curses want to be found

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Riley O’Ryan ached from her head to every toe in her blood-soaked work boots. Opening the front door of the little house in Hermosa Beach two blocks up the hill from the breaking waves of the Pacific Ocean, she felt more like seventy-five instead of twenty-five. God, even her teeth hurt. The witch at the cursed construction site she’d been called in to clear out by another member of her Coven had been a pain to take down in every sense of the word.  

    Prince, her half-demon half-canine bodyguard, followed behind. Usually, he looked like a big black Belgian Shepherd. Tonight, he was a mud-covered child’s nightmare come to life. Razor-sharp spines stuck out on his back and sides, and his second set of fangs were still bared in a scary grin, muzzle covered in dried blood. 

Riley didn’t look much better, minus the fangs and spines. Together, they dragged themselves into the living room, one exhausted step at a time.  

    Count Alexander Ivanovich, second cousin to the late, great Tsar Nicholas the II of Russia, lay snuggly wrapped in a blue fleece blanket, stretched out on her couch in front of the TV. He’d thrown his black and gold Imperial Horse Guards jacket along with its matching ceremonial sword onto the coffee table. In one hand he had one of her craft IPAs and with the other, was digging into a bag of popcorn. The special black pepper flavor she had to go to Vons to buy because Target never had it.

   He turned his arctic blue eyes on her and wrinkled his perfectly sculpted nose. “What in the name of all the saints is that smell? Have you been casting spells in a dung heap? Or perhaps rolling in one?”  

Stalking over stiff-legged in a good imitation of an angry alley cat, Riley grabbed the bag of popcorn out of his hands, scooped up the bottle of beer, and limped to the stairs. 

   “I hate you,” she snarled over her shoulder. 

   “I cannot find the vodka,” he called after her. “And why do you never have any caviar in that infernal cold box of yours?”

    “The dead,” she moaned with a bitter shake of her head, taking a long pull on the beer, “Can't live with them, would really like to live without them.” 

   “I am not dead,” he said in a voice of affronted dignity. 

   “Dead enough!” 

   Riley O’Ryan was a Blood Witch and a member of the Thirteen Families, which was arguably the most powerful coven in the history of witchcraft. She broke curses for a living. They usually didn’t follow her home and move in. 

   Rummaging under the sink in the upstairs bathroom, she found the stash of plastic trashcan liners. Riley peeled out of her hoodie, shirt, socks, jeans, underpants, and bra and stuffed them inside. Giant jets of bloody supernatural foam shooting up from a sacrificial graveyard had done their worst. Plus, there was the beheading part. No amount of washing was going to make any of those clothes wearable again.    She shoved her boots into a separate bag. The shoes she could save… maybe.

    Together, she and Prince climbed under the shower, hot water on full. Several times as they cleaned up, she had to empty the filter she kept over the drain as it got clogged with red-stained mud, foam, gravel, and dog hair. There might have been a severed finger in there, but Riley did not want to look too closely as she scooped the mess out with wads of tissue. 

   The worksite had been plagued with weeks of bad luck and several gruesome deaths. Riley’s investigation uncovered five power stones drenched in blood and gore from centuries of sacrifices. Human sacrifice. A dark and dirty coven lived on the land from the 1700s until the great State of California took it for unpaid taxes. The witches had died out, deservedly, except for the last remaining one who Riley was currently attempting to wash out of her hair.  

     Half a bottle of shampoo and conditioner–human for her, dog brands for Prince–and all the hot water later and she felt clean.  

She and Prince finished the popcorn while she pulled her strawberry blond hair back in a dripping ponytail and shrugged into her old Abercrombie sweats.

   “Food,” she moaned. “Need more food.” 

   Prince whined in agreement. 

   Downstairs, they shuffled tiredly through the living room to the kitchen. The house was small, as were many older homes in the beach communities along this part of the Los Angeles shoreline. This was not Malibu or Laguna. She’d inherited it mortgage-free, thank god. Despite the goodwill of her parent’s old client list, it was hard work making the business (if you could call breaking curses and chasing apparitions a business) financially successful all on her own.

   The house was constructed in an open L-shape, the living room on one end, the dining room, and the kitchen at the other. Windows looking out over the backyard, plus a set facing the front. Stairs to the second floor bisected the entry hall and living room. Two bathrooms upstairs and a half bath on the first floor. There was even a little fireplace on the far side of the living room. 

   The kitchen was small, but comfortable. Her parents had updated it from a seventy’s monstrosity to a modern chic when Riley was in junior high. White cabinets, white countertops, and a butcher-block island in the middle with stools on either side. The gas stove was old but still worked. Ditto on the fridge.  

   Alexi (she refused to call him Count Ivanovich as he tried to insist) stood beside the open fridge, trailing the blue blanket, one hand raised palm out as if awaiting a container of caviar to fall into it. He was wearing a starched white cotton shirt cut to fit snuggly along the lithe, athletic lines of his body. Black cavalry pants were tucked into a pair of tall riding boots, the leather gleaming. The light from the refrigerator reflected off his golden blond hair swept back over his ears. A thick lock fell forward across his forehead. He brushed at it with a quick, automatic gesture. He was clean-shaven, the high plains of his cheekbones and brows in enviable symmetry to the rich curve of lips and jaw. His whole demeanor radiated Old World aristocracy.  

