“I want.” I held open my hand, palm up, the same move I used to get payments during my cons. Speaking of… “You don’t happen to have that cash your friends took from me as well?”
“Don’t try your luck, Zoe,” he said, though his lips quirked. “I was able to convince them you need your dagger back for this mission, but they couldn’t be swayed when it came to the money. After all, it isn’t rightfully yours.”
“Fine.” As much as I needed the money, I wasn’t sure just how right I’d feel about taking Jeffrey Baker’s cash now anyway, not after what had happened to him. Not when I could have saved him from his horrible fate. “Just the dagger then. But why’d you take it from me last night, if you were trying to help?”
“Because I knew the Enforcers had some attack runes drawn and ready to go. If they saw you pointing a dagger at me, they’d cast them without letting you say a word.”
Dorian dropped the dagger into my hand, and relief flooded my veins. My fingers tightened around the leather handle, and I drew the blade up before me as if I were seconds away from an attack. A hum of power surged through me, an electric sensation that made the world come alive, like I’d taken five shots of espresso within seconds.
“You know, you’re holding that all wrong if you want to use it in a physical fight.” Dorian inched closer to my side.
His hand found my elbow, and my body went tight and warm. With steady fingers, he guided my arm into a different angle and lowered my fist several inches. I barely breathed through the entire exchange, far too aware of the way his strong hand felt on my trembling arm. When he was finished, he pressed down on my shoulders, and I bent my legs even more.
He nodded, taking a step back. “There. That’s better. Your grip on the handle is far too tight though. You’re practically choking the thing. Hold it like it’s an extension of your arm. Like it’s a part of you.”
I loosened my grip, letting my fingers relax. And then I sliced the blade through the air, cutting the thick smog that permeated the city streets. Power rumbled within me, and I whipped the dagger sideways once again. With a smile, I slid the blade back into my sheath and stood tall. Dorian had been right. I might be a far cry from anything resembling a ninja, but those slight tweaks had made the blade sing as it sliced before me.
“Thanks,” I said with a nod. “That felt much better.”
“Good.” He gave me a grim smile. “Now you’ll be ready when you need to use it.”
With that ominous thought hanging in the air, we exited the side street to enter the hospital from the front. We were greeted by bright fluorescent lights, a sickly sweet stench, and a bushy-haired woman behind the counter. Her eyes were puffy, and she sniffed loudly before glancing up to see us enter the building.
“Good morning,” she said in a too bright voice. “How can I help you two?”
Her eyes flicked over Dorian and his urban cowboy ensemble, but she didn’t comment on it. She was probably too scared to give him anything but a smile.
Dorian flipped out a badge. One that had a striking resemblance to something a federal agent might have. That was interesting. I took a mental note to ask him about it later. “I’m here about one of your coworkers. A Jeffrey Baker. He’s been reported missing, and we’re speaking to everyone who knows him to see if they have any information about where he might have gone.”
Interesting lie. I guessed we couldn’t go around telling people he’d been murdered, especially not by a summoned demon. As far as I knew, the coven hadn’t reported his death to the human law enforcement and had zero plans to do so. It was becoming apparent to me that the current leaders wanted to keep the existence of witches and warlocks as secret as they possibly could, even more so than the leaders of the past.
“Missing?” The woman’s eyes widened, and her hand fluttered to her heart. “Oh, thank goodness. I was worried one of those vampires had gotten to him and…well, you know.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Turned him.”
Surprise flickered through me. Dorian must have felt the same because his back straightened, and his jaw clenched tight. Needless to say, vampires were far less secretive about their existence than we were, especially the type that lived in the Boston area. Daywalkers, as they were most often known. They were born with the vampire gene, which meant they had no demonic ties. And they didn’t suffer from most of the downsides that plagued the actual demonic vampires—the Nosferatu. Daywalkers didn’t have the frenzied urge to feed, and they never had to drink blood unless they wanted the powers that came along with it.
