Glamorous: A Grace Bishop Novel (Grace Bishop Novels)

by Denise Bossarte

  Grace advanced down the ramp at a measured pace, focused on the body. Although his limbs didn’t move, she could see Gustav breathing, shallow and irregular. A strangled gurgling sound came from him.

  She approached slowly, keeping the gun trained on him as she circled to the front of his torso. Gustav’s face contorted with pain, and blood trickled from his mouth and nose. A quickly growing pool of blood surrounded his chest, seeping into the cracks between the boards of the ramp and down into the dark waters below.

  Grace assessed his injuries—a punctured lung for sure, based on the strangled breathing. And a good possibility she had hit a large-sized artery by the amount of blood leaving the body.

  “Is he dead?” Danny asked.

  “Not yet. But it won’t be long,” Grace said, her body tense and sweat rolling down her face.

  As his breathing became more labored, his eyes opened. They were back to gray.

  Grace hesitated, the muscles on her forearms going rigid as her grip tightened on the gun. “Robyn?”

  With a fit of coughing, blood poured from Robyn’s mouth, and spasms wracked his body. When the coughing stopped, he cracked his eyes again to stare at her as tears flowed from the corners of his eyes.

  “What’s going on, Gracie?” Danny asked.

  “He’s switched back to Robyn. He’s not Gustav anymore.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Nothing’s changed, Danny. Gustav has to die. That means Robyn, too.”

  “But, you can’t just let him lay there and suffer. You wouldn’t let a dog suffer like that!”

  With a hard swallow, Grace nodded her head. “Give me your jacket, Danny,” she instructed.

  “My jacket?”

  “Yes. I need it to keep from getting blood on me when I do this.”

  Danny grimace, but did as she asked, removing his jacket and handing it to her.

  Grace knew from past experience that Danny’s clothes became corporeal with him and stayed that way until he went back to his ghost form. She was betting that whatever got on the clothes would be taken out of the physical world with him when he left it.

  Grace walked up to Robyn and squatted to look him in the eyes. “I’m sorry, Robyn. I’ll make this as quick as I can.”

  Robyn gave a half smile, half grimace, then closed his eyes a final time as she leaned in to place Danny’s jacket over his head. She placed the gun against his temple and put three quick shots into his head.

  Chapter 52

  Nicco jerked back at the sound of the gunshots. Grace stood up from the body, letting the gun drop to her side as she wiped her face on her forearm. She turned and walked back to where the boy and the girls stood together in a loose group.

  Now that the Glamour was dead, Viora’s spell would dissipate quickly. Nicco tried to take a step out of the trees, but with an exclamation of surprise, he ran up against an invisible barrier. A chill crawled down Nicco’s spine. He couldn’t reach Grace.

  She sat down on the edge of the ramp, her legs dangling over the water. She placed the gun down beside her and raised her hands to cover her face, her sobs echoing through the night. The boy shifted from where he stood to go kneel beside her, wrapping his arms around her.

  “It’s all right, Gracie. It’s over. You did what you needed to do. It’s over.”

  This had to be her brother, her dead brother, somehow present and alive. Nicco shook his head, confused at what he saw. He couldn’t reconcile his knowledge of Grace’s life with what was happening in front of him.

  The girls came forward to stand on her other side, some faces creased with concern, some smiling.

  Nicco turned his attention from the group surrounding Grace back to the body of the Glamour—which was no longer lying motionless on the ramp.

  Nicco watched in horror as the Glamour stirred, then shifted to his hands and knees, the jacket falling away from his face and to the ground. Despite the wounds in the torso and head, the body was working its way to a standing position.

  Nicco tried to call out, desperate to warn Grace and the others who were huddled around her. He shouted as loud as he could but the sound barely escaped his lips.

  A noise must have alerted the boy that something was wrong. He turned his head to stare wide mouthed at the approaching Glamour, right before Viora’s pet backhanded him across the face. The force of the blow threw the boy away from Grace to land hard on the ramp a few feet away.

