by Karen Greco
Reluctance was written all over his face, but he headed upstairs, leaving me alone with the black magic witch.
"Where's Casper?" I asked my grandfather as I heard the upstairs door close. "Last I felt him, he was trying to help me fight off that spell. He's not with me now."
I was worried. Ghosts were delicate. If they exerted too much of their energy, their bodies — a sort of plasma that took on their corporeal shape — disintegrated. And it drove them mad. Once the plasma was chewed away, they became poltergeists, ghosts without shape, without conscience, and you did not want to mess with those suckers. I tangled with a few and it wasn't a good time.
Gramps raised his eyebrows. "Your ghost? He's fine. Popped out just before you passed out."
"You can see him?" I asked.
"Of course I can see him. Where do you think you get it from?" He laughed.
A jolt of ice spiked up my spine. "Why are you here?"
"Told you," he said, turning the now empty bottle of tequila around in his hands. "You need to take down your mother."
"But why?"
He dropped the two front legs of the chair to the floor and then leaned forward. "Child, are you that dense?"
"I know about that why," I said, pressing my teeth together to keep my temper in check. "I mean, why would you want to destroy your own daughter?"
"She's upsetting the balance," he said with a matter-of-fact tone.
I sat up on the table, swaying a little as I acclimated to my new position. "The balance? You practice dark magic. And you're going to complain about Leila upsetting the balance?"
"See, your aunt brainwashed you too," he grumbled, jumping up. I flinched when he stood, then relaxed—just a bit—when he walked in the opposite direction. I tracked him as he stalked behind the bar to grab a bourbon bottle.
"Babe..." My voice came out in a strained squeak, so I cleared my throat. "Babe didn't brainwash me. She taught me."
"And I'm here to teach you my ways, child," he said, folding his tall frame back into the chair, bourbon bottle in hand. "Now, if you listen to me — learn from me — I will give you the tools to defeat your mother."
"Why would you want me to kill your own daughter?"
"Told you. She ain't natural."
"She's my mother," I said, voice shaking. “And I am her not-natural daughter.”
"Child, she has not been a mother to you, not once. The woman you say is your mother birthed you for the wrong purpose, and I won’t blame you for that."
"Purpose?" I asked.
He ignored me. "Your aunt took you in, raised you as best she could, found someplace safe for you, all against my wishes and the wishes of our coven. That was being a mother. So far as you are concerned, any maternal whatever you had died when Leila lit that funeral pyre."
"What do you mean, ‘purpose?’" I repeated, even though he obviously wasn't going to tell me.
"Don't forget, she killed my daughter," his voice softened.
"So you want me to kill your other daughter?"
"Blood for blood,” he said. “She's no daughter of mine."
I stewed on that for a minute. "I don't get it. Your reputation as a brujo is notorious. Why aren't you puffed up with pride at what Leila's doing?"
"No pride here," he said. "Told you, she's unnatural."
He’d reached the end of his patience with me, I could tell. "So what do you expect me to do?"
"Learn."
"Learn? From you?" I snorted.
He nodded, his face unreadable, and a chill spread through me.
"I'm not interested in learning dark magic."
"It's a dangerous way, but it's not a bad way," he said. "Tell you this. You learn, you'll defeat her. I promise you that."
"So how come you can't defeat her? How much can you possibly teach me? You know tons more magic than me."
"Because it needs to be you."
"Why?"
He shook his head. "It's just what I know."
"How?" I challenged.
"The spirits guide us," he said.
My shoulders inched up with each cryptic response. I didn’t believe him. Or his spirits. "So we're charging after Leila because of what some ghosts say? No offense, Casper, wherever you are."
Gramps pulled a pipe out of his pocket. "Not just ghosts. Our ghosts, our family."
"So our dead family," I said snarkily, then looked him up and down as he tamped tobacco down with his thumb. Tall, slim, silver-blond hair, calling into question our actual lineage. "Who may or may not be from Mexico."