Nosferatu, on the other hand, well…they were far more demon than anything else.
“What makes you think he’s involved with vampires?” Dorian asked slowly, leaning his elbows on the counter and dropping his voice. This wasn’t exactly the kind of conversation we wanted anyone to overhear.
“He’s always talking about them. Going on and on about their powers,” she said in a whisper. “He even has a couple of vampire friends he likes to hang around with.”
Dorian and I exchanged a look. I could tell we were both thinking the same thing. What kind of vampires was Jeffrey Baker involved with? But this woman wouldn’t understand the difference between Daywalkers and Nosferatu. Most humans had no idea just how deep and how vast the supernatural world was. Hell, I wasn’t sure even I knew everything about it, and I was smack dab in the middle of it all.
“Did you ever see these friends of his?” Dorian asked instead. If we could get a physical description, that would give us one hell of a clue.
“No.” She pursed her lips. “He always met them out at that club. Slayertown or something like that.”
“Slayerville,” I said. No wonder. Despite the name, it was very much not the kind of place that vampire slayers frequented. It was the total opposite, crawling with Daywalkers and vampire wannabes every night of the week.
“That’s it.” She cocked her head as she glanced my way, almost as if she were noticing me for the first time. But I couldn’t blame her. It was pretty hard to take in much else when you had a guy like Dorian standing before you with his rippling muscles and dark ensemble. “You guys sure are asking a lot of questions about the vampires. You don’t think they’ve turned him, do you? I just don’t know what I would do with myself if Jeffrey became one of…well, one of them.”
I decided not to explain to her that Daywalkers can’t transform people into vampires. Only the Nosferatu can do that. Besides, we didn’t know what we were dealing with here. For all we knew, some Nosferatu could have taken up residence in Boston recently, even though they’d preferred to stay in Europe all these years. The first thing they’d try to do is make more of their kind.
“It’s unlikely,” Dorian said. “Is there anything else you could tell us? Anything he became involved in recently that might cause some conflict in his life?”
With wide eyes, she shook her head. “Just the vampires.”
After splitting up to speak to several more of Baker’s coworkers, Dorian and I met outside by the car to compare notes. It turned out that the receptionist wasn’t the only person to note the pathologist’s increasing interest in the vampire community. Every single person had said the same thing. Jeffrey Baker wanted to become a bloodsucker, and he’d frequented Slayerville several times a week to rub elbows with the vampires.
“So,” I said as I leaned against the building, shielding my eyes against the sun that was beginning to peek out of the clouds, “sounds like Jeffrey Baker was up to his eyeballs in vampire stuff. So, what do we do now?”
Dorian frowned and glanced up at the sky. His entire body was tight and tense, and I couldn’t blame him. As much as I wanted to clear my name, tangoing with vampires wasn’t high on my list of things I liked to do. The Daywalkers weren’t of demonic origin, but many of them were on the wrong side of right. The lure of increased strength, enhanced senses, and immortality was too much for most people to resist. So, they gave in and drank blood. And most of the time, it was the blood of humans.
>
Plus, we might not even be dealing with the Daywalkers. And they were the nicer ones.
“Nothing right now. I have somewhere I need to be.” Dorian gave another glance up at the sky and lowered the brim of his hat over his face.
“Wait. Now?” I blinked up at him and frowned. “I thought we were supposed to be tracking down the real killer. You know, to clear my name with the coven so they don’t throw me behind bars for the rest of my life.”
“We’ll go to the club tonight,” Dorian said, edging toward his car. “Have a chat with some vamps. See what they can tell us about our pal, Baker.”
“Great,” I said with a wry smile. Time to wade into a world where the residents wanted nothing more than to drink my blood for their own immortality. Just what I needed.
Chapter 5
Before I could meet up with Dorian for a fun-filled trip into Vamp Land, I had to earn some money for my never-ending pile of bills that could rival the Leaning Tower of Pisa. At night, I worked at a dive bar called Blue Moon Tavern, frequented by the college kids who attended Boston University. In some alternate reality, I’d be on the other side of the bar, clinking shot glasses and celebrating the beginning of another semester.
