Monster Baiter (An Obscure Magic Book 6) Read online

  She gritted her teeth. “No, he didn’t mention that.”

  “Enjoy your charge. We can put him back in the amber if you say the word.”

  Sophia nodded and left his offices as quickly as she could. She didn’t run but walked swiftly through the halls and tapped her feet in the elevator. The final sprint to freedom concluded in her car when she settled, put on her seatbelt and started up the vehicle.

  “Were you going to tell me that I was responsible for you?”

  “I hoped but was not sure that they would actually release me. They are doing it?”

  She sighed and put her car in gear. “Yeah, weren’t you listening?”

  “No. My ability to communicate does not extend to the Guild Hall in this form.”

  She grunted and headed home. It was time to work on the stuff she could actually control. “Did the book come home with me?”

  “Yes. It is on the coffee table.”

  “Good. I have some reading to do while they thaw you out.” She mused. “I wonder if I have to pick you up or will they deliver you?”

  “I have access to portal magic. I will deliver myself.”

  “Oh. Yay. Nothing like another surprise to cap the day.”

  He chuckled, and she fought a smile.

  Once home, she startled Delwin, who had on an apron and was dusting the objects that didn’t have repulsion wards. He was taking his duty as a housekeeper seriously.

  “I am just going to grab this book and head into the back yard. As you were, Delwin. It is looking great.” She smiled.

  He grinned. “Thanks, Sophia.”

  She headed out the back door and saw that he had already cleared her small table and tiny chairs. It was downright cozy now.

  The journal welcomed her touch, and she opened it, focusing on information on demon magic, and when the page settled in front of her, she started reading.

  Three hours later, she rubbed at her eyes and stretched. It was going to take a few ingredients she didn’t have, but she would be able to break through the exterior enchantments. It was a good thing she had a license to purchase the rarer ingredients. That stuff was controlled in many cities, including her own.

  Magnus had gone quiet after the first hour. That was probably when she had stopped reading out loud. He had nothing to comment on.

  She went inside, got a notepad and pen and returned to the back yard. Time to make a shopping list.

  Delwin brought her some lemonade and some small sandwiches.

  “It’s lunchtime. You need to stay fuelled up.”

  “Thanks, Delwin. You don’t have to do all this.” She took the lemonade and sipped at it. “But it is very much appreciated.”

  He smiled. “I am enjoying it. You very obviously need someone to assist you at home. Now, you just need to find one to help you on the job.”

  She sighed. “Well, I had an offer today.” It slipped out before she could stop it.

  Delwin sat across from her. “Who was it? A dashing guild officer?”

  She made a face. “Sort of. An old acquaintance.”

  “Really? Can I ask who?”

  Sophy was saved by an arrival on her property. In the far corner of the yard—the only place warded for transport arrival—a large figure took shape before the light faded.

  “Oh. I appear to have a visitor.”

  Delwin was staring at the man, and he sighed. “Oh, if only he was here for me.”

  She gave him a grin and walked over to the corner where her guest was pinned in the heavy warding. “Hello.”

  He smiled. “Hello. You are taller than you seemed through the lenses.”

  The voice made her shiver and coming out of the mouth of a man who looked like he would have an easier time swinging a sword than driving a car, she suddenly realized she had been backed into a corner. “Magnus.”

  He grinned. His long, dark hair was shaggy and slid forward when he bent his head toward her. His jaw was broad, the blade of his nose was arched and the nostrils flared. It was a serious nose above some very mobile lips. They were currently curved in a smile.

  “Sophia DeMonstre. I am here to assist you, as you are my guardian.” He inclined his head.

  She wrinkled her nose and let him loose from his confinement.

  “Pleased to meet you, Magnus. I am still working on that research but was about to go out to get some supplies.”

  He was wearing contemporary clothing, and he was wearing it well. The jeans and obscenely faithful t-shirt were something she wanted to enjoy looking at, so she decided to avoid them instead.

  Sophia returned to her table and made the notes, flipping the pages back and forth until she was sure that she had listed every ingredient that she didn’t already have at home.

  “May I come with you?” Magnus was into her lemonade and sandwiches.

  “Yes. I don’t trust you around Delwin. He seems to want to climb you like a stripper pole.”

  Magnus looked toward the merman, and he smiled. “Well, I must say that he is extremely attractive but, sadly, not my type.”

  Delwin blushed and scuttled inside, bringing out another lemonade with a smile. “Here you go, sir.”

  Sophia muttered, “Magnus, his name is Magnus, and according to the Mage Guild, he did something very bad.”

  Magnus smiled. “According to them. I did something unacceptable by their standards, and my sentence was the amber. Well, until a woman asked for me to be freed who had not had intimate knowledge of my body.”

  Sophia snorted. “I have never licked my GPS. Not once. Oh, and I gripped my phone but never fondled.”

  Delwin smiled, “Where is he going to sleep? I vote my room.”

  Magnus inclined his head. “I can make myself a shelter out here. I am used to living rough, or I was. I am sure I can be again.”