"You'd do well to take this seriously."
"I don't mean any disrespect, old man, but I don't know you. There is, however, a gentleman who is like a grandfather to me—yes, Dr. O—sitting behind bars with Leila doing who knows what to him. He is my priority right now. And it's not witchcraft that's going to bust him out. It's strength and agility and some good old-fashioned ass-kicking. And Frankie and I have that in spades."
"You go your way then," he said, sparking up the pipe. "I'll wait and see how you and that vampire fare."
The sweet smelling smoke drifted towards me. I breathed in its warmth as it wrapped around the room. My shoulders eased down from where they hunched at my ears. I inhaled again, this time closing my eyes. I felt the smoke work its way through my body, each muscle group giving into the calm the mist carried with it. Following a long exhale, my nausea dissipated.
"What did you just do?" I murmured. Panic rose in my chest for a brief moment, but as I inhaled the smoke again, the anxiety subsided. I felt chill. And that felt good. Damn good.
"Blood magic ain't just for killing, child," he said, blowing out another puff, the wispy white smoke wafting over to me. "It's also for healing."
Maybe it was a trick, but I didn't care. I allowed the smoke to embrace me. Frankie and I had work to do, but I needed to walk into this fight with a strong body and a fresh mind. Running on adrenaline the last few weeks didn't do any of us any favors. After we tangled with those three clowns on the bikes in the middle of the interstate, it was getting downright dangerous.
"Yes, child, breathe it in..." My grandfather's voice soothed and I settled back down onto the table while he walked around me in a circle. I watched the white smoke snake over my body, and then the old man began to chant.
"This is dark magic?" I mumbled while smoke filled my head and I drifted in and out of sleep.
"This is," he said. He stopped his chanting to answer me, and the loss of the rhythmic sound made me sad.
"Keep singing," I said.
He gave my shoulder a squeeze. "Of course, mi nieta," he said, and then resumed his chants.
Grandchild. He called me grandchild in Spanish. I had a grandpa. The thought warmed me to my toes. I had a grandpa who would take care of me. Teach me. Love me. I drifted into a restorative sleep, Gramps watching over me.
5
"Are you out of your bloody gourd?" Frankie whispered, his anger palpable even though his vocal register was low.
"I told you, I'm fine, Frankie," I responded, struggling to keep my voice low too. "I'm good as new. Better than new, actually. Maybe you should let him do it to you."
"Yes, you are out of your bloody gourd," he hissed back. "You think I’m going to let that witch spell me with some sort of smoke?"
"I'm telling you, I feel sensational!" I said, jumping to my feet.
Frankie yanked me back down to the dirt. "You're going to get us both caught. How 'sensational' will you feel then?"
I pursed my lips. "Are you mocking me?"
Frankie stared forward, watching the lights of the prison flicker as day turned to twilight. "Would I do that?"
We were in an industrial park across the street from Steele City, the maximum-security prison where Leila horded the witches and, we assumed, Dr. O. There was no industry in this stretch of the park, but there were a whole lot of power lines. Other than that, the area was covered with tall grass, trees and overgrown bushes.
"Yes,"
I said, digging at the dirt with the toe of my boot. "You are mocking me."
"You are being a fool."
"Maybe we should trust him," I said. "He didn't kill me."
"Is that our baseline for trust now? Someone not killing you? Because Leila didn't kill you either."
"That's not the point," I argued, popping my head over the bush that we crouched behind to get another look at the prison.
"That is exactly the point," he fumed, pushing me back down by the top of my head. "I can't take any chances on losing you, Nina. I won't."
His grip moved to the back of my head and he twined his fingers around my hair. His deep cerulean eyes stared into mine and he dropped his guard. Frankie's desire flooded me. A soft groan slipped out as my own conflicted feelings tested me. I lost my balance and tumbled backwards, my back landing hard on the dirt.
"Don't do that," I grumbled, pushing myself up on my elbows. Frankie shut off his emotional spigot.
