The Hex Files: Wicked Never Sleeps (Mysteries from the Sixth Borough Book 1)

by Gina LaManna

  “It’s just a few hours of sleep,” she said. “And no offense, but you need a shower. I’ve been trying not to look at the blood on your arm because it makes me queasy if I do, and I lose my appetite.”

  “You just finished half a pizza and several cups of tea.”

  “Well, then I probably needed to eat a full pizza and drink an entire pot of tea,” she said, though a grin tugged at her lips. “You know I have a point. Now go—get in the shower. I’ll clean up.”

  I followed her pointed finger like a trained dog. I knew I needed rest, just like I knew I needed a shower. And Willa was correct. Telling Matthew tonight would only slow his recovery by forcing him into action. If Willa hadn’t been here tonight, I wouldn’t have figured out Harry’s connections to the mayor and councilman, and I’d be going to bed anyway.

  I flicked on the water, resigned to sleep as per Willa’s instructions. I took a quick, hot shower and scrubbed all signs of death and destruction off my body. I had a quick thought about Lorraine, felt a wash of sadness for her, and wondered how Grey played into all of this.

  Was I wrong in thinking Harry and Blott had anything to do with the case more than a little shady marketing campaign? Or was I wrong about Grey, and his devotion to Lorraine was just an appearance?

  I climbed from the shower and toweled off, somberly listening as my gut told me that love could be faked. Even the nicest of men, the sweetest of gestures, could all be for show. A ruse. A trick to hide the monster inside.

  I should know—I told one I’d loved him too.

  In retrospect, I knew I hadn’t loved Trenton—I’d loved the idea of him, and the way he’d made me feel cherished and important and special for just being me. Not for being a Reserve, or a cop, or anything of the sort. For being plain old Dani DeMarco.

  And, of course, it hadn’t hurt that I’d still been reeling from a shattered heart.

  A woman didn’t date Captain Matthew King and walk away unscathed.

  I slid pajama shorts and a T-shirt over my body and left the steamy haven of the shower behind. I meandered into the living room and stopped short. Willa had somehow cleaned and tidied the entire place. All lights were off except for the dim glow of Hector’s face. He winked at me when he saw me checking the time, cheeky little bastard. Willa, however, was nowhere to be seen.

  “You need to keep that one, you know,” Marla drawled. “She’s a delightful little thing. A good friend, too.”

  “And she knows how to feed the soul,” said Fred. “I might finally be full for once if she sticks around!”

  Carl heaved a gigantic sigh, sending up a little cloud of dust around his cushions. “I was promised new imprints. I liked the look of that one. Where’d she go?”

  I didn’t have an answer for Carl, so I headed into the bedroom and found Willa there, face down on the bed and snoring as if her life depended on it. She had one hand grasped around the covers as if she’d been turning down the bed for me, and her bare feet stuck off the side, dangling over the floor.

  With a soft grunt, I gave Willa a light roll onto the bed and tucked the covers around her. When it no longer looked like she was smothering herself, I stepped back, glanced at her for a second, and wondered why I’d waited twenty-eight years of my life to find a friend. I liked having a friend.

  I closed the door behind me and crept to the couch. As I sat down, Carl let out a disgruntled huff. “How much pizza did you have tonight?”

  “Shut up,” I told him. “I’m a healthy weight. I have to fight werewolves, you know.”

  “She’s a stick,” Marla called from the corner. “I like women better the way they were in my day. Curly, curvaceous, simply marvelous like that Willa darling.”

  “I’m trying to sleep,” I told the group. “Can y’all pipe down?”

  Curling up, I snagged a blanket from the back of the couch and pulled it over me. I snuggled into Carl who, despite all his grumps and groans, was a true old friend. My eyes closed in minutes.

  “Hector!” Marla shouted. “That means you, too. Silence!”

  Hector reluctantly quieted the tick to his tock.

  Then I slept, and I didn’t hear a thing more until the unwelcome click of the lock woke me in the wee hours of the morning.

  This would go down in history as the night that refused to end.

  Chapter 26

  My eyes flicked open, but I didn’t move.

