Wolves at the Door - Lidiya Foxglove Page 0,8

up. I had some experience with the warmth spell from working on old houses on cold winter days. I tried a fire spell to the usual pathetic effect.

The ghoul swept toward me and became solid just as it slammed into me. My back hit the wide planks of the porch, the wind knocked out of me.

Fuck. I tried not to panic. It was just a passing ghoul, I was pretty sure. Sometimes when a person died, random spirits blew in to feed on remnants of magic left behind. They were just the vultures of the magical world. Another pest like the paper imps in the last house. I was used to this sort of thing, but I didn’t enjoy it. Who would? One minute you were scoping out a house and the next moment a ghoul was swirling around you cackling with glee.

“Little witch, stay down, down, down on the ground…,” it chanted, and now when I tried to get up, my limbs stuck to the floor. Oh, yes, and ghouls also love poems.

I heard Graham roar like he was in a serious fight around the corner of the porch and I twisted, trying to loosen up the spell.

“Let me go!” I demanded with all my will. “I have to move! Ungh—” I twisted again and broke free, nearly tripping on my own feet in my attempt to get to Graham.

The ghoul tried to block my passage, swooping toward me. “Think you’re clever, do you? Well, I can see right—”

I blasted the ghoul in the face, getting a good hit in that time. It evaporated before my eyes.

Bevan swept down in front of me, his bat wings flapping so close to my face that I had to stop. “Helena,” he said. “I need to tell you—this house—”

“Uh-huh?” I knew Bevan wouldn’t appear if it wasn’t important, because he was an old-school familiar who didn’t come unless I called him, and would then chastise me for calling him too often.

“It’s almost a parallel.”

“Almost?”

“There’s a hole in the fabric between worlds just waiting to—”

Suddenly Graham flew forward across the porch with his hands wrapped around the ghoul as he strangled it, while demon wings had torn through his dress shirt and I could see the outline of his tail trapped down the leg of his pants. Damn, I didn’t need any more fantasies about the things these men had in their pants. I could also see that the ghoul had scraped his face, drawing lines of blood across the bridge of his nose and forehead, and even worse—the color of his skin was turning bluish. He’d been hit with the ghoul’s chill. His eyes glowed as he let out a final grunt of anger and the ghoul dissipated.

“Tear,” Bevan finished.

“I see.”

Chapter Five

Helena

Graham sank to his knees and I rushed toward him. His teeth were chattering.

“What—what the hell— I’m so cold,” he managed through his shivering.

“Did it kiss you? They have this cold kiss spell they do sometimes.”

“I guess it—s-sort of—brushed my forehead—”

“Well, never fear. I’ll warm you up.”

“With a hot kiss?” He shot me a grin that was hiding some nerves.

It was tempting. But I wasn’t ready to give in to his charms yet. I put both of my palms on his cheeks now and said softly, “Chaleur…”

The bluish tint immediately started to leave his skin as the warming spell melted through him.

“Your bat has returned,” he said.

“Yes, I was here to warn my witch about exactly this sort of situation,” Bevan said.

“Bevan’s kind of a little bitch,” I said.

“Oh, that’s uncalled for.” Bevan’s big bat ears were shot up straight with aggravation. “I’m just here to protect you and it’s not my fault that you’re always battling ghouls or breaking your leg. I can’t keep up.”

“If you’re going to show up late, you might as well not even bother.” I petted his back just so he knew I loved him though. That was our usual relationship. Some familiars took human form and wanted to do human things, but I barely knew what Bevan looked like in human form. I hadn’t seen him that way in years. He was more like an outdoors cat who occasionally showed up for a head scratch.

I raised my eyebrows at Graham, who was still shaking off the cold spell, shivering a little when a breeze crossed the porch. “What was that thing?” he asked.

“Scavenger ghouls.”

“You sound pretty nonchalant, but I’m not the only one with goosebumps.” He wrapped his fingers around my wrist and I saw