The Problem With Hexes Read online

  The Problem With Hexes

  Hexed in New Orleans Book 2

  Lexi Ostrow

  Copyright © 2019 by Lexi Ostrow

  Cover by The Write Wrapping

  Edits by MLT Editing

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  One

  The phone vibrated under her chin. Deidre’s right eye popped open. The room wasn’t unfamiliar, but it wasn’t hers.

  “Early to rise?” Bill didn’t bother to lift his head.

  “I believe the saying is early to bed, early to rise.” She smirked and pulled the covers off. “We were not early to bed.” Snatching her cotton dress off the floor, Deidre untangled it. “Some of us don’t do next day.”

  Bill snorted and pushed to sit up. She couldn’t help but admire his dark skin dusted with thin chest hair. Ivy and Lita thought she was nuts, but Deidre loved a man with a little hair. Ebony eyes showed very little sign of life, the warlock did not perk up the way she did.

  “Some of us don’t care if we’re a booty call, we just don’t want to be woken up at six in the bloody morning.” Some of his sayings often reminded her the warlock was from London, not New Orleans, despite Bill living here for over three hundred years.

  Tugging the dress over her head, it slid down over her curves with little tugging, and Deidre stepped into her flats. “Well, I work. It’s not a day off for me.”

  Bill’s lips twitched upward, but he didn’t smile. “Had your mother not shut down the bar a few years ago you could be working nights, too.”

  “Then I couldn’t torment you and leave before you’ve made me tell you how wonderful you are.” Grinning, she gave a little wave and headed for the bedroom door.

  “Lock the bloody door behind you!” his voice carried down the hall.

  The swampy rush of New Orleans summer humidity swarmed over Deidre as she opened the door. “Kleidariá,” she whispered and aimed her hand at the lock. She didn’t have a wand on her, but the magic didn’t need too much focus. She heard the tumbler slide into place and let herself glance out into the French Quarter.

  Six in the morning and the streets were damn near as alive as they’d been at six in the evening and two in the morning. Deidre did her best to hide a smile as a drunken bachelorette party stumbled past the small courtyard of homes on Royal. She overheard them giggling.

  This is why you stayed. It’s home. It makes you feel alive.

  A chill passed over Deidre sending goosebumps over her arms and legs.

  Alive.

  A single word that could no longer be applied to the most important person in her life.

  Her husband’s image flashed in her mind, and Deidre realized the image grew hazy. She no longer saw Gerard’s piercing blue gaze and straight white teeth as fiercely as she once did. A film seemed to cover them, blurring them into what would one day be nothingness.

  “Eight months will do that.” She hissed bitterly.

  Tears blurred her vision, and Deidre squeezed her eyes shut, clearing the image of her husband from her mind.

  Gerard had been a good man. She’d known him only a few months when they’d gotten married, but it hadn’t mattered. Deidre was supposed to have had centuries with Gerard. He’d been everything good in the world – caring, heroic, compassionate.

  All of it, washed away like sand on a beach the day Victor Vexx decided humanity didn’t deserve to live. Eight months ago, her husband’s life was brutally snuffed out by a biological weapon. Eight months ago, they’d captured and killed the man who’d done it.

  Deidre could have done a spell to remove the pain, most witches did when they experienced a deep loss. She wasn’t most witches. Her father passed on when she’d been barely three. Her brother killed by a drunk driver. Yes, her mother remarried and she loved her stepfather, but it didn’t undo the death that surrounded her at such a young age.

  Deidre grew up with pain close at heart, which is why when Gerard burst through her barriers, she’d known he was the man she’d bind her life with and extend both of their lives.

  As a human, when he was killed, she did not die with him. She did not need his magic to survive, he needed hers to match her lifespan. It was one of the reasons witches and warlocks rarely married humans. The funny thing about being part of the community known as Supernaturals, was each had their own limitations. For witches and warlocks, they had to bind their lives, essentially agreeing to procreate and further the magic – or have their magic stripped away, and they would die shortly thereafter.

  Vampires couldn’t walk in the day.

  Djinn literally had to cast anything if someone began with “I wish…”

  Shifters were part animal and bound to change into their beasts.

  Angels could do little more than fight with demons, and demons could never blend into society to remain safe.

  All because a group of greedy humans opened Pandora’s Box and destroyed their chemical makeup.

  Here she was, standing on the stoop of one of the wealthiest men in New Orleans’s homes, and all she wanted to do was crawl into her bed and wake up with her husband by her side. Time travel magic was illegal and deadly. She’d mourned her loss and accepted Gerard was gone. A warlock with necromancy magic could have raised him, but Deidre knew she didn’t have the ability to say goodbye a second time. Not that she’d gotten to say it the first time.