Royal was the word that sprang to mind. 

   “For God’s sake, where have you hidden the vodka?” 

   A royal pain in her butt.  

   The Count had been an unexpected addition (you could hardly call him a perk) attached to a cursed object she’d recently been hired to cleanse, the Romanov Egg. A beautiful jet-black Faberge-like confection adorned in jewels and gold. The object had been through many hands since the revolutionaries stormed the original owner’s estate, burning the place to the ground and slaughtering everyone they found. Almost prophetically, the object had earned an incendiary reputation over the years. Wherever the egg went, fire followed. 

The auction house had opted not to mention the object's fiery past in their glowing catalog description, and the current owner had come to    Riley after half her Malibu mansion burned to the ground. The retainer was deliciously large, but the Count, who had appeared quite unexpectedly during Riley’s summoning spell, quickly made her wonder if the money was worth it. 

   Riley shoved him away from the refrigerator with a roll of her hip. She took out some low-fat turkey and ground beef to cook for Prince. Last night there had been half a roast chicken and a ready-to-cook container of white cheddar macaroni and cheese. The chicken was gone, victim of the Count’s rabid appetite no doubt. The man was eating her out of house and home. Ghosts were not supposed to have appetites. The macaroni and cheese remained. Thank heavens he had not bothered to master the microwave.

   “Cooking!” he’d sneered, as though that explained everything. 

Grabbing anotherbeer with her other hand, she shut the fridge door, put the container into the microwave, and popped the cap off the beer. 

   “These IPAs are not for you!” she said, waving it in front of his face.          “They cost thirteen freaking dollars for a six-pack and the only reason I have them is someone gave me a case as a thank-you gift. So, hands off!” 

    He targeted her with a narrow-eyed sneer he probably reserved for peasants on his estate just before he kicked them. 

Prince made impatient woofing noises. She spooned his dinner into a frying pan and began breaking up the chunks of meat.  

   “He wants vodka,” Alexi said. 

   Riley made a face at him. “Let’s clarify that. You want vodka.” 

    “Of course I do. What man does not? Beer is an inferior drink.” 

    She turned and poked him in the chest with the handle of the spatula. “Then don’t drink my beer!” 

    He began searching through the kitchen cupboards, muttering under his breath in Russian while Riley cooked. Just as the meat was done, he reached into the cupboard above the stove, nearly making her tip over the frying pan. He shouted in triumph. Moving aside a couple of casserole dishes, he pulled out the half-full bottle of vodka she’d hidden. 

   Damn.  

    He turned his head to her with a crooked smile on his razor-cut lips. “I have found it!” 

   “Oh goody,” she hissed sarcastically. 

   He poured himself a generous measure as Riley spooned the sizzling meat into Prince’s bowl. 

   Prince was dancing on his front paws, whining. 

   Riley fanned the bowl with an oven mitt. “Too hot, pup! Give it a second.” 

    Taking a contented swallow, Alexi stooped to pour a measure in a small bowl by Prince’s water dish. Prince wagged his fluffy black tail in anticipation. His full name was Prince Machiavelli Spawn of the Devil because he had been a very bad puppy.

   “Stop, Alexi, you're going to poison him! Prince, no. Sit! Bad dog.”

She pushed Alexi away. 

   Prince stared at her with his big brown eyes, glancing from the Vodka bottle to his bowl and back again.  

   “No!” she repeated firmly. “No alcohol for dogs.” 

She set the meat dish on the floor. 

   “Eat!” 

   Alexi looked down his nose at her, nostrils slightly flared. “In my Russia, the dogs were always given a measure of vodka in the evening.” 

    “Honestly, in your Russia, even babies were given vodka in the evening,” she said in exasperation. “That does not make it right.” 

   “You know nothing of my Russia,” he sniffed, patting Prince on the head.  

    “That's because everyone who knew anything about your Russia is dead, your high and mightiness. Killed by the Bolsheviks.”  

   A look of pain flashed across his face. He turned away, trying to hide it, but she had seen. Damn her tongue!  

   “Alexi, I'm sorry,” Riley said at once. 

    “It is of no consequence.”  

   “Honestly. Please.” 

   With great dignity, he said, “I am going back in my egg.”  

   Which is rather a difficult thing to say with dignity, Riley thought, but he carried it off. 

     With a bang that made the glasses shake in the cupboard, the blond man vaporated into a thick column of silver smoke. The glass he was holding dropped to the floor, spilling its contents. With a sly, doggy smile, Prince eagerly lapped it up.

   The smoke flowed sinuously around the kitchen and dining room before disappearing into the jeweled egg sitting atop a carved stand on the mantle above the fireplace.

   Riley and Prince were alone. If she didn’t need that stupid, annoying, deadaristocrat to find out who killed her father and kidnapped her mother to a dimension of demons, she would just throw the damn egg in the ocean and him with it. 

   Prince gave her a lopsided doggy smile, hiccupped, and fell over on his back. 

   “God damn it, Alexi!” she cursed, shaking a fist at the egg.