  Sophy folded her list and put it in her bra. “You will have a problem conjuring anything here. My home is warded against that kind of thing.”

  “I will make do.”

  Sophy kept her mind on business, grabbed the book and smiled. “Well, if you have to stay with me, prepare to ride shotgun. We are going shopping.”

  Magnus followed her into her house, and suddenly, the comfortable space felt a lot smaller.

  She locked up the book and grabbed her purse. Magnus extended his hand, and her phone was in his palm. “You almost forgot me.”

  “This was a perfectly good phone before you inhabited it.”

  He grinned. “And now it is a great phone.”

  She grabbed her phone and shoved it into her purse, stalking out the door and leaving him to close up behind her. She had gained an assistant, and she had no idea what to do with him.

  Well, she did have a few ideas, but he was sleeping outside, so that wasn’t going to happen.

  Chapter Nine

  Sawberry’s Magical Supplies was a huge chain that bragged it had everything in stock.

  Magnus whistled slowly. “Are we going in there?”

  Sophy chuckled. “No. Follow me.”

  She locked her car up when they were standing in front of it and turned away from the supply superstore, walking to the blank brick of the building behind it.

  She pressed her fingers against the brick and tapped out a code. A doorway appeared. She grabbed Magnus’s hand and hauled him with her through the doorway.

  The light settled into a very pleasant room with the air of a library crossed with a tearoom.

  The woman behind the counter surprised Sophy. “Minerva? What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, Tabeel drank some of her own tea and had to check into the medical centre. She will be fine as soon as she stops burping up fortune-telling bubbles.”

  Sophy looked at her friend and grinned. “When is she going to learn that she can’t try her own concoctions?”

  Minerva shrugged and moved to lift a wide box up and over her head.

  Magnus moved swiftly and h
elped her set it in place. Minerva looked up at him. “Well, hello. Friend of Sophia’s, I presume?”

  “You could say that. She is responsible for me.” Magnus smiled down at her. “However, if I had known that there was an enchantress such as yourself behind that wall, I would have beaten it down for the honour of your greeting.”

  Sophia rolled her eyes, and Minerva grinned.

  “You are not from around here, are you?”

  “No. I am not. I am a very recent arrival, sworn to the service of the Cursed One.”

  Sophy snorted. “Nothing like the word cursed to make a girl feel special.”

  Magnus moved from behind the counter and returned to her side. “That is not what I meant.”

  “You are bound to me. I get it. Now, Minerva, can you help me out?”

  Minerva held out her hand. “Give me the list, and I will tell you what is and isn’t in stock.”

  “They should all be fairly standard.”

  She retrieved the list from her cleavage and handed it over to the most powerful mage of their age. Minerva couldn’t just use magic; she could create a new magical ritual and predict the effect. It was one of the greatest talents of the current age.

  Minerva was an impressive woman all around. She was the image of an ancient amazon crossed with a giant and blessed with curves. Everything about her was striking, even when she moved to gather the ingredients on the list.

  “How long have you known each other?”

  Sophy snorted. “She is too young for you, Magnus.”

  “No. It just seems that you have a camaraderie that is surprising, considering what you are and what she is.”

  “What? That I am over a decade older than she is? Or is it that I tear magic apart and she creates it?”

  He stared at her, at Minerva and back again. “You don’t know what her parentage is?”

  Sophy shrugged. Fortunately, Minerva was at the far end of the shop. “She’s adopted. Nothing more needs to be known. Now, zip it.”

  He looked like he wanted to fight that comment, but she glared at him.

  Magnus quieted as they waited for the list to be gone through. Each item was placed carefully on a separate piece of tissue that would keep them from interacting before it was time.

  She bit her lip as she counted and held her breath when there was one item missing.

  Minerva tapped the list over and over as she returned to them. “You just need one thing.”

  Sophy looked at the list and blushed. “Right. I have that at home.”

  “Thought you might but wasn’t sure if it was still good.” Minerva folded the list with a smile. “Well, everything else is here.”

  Minerva packed the items up, one by one, until she had a large bag and a smile. “Nineteen, please.”

  Sophy reached into her purse and pulled out a small coin canister. She opened one end and poured out the nineteen gold coins. “There you are. Tabeel should be happy. I think I just paid her rent for a month.”

  “Or, it will pay for her medical treatment. Either way, she will be happy. Have a great day, and we need to go for coffee at the Patchwork Dragon. It’s illuminating.”

  Sophy grinned. “Now that he isn’t occupying it, my phone is at your disposal. Call me anytime. I will be only too happy to meet up. This is my first week off in years.”

  It was about the only thing that could have shocked Minerva. “You have time off? What happened?”

  Sophy chuckled and took the bag. “Call me when you are done here, and I will tell you over coffee.”

  “Done.”

  Magnus followed her out of the specialty shop and back to the car. He was still bemused by whatever he had sensed in Minerva.

  Sophy didn’t blame him; her friend was fascinating. She was the physical embodiment of strength, intelligence, grace and beauty, not to mention power.

  She sighed at the fleeting thought that Magnus was the man for her. He obviously didn’t return the sentiment.

