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Copyright © 2021 by Theophilus Monroe.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United
States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Art by J CALEB DESIGN
For information:
www.theophilusmonroe.com
Contents
1. Chapter One
2. Chapter Two
3. Chapter Three
4. Chapter Four
5. Chapter Five
6. Chapter Six
7. Chapter Seven
8. Chapter Eight
9. Chapter Nine
10. Chapter Ten
11. Chapter Eleven
12. Chapter Twelve
13. Chapter Thirteen
14. Chapter Fourteen
15. Chapter Fifteen
16. Chapter Sixteen
17. Chapter Seventeen
18. Chapter Eighteen
19. Chapter Nineteen
20. Chapter Twenty
21. Chapter Twenty-One
22. Chapter Twenty-Two
23. Chapter Twenty-Three
24. Chapter Twenty-Four
25. Chapter Twenty-Five
26. Chapter Twenty-Six
27. Chapter Twenty-Seven
28. Chapter Twenty-Eight
29. Chapter Twenty-Nine
30. Chapter Thirty
31. Chapter Thirty-One
32. Chapter Thirty-Two
33. Chapter Thirty-Three
34. Chapter Thirty-Four
Author Notes
HAILEY'S STORY: THE BLOOD WITCH SAGA
FREE BOOK!
Also by Theophilus Monroe
About the Author
Chapter One
My heels clicked against the tile floor. It was the third of three funeral homes in the area we checked. If we struck out here, well, our mission would be dead. Funeral home joke. Since my club, Nicky's, is in a former funeral home, I've picked up my share of them. Most of the jokes are groan-worthy—hopefully not croak-worthy.
Achoo! Devin caught his sneeze with his sleeve.
"Bless you," I said.
Devin sniffed. "Dang allergies. The whole place smells like flowers."
I looked to my right, where the funeral home's gathering room was located. A casket was sitting up front, surrounded by grotesque and oversized floral arrangements. "I never understood the obsession with flowers. I suppose it makes sense to have them at a funeral. Since all the flowers are dying."
Devin chuckled. "Yeah, don't ever give me flowers. Not romantic to me. You're right. It's like, hey beautiful, take these and watch them wither. Like our love."
I chuckled. "Not exactly a great omen in the context of a budding relationship."
Devin snorted. "A budding relationship? Good one, Nicky."
"Holy crap, I know I have a lot of bad jokes, but that one was totally by accident."
"Sure it was," Devin said, sniffing again. "Who is it we're supposed to meet?"
I shrugged. "Some guy named Kevin. I spoke to him on the phone. He said he'd be here."
"Funny they call this place Lakeview Funeral Home. Driving up, I didn't see any lakes nearby."
I shook my head. "Nope. Just one big cemetery. But I think there's a lake a few miles from here."
"But you can't see it. So Lakeview makes no sense."
"People are weird. What can I say? Especially people in this line of work."
"Can I help you?" a male voice said, emerging from a small hallway on the left-hand side of the foyer where we entered.
I winced. If I'd known he was standing there, I wouldn't have called him weird. I realize it wasn't fair. And as a trans woman, I suppose I should have known better than to make assumptions about people I'd never met. Since people did that to me all the time. Instead, I decided to pretend I hadn't said anything or, at least, that I thought he hadn't heard me.
"You must be Kevin," I said.
The man nodded and extended his hand. "And you're Nicky?"
"I am. This is my boyfriend, Devin. The one I told you about."
Kevin and Devin shook hands as Kevin repeatedly glanced at my nine-inch stilettos. I figured he must've been jealous. He only wished he could rock a pair of Louboutins like me.
"I have to admit, I was quite happy to hear you'd taken over Alice's place. Reduced the competition. In this business, there isn't much you can do about supply and demand."
"Not legal things you can do, anyway," I said, chuckling to myself.
Kevin cocked his head. "I'm not sure what you mean."
"Supply means people dying, I presume. The only way to increase supply would be... never mind. Bad joke."
Kevin nodded. "Right. Murder isn't exactly something to joke about."
I grimaced. "Yeah, sorry."
"As I was saying," Kevin continued. "One less funeral home. Less competition. I'd heard her old place was something of a club, now."
I nodded. "It sure is. I can get you some free tickets if you'd like to check it out."
Kevin bit his lip and looked me up and down. "Thanks, but I'll pass."
"You're missing out," Devin said. "Nicky puts on quite the show."
"I'm sure she does," Kevin said. "Follow me. We can talk in my office."
We followed Kevin to his office. He was in black slacks, a white shirt, and a paisley-patterned tie. He was taller than the average man—almost my height in heels—and clean cut. He had straight brown hair parted to one side. In nearly every way, he fit the bill of your stereotypical funeral director. Except for his age. I'd say he was in his early-to-mid twenties. Not an ugly man. Not especially attractive either. Except for one of his features. As we walked behind him, I immediately noticed he had a rather shapely and taught derrière.