"When are we going to deal with this, Nina?" he asked.
"Now’s not a good time," I wheezed, still fighting to catch my breath. His feelings had intensified over the past few months. My own feelings for him, well...those were complicated.
"It's never a good time," he muttered.
I jerked my thumb toward the prison. "I promise you that right now is definitely not a good time."
"What's wrong with right now?" he argued. "We're not battling some demented human or saving some witch or whatever. Casper’s not here, spooking. It's just us, staring at a prison."
"Surveillance, Frankie. We are doing surveillance to figure out how to get inside."
He pulled a leaf off the bush and tore at it with precision. "I won't let you ignore this, Nina. Not anymore."
I squirmed. "Have you been watching Dr. Phil reruns again? He's not a real doctor, you know."
"I'm being serious," he said.
I scooted my butt around to face him. "And I am, too. But the only thing that matters is that I've got your back, Frankie. And you've got mine. That's why we're good together."
He flashed me a fangy grin. "We are good together. I'm chuffed you think so, too."
Dammit. I had to watch every word that came out of my mouth. "We are great at saving each other's asses. The other stuff, we will deal with later, I promise. But now is not the time."
Frankie got up and stalked to the dark, nondescript van that we commandeered from Chuck, a Beta-Vamp who we saved from a deadly blood supply a few months prior. I let Chuck and his nest of Betas set up camp at an old farmhouse I owned near the Connecticut border. In a few short months, they dug out an underground haven for their nest to live away from daylight. Chuck and his friends were impressive contractors. Full electricity ran from a solar grid (ironic, that) that also offered thermodynamic heating and cooling. Not that vampires generally noticed temperature fluctuations, but Betas were weak, so maybe they did. They’d even installed indoor plumbing. If we survived Leila, and humans accepted vampires, Chuck and his pals had a lucrative future in bunker building.
Frankie flung open the backdoor and pulled out two lineman-climbing belts. I scrambled to my feet and took the one he held out to me. I tugged it, but his grip on the belt was firm. He pulled me off-balance and I landed into him. He caught me, looping one arm around my torso and pulled me into him.
"Soon it will be the time," he whispered in my ear. He scraped his teeth, fangs not quite distended, along the sensitive dip behind my ear. I fought the urge to melt into him, to cross over that line of friendship, a line that grew thinner each time my adrenaline spiked.
A twig snap behind us was enough to break Frankie’s spell.
"Am I interrupting something?" FBI Agent Max Deveroux's voice echoed through the quiet night.
The only thing that escaped around the lump in my throat was a "shhhhh."
Frankie's grip on me relaxed with reluctance. "Not interrupting a thing, mate. She tripped. Klutziest woman I've ever encountered."
I turned and met Max's eyes. I'd love to say that he looked at me with passion. Or pain. Or with anything that conveyed some sort of emotion. Instead, his striking blue eyes looked dead. When I met him six months before, I'd never have guessed that his eyes—defined by small lines that crinkled when he laughed—could appear so lifeless. But being turned into a Berserker could do that to a guy.
I snatched the lineman belt from Frankie and wrapped it around my waist. "Just about to check out the view. Why are you here?"
"I was in the neighborhood," Max said. "Delivering something to the prison. Noticed the van. You aren't exactly blending in, you know."
I scowled.
"Think you can smuggle us in?" Frankie asked. "That'd be a spot better than climbing a utility pole."
"They search all cars going in. Even mine. You'd never make it past the first gate."
"Pity that," Frankie said.
"Those are quite the outfits you have on," Max said with a snicker. Even his razzing felt cold.
I tugged at the coveralls. "Utility workers climb poles."
"Too bad no one's interested in fixing the utilities these days," he said, thumping his hand on the pole we were about to climb. "I don't think this is the best plan."
"Are you still mad about being left out of this?" I asked. He blew up on us when he heard that we were planning a stakeout without him. He was so mad, he nearly Berserked. But I could count the people I trusted on one hand, and, right now, Max wasn’t one of them, so he was out. Blood Ops had a tenuous relationship with the government at best. To have the FBI involved, even informally, didn’t sit well with me.
