Shifty Magic

by Judy Teel

  I swallowed and forced myself to move closer to the awful specter of Laiyla's last moments. A circle about eight feet wide had been swept clean and strange symbols drawn on the floor. In the center, directly under the body, a thin, sharp triangle, like a dagger, had been painted. To the right, I noticed a small circle of fine, white powder.

  "What do you make of this?" he asked, his gaze tracking over the symbols.

  In high school, I'd taken a course in ancient languages out of curiosity. I was crazy like that. "Looks like Sumerian. Sort of." I squatted down next to him to get a closer look at one of the markings. "I'm guessing the lab will show that all of these symbols are written in vamp blood."

  "It is. I can smell it." His upper lip quivered as he struggled to hold back a snarl. "About five, maybe six hours ago, which supports Stillman's report."

  I pointed to the symbol in front of him. "See those lines that look like a star burst? Normally I'd say that was the symbol for God, but look how it's crossed with that other mark. The one that looks like an open cursive Z with a dot over it? I've never seen that before."

  I stared at the unusual symbol hoping my subconscious would kick up a flash of understanding. As I studied it, the lines shifted and moved and a tendril of sooty fog rose up, curling and weaving like a snake. It turned toward me and a wave of despair washed over me.

  I jumped back, lost my balance and landed on my butt in the dust. I heard Cooper call my name, but the words were muffled like he was talking to me from the bottom of a deep hole. All I could do was stare at the finger of smoke as it reared up and drifted in my direction.

  A malicious hunger radiated toward me and fear gripped my heart, squeezing it so that I could hardly breathe. My thoughts froze, bouncing so fast between the urge to run and feeling too shocked to move that I was immobilized.

  The tendril snaked closer, satisfaction overlaying the hunger. I could almost hear the triumphant laughter coming off the blasted thing. It knew it had me and it was looking forward to the taking.

  The hell with that. There's only one thing to do when evil smog laughs at you. I pulled out my gun and shot it.

  Sound rushed back in on the explosion of the bullet shattering the floor. Cooper yelled a string of curses, and I pulled in the first full breath I'd taken in what felt like years.

  "You just destroyed evidence!" he ranted.

  I narrowed my eyes at the rest of the symbols. They stayed quiet and sedate, so I glanced up at the body. The darkness around Laiyla's pendant was gone.

  Satisfaction settled into my chest, and I holstered my gun. "Whatever that was, you don't want anyone looking at it."

  "Yes, as a matter of fact I do, you crazy woman. It could have been the key to finding the killer."

  "Doesn't matter. Too dangerous to mess with."

  A muscle ticked along his jaw. "You planning to destroy anything else?"

  "Only if the other symbols try to attack me."

  He shoved a hand through his hair and his gaze practically shot out fire. "There was nothing there!"

  Agents Stillman and Miller piled up at the doorway in a rush of movement, guns drawn. "We heard a shot," Miller said breathlessly. His dark eyes went to the hole in the floor and then to the body and widened. "What happened?"

  "She destroyed one of the blasted markings," Cooper said, his disgust unmistakable.

  "The residual magic is gone," Miller noted, surprise in his voice.

  I glanced at the practitioner. "Little bugger came right at me."

  Miller hurried over to us, Stillman trailing behind, for once looking less than certain. "What did you see?" he asked.

  I described the way the whatever-it-was had come out of the symbol. A familiar beep sounded behind me, and I turned to see Cooper scowling at the readout on his high tech iC with its built-in scanner.

  "She's human. How is this possible? I thought only practitioners could see stuff like that," he said.

  Miller took out his device and scanned himself. The indicator lighted up purple. He reset it and scanned me. "Yellow. Huh." He gave me a curious look. "I don't understand this."

  "Maybe some of the magic was still hanging around and messing up the readings?" Stillman offered.

  "Then I'd register as human too," Miller said, his thumbs moving across the screen of his iC.

  I refrained from giving the snooty Were girl a "not so smart now, are you?" look, but the urge was definitely there. "Do you know what the symbol was?" I asked Agent Miller.

