I nodded. “Yes, I’ll be here tonight.” Well, sort of. Depending on when I had to head back out to the fairy ring for Karissa. If she wanted me back. Out of a habit older than I cared to think about, I slid into the chair across from Gran. “Something bad happened. Well, lots of somethings.” I told her about the night before, about killing Pink Eye. About being shot in the leg. About losing my job with the Hollows. I started to tell her about Hattie, but she shushed me with a wave of her hand.
“I already knew about that. I watched her spirit get sucked into the darkness.” Gran shook her head. “She could have stayed on as a guardian like me if she hadn’t decided she wanted to tempt fate. Tell me the real issue, honey child.”
“I’m worried because I don’t feel bad, Gran,” I said softly. “Shouldn’t I feel something? It’s like the whole Pink Eye thing just blipped on the screen—for all it bothers me, I might as well have squashed a roach.”
She steepled her fingers in front of her mouth as she leaned back in her chair. “You did indeed squish a roach, my girl.”
I wasn’t sure that was the answer that I was looking for. “He was still a person.”
“He was evil, Breena. Don’t forget that.” She wasn’t sharp, but her tone brooked no argument. “The O’Seans are power-hungry killers. That they are back in town does not bode well for Savannah.”
“You mean they haven’t been here all along?” I frowned. “What stopped them?”
“I don’t remember,” she said with a shake of her head. “That is the curse of being dead. Not everything is linear for me, not everything is where it should be in my mind. I do not keep things from you apurpose. But show me the card he gave you. You said you picked it up?”
I dug into my bag, but the card wasn’t there. I tried to remember where I’d left it.
Kinkly. Right, I’d let her take it. “I gave it to someone else. But it was the moon card, only not like I’d ever seen it. It was just a full moon with a big fat wolf’s head snarling on it. It had the shadow of a tiny, nearly invisible fairy in the corner. Water behind it.” Or maybe the river. To be fair, it could be any body of water.
Gran closed her eyes. “O’Sean spoke truly then. I see many hidden enemies and paths. You must be careful, Bree. Trouble often follows the women in our family. In case you have not noticed. The O’Rylees produce strong, capable women who don’t always have the best of luck. But that’s part of what makes us who we are.”
“Speaking of luck,” I said, “losing the job at the Hollows . . . that is bad. It’s the only chance I had to make money to buy this place back.” Well, the only steady chance. My words dipped lower as I spoke, drained by sadness.
“And you think you aren’t already trained?” She set her hands flat on the desk, which was strange because I could see a pen right through her hand.
“I’m not.”
“You are. And you have my book?”
I nodded. “Yes, of course. I used it to help the other trainees.”
“Then you don’t need them.” She waved her hand. “The shadow world is drawn to you, if you hadn’t noticed. The jobs will come. Your name alone will be enough to bring you work.”
She wasn’t wrong. I hadn’t found Karissa through the Hollows. A tiny bit of excitement trickled through me. What if . . . what if I just kept training on my own? I could hire Suzy, and the two of us could work together. There was someone else I could call in to help me too, someone from the past.
Assuming he was still alive.
When I was younger, Gran had arranged for a local police officer to help me with some of my training. On the off chance he was still on the force, he could have useful connections, maybe even some the Hollows did not. Even if he’d retired, he might still be willing to help.
Gran was right. Maybe I wasn’t training at the Hollows anymore, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t work as a bounty hunter in the shadow world. “Is Officer Jonathan still around?” I asked.
“Perhaps. Why?” Her voice was deceptively quiet, but the twinkle in her eyes tipped me off that she knew exactly what direction I was headed. I played dumb, as was my role in this game between us.
I shrugged. “Maybe just to say hello to a friendly face. So, no suggestions on why I feel nothing about killing someone? I mean, let’s be honest, I can’t go around killing people every day.”
Gran smiled. “You are a strong woman, Bree. And I’m not going to tell you how you should feel. But you’ve always had a strong sense of justice. Of right and wrong. And he was not only going to hurt you, but your friend, too. And from the sound of it, karma is what took him, not your knife.”
“You mean he was going to kill us, not just hurt us.”
“Yes, I mean kill. So if you don’t feel guilty, it’s probably because you recognize that his death preserved two lives, and possibly more.” Her words eased the fear that had tugged at me. Because more than once Himself (my ex, keep up with me here) had accused me of being crazy. Of being a psycho. Mostly for seeing things that weren’t there for him in the beginning of our relationship. He’d held that over me our entire life together.
He’d said it enough that the fear had stuck with me, and it crept up on me in quiet moments. Or, in this case, it had crept up on me because I’d killed someone and didn’t feel bad about it. I shivered and rubbed at my arms. “Thanks, Gran. I’ll be here tonight after training.”
“Be safe, honey child. There is something very wrong with our town. It is in trouble. Beyond that, I cannot see what is coming. But where there is trouble, it will find you.”
Yeah, that I could believe.
Which should have prepped me for Death Row shopping.
13
Suzy insisted on walking to Death Row, and Feish agreed, which meant I was outnumbered. Gran said she would watch over the house and let Eric know if anyone was coming close. Given he was one of the only other people who could consistently see Gran, it was a solid plan.
