Free Wicked Souls by Misty Evans Page B

above my coffeepot. Two hours and six
minutes until show time. “And hurry. I need control of my soul
before the Witches Anonymous ceremony tonight.”
     
     

Chapter Ten:
    A Witch Can’t Change Her Spots
     
    Upstairs in my apartment, Keisha and I went
to work getting ready for the meeting. She was afraid to leave me
alone, and although I insisted repeatedly I’d be fine, underneath
my bravado I was glad she was stubborn and stayed with me. When you
have an archangel, Lucifer, and the mother of mankind, who
apparently knows her way around the supernatural world, all after
you, you get a little nervous. Especially when one or more of them
is messing with your cerebral cortex.
    I’d bought a new leopard-print dress for the
ceremony. I paired it with my favorite designer stilettos and black
satin jacket. Keisha took her parrot-colored turban from her head,
shook it out and turned it into a skirt. Since we had the same size
feet and similar taste in shoes, she traded her ankle boots for my
lime green kitten heels and wove several lemon yellow ribbons into
her hair. Then she heated up my flat iron and commanded me to sit
on the toilet while she ironed my hair.
    As she parted my hair into sections, I
asked, “Do you have any ideas on how I can get my soul back?”
    She combed a section out, one corner of her
mouth quirking deep into her cheek as she thought. She wouldn’t
meet my eyes, even in the mirror, and I had the feeling her next
statement wasn’t gonna be to my liking. “Souls are extremely
valuable, but usually not as vulnerable as yours apparently is,
except at the moment of death.”
    “Gabriel nearly killed me at the fire
station.”
    Faint steam rose from the flat iron as
Keisha slid it down the section of hair. She was focused on it, not
really seeing it, her mind circling the problem along with mine. “That, combined with the Heavenly trace evidence I found, means it
has to be him, not Luc controlling your mind.”
    Luc had said my will was very strong, too,
which was probably why I kept suppressing my magic in order to be
good and have a normal life with Adam. But now, my magic seemed to
be gaining ground in the control department. “But Luc’s controlling
my magic.”
    Again, Keisha did the quirky mouth thing. “I
don’t know, Amy. There was no trace of dark magic in the bewitching
spell’s fingerprint. It was ancient and very powerful, but not
demonic.”
    Sounded to me like Eve was still my best
suspect there, but having been in Lucifer’s employ as well as his
bed for seven years, I wasn’t quite ready to let him off the hook. He was as good at trickery and manipulation as he was with
temptation and sending people to Hell. “Technically, Lucifer is an
angel, not a demon,” I reminded her and called on my CSI knowledge. “I’ve never ran his magical prints before, but I’m
guessing they might resemble Gabriel’s. They are brothers, after
all.”
    “True.” She slid the iron over another
section of hair. “But from what you described, that means they’d
have to be working together, and the odds of that happening seem as
likely as you and Eve becoming best friends.”
    There was no love lost between them, that
was for sure. “I don’t know what to think, and every time I try to
sort it out, I my brain gets zapped. At this point, I don’t care
who’s controlling either part of me, I just want them to stop. You
have any ideas on how I can get control back?”
    “What did Father Leonard say?”
    “I have to turn everything over to God. Soul, willpower, my entire life.”
    Knowing me the way she did, I thought she’d
snort or even laugh out loud. Instead she looked thoughtful. “Sounds reasonable.”
    “Reasonable?” Was someone now controlling
her mind? I stood up and glared at her. “It’s the most un reasonable suggestion I’ve heard yet.”
    She set the flat iron down. “What are you
scared of, Amy? Do you really think that would be worse than what
you’ve got now?”
    The