  The doorknob twisted, glinting in the moonlight, moving when it should have been still. The turning of the lock had woken me, though I hadn’t moved fast enough to get to my feet and hide.

  The door opened partially, and I quickly scrolled through my options: my Stunner had been confiscated as evidence earlier in the evening, and I didn’t have a backup. The kitchen was full of knives, which I couldn’t reach. My other defensive spells and potions were in the bedroom where I normally slept. Right where I’d have access to them—if I’d been sleeping there.

  A foot entered the room—I glimpsed a male shoe, unfamiliar to me. Not Jack, who I’d hoped had snuck upstairs in search of a comfier bed. Not Matthew, who had a tendency to make locks vanish when he wanted access to a place. My heart raced, and I wondered for a fleeting second if it was Trenton coming back from the dead.

  I had hoped I’d gotten rid of these sorts of late night visitors when I’d retired. Making pizzas wasn’t supposed to be dangerous. Unfortunately, I hadn’t made many pizzas in the last few days.

  Another footstep. The man moved slowly, cautiously. He was going for the element of surprise and not force, which benefitted me. I kept my breathing steady, most of my body obscured by the blanket. The longer he figured me to be sleeping, the better a jump I’d have on him.

  I scanned the room once more for a weapon. There was a vase on the coffee table, but it was too far away to grab and not powerful enough to fight off a fully-grown man. The kitchen was across the room, and the heavy bookend on the living room shelf was right in the spotlight.

  I was running low on options when I heard the slightest cough. As if my couch had a hairball. I almost growled at Carl for exposing me before I felt something poke me from between his cushions. A knife, I realized, as my fingers closed around the handle. A small, dainty knife, but a utensil all the same. Before I could wonder where it came from, I thought back to the past weekend when I’d brought my dinner to the couch, propped my feet on the coffee table, and read a book while I lounged and ate. A quick think back told me I’d cleaned up everything but had somehow missed the knife. Had Carl eaten it?

  If I had more time, I probably would have realized that a lot of things had disappeared into the couch. I generally chalked the missing items—Chapstick, keys, a few bucks here and there—to my scatterbrained housekeeping, but now I wondered if there wasn’t a more nefarious party responsible named Carl.

  I clutched the knife, grateful. I’d thank him later. It wasn’t a huge weapon, but it would be something—better than my fingers, at the very least. I could conjure simple spells, but that required words and usually brought light to my fingertips, and I was wary of risking my own element of surprise.

  Even more, I didn’t know who—or what—I was dealing with. I didn’t want to curse one of my brothers, though it’d serve him right. If it was a sorcerer, I didn’t want my spells bouncing off an invisible shield and setting fire and wreaking havoc around my apartment. So, the way I saw it, my only option was to wait.

  The man completely entered my apartment and closed the door behind him. He stood masked in shadows. From what I could see around Carl’s arm, I didn’t recognize the build or the face. It was far too dark to get a proper hair color.

  The intruder stepped further into the room and edged toward the kitchen. I wondered if he’d missed seeing the sleeping lump on the couch. Carl sat perpendicular to the door, so it was possible my body was hidden and lumped about in the shadows behind the arms and back of the couch. At first, that brought a wave of relief washing through me, but the relief didn’t last long.


  With the realization that the attacker hadn’t noticed me, came another—he was heading straight toward Willa.

  I couldn’t let anything else happen to Willa—especially not on my account. I’d already cost the poor thing her job, though that might have been a blessing in disguise. This time around, however, there wouldn’t be any blessing or any disguise. I had no doubt the man who’d entered my apartment wanted something from me, and I had a bad feeling that his goal was to end my life.

  “Steady...” a voice whispered.

  I shifted ever so slightly at the noise, until I realized it was all but a breath from Carl. It was so soft, so wide and thorough in its surround sound, that the man didn’t even pause in his footsteps.

  “Hold...” Carl murmured. “Wait.”

  I felt a rush of gratitude for Carl. I’d lost sight of the man as he’d disappeared behind the backrest. My timing would be crucial as I prepared to make my move. Jump over the couch too soon, and he’d have enough time to recover and attack. Jump too late, and he’d be well on his way to taking down Willa. Jump right on time, and my chances at defeating a murderer with a tiny knife were still small, but better than the alternatives.

