Hidden Island Chapter 1, part 2 of 2

Hidden Island
Chapter 1, part 2 of 2
 
Bella watched his arms swell and traced the lines of the elaborate tattoo that wound across his torso. She smiled. He could be insufferable sometimes, but he was easy on the eyes. "Do women you haven't seen in years often knock on your door and tell you that they have to have sex with you?" She asked with exaggerated patience.
 
"I admit, that was a first." he grinned.
 
"And why do you think I might have done that?" she continued.
 
He looked like he was about to say something witty, but his brows furrowed. "I wasn't going to question my good luck at the time, but now that you mention it, it doesn't seem like you."
 
"No, I should say not." Bella flopped down on the bed next to him.
 
"So this was just a witch thing?" he asked, rolling onto his side again to look at her face. He glanced down at the markings she'd drawn above his heart. "I guessed that. What about you drawing on me? I admit I hoped it wasn't just a witch thing."
 
She nodded, tapping the mirrored symbols drawn on the swell of her breasts. Her fingernails were short and clean, without any of the lacquer that was becoming popular among the upper class. "It was the fastest way I could think of to make the connection I needed to do an accurate reading. I almost thought I'd have to work out some other way when you took off your shirt and already had lines tattooed all over you. I'm glad your treasure map puts the X off to the side of your chest instead of where your heart is. That wouldn't have worked out well."
 
"I thought that's where the heart was? It's supposed to be... symbolic!" Stunned, Will looked down at the fancy X drawn on his left pectoral. "So, the heart is actually in the middle? So where's my map lead?"
 
"Muscle, and then your shoulder blade, I think. I'm not a doctor. I know where to put the symbols for emotion-based incantations. The heart isn't exactly in the middle. Just closer to the middle than most people think." Bella tapped him slightly to the left of the center of his chest. "Your map goes to meat."
 
"That doesn't quite have the same romance to it." Will scowled. "Telling a girl they can follow the map to my meat might give the wrong impression."
 
"Or the right one." Bella laughed, tracing lightly down his stomach through the trail of short dark hair that led lower from his navel. "You need another tattoo for that." She drew an X with her finger just below his beltline.
 
"Ow." Will winced at the thought of tattooing that particular area. "No, I'll pass."
 
"It's good that your tattoo didn't get in the way. I might have had to resort to blood." Bella said, making a finger into a claw and scratching lightly across the lines on his chest with her short nails. "Following the map would have worked just fine for that."
 
"Given the number of times you've stitched me up, I'm surprised you don't still have some of my blood lying around," Will grinned.
 
Bella wrinkled her nose. "If I did, it would be more than two years old. It needs to be fresh for blood magic. Also, ewe."
 
"Would that qualify as Necromancy?" Will asked.
 
"Probably. Blood has little shelf life before it goes from living to dead." She tossed her hair from under her head, letting it sprawl across the pillow. "I'm glad it worked out. I'm bad at blood magic. I'm great at sex magic."
 
"Yes, you are," Will agreed. "What did the sex and the symbols have to do with the reading, though?" he looked down at her velvet bag. He knew better than to touch her cards.
 
"A strong connection between the person doing the reading and the person being read helps with accuracy. We hadn't seen each other in years. I needed to reconnect as fast as possible." She put her cards back in her bag.
 
"You mentioned a next time? Will that still be a witch thing?" he asked.
 
"Maybe. It certainly could be. It would be nice not to think about that stuff next time. Being on top and in control is nice, but if I do not have to concentrate on spell work, I can let go, you know?" she turned, and their eyes met.
 
"I'd like to see that," Will said, leering with a comical, overly predatory grin. "I didn't notice a lot of spellcasting, though. When I go to get curses removed, there's always a lot of praying, chanting, and ritual stuff."
 
"Sex magic is a lot more primal. The symbols are to catch and bind the energy. After that, it's just about generating enough magical 'oomph' to complete it." Bella explained.
 
"Oomph?" he chuckled.
 
"Energy. Focus, Mana, Vitae, Chi, Mojo. Whatever," she shrugged. "They're all a bit different but the same.  
 
Mostly, it's about how you gather them and what they are best suited for. It's like how when you age booze in a cask with something else in it first, it takes on the properties of the original spirits. Energy takes on some of the properties of the method you use to gather it. They all have uses that they are suitable for, and others aren't. If you're a skilled caster, you can fudge it. Under the right conditions, you can even change one kind of thing into another. That's what Alchemy is.
 