My best friend, Laura, slid up next to me. She was another Massachusetts witch, but she didn’t have her coven mark yet. The only way to get the swirling ink etched into your collarbone was to cast a spell strong enough to trigger it, and Laura hadn’t been able to manage it yet, though I knew she’d end up in the Bone Coven once she did. She was strong, patient, and far more empathetic than me, qualities bone mages tended to have. Plus, coven allegiances were passed on through blood, and both of Laura’s parents had been Bone to their very core.
Both of my parents had been, too, which is why I’d been shocked when…well, I couldn’t think about that right now.
“How’d the job go last night?” she asked as she began to stack some clean pint glasses behind the bar. “The morgue guy end up falling for the con?”
So much had happened in the past twenty-four hours that I’d totally forgotten to fill Laura in on my encounter with the Enforcers. And everything else. Where the hell did I even begin?
“Well, that’s one way to put it…” I said.
A group of rowdy students threw open the old oak door and piled into the bar, filling up the small space in only moments. As we poured a round of shots, I recounted my story under a cacophony of clinking glasses, jukebox songs, and roaring college kids, my best friend’s eyebrows shooting higher as the scent of sweat and beer grew stronger.
“Shit,” she said after she took another drink order. We both turned to the bottles behind us and poured as we continued our conversation. We’d been doing this job for so long that we were incredibly good at gossiping while we mixed drinks. “So, you have to go talk to the vampires, huh? When are you going to the club?”
“Tonight.” I topped off the frothy beer and pushed it across the wet, stained bar top, sighing with relief with the guy dumped a pocketful of change into my tip jar. It might not be much, but every little bit counted right now.
“And you have to go with that dude who’s been following you around?” She frowned and pushed her blond-and-pink streaked hair out of her face. “That doesn’t sound very safe.”
“I think he’s okay,” I said, though I wasn’t particularly convinced myself. There was something off about Dorian, something I couldn’t put my finger on. And it wasn’t just the skulking around that had me uneasy about our alliance. He radiated darkness, something that most of the witches and warlocks I’d met didn’t do.
Our other bartender slowed when he caught sight of the look on my face. I turned to raise my eyebrows at the tall, thin figure towering over us. Nathan Whitman, a guy who had been asking me out on a date for months. He flashed a grin at me, his dark, wavy hair curling on his forehead, his high cheekbones carving a V on his tanned face. He was nice enough, but that was just it. He’d never sent my heartbeat racing. I craved danger and fireworks, and none of that had ever been there with him.
“Did I hear something about a demon hunting job? Is our friendly, neighborhood ghostbuster in action again?”
“You know me. Always taking down ghosts with my web-shooters.”
His grin widened until it spread across the entire width of his face. “Well, you know, if you ever need a trusty sidekick, I’m your man. Just don’t expect me to wear a Robin costume.”
I opened my mouth with another retort, but then a girl ambled up to the bar and shot Nathan a wink. “Hey, bartender. Pour me a drink?”
He didn’t even flinch in her direction, his smile disappearing as his mossy green eyes searched my face. It was clear he could see just how shaken I was from last night’s events. “Everything okay, Zoe?”
He had no idea about witches and magic. Yes, he’d heard me talking about banishing demons, but I was pretty sure he didn’t take me seriously. Because Nathan? Not the kind of guy to get into the occult. He was a preppy college student who had his sights set on a corporate career after graduation. I tried to imagine him surrounded by black candles and charcoal rune drawings, shadows flickering on his sun- kissed skin. “Nope, everything’s fine, Nathan.”
“Well, if you’re hungry, I made sure the chef saved you some chicken strips.” He pointed at the space underneath the bar. A plate sat on top of a keg, full of leftover food from the pub food service that normally ended at ten.
