by Jayne Faith
Lynnette peered at me sharply with her kohl-lined eyes, and a couple of the other witches exchanged glances. I waited for someone to demand how I had such knowledge. I hadn’t even had the opportunity to tell Deb about what I’d seen through the demon’s eyes. But Lynnette just nodded again.
“Deb told us you’d sensed similar magic at both crime scenes, and that you sometimes have visions,” she said.
I gave a small nod.
“What we need to figure out is one, how to prevent anyone else from getting hurt,” Lynnette said. “And two, how to catch the son of a bitch who took Amanda from us.”
The other women started talking, but my breath caught in my throat as the image of Amanda’s body came rushing back to me. My gaze settled on my best friend.
Deb. She could be next. I watched her, sitting cross-legged with one arm crossed protectively over her lower belly. She wasn’t showing yet, but for the past couple of months her pale cheeks had a new rosy flush and her eyes a sparkling brightness. If anything happened to her or her baby, I couldn’t live with it.
Pressing my fingers against the smooth curve of the rubber ring around my ankle, the extent of my limits really began to sink in. A plan began to form in my mind. Instead of waiting around for the next attack, I wanted to draw the killer out. But with my independence severely pinched between the petite fingers of Detective Barnes, I was going to need some help if I had any hope of doing it without SC interference.
For the next hour, I fidgeted as the witches expressed their worries and tried to come up with a plan for protecting themselves. They decided that none of them would stay in their own homes, since Jennifer and Amanda had been targeted in theirs. When the party started to break up, I held Deb back.
“I don’t want you going home by yourself, even just to get your things,” I said. “Can you tell Keith you’re staying here tonight?”
“I was going to ask you if I could anyway because he’s out of town.” Her shoulders inched a little higher and rounded forward. “I have zero desire to be alone right now.”
I nodded, relieved. I didn’t want to have to try to persuade her. “Good. Do you need anything from the house?”
“Eh, I can get by for a night.”
“I’m going to your place either way,” I said. “So I can pick up some stuff if you want.”
Her brows drew together. “You don’t need to do that.”
“I’m going to draw him out,” I said.
“What?” She shook her head once, her face scrunched in confusion.
“The killer. I’m going to pose as you and bait him. But I’m gonna need some help.”
Chapter 7
“ELLA, THIS IS insane,” Johnny said after I explained my plan. He’d shown up about the time the last of Deb’s friends had departed.
“You mean you can’t do it?” I challenged, one brow arched. I needed him to use his gadgets and doohickeys to mask what I was doing so Supernatural Crimes couldn’t track my location or actions.
“I can, but I’m not going to.” He folded his arms. “It’s too dangerous. Not to mention that if we got caught disarming your ankle monitor, we’d both go to prison.”
My nostrils flared as I planted my hands on my hips and looked off to the side, trying to keep my frustration under control. Johnny seemed to be developing a habit of calling me crazy—or at least calling my ideas crazy—and it was starting to piss me off.
When the discussion between Johnny and me had started to get heated, Deb had moved into the kitchen. I heard her rummaging around putting clean dishes away, but I knew she could still hear us. She’d already expressed her strong concerns about my plan before Johnny arrived.
The door opened, and Johnny and I both whipped around as Damien strode it. He stopped short, his glance ping-ponging between the two of us.
“Uh, should I come back later?” he asked, edging half a step toward the doorway.
“No,” Johnny and I said in sharp unison.
Damien had taken Roxanne home to the apartment she shared with her brother, and I’d asked him if he’d be willing to come back and stay overnight. I wanted him to protect Deb while I tried to lure the maroon magic man out into the open.
“Please, stay,” I said to Damien, softening. “Just give us a sec.”
Sidling past us as if we might suddenly pounce and try to drag him into our face-off, Damien beelined for the kitchen.
I turned back to Johnny. “If I catch the killer, you and I won’t have to worry about going to prison.”
