When we left the bedroom, we found Noah in the living room pulling on a shirt. I couldn’t help but check out his abs—they were flat and perfectly chiseled. The only way I could have stopped myself from looking was if I’d been blind.
“Took you girls long enough to get ready.” He glanced over at us, his eyes stopping when he looked at me. He roamed over every bit of me—from my head to my toes—and I could have sworn he’d stopped breathing there for a second.
“What?” I shifted on my feet, wishing he would stop looking at me that way. He was giving me mixed signals, and I didn’t like it.
“You can’t go out dressed like that,” he said.
“Why not?” I placed my hands on my hips, annoyed and unwilling to back down. “I’m not dressed any differently than Sage.”
“Sage knows how to take care of herself,” he said. “With you dressed like that, you’ll only bring more attention to yourself. Don’t make us babysit you more than we already have to.”
“I’m wearing shorts and a tank top,” I pointed out. “I’ll hardly be the most dressed up person out tonight. It’s not like I’m wearing a tight sequin dress or something else that’s begging for attention.”
His eyes traveled up my bare legs again. When his gaze finally met mine, his pupils were wide and dilated.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was more worried about himself being distracted by what I was wearing—not about my bringing unwanted attention to myself like he’d claimed.
“Go change into jeans.” He reached for his weapons belt and slung it around his hips. “We have a few minutes to spare.”
“It’s hot out,” I said. “I’ll be more comfortable in shorts.” I narrowed my eyes at him—I hated being told what to wear. But I also didn’t want to not listen to him and risk jeopardizing our mission.
So I turned to Sage for a voice of reason.
“What do you think?” I asked her. “Am I okay in this, or do you think it’ll be safer if I change?”
“You’re absolutely fine in what you’re wearing,” she said, and then she turned to Noah, looking as irritated by him as I felt. “You need to cool it, all right? I get that you’re stressed. But giving Raven a hard time about everything she does won’t help our mission.”
“It’s not my fault that she’s completely unprepared for what she’s about to walk into,” he said.
“I’m not completely unprepared,” I said. “Sage gave me that knife and taught me about potions. And I have both of you to protect me. So I should be good, right?”
“Only because you have us to protect you,” Noah said.
I sighed in frustration, knowing that I shouldn’t have expected him to say anything else.
“Let’s just go.” Sage strutted toward the door, not looking back at us. “There’s no point in the two of you standing here bickering when we have a Voodoo Queen to meet.”
Raven
Both our hotel and the Voodoo Queen store were in the French Quarter, so we only had to walk a few blocks before arriving. Even though the sun was still setting, the streets of New Orleans were abuzz with lively jazz music and people partying at the bars.
We approached a red brick building on the corner and saw the hanging sign for the Voodoo Queen store. The place looked eccentric, to say the least. Shuttered windows with peeling black paint displayed a crowded selection of beads, dream catchers, and painted skulls.
I could already tell that this store was going to be very different from Tarotology, the relaxed new age shop my mom owned in Venice Beach.
The inside of the store was packed—mostly with tourists in khakis and t-shirts who must have only been there for souvenirs. I doubted most of them even knew how to read a tarot deck. Every inch of wall and surface space was covered in more masks, beads, and artwork than one person could possibly sift through. Even the ceiling was dripping with hanging objects.
My eyes stopped on an illuminated glass display inside the counter, which was full of tarot decks. Finally, something I recognized.
The woman working the counter was too busy ringing up customers to glance in our direction. But at the sight of the tarot decks, I remembered the eerily accurate tarot reading both my mom and I had drawn for me before she’d been abducted.
The reading said my entire world was about to change in a moment of sudden upheaval, and that I was about to go on an important journey where I’d need to take charge if I wanted to succeed.
My tarot deck was still in my apartment, just like everything else I owned. I’d had to make a split second decision to go with Noah and Sage to try saving my mom, and I hadn’t exactly had time to stop and pack.
I’d never believed in the cards. But seeing them now, I wanted to buy a deck to have with me on this journey. Given the fact that an entire supernatural world that I’d never known about existed right beside my own, it no longer seemed so far fetched to believe that tarot readings could be real, too. Maybe I could even do readings to help us on our hunt.
I was about to voice this desire to Noah and Sage when Noah removed his cloaking ring from his finger and handed it to me.
“Hold this for a minute.” He placed it in my hand so quickly that I had no choice but to do as he said.
Suddenly, a regal black woman in a long purple dress stepped out of the shadows and approached Noah, her head held high as she eyed him up. She wore an intricately feathered headdress that while beautiful, must have been sweltering in the heat. “You’re new in town.” She said it as a statement, not a question. “What brings you to the store?”
“Just passing through,” he said simply. “We’re here to meet with the Voodoo Queen.”
The corners of her lips twitched slightly upward at the mention of the Voodoo Queen. “I can take you to the back room for a consultation,” she replied, speaking only to Noah. “Your companions will wait here.”
He stood straighter—the woman was so tall that including her headdress, the two of them were the same height. “There’s no need to hide anything from my companions,” he said. “They go where I go.”
