by Lisa Edmonds
While I was processing my shock, he continued, “It also made me sick for a couple of hours. It felt like I had a bad case of the flu, and I almost never get sick because of my shifter immune system. Meanwhile, the plants just kept growing and growing. Also, they eat birds. At this point, they could probably eat the dog if he got too close, or any strays that happened to get into the yard.”
I headed down the porch steps and crossed my backyard with Sean at my side. As I approached, I felt a caress of dark magic and the plants leaned toward me, their leaves shivering in excitement.
“Hungry, are you?” I said dryly.
“Do you know what the hell is going on?” Sean asked.
“Oh, yes. I suppose this is my fault—well, part of it—but I didn’t think you’d be doing any gardening back here. I should have warned you not to. I’m sorry you got hurt.”
I reached out and one of the plants bent down toward my hand. Sean grabbed my arm. “Watch out.”
“It’s okay. I’m going to let them know who’s boss.”
Reluctantly, he let go. Wisps of black, red, and purple blood magic danced on my fingers. The plant bent down and rubbed gently against my hand like a cat.
He gaped. “What the hell?”
“This was going to be my blood garden,” I said as the plant caressed my hand. “Well, I guess it still is, but it looks like my magic wasn’t the only magic that got into the flowerbeds.”
“Your what garden?”
“A garden is full of life energy. My plan was to plant a garden to help feed energy into my house wards and that I could draw from if I needed to, in case trouble came knocking at my door again. I infused the soil with my blood magic.”
“When you say you ‘infused’ your blood magic into the soil, you mean…?”
“I mixed my blood, full of magic, with the soil. My blood and magic is in these plants.”
He stared at me for a full five seconds. “So, who the hell else’s magic got in here?” he asked finally.
“Whose blood did we spill back here, right before I put in the flowerbeds?”
His mouth became a grim line. “Scott Grierson’s demon father, Ravan.”
“Yup. Demon blood, demon magic. I burned up his blood but there must have been some residual magic left behind.”
“So, now we’ve got demon plants.” He frowned at my garden. “What are you going to do with a backyard full of bloodthirsty little Audrey Twos?”
“Audrey Twos?”
“Little Shop of Horrors?”
“Oh yeah, the man-eating plant. Very funny. Can I get a drop of blood?”
He eyed me.
“I need them to know that you’re not food,” I said.
He produced a pocketknife and cut the pad of his thumb. I smeared his blood on my fingers, then let the plant caress my hand. When I moved back, my fingers were clean. The plants made a sound like a sigh.
Sean shook his head. “Of all the weird shit I have seen in my life, this is by far the weirdest. What about the dog?”
“Don’t worry; I’ll make sure he’s safe too. Hold out your hand.”
He crossed his arms defiantly.
“Come on, you can trust me,” I wheedled.
“It’s not you I don’t trust.” He grudgingly let me take his hand and reach out toward the garden.
The plant leaned down and brushed against his skin. Sean held perfectly still as it ran its leaves over our entwined hands. The garden rustled.
“See? That wasn’t so bad, was it?” I asked him.
He kissed my forehead. “So, you’re going to keep your demon garden, huh?”
“I think so. There’s a lot of power in it, and if I put wards up, no one will accidentally get eaten. Plus, it might come in handy. You never know when we might need to get rid of a body.”
He stared at me.
“I’m kidding,” I added.
“I kinda feel like you aren’t,” he said.
The wards tingled and Rogue barked inside the house. “Oh, hey, I think the food’s here,” I said. “Maybe the garden would like some sweet and sour chicken.”
Sean snorted as we headed toward the back porch. “Better that than werewolf, mage, or dog. If there are any leftovers, the garden is welcome to them, I guess.”
Behind us, the plants rustled and sighed.
3
After we ate, Sean and I spent the remainder of the afternoon and early evening watching the news and waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never did.
