Midlife Fairy Hunter: The Forty Proof Series, Book 2

by Mayer, Shannon

  “Not ominous at all,” I muttered under my breath. Apparently not as quietly as I thought because Suzy shot me a look.

  “I can read your cards for you. I am as good as Dracus, or perhaps even better.” He spread his hands over the table, showing off a deck of tarot cards.

  Suzy seemed drawn forward, her feet moving even as I tried to grab her arm and stop her.

  There was no way she thought this was a good idea, or I was a monkey’s uncle. My mind leapt back to our lesson from the day before, the recognizing and breaking of spells.

  The problem? I was no good at either, but I still tried. The smell of weed was the only thing I could pick up on, and if I weren’t careful, I’d be higher than a kite. Could that be covering the scent of the spell? Because I was sure that Suzy was under some sort of compulsion.

  Suzy flopped a hundred-dollar bill onto that green felt table, and I shook my head. “Suze, this is a terrible idea. Take your money, let’s go.” I touched her and got a zing up my fingers. Yup, she was definitely under a spell.

  Damn it, could I not get a single break?

  The tarot reader turned his head my way. The way those candles lit the shadows instead of his face made me think that he was eyeless, and I didn’t like that. Until those dark holes where his eyes should have been flashed a bright pink, of all colors. My lips twitched. “Okay, Pink Eye, that was weird but hardly terrifying. You can get drops for that, you know. Any pharmacy should carry them over the counter.”

  He snarled and Suzy hissed something at me that sounded like shut the duck up.

  “You are insolent,” he said.

  And with that one word—insolent—I knew who he was. Or sort of knew who he was.

  “Douche Canoe’s friend,” I whispered and took another step back. Suzy didn’t move. I reached for her and tried to drag her toward the exit. How the hell had he come to be here? Had he somehow followed us? The figure on the top of the river’s edge had been him, I was suddenly sure of it. Which meant he’d somehow known where to find us.

  A tingle of apprehension curled through my feet, up my legs, and settled into the pit of my stomach.

  “This is a bad idea. We need to go. Right now,” I said.

  “Would you be quiet? I like his voice,” she said, but there was no heat in it. More like she was drugged. Or in this case, spelled.

  I clamped my mouth shut, mostly because I realized right then how much danger we were in. Suzy had no idea, but I did. This fellow was one of the bad guys and had, only yesterday, put a spell on the entire Hollows Group, yours truly excepted, and threatened their lives. What if there had been more to that spell than keeping them all from talking? There could have been anything in it. Tracking. Compulsion. You name it.

  “Pick your card, half-breed,” he growled at Suzy.

  She sucked in a sharp breath but still reached forward and took a card, sliding it across to him.

  “It is the Fool,” he all but purred. “That’s rather fitting, don’t you think?”

  “I am not a fool!” she yelled, and the sound of her screech rebounded through the space. I took a step back and bumped into something . . . skeletal. I froze until I peeked over my shoulder to see Robert there, swaying side to side, his long hair hiding his face as always.

  “What are you doing here?” I whispered the words, or more accurately mouthed them.

  “Friend. Trouble.”

  Oh, that was not what I wanted to hear, but let’s be honest, I was not surprised. I slowly turned back to the rickety table, and the man on the other side of it, who would probably kill me if he figured out I was the one who’d put the kibosh on the bigfoot sacrifice ceremony. Oh, and that I’d escaped his spell.

  “Suzy, the fool doesn’t mean that you’re an idiot.” I forced my feet forward to stand next to her. “I always get the death card, and I haven’t died yet.”

  She turned her face to me, perfect blond hair swinging in its high ponytail. Her face was artfully streaked with tears that looked as if they’d been painted on. If I’d been that angry and crying, my face would have been splotched with red spots, streaked with snot and tears, and I’d struggle to speak clearly between hiccupping sobs. She, on the other hand, had no problem speaking.

  “Oh. I didn’t know that.”

  “The fool card means the start of a journey. Which is good considering what happened tonight, don’t you think?” I said. There was probably more to it than that, but I wasn’t going to get into it with her. Certainly not with this one in front of us.