Devin backhanded me on my shoulder.
I looked up and mouthed the word "what?"
Devin sniffed again. Pointed at his eyes. Pointed at Kevin's butt. Then slowly moved his fingers up so as to elevate my gaze.
"I wasn't checking him out," I whispered.
"Mmmhmm," Devin muttered back quietly, the tone of his hushed reaction suggesting he didn't believe me.
We were looking for the Grimoire of the Nazarene. Yeah, that Nazarene. While I had my doubts, some believed it had been penned by Jesus of Nazareth. Those who bought into that theory believed it was this grimoire he first gave his Apostles. It's what gave them the ability to perform the miracles contained in the book of Acts.
Whether it was true was beside the point. The book contained some serious magic. It was believed if someone wielded it, they could evoke the angels of heaven to do their bidding. Maybe. Maybe not. But I knew for certain the Order of the Morning Dawn was looking for it.
>
The Order of the Morning Dawn was a hyper-religious organization dedicated to eliminating all vampires and witches. You'd think, as a vampire slayer myself, we'd have something in common.
The Order also had a track record of creating vampires themselves and using witchcraft to accomplish their missions. Of course, they called their vampires "nightwalkers," and they referred to their witchery as "miracle-working." A semantic veneer to cover up the giant pile of shit that was their hypocrisy.
Devin grew up the son of one of the Order's most respected hunters, Tom Miller. The thing about the Order's habit of creating nightwalkers—some vampires develop unique and unpredictable abilities. It's believed their peculiar skills come from the taste of souls, small slivers extracted from human blood when they feed. When Wolfgang found out that the Order acquired the grimoire, he used his ability to enthrall a person's will to infiltrate the order, forcing Tom to hide the grimoire. Of course, that wasn't Wolfgang's only agenda. I staked him. Burned out his heart. It had to be done.
Only, at the time, I knew nothing about the grimoire. I learned about that later.
With the Grimoire of the Nazarene, it was feared, the Order could call upon legions of angels to wipe out virtually every vampire, witch, or anyone they thought didn't deserve to live in this world. Me, and most of my friends, likely included. You know, "sinners" of any stripe—especially rainbow-colored stripes.
Now, we were following a lead that Devin's mother, Debbie, had given us shortly after she was turned into a vampire herself. Now that Devin's dad, Tom, was dead, she had as good a clue as anyone what he was up to around the time Wolfgang showed up at the order.
The only thing out of the ordinary Debbie remembered that might clue us in to the grimoire's whereabouts was a now-trashed business card from a funeral director in Lee's Summit. She'd pulled it out of Tom's pockets while doing laundry. It was around the time when Tom would have first fallen under Wolfgang's compulsions. It was strange, Debbie said, that he'd be consulting with a funeral director. Especially in a suburb they didn't often frequent. It must've been business with the Order of the Morning Dawn.
Unfortunately, the Order's current leader, Mina, had also managed to extract the same information from Debbie. Mina lied to her, appealed to her religious beliefs, and told her she could be redeemed if she helped the Order, even as a vampire. Spared from her vampiric damnation.
Now, Devin and I were in an informal race with Mina and the Order of the Morning Dawn to get our hands on the grimoire first.
Our theory? Tom had taken the grimoire and convinced a funeral director to bury the spellbook with a random body. We figured he might have concocted a story, perhaps that he knew someone recently deceased, and the book was a cherished item. Not uncommon, really, for people to be buried with some of their most prized possessions.
It was only a guess. We could have been wrong. At the very least, we figured, if we found the funeral director who'd given Devin's dad the business card, he'd be able to confirm or disprove our theory. Not like we could ask Devin's dad. He was killed by vampires. It happened in the same fight that ended with me staking Wolfgang. But if this was the funeral director whose name was on the business card, he'd at least recognize a picture of Tom and be able to clarify the purpose of their exchange.
"So, you're telling me you think someone was buried with something important to you?" Kevin asked.
"A family heirloom," Devin said. "I know you can't dig up the body or whatever. But we're trying to confirm that's actually what happened to it."
"And what was the item, specifically?"
"Basically an old book," I said.
"Like a bible?" Kevin asked. "A lot of people are buried with personal bibles."
"It's like a bible, yes," Devin said. "Not in English. It would be like centuries old."
"And you don't know who it was buried with?" Kevin asked.
Devin sighed, pulled his phone out of his pocket, and scrolled to a picture of his dad. "This is Tom Miller. He's the one who would have given you the book."
"And it didn't occur to you to ask him about it?" Kevin asked, raising an eyebrow.
"My dad is dead," Devin said.
Kevin sighed. "I don't recognize him. I'm not saying he wasn't here. I see a lot of people. You know, everyone dies."
Kevin stared at us for a second as if he was expecting a laugh. It wasn't funny. So we just stared back at him.
"Anyway," Kevin continued, "do you at least know when it might have happened?"
"Roughly nine months ago, we believe," I said.