  Three months ago, Lita flung open the curtains in Deidre’s home and not only let the sunlight in, but a reality check. Deidre wasn’t doing anyone any favors locked away in her house. The Mid City home boasted everything wonderful about New Orleans architecture and held a spot just across from the park, but she’d bought the place to be able to walk anywhere she wanted, whenever she wanted. Instead, all she’d done was sometimes change her underwear and brush her teeth before crawling back into bed.

  Lita danced in, cast the open curtains, and told Deidre that if she didn’t want to live her life, there were plenty of witches who’d gladly take her magic. The idea of giving up what was hers, especially after losing her husband, caused Deidre to snap.

  “So, get on with it.” Blowing out a breath, Deidre gathered her long black hair into a ponytail and secured it. There was no walking with her hair down in this heat, and the police station was a good three blocks away.

  One of the only things she’d done in the last two months was get a job – for the first time in almost a century – and start practicing a bit of self-care. The self-care had been easy, the job, not so much. She’d been unwed for more than four hundred years, the men were there and some waiting. Though she dated, it took a few weeks before she’d been willing to really think about herself with another man. Bill broke through her defenses, not because he was incredible looking, but because he knew her. They’d spent centuries dating on and off, and he knew how to make
her smile, and how deep her loss ran. He was a warlock, and he’d managed to extend his life only to lose his werepanther mate to cancer. Humans often believed Supernaturals couldn’t get human diseases, but they did, they just didn’t often succumb to them.

  Thousands of years ago, seven humans did the stupidest thing – they opened Pandora’s Box. No one knew if the box had been cursed by the gods themselves, or if something in the cave itself held power. Suddenly, humans weren’t alone in the world. Witches, warlocks, vampires, shifters, djinn, demons, and angels were born. For centuries they kept to themselves, but now they lived out in the open. Hence finding work being difficult. She started late in the game, and while she loved Lita, brewing potions at her friend’s shop would not distract Deidre from the horrible turn her life took.

  “Good thing you have friends in high places.” The thought brought a smirk to her lips. Despite her best friend being on the Council that kept order and the High Priestess, Ivy hated when people looked up to her. She went out of her way not to do favors. “Which is why Sam got you the job.”

  The morning sun nearly made Deidre ready to turn around and go back home. Not on the official payroll, Deidre consulted on crimes committed by Supernaturals, but still found herself as an integral piece in the cases she’d already consulted on. There hadn’t been an open spot at the NOPD, but there’d been enough room to bring her on when specific officers asked for her – which Sam made a habit of doing now that he was officially over his aversion to witches.

  “One day in a string of others.” Deidre smiled at a man walking a bulldog as they passed. “Let’s get to work then, you know this city, there’s always something afoot.” The walk took less time than she’d anticipated, and the tall colonial columns seemed to beckon her inside to take her mind off Gerard.

  “Morning, Dee!” Tammi, the only vampire on the force, was barely noticeable under the blanket protecting her from the sun.

  “Don’t pass out! It’s hot as hell out here.”

  “Trust me, no one likes when I work past sunrise, but a vampire clan submitted approval to join the New Orleans clan, and Renard demanded I work with the cops until we knew how much of a threat the current population posed.”

  Deidre gave a wave as the other woman resumed walking. Despite magic casters having the most power, vampires tended to be feared the most by humans. Something about the mythos, or perhaps the way many still drank human blood, didn’t make them a beloved cornerstone of the human world.

  “You think we’ll evac?”

  Sam’s thick accent carried from across the courtyard, and Deidre stopped. It wasn’t her business to know things. It was her business to figure them out. Still, if Sam was worried about evacuating, Deidre thought it wouldn’t hurt to listen in – Lita would tell her sooner or later, anyway.

  “It’s not impossible. The Army Corps of Engineers think the levees won’t overflow, so until they do, it’s a waiting game to see if this bitch picks up steam.” Tanner, Sam’s best friend, snorted.

  “Gentleman,” Deidre walked up.

  “Class act this one,” Tanner grinned. “Lita refers to us as boys.”

  “That’s because you probably act like it when you’re around her.” She smirked and crossed her arms over her chest. “Hurricane coming in?”

  “You can’t sense it?” Tanner quirked a brow. “Haven’t you lived here like… as long as the city?”

  Deidre scoffed. “Not only did you ask my age, you insulted me by implying I’m old.”

  Most men would have groaned. Tanner merely smiled and let his sparkling blue eyes smolder in her direction. “I save my charm for the women I have a chance with.”

  “Touché.” Deidre smiled.

  Tanner was many things, dating material was not one of them despite Lita’s attempts when she and Sam first dated.

  “On a serious note, no, I can’t sense hurricanes.” She glanced up and took in the blinding white light from the sun. “Like, I haven’t even watched the news in three days to know one’s coming.”

  Sam’s eyes narrowed, and she could sense a lecture coming on.

