I shifted position to get a better look at the angel-born. I’d remembered seeing his P-shaped birthmark on his neck—the archangel Michael’s sigil—branding him not only as an angel-born but also from that specific house. I couldn’t see it now under his jacket, but I knew it was there. Looking at him now, he seemed too young to hold such an important post within the angel-born hierarchy.
Well. Looks like Logan wasn’t just a pretty face with a nice tight behind, after all. Interesting.
But it also made him even more dangerous.
What was also dangerous was the rate in which I was about to keel over if I didn’t get some healing magic in me soon.
I took a step forward, and it was all I could do not to spew the remnants of yesterday’s meal all over my cell’s floor. This was not how I wanted the Head of House Michael to see me—weak, sick, and a total mess.
“I might throw up in your car,” I added, not looking at Logan as I took baby steps towards the door.
“It’s not my car,” answered Logan, a smile in his voice.
Okay then.
Walking like a hundred-year-old witch, bent with arthritis, I left the jail behind me, praying I’d never see the inside of it ever again. But my mind was racing and jumping with questions.
Why did the Head of House Michael come to rescue me?
11
“Are you almost done?” My voice sounded impatient. I was hungry, and the intoxicating smell of the grilled cheese with tomatoes and onions simmering in the frying pan had me salivating. Fatigue rolled over me in a sluggish wave as I lay on my stomach on the kitchen island, the granite cool against my skin.
“I would be if you’d stop fidgeting,” barked my grandfather, standing next to me. “This is a complicated spell. You just don’t remove the death blade’s poison like you would a wart from your ass. It takes concentration, technique and expertise. One wrong move, and the infliction could get worse. There are levels to peel off, if you will, before reaching the poison.”
“Like an onion,” came Poe’s voice as he landed on the stool next to the counter. A large watch hung from his left foot. “He’s basically saying you’re like a vegetable.”
I made a face. “Where did you get that watch?” I asked, not remembering seeing it before now. Must have been the fever.
“From our friendly neighborhood jailer,” said the bird, puffing out his chest proudly and looking like an overgrown pigeon. “I took it as payment for wrongful imprisonment. I could have gauged out his eyes, but taking the watch was a lot less messy.”
On any other night, I would have scolded my feathered friend for stealing from a human, and a police human at that, but I was too tired to care. All I knew was that Logan had somehow managed to knock out our jailor and two other policemen who were working the nightshift. I’d never even noticed Poe taking the watch from the unconscious human. Probably because I’d been too busy trying not to vomit all over myself.
Logan. Now he was a curious one. He could have refused to help, or better yet, have sent someone in his place. But the angel-born, the new Head of House Michael, had come on his own to bust me out of jail.
I let out a sigh. I’d been on the bloody counter for more than two hours, and although my grandfather’s wizardry had managed to remove most of my fever and had suppressed some of the pain in my lower back, I was running out of patience. He promised minimal scarring, not that it made a difference. It would only add to the litany of scars I carried.
“You said it would take five minutes.” Yes, I sounded ungrateful, but I was starving, my hunger turning me into Godzilla the witch, without the lizard skin.
My grandfather made a disapproving grunt in his throat. “If I don’t remove all the poison, it will spread further into your blood and eventually kill you. Are you willing to risk that?”
“You don’t have to be so grumpy. I’m the one in pain here. I’m the one who got stabbed.” I turned my hip to look at him and groaned at the pain. I gritted my teeth, feeling light-headed and more tired than angry.
“Stop moving!” shouted my grandfather, his finger pointed at my eye as he moved around and appeared in my line of sight. “If you don’t stop moving,” he warned, “I’m going to hit you with a sleeping spell.”
My mouth fell open. “You wouldn’t dare.”
A wicked grin spread on the old witch’s face, the smile of a madman contemplating an evil scheme. “Try me, my dear girl. I might be old, but I can still whip your ass with my magic. Don’t temp me.”
A smile tugged at my lips. “Fine.” I settled back down with my chin resting on the hard counter. “I’ll try not to move.”
Poe snorted in a way only birds could snort. The raven looked positively happy, watching me on display like this. Thank the cauldron Logan wasn’t here. Though I didn’t know why I cared. He’d already seen me at my worst.
My grandfather wrinkled up his eyes at the corners. “You should be thankful I’m not sticking you with a needle,” he said as he tightened his blue bathrobe and moved to the counter next to the island.
If you stuck me with a needle, I might have to kill you, Gramps.
My grandfather wiped his brow, and the fine seams and wrinkles around his face deepened in the shadows, making him look old and frail in the kitchen light. “Never quite understood the logic with human doctors and their needles,” he said. “Why inject a foreign solution into the body when you’re supposed to take out what’s making them ill? They’re just pumping the body with hazardous cocktails instead of removing the illness. Strange medicine, that is.”
I had to agree. I could never understand human medicine myself. How could you heal anything without magic? It sounded like lunacy. Magic made sense. Needles did not.
I gestured to the frying pan. “You think I’ll manage to taste that grilled cheese in this century?”
“That’s gratitude for you,” sighed my grandfather. “In my days, we respected our elder witches. Disrespect and insolence? If we spoke out of turn, we’d lose a finger. Sometimes two fingers. Sometimes an ear or an eye. My best friend Ludwig lost his eyebrows. Never was the same after that.”
“I’m glad things have changed and evolved from the more barbaric ways of treating each other,” I grumbled, glad I wasn’t born in that generation. Otherwise, knowing my attitude, I would have lost more than a few fingers.
My grandfather made a huff. “Not really. And we most certainly didn’t disrespect a witch while they were trying to help after spending hours repairing your body.”
“Okay, okay,” I sighed. “You’ve made your point. Please proceed with the healing, ‘O Wise One.”
My grandfather made a face before turning around and rummaging through the vials and jars on the counter next to the island. He picked up a glass jar and whirled around, the ghost of a smile on his face as he looked at me. I knew that smile. It was a “you’re going to get it” kind of smile. What was he playing at?
My pulse increased. “What is that?” His large hand covered most of the jar, and from the angle of my head, I couldn’t see much.
“Leeches,” informed Poe.