  "No idea, other than the sign for God." He frowned at his screen. "Diagnostics don't show any anomalies."

  "None here, either," Cooper said.

  They all leveled some seriously intense looks at me. I ignored them, my attention moving back to the body. I didn't care about abusive vamps getting what they deserved, but this? Even if Laiyla was involved, this was a terrible way to die.

  A heavy sadness settled into my chest. Maybe I shouldn't have gone off on my own...maybe if I'd pooled my resources with Cooper's we could have protected her. I should have put my pride aside right from the start, ignored my feelings for him and not been such an idiot.

  Would it really have been so bad working with the FBI? Sure they all had corncobs up their butts one way or another, but I'd worked with worse. I could have handled it. I should have handled it.

  I looked away. "Can't somebody get her down?" I said quietly. "It's not right leaving her like that."

  Cooper nodded to the others, and they scurried off. A minute later a crew came in. I suppressed a wince when one of the Evidence Response Team members snapped through the barbed wire with a cutter. Three other ERT guys kept a grip on Laiyla's body and gently lowered it to a gurney as the bindings gave way.

  Scrubbing my hand over my mouth, I glanced at Cooper. "She didn't deserve this."

  His expression softened, and he stepped closer, reaching out to trace the tip of his finger down my cheek. My throat tightened at the gentle, intimate touch, and the urge to step into his arms and allow myself to be held and comforted went through me like a warm breeze. Then his mouth pinched down, and Cooper let his hand fall back to his side.

  He glanced at his iC and then back at me. Doubt filled his wolf's eyes, and the moment of softness sank into the dust. He rubbed the finger he'd used to touch my cheek against his thumb as if I'd contaminated him. "There's nothing else we can do here."

  I swallowed down the sting at the back of my throat. I learned a long time ago that comfort and companionship was not something I should ever expect from life. "Don't you mean to say 'What the devil are you, Addison?'" I said, gritting my teeth.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes closed as if praying for patience. "If I thought you knew the answer to that, I'd ask." Dropping his hand, his impatient gaze snapped onto me. "You're so damn prickly. You know that?"

  Outrage tightened through me and then abruptly fizzled out. He was right. Not only that, but there were bigger things at stake here than a cute guy hurting my feelings.

  I put my fists on my hips and stubbornly held his gaze, not something many people could do with a Were as powerful as Cooper. "Too bad for you then, because now you're stuck with me."

  His eyebrows rose as surprise washed away his irritation. "You're joining up?"

  "The FBI's not for me, Coop. Deal with it. But I'd like to partner with you on this case."

  "What if you're part of the case?"

  Insulted, I narrowed my eyes at him and wondered how many punches I might get in before he pinned me to the floor. "If you think I'm some kind of secret black magic practitioner—"

  "I'm not saying that." He ran his hand through his silver-black hair, making it spike up across the top of his head. "The most powerful vampire in this sector is interested in keeping you close. At the same time, it looks like someone's targeting paranormals for ritual dark magic killings. A possible suspect in a murder case becomes the next victim. Which leads to the biggest question bugging me—how the hell are you seeing wh
at's left of whatever spell was cast when you're only human?"

  "You think I'm at the center of this whole mess?" I sputtered.

  "It's all probably a coincidence, but maybe not." A muscle ticked along his jaw. "Working this case might be too much of a risk for you."

  My first impulse was to jump down his throat for treating me like I was two years old and knew nothing about the world. I held back, staring into his silver-green eyes and trying to see the truth. Why had he pulled me into this? Why was he trying to kick me out now? The thudding of my heart in my ears quickened at the worry I saw reflected in his gaze.

  Breaking eye contact, I willed the tension bearing down on my shoulders to drain away. "Then I have even more of a right to be involved. Resolving this means keeping myself out of danger. We should go back to Laiyla's apartment and have a look around. We might find something that will help."