  “Ready...” Carl murmured in that elusive sound of his that was nothing more than a tremor in the air. “Go!”

  I wasn’t ready, and I didn’t want to go, but I leapt on Carl’s command and landed on the other side of the couch in one lightning quick motion. Years of hanging out with Matthew had taught me tiny ways to perfect the gracefulness of my movements, and while I would never have the skills of a vampire, I landed with a smooth quiet that startled the intruder.

  “Cha—Harry!” I said, raising the knife. “Why are you in my apartment?”

  “Got the HoloHex, have you?” he murmured. “I knew it would only be a matter of time before someone put my name with the picture.”

  “Why’d you kill Mayor Lapel?”

  He laughed. “Put down the popsicle stick, Detective. Or, maybe you’d recognize me if I said Can I get you more coffee?”

  The sick, twisted look in his eyes hit me hard. It was familiar, something I’d seen before in Trenton. An aversion to all humanity and reason. Harry had a plan, a mission—I just hadn’t figured out what.

  “Listen to me,” I said. “I can help you, Harry. I promise. Let me help you.”

  “Just like you helped Willa by getting her fired?” Harry’s light red hair glinted under the moonlight, and the whites of his teeth glinted maliciously bright in the dimness of my apartment. “I figured Willa would recognize me if she saw the HoloHex. Yes, I know about the HoloDisc. Stupid Willa. Blott never did like her.”

  “Did Blott plan the murder of the mayor?” I asked. We’d frozen in some sort of unmoving statue-like dance. “If Blott had anything to do with this, you have to tell me. I can help you.”

  Harry laughed. He shook his head, as if I just didn’t understand, and then reached into his pocket. I raised the knife in response, but he gave me a calm down gesture. I watched as he pulled a tiny little pillbox out of his jeans and popped it open. His reddish hair gleamed as he dipped his head, studied the contents there.

  I barely breathed, inching forward, the knife raised. “Don’t move,” he said, his head flicking up at me. He pulled a gun similar in style to my Stunner out from his pocket and pointed it at me. “I wasn’t done talking to you.”

  My palms had begun to perspire, but I stopped in my tracks. “Good. Let’s talk then. What do you have there?”

  “You know what this is.” He held up a tiny little pill no bigger than a half carat diamond. It sparkled, glistened like captured moonlight in an iridescent sort of glow. “PowerPax.”

  “Just turn it over to me, and we can work out a deal, Harry,” I coaxed. “Please—”

  Harry gave me a terse, wicked little smile, and in one smooth motion, he dropped the pill on his tongue.

  “No!” I yelled, lunging for him.

  I hit him hard on the chest and tackled him to the ground, but he fought me off with a swift blow to the face. My nose spurted blood while I rounded up for a second attack. I drove my knife toward his shoulder, but he rolled at the last second and sent me flying.

  My head clocked hard against the wall, dazing me for a second too long. Harry got on his feet, returned to my side, and held the Stunner over me. He favored his shoulder, wincing as he adjusted his position over me, and I distinctly remembered the injured werewolf limping into the forest. But that made no sense—Harry wasn’t a shifter.

  “PowerPax will kick in after ten minutes,” Harry said, nodding toward himself. “You’d be lucky if I killed you before that happens.”

  “Why’d you come here tonight?” I asked, struggling to a seated position against the wall. My head killed me. “What could you have possibly hoped to achieve?”

  He laughed. “Well, you dead for starters. Grey will take the fall for it, as with Lorraine.”

  “What does Lorraine have to do with anything?” I asked. “A shifter killed her. You’re not a shifter. It’s the full moon, and you’re standing here as a human.”

  “I’m not, but I am a sorcerer,” he said, reaching into his front pocket and pulling out a vial the size of my pinky finger. “And I made a Cloning Spell with the hair of a fully transformed werewolf. In fact, here we have it. I’ll just take that in a few minutes and it should do the trick.”

  “But the PowerPax—”

  “The drug of the future,” he boasted. “Ah, yes. It amplifies one’s powers by tenfold. You’re a witch? Imagine powers ten times stronger. A vampire? The strength, speed, and agility would be out of this world.”

