“Yeah.”
“And?” I pushed. “You’ve gotta give me more than a one-word answer, Aims.”
She bit her pierced lip and grinned. “We’re working it out. I have more control over my bloodlust, and he’s over the whole fang thing, so yeah … I think we’ll be okay.”
“Really?!”
“Kenzie,” she said, straight-faced, “don’t get too excited. This is just a trial period. I still haven’t forgotten he abandoned me when I needed him most. He has a lot to make up for.”
“Yes, I completely agree. Make him work for it.” While I loved Jackson and Amy together, he did do wrong by her, but I had faith he’d make up for it. We all made mistakes, but our actions afterward mattered most. Hopefully, he would prove himself to her.
“Now, let’s get back on track, missy.” She tapped me on the nose. “Tell me what happened with Enzo.”
I filled Amy in on everything from the night before, and if she wasn’t already dead, I imagined the blood draining from her face. This Enzo guy was smart and tricky. Finding him was going to be hard.
“You have to tell Bash. We can’t keep this from him any longer, Kenz.” Amy nibbled on her lip piercing.
“I can’t. Not until I have something more concrete like a location for Enzo.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re stalling. We need more resources for that. Have you thought about contacting Cassidy to help you?”
I shook my head. “If I do, he’ll contact the pack. Maybe Michaels, but that means going to the station and risking the team seeing me, i.e. Cassidy. I can’t.” If the pack found out anything about Enzo, they’d want to act on it now, but I wanted to get more information.
That moment my phone rang, I didn’t have to look at the screen to know who it was. Bash.
“You should answer,” Amy said. “He’s going to start a manhunt for you if you don’t. It’ll just make things worse. He’ll worry you’ve been taken.”
I pressed the answer button and put the phone to my ear.
“Hello?”
“For God's sake, Mackenzie!” he barked. “Why haven’t you answered my calls?”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Doing what?” he yelled. I could hear the chatter of the wolves on the main floor in the background.
“Are you okay?” I deflected. “You sound agitated.”
“I’m about to bust a blood vessel, Mackenzie! It’s been almost twenty-four hours since I’ve last heard from you. I’ve been worried.”
“I’m fine. Really,” I replied, ignoring Amy slurping on a blood bag. Gross.
“Then come back to the warehouse. You missed training with the Lunas today.”
Dammit. The last thing I wanted to do was let them down.
“I will tomorrow. I can’t today. Sorry.” I ended the call and shut off my phone. Bash would be pissed, but I had priorities. Finding Enzo was number one on my list.
“Kenz …” Amy gasped. “What did you just do?”
“He’ll forgive me. Right now, we need to find Enzo.”
“And how do you plan to do that?”
I sighed heavily. “With magic.”
Once again, the smell of soy sauce assaulted us as we stepped into The Fortune Cookie. Dragon motif décor covered the place, and colorful lanterns hung from the ceilings. The dim lighting and red walls with gold pillars gave it the cliché feeling of a Chinese restaurant Bobby Wu used as a front for all of his somewhat illegal warlock dealings. As usual, the restaurant was empty and no one stood at the hostess podium. A wooden counter separated the entrance and the dining room which was decorated with many Chinese symbols, a bowl of fortune cookies, and Maneki-Neko—the gold fortune cat waving a paw.
“I don’t know about this, Kenz,” Amy murmured as we crossed into the dining area to wait for Bobby Wu.
“It's our only option besides going to the SIU.”
The warlock of Queens Chinatown didn’t make us wait too long. He came out from the back room, which was supposed to be the kitchen.
“Back so soon? Goodness, Princess, I’m going to have to start cashing in what you owe.” Bobby grinned.
“I owe you cash,” I confirmed. “Which I have in full. Here.” I handed over a grand for the memory wipe of the human the other night. The pack had paid for the elixir.
“Good girl.” He grinned as he counted the hundred-dollar bills I gave him. “So we start with a clean slate. What can I do you for now?” Bobby waved at one of the dining tables for us to sit.
“You remember Natasha, the girl you sold all that wolfsbane to?” He nodded. “She’s working for someone named Enzo. I need to find him.”
“You want a locator spell?” The warlock raised a brow.
“Thing is, I don’t have anything of his.”
“Hm …” Bobby rubbed at his chin. “You don’t have anything at all? Not even an idea?”
“I have his scent and this.” I pulled out the earpiece of the human we’d found in my apartment. “It wasn’t in Enzo’s ear, but he was talking into it. I heard him breathe through it.”
“It’s not much, barely anything, but I can try to work with it. Come to the back.”
“Wait a minute,” Amy said, stopping us. “How much is this going to cost her?”
Bobby smirked. “Princess, you know how I work. Depending on the difficulty, it could be cash or a favor. It's open-ended.”
“Kenz, no way!” Amy blurted.
She gripped my wrist with vampire strength, and if she squeezed any tighter, she’d rip it right off. “I have to try, Aims.”
“He is a con-man. You can’t trust him.”
“I resent that!” Bobby called out from the back room. “And my time is valuable. I don’t have all day.”
“Do you trust me, Amy?”
She bit her lip. “If this goes sideways, I’m calling Jackson. Okay?”
