“What?”
“Not magicks. Magic. I can hear the ‘ck,’ and you’re wrong about that, too. What rhymes with wound?”
“Boon, dune, croon, cartoon, commune, swoon…” she answered automatically. She’d been studying poetry since the seventh grade. Her other talent, you might say.
“Swoon!” he shouted. “That’s it.
Unkind arrow, leaving a wound,
Fix me up before I swoon.”
She gasped as the bleeding stopped, as the blood disappeared from his hands, as he straightened up with a sigh. “Oh, God, that’s so much better. Christ, my aching ass.”
Okayyyy. So, her parents were right to be scared shitless by this guy. It seemed her ancestors had the right idea: Wipe out the de Mere line, witch by witch. Funny, in all the archives and all the old records and during her training, no one had mentioned he could bend the very fabric of reality to his will.
“Nobody told me you could bend the very fabric of reality to your will.”
“Gee, so sorry your intel isn’t up to snuff. No pun intended.”
“I thought you were supposed to curse cows and sour their milk, or be a bride of Satan, or something like that.”
He stared at her, green eyes wide. “Do I look like I spend my days hanging around cows? And I’m not a bride of anything.”
“Why didn’t the archives mention your little poetry trick?” she mused aloud, not really expecting an answer.
“Nobody knows, except you Goodmans. My great-great-great-great-grandfather couldn’t.”
“Not enough greats.”
“Never mind. Anyway, Christopher de Mere couldn’t do it, and none of his descendants could, for the longest time. And FYI, we dropped the ‘de’ about four generations ago.”
“What do you mean, they couldn’t do it? You can all do magic.”
He nodded and even smiled. She couldn’t believe they were having a civilized conversation.
She still wanted to kill him, though.
“Oh, they could do magic,” he replied, “but it was a lot harder—I mean, would real witches allow themselves to be burned at the stake if they could save themselves? Oh, and that’s quite a family history of murder, mayhem, and close-mindedness you’ve got there.”
“Shut up. It wasn’t just my family,” she added lamely. The insanity of the Salem witch trials, deemed so necessary three hundred years ago, were an embarrassment to the Goodmans these days. So many innocents. Not enough of the guilty. “Why are we having a conversation? You’re a dead man walking.”
“Takes one to know one, sunshine. Except for the ‘man’ part, of course. And to finish answering your rude and intrusive questions, the Mere family has been evolving each generation in order to better deal with you bums. Thus, I rhyme, things happen. I rhyme, your pretty shiny things go bye-bye.”
“Oh, great.”
“I thought so,” he admitted.
She abruptly turned and marched down the porch steps, annoyed to hear him following her. “Hey! We’re talking, here.”
“We’re done talking.”
“Where are you going?”
“Shut up.”
“Are you going into the barn?”
“Shut up.”
“Rhea, Rhea, tell me true
What is in the barn for you?”
She felt an invisible hand seize her mouth and force it open. She stopped in her tracks, appalled, and fought with as much inner strength as she could muster, but still her traitorous mouth fell open, and she said, almost babbled, “Four nines, two crossbows, a twelve-gauge shotgun, a twenty-gauge shotgun, ammo for everything, four skinning knives, two filet knives, six switchblades, and a Magnum .357.”
“But we were just talking!” he yelled after her, sounding panicked. “There’s no need to take out four nines! What the hell is a four nine?”
Since he hadn’t done magic, she was not compelled to answer and did not bother to explain that she had four nine-millimeter Berettas in the locked chest under the floor of the barn.
“Don’t you want to just talk?” The rhyming moron was still trotting after her. “We don’t have to kill each other, you know.”
What bullshit! She didn’t trouble herself to come up with the scathing remarks he had coming. Instead, she made it to the barn without interference (magical or otherwise), and pulled on the trapdoor on the south side of the building. She leaned down, spun the combination on the safe, popped it open, reached inside, and pulled out two Berettas.
