“Yes, I’m sure that would go over well. Especially when I let him in on your awesome comparison.”
She grins at me then turns to Minnie. “I totally called it.”
“You called what?” I ask.
“Him being an animal in the sack. He’s an alpha, my friend. The kind they write about.”
“You read way too many romance novels.” I roll my eyes and start to scarf down my breakfast.
“I’ve got that one,” Minnie offers when another customer strolls in.
As soon as she is out of earshot, Jane leans across the counter. “So how was Salem?”
“Not bad.”
“Not bad? That’s all you’re going to give me?”
“There’s not much to tell. I went through some of my grandmother’s old files, checked on some of her assets, and then we came home.”
“Find anything interesting?”
She knows.
She wants us.
We must kill her before she can take us.
I shake my head, hearing the voices screaming in response to my lack of action. If I didn’t know any better—I’d say I was losing my damned mind. I really do need some sleep. Maybe a solid year of it.
“Rainey?”
I glance up at her, but all amusement is gone from Jane’s face. She’s staring at me, eyes narrowed, mouth flat. “What?”
“What do you mean ‘what’? You just went comatose on me for a good five minutes. I was about to slap the shit out of you.”
“Five minutes?” It felt like no time passed at all. Pulling out my phone, I check the time. Problem is, I have no fucking clue when I walked in here.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m really tired,” I admit. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”
Jane nods knowingly, though the concern never leaves her face. “Hard to sleep when you’re having acrobatic sex all night.”
“Acrobatic?”
“We all know you’re bendy, and I bet he is too.”
Chuckling, I shake my head. “It was pretty damn bendy at some points.”
“You’re sure that’s all it is?”
I look up and offer her an assuring smile. “Definitely. Can I get a blueberry muffin for Ramirez? I need to bring a peace offering since he’s been doing all my work for the last few days.”
Jane hesitates a moment, almost as though she doesn’t want to let me leave. Granted, I’d probably feel the same way if she spaced out. Finally, she nods. “Sure.”
After packaging it up, she hands it over, and I stand, pulling a twenty from my wallet and tossing it to the counter.
“If that happens again, let me know, okay?”
“You want to know every time I space out? You might want to silence your text messages while at work.” I chuckle, but Jane doesn’t look the least bit amused.
“I’m serious,” she says.
“Okay, fine. I solemnly swear to alert you—Jane Wasps—every single time I space out.”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re thirty-seven and a police detective. Maybe act like it.”
I grin and wave as I step out onto the bright street. My bike is parked a few yards away, so I take a minute to stop and breathe the fresh air into my lungs.
My entire adult life, I’ve run straight into the fire. It’s why I became a police officer—so I could put bad people where they belong—behind bars. And ever since Delaney’s death, I’ve been unable to turn a blind eye to the monsters lurking in the dark. They prey on humans, and I hunt them.
While I’m far from fearless, I’ve never had much of an issue plunging straight into danger. After all, what’s the worst that could happen? I was already alone—dying just didn’t sound that bad.
But now, with Elijah waiting for me, I actually have something to look forward to.
A reason to return home.
I just hope that by giving in to what we feel for each other, we didn’t sign our own death warrants.
“About damn time,” Ramirez greets as soon as I step up to my desk, blueberry muffin in hand. He takes it greedily and gestures to a cup of hot coffee and a large bag of Skittles on my desk. “I’m sure you’ve already had your caffeine fix, but I’m assuming it wasn’t enough.”
“Aww, you remembered,” I say sarcastically as I take off my jacket. “Thanks.” I plop down in my seat and rip open the bag like a starved teen and not a woman who’s creeping up on forty.
“You’re welcome. Consider it a ‘welcome back to the contributing members of society’ gift.”
“That’s a mouthful,” I say as I shove an assortment in my mouth.
The second I swallow them, I hear my name called out over the voices of other officers here at the precinct.
“Astor, Ramirez.” We both glance over at our captain, who’s standing just outside of her office. “I need to speak with you two.”
“Knew this was coming,” I say as I stand back up, begrudgingly leaving the Skittles on my desk, and follow Ramirez into the captain’s small office. It’s sparsely decorated, just a few awards and a long mahogany desk in the center that looks out over the rest of the precinct.
No family photos, no artwork. Hell, there’s not even a single potted plant in the place.
Not that I’m judging her about that. I can’t keep them alive to save my life. You ever heard of a closet plant? Supposed to be unkillable.
I’ve wiped out a dozen—at least.
Plants and monsters. I kill them both.
At least I’m consistent.
“Good to see you, Astor,” she greets. “Ramirez said you went to Salem?”
“I did. My family has some property there, so I took a bit of a vacation to check on things.” And almost got myself killed in the process.
“Probably not a bad idea. We haven’t had any leads on whoever came after you in that SUV, and so far, we have no idea who put the bomb on your boyfriend’s car.”
The people that are after me are pulling out some intense strategies. That bomb nearly killed Elijah, Jack, and me when someone rigged Elijah’s car to blow in the parking garage of Jack’s apartment complex.