I nodded.
We walked to the back room where the warlock was setting up the locator spell. With a large map of the city on the ground, he motioned for me to stand on top of it near the water. He placed the earpiece in the center and knelt on the ground.
“Okay, Princess, what I need you to do is solely think about his scent and nothing else. Since I don’t know it, I’m going to use you as a conduit and an object. But if you trail from the scent, it will mess up the spell. Do you understand?”
“Got it.”
“Good. And vampire friend,” he looked at Amy, “stay quiet and don’t interrupt me.”
She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. I bit back a laugh.
Bobby shut his eyes and placed his palms on the map of the city and began to chant, “Hominem locus, hominem locus, hominem locus, Enzo.”
I closed my eyes as well, shutting down all my other senses and focusing completely on the singular smell of the earth the wolves typically had but also peppermint with the slight stench of cigarettes. I’d almost missed it, but when I asked the human, he told me he’d never smoked a day in his life. Which meant Enzo had actually come into my apartment that day and it was his scent I’d caught.
“Hominem locus, hominem locus, hominem locus, Enzo, hominem locus, hominem locus, hominem locus, Enzo, hominem locus, hominem locus, hominem locus, Enzo!” Bobby’s chant stopped. “I got something.”
The warlock scrambled up from the floor and to his computer at the far end of the room, away from all the potions, herbs, and other trinkets that littered the room.
Amy and I followed Bobby as he searched the web. Typing in different addresses in a search engine, he found the image and address he was looking for.
“Does this look familiar to you?”
“Where is this?” Amy asked.
“It’s a house on Long Island. The man you’re looking for isn’t even in the city. He’s hiding out in a house in New Hyde Park.”
“Are you sure?” I double-checked. He was nowhere near the Brooklyn Pack or the city. It explained the comms he was using to communicate with the humans,
but it was still an odd location.
“I’m never positive, Princess. This magic is unpredictable, you know that.”
“You know what you have to do, Kenz.” Amy gave me a knowing look. “We have to tell Bash.”
I furrowed my brows. I couldn’t hide it from him any longer. I got what I wanted, and now I needed to work with him and not against him. I just wanted to protect him with all of my being. It was hard not to take a cab to Long Island and confront Enzo myself, but that would be stupid.
“All right, let’s go tell Bash.”
Bobby cleared his throat. “Not so fast, Princess. I’m gonna need a favor.”
I rolled my eyes. “Really, Bobby? Now?”
“I told you, Kenz!” Amy chided.
“Hey, that locator spell was no joke. It took a lot out of me.”
“What do you need, Bobby? And nothing illegal! You know I carry a badge,” I reminded him.
“I know, I know. What I need from you is simple. I need you to collect some funds for me from a necromancer in The Underground tonight. I caught wind he’s visiting from the West Coast, and this might be the only opportunity I have.”
“How much does he owe you?”
“Twenty grand.”
“Twenty grand!” Amy and I cried out in unison.
“There is no way he’s going to be carrying that much money on him,” I said.
“I take PayPal.” Bobby shrugged.
Amy and I looked at each other with wild eyes. Bobby was absolutely insane.
“And why can’t you confront him? You’re an extremely powerful warlock.”
“He has wards to protect him from me and announce whenever I’m near. He’ll be given a heads-up and scram. I need that money.”
I ran a hand through my hair. “What were you going to do had I not come to you?”
He smirked. “I had a feeling you would.”
The Underground was what the supernaturals considered their version of the black market. I was breaking so many rules just stepping foot into one without contacting the SIU. I wanted to punch Bobby in the face because I told him nothing illegal and the first thing he did was send me to an illegal market to deal with an illegal money exchange.
Deep in the city, concealed in the shadows of The Underground, were shabby stands, hidden alcoves, and tattered sheets covering the area where different supernaturals sold goods and other services. The market was flooded with people coming in and out, yelling across the way as they haggled items for a lower price or favor. It was like a human flea market.
Amy and I maneuvered our way through the crowd, trying not to draw any attention to ourselves. I probably should have changed because, as I sized myself up, even I could tell I was a cop. Amy sort of fit in with all her tattoos and piercings and well … the fact that she was dead helped.
“A scrawny guy with goggles and crazy, brown Einstein-style hair. That isn’t much to go by.” Amy scanned the crowd.
“I don’t want to go asking around. It might tip him off if we ask the wrong person.”
She nodded. “I get that, but The Underground is huge—”
“We’re not splitting up.”
“I wasn’t going to suggest that either.” Amy sighed. “All I’m saying is, this might be a fool’s errand.”
“I know.”
We didn’t say much as we continued to search for Tony the necromancer. It really was like finding a needle in a haystack. Everyone there had a bit of crazy in them, and there really weren’t any markings that told you someone was a necromancer.
“You look like you could use some love in your life,” a witch with long, white hair purred from her booth as she approached me with what I assumed to be a love potion. “Fifty dollars can get you instant love.”
“No thanks.” I brushed her off and kept walking.
“C’mon!” she yelled behind me. “Forty dollars!”
I ignored her. My nostrils flared, and I could feel myself getting agitated. I extended my claws and scratched at the seam of my jeans.
