Grim Haven
by Jen Rasmussen
Copyright © 2016 Jen Rasmussen
All rights reserved
Cover art by Christine Rasmussen
Cover typography by WickedGoodBookCovers.com
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Dear Reader
Despite everything that happened that day, Verity came through it all without so much as a scratch.
Had I been writing a real story, it wouldn’t have made for a very exciting opening. And I might have come up with something less clichéd than without a scratch. But as spells went, it would serve me fine. I set the paper aside to dry, cleaned my pen, and got ready for work.
I didn’t often use magic, in those days. For one thing, I couldn’t stand taking my own blood, so I didn’t keep a lot of spell ink on hand. And then there was that self-fulfilling prophecy thing to consider. Writing something like despite everything that happened that day was pretty much an invitation for things to happen. And I preferred as few happenings as possible.
But on that particular day, I just knew the things were going to happen, no matter what I said about it. And to my credit, I was spot on with that prediction.
The sun was just rising as I left my apartment. I walked the short distance to the restaurant slowly, using both the time and the fresh Berkshire air to steady my nerves and prepare myself for… whatever it was. Darkness.
My second sight is limited to very occasional flashes, and then only of colors and moods. Whatever was coming was black and red, I knew that much, and that was always a bad combination.
I walked through the elaborately carved doors of Spare Oom at seven, expecting the place to be empty—a reasonable expectation, since we didn’t open until eleven. My heart sank when I heard someone in the kitchen.
That had to be Cooper, testing some new recipe again. Why did he have to be so conscientious?
I could just try to sneak into the office without him hearing me, but then it would make me look weird—okay, weirder—if he found me in there later. Not that I cared what Cooper thought, really. But being weird tends to invite questions, and I wasn’t very big on social interaction. Especially not with Cooper Blackwood.
Let him stick to the servers and kitchen staff who worshiped him like some kind of matinee idol, drawn to his good looks, his charm, his quick smile. For myself, I could never quite shake the feeling that his easy manner was an act. There was something behind it, a restlessness in the way he moved, that made me uneasy.
After a moment’s consideration, I popped my head into the kitchen and said, “Good morning, Chef.”
Cooper was whisking something, his head down. I caught a glimpse of dark stubble shadowing his chin. That wasn’t unusual, but the bed-head was. As was the slouch in his shoulders. He hadn’t slept well.
He looked up at me and smiled, and as always, I struggled to ignore the electricity that seemed to arc from his eyes to mine.
“Morning, Verity. I’m glad you’re here. Maybe I can tempt you into tasting something for me in a little while.”
A more flirtatious—or maybe just braver—soul than I would have put together some sort of joke involving the words taste and tempt. I just nodded like an idiot and made a noise that wasn’t quite a word, before retreating for the office.
I closed the door behind me and exhaled in relief at being alone again. Terry had given me the title of manager, which wasn’t very accurate, since I had no actual authority over anything or anyone. I guess he just thought it sounded better than glorified secretary. Basically my job was to do all the things that might otherwise fall to the owner, but that he didn’t like doing. (In other words, the boring things.) It paid a lot less than being a server or even a bartender would have, but it kept me isolated in that cramped little office, which at that time in my life, made it pretty much my dream job.
I wasn’t more than ten minutes into doing the payroll when my phone rang. I stared, a little dazed, at the screen for long after the split second it took me to recognize the area code.
Bristol. Who would call me from Bristol?
Was this the dark thing I’d felt coming, and spent the pre-dawn hour scribbling a spell to protect myself from? As far as I was concerned, a call from my home town would qualify.
But I had a feeling that whatever doom was coming for me would not be so easy to ignore. The call went to voicemail, and I went back to work. When a second call came an hour later, I shut my phone off.
You’ll have to do better than that, dark thing. You can’t use curiosity to trick me into inviting you over my threshold.
Not that I wasn’t curious. Of course I was. I hadn’t spoken to anyone in Bristol in seven years or so. Who could possibly want to talk to me now?
But it was Bristol that had taught me how dangerous curiosity can be, and I wasn’t about to fall for that.
As it turned out, the dark thing—or at least, the darkest thing in that dark day—had nothing to do with the phone call, and it didn’t come from Bristol. It came into the restaurant on the click of high heels on the tile floor, and a perky voice chirping, “Hey, Coop, how’s it going?” Which is why I didn’t think anything of it at first. It wasn’t like female visitors were unusual for Cooper.
Once she went into the kitchen, I couldn’t make out their words, just the sound of both their voices and the occasional trill of feminine laughter. Eventually things got a little louder. Thumps. And was that a groan?
Okay, that was unusual. Cooper Blackwood, for all his faults, had a high degree of professional pride. Flirting on the premises was one thing, but I’d certainly never known him to get right down to business in the kitchen. If nothing else, it would be awfully unsanitary.
But unusual or not, it didn’t sound like the sort of thing you’d interrupt. At least it didn’t until Cooper bellowed a few nasty words.