  “No!” Grace yelled as she turned to reach out to the boy, her pistol sliding off the ramp and into the water.

  Nicco’s stomach dropped as the Glamour wrapped his hands around Grace’s neck.

  The apparent leader of the girls yelled “No, not her!” as she leaped to attack the Glamour.

  The other girls were quick to follow her lead, surrounding the Glamour and tearing him away from Grace. He dropped her limp form to the ground as he fought the onslaught of attacking bodies.

  Their angry shouts carried to where Nicco stood. The Glamour fought them, kicking and writhing, desperation clear on his face as he tried to free himself from their grasping hands. They seemed to possess inhuman strength as they dragged him into the boat house. Soon his screams echoed over the water, accompanied by the gruesome sounds of tearing flesh and popping bones. The listening spell Nicco had cast made the sounds all too easy to hear.

  Nicco held his breath, waiting to see if Grace would move. If she was still alive. He sagged against the tree with relief when she stirred.

  The ghastly noises from the boat house ceased after a time, and the girls emerged soon afterward, disheveled and covered in blood and gore.

  Nicco’s attention was drawn by movement on the ramp, and he turned to watch the boy crawl to Grace’s side. As she returned to consciousness, he reached out and helped ease her to a seated position.

  “Did you kill him?” he asked the girls. “Is he finally dead?”

  “Yeah, we done took care that motha fucka,” the girl who led the attack confirmed.

  “She gonna be okay?” The girl’s accent was street tough, but her voice carried genuine concern for Grace.

  “I got off lucky,” Grace responded in a groggy voice. “No permanent damage, although I’ll have a sore throat and one hell of a headache for a while.”

  “We need to get you to the hospital, Gracie. You might have a concussion,” her brother said.

  She ignored him and instead focused on the lead girl. “What did you do, Sabra? What did you and the other girls do to him?”

  “We took care of ‘em. Just like ya said needed done. We couldn’t let him hurt ya. Not like he hurt us. Not after all ya done for us.” Her statements were full of pride. “We tore him to pieces. He ain’t gonna hurt nobody no more.”

  Grace studied the girls for a moment, seeming to take in their appearance with distaste. But the practical woman Nicco knew then showed up, and she simply said, “Thank you. Thank you for taking care of the Glamour.”

  As Grace spoke, the girls started to lose their solidness. Each one dissolved from sight. Ghosts? The girls were ghosts. Somehow, for a time, the girls were real. But now they were ghosts again. Grace must have been using her ability to continue speaking with them after they dematerialized.

  It frustrated Nicco that he couldn’t hear the rest of the conversation. Instead, the sensation of the loosening of the bonds of Viora’s spell distracted him. He tested them as the pressure faded.

  Flashes of light caught Nicco’s attention, pulsing in the positions where he last saw the girls. One light for each place a girl had been standing. The lights almost blinded him with their brightness. Then, as a group, they streaked up into the night, moving to join the light of the stars in the sky.

  Finally, the bonds lost their hold completely. He burst out of the woods, racing across the grass separating him from Grace. He stumbled over rocks and debris as he rushed to reach her as quickly as possible. He stopped only when he saw the flash of a gun and felt the bullet slam into his ches
t.

  Chapter 53

  A man staggered into the light and collapsed on his side in front of her. Grace lowered her backup weapon that she’d pulled from the holster on her ankle, still clutching it in her right hand. Her mind reeled as she struggled to process the face she had glimpsed.

  “Oh my god, Gracie! What did you do?” Danny yelled at her.

  “I shot Nicco,” she said as if in a dream, trying to leverage herself up from the ramp one-handed, still unwilling to release the weapon. “Help me get up, Danny.”

  He rushed over to Grace and grabbed her hand, yanking her to her feet but jumped to her side as she wavered in place.

  She took an unsteady step in Nicco’s direction. “Help me over to him,” she pleaded.

  Danny drew her arm around his shoulders, holding her hand in one of his and wrapping his other arm around her waist. As fast as he was able, he helped her shuffle over to where Nicco lay on the grass. Together, they knelt beside him. Grace carefully turned Nicco onto his back.