He dropped his chin to his chest, hiding his eyes, and exhaled. When he raised his head, his dark eyes shone with concern. “I can’t put you in that position. You don’t even know exactly who or what you’d be facing. Besides, how do you expect to overpower someone who can slip by wards and murder skilled witches? I can’t do something that would put you in that kind of danger.”
A series of bleeps came from the pocket of his leather jacket. He pulled his phone out and checked it.
“It’s a job, and I’ve got to go. I’m sorry.” He stepped forward and planted a kiss on my lips and then turned for the door. One side of his expressive mouth quirked up as he flicked a glance at me over his shoulder. “I dig your crazy, woman. But I don’t want you to get hurt. Just let SC handle it.”
I snorted a laugh and rolled my eyes, feeling slightly less resentful about his lack of support. But still, I had to do something. I couldn’t just wait around for the killer to continue to take out more witches—not when one of the victims could be Deb.
Absently scratching Loki’s head as I stared out the front window, I tried to come up with something . . . anything.
“I could probably do it.”
I turned at the sound of Damien’s voice.
I perked up. “You could turn off my stupid ankle monitor?”
“Pretty sure I could at least freeze its state for a while,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes, peering at him. “Why would you be willing to do that?”
“If I don’t, you’ll try to do something anyway and probably get arrested by Supernatural Crimes.” He raised his hands and shrugged. “Lesser of two evils.”
A slow grin began to spread over my face. “But I know you’re not really comfortable breaking the rules.”
He dipped his chin in acknowledgement. “True, but Barnes really ticked me off when she put us in cuffs. It’s personal now.”
My grin widened, and I pointed at him. “Okay, I’ve got a witness.” I tipped my head in Deb’s direction. “No take-backsies on your offer.”
He gave a low, warm laugh. “No take-backsies. But I’m not just going to jam your monitor and send you out there. I want to stir up a defensive charm that’ll help protect you. And you’ll need something to incapacitate him.”
Deb’s face was scrunched up as if she were in pain. “Ella, this guy is really dangerous. I don’t like the thought of you going alone. Can’t Damien go with you?”
“No, I want him to stay with you,” I said sharply. I glanced at Damien and back at Deb and then spoke more slowly. “Besides . . . I’m pretty sure he can’t kill me.”
Her brows rose.
“I’m not saying I’m immortal or anything,” I continued. “But ever since the reaper, uh, joined me, I’ve been healing faster and faster. I can practically watch a scrape disappear before my eyes.” I held out my arms. “At Amanda’s I fell into some rosebushes, and look, now you can’t even tell. Honestly, the reaper soul may get me in the end, but I feel pretty certain that in the meantime it’s going to do its damnedest to keep me alive. It wants my body and mind. In a fight, it’s going to be on my side. For now, anyway.”
A few seconds of silence passed, and then Deb gave the tiniest of nods. She glanced at Damien. “How about an amulet that will tell her when someone with magical ability is nearby?” she suggested.
“Good idea,” Damien said, giving her a professorial look of approval. “And why don’t you help me with how to design the protect
ion charm?” He turned to me. “You should listen in. I’d planned on starting to integrate charms into your training soon, anyway.”
He pulled his notebook from his Demon Patrol pack, and the three of us gathered around the coffee table. I fought the antsy feeling stirring in my chest. I didn’t want to sit around and talk and plan—I wanted to get out there and find the bastard who killed Amanda. But he was dangerous, and I knew I needed to go into this fully loaded with whatever protection I could get.
While Damien and Deb talked advanced magic, most of which was way over my head, I watched Damien, wondering if he’d been in contact with his mage family back East. He’d come out here knowing no one, and in the months since he’d arrived, a good portion of his free time had been tied up in my little adventures, helping me hone my magic skills, or engrossed in his research. But what about his social life? I knew he was gay, and he knew I was perfectly comfortable with it, but I realized I hadn’t even asked if he’d started dating. I vowed to make an effort to show more interest, maybe introduce him around a little. You know—if I was still alive in the morning.