She took a deep breath and glanced at us as if we held no importance whatsoever. Then she returned her focus to Noah. “Very well,” she said, turning to the back of the shop and raising her skirt to walk. “Follow me.”
Raven
She led us through the back curtain and opened the door to a room that reminded me of the apothecary that Amber and the LA witches had in their Beverly Hills mansion. It had a table in the center, and the shelves along the walls were full of potions, crystals, pendulums, candles, and the like.
The woman removed her headdress, placed it on a counter, and turned to face us. “A shifter and two humans.” She eyed up Sage and me suspiciously, as if we didn’t belong here. “This is most unusual. Why did you come to me tonight?”
Sage removed her ring and handed it to me as well. “As Noah said when we arrived, we’ve come to speak with the Voodoo Queen.”
“Then you’ve come to the right place.” The woman smiled. “Because I am the Voodoo Queen. And I must say, that’s quite the expensive magic you have there.” She glanced at the two cloaking rings in my hand. “I take it that all three of you are shifters?”
“They’re both shifters,” I said. “I’m a human.”
“Interesting.” She pursed her lips, as if trying to figure the three of us out. “Of course, I’d never turn down paying customers—especially those able to afford such strong magic. But I must say that you’ve piqued my curiosity. How did a human come to be traveling with two strong wolf shifters?”
“It’s a long story.” Noah stepped closer to me, as if staking his territory. “But you can trust Raven. She’s under our protection.”
“I see that,” she said. “And don’t worry, young wolf. I won’t harm your girlfriend.”
Noah and I rushed to deny that I was his girlfriend at the exact same time, speaking over each other in the process.
“Calm down.” The Voodoo Qu
een chuckled, holding a hand up for us to stop talking. “Your relationship is hardly as important to me as how you got here. And despite it being a long story, I’d like to hear it—and I’d like to hear it from Raven.” She motioned to me as she said the last part.
“We’re on a time sensitive mission,” Sage cut in. “If you don’t mind, it’s best if we just get to the point—”
“Do you want me to help you or not?” The Voodoo Queen crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.
She had a serious diva attitude, and I liked it.
“Yes,” I answered before Noah or Sage had a chance.
“That’s what I thought.” She smiled and turned to me. “So please, tell me your story.”
I glanced at Noah and Sage. I wanted to do as the Voodoo Queen asked, but not without their permission. After all, while my instincts told me to trust the Voodoo Queen, I needed to make sure they agreed.
Noah nodded, and Sage smiled, which I took as a cue to go on.
And so, I went back to the very beginning and told her everything.
Raven
I started from the night of my twenty-first birthday and went from there. Getting attacked by a demon behind the restaurant at the Santa Monica Pier, Noah and Sage saving my life, coming home to find my mom had been abducted, speaking with Rosella to learn that I had to go to Avalon to save my mom, and officially joining Noah’s hunt.
Finally I reached the present, where the three of us had won the fight against the coyotes, arrived to New Orleans, and come to her store.
“We’re here for two reasons,” Noah took over once I’d finished. “A cloaking ring for Raven, and a scrying spell to locate the demon in New Orleans.”
“It’s an interesting story indeed.” The Voodoo Queen tapped her long fingernails along the top of the table, as if she were deciding whether or not she wanted to help us or not. “The scrying spell is light magic that I can perform for you now. But the cloaking ring is dark magic that will take more time. One of the witches in my circle can have it ready for you to pick up tomorrow evening.”
“Perfect,” Sage said. “We’ll take both. How much?”
“Since your story was so entertaining, I’ll give you a deal,” the Voodoo Queen said. “One hundred thousand for both the cloaking ring and the scrying spell, and I’ll also throw in a simple cloaking potion for free for Raven to drink right now. The potion will last until the ring is ready tomorrow.”
“One hundred thousand dollars?” I widened my eyes, sure I must have misunderstood.
“Creating the ring will require dark magic,” she replied. “Witches must pay the price to perform dark magic. It’s only fair that our customers pay the price, too.”
“What type of ‘price’ do you have to pay to perform dark magic?” I had a feeling that I didn’t want to know the answer, but that didn’t stop me from asking anyway. I’d always been too curious for my own good.
She stared me down, her expression unreadable. “Each time a dark magic spell is performed, the witch must take a life.” Her eyes flashed with darkness, and a shiver ran up my spine. “Eventually, a witch who performs enough dark magic will lose the ability to perform light magic. It’s not something that any of our kind views casually.”
“So to create a cloaking ring for me, you have to kill someone?” I backed up, not liking the sound of this.
“Not me,” she said. “I perform light magic, so I won’t be creating your ring. But yes—when one of my sisters creates your cloaking ring, she’ll have to make a blood sacrifice to complete the spell.”
“No.” I handed Noah and Sage’s rings back to them, not wanting to touch them now that I knew how the rings had come to be. “If someone has to die for my cloaking ring to be created, then I don’t want it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Noah scoffed. “If you don’t have the cloaking ring, you could die. We all could die.”
“You don’t know that,” I said.