  “Now you are a tarot reader?” Pink Eye turned his gaze on me. I stared back.

  “Nope, but I’ve seen enough readings to know the fool does not mean she’s an idiot. Unless we’re saying she’s stupid to give you a hundred bucks for a single card pull.” I put one hand on my hip. Sure, maybe it wasn’t the most logical approach to take with a dangerous adversary, but the best way to fight fear was to counter attack. Be confident, don’t let them see or smell your fear—that’s the deal with dogs, and this dude was a dirty dog. “You’re a scam artist.”

  “I am not. The power in me is strong.”

  Cripes, he sounded like the Emperor in Star Wars. That flash of pink in his eyes made me shake my head, though, and it dulled the fear a little. “Seriously, pink eye is contagious as all get out. Don’t touch your face, Suzy, God only knows what he had on his hands when he touched the cards.”

  Suzy gasped and looked at her hands, then wiped them on her pants. Pink Eye stood up, and yeah, I had to admit power rolled off him, pushing me back a step and stealing a breath from me. “For you, I will draw for free. Because I see your fate is coming faster than you could possibly imagine, and I wish to watch you fail.”

  I shrugged as though his words and power meant nothing to me, even though my belly was rolling and the nausea that came with it was trying to ram its way up my throat.

  “It’ll probably be the death card. It shows up all the time with me.” I hadn’t planned on touching the cards at all, not least of all because I didn’t want pink eye. More like we had to go before he did . . . whatever it was he wanted to do to us. I was betting he hadn’t arranged this little meet-cute to invite us for tea and cookies.

  But my hand seemed to have a life of its own as I reached out and let my palm hover over the spread of cards on the rickety table. Using my middle finger, I slid the cards around until one seemed to warm under my touch. “This one.” I slid it out to the edge of the table, where Pink Eye took it and flipped it over.

  “The moon card.” He breathed slower, his words coming in an almost hypnotic trance. I stared at the card, at the big moon dominating the majority of it. It was not put together like most of the moon cards I’d seen over the years. A massive rotting wolf’s head dominated the image, its mouth open and snarling, a huge yellow moon behind it. Great. “Hidden enemies await you, and your path is dark and fraught with danger, madness. You will go to a place where your mind will play tricks on you.” He paused. “And I see passion, like a tornado ripping your world apart, but you seek it out despite the danger of it.” He blinked those stupid pink eyes up at me while I struggled to breathe because his words were like nails being driven into my body with disturbing accuracy. Cold sweat broke out along my body, and my arms bumped up with gooseflesh in the cool of the tunnel.

  Okay, he was good. Very, very good.

  “Vaguebooking if you ask me,” Suzy muttered, her voice cutting through the emotions raging in me. “Even I could have said something like that. Nothing about a new journey for you? You lost your job too.”

  She’d broken the spell between me and my buddy Pink Eye. He looked between us. “You are no longer with the Hollows Group?”

  “No,” Suzy said even as I said, “Yes.”

  Because call me crazy, but I had a feeling there was a certain protection that came from being with the Hollows Group, and this one would take advantage of the fact that we were no longer associated with them.

  I took a step back an
d shook my head, bumping into Robert. I put a hand behind me and tried to get him to move in front of us, because I was done with this pink-eyed dude, done, done, done. He was bad news, and we had every reason to leave now. We’d both pulled a card. We could pretend that was good enough for us.

  Suzy and Pink Eye didn’t see Robert, as far as I could tell, and I didn’t want them to either. He was my secret weapon, and despite the fact that he only showed up when I was in real trouble, I felt safer for having him there.

  The water sloshed around our feet as I hurried out. “What the hell is his name?” I asked no one in particular.

  “O’Sean,” he said from behind us. “My name is Sean O’Sean.”

  I shouldn’t have stopped, I really shouldn’t have, but my sense of humor insisted otherwise. My feet stuttered to a stop as I spun around. “No.”

  “No, what? Sleep.” He somehow stayed in the shadows even though we were right near the opening and the moonlight was illuminating the edge of the tunnel, Suzy’s closed eyes, and . . . oh shit.

