Читать книгу An American Witch In Paris - Michele Hauf - Страница 14

Chapter 6

Parked at the curb, Ethan waited for Tuesday while she purchased food from a stand. He didn’t use the BMW often because he walked to work even in the winter. Vampires could easily regulate their body temperature. But the trip to the park would prove long on foot, and he didn’t want the witch to suffer the cold, especially walking in those high-heeled boots.

Tuesday slid in and closed the door and settled back to chomp on a savory-smelling crepe.

“You want a bite? It’s got weird French cheese and ham in it. This is amazing.”

“I’d rather suck dead blood,” he muttered.

“Oh, yeah? What’s wrong with a little taste once in a while? I know vampires can eat small amounts of food.”

“I don’t have a taste for meat. I get enough of the flavor when I drink blood. And you just dripped fontina onto the leather seat. Would you be careful?”

“Fontina, eh? Don’t tell me you don’t steal a taste every now and then.” She swiped a napkin over the seat and then leaned forward, pointing. “That’s the—What is it?”

“The Louvre,” he pronounced carefully.

“Louv-ra, with the ra-ra shout at the end,” she mocked. “You’re not French, are you?”

“I’m English. Born in London, actually, but I didn’t stay there more than a decade. I’ve lived everywhere. Spent some time in the Americas in the 1700s. Right around the time Massachusetts became a state.”

“Good times,” she said, sitting back. “Puritanical shame, Indian genocide and witch hunts. Go, witch hunters! Not.”

Ethan shouldn’t have brought that up. If she knew about the travesties he’d committed against witches when he had been a young vampire only set on impressing his tribe leaders? He’d be very thankful for the binding spell that prevented her from using magic against him.

“Have you been in Paris before?” he asked.

“Once or twice. Never for longer than a month or two. And never in a mood to do any touristing. Once I was here looking for a bastard imp who stole my voice. Little creep isn’t singing or snickering anymore. What’s that?”

“The Luxor Obelisk.” Ethan drove by the seventy-five-foot-high yellow granite obelisk placed in the center of the Place de la Concorde at the end of the Tuileries Garden. “Originally located at the Luxor Temple in Egypt—a gift from Muhammad Ali Pasha, the ruler of Egypt at the time.”

“You know the city’s history.”

“I’ve lived it. Of all my centuries, I’ve spent the most time in Paris. And up ahead is the Champs-Élysées.”

“Oh, I know that’s a good shopping street. Should have waited to get my togs up ahead.” She scanned the signs screaming for customers to come in and spend their precious euros. They passed luxury-car dealers and high-end clothing retailers. And... “There’s a McDonalds on the classy upscale shopping street?”

“And movie rental stores,” Ethan said. “Go figure. It’s all a big tourist trap. But then, this street has been ever since Napoleonic times.”

“More good times,” Tuesday offered. “The Inquisition was still around then. You gotta love a self-righteous maniac intent on destroying that which he does not understand. And if it’s a woman, then even more reason to put her in her place.”

“Do you remember any good times that were actually good?”

“Oh, sure. I loved the late nineteenth century. So bohemian. We witches really got to shine then. The seventies and the hippies also welcomed us with open arms. What’s that? Wait! I know this one.”

Ethan stopped the car at a light before he would enter the roundabout before the monument.

“The arch of triumph, right?”

“Right.” He wouldn’t correct her too harshly. “Napoleon’s Arc d’Triomphe, erected to honor those who served in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. There’s a tomb of an unknown soldier beneath it. If you go to the top it offers a great view of the whole city.”

“Then let’s do it. Yeah?”

“After the demon is found you can take all the time you like for sightseeing.”

“Because then you’ll cut my leash and set me free?”

He didn’t like hearing it put that way, but it was the truth. “Exactly.”