Besides, Eric said he wanted to stay in and keep a low profile and bake.
Bake.
I might fall in love with him just for that. Mind you, I’d end up topping the scale, but would it matter if I had fresh-baked pastries every morning along with my tea? I’m not sure it would.
The walk wasn’t far. To be fair, nothing was very far in downtown Savannah, but it was already hot and I’d gotten very little sleep the night before. Not to mention the persistent pull of muscles along my hamstrings and my one calf made me wonder just what I’d done to myself this time. Okay, I hadn’t done it, but a gunshot wound was no small thing. Right?
The thing was, morning for us was usually mid-afternoon. Training at the Hollows started at seven and ran till two or three in the morning, depending on how hard the mentors wanted to work us. Of course, we didn’t have to train today. But we probably should still train on our own.
Even so, I couldn’t keep the yawns away, and more than once my jaw cracked as I let one loose.
Feish walked on my left and Suzy led the way, her perkiness restored now that the night before seemed to have faded from her memory. Neither of them had yawned.
“You’re moving in today?” Feish asked.
“Yes,” I said. “You still good with that?”
“Boss thinks I would be lonely.” She gave a roll of her shoulders. “I think he wants you to spy on me.”
A laugh started up in my belly until I saw that she was serious. “Why? Why would he want me to spy on you?”
She shook her head. “I can’t tell.”
I wasn’t sure if she meant she couldn’t tell me, or if she didn’t know. With Feish, it wasn’t always clear. Her manner of speaking was just the other side of awkward.
We’d almost reached the waterfront, with very few words spoken between us—Feish had quickly and efficiently shot down all my attempts to pull information from her—when Suzy spoke up.
“So you really think I was spelled last night?” she asked just as we reached the top side of River Street.
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I paused. “I think it happened to everyone at the Hollows the other night, when you all got knocked out. But it was like he set it off in you. You lost confidence. Sarge is angrier than I’d have thought possible. Corb is being so protective and sweet it’s even turning my stomach.” I paused. “Did you notice anything weird with the others?”
Suzy looked up at the sky. “Luke was even more fearful than usual. But that could just be him.”
She wasn’t wrong, so I let it go, at least with my outside voice. My inside voice was yammering on at me that I had all the pieces to this puzzle, I just had to fit them together.
We stood there on the top side of River Street, just before we turned into Death Row, and I couldn’t help but look down at the water, toward the tunnel where Sean O’Sean had attacked us. Where I’d killed him. The weird angle of his neck, the way his tongue had been sticking out partway between his sharp teeth, the blood. Smell of marijuana and sea water. Saliva rushed into my mouth, not because I was hungry either, though I should have been after skipping breakfast this morning and dinner the night before. Another blow of the ocean wind in our faces brought another waft of ocean and a cascade of images I couldn’t dispel.
Oh, I was in trouble.
My stomach clenched suddenly and I swallowed hard to keep the bile down. Nope, that wasn’t working.
I turned to the side, up against a building, and heaved until my stomach hurt and I wasn’t sure I could stand up. Hands on either side of me helped me stand up, and one of the girls pushed a water flask into my hand. I took a swig, rinsed my mouth and spat. Tried not to notice the tourists staring at me. “Thanks.”
“Are you pregnant?” Feish asked.
At another time, I would have laughed. “No, a bad reaction to something,” I said. The shaking took me next, and I had to breathe through it, hard as it was.
“Let’s go shop, that will help.” Suzy tugged me along, and I barely kept up with her as my body tried to shut down and memories of the night before climbed through my mind like monkeys on meth. Feish gave me a look that said it all. She didn’t think shopping would help any more than I did.
But we let Suzy barrel us along, into the candy shop—the sweet smells of the sugar making my stomach roll even more—and from there to the hidden door that led to Death Row. There were multiple entrances into the place that was basically a bazaar for vendors of the shadow world. I’d met a number of them a few weeks ago, when I’d first started at the Hollows Group.
But my mind was still focused on the images it had conjured of Sean O’Sean’s death. A cold sweat broke out all over my body, and I struggled to breathe normally.
I saw Geraldine—Gerry to her friends—right away, and made a beeline for her as if she were an anchor in a rough harbor. She looked over me and then gave a nod. “Breena.” She squinted. “Are you ill?”
I swallowed hard. “Bad breakfast. Trying to run right through me.” I blinked back a sudden image of O’Sean’s protruding tongue. I squatted where I was and Gerry pushed a bucket toward me as I heaved up nothing. Dry heaves are about as pitiful as they sound. Nothing to show for all that effort but a hell of a lot more sweat.
I sat there on my heels, breathing through the worst of it. A cup was pressed into my hand. “Rinse your mouth out,” Gerry said. “Then take a small swig.”
I did as she said, the sharp tang of fermented berries warming up my mouth, pushing back the heaves. A quick swig as I stood cleansed the rest of my palate. “Thanks.”
“Some days are rougher than others.” She looked me over. “Other than the pukes, you look good, toning up well. And the clothing? How is it holding up?”