Kevin sighed. "You know, I barely remember the family members I met with last week, much less several months ago. If you knew who the deceased was, well, I never forget their faces, and I have a record of their names."
I raised my eyebrow. "You don't forget dead people's faces?"
Kevin chuckled. "I know it sounds strange. I also embalm the bodies that are brought to Lakeview. The families give me a photograph of what the deceased looked like alive and, like an artist, I attempt to sculpt and paint the body to appear as it was before."
"That makes sense," Devin said. "But we don't know who the deceased was."
"In that case," Kevin said, "I regrettably can't help you. If you happen to come across the name of the person who died, I'd have a record of that."
"Do you have the names of anyone who paid for a funeral around that time?" I asked.
Kevin bit his lip. "I do."
"Devin, do you think your dad might have paid the funeral costs?"
Devin shrugged. "It's possible. We think the dead person might have..."
"The deceased," Kevin said. "Dead person sounds cold. No pun intended."
I chuckled under my breath a little.
"As I was saying," Devin continued, biting his lip which was a tell I'd come to learn that for him, a lie was coming. "I think it might have been an estranged sibling."
"But you don't know the name," Kevin said, forming his hands into a steeple as he rested his elbows on his desk.
"Like I said, they were estranged."
"Well," Kevin said. "I suppose it might make sense if your father and his sibling were estranged he might do something like this. It's not uncommon when people were estranged in life for the living person to try and make amends in some way connected to the deceased's funeral. Happens all the time in various ways. Believe it or not, I recently buried someone whose brother owed him fifty bucks. Apparently, they hadn't spoken much because the deceased brother hadn't paid him back. At the funeral, the living brother tossed a Ulysses S. Grant into the casket."
"A who?" I asked.
Devin snickered. "He was a general during the Civil War. Became President. He's on the fifty-dollar bill."
"Ahh." Having been human for only a few years, my knowledge of American history was sketchy outside of pop culture. I knew the Civil War had happened. I knew about Abraham Lincoln. You know, since he was a vampire hunter, like me. I knew his side won and ended slavery. Didn't know much more than that.
"Thank you for your time, Kevin," I said, standing from my seat. I reached into my bra and dropped two tickets to one of my upcoming shows on the table. "In case you change your mind. You're welcome at Nicky's any time."
Kevin snickered. "Sorry I couldn't be of more help. If you come up with that name, let me know."
Chapter Two
"Why'd you give him tickets?" Devin asked as I buckled my seatbelt in the passenger seat of his Subaru Impreza.
"I thought he might enjoy it!" I said.
Devin snorted. "Did you see the way he was looking at you?"
I smiled. "Yeah, he was checking me out."
Devin raised an eyebrow. "That wasn't it, Nicky. He was judging you."
I laughed. "No, I don't think he was."
Devin shook his head as he pulled out onto the street. "You're so naïve, Nicky."
"Am not," I said. "I know transphobia is a thing. I just don't think that was him."
"I do
n't know how you didn't see that," Devin said. "He was looking at you like you were some kind of exotic creature."
"Exotic," I said, smirking. "See, a lot of men like that have a closeted attraction to trans women. They just won't admit it. They might put on a show like they hate you, but that's to cover up their truth. Deep down, they know what they really want."
"Keep telling yourself that, Nicky."
"Look, Devin. I have to try to see the best in people. You realize, for years, I hunted Alice. I wanted nothing more than to stake her and end her. For what she did to me. When she bit me, and I lost my elemental shapeshifting abilities. But then, in the end, she'd changed. She became an ally. I won't ever judge people so quickly ever again."
"You'd probably feel differently if you grew up with parents like mine."
I bit my lip. Devin grew up struggling with his sexuality. He dabbled in witchcraft—now he was a full-fledged warlock. Meanwhile, his parents had made it a lifestyle, as a part of the Order of the Morning Dawn, hating everything about him. "I guess you have a point. But not everyone is like that, Devin."
"I know that," Devin said. "But a lot of people are. You've seen how some of our friends, people in our community, have suffered because of hate."
"I not saying that's not true. But I think this Kevin guy is different. I figured, you know, give him some tickets. Doesn't' matter if he's straight or whatever. He could come to enjoy the show. And maybe, if he did have desires he was ashamed about, he'd meet some people who were safe to come out to."
"You have no idea what Kevin is into, Nicky. He gave you glances that, to me, anyone who might judge a trans woman might give."
"I just can't live my life always feeling judged."
"So you convince yourself anyone who stares at you wants you?"
"Pretty much. Yes."
"Do you realize how narcissistic that sounds, Nicky?"
"Narcisissy, what?"
"Never mind," Devin said, chuckling. "You might be right about Kevin. I don't think you are. But whatever. It's a little ridiculous given how often people stare when trans women walk in the room to think they're all secretly lusting for you."
No Shift, Sherlock: A Vampire Hunter Urban Fantasy Mystery (The Legend of Nyx Book 3) Page 1
