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Wynter braced a hand on the doorjamb. “Hi. The shop’s closed now.”
“I know, yes, I didn’t come here as a customer.” Demetria edged closer. “I wondered if maybe you’d asked Kali to cease blocking the path between myself and Nemesis?”
“Oh,” said Wynter. “Well, I did ask, yes.” Total lie. “But since you sought me out like this, I’m guessing it didn’t work.”
Demetria’s shoulders drooped. “No, it didn’t.” She let out a heavy breath. “It’s hard for me to be out of contact with Nemesis. It’s not as if we talked face to face, She communicated by sending me visions, but I still felt a connection to Her.”
Wynter frowned. “You don’t feel it anymore?”
“I do, but it’s very static. I tried reaching out to Kali myself to ask if She would please unblock the mental path, but She did not come.” Irritation flickered across the oracle’s face. “It’s so annoying to go through such elaborate rituals only for them to amount to nothing. Any tips on how best to summon this particular deity?”
Shaking her head, Wynter gave her an apologetic look that was utterly false. “I don’t use rituals.”
“Then how do you communicate with Her?”
Wynter stilled as a slight breeze ruffled over her ankles in warning, and she sensed that Kali didn’t want Demetria to know that She was a regular presence. “She comes to me in my dreams sometimes.” Though usually only when She had something to say.
Her mouth opened in an “O” shape. “I see. I wish I’d known that earlier, I’d have used an entirely different ritual. Thank you, Wy—” She cut off as the small gate to the front yard burst open.
A slender male vampire stalked down the path, a bandana on his head, his mouth set into a harsh line. His name was Eddie, if Wynter remembered rightly. And he was a bit of a prick at times.
Wynter narrowed her eyes. “Is there a problem?”
“Oh, there’s a problem all right,” he said, setting his fists on his hips. “And that Delilah bitch had better come out here and fix it. Where is she?”
Oh, for the love of God.
Demetria looked from him to Wynter. “I’ll leave you to deal with this,” she said, already retreating, a hint of smugness in her tone. She’d no doubt reached the same conclusion as Wynter—Delilah had sold yet another of her funky potions and pissed off a customer. And since Demetria’s workplace had been losing customers to Wynter’s shop, the oracle was getting a kick out of this. Bitch.
“Delilah!” Eddie yelled. “Get out here!”
Wynter raised her hands. “Okay, you need to lower your voice. If you want help, I can—”
Delilah materialized at her side. “What’s going on?”
He leaned forward slightly, all aggression. “What the hell was in that goddamn potion?”
“You’ll need to refresh my memory on what it was you—Oh no wait, you’re the dude who has a crush on his best friend’s girlfriend,” Delilah recalled. “You want her to be addicted to the taste of your blood so she’ll feed from you instead of him and then maybe you can win her to your side.”
Damn, what an asshole.
“You said if I added a little of my blood to the potion and then got her to drink it she’d be addicted to my blood from then on. Only it didn’t work, and now there’s this.” He whipped off his bandana.
Wynter cringed. Jesus.
“I warned you there might be side effects,” Delilah snootily told him.
His eyes blazed. “You didn’t say that one of said side effects might be a rash on my forehead that’s the exact shape of a fucking cock.”
Delilah hummed. “Brings a whole new meaning to the term ‘dickhead,’ doesn’t it?”
Wynter felt her eyelid twitch. God, she was gonna kill the woman one day . . . if someone else didn’t beat her to it, which was highly possible. “Eddie, you must have heard that some of her potions cause stuff like this to happen.”
“A lot of her potions do actually work, though,” he said.
Wynter held up one index finger. “Not if the intention of the buyer is dark. Be fair, Eddie, you tried using magick to do a shitty thing to someone. As such, magick instead did a shitty thing to you.”
His shoulders sagged in what she’d like to believe was shame, and he rubbed at his forehead hard. “Fuck, it itches like a twat.”