During a pause while Damien wrote notes in his neat print, I shifted to the edge of the sofa cushion.
“We’re doing this tonight, right?” I asked, looking back and forth between the two of them.
Deb’s forehead creased with worry, but she lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “I don’t think it’s going to help anything to wait.”
“Good,” I said.
I didn’t just want to protect Deb and the other witches. I had my own reasons for wanting to find the man with the blood-red magic. If there was any possibility that he was like me, and he’d figured out how to survive with a reaper soul, I needed to know his secret. I was still me, but I could feel the reaper’s hold tightening, expanding. The sensation was hard to describe, but my dark companion seemed to breathe with me, watch the world as I watched it, and anticipate my movements. Before, the reaper soul had alternately emerged and hibernated, like a creature that preferred to shy away from the world. Now, it felt present in my every heartbeat.
I quietly stood and paced away into the dark kitchen under the pretense of needing something there. Leaning against the counter, I pressed a hand to my chest and drew a slow breath. I was changing. We were changing. Remembering the power of holding the cloud of souls in my left hand and the reaping blade in my right, exhilaration rushed through my veins. Part of me longed so strongly to feel it all again, it sent a knife of fear slicing through me. The soul-hunger stirred in my middle, and I actually salivated a little. Every muscle in my body tightened with the effort of pushing the sensation away.
“Hey, Ella?” Deb called. “Do you have something I can use to make the amulet?”
I drew a sharp breath in through my nose, trying to pull myself back into the moment. “Yeah, I’ve got a ring that you can re-spell.”
I went to my room and dug around in the top drawer of my dresser where I kept what little jewelry I owned. I found the ring I was looking for—a thick-looking thing with a band made of a silver and copper alloy specially formulated for holding spells—that had belonged to my mother. The inlaid quartz crystal had turned milky, indicating whatever spell the ring last held had gone stale.
I brought it to Deb.
She turned it over in her hand. “I don’t suppose you have any bloodroot on hand? Even some angelica root would do. I really need some sulfur, too, to make this work. And some nettle, now that I think about it.”
I gave her a sheepish look and shrugged. “Sorry, I don’t stir spells.”
She stood. “I’ll run to Crystal Ball Lane and pick up supplies.”
“Huh-uh, you’re not going anywhere,” I said. “I’ll go.”
She let out an exasperated huff. “No one’s going to try to kill me in broad daylight on the Lane.”
“Fine, we’ll go together,” I said, my tone leaving no room for debate. I went to get my keys from the table under the front bay window and turned to Damien, who was still absorbed in his scribblings. “Need anything from Cauldrons R Us?”
He looked up, his sky-blue eyes distracted, and then cocked his head. “Is that a real store?”
I snorted a laugh. “No.”
“I think I’ve got what I need, thanks.” He made a vague gesture at his backpack and bent over his notebook again. Then he looked up again. “Wait—take my car.”
He tossed me his fob, and I caught it with one hand. “Thanks.”
Normally I would have refused, but I knew why he wanted us to take his Lexus. It had the modern upgrades that shielded against demon entry, and I’d bet a paycheck that he’d added some other fancy custom protection to his vehicle as well. My pickup and Deb’s Honda were too old for the demon shields or any other magical protection to have come standard when they were manufactured, and neither of us could afford the retrofit, let alone any expensive upgrades. At least if something happened while we were in the Lexus, we might be protected. And Damien’s wards on the vehicle would get tripped, and he’d know we needed help. Or maybe not, considering how the blood magic man had snuck past Jennifer’s wards.
“I’m texting Roxanne to see if she wants to meet us. I’m starting to teach her some basic spells,” Deb said as we left my apartment.
“You sure you want her with us?” I asked.
I slid into the smooth leather seat of Damien’s car. The vehicle still had that fresh-off-the-lot smell.