She’d made my leather pants and boots, which I’d done pretty much all of my training in, plus a short cropped coat that I hadn’t worn as much yet given the warm weather. “Good, very good.” I pointed at the hole in my pant leg. “Shot, but otherwise holding together.”
“I can fix that.” She bent with a needle and thread and began to stitch the hole closed. “What are you here for other than the stitch job?”
It struck me as funny that she didn’t so much as blink when I said I’d been shot. This was my world now.
“Retail therapy,” I said with a smile that I knew was tired. I could feel it around the edges of my mouth, just waiting to sag.
I leaned against her table and turned to watch Suzy work her way through the vendors, flirting shamelessly. Apparently she was back to her usual self. That was good. I, on the other hand, felt like I’d been pulled through a knothole backward and with great vigor.
Feish was even getting in on the act, following Suzy and mimicking her flirting to some strange amount of success if her handful of dried flowers was any indication. I shook my head. “I’ve never been able to flirt to get my way. I’m terrible at it.”
Gerry snorted. “Too strong? Or too blunt?”
I grimaced, doing my best to put my freakout behind me for a few minutes. “Probably both.”
Bob-John, vendor of clearing powders, sat at the table to Gerry’s right. I gave him a smile. “That clearing powder worked like a hot damn.” I almost said I’d used it to drive a demon out of a bigfoot’s property, but I wasn’t sure I could say it with a straight face even though I’d lived it. Or that anyone would believe me.
Bob-John squinted at me. “I got something new for you then. Since you are the first to appreciate a good powder in a long time.”
“Oh, I still have one clearing powder,” I said. “I bought two, remember?”
Bob-John ignored me and slid over a red box encrusted with rhinestones. “This is better. Makes you invisible.”
Gerry burst out laughing. “You are so full of shit, BJ.”
I found myself sliding a twenty across to him while Gerry laughed. Not out of pity. But because his clearing powder really had been a lifesaver. And being invisible could be a pretty good thing with the whole fairy ring deal. Although riding my dead steed had that effect, my butt would be in a world of hurt if I tried to stay on it all night. “Thanks.”
He took the twenty and tucked it away. I didn’t for one second think that twenty bucks would cover an invisibility spell, but whatever. Maybe it would come in handy, who knew?
Gerry leaned in close. “Be careful. There were men in here looking for you earlier today. Asking if anyone knew a strawberry blonde who worked for the Hollows.”
A chill swept through me. It had to be Douche Canoe and his cronies. I swallowed hard. “Thanks for the warning. But I don’t work at the Hollows any longer.”
“They are bad men, Breena. Not working at the Hollows is not good. You don’t have protection now.” Her eyes were deadly serious. I nodded.
“I am being careful.”
She pulled back and her face smoothed as she shifted the conversation to a discussion of the merits of knives over guns, amongst other topics. Her warning lay heavily on my shoulders, though, and my tension rose with each minute that passed.
An hour slid by while Gerry and I chatted, me with only half an ear on the conversation. There weren’t a ton of other customers so I didn’t feel bad about monopolizing her time.
Feish strolled back first. “I have tea, much better than before. And more herbs.” She held up her handful of what I’d thought were dried flowers.
Suzy came back with nothing but an appetite. “I’m hungry, let’s get food.”
Once more they led the way, this time going for the stairs that led up to Annie the tarot card reader’s shop. A hand on my arm stopped me. Gerry tugged me close. “You need to go. Now.”
She tipped her head and her eyes narrowed, focusing on something at the far end of Death Row, and I knew our situation had just gotten a whole lot worse. I did a quick glance to see three robed figures headed our way, and one of them was pointing at me.
“Oh dear.”
I jerked away from Gerry and ran for the exit. Stairs, it had to be stairs. Feish and Suzy were taking their time. “Time to run, girls!” I yelped as
I all but pushed them up ahead of me.
“Why, what’s happening?” Feish tried to turn around.
“Bad men, Feish, very bad men!” I yelled as footsteps sounded below us and a blast of magic rippled by, just missing us, smelling distinctly of lavender. Strike that, just missing two of us. Suzy let out a yelp and froze in place, her eyes closing as she started to slump. I kept her from falling, but I wasn’t strong enough to pick her up.
“Let her go!” Feish grabbed at me.
“They’ll hurt her!” I made another attempt that worked no better than the last. Feish muttered something and then grabbed Suzy and pulled her over her back.
“Holy Jaysus!” I breathed out as Feish packed Suzy up the last of the stairs as if she didn’t weigh a thing. I stumbled after her at the top, spun and slammed the door behind us. Next to the door was a large bar, which I set in place. Annie raced into the backroom, and I smiled at her. “Rodents. Very large rodents.”
The door rattled behind us and I pointed at Suzy. “You got anything to wake her up?”
Annie frowned at me. “I am not a spell caster.”
Damn it. I opened my bag while the door rattled behind us with a boom that made everyone but Suzy jump. Digging around in the leather bag, I pulled out my remaining container of clearing powder from Bob-John.
“Can’t hurt,” I muttered as I opened the gaudy, bedazzled container and poured the powder over Suzy’s head. The effect was immediate.
Midlife Fairy Hunter: The Forty Proof Series, Book 2 Page 15
