * *

  While teenage students at the school learned to control their powers of magic and increased their defensive abilities against Fae, Lucifer spent most of his time relearning how to be human. He learned to stop licking himself. Concentrating on human tasks like reading became easier. Several times he lapsed back into being a cat, but he had figured out how to return to being human by now. It simply took time and building up his affinity.

  The year crawled by painfully slow. He was aware of every moment not spent finding the answers he needed to solve the problem of Abigail’s transformation—and more importantly how to get to her without being noticed by the Raven Court. He realized he could go longer without spending time lost in carnal passions with Gertrude—though he found it increasingly more difficult to refuse her advances, even when he didn’t need to fuel himself with touch magic.

  That was the problem with rooming with a siren. Probably it didn’t help that she was sharing her room with an incubus. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other.

  From the way Gertrude gazed adoringly at him, he feared she had fallen in love with him.

  “I’m only staying until I find a way to rescue Abby,” he told her.

  “Of course,” she said. Her mouth said one thing, but the longing in her eyes said another.

  After living for so many years as a ruthless cat, he couldn’t help wondering whether he would have resorted to using her like this had his soul been more human. He loathed himself for using her this way.

  * * *

  The school year ended and another began. Lucifer still hadn’t figured out anything other than how to wear human clothes again without feeling like he was being strangled.

  Imani had graduated, along with her other friends. Hailey was the only one out of Imani’s group who remained, and that was in her capacity as a teacher. Vega Bloodmire was absent this year again, and that concerned him. Lucifer continued to frequent the halls at night, using secret passageways to hide and listen in on conversations.