“Someone knows who we are, and they’re after us.” He held his gaze with mine and crossed his arms, not looking like he was going to back down. “They sent the coyotes after us. Who knows what they’ll try next? If we want to live—if you want to save your mom—then you need this ring. No matter what the cost.”
“So I’m supposed to do what?” I asked. “Just be okay with the fact that someone had to die so I could live?”
“We have a system in place, dear.” The Voodoo Queen spoke gently, her eyes brimming with sympathy as she looked at me. “One of my sisters works at a nearby hospice. She ensures that the lives we take are ones that were about to end, anyway. She releases them from their suffering. They—and their families—are always more at peace once it’s done.”
“That doesn’t make it okay,” I said, although it did make me feel better than if they were taking the life of someone who had many healthy years ahead of them. It wasn’t okay, but at the same time, it wasn’t as bad as it could be.
“We know that,” she said. “We only sacrifice those in the worst possible conditions—those who are in too much pain to go on living. We wouldn’t have it any other way. And we only offer dark magic spells to those who deserve it, like you. That’s why I asked to hear your story. And what a story it was. Raven—please believe me when I say that you’re worth saving. Your mom is worth saving, too. If you can find out why the demons are abducting humans… then who knows? Maybe whatever you discover will be the key to their defeat.”
“You really think so?” I asked, hope rising in my chest as she spoke.
“My intuition tells me that there’s something special about you—something that will be extremely important further down the road,” she said. “And I always trust my intuition. No matter what.”
I nodded and pressed my lips together, saying nothing as I thought it over. It still didn’t sit well with me that all dark magic existed because a life had been ended. But my mom was in danger and I was the only one who could save her. Who knew where the demons had brought her, or what they were doing to her? It pained me whenever I thought of it. The police couldn’t help her—they knew nothing about the supernatural world. I couldn’t go to my grandparents with all of this without them thinking I was crazy. Which meant it was up to me. With the help of Noah and Sage, of course.
And Noah was right—to save my mom, I needed to be alive. So I needed to do everything possible to stay alive.
“I’ll accept the ring,” I finally said. “On one condition.”
“What’s that?” The Voodoo Queen sat back slightly—she didn’t seem like the type of woman who was often given conditions.
“I want to know the name of the person whose life was sacrificed so my cloaking ring could exist,” I said. “That way I can pay my respects by sending something to their family in their time of grief.” It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.
The Voodoo Queen paused—for a moment I thought she was going to say no.
“All right.” She nodded and held her hand out for me to shake. “You have yourself a deal.”
Raven
The Voodoo Queen did a scrying spell for the demon and located him at a bar on Bourbon Street. He was literally less than five minutes away from the store.
Sage paid her with her fancy black credit card, I downed the cloaking potion that would make me untraceable for the next twenty-four hours, and the Voodoo Queen reminded us to pick up the cloaking ring tomorrow evening (as if we’d forget). We said goodbye and headed out.
Now that more time had passed, the streets were more crowded. The music was louder, the dresses were getting slinkier, and the people were looking drunker. And as I looked around the busy crowd, I couldn’t deny the nervous energy coursing through every inch of my body.
I wasn’t ready for this.
The last time I’d seen a demon—which was the only time I’d seen a demon—I was helpless against his strength. Besides the knife hidden in my boot and my new basic knowledge of potions, I was still a human. And yes, I hated how No
ah kept talking about my being a human like it was a terrible thing. But now that we were actually on our way to hunt down a demon, I realized he had a point.
Because humans were weaker than supernaturals. Much weaker.
The only reason I’d survived the demon attack at the Santa Monica Pier was because Noah and Sage had burst onto the scene and saved me. Without them, I would have been captured or dead.
With the doubt setting in, I walked slower, not sure if I could handle this. But I wasn’t going to say anything. I was committed to helping them—I wasn’t going to turn back now. I could do this. And if worst came to worst, I trusted Noah and Sage to protect me. They’d done it once, so they could do it again.
“You should go back to the hotel,” Noah said, interrupting my train of thought.
“Why?” I jerked my head to look at him. “We have to go hunt that demon.”
“Sage and I can handle it.” He studied me with what looked like worry in his eyes. “You’re nervous, which is understandable. Let us handle this.”
“I’m not nervous,” I lied.
“You are,” he said. “I can smell it.”
I frowned and gave a small sniff, even though I couldn’t smell anything other than the alcohol and sweat from the people around us.
Stupid supernatural enhanced senses.
“Fine—maybe I’m slightly nervous,” I said, since apparently there was no use denying it. “But you were with me at Rosella’s. You heard what she said about my future. If I want to pass the Angel Trials—and if I want to save my mom—I have to come with you on your hunts.”
“Which is why you’re here with us now,” he said. “Now, let me walk you back to the hotel. Sage and I will take over from here.”
I glared at him, because he couldn’t be serious. “I’m pretty sure that when Rosella said I needed to come with you on your hunts, she didn’t mean I should sit inside the hotel room while you and Sage kill the demons,” I said. “Besides, she wouldn’t have told me to go with you if I was going to die at our first stop. So I’m coming with you. End of story.”
The Angel Hunt (Dark World: The Angel Trials Book 2) Page 4
