Witch Is The New Black (20 page)

Winnie grinned at Ridge and clapped her hands before pulling him inside the house. The seniors were gathered at the table with Calla, Lola, Greta, and Fee, studying a chart of some plant or another.

“I’m so excited!” she said, tucking his arm under hers and propelling him toward the group. “Look who’s here, ladies and gents! It’s the man of the hour!”

Everyone yelled “Hey, Ridge” with knowing smiles on their faces until Greta blew her whistle.

“Y’all dirty birds be respectful. It ain’t nobody’s business but Ridge and Bernie’s if they did the do!”

Ridge fought a snicker. Had Bernie already told them about last night? That didn’t seem like her. It was more likely Joellen Landry had gotten to chattering with Flora. She lived just down the road from Winnie, and it wasn’t unlikely she’d seen Bernie pull up at three in the morning during one of what she called her “episodes”. Not much went unnoticed in Paris. He should know that by now.

Gus grunted into his Styrofoam cup of coffee. “Humph. Stole my girl, didja? What do you have that I don’t?”

“Abs?” Glenda-Jo said with a fluttery giggle.

“Muscles comin’ out your ears?” Flora chimed in with a laugh.

“A tight butt!” Joellen said on a scream of giggles.

“Bah!” Gus groused, though his expression was teasing. “Can’t believe she’d want a muscle-head farmer when she could have debonair and witty me.”

Ridge laughed, holding out a hand to Gus. “Best man wins, friend?”

Gus rolled his eyes, but took Ridge’s hand. “Yeah, yeah. I guess if it couldn’t be me, I’d pick you, too. With all those muscles and abs and all,” he drawled begrudgingly, giving Glenda-Jo and Flora the eye.

He scanned the room, looking for Bernie. “So where’s she at? Thought I might see if she’d like a little late breakfast over at Sweetie’s Diner.”

He’d awakened early for morning chores today, but he didn’t feel at all tired. He felt invigorated, happy—really happy. Bernie was something he hadn’t expected or even wanted at this point in his life, but after last night, he knew he wanted more.

The ease of their conversations once Bernie wasn’t playing cautious astounded him. The intenseness of their lovemaking had plain knocked his socks off.

He wanted to watch her wake up in the morning, fall asleep next to him at night. Laugh when she made a cow disappear instead of a bale of hay. Sit on the front porch with her and watch the world go by as they shared a beer and ate cheesy puffs from a bag.

He wanted to get to know her, to replace the losses of her past and fill them up with the promise of a future.

Fee was the first to speak up, his tail with the pink bow swizzling in the air. “Wait. If you’re here, and she’s not with you—where is she?”

A small alarm bell sounded in his brain. But it was still vague. “She’s not here? Maybe she took a walk? She said she liked walking most in the mornings because the sun didn’t set her head on fire…”

Fee began to pace the length of the table, his voice frantic. “I thought she was with
you
! She never came home last night, Ridge!”

Now the bell in his brain was louder, more insistent. “Are you sure, Fee? She left my house at three in the morning. I walked her out to the car myself.”

“Damn right I’m sure, Hot Pants! I
do
sleep with her. Her bed is untouched!”

The front door flew open then, Daphne appearing in the frame, her blonde hair mussed from the dry winds that had picked up. “Oh, thank God you’re here, Ridge! Where’s Bernie? We need to talk!”

A pressing, undeniable panic began to stir in his gut, but he was opting to remain calm. There was likely an explanation for her whereabouts. He’d learned in the securities business to keep cool.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out now, Daphne,” Winnie said as she handed Lola off to her husband Ben, who took her out to the garden.

As the seniors began to grumble, Calla held up a hand. “Everyone just stay calm until we shouldn’t.”

“Tell us what you have, Daphne,” Winnie insisted, motioning her to join them and pouring her a cup of coffee.

“Y’all said Bernie didn’t know she was a witch, right? But I have a question—was she ill as a child? Does anyone know? Fate kept picking up something dark and ugly—like leukemia, or something life-threatening.”

“Yes!” Ridge almost shouted. “She was sick with leukemia as an infant. In fact, she almost died. She mentioned her parents were really overprotective in her teens as a result.”