“Rhea, Rhea, with your guns,
Stop this madness before it…shit!”
He’s not a god, she thought with not a little relief. He can’t rhyme for shit. And thank goodness. Because otherwise, we’d all be cooked.
She cocked the guns (they were always loaded; no need to even check) and held them up, just in time to see him sprint in the other direction.
Yeah, you’d better run, de Mere.
She started to take the shot
(I’ve never shot anybody in the back.)
and hesitated. Was it true? Was it cowardly and sneaking and bad-guy-like to take a witch from behind? All her teachings cried out in the negative. But de Mere had the weight of a bunch of Westerns on his side.
Because the bad guys always snuck up and shot you in the back.
These outrageous new thoughts crowded her brain and she hesitated. Not for long, but it gave de Mere time to dive through the driver’s-side window. She put plenty of bullets through said window, but either he had perfected the art of driving while kneeling on the mat, or he had made a rhyme that made bullets bounce off, because the next thing she knew, the only thing left of Chris de Mere was a spume of dust in her driveway.
She lowered her now-empty guns and stared at the dust. She’d had the shot, and she bungled it. The Goodmans might be out of luck if they were counting on her to save them.
Chapter 6
A week later, he returned. This time he had scribbled down several words on pink Post-Its, words that rhymed with arrow and Beretta and gun and Rhea. He had been careful to return the bullet-ridden rental and drive up in a different car (the Avis people had not been pleased, to say the least), hoping they wouldn’t nuke him the moment he pulled into their driveway.
He convinced himself he was here because it was worth another try, that people could overcome centuries of conditioning, these were modern times, and witch-hunting was just silly.
But the reality was, he couldn’t get the trigger-happy jerk out of his head. That’s why he’d come back. Her “oh, greats” and “shut ups” were actually kind of funny. And that hot little figure she had wasn’t bad, either. And he loved the pointy little chin. At six-four, he was taller, but he didn’t tower over Rhea the way he did with most women.
Worst of all: He couldn’t imagine killing her. He’d liked her right away (insanity!), even if she had shot him in the ass. Or maybe because she shot him in the ass. She had sure charged up the steps in defense of her mother without hesitation, and he liked that, too.
His parents were long dead. He tried not to blame the Goodmans…the one who had done the deed was, after all, also dead. For every Mere death, a Goodman had died, too. He tried to keep it in mind at all times. It helped when he was tempted to abandon the human race, let the demons swarm, and use his magic to win the lottery. Repeatedly.
Anyway, he liked—what was the word? He liked her moxie. And frankly, verbally sparring with a woman who could kill him (who was fated to kill him) was an unbelievable rush.
He carefully drove up to the house, eyes peeled for Goodmans. But the house and barn looked quiet, and he could see no cars in the drive.
He put the car in park, deliberately left the parking brake alone (it had almost been the death of him last time; he’d wasted valuable seconds releasing it before making his escape), and climbed out.
“Uh…hello? Anybody home? Goodmans? Rhea?”
He moved closer to the front porch, then heard a sound to his left and turned in the d
irection of the barn. “Mr. and Mrs. Goodman? Rhea? Anybody up for a rematch?”
The attack came without warning; he hadn’t heard a thing. But a sturdy weight smacked him in the middle of the back, and he went facedown onto the gravel driveway.
“Kill the witch!” a familiar voice shouted. “Pschow, pschow!”
“Kid,” he said into the driveway, “get off me. Seriously.”
“Die, evil fiend, die!”
“Kid.”
“Pschow!”
“Kid. I’m serious.” He tried to move, to gently shift her off his back, but she clung like a lamprey. “I know it’s not cool to smack children, especially not your own, but if you don’t get off me—”
“Kill the witch!”
“What are they feeding you guys? You’re, what? Seven? And you’re already obsessed with witch-hunting? Jesus wept.”
“I’m eight, not seven, stupidhead.”
“Thank God. I can’t for the life of me think of what rhymes with seven.