“I’m not surprised,” I reply honestly. “You want to kill a cop, you tend to be thorough.”
“I’m not surprised either, but it’s pissing me off that we haven’t found anything. If you, for any reason, believe you’re being targeted again, you need to come to me. Don’t wait.” The warning in her tone is crystal clear. Don’t leave me out of important shit again. Got it.
“I will be sure and let you know if someone tries to kill me again,” I lie. Seeing as how they’re supernaturals, I very much doubt she can offer me any actual assistance.
Her gaze narrows on my face. “Glad we understand each other. You’re free to go.”
I follow Ramirez out of the captain’s office and over to our desks. We’re just sitting down when the desk phone rings.
“No rest for the wicked,” I whisper my earlier thoughts to him, and he grins as he lifts the receiver to his ear.
“Ramirez.” I study his expression as it falls, and he nods. “What’s the address?” he asks, grabbing a pen from his drawer and writing something onto the spiral notepad he carries everywhere. “We’ll be there in fifteen.”
After pulling my jacket on, I grab my Skittles, coffee, and follow Ramirez out the door and down to the garage.
The drive takes just under fifteen minutes, and soon we’re climbing out of the car and walking up the steps to an apartment blocked off with yellow tape.
“What do we have?” Ramirez asks Officer Paulson, who greets us just outside.
“One dead, a woman. Looks to have been killed sometime last night.”
“Do you have a name?”
He nods. “Beatrice Smith. Lived alone, was into some weird shit.”
“What do you mean weird shit?” I ask as Ramirez and I step into the living room.
“Check the bedroom and see for yourself.” He steps away to talk to another officer, so I
take just a moment to absorb the scene. The living room is sparsely decorated. A well-worn red couch up against one wall still covered in a few loads of laundry.
There are no pictures on the walls, no personal touches to shine a light on the woman Beatrice was before she was killed. We walk through the living room and into the kitchen. Papers are sprawled all over the counter along with a piece of charcoal.
I lift one of them, my stomach sinking as I take in the sight of three black crows drawn on the page.
Three. Black. Crows.
Just like the ones I’ve seen at the site of every near brush I’ve had with death over the past few weeks. They were in the alley by the club. The alley by my apartment. The trailer I was nearly shot in front of.
And since I don’t believe in coincidence? I turn, checking the faces of everyone behind me as I focus in on everyone’s heartbeats.
All Human.
“Astor?”
Ramirez’s words pull me out of my trance. “What’s up?”
“You good? Kinda spaced out for a few there.”
“Just admiring her artwork,” I say, holding up the image.
His brow furrows. “Aren’t crows an omen of death?”
I lift an eyebrow and set the paper down. “You believe in that kind of stuff?”
Chuckling, he shakes his head. “No, but obviously, she did.”
“And now she’s dead.”
“And now she’s dead,” he repeats as he heads down the hall toward the bedroom. Dread coils in my stomach as I take one last look behind me then follow.
Beatrice Smith is lying in the center of the floor, surrounded by transparent crystals. Traces of power cling to the air around her body, leftover magic from whatever spell she was trying to cast.
Witches have the ability to imbue crystals with power. Healing, protection, fertility, luck, curses; you name it, and they have a crystal for it.
I pull out my phone and snap a picture so I can show it to Elijah later and see if he recognizes whatever spell she was trying to cast. I don’t know enough about witch culture to be able to identify the crystals used here, but I think it’s safe to say whatever she was trying to do failed. Unless she was trying to get herself killed.
“Paulson wasn’t kidding. This is some weird shit.” Ramirez kneels beside her body as I move closer to her head, staring down at her.
Pale pink hair is fanned out around her head, the shade matching the long nightgown covering her body. There are no visible wounds, no bruising anywhere that I can see. “How did she die?” I ask the M.E., who’s standing in the corner, iPad in hand as she makes notes.
At my question, she glances up, her familiar hazel gaze meeting mine as she shakes her head sadly. “Not sure. I won’t know until I get her back and do an autopsy.”
“No wounds?” Ramirez asks, and she shakes her head.
“Not a single one. And there’s no bruising that I can see either. She still has her underwear on, and there’s no sign of trauma.”
“So what the hell killed her?” Ramirez asks.
A steady humming fills my ears, the light tapping of drums drowning out any and all other noise as I focus on the gentle features of the victim’s face.
Beatrice’s eyes snap open.
“We are you!” She roars, though the voice is layered with dozens of others as black pits stare up at me, completely void of expression.
I jump back, stomach twisting into knots, heart thundering so fucking loud I’m sure everybody in this room can hear my terror.
“Astor?” Ramirez is at my side, hand on my shoulder. “What is it?”
“I thought—” I thought a dead woman looked up and yelled at me. Yeah, that’ll go over really well. One ticket to the psych ward, please. I clear my throat. “Thought I saw a spider.”
He narrows his eyes on me. Please just buy it. “A spider?”
I nod. “They’re about the only thing that scares the shit out of me,” I lie.
“A spider,” he repeats.
“A big-ass hairy one.”
