I’d just killed someone. A bad someone, but still someone. Sure, I hadn’t really killed him. I mean, it was his own magic that had sent him flying. But still.
Second person in one week. This could not be good.
“Oh my God, you killed him! What are we going to do?” Suzy repeated her question.
“What do you mean what are we going to do? You didn’t do anything. He spelled you,” I said as I turned the wheel hard at the top of the incline in order to get us further away from the riverfront.
“He . . . are you sure he spelled me?”
“You don’t feel different? Because you seem different. Like, before we went in there you were all full of confidence despite having just lost a job, but he put some kind of spell on you and now you’re terrified with like zero confidence,” I said, checking mirrors as I drove. Mostly to see if anyone was following us.
I had us back to Perry Street and Corb’s loft in no time. There were no lights on inside, and I doubted that he was back yet. “You can stay here with me tonight. You aren’t yourself. Maybe it’s a good thing we both got canned.” Because I wasn’t sure how we could have kept this from the mentors. This was . . . this was bad.
Then again, there was a good chance Douche Canoe could track all of the mentors and trainees, and that he could also control them like Pink Eye had messed with Suzy. I should at least warn the mentors that I had an inkling of what the spell would do. I’d tell Corb, I decided, and he could do with the knowledge what was best for him and the others.
I parked the car and she let herself out, but she was not steady on her feet by any means. “Wait,” I said, thinking of Robert. “I just have to do something quick.”
I hurried across the street and over to the wrought iron fence that wrapped around Centennial Park Cemetery. A quick dig in my bag produced Robert’s finger bone, and I put it through the fence so that he was in the cemetery. That felt right, like he would be able to recharge. “There you go. Hope that helps.”
Backing away, I didn’t bother to answer Suzy’s pointed questions. “What was that about? What did you put in there? I thought I saw a skeleton, is that right?”
Interesting. I hadn’t thought she’d seen him. “You had your eyes closed,” I said as I let us into Corb’s loft, “so you tell me how you saw a skeleton.”
She walked next to me as we climbed the long flight of stairs to the main floor of the loft. “I don’t know, I just did. It was when you were shoving me out of the cave, like seeing a ghost. He was there and then not.”
“He’s a friend. And he got hurt, so I had to put him back there for now,” I said, not wanting to say much more than that. Not that I had much more to say. As far as I could tell, there was no real pattern to who could or couldn’t see Robert. Louis, the Hollows’s resident necromancer, couldn’t see him, but Sarge could. But maybe that’s because Robert had bitten off Sarge’s ear?
I shook off the questions and headed straight for the liquor cupboard that Corb thought he was hiding because it was above my eye level. Time for some Jameson.
I snorted and pulled down a bottle of whiskey before turning to Suzy. “Pick your poison.”
She startled and then eased onto one of the barstools at the kitchen island. “Rum and Coke.”
I made her a drink with a double shot of rum, and an extra splash for good measure, and poured the same amount of whiskey for myself—straight up. I snapped mine back and the burn raced all the way to my belly, chasing away a coldness that I hadn’t even realized was still there. Of course, I was dripping water all over Corb’s original hardwood floors, which could explain the cold. I sighed and stripped right there in the kitchen, shoving my leather pants and loose tank top into the sink. Suzy arched a brow at me.
“You aren’t my type.”
“Not giving you a show,” I said and blew out a breath. “Corb will not be happy if I wreck his floors.”
She tapped her glass and I obliged, then did the same again for myself. I like my whiskey, but mostly I was prepping myself for the phone call I knew I was going to have to make.
“I need to tell Eammon what happened,” I said. And maybe I could talk to him about being canned by that idiot Sarge.
“Gods, no!” Suzy spluttered rum and Coke across the counter and all over my bare skin. I looked down at the brown flecks, grabbed a dishrag and wiped them off.