“Great, great,
Hate, hate,
Off my back
Child of eight.”
It was one of his worst rhymes ever (he felt like jumping rope to it), but it had the desired effect; he felt the weight disappear from his back and climbed to his feet. He dusted off his clothes and looked around for the kid.
She was scowling at him from the other side of the rental car. “No fair. You cheater.”
“You’re one to talk—er, what’s your name?”
“Violet Goodman.”
“Of course. Anyway, who ambushed who? You Goodmans. Bloodthirsty savages.”
“You wait ’til Rhea finds out what you—”
“DID YOU JUST USE MAGIC ON MY BABY SISTER?”
“Uh-oh,” Violet said, looking, to her credit, worried for him. Then she added in a much lower voice, “I wasn’t really going to tell. You’re a good witch, I know.”
“Thanks for that.” He turned in time to see Rhea come storming down the front steps, headed for him like a flame toward kindling. “Listen, Rhea, Violet jumped me. All I did was pull into your driveway.”
“You used magic on my sister.”
“I didn’t hurt her. And before you go running into the arsenal-slash-barn, I warn you that I’m armed with tons of gun-and-arrow rhymes.” He patted his pockets, fairly bulging with Post-Its, for emphasis.
She wasn’t heading for the barn. She was steaming straight for him, pale face flushed to the eyebrows with rage. He wasn’t sure if he was aroused or scared. Or both.
“So don’t do anything crazy,” he added, standing his ground. “I come in peace, like a benevolent alien. I mean you no harm—ow!”
She’d dropped into a crouch at the last second and swept his legs out from under him with a lunge. Then she was on him, her small hands grasping his neck, squeezing.
“I don’t know—if you know—but I can’t breathe—when you do that,” he gurgled.
“If you can talk,” she said grimly, tightening her grip, “you can breathe. How dare you? How dare you come back to my home, threaten my baby sister?” She started to slam his head up and down. Gravel bounced and flew around his ears.
“He didn’t threaten me,” Violet quickly spoke up. “We were playing.”
“Violet. Go in the house.”
“But Mom and Dad said you had to play with me when you were watching me, and all you’ve done is work out in the—”
“Violet. House.”
“I don’t think you need to choke him,” the girl retorted, then reluctantly left.
“I agree,” he gasped. The only thing that was saving him was his upper body strength; he had two hands clamped around her wrists, barely holding her off. She might work out like a fiend, but her hands were small, and she couldn’t get them all the way around his neck. And it wouldn’t be long before she figured that out and starting beating the living shit out of him in earnest. “You should listen to Violet, a kindhearted but slightly disturbed third-grader.”
“Don’t talk about my sister,” she said through gritted teeth, her face going even redder from her strangulation efforts.
Throttle? Bottle? Strangle? What rhymed with strangle? Maybe he could turn her hands into flippers. Flipper, slipper?
Oh, to hell with it. He tightened his grip on her wrists and abruptly rolled over. Thank you, Mother Nature, for making me a guy.
Now he was on top, still encircling her wrists with his fingers, and she glared up at him with such malevolence that he almost let go of her. Which would have been a disaster.
“Okay,” he said, and coughed, politely turning his face away. He hated to think how his throat would feel if she’d had bigger hands. “Okay. Listen. I just came here to—”
“Get the hell off me!”
“—talk and try to convince you that this is a dance we don’t have to do—”
“I am going to kill you a lot.”
“—because after all, this is the twenty-first century, and don’t you think witch-hunting should have been left behind with slavery?”
“Not as long as any de Mere descendants are running around on the planet. Now let go!”
“Oh, shut up,” he said, and bent down and kissed her.
She went rigid with astonishment, which was a relief, because he didn’t care to be bitten at the moment. He’d just meant to give her a peck, but the taste of her soft, sweet mouth worked on him like a hormone shot, and he slid his tongue between her lips, tasting her, relishing her the way he relished a ripe piece of fruit in the summertime.