  I blinked at Sean O’Sean and he blinked back at me. “Why are you not sleeping?” he murmured.

  I obediently closed my eyes and did my best to slow my breathing to something reminiscent of sleep. Or in my case exhaustion. Because whatever spell he’d put on Suzy and the other trainees clearly allowed him to put them asleep at will, and if he realized he couldn’t do that with me, I had no doubt there would be repercussions.

  I could fake it, I had to. My chest tightened with a sudden fit of hysterical laughter that I barely managed to hold inside. How many times had I faked it with my ex? Himself had never figured it out. Surely I could out-fake Sean O’Sean. A snicker climbed up my throat as Sean O’Sean walked around the two of us. With my eyes closed I knew I was at a disadvantage, but I did have my weapons strapped to my thighs. I could fight back if he tried something.

  Of course, that was where our fake tarot card reader stopped next, his hand sliding over my thigh, where one of my daggers rested in a sheath. “Interesting. These belong to the Smith. Yet you have them? Dangerous weapons for such an inexperienced woman.”

  Oh, lordy, I was in trouble. He tried to pull a knife, hissed, and snatched his hand away. “You’ve blooded them already, have you? And whose blood is it? Powerful, a witch . . . perhaps you are not the noodle-headed old lady you seem to be.”

  My eyes popped open into a perfect glare. “Who the hell are you calling an old lady?”

  He stumbled back, then pointed a finger at me, pink eyes blazing in the darkness. “You were the one who stopped the ceremony.”

  Yeah, I was in trouble all right.

  He lifted his hands, and for a moment his face was illuminated by a swirl of light cupped between his palms. His mouth worked on a spell, teeth flashing a little too sharp for my taste, eyes pink, and if I knew anything, it was that I couldn’t take my time dithering about what to do.

  “Robert!”

  The skeleton lurched forward, features still hidden beneath his rags and long black hair, to tackle Sean O’Sean to the ground. There was a burst of light, and Robert shrieked and was flung backward into a pile of bones and rags.

  I pulled my two blades out, but Sean O’Sean was already on his feet and prepping another spell. “You won’t be messing up anything else, old lady.”

  “We’re back to old lady?” I feinted to the left and he followed, but I was already moving to the right and slashing the turquoise-handled blade at him, aiming between his hands. The spell he was making had pooled there, and I had to stop it. I had to or both Suzy and I were done.

  A pulse of energy ran through me, from the ground all the way up my legs, torso, and into my hands in a flash, as if charging the blade in my palm.

  “I thought she was the one,” Sean growled as he threw a spell at me. I dropped and rolled, bumping against the wet wall of the tunnel. “I followed her to kill her. But I’ll be happy to kill you both.”

  I didn’t have to ask why. “Wrecking your plans, am I?”

  “Bitch.”

  “Every inch of me.” I grinned as I lunged forward, that energy still coursing through me from the ground as I managed to drive the blade between his hands.

  A flash on the metal tugged at my eyes as the knife went through the edge of his spell. A moment of absolute quiet seemed to implode the world, and then a boom ripped through the air as the spell exploded, and both Sean O’Sean and I were flung backward. Him into the depths of the tunnel, and me out into the incoming tide of the ocean-fed river.

  I hit the water and went under into complete darkness, my butt hitting the bottom quickly, which told me I wasn’t very deep at least. The cool water eased the backlash of the spell, that and the salt water, which helped diffuse any lingering effects of the magic.

  I pushed off the bottom and broke the surface, still gripping both knives. With a wobble, I found my feet and stood up in neck-deep water. I slid both knives into their sheaths and sloshed forward. Suzy looked over the edge, eyes blinking sleepily. “What happened?”

  “Time to go,” I said and held a hand up to her. She grabbed me around the wrist, grimaced, and helped haul me up and over the edge.

  “You could stand to lose a few—”

  “Shut it.” I barely looked at her, my eyes locked on the back of the tunnel. “Come on, we’d better see . . .” What? If Sean O’Sean was going to come out after us? Probably. Also, there was Dracus, the actual tarot card reader. And Robert. I needed to see if he was okay. He’d blown apart into nothing but bones and rags.