I had no doubt Moses was planning another attack on Bell, but for whatever reason, he didn’t strike again immediately, either because he’d lost more mages in the first attack than he’d planned to and didn’t have the manpower, or because he didn’t have the right target. Either way, I figured it was only a matter of time.
We found the news channel with the best coverage and turned the volume down to a murmur. Live footage of the smoldering ruins of Bell’s compound—now surrounded by emergency vehicles and being doused by fire trucks—alternated with announcers recapping the events and interviewing a series of law enforcement and civilian experts on cabals and magic who offered various theories about how the attack had been planned and carried out. No one wanted to guess at how many mages had died breaking the wards, or how many were needed to destroy the compound. It didn’t escape my notice that no one explicitly called out Moses as orchestrating the attack.
I took some solace from the fact my grandfather was not in the city; the news showed him making himself conspicuously visible in Baltimore while his people attacked Bell on the other side of the country. No doubt he’d sent one of his lieutenants to run things in his stead. I wondered how many of the lieutenants I’d known five years ago were still alive. Moses tended to go through them fairly quickly, and when he terminated someone’s employment, it wasn’t with two weeks’ notice and severance pay.
I was concerned about Malcolm, who hadn’t come back up from the basement, but I gave him space. He’d talk when he was ready.
As the evening wore on, I went from sitting next to Sean on the couch to lying down with my head in his lap while he rubbed my back. I was fighting sleep, but it was a losing battle, thanks to the stress of the last few weeks, getting very little rest, and being short on blood by a pint or so.
Then Sean’s hand slid under my top and suddenly I was a whole lot less tired.
I rolled onto my back and looked up at him. It had gotten dark and we’d left the lights off, so the only illumination was from the TV. His eyes glowed softly. “You feel like going upstairs?” he asked.
“I dunno…I’m really comfortable,” I said, feigning indifference.
He grinned and my heart skipped a beat. “Let me see if I can pique your interest,” he murmured.
His hand moved under my top and stroked my stomach, making it flutter, before moving to my breast. I couldn’t stop my sharp intake of breath, or the instant reaction low in my belly that made his nostrils flare and his eyes go golden.
I rolled to my feet and returned to the couch to straddle his lap, running my fingers through his hair as I kissed him deeply. He gripped my butt tightly and pulled me close, then slid his hands up my back toward my bra.
I broke our kiss and leaned back. “We should go upstairs. I don’t want to scandalize Malcolm if he comes up from the basement.”
“We may scandalize him anyway,” he warned me, his eyes glittering. “I hope you don’t expect to stay quiet. I intend to be a very bad wolf.”
Before I could respond, Sean’s phone rang from somewhere in the couch. He swore and dug in between the cushions until he found it. The screen said Jack Hastings.
“My beta,” he said. He answered the call. “This is Sean.”
I heard the growly voice on the other end say, “It’s Caleb again.”
I climbed off Sean’s lap. He stood and paced in front of the couch as he listened. Finally, he asked, “Is he back at his apartment or with you?”
A terse respons
e.
“Let’s meet over there, then. We have to talk to him, find out what the hell is going on. I’m on the east side, so it’ll take me about a half-hour to get there. Go easy on him until we find out how it started. I’m on my way.” He disconnected.
I went over to him. “Pack troubles?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, putting his phone in his pocket. “Caleb’s a nineteen-year-old kid who got bitten while he was out running a couple of months ago and is having a hard time adjusting. We took him into our pack hoping to help him adapt, but we’re not having much luck keeping him out of trouble. He keeps getting into fights and shifting in public.”
I grimaced. Shifting in public was a quick way to get shot by law enforcement or an armed citizen, and behavior like that would bring a lot of trouble to Sean’s pack. “Go take care of your people.”
“It will probably take a while.” He rubbed his face. “Damn it.”
“It’s okay. I’m going to turn in early and try to get a full night’s sleep. Will you have to work tomorrow?”