She didn’t make a sound. Just lay there like a board. An amazed, totally shocked board. So he let go of her wrists and cupped her face and deepened the kiss, and he thought he felt her respond, and then—
—and then her face shot out of his line of sight, and he realized she’d slapped him so hard he’d flown off her.
“Ow,” he groaned, once again facedown in the dust.
“What did you think you were doing?” He rolled over in time to see her spring to her feet. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Well, at the moment, I’ve got dust all over me and a piece of gravel up my nose and maybe a nosebleed, too.”
She stood over him, jabbing her finger in the air for emphasis. He tried not to flinch. “We are supposed to be killing each other, not kissing. So cool your gonads and get your head in the game.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” he said patiently, staring up at her. “I’m not in the game. I’m not going to play. I think our families have been killing each other long enough, don’t you?”
“As long as a de Mere is around, a Goodman has to kill him.”
“Who says?”
Her mouth popped open, and she appeared to be struggling for words, then burst out with, “Everybody! My parents and tradition and—everybody. All the way back to the first Goodman and the first de Mere.”
“Yawn,” he said.
“It’s my duty to kill you and be killed doing it. Just like it’s your family duty to try to kill me and be killed doing it.”
“Don’t you think that’s just about the dumbest fucking thing in the world?”
“Well. Yes,” she admitted. “But who are we to break from tradition?”
“And that’s the second-dumbest thing. Oooof!” She had dropped to her knees—right on his chest. “Gkkk! Air!”
“You listen to me, de Mere. You—”
“Chris,” he groaned. “Christopher Mere, do I have to carve it into my forehead?”
“Shut up. You go away and do whatever you have to do until your thirtieth birthday, and I’ll do what I have to do, and then the next generation can worry about it.”
“Forget it,” he gurgled.
“And no more of this showing up at my house being all chatty and shit. Stay away from my family and stay away from me. For the next couple of years at least.”
“Sorry. Can’t do it.”
“You’d better do it. And keep yo
ur Mere lips to yourself.”
“What’s wrong with my lips?” He put his hands around her small waist and tossed her off him. She hit the dirt (literally), planted her arms, and spun right back over him.
He shoved. She shoved. Soon they were rolling around in the driveway like a couple of kids having a playground spat.
“Go away!”
“No.”
“Buzz off!”
“No.”
“I hate you!”
“Well, I hate you, too, sunshine. But you taste pretty good, I must—ow!”
“And don’t even think about using your rhymes on me. You’re a lousy poet and an evil magic-doer.”
“Yeah? Well, you come from a long line of cold-blooded murderers.”
“I do not!”
“Do, too.”
“Not!”
“You totally, completely do.”
“Shut up!”
“Make me, sunshine.”
“I’ll make you, all right.” She had temporarily gained the upper hand and was again on top. “I’ll make you wish you were never born.”
“Don’t you think we’re a little too old for this kind of thing?” He brought his legs up, hooked them around her neck, and rode her all the way down. “Now will you stop trying to beat the hell out of me—ow—and listen? Ouch!” He wondered dizzily if that last punch had given him a concussion.
Beneath him, she wriggled and squirmed in the dirt like an outraged snake. That was actually a big, big problem, because the fight (and the kiss) had seriously turned him on. He prayed she couldn’t feel his erection. She’d cut if off. He pressed down harder, careful not to hurt her, inwardly groaning as he tried to hide the biggest boner of his life.
A boner for the witch-hunter! Jesus wept.
“Will you stop wiggling and listen?”
Gasping from her efforts, Rhea wheezed, “There’s nothing to listen to.”
“Oh, that’s the spirit.”
“We don’t talk, we fight. And kill. You’d better reread your archives.”
“Rhea, I can see how it is with you, but you don’t know how it is with me. I won’t kill you.”
She blinked up at him. Her eyes were watering from all the dust in the air. “You’d better,” she said. “Because I’m going to do my damnedest to kill you.”