Bitter Spirits
Page 7

Winter’s mismatched eyes met hers. His lower face melted into a lazy smile—he actually could smile, imagine that—which sent an intense fluttering through her stomach. Good grief. She was acting like a daydreaming schoolgirl.
“Hello, cheetah,” he said to her.
She lifted her chin and tamped down the chaos burning through her mind and body. “Mr. Magnusson—”
“No need for formalities when someone in the room is naked.”
“Mr. Bootlegger, then.”
He chuckled, low and deep. “You can call me Winter.”
“Oh, may I? Now that you’ve nearly crushed me to death and exposed me to sights I don’t care to see.”
“Keep staring like that and I might think you’re lying.”
Aida’s already-warm cheeks combusted with mortification. She quickly shifted her gaze to the bathtub and made her way across the room.
“Where’s Velma?” Bo asked Aida.
“Brewing his remedy.”
“Isn’t the bath the remedy?”
“I think the bath is an insurance policy.” The bathtub was half filled with water; chipped ice floated on the surface. She dumped the contents of the bowl and watched them sink, wishing she’d thought to bring a spoon or a long stick. Then again, Velma said the mixture wouldn’t hurt.
Sighing, she pushed up a sleeve and plunged her arm in the icy mixture. It was shockingly cold. She winced as she used her arm to swirl the frozen water.
Winter’s voice rumbled from across the room. “You bathing with me?”
Now that was a picture. But never in a million years would she give him the satisfaction of knowing his comments about her staring were on the mark. Bootleggers were notorious womanizers, or so the gossip rags would have one believe. A man who looked like that probably bedded every flapper in the city. “I’d rather be horsewhipped.”
Both Bo and Velma’s men laughed.
When the bath turned pink and the herbs and okra seeds floated to the top, she hastily withdrew her arm and shivered, flinging drops of water away. “Okay, get him inside.”
The men grunted in unison as they half dragged, half shoved Winter toward the tub. Aida snatched a towel off an étagère to dry her arm, sneaking a look at Winter’s backside as they passed. A majestic sight. When he tried to take a step on his own, his buttocks rippled with muscle, deepening the clefts on either side and indenting two succulent dimples on his lower back.
He twisted in their grip and caught her staring again. “Go on. Look,” he encouraged with a grin. “I’m not ashamed.”
“Can you not get him in there faster?” she asked the men in exasperation.
They hauled one long leg over the side of the bathtub.
“Cold!” Winter shouted, suddenly energized. He attempted to bolt.
“Oh no you don’t!” Bo said, giving him a shove.
The giant cried out as he crashed in the tub. A tidal wave of pink water surged over the rim. His great body shivered as water and ice clinked against the sides of the tub.
“Don’t drown the man,” Velma said from the doorway. Her dress fluttered around her calves as she strode past Aida with a steaming cup of tea on a saucer. The scent wafting from the liquid was nothing short of repulsive. “You gotta drink this, Winter,” she said, hooking her foot around a three-legged stool to shift it next to the tub. “You gonna go quietly, or am I gonna have to have Manny and Clyde hold you down?”
“Holy shit,” Bo murmured, jerking his head away from the potion.
“I won’t lie—it’ll taste terrible,” Velma said to Winter in a calm voice as she sat on the stool. “But it will remove your hex.”
“Want . . . doctor,” he answered between shivers.
“No regular doctor can save you now, you understand?” Velma said firmly, snatching his chin between her fingers and turning his face toward hers. “I am your doctor—you are my patient. I will heal you. Drink.”
Winter hesitated, his face pinching from the ghastly scent of the tea, teeth clicking together from the cold. “Iffit kills me—”
“Then I’ll get Miss Palmer to bring you back from the beyond to chat as often as you like. Now, open up and drink.”
He obeyed. His face was rigid as she held the cup for him, chanting a prayer. Brown rivulets leaked from the corners of his lips. Aida thought of the crunch from the mortar and pestle and couldn’t bear to watch him drink. She clamped a hand over her mouth.
He gasped in pain—he was trying to keep it down, gagging. Bo turned around, hands on his knees, breathing heavily.
“There you go,” Velma praised.
Winter stilled. His eyes rolled back into his head, but instead of white, they were swarming with black lines, moving and vibrating like a spiderweb being shaken by a fly. He looked possessed. Aida had never witnessed anything like this—and she’d seen a lot of strange things in her line of work.
Bo gaped at Winter with horror-stricken eyes. “He’s not breathing. What have you done, witch?”
“He’s really not breathing,” Aida seconded.
“Wait!” Velma shouted.
They all stood stock-still. Watched. Waited. Winter wasn’t moving, but the water was. It bubbled up, the pink hue turning darker . . . blackening. Something moved within it, shifting and stirring.
Suddenly the surface rose like boiling water inside a pot. It churned and roiled, and up from the depths, tiny black shadows wriggled and danced, thousands and thousands of them.