shirt. While the flames hadn’t left a mark on his flesh, the outline of my hand was clear, as if my palm had given him a contact burn. I jerked my hand away, unable to see anything but the blistered, bright-red handprint I’d left on his arm.
Backing away, unable to take my eyes from the mark of violence I’d left on his skin, I told him, “Don’t come near me again.”
I marched out of Jed’s apartment and drove directly to the shop.
* * *
How could I have been so stupid? How was it possible that Jed was some sort of witchcraft spy? Who was Jed, really? Was he working for the Kerrigans, or was there some new third party involved in the feud? How would the Kerrigans know someone from Tennessee? Was Jed really from Tennessee? Was the accent fake, too?
Oh, good night, I’d let that man see me naked.
I’d been had. I was the dumb henchman in the Bond movies who was distracted by female sidekicks with overtly sexual names who eventually strangled the henchman with their thighs. I’d been used. He’d never liked me. He’d never found me “adorable” or “sweet” or any of the little endearments he’d tossed about so casually. And I think that was what hurt so much. I’d really believed he liked me just for me. Not because of what I could do, because I was Nana’s heir, or because I fit conveniently into his life as his lovely normal girlfriend. For me.
I do not remember anything about the drive, other than that I skipped going to the store in favor of pulling over in the Half-Moon Hollow Baptist Church car park to scream and beat on my steering wheel. And at the BP station. And the Bait-n-Beer.
It was a long drive.
Maybe, on some level, I’d known. Maybe that was the root of whatever had kept me from telling the truth about why I was here, about the search. Some part of me must have known he wasn’t trustworthy, too good to be true.
No, that was a rationalization. I’d been completely taken in. I was a moron, a moron who would be taking a voluntary moratorium on dating for the foreseeable future.
Wherever Jed was, I hoped that burn mark on his arm really stung.
Yes, I was committed to doing no harm first, but screw it, Jed had taken advantage of me. He’d known exactly what he was doing. If anybody had some magical blistering coming, it was him. If that meant I was sending bad energy out into the universe, so be it.
* * *
I worked. I sulked. I searched. After I finally cooled off, I spilled my sorry tale of floor busting and betrayal to my vampire friends. While Jane stroked my head, Gabriel practically had to climb onto Dick’s shoulders to hold him back from marching out of the shop and “whipping that boy’s ass!” It is really difficult to explain to your vampire ancestor why it’s not OK to smash your sort-of-boyfriend’s lying face in for betraying you to another magical family. It’s even more difficult to explain that it is not a legal reason to evict someone from the house he’s renting from you.
Dick settled for showing up later at my side of the house with a copy of The Notebook, a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food, and a bottle of wine, dropping them off on my doorstep, patting me on the head, and departing without another word. I was really starting to love that man.
Jed’s proximity didn’t seem to be much of an issue, as I hadn’t seen him since the “handprint incident,” as Jane had dubbed it. His windows remained dark and the driveway empty, other than my car. The house felt empty, too, as if I could sense the absence of his energy from the other side of the walls. I tamped down the sense of loss and longing I felt. It didn’t make any sense to miss someone I barely knew, someone who had only been sent to track me. With the Kerrigans clearly close on my trail, I needed to focus on my efforts to find the athame and the bell—not tracking down my erstwhile neighbor and shaking answers out of him.
The one person who seemed thrilled with this situation was Penny, who answered the news that I’d recovered the intact Earth plaque with a whooping cry that woke up her husband, Seamus. She even took back her previous mockery. She was concerned