“Okay, why wouldn’t we tell him? There may be five people who lead the Hollows, but he’s in charge in charge. And he needs to know what happened with Sarge too. And that the spell the O’Seans put on everyone is doing weird things to you. Making you less confident. Making you susceptible to them. Maybe it’ll wear off, maybe it won’t. We just don’t know.” Over the last few days, Eammon had taken the lead in cleaning up the mess that was Hattie’s blood ceremony gone awry. I’d seen just how competent he was at managing not only the Hollows, but the shadow world at large.
“Because it’s a bad idea. I don’t want anyone to know.” She frowned and rubbed at her head. “I don’t feel so well.”
I poured her another rum and Coke. “Drink up, then shower, then bed.”
She did as she was told, which in and of itself was strange. Suzy had a stronger personality than this. I’d seen it that first day we were brought into the Hollows. Not to mention every training day since. I was almost positive the spell was making her this way. But no one else had seemed more fearful than usual. I mean, look at Sarge losing his marbles.
Huh. That thought tried to take root, but it was extinguished by the drink in my hand.
It didn’t take her long to get her drink down, and then I hustled her off to the shower. I found her a clean shirt and shorts, and set them on the back of the toilet while she showered. “You okay?”
“Wobbly.”
“Please don’t make me come in there with you,” I muttered and stepped out of the bathroom. I liked her and all, but we weren’t exactly friends. Maybe one day. The friends thing, not the shower thing.
A fluttering of wings pulled me toward my bedroom. Kinkly sat on the windowsill in there, peering at me in my bra and underwear. Her wings had been stitched back together, but I could still see where the tears had been. I put my hands on my hips. “You have something to say?”
“You’re all wet. And kind of soft,” she said. “What happened?”
I sighed. “We had some trouble down on the waterfront. Hang on, I want to show you something.”
She squeaked as I turned around, and I looked over my shoulder. “What, is there something on my back?”
Kinkly shook her head, her rust-colored hair floating around her face from the fanning of her wings. “No, I thought you were going to strip.”
Oh for duck’s sake. I may or may not have muttered that under my breath, minus the autocorrect, as I strode out of the room and to the kitchen where I’d left my bag. I found the tarot card, pulled it out, and turned to go back to my bedroom. Only I bumped into a bare chest that was way too well defined to belong to anyone but Corb. I slowly looked up, found myself speechless.
And in nothing but my underwear and bra. Awesome.
“Hi. What are you doing here?” I asked. Stupid, stupid I know.
His eyebrows shot up over very sleepy eyes. “I live here.”
“Right, what I meant was I thought you weren’t here tonight. I thought you were out on a job.”
He turned his head to the bathroom, where the water turned off. “You brought a friend home?” That voice turned more than a little gravelly.
Jealous? He was jealous? I’d heard of men like him who got possessive over potential lady friends, but I . . . he was jealous on my behalf? My brain couldn’t quite keep up, so my mouth made up the difference.
“Well, I was out, we got all wet and dirty, so I knew we needed to clean up. I left my pants in the sink so they could drain.”
His eyes shot to mine and there was so much heat in them I wasn’t sure that I wouldn’t just spontaneously combust. Or maybe that was
a hot flash. Oh Jaysus in heaven, don’t let me have my first real hot flash in front of Corb!
“Breena, I need help,” Suzy called out, cutting the moment between Corb and me. He visibly relaxed when he heard her voice, even as I pushed past him.
“Just sit down,” I said as I opened the bathroom door. Suzy sat obediently on the lid of the toilet seat, wrapped in a towel, shaking like a leaf. I helped her dry her hair and put it into a quick braid, then helped her dress and hustled her off to my bed.
“Here, I’ll turn on the heating pad,” I said as I covered her up and flicked on the electric hot pad I used for my aching muscles. I slipped it under the blankets, settling it on her belly. Her eyes were closed and her face was pale, but at least she wasn’t shaking any longer. “There. In the morning, you’ll feel better.” At least I hoped she would. I hoped that whatever spell was affecting her would go away. I brushed my hand over her face, my hand warming against her skin. She snuggled deeper into the covers.
“You’d make a good mom,” Suzy mumbled, and then she was out cold as if her words hadn’t struck to the core of me. She hadn’t known what they would do to me, or what I’d been through in my life only to be told I’d never be a mom.
