Page 65 of The Water Witch (Fairwick Chronicles 2)

I felt the sharp coils of the wards clutch at my heart. So they weren’t entirely gone yet. They had unraveled when I cut them in the vision with my mother and eased their grip last night with Bill, but they were still there. Although every nerve in my body yearned to run downstairs and throw myself back into Bill’s arms, I made myself go back into the bedroom and change into jeans and a T-shirt and comb my hair. In the mirror, I saw the scratches over my eye. They’d healed remarkably well—no doubt due to Bill’s swift ministrations—but they were still clearly visible. If Duncan was the incubus, what didthatsay about my romantic judgment?

I walked downstairs, schooling myself.Take it slow, give it time, don’t rush in…all the admonitions my friend Annie would give me if she were here, but when I walked into thekitchen and saw Bill bending over the oven, his firm behind filling out faded blue jeans, I went weak in the knees. And when he retrieved a pan of fragrant corn bread from the oven and turned, a speckle of flour dusting his hair and loose flannel shirt, other parts of my body went soft. I heard Annie’s voice in my head concede,Okay, with an ass like thatandcooking skills, maybe you shouldn’t be taking it so slow. “Hey,” I said. “I was afraid you were gone when I woke up.”

He frowned. “I wouldn’t do that. I just thought you might like breakfast. I hope you don’t mind…”

“No!” I cried, a bit too vociferously. I stepped toward him, wondering how we’d managed to get off on the wrong foot. He stepped toward me…but he still had a hot pan in his hands. He turned to put it on the counter…and the front doorbell rang.

The thought that it might be Duncan come to explain what had happened last night flashed through my head. I looked guiltily at Bill.

“Maybe you should get that,” he said.

“I could just wait until whoever it is goes away,” I said. Vigorous knocking suggested that wasn’t going to be a possibility.

“I think you’d better answer it,” Bill said. “Do you want me to go?”

“No!” I cried. “I mean…not unless you want to. Or have to. You probably have other things to do…”

The doorbell rang again.

“Let me just see who that is…I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.” I leaned toward him to kiss him, but he placed his hand on my face, his thumb stroking the scratches on my cheekbone. His touch made my entire body tingle. “I’ll be right here,” he said. “Take your time.”

•••

Despite Bill’s directive, I ran to the door, determined to take care of whoever was there and get back to Bill. If it was Duncan I’d tell him to get lost. There was no good explanation for what he’d done last night. As soon as I saw Liz, Soheila, and Ann Chase on the porch, though, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get rid of them easily. They looked grim.

“Let me guess, another intervention? What have I done wrong this time?”

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” Liz said, twisting her hands nervously. “It’s all my fault…”

“No, it’s mine,” Ann said, laying a hand on Liz’s arm.

“We need to talk,” Soheila said. “Can we come in…or…” She lifted her head and sniffed. The scent of fresh-baked cornbread had wafted out from the kitchen, but I had an idea that Soheila was scenting the man who had baked it. “Do you have company?”

“No…yes…I mean, Bill is here…He’s my handyman…” The minute I said it I could have bit my tongue. I heard a door open and close in the back of the house. Had he heard me? “Come in, I’ll be right back.”

I ran back to the kitchen and found it empty. The pan of corn bread rested on a folded dishcloth next to a pot of tea, all laid out on a tray. There was a note beside it.It looks like you’re busy and I did have some other things to do. I’ll be back later to check on your basement. Yours, Bill.

“Crap, crap, crap,” I muttered as I went back into the library carrying the tray.

“I can understand why you’re upset,” Liz said, taking the tray from me and placing it on the coffee table. “But first let me tell you the one piece of good news. We’ve located Lorelei. She’s at Lura’s house. The bad news is that Lura won’t letanyone in, but we’ve placed a guard around the house so at least she won’t hurt anyone.”

“Thatisgood news,” I said, “so why do you all look so grim?”

Soheila and Liz looked at Ann.

“Duncan Laird,” Ann said, lowering her eyes. “He came to my house the morning after our first circle and told me he wanted me to recommend him as your tutor. Of course I said no, but then he said he had enough Aelvesgold to make Jessica well forever. He told me he didn’t want to hurt you. He said he was your incubus and he only needed some time with you…” She raised bloodshot, hooded eyes to my face and gasped. “Did he do that to you, dear?” She raised a trembling hand to my face.

“Duncan Laird did this when I used a spell last night to unmask him. Are you really sure that he’s the incubus? I didn’t know incubi had claws.”

Soheila picked up a book from the coffee table, flipped through it, and laid it back down open to a full-color insert. The picture that leered up from among the teacups was Fuseli’sNightmare—a pointy-eared imp with long claws leering evilly as he crouched on the breast of a swooning maiden. Was that the face that would have greeted me if Duncan hadn’t struck me? Was that why he had lashed out—so I wouldn’t see him like that?

Ann craned her neck to look over at the picture and shuddered. “Is that what they look like in their natural state?”

“We have nonaturalstate,” Soheila answered. “Incubi and succubi feed on human desire. We take the shapes humans imagine for us. We become their dreams…or their nightmares. I tried to explain that to Angus when he went up against your incubus to destroy him…” Soheila’s eyes glistened when she mentioned Angus’s name.

“You don’t have to talk about it if it’s too painful,” I told her. It wasn’t just Soheila I wanted to spare; I wasn’t sure I wanted to know how the creature I’d once slept with had killed the man Soheila loved.

“I think you should know,” Soheila said, wrapping her hands around the mug of tea Liz handed to her. “After Angus saw his sister destroyed by the incubus, he spent years studying the lore, but in the end it wasn’t the stories about incubi that helped him. It was one of the old Scottish ballads that gave him what he needed.”

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