“I have some meetings in the morning, but I’ll probably be free in the afternoon,” he said. “I’ll text you and let you know what my schedule looks like.”
“Okay. Be careful.”
“You too.” He kissed me thoroughly. “I’m glad you’re home.”
“I’m glad to be home.” I walked him to the door, then waved from the front porch as he backed down my driveway.
I took Rogue to the front yard to do his business, then fed him in the kitchen and left him to eat dinner while I went out to the backyard and spent a half-hour putting wards around the flowerbeds to keep the dog from getting eaten. The aversion spells would keep both people and animals away while I figured out how to address my garden’s dietary needs.
When the wards flared, the garden rustled. It sounded disgruntled. “No dog for you,” I told the plants firmly. “And no trying to eat the werewolf either. He may be delicious, but he’s mine.” More unhappy rustling.
When I got back inside, I found Rogue sitting expectantly by the back door. I turned off the television and all the lights except for the one in the kitchen.
After a moment’s hesitation, I opened the door to the basement and called out, “Good night, Malcolm.”
“Good night,” he replied. He sounded better than before, which was a relief.
I shut the door and Rogue and I went upstairs. The dog settled onto his bed by the window while I changed into pajamas.
It wasn’t even ten o’clock, but I was exhausted. I brushed my teeth, turned off the lamp, and crawled into bed. In minutes, I was sound asleep.
Alice, let us in. The sharp command cut through my deep, dreamless sleep like a scythe.
I was on my feet and halfway to my bedroom door before I was awake enough to realize what I was doing.
Charles? I asked in my head, groggy and confused. The clock on my nightstand said it was a little after three.
We are outside your residence and must speak to you. Charles’s voice in my head vibrated with urgency.
I threw a cardigan on over my tank top and hurried downstairs with Rogue on my heels.
Malcolm waited in the foyer. “That creepy vamp is outside. You want me to go tell Sean that he’s here?”
“Not yet. Let me find out what’s going on. Please stay in the basement for now.”
Malcolm shimmered as he passed through the closed basement door and the wards that protected it. Just to be on the safe side, I shut Rogue in the downstairs bathroom. I dropped my house wards and opened the front door.
A black SUV was parked in my driveway. The driver’s door opened and a Vampire Court enforcer I didn’t know emerged. As he opened the rear door for Charles, the front passenger door opened and a tall blonde woman stepped out.
At first, I thought she was another enforcer, but she didn’t come around the vehicle to stand beside Charles. Instead, she scanned the yard, then looked over the house. When her gaze finally met mine, her brow arched. In her black leather jacket and tall boots, she looked like she’d just stepped off the cover of Badass Weekly, and I was suddenly aware that I was wearing pajamas with sheep on them.
I didn’t have a chance to worry about what my choice of sleepwear was doing to my street cred because Charles was suddenly on my porch in a puff of air. I gasped.
The front of his suit was soaked with blood and his hands and face were streaked with it. He looked livid. He was also extremely pale, even by vampire standards.
“We must get inside.” His voice was flat.
I stepped back and they all filed into the house. I shut the door and locked it, then raised my wards.
When I reached for the light switch, the male enforcer snapped, “Leave the lights off.” He went into the living room and yanked the curtains closed. The blonde woman took up a position near the door.
Whatever the hell was going on, I wasn’t accustomed to being given orders in my own home. My eyes narrowed as I turned to the blonde woman. “Who are you?”
“Arkady Woodall, Vampire Court investigator.”
So this was one of the new full-time investigators the Court had hired after I turned the job down. She looked to be about my age and was a little taller than me, with the grace and lean muscle of a fighter.
We shook hands. “Arkady?” I asked.
The corners of her mouth turned up. “Arkady.”
I jerked a thumb at the enforcer looming in the living room doorway. “And who’s Mr. Sunshine?”
He made a noise like truck gears grinding. “Matthias.”