Daphne took a long breath before she said a word, closing her eyes as she spoke, as though she were trying to recite the vision from memory. “Fate says someone visited Bernie in the hospital during that time. He said he saw a woman bent over her crib, blood…and what he suspects was her father rocking her while she was hooked up to a bunch of tubes.”

Flora’s eyes widened as she gripped Gus’ arm. “No! You don’t think, do you?”

“Think
what
?” Ridge asked, tamping down his rising panic as his mind began to race, going over the different types of magic he’d studied with Bernie.

Winnie’s eyes glittered, but she then said what he dreaded most. “
Blood magic
.”

His heart sank to his stomach. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

* * * *

Bernie’s head throbbed, a dull, unrelenting pound as her eyes popped open. She tried to sit up, but nausea came in a wave, making her gag. The scent of a million un-mucked stalls mingled with a damp slime assaulted her nose.

Her attempt to move only brought more pain and rising bile in her throat. As she forced herself to sit upright, she was thwarted by the distinct rattle of chains—attached to her arms and legs in loose fashion, giving her just enough room to lift her hands to chest level.

God. Could this be any more cliché? What villain
didn’t
tie up their victims with chains? As she became more aware of her surroundings, she realized the wall at her back was where the damp smell was coming from. The floor was made up of dirt, if her hands felt correctly.

“Touchy tummy, Bernie?”

Her eyes flew upward to find Eddie towering over her, but she felt him rather than saw him. Knew his soft voice and his slow delivery.

“Must be the company. So this is rather extreme. Chains? What gives?”

Eddie sat on his haunches; she heard him squat down, heard the crunch of the hard dirt beneath his feet. “Oh, you have no idea how extreme, Bernie. I went to a lot of trouble and years’ worth of keeping track of you. It was intricate and painstaking and there was a point where I didn’t think I’d ever be rid of you and your ridiculously pathetic life. But suddenly, one day, there it all was. Like a gift from the goddess. This was meant to be.”

She tried to get a visual on where she was, but it was so damn dark. Bernie blinked again, trying to remember that she wasn’t a weakling. She’d learned a thing or two between Ridge and the others, and what better way to test it than in this situation?

That thought gave her a little confidence. But not much.

“What do you want from me, Eddie? Wasn’t it enough that I did time for you? As a
witch
, mind you. Do you have any idea what that was like? Not knowing I was a goddamn witch?”

Fee had been right. Eddie had known all along. She knew it in her gut. Eddie wanted something that had to do with her witch powers, but what, exactly, eluded her minimal knowledge.

He moved in close; his breath fanned her face, tainted with his favorite whiskey. “Is prison food really as bad as they say?”

“Look, let’s skip all the niceties and bullshit and get to the point. I know you’re a warlock, and you know I’m a witch. So I repeat, what do you want from me, asshole?” she screamed.

Wow
. That was kind of ragey, and very unlike her. But by fuck, Eddie had let her stew in a prison for months while he got off scot-free and he was making jokes about the slop she’d consumed?

Nope. Officially not an Eddie fan.

But Eddie wasn’t at all affected by her ire. His voice remained quiet when he said, “You don’t know by now? I’d have thought your new boyfriend and the town hags would’ve figured out what I want.”

Flexing her fingers, Bernie snapped them, turning the tips into small lighters. She held up her hand as far as the chains would let her before she felt tension—and fought a gasp of horror at the scene laid out before her.

“Where the hell are we, Eddie?”

“Does it really make a difference, Bernie? You can’t escape. I’ve made sure of it. Just look around you and tell me what you see.”

The space was enormous, as long as it was wide. She was in some kind of cellar. That much was clear now. And her chains were attached to the ceiling by multiple pulleys.

Bernie gulped when she chanced a look upward.

He’d rigged the room. If she attempted to move too far, or someone tried to open the cellar doors, the pulleys would trigger a Guillotine—that would slice her right down the center of her head.

Perfect. Sure, she had magic, but she was a pathetic novice, and to her recollection, she didn’t know a spell that would release her from something like this. However, if she got out of here alive, that was one of the first things on her list to look up. How to save your head from being split in two in one spell or less.

“You’re a son of a bitch, Eddie.”

