Rest For The Wicked(14)
She held up one hand, cut Annie off.
“Not yet—I’m still far too angry.” Pulling her tangled hair back, Claire twisted it into a messy knot, then moved to the table. She studied Annie’s altar, picked up her notebook to read the spell. “A love spell. You created this havoc out of a simple love spell?”
“I didn’t—”
“Mean to do anything wrong.” With a sigh, Claire closed the notebook and set it down. “You never do, Annie. But you don’t understand your power. Worse, you don’t respect it. You raised an elemental.”
Horror flashed through her. “An—I—how could I—holy shit, Claire.”
Annie lowered her head, shaking so badly she thought she was going to throw up.
“Crude, but well said. Look at me, Annie.” One hand pressed to her stomach, Annie obeyed. Claire stood in the middle of the living room, her face white and exhausted. “You tried to cast a love spell, but instead you opened the door for a fire elemental. If I hadn’t been on my way here and felt the elemental slip through—damn it, Annie, you could have killed everyone in your building.”
Tears tightened her throat, blurred her eyes. Annie tried to blink them back—she hated crying in front of anyone, but especially Claire, since it always tore her apart emotionally. But she couldn’t stop them, knowing how close she came to disaster.
“I’m sorry—” The tears broke across her voice.
“Oh, Annie.” Claire lowered herself to the floor, her hands shaking against the hardwood. “I almost lost the battle. And if I had—”
Annie tumbled off the sofa and crawled over to her, panic overriding her tears.
“You didn’t—Claire, you beat it.” She closed her eyes, the tears stinging again when Claire wrapped one arm around her waist. “I’m so sorry—”
“Hush.” Claire pulled her in, and Annie dropped her head to Claire’s shoulder. “Cry it out, sweetheart. Just let go, Annie.”
She did, and Claire held her, rocked her, whispered comfort while she fell apart.
*
“It’s time for you to either take your power seriously, or put it away for good.” Claire handed Annie a cup of green tea, doctored with a good bit of chamomile. She sat down on the sofa, watched Annie sip the tea, then make a face. “I know you don’t like chamomile, but drink it anyway. It will help.”
“I screwed up big time.”
Claire sighed, rubbing Annie’s back.
“You did what you shouldn’t have been able to do; not with that simple spell. I’ll backtrack through it, see what I can find. But I want you to finish that tea, then go to bed.”
“I want to help—”
“Not this time, sweetheart. Just your presence will interfere with what I plan on doing.” Claire brushed hair off Annie’s forehead, checking her temperature at the same time. She felt a little feverish, but not more than Claire would expect after such an expenditure of energy. Never mind being trapped by a fire elemental. “Finished?”
“Yeah—yech.” She took the water Claire handed her, drained the glass. “Thanks. Will you stay with me? Just for a little while?”
Claire heard the fear under her quiet plea, and knew she had learned her lesson. It almost cost too much. “Of course.”
Claire sat with Annie until she fell asleep. After closing the bedroom door, she moved back into the living room. It stank of power.
“How did you do this, Annie?”
She touched everything on the small altar. Annie’s energy wrapped around the small jeweled athame Claire had given her for Christmas, the bowl of herbs, the bottle of oil, the photos of Mildred and her beloved. Claire smiled and shook her head. The woman had chutzpah—her love spell was for the seventeen-year-old son of her next door neighbor.
She set down the photo, frowned at the charring around its edges, touched the inscribed pink candle—and jerked her hand away, her fingers burning from contact.
“What the—” Using the edge of her sweater, she tilted the candle, and spotted the mark on the bottom. The mark of a particularly nasty demon. And she understood how a simple spell went horribly wrong.
Claire used her sweater to wrap the candle, then found a canvas tote bag in Annie’s tiny front closet to hold it until morning.
She set it by the sofa, close to hand, and drained the last of her strength laying a ward over the bag to trap any residual mischief inside. Her head pounding, she made herself a cup of tea, pulled the blanket off the back of Annie’s sofa, and settled in. It was going to be a long night.
SIX
With the offending candle neutralized and carefully wrapped in one of her altar cloths, Claire left her shop half an hour before opening and marched over to the only other shop in town where Annie could have bought it.