Page 55 of Which Witch is Willing?
Nick snatched the parchment from Julian’s hand, his eyes sweeping fast down the page of Tierra’s looping script, arriving at the words just as Julian spoke them.
“The solution is mean to be applied topically.”
The parchment fluttered to the ground as Nick held up his hands and backed away. “Forget that shit. No way am I rubbing that on my junk.”
Julian cleared his throat. “That’s the other thing.”
“What other thing?”
“The poultice cannot be self-administered.”
At this, Nick turned his heel, prepared to quit the room. The house. The state. The planet.
Death caught him by the shoulder, spinning him roughly around. “Now is not the time for your hubris,” he thundered. “If there is even the smallest chance that this will improve the odds of this working, you are fucking doing it.”
“And which one of you assholes is volunteering to do the applying?” Nick asked,
In unison, Bane and Julian looked at Dru.
“Fuck all the way off,” Dru said, surging to his feet.
“Think about this logically,” Julian advised. “Neither Death nor I would be a desirable candidate to address the—area—in question, our abilities being such as they are. Whereas you—”
“Would rather fucking cut my hand off,” Dru insisted.
“You fought with the Roman legions,” Bane argued. “Don’t act like you never crossed swords.”
“I don’t like it any more than you do,” Nick insisted. “But what fucking option to we have? We have to end this.”
Dru’s hulking shoulders sank. “I swear to the gods, if any of you breathes a word of this, I will find each and every one of you and remove your bowels through your nostrils.”
Abruptly, the voices next door stopped, the sudden quiet swarming through the wall.
It was time.
26
He saw her first in silhouette.
A blinding flash of lightning burned into his retinas the shape of her nude body against a backdrop bleached bluish white. Thunder chased it into darkness, and the she reappeared in the warm wash of candlelight.
Moira.
She looked like a Celtic warrior queen. Naked and defiant, paint finding each dip and hollow in her waist, sliding down the tender skin of her inner thigh. Cherry wine hair spilled over her shoulders and breasts, the waves in it wild as the sea.
She didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
Only waited for him within the circle of runes and candles.
Nick went to her, making quick work of his own clothing, wanting no barrier between them. He paused when he came to the circle’s edge, knowing that his whole long life came to this line. To his decision to cross it.
Warmth from the candles licked at his ankles he stepped over them, and into a new world.
Within its confines, they were the only two people alive.
He looked into her eyes. Flames played over their shining surface, making a kaleidoscope of azure and gold.
For no reason he could think of, he reached out, tracing with the tip of one finger first the tree at her navel, then the flames on her belly, and last, the waves over her heart.