  She put the ingredients in a charmed bag in the trunk, confirmed that the case was still in place and slammed it closed. When she was back behind the wheel, she tempered her disappointment and headed for home.

  “What is the missing ingredient? Is it a kitchen spice or something?” Magnus was keeping the conversation light.

  “Oh, no. It is just a bit of blood. I forgot that I had some at home.”

  “May I see the list?” He paused. “Please? I have such knowledge of some of these things.”

  She fished the list out again and handed it to him.

  He went down the list and paused. “Virgin’s blood?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you have some at home?” He raised his brows.

  “I do.”

  “How fresh is it? It must be bright for this to work.”

  She grimaced. “Oh, it’s fresh. That is not the issue.”

  He chuckled. “Here, I thought that Delwin was more a man of the world.”

  “He is enjoying his freedom at his own pace.”

  She continued the drive in relative silence, answering the few questions that he put to her with monosyllabic answers.

  Her mind was already on the curse breaking. Some she could do on her own, but others—older curses—required props. The music case was old. The flute looked to be over two hundred and the case might have even changed shape to move with the times.

  She pulled into her drive with relief. The sooner she got this over with, the sooner she would be able to recover from her exertion and get back into the curse-cancelling business.

  Sophy opened her trunk and reeled a little at the heady scent. “That is some strong frankincense.”

  Magnus came up beside her. “Allow me.”

  He pulled the bag out of the trunk, and Sophy cancelled the wards and unlocked the secure storage. The box was right where she had left it and writhing with energy, as if it knew what she had planned.

  “Well, it isn’t happy. Let’s get to the workshop and get this underway.”

  She closed her trunk and carried the box past the side of the house and into the back yard. The workshop was deceptive. On the surface, it looked like a small shed, but beneath, it ran the length of the block.

  It was nice that the houses next to hers were maintained but unoccupied. It would never do to blow up a property that wasn’t her own.

  “Why are you just following me around?”

  “I have never seen someone attempt what you are about to do. It is fascinating.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “It is my job. I do this, I read books, go for coffee with friends, and then, I do it all over again. In between, I do accounting work for my family.”

  “What about a lover?” His words were casual.

  She laughed all the way to the workshop and down the stairs.

  Three hours of pounding, drying and simmering the ingredients and she was ready to let it sit overnight. The herbs had to steep.

  She brushed her leather apron and washed her hands. “So, is it any different from your day?”

  He held up the coffee grinder. “This is definitely different. It would have saved days of work.”

  Sophy laughed. “It does. My parents insisted I learn the traditional ways first, but every time I think I can insert the modern world without upsetting the balance of the spell, I do.”

  He looked around. “Don’t you have to add the blood for the steeping?”

  She turned scarlet, pulled a dagger from the magnetic strip on the wall and cut her hand.

  She muttered as she held her hand over the bowl. “Not pure as the driven snow but where a man has yet to go. Strip the curse against the tide; accept it from the virgin bride.”

  The nine blood drops fell, and the bowl stirred itself. Sophy wrapped her hand with gauze she kept nearby for just such an occasion, wiped the dagger with alcohol and more gauze and tapped Magnus’s mouth to close it.

  The dagger went bac
k into place, and she unwrapped her hand to check on the healing.

  “You’re a virgin?”

  She shrugged. “Is it so surprising? My ancestresses and I were all designed to be tempting and youthful. To find a man who looks beyond our beauty is not something that comes easily. I have been looking for decades, and all I have come across is a man who wants me for my power.”

  He frowned. “I... What I mean to say is—”

  She cut him off with a raised hand. “It’s fine. I am not your type. Got it. It has been made very clear.” She smiled sadly. “It happens all the time.”

  Her phone buzzed, and she stepped away. “Hello?”

  “I am officially off work, and Tabeel has stopped blowing bubbles for the day. I can meet you at the Patchwork Dragon on Merry Street in half an hour.” Minerva’s voice was tired but chipper.

  “Excellent. I will be there. I just need to rinse off some of the herbs, and I will head over.”

  “See you soon.”

  Minerva hung up, and Sophy did the same.

  She smiled at Magnus. “You are off shadow duty. Come on back to the house. You can frolic on the internet and enjoy the vast array of extranatural porn.”

  He cleared his throat. “About what we were talking about before the call. There are reasons for my flirting.”

  “Excellent. Keep them to yourself. I am very familiar with the signs of a man who has no interest in me. I am fine with it. We both know where we stand.”

  She tidied up and shooed him up the stairs. She sealed the workshop with a strong locking spell.

  Sophy took one look at Delwin dressed for the evening, and she grinned. “You look splendid.”

  He preened. “Thank you. Magnus, are you interested in coming to a club this evening? There is always room for one more.”

  Magnus paused. “I thought to go with Sophia.”

  Sophy shook her head. “Minerva and I want to engage in girl talk. Unless you want to sit at a separate table. You will not be sitting with us.”

  He wrinkled his nose. “May I decide when you have gotten dressed for the evening?”