Page 112 of Which Witch Is Wicked?
Luckily, Lucy didn’t have to figure out how to feign porcine terror. Cheeto did that all on his own—quaking from curly tail to snout, hurt and surprise registering in his mind. He thought the cat a friend of sorts, didn’t understand why Jinx would want to hurt him.
You’re welcome, Hamlet, Lucy thought.It’s better you learn now. Cats have no friends. Just enemies who haven’t yet outlived their usefulness.
Tierra took the cat out of the room, leaving only the air and fire witch at the table. Lucy sensed their familiars were elsewhere, though they likely didn’t understand the cause as well as she did. The budding darkness in them would be as easy for their familiars to sense as it was for Lucy, and they would continue to distance themselves until the transformation was complete.
Which Lucy dearly hoped would be soon.
She took the opportunity to examine them both at length. After all, the water witch’s soul might be the most convenient, but was it the most desirable?
Aerin, all well-composed graceful angles in her tailored black suit, her hair twisted into an elegant chignon at the base of her neck, silver eyes staring into some middle distance where Lucy guessed Julian might be riding Archimedes through an endless moonlit pasture. Lucy’s gaze lingered on the air witch’s mouth, an exact replica of the one she had pressed her lips to hours earlier, only Aerin’s were slicked with lipstick the shade of a good chianti at sunset. Those lips had tastedherJulian. Had drunk the dark passion of his tortured soul on more than one occasion. She’d be damned—okay,moredamned—if she would settle for another woman’s memories of the experience she wanted for herself.
No. Aerin de Moray’s cold-hearted soul wouldn’t do.
Cheeto twitched, uncomfortable with the hate radiating from his own body in searing waves. Lucy turned her attention to Claire before she gave herself away.
The fire witch—whose fashion sense most closely resembled her own—wore skin-tight riding leathers and a tank top, her burgundy hair spilling loose around her shoulders, amber eyes pulling lambent golden hues from the lighter she flicked open and closed repeatedly. Her soul blazed forth in unparalleled fiery loveliness, but fire and heat were both in plentiful supply in Hell.
This soul was definitely too hot.
“Are you planning on stopping that anytime soon, or do I need to take it away and get you a more suitable toy?” The irritation in Aerin’s voice was palpable. The kind of tension begging for even the tiniest incentive to be unleashed.
Claire flicked the lighter opened and closed once again. “It’s a free country, last time I checked.”
“Yeah, but it’s my lighter, and it’s Gucci.” Aerin snatched it from her sister’s hand and slid it into her blazer pocket. “You want something to flick, go buy a Bic.”
“Did part of your broomstick get lodged up your ass?” Claire asked, folding her arms across her chest. “You’ve been a grade-A bitch ever since you decided to play with your zombie puppets.”
“You mean the zombies that rebuilt our shed and attacked the Horsemen afterIkept them from gnawing on our souls? Wouldthosebe the puppets you’re referring to?” Aerin challenged, her eyes flashing almost white.
“Yep. Those puppets.” Claire leaned back in her chair, parking her motorcycle boots on the table in front of Aerin’s coffee.
Coffee showing no signs of poisoning from the brimstone Lucy had snuck into the de Moray house with Gwen’s assistance. Had they found it, then? Lucy’s already foul mood took a sharp right toward murderous.
“If I remember correctly,” Aerin bit back, “you were the one who threw up the wall of fire so I could cast the spell. I’m pretty sureyouare the only one of us to date who has used magicagainstone of her sisters.”
“It’s not the spell I’m objecting to,” Claire said. Orange sparks wheeled deep within the tawny depths of the fire witch’s eyes. “It’s that superior attitude you’ve had ever since.”
“If anyone deserves to have a superior attitude, it would be me.” Tierra swept into the room, the edge of her skirt brushing the floor, wrists jangling with bracelets and beads as she balanced an array of glass bottles against her growing bosom. Below this, her gently swelling belly pressed against a loose-fitting lacy top in eye-frying green.
Tierra de Moray’s soul had entirely too much fiber and not nearly enough mischief for Lucy’s liking.
And yet, the attendant shame of Lucy’s recent loss to the spawn created by Death and this witch stung far worse than the scratch on the pig’s snout.
Defeated by a fetus.
Lucy was in the process of attempting to use Cheeto’s limited tongue articulation to utter a curse toward that belly when Tierra bent down and scooped Cheeto up with one hand under the pig’s rounded haunches. “Come here, you. I’ll mix up a batch of my figwort and lavender balm, and your little snout will be good as new.” Tierra deposited the pig on the counter, allowing Lucy a better vantage to the witches at the table.
Aerin had turned toward Tierra, her shoulders stiff within her suit coat. “And why wouldyoube more deserving of a superior attitude?”
“Um, hello?” Tierra answered, stooping to dig through another shelf packed with bottles of dried herbs and tinctures. “The wand? The crown?”
Lucy felt the teasing tone in Tierra’s declaration. Her sisters did not.
“Oh, here we go,” Aerin said. “She comes back from having a joyfuck with Death riding the Stag Express, an animal that was probably disease-ridden, by the way, and she thinks she’s fucking Queen of the Forest and Winner of Magic. Now her baby daddy is in Hell, which I’m pretty sure is about a bazillion times worse than being in prison.” She paused to take a sip of her coffee, which Lucy suddenly wished more than anything she had been able to poison. “Talk to me when you have more money than God and have made a tableful of hardboiled Russian businessmen weep their apologies and send you a fruit basket.”
“For the Goddess’s sake, Aerin. I was teasing. Trying to lighten the mood. There is no way we’re going to figure out how to get Moira and Aunt Justine back if we keep pecking at each other like this.”
The kitchen fell silent save for the clinking of glass bottles and the rustling of dried herbs. “Here we are. Honeysuckle, buckthorn oil, goldenseal, brimst—ohmyhell! There’s brimstone in my calendula!” The earth witch gagged as she stumbled backward, falling against the counter behind her for support.