I turned my attention back to Charles. “What happened? Are you hurt? Where’s Bryan?”
“This is not my blood. Bryan Smith has been shot and Fortune is dead,” Charles said.
The words hit me like a punch in the gut. “What?”
“Kent Stevens ambushed our vehicle as we arrived home an hour ago.” Charles shook with anger as he paced around my foyer. “We were coming from a meeting at one of my businesses. Fortune was driving and Bryan and I were in the back. When we got to the gate, it jammed instead of opening. Fortune began to retreat when Stevens opened fire with an automatic weapon. Bryan was shot six times; five bullets in his torso, and one grazed his head. Fortune was shot twice in the head. I could do nothing to save him.”
I made a choked sound.
Charles stopped pacing and turned to me. His eyes were black and his fangs were out. “I was able to heal Bryan’s injuries and he is resting now. Adri is with him.”
Rage built inside me like a tidal wave and I struggled to rein it in. “What happened to Stevens? Tell me he’s dead.”
He shook his head. “He deployed countermeasures and evaded my enforcers. I had to choose between saving Bryan’s life or pursuing our attacker. I chose to stay. By the time Bryan was stabilized, Stevens was gone.”
“Bryan’s life was more important.” I took a shaky breath and tried to make sense of what Charles was telling me, but it wasn’t computing. How could Fortune be dead? I’d spoken with him less than twenty-four hours ago. He’d driven me home after I was done giving my statement to Agent Marshall. He’d sat in my driveway and watched to make sure I got safely into my house before he drove away. I hadn’t known him long, but I’d liked him.
Bryan, on the other hand, I had known for years. Things hadn’t always been amicable between us because his loyalty was to Charles and the Court, which meant I’d been furious at him more than once, but he’d ripped off his own shirt to keep me from bleeding out on Mike Robinson’s living room floor. I took a deep, shuddering breath.
“My enforcers who gave chase tell me Stevens was unusually fast and strong for a human,” Charles said. “They suspect Stevens may have been drinking vampire blood.”
At first, I was startled; Stevens had made no secret of his hatred of vamps, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t use their blood to enhance his strength and speed. It would certainly help explain how he managed to evade capture twice. I’d credited
adrenaline and training for the first escape, but two successful getaways meant the enforcers’ assessment was probably accurate. I wondered if he’d been drinking expensive black-market bottled vampire blood or if he’d been draining and killing vamps we didn’t know about. No doubt Charles had people already looking into that possibility.
He started pacing again. I’d never seen him so agitated. “I can find no trace of Stevens. His trail ended by the side of the road. He may have had a vehicle parked or been picked up by a confederate. The Court has dispatched Hunters to locate him. He will not be at liberty for long, and when he is found he will certainly suffer greatly for everything he has done.”
I went into the kitchen and ran a towel under hot water. I brought it back to Charles, who accepted it and began cleaning the blood off his face.
“You are in danger. Stevens tried to kill you once already,” he said as he scrubbed dried blood off his pale skin.
“He doesn’t know who I am,” I reminded him. “He only knows me as Julie Day from Denver. I assume you’ve got people combing the city looking for him, in addition to the feds who are looking.”
“We have deployed surveillance teams to Stevens’s home, the quarry where he and Michael Robinson worked, and the homes of his immediate family members and friends, as well as your home and mine. The Court has committed its resources to finding him.”
“Then you’ve done all you can until he turns up. With so many people looking for him, he won’t get far.”
Charles hissed. He dropped the towel, spun, and put his fist through the wall with a force that demolished the drywall, splintered the stud behind it, and punched through to the other side. Rogue started barking and scratching at the bathroom door.
I was too startled by his uncharacteristic outburst to object before he spoke. “It is my fault,” Charles snarled, his back to me. “We should not have allowed him to escape us at Robinson’s house. We should have anticipated he would have an exit strategy in place and been more prepared for him to attack. I should—” He cut himself off.