  I could feel his gaze on me and heat flushed across my cheeks. After a moment, he pushed out a frustrated growl and stalked from the room.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Cooper didn't say two words to me as we drove back to Morrocroft and FBI'd our way onto the property. The compound's guard was the same guy who'd been manning the gate when I came to interview Laiyla. Travis she'd called him—the one who'd ordered a Cupid Spell.

  He was seriously unhappy about having to open a resident's apartment to outsiders, but while we milled around outside Laiyla's door, his supervisor called and changed his attitude.

  As he punched in the master key code on the lock pad, Travis' gaze kept darting to Cooper. His swarthy complexion had a decidedly pale cast to it, and he was obviously uncomfortable being so close to a Were. To say the residents of Morrocroft were paranoid about paranormals was an understatement.

  "Miss Billings?" the guard called as he cracked open the door, his voice catching with uncertainty or maybe embarrassment. He probably thought we were invading her privacy, since he had no idea she was dead. At least not until the air in the apartment fled into the hall. Travis stumbled back coughing.

  Mixing with the sharp stink of death, a sickly sweet stench like rotten jasmine collided into us, reminding me of the alley where the vamp's body was found. "What is that?" I asked, wrinkling my nose.

  "Not good." Cooper drew his gun, and stepped to the side of the doorway as he pushed me behind him. I drew my Browning and darted to the other side of the door, grabbing the guard on my way and dragging him behind me.

  Cooper sent me a pinched look of annoyance and I shrugged. "Partners don't get in each other's line of fire," I whispered.

  His gaze narrowed, but then he gave me a curt nod and moved his attention back to the apartment.

  Travis leaned around me, sweat beading up on his forehead. He glanced at the apartment door with worried, frightened eyes. "Oh, my God," he said in a choked voice.

  "Who else lived with Laiyla?" I asked, anger knotting in my stomach. What had this pathetic excuse for a security guard done?

  He rubbed his hand over his mouth. "I...I didn't know," he protested. "How could I have known?"

  Cooper frowned at him. "Didn't know what?"

  "I was trying to help her. She wanted the spell, so I gave her the name. That's all. Just the name. I didn't know."

  In the dim light of the hall, Cooper's eyes glowed faintly. "Stay here. Don't let anyone in," he snarled at Travis.

  The guard's Adam's apple bobbed up and down and he looked about ready to faint, but he managed to nod.

  Cooper nudged the door wider, and the odor spilled out in a nauseous wave. The guard gagged and covered his nose and mouth with his hand as he fell back against the wall.

  Careful to expose as little of himself as possible to the room, Cooper reached around the doorframe and flipped on the light switch. Scattered patches of light flared on throughout the apartment.

  The main room looked like a war had been fought in it. The sofa was overturned, side tables and lamps lay scattered and broken around the floor, and the coffee table had been cracked down the middle as if a giant fist had slammed down on it.

  "Behind the sofa," I whispered. "The smell's strongest there."

  Cooper gave me an odd look before heading into the room and toward the sofa. His expression hardened as he stared at the floor behind it. "Check the rest of the apartment," he ordered as I started toward the couch. He pulled out his iC, snapped a picture, and then made the call.

  After what I'd already seen tonight, his efforts to protect me grated. Still, a look around was a smart course of action, so I headed for the kitchen.

  "Does anyone share this apartment with Ms. Billings?" he called to Travis as he clipped his iC back on his belt.

  "No...no, sir. I mean...yes. Her boyfriend moved in about a month ago. Keith Sanders. He's human."

  "He's dead," Cooper said, his tone grim. There was a pause and then the sound of Travis getting sick in the hall echoed back into the living room.

  I ignored the guard's distress and continued with my inspection. The kitchen was clear. Sparkling clean, in fact. No vamp blood in the refrigerator, nothing weird congealing on the stove. I crossed to the bedroom, careful not to disturb anything since the cops and feds hadn't had a chance to do a sweep.

  The bedroom was also neat and orderly except for the king-sized bed in the corner. The sheets and light blanket had been tossed back into a rumpled heap as if someone had left in a hurry. The dresser had the usual assortment of his and hers stuff on top of it, so I palmed the one item that I thought might mean something, made a quick search of the bathroom and left.

