Free Witch Blood by Anya Bast

fresh paint stung his nose.
    Adam sat with Isabelle at a card table to adjust the equipment. Isabelle had her long jean-clad legs crossed and she’d hooked her hair behind her ears as she worked. Thomas had noticed she had an adorable habit of biting the tip of her tongue when she concentrated.
    Isabelle set the headset aside and turned to Thomas. “So why do you think the demon has chosen to live so near the Coven?”
    â€œDon’t get ahead of yourself.” Thomas smoothed out the last of the warding and grunted. “We don’t even know if Alexander is the demon. If he is, he likely did it deliberately. It’s too much of a coincidence otherwise.”
    â€œMaybe he got a kick out of being so close to us,” added Adam.
    â€œMaybe.” Thomas murmured an incantation—words he’d imbued with his personal power. The last of his concealing wards snapped into place. “Done.”
    His tattoo tingled, tapped of some of the magickal energy he’d stored there. Fire, air, and water witches could just draw straight from the seats of their magick in the center of their chests, but earth witches had more preparation to do. Unless he used his magick to exert control over something directly of the Earth herself, like the ground or a tree, a charm had to be created beforehand. Earth witches had to anticipate the spells they’d need, cook them up, and transfer the pure resulting energy to their bodies to be accessed later. Because of the planning involved, earth magick was the least convenient of the four types of power, but also the most flexible.
    Earth witches were the most stereotypical breed of the four elements. They were more what the non-magickals imagined when they thought witch . No one understood why earth witches were different, though there were plenty of theories.
    â€œI hope the wards hold,” said Isabelle, looking doubtfully out the window toward Alexander’s apartment.
    Yeah, so did he. They were in new territory with this one, having never done surveillance work on a suspected demon before. Alexander was at work now, which had given them some time to get the spells in place.
    â€œI made the warding hard to detect,” Thomas answered. “The upside is that if Alexander sniffs them out and comes after us, we’ll know for sure he’s the demon.”
    Isabelle raised a brow. “That’s an upside?”
    â€œYeah, I’d rather not find out that way,” groused Adam.
    â€œWe’re about to know one way or the other because he’s home,” murmured Isabelle. “I can feel it through the water in his apartment. That was none too soon.”
    Adam slipped on his headphones and Thomas went to a small table nearby and did the same. The shades were drawn on the windows of their apartment and the wards were locked down tight. From what they knew about demon magick, theoretically, the creature shouldn’t notice their spying. According to Micah, demon magick and elemental magick were fundamentally different and one shouldn’t be able to detect the other.
    Of course, they really didn’t know for certain.
    Micah had successfully obtained the digitized books Stefan had provided and was feeding them information as he scoured and gleaned it. Unfortunately, this lead on Alexander had popped up so soon Micah hadn’t had a lot of time to do research. They were flying blind and had to take as much care as possible.
    They settled in to listen. Through the magickally imbued headset, they heard Alexander cough, blow his nose, go to the bathroom, open and close the refrigerator, pop the top off a beer, and then settle down on the couch with the sigh of one happy to be home from a long day at work.
    The TV flipped on. “ Wheel…of…Fortune !” sounded the television audience.
    Adam looked over and gave him an eye roll.
    Thomas took the headphones off and laid them on the table in front of him. “This may be