  “Right,” I said. “But you’re a sorcerer.”

  “Exactly. We create spells, and I’ve created a Cloning Spell that will copy all the attributes of a fully formed werewolf. I can become something else. Sure, it’s only for a short time. But my goal is to kill you—and I don’t plan on that taking long.”

  “And the PowerPax strengthens your transformation into a werewolf?” I asked, suddenly seeing things click into place before my eyes. The psychedelic Residuals around the werewolf that had injured Matthew were the same as the ones sparkling around Harry now. The unlisted werewolf who had killed Lorraine wasn’t documented because he didn’t really exist.

  “Even if you kill me, they’ll find you.” Nerves tingled down my spine. If I didn’t move soon, he’d transform, and I’d be a lost cause. If I did move, he’d Stun me, and I’d be out for ten minutes. An absolute sitting duck for a werewolf. “They know it’s not an average werewolf. Plus, the Residuals match those at Lorraine’s crime scene.”

  “With you gone, the Residuals won’t be an issue.” Harry’s eyes flicked up then, drawn to a sound behind me. His gaze pulled back to me. “You’re not here alone. Who’s in the bedroom?”

  “Leave her alone,” I said. “Willa didn’t do anything to you.”

  “If you cooperate, I won’t have to hurt her,” Harry said with a dull smile. “Or your brother.”

  I didn’t believe him for a second. In werewolf form, he would attack anything that breathed—especially with his powers amplified tenfold.

  “If you touched Jack...” I growled, thinking of my brother on the bench. “What did you do to him?”

  “He’s alive—remember, I’m framing Grey? He’s just in a deep sleep.”

  “Where is Grey?”

  “How should I know? All I know is that it’s the full moon, so he won’t have an alibi tonight. In fact, his alibi will be that he had transformed—but that’s not much of an alibi when claw marks are the cause of death.”

  “Why have you not rolled on Blott?” I threw every last bit of ammunition on the table that I had. He was intent on killing me anyway—that much was clear. “You know one of us isn’t walking out of here alive, so what does it hurt to spill if Blott was involved with any of this mess?”

  “Blott had nothing to do with it!” A flash of fury streaked through his eyes. “B
lott was eating out of my hand.”

  “Then why murder the mayor? What did Lorraine have to do with anything?”

  “This isn’t about the mayor position! Who gives a rat’s ass about that job, anyway? It’s pointless! This is about PowerPax, plain and simple.” He shook his head. “Lorraine was...shall we say, an unfortunate casualty. She thought she saw Grey slip something into Joey’s drink, but it wasn’t him. I stopped Grey next to Joey’s table and we talked for a minute. Bumped into each other—on purpose. I dropped something into Joey’s drink.”

  “Why?”

  “We needed to test it on a powerless creature,” he said. “Everyone who’d tried it noted magnified powers, but we needed to test it on someone who we knew had little to no natural powers. Joey was a prime candidate: There wasn’t much special about him, and better yet, he was a well-known recreational drug user. But it’s not like we could walk up and ask him to be our guinea pig, you know? He wasn’t into the real hard stuff.”

  “So, you drugged him.”

  “It didn’t do much, as you saw. Just sent him into a bit of a daze. I guess it was too much energy and not enough outlet for it. Not like when I take it.”

  “Lorraine must have seen Grey talking to Joey at the Howler,” I said. “And she was trying to protect him.”

  He nodded. “I used to think it sucked that I wasn’t memorable. All Lorraine remembered was seeing Grey—it didn’t even dawn on her it might’ve been me. But I had to take care of her before she remembered seeing me there. I left her a note, said I could fix her problems and tell her the truth about Grey—and she agreed to meet me in The Depth. Well, you saw how that ended.”

  A wave of nausea washed over me. Poor Lorraine. Poor Grey. They hadn’t asked for any of this mess.

  “The mayor, well—he was looking too much into my business,” Harry continued. “See, I’d worked my way up the ranks over the last few years. The office job was a cover.” He laughed. “I made my real cash running drugs. Started low level, gained some experience. You know, I have ten people working under me now.”