He shakes his head and kneels again. “You’re a damn weird one sometimes, Astor.”
“And don’t I know it.” I breathe a sigh of relief and move away from the body, letting Ramirez do the exam instead as I try to push the image of her wide, blank stare out of my head.
Fuck, I need sleep.
3
Elijah
Sage permeates the air, assaulting me the moment I step over the threshold of the popular magic bar.
Or rather, as they call it, their ‘awakening’ space. Which honestly sounds a lot more elegant than what the place actually is, which is basically a supernatural sex club where those with power come to get high and have sex on repeat while they await their ‘visions’.
No one actually bothers to determine whether most of these visions are actual manifestations of the future or simply the result of being so fucking high you hallucinate, but there’s one witch I’ve been able to count on being accurate over the last four decades.
“Elijah, how nice to see you.” Gracen, the hostess for the last two decades, holds up a hand in greeting from behind the podium situated in the lobby of the building.
“Is Farah in?”
Gracen nods her head once, her spiky black hair unmoving with the gesture, before stepping to the side and waving her hand. The doors open, and the sage is replaced with the pungent skunk-like odor of marijuana. I’ve never cared for the smell of it, and other than a handful of times to curb the bloodlust, I haven’t partaken.
Not that I have anything against it, of course. I just don’t care much for not being in control, and it’s a hell of a lot more potent for supernaturals than humans.
Witches and warlocks are sprawled on large multi-colored pillows all around the room. Some are having sex; some are simply enjoying the high. And there, situated at the back of the room on her throne, is the Witch Queen of Billings, as she’s so modestly deemed herself.
“Is that my Elijah?” she asks with a grin as she gets to her feet. Sheer gold fabric covers her body, leaving literally nothing to the imagination. I keep my eyes focused on her face, immediately wishing I would have brought Rainey with me.
She’d have had a field day with this place.
“Can we speak in private?”
She beams at me. “Why, of course.”
“Just speak, Farah.”
That grin spreads. “I understand, Elijah. I know your heart—and body—now belong to another. I’ve seen it.” She strolls past me. “Keep having your fun, my lovelies. Life is fleeting.” As she passes, bare feet nearly silent on the tile floor, none of the people in the room spare her a single glance.
She waves her hand, and double glass doors open off to the side, revealing her private space. Despite her earlier comment, Farah and I have never been anything more than acquaintances.
Plants thrive in here beneath the UV lights. Bright blooms mixed with deep green hues fill the space, contrasting with the golden walls and bright white marble floor.
“What can I do for you?” she asks, snapping her fingers. The sheer gold is replaced with a solid golden dress as she takes a seat behind a long, white desk.
“I need some information.”
Pulling out a cigarette with slender fingers, she offers me one, and I shake my head. “What do you want to know?” After lighting the tip, she takes a pull and blows out smoke. My stomach churns, but I don’t let it show.
“What do you know of the Lunar Divide?”
She straightens, all amusement fading from her face in an instant. “What do you know of it?”
“I know it has something to do with witches born on Halloween during a full moon. And I also know that those witches are hunted down and killed.”
She pales and shakes her head, snuffing out her cigarette without bothering to take another drag. Her heart rate increases, but not out of fear. No, I can sense her anger from clear across the room. “They’ve been slaughtering innocent women for
centuries over that foolish superstition.”
“You don’t believe it then?”
Golden eyes narrow on my face. “I don’t know enough about it to believe. There was a hunter who came to me a few years ago, asking very similar questions as you are now.”
I stiffen. “Delaney Astor?”
She nods. “You know her?”
“Knew her. She was murdered two years ago.”
Farah shakes her head sadly, muttering something I can’t hear. “Such a damned shame, she was quite a hunter, that one.”
“How did you not know she was dead? I thought you saw everything.”
“Hardly,” she retorts. “I see what I’m looking for and what I’m meant to find.”
Typical. “What did you tell her about the divide?”
“That it was going to get her killed. The ones committing those heinous murders are higher up than even the Immortal Council.”
Interest piqued, I cross both arms over my chest. “It’s never been confirmed that there are others. Rumors and theories, sure, but never actual confirmation.”
She scoffs. “I can assure you, Elijah, there is a trio of supernaturals higher than any other immortal. They are running the damned show. The Immortal Council members might as well be puppets on a string.”
“Do you know who they are?”
She leans across her desk. “If I did, I would have had them killed for what they’ve done to those innocent women.”
As she re-lights her cigarette, I consider what another hidden council could mean. There have always only been councils for each of the supernatural branches. You have the vampires, the shifters, and the witches. All other supers fall beneath one of those three.
If there are others—a trio as she proclaims—does that mean none of those councils are actually calling the shots? The Accords only allow four main branches. The three sub-councils and the Immortal Council that oversees them all. It shouldn’t surprise me since The Accords have been continuously broken over the past few centuries, but hidden faces pulling the strings is definitely a cause for concern.
“You keep frowning like that, and you’ll end up with worry lines, my lovely.”
Blood Captive: A Paranormal Vampire Romance (Vampire Huntress Chronicles Book 2) Page 3