  “Samuel Carson, before you lecture me on being on the police force and knowing what’s happening around me may I remind you I have not sworn to never hex you.” Green witch fire crackled in her hand. She’d never hurt the man, but she didn’t need a man with less than a century of life telling her how to live, either.

  His eyes narrowed further if that were even possible, and his lip pulled back just a hair. “Hexing an officer just outside the station would be stupid.” He sighed, and his shoulders relaxed. “Look, I’m just nervous. Bad shit keeps happening to the witches out here, and you’ve had your share.”

  Her anger deflated a bit. “I appreciate that, but I’m fine. Can one of you walk me through hurricane evacuation guidelines?”

  Sam gave a firm shake of his head. “Consultants don’t stay or help with keeping things orderly. So, it’s whatever the coven does to help mitigate the storms.” Before he could say anything else, the radio on his shoulder blared to life.

  “Carson, we’ve got a code two out in the Bywater.”

  “Roger that.” Sam glanced at Tanner. “Let’s go see what we’re bringing in today.”

  “On the plus side, if they called us, they’re human.”

  Sam gave a small wave before the pair walked past her.

  “So, what are you doing now when the person who typically has a case for you just walked by?” Deidre glanced down at her phone. “Go find yourself a crime to help with, it’s New Orleans, it shouldn’t take long.”

  The yawn seemed to stretch his mouth so wide Jonathan’s skin ripped slightly at the corners of his mouth. The late-night shifts were going to kill him because they always extended too damn far into the day. Even an energy spell couldn’t pep him up after days of little or shitty sleep.

  Still, he was the one who got the call asking him to check out the scene of a robbery.

  Rubbing his hands over his eyes, Jonathon didn’t hesitate to pull a transport potion from his pocket. He struggled to pull the cork out, not because he was weak from lack of sleep, but because the damn thing was in upside down.

  “Xekleídoma,” he whispered the Greek command, and the cork popped out with a rush and shot sky-high before plummeting down to land near his feet. Shrugging, Jonathon let the green potion drip out around his feet as he pictured the address of the antique store.

  Unlike other crime scenes, this one didn’t have the usual “pass it to Trevors stink.” Despite helping to solve numerous cold cases in his first year, the department still had an issue with him, or, at least, the older warlocks did. Countless crap cases were tossed his way, even after he proved instrumental in taking down the most dangerous threat humanity has ever known.

  Still, this looked almost dangerous. The glass door of the popular shop was smashed in, blood dried onto one of the fragments left behind. So, whoever did this didn’t want to make it look like a Supernatural. He could see the body lying on the floor, two vicious slashes in his throat were clearly meant to resemble a vampire’s bite. Unfortunately, the marks were slashes, not puncture holes, and someone got sloppy draining the blood because a puddle surrounded the man’s foot. Nothing appeared remiss in the shop. Whatever the thief-turned-murderer took, it wasn’t apparent.

  Jonathon saw no need to lift his badge to get inside the yellow tape bordering the entrance of the store. The CSI was familiar with him, and though a crowd began to gather, none tried to shove past with Jonathon as he stepped in.

  “Morning,” Rondo nodded and put his nose back in the piece of paper.

  “Someone want to tell me what’s going on that I was called?” Jonathon didn’t mean for the question to carry so much bite, but he was too damn tired to check himself.

  “Shh,” Sam stepped up beside him. “You got here second, so now you watch.”

  Jonathon followed Sam’s pointed finger. A woman kneeled next to the body with her back to him. He could see
a light blue vial in her hand and knew she would perform a memory spell.

  A brilliant white light glowed around the witch and the dead man, and the hologram of the memory appeared. The man’s brown eyes already held fear as he looked out from behind the counter. His body shook as if he knew something came for him.

  “Please take whatever you want, I can’t cast. I’m not a Supernatural, I just work here.” Even his words trembled.

  “You have what’s mine. Human.”

  Jonathon pulled his gaze from the pudgy, balding man behind the counter and his blood ran cold. Demons rarely showed their true form, but the creature in the memory could be nothing else.

  Red scales covered in a thin layer of clear mucus covered the creature from head to toe. Slanted eyes glowed yellow and jagged teeth poked out from under bulbous orange lips.

  “Kaloúpi. Tóra,” The Greek command to die slipped out of the demon’s mouth.

  Unlike witches, warlock, and djinn demons and angels commanded far greater powers. They were everything the bible wrote them to be, and it was because the two original of their kind flaunted themselves for all to see. They were recorded and hunted, so they slipped away to fight their war without the humans ever knowing they were there, vanishing into nothing more than myth.

  Jonathon kept his eyes on the demon as the creature sauntered toward the back of the shop. The creature let its gaze linger on a variety of items before standing before a blue flower pendant. The petals appeared to be made of sapphire, and it didn’t make sense the piece sat on a shelf and not the case if it were made of such gems.

  Pocketing it, the creature grabbed a vase and moved back toward the man dangling over the counter.