“Don’t be bitter, B,” he said softly as his serenely handsome face came into focus. “And don’t move too much. I’ve given you some play, but if you make a break for the doors over there—you’re toast. Also, there’s this. A little extra insurance in case one of your friends realizes you’re missing and thinks to look here.” He held up a black cylinder with a red button on top.

“And that is?” she managed to ask, fighting to keep her voice even.

“A bomb that I’ll detonate the moment someone even considers touching those doors.”

Oh sweet hell. “But won’t you blow up with me?”

Eddie eyeballed her and she would swear she was seeing madness. “Yep. But if I can’t have it,
no one
can.”

Have what? What was worth possible suicide?

Whatever “it” was, he was willing to die for it. Bernie’s breathing stopped, but she kept pushing words out anyway.

“Why did you rob the bank, Eddie? Why did you frame me?”

As she took a closer look, he appeared haggard, pale, almost listless when he gazed at her. “I wasn’t robbing the bank. I was getting something from the vault.”

“Something that wasn’t yours, I presume?”

“Ding-ding-ding. You win this round.”

“Why didn’t you just use your magic? Isn’t that how witches land in Baba Yaga’s jail? Using their magic for personal gain?”

A sigh puffed from his mouth, raspy and long. “Because I’m a warlock, and not a terribly powerful one, Bernie. I can’t do the things you can. I have immortality on my side. I can make things disappear. You know…the usual warlock fare. But I come from a very weak bloodline. One that gets little respect. But that’s all about to change. There’ll be no more mocking the wimpy warlock anymore.”

She took small consolation in his admission. Maybe she could out-magic him, bumbling wand-wielder that she was.

Sweat beaded her forehead and upper lip. “So what were you stealing if it wasn’t money?”

“A very valuable book—a book I’ve looked for ever since your mother’s best friend was tragically killed.”

That made her pause. Her mother’s best friend? Her mother didn’t have a best friend. She’d had many friends, but…

And then she remembered the pictures of her mother and a woman named…Marie? Marissa? Marina?

Damn, she couldn’t remember, but she did recall her mother showing her the pictures of them on a playground, getting an award in middle school, graduating college, and telling Bernie they’d been lifelong friends, until the woman died when Bernie was just a baby.

Fear slithered up her spine and along her tethered arms. How did her mother’s dead best friend play a part in this?

Think. She needed to think, not ask so many questions. She knew there was a spell of some kind she could use to get out of this—a disengagement spell, maybe?

How was she going to get out of these chains without lopping her head off otherwise?

Was keeping your head on your shoulders considered magic for personal gain?

Eddie chucked her under the chin, the feel of his lean fingers against her flesh making her cringe. “I guess this is the part where you’ll want an explanation?”

“I think that’s a very fair statement, Eddie. First you cheat on me with Doris, then you steal a book from a bank after framing me for attempted robbery. Then I did ten months’ time, wearing Kotex pads for shoes while I peeled every potato shipped out of Idaho. Now I’m presuming you want to kill me. So, if you’re going to send me to my death, at least play nice.”

Driving his hands into the pockets of his pressed trousers, his blue eyes glittered. “I really thought by now you and all your new friends would have figured it out. Here’s the thing. That book, the one I stole from the vault—it’s a book of spells once owned by a witch with very powerful blood magic.”

Ohhh. Blood magic. She remembered a paragraph on that from her studies. Bad. Blood magic was bad if not used appropriately. “And who was that witch?”

She figured she already knew the answer, but stalling him while she tried to remember a spell or anything that would help save her was key to her survival.

“Your mother’s best friend, Marie.”

Jackpot. “What does my mother’s best friend have to do with me?”

“She gave it to you, Bernie.”

“Gave me
what
?” Was he completely bonkers?

As her mind raced, something suddenly clicked with a jolt—but Eddie got to the punch before she was able.

“As you know, when you were an infant, you were sick. Your mother and Marie were very close. So close, except for one small thing. Your mother had no idea Marie was a witch. They’d been friends all their lives, and Marie never told her. But when you became gravely ill, your mother and father weren’t the only ones suffering. Marie suffered, too. She loved you as much as your parents.”

“So what did she give me?” she asked on a wince, her words thick and tight.