AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The librarian had first directed us over to thewitches and wizardssection, but when that had turned up nothing after a solid hour of searching, she’d moved us to the much quieterspiritual possessionarea. It was here that Tansy found a book describing spirits that matched Amrita’s description.
Some called themeternal hags, as they often took over the bodies of beautiful young women and used them until they were old crones. Often the women also had strong magic. Tansy fit the bill perfectly. She was beautiful alright, the most beautiful woman I’d ever met.
A part of me wanted more than anything to own a piece of her beauty and hold it to my heart forever. That was, if I’d had a heart. Demons didn’t need such useless organs.
She had magic too. Oodles of it. She didn’t use it though, not even on beautifying spells for her hair and makeup. She did those the old-fashioned way this morning. But magic poured from her body all the same. The librarian hadn’t even hesitated to let us up to the third floor, which was usually reserved only for those with strong magic. She probably saw us as a young witch and her demon consort.
I was surprised Tansy didn’t just protect herself with all the magic she had but realized she probably had no training. She hadn’t even known about magic and monsters until after the fall of The Wall, which was only a few short years ago.
Tansy furiously took notes and photos of the giant tome since we weren’t allowed to actually take the ancient thing out of the building. There was a notebook full of scrawled notes next to her.
There was nothing to do in this place except watch Tansy as she scoured the shelves looking for her answer. When she wanted something, she went for it hard. I’d never seen someone so dedicated.
I especially loved it when she got frustrated; she made the cutest little face and grumbled to herself. It had happened often back when we were in the wrong section, and it made me want to pick her up and kiss her until she stopped grumbling and made other noises instead.
She also chewed on the end of her pen while she concentrated, and that was cute too. Her shoulders looked tense though, and I wanted to rub them while she searched the magical tomes. How would she react if I tried?
She turned the page, scanned the text, and made that grumbling sound again. “Argh!” she exclaimed a bit too loudly before covering her mouth with the tips of her fingers and looking around the room. We were on the third floor of the large building and in an isolated part of the library, so no one was bothered.
“What’s wrong?”
“This here—” she gestured to the book in front of her “—tells of a witch who destroyed one of these body-stealing spirits. But it doesn’t tell me how. Just that she did. I feel like I’m so close to finding out something big, but I’m not quite getting it.”
I looked at the time on my phone. It was nearly lunchtime. “Why don’t we break for lunch and give you some time to process what you’ve learned? There is a great place close to the witch we’re visiting later that does all-day breakfast. The Starving Aardvark has awesome chicken and waffles.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of that place.” She brightened. “I always wanted to go.” Then her face dropped. “But I really shouldn’t be eating out so much. I—”
“My treat,” I said quickly, remembering that she was low on funds.
“But—”
“You’ve been living in the city for months but haven’t gotten the chance to explore it. Let me show you around.” I didn’t want her to feel pressured, so to take the onus off her I added, “Also, I’m hungry, and I’m craving waffles. You’re not going to keep me from my waffles, are you?”
She chuckled. “No, sir.” She looked toward the shelves and all the promising books she hadn’t gone through yet. “I guess those can wait.”
I eyed her notebook. “You found a lot already.”
She flipped through her notes. “Yeah. I guess I did. I now know she can’t leave a body unless it dies. She’ll have to kill Dean to jump to me.” She poked her pen at the page. “And it takes a lot of energy to take over a body. They’re drained afterward and need to rebuild before doing it again, especially if they’re trying to take over someone strong-willed, like when I fought her the first time. She didn’t expect it. If they’re forced to jump bodies often, they need to take over lesser creatures.”
“Does that mean we can technically keep finding and killing her bodies until she’s forced to take over a gnat?”
Tansy laughed softly. “She’d be one annoying gnat. But yeah, that’s how I understand it. There was a case where that’s exactly what happened. A wizard kept hunting one and destroying its body until it was forced to take over a mouse. But we can’t just keep killing people. I don’t think ‘but it’s my evil adoptive mother’s spirit’ is going to go over well in court.”
“I suppose not.” I did have contacts at both the EA and the police department who wouldn’t mind overlooking a few dead bodies.
In the years since the fall of The Wall, human law enforcement around the world had learned to work hand-in-hand with their local branch of the Secret Enforcement Agency, now more commonly referred to as simply the EA.
She closed the book, then climbed back up the ladder to return it to the shelf where she’d found it. The ladder wobbled as she made her way up, and despite the fact that it was attached to the shelf, I didn’t trust it. I got up and held the ladder still.
“Thank you, Eamon. This thing put the word rickety in the dictionary.”
As she headed down the ladder, I realized I was staring right at her ass. She was lowering herself right between my arms. I gritted my teeth, trying to resist the urge to just pick her off the ladder and slide her down my body.
Her foot landed on a particularly loose rung, and she made a soft squeak. The rung did not look like it’d hold. She must have skipped this one the last time she went up.
“Let me help you,” I grunted. “Turn around, and I’ll lower you down.”
She turned her body, and I reached up for her just in time to catch her as the slat rotated, dropping her. She let out a thin scream and flung her arms around my neck as I eased her off the dangerous ladder.