I bit my bottom lip to keep my emotions in check and then slowly breathed through them like my counsellor back in Seattle had taught me. I brushed a hand over her forehead again. Even though I knew she was older than me, she looked like a teen. And I felt weirdly protective of her.
I gathered up clean underwear, a shirt, and shorts for sleeping in. Even though I was exhausted, and most likely in some sort of shock from what had happened with Sean O’Sean and poor Dracus, there were things I had to do. For one, I wasn’t sure I could head back to the fairy ring tonight. Part of the problem was that I wasn’t convinced I could stay up all night, but there was also the issue of Crash. I’d used Eric as my alibi for being in the woods, but Eric was now at Gran’s with Feish. If Crash caught me out there again, he’d know I had a different reason for being there.
Speaking of, I needed to let Eric and Feish know where we were, and that Suzy and I would be staying here tonight. Because the shooter might still be looking for Eric or me, or both of us.
So many things. So little brain power left.
I stumbled forward, eyes closed, heading to the bathroom.
Corb stopped me in the hallway. “What happened tonight, Bree? Sarge . . . he said he fired you and Suzy for insubordination.”
So they all knew then. I sighed. “Can it wait until I’ve showered?”
He gave me a quick nod, his eyes watching me closely. “Bad?”
“Worse than getting fired. And can you get a message to my gran’s house? Tell Eric and Feish to lock it down. Lights out, and put Gran on duty.” His eyes widened, but I didn’t wait for him to respond—I just let myself into the bathroom and closed the door behind me. Kinkly was waiting for me on the shower rod, her lithe legs dangling as she swung them back and forth.
“What did you want to show me?” She leapt up and flew down to hover in front of my face. The tarot card rested on the bathroom counter. I must have left it there when I’d come in to take care of Suzy. I set my clean clothes down and tapped the card. “This. I know the moon card, and there are never any fairies on it, but in this one there is a shadow of a fairy in the corner.”
I stripped off my bra and underwear and flicked on the shower, stepping into the stream of water before it was even really hot. I didn’t care, I just wanted to wash the briny stickiness off my skin and put on fully dry clothes. The rose-scented shampoo seemed to wash away the smell of the tunnel as I worked it through my hair, and the knots started to relax across my shoulders.
“Kinkly,” I prompted her as I turned off the water and grabbed a towel. “What do you think of the card?”
She was standing on it, really studying it. “You are in danger.”
“No shit, I got shot tonight.” I pointed at my calf, where the stitches Eric had put in were a stark contrast against my pale skin.
Her eyes widened. “I think that I will take this to the queen. It might affect whether she wants you to watch the ring tonight. I’ll be back later.”
With that, she rose from the sink, taking the card with her, and flew out the window. She ducked back in. “Be careful, Bree. I don’t think you can be too careful right now. If I don’t come back, then you don’t go to the ring. Okay?”
“Yeah, I agree.” No problem there. I felt dead on my feet.
I tugged a brush through my hair to untangle it, but didn’t dawdle. I had no doubt that Corb was waiting up for me.
Once I was dressed, my hair up in the towel, I padded out to the kitchen to find Corb not there but in the living room. He had a glass of what I suspected was whiskey in his hands, and a mug of something steaming sat on the table next to him.
“Hot will do you more good than cold right now.” He pointed at the mug. His eyes swept over me, lingering on the stitches in my calf. “What happened?”
I sat down next to him on the couch and wrapped my fingers around the mug, the heat sinking into my hands. I noticed the two Advil on the table and would have laughed except that I was out of energy. The wound in my leg was hurting again, even though it was mostly healed. “You know me too well. And that is my first bullet wound.” I felt weirdly proud of it. Like it was a mark of honor.
I popped them into my mouth and dry swallowed them. At that moment I wasn’t hurting too badly, but the shadow of the morning was headed my way. As soon as I stopped moving, I was going to start tightening up.
“Talk to me, Bree. What happened tonight? Who the hell shot you and why is it healed up?”