  She didn’t see blood anywhere. Although she would swear she hit him right in the chest—a bull’s eye at close range. She set the revolver down and reached out to his neck to check for a pulse. She let out a small cry of relief to find a steady beat under her fingers.

  “He’s still alive.” Her voice shook with emotion. “I didn’t kill him. Not yet.”

  Grace ripped open Nicco’s shirt, popping buttons as she did so. She scanned his chest, still seeing no signs of an entry point for the bullet. There was no way she missed him. She was an expert shot, and he had been too close to miss.

  What she did find was a tattoo of a raven, whose body and head covered Nicco’s torso and whose wings spread onto his arms and shoulders. “Raven tattoos, again,” Grace muttered to herself as she rolled him on his opposite side to face away from her and lifted the back of his shirt.

  No exit wounds—only a tattoo of the back of the raven, completing the tattoo from the front. She eased his body to the ground with his face toward her.

  “This guy is almost as tattooed as DL, but it’s one giant tattoo. Like the one Zack gave you,” Danny said fascinated by the art.

  Leave it to Danny to be distracted by artwork and forget they were supposed to be saving Nicco’s life. At least that’s what she thought they were doing. But she wasn’t too sure.

  Nicco moaned and gave a few painful sounding coughs.

  “Nicco, are you shot? Does it hurt anywhere?” Grace asked.

  “Does the fact that you are asking me mean you are done flopping me around like a rag doll?” was his raspy reply, said with eyes still closed.

  Grace sat down next to him with a sigh of relief. If Nicco was being his usual obnoxious self, he must be okay.

  “I was convinced I shot you.” She laughed with a hint of hysteria.

  “You did.” Nicco finally cracked open one eye.

  Grace immediately stopped laughing. “That’s not possible! There were no bullet wounds on your body. I checked.”

  “I said you shot me, mia caro. I didn’t say you wounded me,” Nicco corrected her.

  He wasn’t making any sense. “How could I shoot you and not wound you?” she asked.

  “Mia caro, there is no way you can wound me. I have been using that protection spell for several hundred years. Injuries might knock me out for a time, but they won’t kill me,” Nicco stated with pride in his voice.

  Then both of his eyes flew open wide at what he revealed.

  “Wait a minute.” Grace leaned over him to peer into his eyes, finding a sheepish expression on his face. “Did you say what I think you said?”

  Nicco remained silent.

  “He said he cast a spell,” Danny said from her side. “It means he’s a Warlock or Wizard!”

  “Are you telling me you’re a Wizard? A several-hundred-year-old Wizard?” Grace’s voice increased in volume to match her increasing anger.

  “We prefer the terms Warlock or Witch, actually,” Nicco answered in a conciliatory voice after a long pause.

  “‘We ‘prefer’? As in, ‘The Family’ prefers?” Grace said in a biting tone.

  “Umm, yes.” Nicco attempted to smile up at her, though it was ruined by an immediate wince.

  Grace felt no sympathy for the pain Nicco was experiencing at that moment. She didn’t want to be sympathetic right now—she was too busy being completely pissed off.

  All this time. All the song and dance. All the ‘consider The Family as a corporation’ bullshit. The whole time she was too busy to ask what type of individuals would be powerful enough to make even the Paranorms align with them—pledge their allegiance like surfs to feudal lords.

  Paranorms as powerful as Fuoco working for The Family would only make sense if The Family had abilities beyond those of the Paranorms they controlled. Witches, goddamn Witches, or Warlocks, or whatever the hell they called themselves.

  “Mia caro, I realize you are a bit upset—.”

  “Upset? You think I’m ‘upset’? You have no idea how pissed I am at you and the whole damn barrel of Warlocks!”

  “Do you mind if I sit up to discuss this face-to-face?” Nicco asked from the ground.

  The night had been too long, and Grace had been through too many mental games to continue one now. She moved back from looming over him and gave him space to sit up, which he did, cradling his chest with one hand and propping himself with the other.

