Page 116 of Hexed Up

“We have it,” I say. “The last ingredient for the reversal potion. I can start brewing it right away.”

“Right away?” Something flickers across his face.

“Yeah,” I say, trying to keep my voice bright and breezy. “It’s going to take me all day to brew, even with Damien here helping me.”

“I don’t remember saying I’d help you,” Damien mutters.

“You did,” I insist.

“I can help too,” Horatio points out.

“Seriously?” I ask him.

He nods.

I grin at him. “Then maybe you could take McGruff off my hands for the day. He can be a bit distracting.”

We all look towards the dog, who’s currently slurping away at his butthole in a very noisy manner.

“Right,” Horatio says, a little stiffly. “Come on then, buddy. We’re obviously in the way here.”

McGruff yaps in response and, to my surprise, follows Horatio straight out the door and off to his flat.

I stare at the closed door for several moments until Damien snaps his fingers right in front of my face.

“Satan’s cockles,” he mutters. “It’s even worse than before. I told you not to do the deed.”

“I’m only human, Damien. And you know how we’re designed. The temptation was too great. And,” I add, swaying slightly on my feet, “totally worth it.”

“Oh yeah?” Damien tilts his head to one side.

“Totally,” I say dreamily. “That’s the best twelve hours I’ve ever spent in bed. He actually made my toes curl and I magically orgasmed three times in a row!”

Damien grimaces. “Actually, I really don’t want to know about all these dirty little details. Let’s just get started on the potion, then everything can go back to normal.”

“Right,” I say, trying not to let that feeling of melancholy infiltrate my good mood. Because everything’s been just wonderful, and I’m not sure I want it returning to normal.

But like every dream, you have to wake up eventually. Every good thing has to come to an end. And it’s only fair on Horatio. It’s not just the girlfriend/boyfriend thing that’s been fake. All of this has. And all due to my stupid exploding potion.

Horatio deserves real love. The real deal. Not something magically induced.

I leave Damien chopping ingredients, while I shower and dress, then rejoin him in the kitchen, and together we begin the difficult process of brewing the reversal potion.

It’s a lot harder than brewing the original love potion, and that was difficult enough. It requires a lot of concentration, and soon Damien and I are feeling the strain, squabbling with each other about the size of the mandrake root and how long to allow the willow bark to soak.

We keep on working though – right through lunch time – only pausing for me to grab a much needed sandwich at dinnertime, and then well into the evening. By midnight, we’re both yawning our heads off and struggling to stay focussed. It doesn’t help that I didn’t get an awful lot of sleep last night and also exerted a lot of energy.

But despite this, the potion’s looking good. A vibrant red – the colour of blood. I give it a sniff.

“It definitely smells like hazelnut,” I say.

Damien hovers his head over the giant pewter cauldron and sniffs too.

“Yes, but I think you still could add a pinch of mugwort.”

“Hmm, I’m not going to risk it. If we add too much of that, things could go too much the other way and he’ll end up, not just falling out of love with me, but hating my guts.”

“That would be normal, wouldn’t it?” Damien points out. “He often looked like he wanted to strangle you.”