“I refuse to let this asshole control my life,” Deb said stubbornly as her seat belt automatically slid into place. “Besides, you’re going to catch him tonight, and then the danger will be gone.”
I gave a wry laugh. “I appreciate the confidence.”
When the key fob came in proximity of the control panel, sure enough, a bunch of lights illuminated, indicating the activation of several magical shields and wards.
It was a short drive to Crystal Ball Lane, five minutes tops, and I found a parking spot on the curb a block down from the building that housed Roxanne’s apartment. She emerged from the alley next to her building just as Deb and I got out of the car.
Roxanne was just coming into her magical abilities. She was a strong Level II like Deb. The girl lived with her brother, Nathan, and I’d met her when her brother had run into some trouble a couple of months back. He’d gotten caught up in a triple-species lockup—possessed by a demon and somehow trapped inside a gargoyle. I’d called in a ton of favors to get him free, and it had become quite the operation. Two international agencies had to get involved to help us rescue Nathan—and the gargoyle—from the clutches of Gregori Industries. The notorious corporation was headed by my biological uncle, my dead father’s brother, but no one except Deb and Terrence, my old Demon Patrol partner before Damien, knew I was related to the infamous Jacob Gregori.
Since the incident with Nathan, Deb had taken the role of Roxanne’s mentor to help cultivate her abilities and learn the basics of the craft of magic.
Roxanne hugged Deb and then wrapped her arms around me. After a second she stiffened and stepped back. She looked up at me, her round eyes wide.
“Whoa,” she breathed. “There’s something different about you.”
She scanned me up and down, squinting, and then reached out and grabbed my wrist.
“What’s this?” She brushed her fingertips over my arm and the faint pearly sigils that were barely visible, like faded white tattoos. With a sharp inhalation, she pulled her hand away as if my skin had given her a little shock.
“I don’t know, exactly,” I said honestly. “They appeared not long after my little brush with death.”
Deb and I exchanged a quick glance. Roxanne knew I’d died temporarily after an accident on the job, but I’d never told her about the reaper soul.
Hesitantly, she touched some of the markings again. This time her eyelids lowered partway in concentration.
“They were put there by someone,” she said softly, barely above a whisper. “By . . . by . . . something i
n the gray place.”
She blinked several times and looked up at me. One of her emerging magical talents had to do with being able to touch an object and read things about it—sometimes who it belonged to, or who’d recently used it. I’d never seen her sense something like this before, and from the look on her face, it was a new experience.
Her eyes clouded with apprehension. “Did a ghost give you these tattoos?”
I gave her what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “Maybe. That’s as good a guess as any. Don’t worry about it, though. They come and go, but otherwise they’re not causing me any trouble.”
“We’d better get on with our errand,” Deb said, putting a gentle hand on Roxanne’s back and coaxing her forward.
While Deb shopped for herbs, spell candles, and other witchy doodads, explaining how to choose the right items and what they could be used for, Roxanne kept flicking furtive looks at my arms. She seemed more curious than fearful, so I tried to appear nonchalant.
I paid for the haul, and we walked Roxanne back to her building.
She started to turn to the metal staircase leading up to the second floor where her apartment was but stopped and came back to us.
“Ella, I just realized something,” she said, her face bright with excitement. “The marks on your arms feel like something else, something familiar. They feel like ley lines.”
“Really?” I said. Roxanne’s apartment was right on top of the ley line that ran down Crystal Ball Lane, so if anyone would know what it felt like, it would be her.
She nodded vigorously. “I didn’t recognize it at first because I’m used to feeling ley lines within the earth, not on a person. But yeah, that’s what they are. Or something like ley lines, anyway.” She turned to Deb. “You need to teach me how to tap into ley line power.”
Deb smiled. “That’s a little advanced, but we’ll get to it, I promise.”
“Okay. Bye!” Roxanne gave us a little wave and trotted to the stairs.