  “Will you bruise at all? Or will the protective spell prevent that too?” Danny asked.

  “Danny!” Grace growled at him turning to give him a scowl. “This isn’t the time to for a question and answer session about spell casting.”

  “Come on, Gracie. You’re just pissed off you didn’t figure out Nicco was a Warlock before now.”

  “What I’m pissed about is the fact that The Family has all this power. And they did nothing to help us or to stop the Glamour. They should have done something when I first went to them. If they had, then Billy would never have gotten hurt. Celeste would never have gotten hurt. Hell, they should have stopped him before any of the girls were taken!” She finished with an accusing glare at Nicco.

  Danny sobered as she listed all the people who would be safe and unharmed if The Family had intervened. “I’m sorry. I never thought about that.”

  Grace faced him once more, and reached out to give his hand a gentle squeeze. “Neither did I until right now, kiddo. I was too busy trying to get one step ahead of the Glamour and his games, and I wasn’t asking the right questions.”

  Grace swung her irate gaze back to the real culprit. “Well, Nicco. What do you have to say for yourself? What do you have to say about this whole mess you had the power to prevent?”

  Nicco sat looking at her and Danny, seeming to struggle for words. For the first time since meeting him, she found him speechless, and it infuriated her.

  “Wait, don’t tell me. This falls under the ‘there are some things Paranorms are not privy to’ category?” Her tone was ice cold, and her hands clutched into fists.

  She fought to contain the urge to see if his protective spell would work against being pummeled.

  He dared to look her in the eye. “Grace…”

  It was the first time he had called her by her first name, and it made her pause her tirade, as she supposed he intended.

  “This is not something you want to hear. But I was commanded not to interfere with the Glamour, especially with your efforts to fight him.”

  Grace scoffed at the idea Nicco’s hands were tied the whole time.

  “When I told you I was middle management, I meant it. Even in a family of Witches, there are those who lead, and there are those who do the following, like me.”

  Grace refused to comment, only glared at Nicco.

  “I was as much a pawn as you in The Family’s games,” Nicco said, anger entering into his tone. “Not only was I commanded not to interfere, I was be-spelled to prevent me from doing so.”

  “You expect me to believe you
didn’t help because your Family wouldn’t let you?”

  “It is hard for you to understand, Grace. But the head of my Family ensured I could not help you. You are not the only one who has not been asking the right questions these past few weeks.”

  He sighed and shook his head. “I should have listened to Gabriella’s advice when she had you give it to me. I have been a complacent fool, and this disaster is the result.”

  “Then I suggest you stop being a fool and start telling me what’s really been going on all this time,” Grace returned to a cold calm.

  “It is a long story, spanning many decades.”

  “Which means you aren’t going to tell me anything, because you might reveal something you shouldn’t about The Family?” Grace sat back on the ground, grinding her teeth in frustration. “Personally, I think you owe me after nearly getting Danny and me killed by withholding information.”

  “Now, I—”

  Their argument was interrupted by a loud cry, sounding like a mix of a scream of a dying animal and a bellow of a bull. A large black form flew over their heads, and the air swirled across the surrounding ground at the sweep of its wings.

  Nicco froze, his face turning pale as his eyes widened to clearly show the whites around dilated pupils.

  “The blood price is paid, Raven King. Your debt is filled.”

  Nicco went limp against the ground, closing his eyes as a giddy smile played across his face.

  Another pass of the large, dark shape, and then it disappeared from their view.

  “What the hell was that?” Grace scanned the sky for the return of the creature.

  “My ride home,” Nicco said, his face flushing.

  She turned to him and leaned in to stare him in the eyes. “And what fucking ‘blood price’ was that thing talking about?”

  “A long story for another time, Miss Bishop.” Nicco sat up again, holding his side tightly. “Suffice it to say that my arrival here tonight was through supernatural assistance which required payment for service rendered. Luckily, it seems the death of Robyn took care of the bill.”

  Grace waited for something more from Nicco and sighed forcefully when he didn’t continue.