Ten minutes later they pulled in to the park, which was massive and filled with sports areas, a zoo and playgrounds, housing and entertainment complexes. And yet there was still a preserved forested area, an oasis set at the border of the big, cosmopolitan city. A light dusting of snow clung to the trees, giving the forest a faery-tale touch as sun twinkled on the snow.

Ethan parked in a lot before a hiking trail. He kept the car running because the witch would probably appreciate the heat. He pulled on his blue-lensed sunglasses. He could walk in direct sunlight a few minutes without feeling the burn, and much longer in the winter sun. And these lenses were also charmed to view wards, which served as more than a means to protection from sizzling retinas.

“What’s the plan?” Tuesday asked. “Are we going to tromp about the park and call ‘Here, demon, come on, demon!’”

“Won’t that sigil you wear lead us to him?”

“Right.” She touched her chest and closed her eyes. “Or him to me. Not that he’d come running with arms wide open to embrace me.”

Ethan sensed she plummeted to some place very low whenever she touched the sigil. He had to ask. “Tell me how you got the sigil? It could be helpful to know what I’m dealing with here.”

“Now you decide to ask about the stakes? You are so not a romantic, vampire.”

“What does romance have to do with anything?”

“Nothing.” She crossed her arms over her chest and averted her gaze out the window. “Kisses don’t have any place between us, either.”

“I beg to differ. They have proven a useful tool for me.”

“Again, not a romantic bone in your body, eh?”

“What? Do you require emotion, some feeling next time I kiss you?”

“You think you’re going to kiss me again?”

“Probably.”

She turned on the seat to look at him. “Why? Do you like kissing me?”

“It was pleasant.” He sounded like an asshole, but what was she angling for right now with that teasing question? The woman was a curiously complex mixture of opposites. One minute she was trying to put a hex on him to make his dick limp, the next she wanted to make out. “Do you want to kiss me again?”

She sat up, lifting her chin haughtily. “You haven’t been kissed by me yet, vampire. When I kiss you properly? You’ll know. And you’ll never have to wonder if you want another again. Because you will. You’ll crave my kiss, my touch. You’ll want to hex me every chance you get.”

Ethan offered a shrug. “Have to say, that does sound intriguing.”

“Damn right it does. So we heading out on the demon quest?”

“First, I need the details.” He pushed back his seat and tilted to face her comfortably. Taking off the sunglasses, he asked, “Tell me how you got Gazariel’s sigil.”

Boston, MA—1680

Finnister McAdams was going blind. He wore a black strip of sack cloth across his eyes now because he had explained to Tuesday how the light bothered him. Made him blink and gave him headaches. ’Twas as if the devil was prodding his eyes with his mighty pitchfork.

Tuesday knew well the Devil Himself did not wield a pitchfork, but to correct him would only put her in danger. She’d prepared Finn an herbal tincture in his morning tea. Rosemary, black salts and feverfew. Had cast a healing spell...without him knowing. Even laid mustard plasters over his eyes. Nothing proved efficacious.

Now she considered calling up a demon to aid in healing her lover’s eyes. Such creatures did possess healing powers. At least, a few of them did so. If only the witch summoning them could find a beneficent demon. And that was the challenge.

Tuesday loved her man, Finn. From the moment he’d settled next to her in the lavender field and compared her eyes to the sky, she had loved him desperately. Three months they had been sharing her tiny cabin at the edge of the village with one another. Finn was strong and proud, and very handsome. His hair was copper, his thick beard as well. His skin was ruddy and pale, so he always wore a wide-brimmed hat when outside. He was fashioned of flame and earth. And when he held her in his arms it wasn’t tentative or rough. He knew how to hold a woman. And Tuesday’s heart fluttered when he kissed her.

But if he knew she was a witch he would be displeased. The man was Puritan. His family had sailed across the Atlantic Ocean from England six months earlier. His father was seeking a congregation to share and spread the word of God. And Finnister, while a godly man, seemed more inclined to craftwork that involved turning wood into beautiful creations. He even fashioned lovely knife hilts, and had skill with a blade.