  Dripping briny water, I forced my wobbling legs forward. I wasn’t sure if it was fear or not. Chose not to think about it too much.

  “Maybe we should just go.” Suzy tugged on my arm. “I don’t want to go in there. I feel funny.”

  I swung a look at her. “This was your idea, but I gotta say I doubt you had this in mind.”

  “I brought us down here? No, I wouldn’t have. It’s scary,” she whispered.

  That did not sound like Suzy at all.

  What in the hell had old Pink Eye done to her? Because without a doubt he’d put a spell on her.

  Damn it, like I needed one more thing to fix.

  11

  I made myself go back into the tunnel that had once served as a prison for the enslaved. It felt even more ominous this time, but I had to know if Sean O’Sean was still in there. That, and I had to gather up what was left of poor Robert.

  With a flashlight in hand (I never left home without at least one in my handy cross-body bag), I ventured inside. Robert was first. There were no rags or scattered bones to be found, just the single finger digit bone he’d given me before. I’d take that as a good sign. I scooped it up and slid it into my bag. “Hope you are okay, friend,” I said quietly. Not that I was afraid or anything.

  Who was I kidding? I was freaking terrified. I had to stop twice to clamp my legs together to keep from peeing myself, and even then I couldn’t be sure I hadn’t because I was already dripping so much water, what was one more trickle?

  What if Sean O’Sean wasn’t dead?

  What if he was?

  Flashlight in one hand, knife in the other, I made it to the green felted table before something touched me on the back. I screeched and leapt forward as Suzy screamed behind me. We did a weird dance that had the flashlight bobbing and my hand trying to fight the impulse to throw the knife at her. My reflexes were decent, but spotty. Kind of like Wi-Fi out in the country. Sometimes the signal was strong, but more often than not it was a spinning ball of death while I waited for something to jog my training memories.

  “Jaysus!” I yelled. “What the hell are you trying to do? Stop my heart?”

  “Sorry, I just didn’t want you to go in by yourself.” She was shaking hard in the light, but she was there. See, that was more like the Suzy I knew. Bold. Well, sort of bold right then.

  I took a quarter turn so my light flashed over the table again. The moon card was still there, flipped up. I tucked it
into my bag. I didn’t know why I needed to have it, but I did. One of those gut feelings. “Stay close,” I said.

  Suzy took me at my word and all but hugged me as we crept further into the tunnel. The water was coming in now and each step we took splashed. The first body we found was not Sean O’Sean.

  “That’s Dracus,” Suzy whispered. We stared down at the old man with no hair, a big gut, and his tongue sticking out of his mouth in a forever raspberry. There was no rope around his neck, but there were plenty of spells that could have strangled him. I made myself bend and touch his neck, just in case.

  “Still warm, but no heartbeat,” I whispered. He’d barely been dead when we’d walked in the tunnel. Nothing we could do now.

  I stood and shuffled in a little further, sweeping the flashlight back and forth.

  “What is that?” she whispered as we neared the back of the tunnel. There were no candles back here, but there was a large dark shape on the ground.

  Face down.

  In a puddle.

  “I think you killed him,” Suzy whispered. “Did you kill him?”

  I made myself walk forward and bent to touch his neck too. The problem was his neck was crumpled at a weird angle. No need to touch that. “His neck is broken. I think he hit the wall when the explosion sent us flying apart.”

  “What do we do?” she whispered.

  The water sloshed in around our ankles now, and we’d be in trouble ourselves if we stayed that deep in the tunnel. “We leave them both. The tide will pull them out.”

  “We’ll get caught,” she whispered.

  “We didn’t touch Dracus, and O’Sean’s own magic threw his ass back here. Let the river of the dead have them,” I said.

  My words added a weighted chill to the air and the river sloshed in harder.

  I backed up, grabbed Suzy’s hand, and hauled ass as if I hadn’t been shot earlier that day. We ran all the way back to her car, where I took the keys from her shaking hands, put them in the ignition, and peeled the tires to get out of there.