A sip of the hot liquid and I wanted to groan. I’d ask him later what it was, some sort of hot toddy that was sweet and spicy and had a most pleasant heat to it that loosened my tongue and fuzzed my brain a little further. Not in a bad way, though. “I was visiting Eric. Someone outside of the house shot at us, and I got hit. He stitched me up, not sure why it’s healed so fast. Then I came to the Hollows with Eric and Feish. Sarge lost his marbles and told me that they were not allowed on the grounds. He said I’d broken a rule by bringing them there. When Suzy tried to defend me, he canned us both.”
Corb swirled his drink as if he were calm, but I could feel the tension radiating off him. “He has that right to drop any of the trainees off the roster. We all do. But only under extreme circumstances.”
I snorted and shifted so I sunk deeper into the couch. “Great. Well there was that. But it gets worse.”
“How?”
Did I trust him? That was the question of the day. I wanted to trust him, but not at the cost of being a naïve fool. I looked up into his face, seeing the similarities and the differences between him and his asshole cousin.
“Bree. I’m not him.” He reached over and brushed his fingers under my chin. “I’m not him.”
I shifted and found myself leaning into his side. I didn’t pull away. “You’re right. So sure, here we go. Well, Suzy and I left the Hollows, and she decided it would be a good idea for us to go to a tarot reader for guidance. You know, since we’d both lost our jobs.”
“Annie?” I could hear the frown in his voice. I clutched the mug to me and took another sip before answering.
“No, someone else. It turned out it was Pink Eye. Douche Canoe’s friend.”
Corb slid his arm over my shoulder and held me to his side. “Try again. Did he have a real name?”
“Sean O’Sean,” I said.
“Meow,” Corb breathed out.
I giggled, feeling the effects of the drinks I’d pounded down on an empty stomach. “Oh, right, so you can’t even say anything about him when I say his name first? I saw him last when he and the other guy, Douche Canoe, who I assume is O’Sean senior, set the spell on everyone.”
Corb meowed again and I patted his thigh. “Maybe you should just let me talk.”
The story spilled out effortlessly until I got to the p
ink eye part.
“Wait,” he said. “You’re sure about the color?”
Apparently that didn’t interfere with whatever spell he had on him. “Yes. Pink. I made fun of him.”
“Of course you did.” He laughed softly, the rumble of it a very nice sound through the fogginess of the booze. He’d obviously put more than I’d realized into the drink.
“Are you trying to get me drunk?” I tipped my head back to look up at him. He winked down at me. Winked. Flirty, cute, too-young-for-me bastard.
Not Crash. That thought floated through me. He was not Crash.
“No, I’m trying to make sure you sleep tonight.” He shifted his seat on the couch, which meant that I slid further sideways so we were kind of smushed together. Not that I minded. He was warm and a part of me knew that he would always try to protect me. A quality more men should have, in my humble opinion. He took the mug from my hands as I leaned my head against his shoulder, breathing him in. Yes, he did smell as good as he looked. The urge to bury my nose against his skin and just breathe him in was way too strong. I settled for a little sniff.
“He put Suzy under a spell, putting her to sleep, and I had to fake being under the same spell.” I snickered. “I can fake it well, just ask Himself. Wait, no, he thinks it was all real.” Oh, I hadn’t meant to let that slip, but Corb’s only reaction was to chuckle.
As nice as this all was, a part of me was trying to point out that he was acting super cozy with me. Like . . . something was off with Corb. The same way things were off with Suzy. And, in a different way, with Sarge.
“Keep going,” he said.
“O’Sean realized I was the one who’d ducked up Hattie’s ceremony.” I yawned and closed my eyes. “He started to make a spell, and I yelled for Robert—”
“Who is Robert?” There it was again, that hint of jealousy. Interesting.
I smiled. “Robert is my friend. He’s a skeleton. He bit Sarge’s ear off at my interview.”
Corb probably thought I was crazy, or maybe he thought I was making it up. I didn’t care in that moment, not one bit.
Midlife Fairy Hunter: The Forty Proof Series, Book 2 Page 13