“Thank the goddess.” I snatched a strip from the plate and sunk my teeth into the chicken, stomach grumbling with a newfound hunger. “I haven’t eaten all fucking day.”
“Oh, and it looks like you have a customer.” He pointed at the other end of the bar where one of our regulars was perched on a stool and looking more than a little forlorn. Her forehead was creased, and her eyes were puffy. She reminded me of how Grams looked these days, and a pang went through my heart.
“Hiya, Alice,” I said as I approached her, dropping my elbows onto the bar and leaning down to catch her gaze. Sometimes I felt like I played psychologist more than bartender, or maybe they were one and the same. “You doing okay tonight? You’re looking a little worse for wear.”
I didn’t want to come right out and say she looked like shit, but well…she did.
“My husband’s gone missing.” She brushed a tear from her splotchy cheeks. “It’s been three days. I didn’t think much about it at first. Sometimes he gets called away on business, you know, but he would never go this long without telling me where he is.”
“Right.” I frowned. “I can understand why you’re worried, Alice.”
“And the thing is, he’s been acting funny lately. Distant, withdrawn. I think he got himself into some trouble, and now that trouble’s come to find him.”
“Have you called the police?” I asked, grabbing a shot glass from underneath the counter. This called for the strong stuff. Even though I couldn’t afford it, the least I could give her was a round on the house.
I knew exactly what it was like for a loved one to go missing, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone in the world.
“Thing is…” She flicked up her eyes to mine, and there was a sudden spark of clarity amidst the tears. “It’s not something the police can handle, if you know what I mean.”
I shook my head. Was that some kind of code for something? Was he into drugs? Some kind of mafia situation? I couldn’t imagine sweet, quiet Alice involved with a man like that, but it wouldn’t be the first time I’d been surprised by a woman’s taste in men.
She dropped her voice to a hush. “He’s a warlock.”
A shiver passed through me, and I forced my face to remain blank. “A what now?”
“Oh come on, Zoe. Don’t play dumb.” She leaned forward, her long hair trailing across the sticky bar. “I’ve heard you talk to your friend over there about your jobs hunting down demons. And I know that a girl who hunts demons is a witch. There’s a lot you overhear when you’re married to a warlock.”
&
nbsp; A chill ran down my spine, and I glanced around the bar to make sure no one was listening. I hated to admit that maybe the coven had been right. I’d brought way too much attention to myself. Who else had overheard my conversations with Laura? Of course, two days ago, it wouldn’t have mattered. The more clients the better, I’d always believed. But now I felt way too out in the open, too on display for the entire world to see.
Frankly, I felt like I was being watched.
By more than just Alice.
The shadowy figure outside my window last night was evidence of that.
“I’m going to have to ask you to keep this information between you and me.” I shoved the shot of tequila across the bar, and it sloshed over the rounded rim of the glass. “Not everyone is quite so understanding about these kinds of things if you know what I mean.”
“Trust me, Zoe,” she said. “I know exactly what you mean. My husband’s the same. Doesn’t want anyone to know a damn thing about him, though I think you’d all be better off if you came out into the open. Everybody loves magic, don’t they?”
It was far past time for that, but still. With everything going on, I didn’t want to be the one to bring light to who we were. The coven leaders would probably throttle me.
“Maybe one day,” I said instead. “But for now, I need to keep it a secret, okay?”
“Alright. My lips are sealed. In exchange, will you do me a favor?” She downed the shot in a single gulp, slamming the glass onto the bar with a loud smack. Then, she tapped it with her fingers, indicating she wanted another.
Without another word, I poured her another shot. “What kind of favor?
“I need you to find my husband,” she hissed, taking the shot from my hands before I was even done pouring.”I think something bad has happened to him. Something to do with your community.”
My heart beat a little harder as I stared into her anxious face. “Alice, I’d love nothing more than to help you out, but this isn’t really the kind of thing I usually do…”
The Bone Coven Chronicles: The Complete Series Page 4