  I crossed the living room to the doorway and checked on Travis. The guard sat on the floor looking like crap. My gaze met Cooper's. "I need to see the body." A pained look crossed his face, but he nodded.

  Holstering my gun, I picked my way back through the debris to the sofa. Laiyla's boyfriend looked to be maybe eight years younger than her with boy-next-door looks, decent muscles and short sandy-brown hair. From the bruising on his knuckles and arms, he'd fought hard to protect the woman he loved. In the end, he'd lost everything anyway.

  Sadness and frustration fisted together in the middle of my chest. Life was potential. Death meant the world would never know what these two people might have done with their lives, who they might have helped, what they might have accomplished, the children they might have raised.

  My sorrow compressed into a sharp pinpoint of pain, and I clenched my teeth together. Is this what had happened to my parents? Had some piece of garbage decided they didn't deserve to live and ripped them from existence? Or had they just decided that raising a baby wasn't for them, dropped me at the nearest cathedral doorstep and gone off into the sunset?

  The sting in my throat came back with a vengeance, squeezing in like a vice.

  "I shouldn't have let you see it," Cooper said.

  I looked up to see him watching me, concern making a deep V between his dark brows.

  "It's not your place to protect me," I said, my voice rough. "I can take care of myself."

  His brows drew tighter together. "Sometimes."

  I was too tired to get outraged from his ridiculous protectiveness, so I held out the ring I'd found instead. The diamond solitaire caught the light from the hallway and glistened against my palm.

  Cooper's worry for me shifted into a pensive frown. "They were engaged?"

  "Or at least discussing it. This was on the dresser and not her finger."

  "Explains the herculean effort he made to protect her." He gazed thoughtfully at the body.

  "To me one less vamp on the planet is nothing but a good deal, but this...." I clenched my fingers around the engagement ring. "This is all so wrong."

  Cooper pivoted away from the sofa and made his way past me to the front door. I followed him and took up my post on the other side of Travis where the guard sat slumped against the wall. The sharp, stomach rolling smell of the mess he'd made a few feet down the hall made me anxious to get the interview over with.

  Cooper cr
ossed his arms over his chest and stared down at the guard. "Time to tell us everything, Mr. Mason."

  "I...don't know anything," the guard stuttered, his tone as close to a whine as I ever wanted to hear from a grown man.

  "Start with why you wanted Laiyla to make you a Cupid Potion and how you paid her for it," I said.

  Cooper shot me a sharp, questioning look, but I shook my head. There was time for explanations later.

  Travis seemed to sink into himself as he buried his face in his hands. "I was worried my wife was cheating on me," he murmured. "Such a stupid thing to get worked up about."

  "The Cupid Spell was for her?" If one person already had feelings for another person, that particular potion brought those feelings out in spades. If not, then it was no more potent than a glass of unpleasant tasting tea.

  I risked a glance at Cooper and my gaze clashed with his. My cheeks tightened with heat, and I looked away.

  Dropping his hands to his lap, the guard stared at the wall across from him with haunted, listless eyes. "I was willing to pay for it, but Laiyla wanted information. A connection I'd heard about. She wanted the name of someone who could get her,..." he swallowed. "a Gaia Fertility Spell."

  I sucked in a sharp breath. "That's just a myth."

  "A dangerous one," Cooper growled. "Over fifty known deaths last year. Thirty the year before."

  "That's what I told her, but she insisted. After I made the call, I...was out of the loop." He looked up at us. "Is she really dead?"

  Two cops came up the stairs to our right. "Take him to the Tryon Bird," Cooper told them. "I'll question him there."

  They got Travis to his feet, clipped the restraining cuffs on him and led him away. They passed Stillman and Miller on their way up.

  "We were finishing at the abandoned farmhouse when we got your call," Agent Stillman said, her usual stormy eyes dull with fatigue. She glanced into the apartment. "From the smell, this killing happened before the practitioner's."