"No," he said.
A lie. He was here in case the operation all went to shit. But I wasn't sure if he wanted to help us, give us an "I told you so" if the plan failed or haul our asses in.
I nudged him out of the way and wrapped the belt around the pole. "Just don't Hulk out on us right now. That won't do us any favors."
I started to climb and Frankie followed me up. Max remained with his feet firmly planted on the ground.
"Darcy could equip me with a camera or something!" he called up to us, not concerned with how far his voice carried. "I go in there all the time."
Arms stretched, my muscles flexed and I pulled myself higher up the pole. "We don't need the inside layout. We can find those in the old building plans. We need to figure out how to get in."
"I still could help!" he called up to us.
"You just said you can't smuggle us in," Frankie called down. "So which is it, mate, can you get us in or not?"
I stopped climbing and looked down at Max, frustration etched in the downward pull of his mouth. "No. I can't get you in."
"So up the pole we go," I said, resuming my climb. I tried to keep the mood light so that we didn't set him off.
Max's temper was becoming a liability. Each day that Max lived with that Berserker inside him caused his simmering anger to rise closer to the surface. A battle was being waged between the Berserker and his humanity. Lately, the Berserker seemed to be winning.
"Nice view, by the way," Frankie chirped. He had his head just at my ass. Then he made biting noises. Lovely.
"Shut up," I snarled, suddenly self-conscious of the angle of my behind in my workman's Dickies. Not exactly the most flattering uniform. A quick glance down to Max told me that Frankie's playful antics weren't helping his mood much. There was nothing left between Max and me. After Marcello the vampire assassin interrupted our date, and Max sought a favor from resident demon and Providence mayor Bertrand, whatever spark that was between us fizzled.
My attention refocused on the prison as we reached the top of the pole. Frankie pulled out some ridiculous looking oversized wrench from his back pocket.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Getting into character," he said, spinning the wrench expertly in his hand.
"Seriously?"
"We won't look like utility workers without tools," he said.
"Wrenches or not, if anyone
looks close, we're screwed," I said. "So let's keep our fingers crossed and be as inconspicuous as possible."
I leveled a look at him and the wrench went back into his pocket. We hung in silence at the top of the pole. Stakeouts were dull things. The prison was one of the only structures with working electricity in the state, and sitting at the top of a pole a mere inch from live wires kept me more alert than the usual car stakeout. But I still caught myself nodding off once in a while.
Prison guards in their Ford pickups arrived for their shift. An old school bus retrofitted to transport prisoners also appeared. I perked up as guards shuffled about 50 witches—hands and legs locked in iron manacles to dull their magic—off the bus and into the jail. I glanced at Frankie, sitting straighter as well, watching the guards manhandle the prisoners. My hands formed fists and I mentally picked off each guard one by one as they struck and shoved the frightened witches. Once they shuffled through the imposing stone walls of the prison, we both settled back into our listless slouches, waiting.
"Do you see that?" I asked, perking up again at the sight of a box truck pulling to the front gate. "Can you make out the words on the side?"
Frankie shook his head, and I felt the pole sway a bit. "Barely. Something about linens. A linen service?"
"Better have clean sheets when plotting the end of the world?"
"She's your mum," Frankie said.
"Stop calling her that."
Frankie whistled down to Max, who napped on the hood of his GMC Suburban. Max lifted to his elbows and turned his face towards us. The dim moonlight cast shadows along his strong features.
"What do you know about linen deliveries?" Frankie stage whispered down.
Max looked up at us, perplexed. "You want to talk about table cloths for a dive bar now?"
"Not for the bar. At the prison. Sheets, towels, that sort of thing," I said, my voice trailing off.
"The prisoners change the linens, I think," Max said. He rubbed at his face, still groggy. "I don't know for sure. She barely lets me past the guardhouse."