And then followed them up with a shout of, “Verity, what kind of witch are you? Are you going to help me or what?”
How on earth would Cooper Blackwood know I’m a witch?
There was no time to consider the matter. I ran for the kitchen.
It was in quite a state. (But smelled wonderful.) Sauce was splattered everywhere. A pan was overturned on the floor, leaving a messy trail of caramelized onions and sausage. All the burners on the stove were on, the flames flaring up unnaturally high.
And in the middle of it all, Cooper, throwing—seriously, throwing—a tall, thin woman across the room.
“Cooper!” I yelled as I pulled my phone out of my pocket.
The woman slammed into the prep counter and bounced off, skinny legs flailing. She wasn’t just thin, she was bordering on sickly. And Cooper was a fairly big guy, unusually hard-bodied for a chef, who in my experience tended to run soft. She couldn’t possibly pose a threat to him.
He’d clearly lost his mind. I started to dial 911, then remembered my phone was off. I hit the power button.
Cooper was advancing on the woman, who was on the floor and muttering now, when he must have spotted me out of the corner of his eye. He glanced at me and said, “What the hell are you doing?”
His assailant w
asted no time taking advantage of his distraction. She shouted what turned out to be the last word of the spell she’d been casting, and several knives went flying at Cooper at once.
Two of them lodged in his chest, one in his abdomen.
Oh balls, I just got Cooper Blackwood killed. Balls, balls, balls.
But Cooper looked more annoyed than alarmed. He yanked one of the knives out of his ribcage and held it in fighting position.
The wound started to close immediately.
My phone call was forgotten as I stared. Even for someone born and raised around magic, this was quite a spectacle. I’d never seen the like of either of them.
But it seemed the knives were a distraction, too, designed to give the woman a chance to get up and reach into her pocket. She flung what appeared to be a handful of black pebbles at Cooper’s face.
He stopped moving.
Ignoring me completely, she pounced on him, batting his knife away with one hand while putting her other arm around him like a lover. Cooper stood frozen as she leaned into him and… what was she doing?
She was breathing against his neck. Not kissing him. Her mouth was closed. It was almost like she was smelling him.
And Cooper was getting weaker and weaker. I could feel that as much as see it.
I dropped my phone and launched myself at the woman’s back, closing my forearm around her throat and yanking. Cooper slid to the floor as she rounded on me instead. I got a good look at her face—sallow and wan—for a second before I was thrown backward, whether physically or by magic, I couldn’t have said.
She whispered something I didn’t catch, and the bloody knife Cooper had pulled out of his chest came flying at me instead.
Despite everything that happened that day, Verity came through it all without so much as a scratch.
The knife changed direction mid-air, and landed with a harmless clang on the counter beside me.
She wasn’t expecting that. Her hesitation was barely a moment, but it was enough for me to grab the knife as she rushed at me, her hand clenched around what I guessed would be more of her little black rocks.
She opened her fist. I stabbed and ducked sideways at the same time.
Some of the pebbles hit me, their dust clinging to my cheek and arm. It burned, and I felt a weight around my waist, like someone trying to tackle or hold me, even though there was nobody there. But it didn’t paralyze me the way it had Cooper.
The knife, on the other hand, was much more effective. The woman screamed, then gurgled around a rush of blood. I’d stabbed her in the throat.
I pushed her hard as she slumped against me, knocking her aside before she could pin me between her and the counter.
She fell to the floor, her mouth still working, but her eyes already glazing over with death.
“Cooper. Cooper!” I couldn’t rouse him. He’d been fine with assorted knives sticking out of his torso, but whatever she’d done to him after that, he wasn’t fine now.
Said knives were still there, except the one he’d pulled out himself. That wound was already completely healed, the bloody tear in his shirt the only sign it had ever been there. But the others were seeping blood around the blades. I left the knives where they were.
“Cooper!” I slapped lightly at his face, and some of the black dust came away on my hand. I sniffed it, then gave my index finger a tentative lick.
Jet.
That was clever of her. Normally jet is used for defense, not offense. But a skilled enough witch can get it to absorb pretty much any energy she wants, to be unleashed at the proper moment.
Who did I just kill? Or what?
I couldn’t think about that. I had to deal with Cooper first. Whatever was wrong with him wasn’t the kind of problem paramedics would be able to solve.
I squeezed his hand, not really expecting my fingers to elicit a response where my voice couldn’t, but I felt something, a slight pressure, as though he was trying to squeeze back.
“Cooper?” I squeezed again. His lips moved. I leaned in closer and pretended I did not, completely inappropriately under the circumstances, notice how good he smelled. Like soap and spices and butter. “Cooper?”
“Need…” he whispered.
“What?” I asked. “What do you need?”
With a groan of effort, he reached up and plopped his arm around my shoulders. He pulled weakly, and I leaned in farther still. One more bit of pressure from him, and our foreheads and noses were touching.