"And the sex kind is called Oomph?" Will continued to tease.
 
"Would you prefer 'Primal Quintessence?'" Bella wrinkled her nose.
 
"Oomph is fine." Will grinned.
 
"You can't do complex stuff with it, but it's good for a brute-force approach to simple things. When it comes to generating power, sex is almost as good as a sacrifice, and usually a lot less messy."
 
Will shook his head. "Let's not do that. I like my blood on the inside."
 
The corners of Bella's full lips twitched up. "Sex with you was necessary for the reading to work like I wanted, but it was still fun. I wouldn't have done that for just anyone. I liked it."
 
"Me too. That thing with your hips is... wow." He laughed. She shimmied her hips a bit into the bed and winked at him.
 
"Feel like telling me everything now?" he asked.
 
She let out a long breath. "Alright. You've earned some answers." She stared at the ceiling briefly, collecting her thoughts and getting more serious. "Jack came back earlier today. There's an expedition. Something about finding a lost temple. They were looking for you and thought I might know where to find you."
 
"Everyone knows where to find me. I'm not exactly low profile around here." Will rolled his eyes, clearly not thrilled with his notoriety.
 
"That girl you have running your office is a battleaxe," Bella giggled. Her lightly accented voice had a throaty rasp to it. "Jack said she was told you were scheduled for three weeks and not seeing anyone without an appointment. They all showed up here this afternoon. Jack, along with the captain they hired for the expedition, the rich guy running the whole thing, and their bodyguard. Your assistant ran them all off."
 
Will chuckled. "Janie's a good kid. I'm not paying her enough."
 
"Well, when she shot them down, they came to me. I guess Jack hadn't heard that you and I haven't been talking much lately." Bella yawned and stretched with an adorable squeak.
 
"But you're still on my 'no questions asked' pass to my office, so when you showed up, Janie let you through,"  
Will said, putting the chain of events together in his head.
 
"That was a pleasant surprise. After what Jack told me about Janie, I was worried I would have to hex her to get to you," she smirked.
 
"That would not have been a good idea," Will said wryly. "I paid a small fortune for the wards on this place, and before Janie worked for me, she was an acolyte of the Magistrate."
 
Bella's brows rose. "No wonder she could run off Jack's entourage so easily."
 
Will nodded. "So, Jack came to you. You got worried because of the mess that happened last time, and you came here to try to sort it out."
 
"Pretty much. Mostly, I just wanted to get an idea of what's going on so I could point you in the best direction," she laced her fingers beneath her breasts and smiled as she watched Will get distracted again.
 
"I appreciate that," Will said, still watching her chest. "So, what's the best direction?"
 
"For you to go with them." She looked apologetic about it.
 
"And you think they're going to show up again," Will said, idly tracing his fingers along her neck while he thought.
 
She shivered. "When have you ever known Jack to take no for an answer?"
 
"When have you ever known me to do anything I didn't want to do?" Will retorted.
 
She laughed. "All the time! Well, no. That's not quite right. There are many things you've done that you made a show of not wanting to do, but you always did them anyway. Either because you knew you had to or were doing it for someone you didn't want to disappoint. You just like complaining."
 
Will opened his mouth to speak but shut it again and sighed. She was right. "And this is one of those times?" It wasn't a question. He already knew the answer. She nodded. He groaned and flopped his head back into the pillow. "Why? What did that last card mean?"
 
It was getting towards dusk. The sky shifted to reds and oranges in the west, where the open window pointed. A shadow dropped onto the window sill and shrieked like a banshee.
 
"What the hell!?" Will said, sitting bolt upright and trying to spin at the same time, one hand raising to protect his head and the other reaching for a weapon at his waist that wasn't there. At some point in the process, his breeches, which he had never bothered to button, got twisted, and one of his feet caught in the blanket. He tumbled off the bed, thumping to the floor, but scrambled upright quickly.
Bella was scratching a monkey.
 
Will tugged his breeches back into place and stared, blinking. The monkey was small. It could have curled up in his palms if Will had held his hands together. It was covered in black fur that faded to red on its face and at the ends of its arms and legs. Its long tail was a thick series of alternating black and red bands.
"He's with me," Bella smirked. "And you're about to have visitors."



To be continued