“Sorry,” he whispered.
Our lips were so close his actually brushed against mine as he spoke. It was almost more intimate than a kiss.
But he wasn’t being affectionate. He was stealing.
I felt it almost immediately, a tingling warmth spreading through me, and then a wave of cold as whatever he was taking flowed from me into him. I didn’t move away.
A few seconds later, he took in a great gulp of air while I put my now-shivering fingers on his neck to check his pulse. It was strong and steady. Our faces were still close enough together for me to feel his whiskers against my cheek as he smiled.
“Thanks, Verity,” he whispered. He moved his arm off me. “You can get up. I’ll need to rest a minute, though.”
He didn’t get that minute. As I straightened up, readying a million-and-one questions to fire at him, there was a scream like a little girl who’d dropped her ice cream cone.
That would be Terry.
Balls.
“Terry!” I had to shout to be heard above him. He was a little man, and prone to fussing. “Hurry up, call 911. I think Cooper’s going to be okay, but—”
“Where did all this blood come from?” Terry gestured at the floor, where there was a small pool of blood. Too small for someone who’d been stabbed in the throat.
And the someone in question was gone.
I screamed right along with Terry. “What just— where did—”
“Calm down, you two.”
I turned to find Cooper standing beside me, calm as you please. His shirt was ripped, but he’d pulled the knives out while Terry was distracted with me. He wasn’t bleeding very much, either.
“There’s no need to call 911.” He punctuated his words with his trademark charming smile. “It’s not as bad as it looks. You know how cuts always bleed more than you think they will.”
“Have you lost your mi—” I began.
“Are you okay?” Terry interrupted, staring at Cooper’s bloody shirt. “Are you sure? What happened?”
“Freak accident,” said Cooper. “I fell and hit my head, and I was carrying my knives at the time. I don’t know exactly, it all happened pretty fast.” He shrugged and opened up one of the tears in the fabric, so Terry could see the cut in his chest. “It’s shallow though, see? A few minutes with the first aid kit and I’ll be fine.”
Well, that was maybe the most ridiculous story I’d ever heard. Surely Terry would never buy it.
But it seemed he was inclined to. People always are, when it suits them, and Terry would never want to think of his star chef in any real trouble. “You’re okay? Are you sure?” he asked again.
“Positive,” said Cooper. “But we’ll need to sanitize this kitchen before lunch, or we won’t be able to open.”
The threat of losing business got Terry moving. While he called the cleaning service, I dragged Cooper over to the first aid station and pretended to help bandage his wounds.
Once he wiped the blood away, there was nothing there but scratches.
“What just happened?” I whispered. “How did you… where did she… I saw her die!”
“Not quite, it seems,” Cooper said in a low voice. “We can’t talk about this right now. Help Terry. It’ll keep him distracted for a little while, and we don’t want him thinking too carefully about all this. Then get home. Throw up all the wards you can. I’ll find you later.”
“What are you going to do?”
“She may have taken enough vitality from me to crawl out of here,
but she’s weak. I’m going to find her.”
“Cooper, I don’t know what you’re talk—”
But he was already leaving. He told Terry he was dizzy from losing blood, and that he needed to go home. Terry, of course, was willing to do whatever it took to keep him happy. Without looking at me again, Cooper was gone.
We spent the next hour putting the kitchen to rights, while Terry kept fussing, and a few more of the staff trickled in. Figuring I wasn’t likely to get much bookkeeping done, I left not long afterward. As I walked home I mentally composed about a thousand protection spells. I would need to draw some blood, too. I was running low on ink.
Like most of the buildings on my street, mine was a narrow, three-story townhouse that had been split into apartments. It was a quiet neighborhood, off the beaten path, and I was pretty sure I’d know if I was being followed. But I still paused inside the front door, looking out one of the tiny windows for a few minutes. Nothing moved.
The staircase was dim but not dark enough for anybody to hide in the corners. There were no creaking floorboards, no opening doors. Not even my downstairs neighbor’s yapping dog. I was certain I was alone.
Which was why it startled me so badly when someone knocked on my apartment door not ten seconds after I closed it.
I didn’t have a peephole. The obvious thing to do would have been to call out asking who it was, but given how much magic I’d seen that day, I wasn’t about to trust any voice I heard. I put my palm against the wood and closed my eyes, concentrating. It didn’t feel like an enemy.
True to his word, it was Cooper.
I stepped aside to let him in. “Did you find her?”
“No. You aren’t safe.”
I tried to project a calm practicality despite the panic squeezing my chest.
You aren’t safe.
That was pretty much my least favorite sentence in the world. I took a few deep breaths before saying, “Who was she?”
“Kestrel Wick. The name won’t mean anything to you.”
“How could she have survived that? How did she just get up and walk away? Is she a superhuman or something?”
Cooper sighed. “She’s no more human than you or I.”
Grim Haven (Devilborn Book 1) Page 1