“Easy there, wolfey.” Amy grabbed my hand.
“Do you see him?” I snapped.
She shook her head. “No, but it looks like someone needs a snack. When’s the last time you hunted?”
I didn’t answer. I knew it wasn’t the need to hunt that had me in a mood. Enzo being on the loose had me on edge, and here I was prancing around The Underground.
“Hey, let’s get some shish kebabs.” Amy pointed to a food stand, and I nodded.
The smell of lamb marinated in different spices was strong, but it made my mouth water as I watched the skewered meat on the grill.
“Two kebabs, please,” Amy ordered and paid. She was handed the sticks immediately, as they were cooked and ready. I almost laughed. Even supernaturals liked shish kebabs. “Here.” She handed one to me.
As if she knew what to do to placate me, we walked around the dingy market in silence as we ate and searched for the necromancer. Food tended to calm my nerves; I just never thought it’d be meat on a stick.
I was about to call it quits when I saw something unusual up ahead. Arguing with a booth owner was a scrawny-looking man, if you could call him that. All I could see was his back and a head full of frazzled hair that was spiked up by the headband of his goggles, making it look crazier than it probably already was.
“Two hundred is my final offer!” the necromancer screamed. “I can’t go any lower than that, or then you’re just scamming me!”
“Please, can you lower your voice?” the man in the booth muttered as he looked around the market at the onlookers. Keywords like “scam” wouldn’t be good for business, and this necromancer was making sure business would be bad.
“Excuse me, is there a problem here?” I interrupted. I stood beside Tony while Amy took post behind him.
“None of your business.” Tony sized me up and snorted. “You’re a cop.”
The guy in the booth’s eyes widened, and he began to pack up his things. He was just about to scream when I stopped him. “I’m not a cop. Our mutual buddy Tony has no idea what he’s talking about.”
Tony did a double-take, and that was my confirmation I had the right guy.
He furrowed his thick brows. “How do you know my name?”
I smirked. “Bobby Wu sends his regards.”
Tony’s eyes widened to golf-ball size as he gulped loudly. He spun around to run, but Amy’s elbow was there to greet his face, knocking him out. I loved that vampire strength.
“Sorry for the inconvenience, sir,” I said to the man in the booth. Between Amy and me, we picked up Tony and dragged him out of The Underground.
Finding a hidden alcove was easy but tying him up was another problem altogether. Because he’s a necromancer and my dear Amy is dead, he can easily control her. Bobby had given us ropes with iron fibers woven in that would keep his powers at bay. Hopefully. If they didn’t work, I had Amy’s permission to snap her neck, temporarily putting her down. None of this was my idea of a fun time.
There was an abandoned store just outside The Underground where we found refuge. Plopping Tony down in a chair, we tied him up and waited until he became conscious.
I snapped his goggles on his eyes so his vision of us would be foggy when he woke up. He stirred in his restraints, wincing at the sting of iron.
“Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey,” Amy sang and smacked him upside the head.
“What the hell?” Tony groaned. He shook his head a couple of times. “What’s going on?”
I grinned. “What’s going on is that you owe our friend Bobby Wu a large sum of money and we’re here to collect.” I was repulsed by the fact Bobby had reduced me to one of his chumps. I was no better than a dirty cop at this point.
Tony swiveled his head side to side, looking for an exit. He kicked his feet as if he could bust out of his restraints. Even if it weren’t iron, he was so frail he wouldn’t be able to tear paper.
“I don’t have the money!” he yelled.
/>
“See, that’s going to be a problem,” I sighed, “because I can’t release you until I’ve collected every single cent. Comprende?”
The necromancer began to sweat profusely. It was seeping out of his clothes and down his face like a river.
Grabbing a leftover napkin from lunch, Amy dabbed his face. I was glad we’d put the goggles over his eyes or they would be stinging. Maybe that’s why he had them.
“Call Bobby! Let me speak to him. I swear I don’t have the funds, but I’ll figure out a way to pay him back in payments,” Tony begged.
I looked over at Amy and nodded at her to give Bobby a call. I wasn’t going to torture the guy. He was already shitting bricks on his own; I didn’t need to do anything else.
While Amy stepped outside to call the warlock, I crossed my arms over my chest and stood before the tied necromancer. “So how did a guy like you get twenty grand in the hole with a warlock like Bobby?” Tony obviously wasn’t innocent, considering how he was treating the booth owner, but he also didn’t seem like the type I’d categorize in the same level as Bobby. Maybe I was missing something, but he seemed harmless.
“I’m—I’m a necromancer. By trade, I collect dead bodies and bring them back to life for their loved ones. It’s a full-time gig with the upkeep.”
“Upkeep?” I raised a brow.
“There’s an extent to my magic, to everybody’s magic. To keep it going, I need potions and elixirs … I needed Bobby. He dabbles in a particular dark magic not many warlocks and witches like to mess with. It’s an easier way to magic.”
“Ah, gotcha. So you never paid him?”
He scoffed. “I took out credit. I was just starting out and didn’t have the money.”
“And now?”
“And now … I just don’t want to pay him!” Tony burst out of his constraints and leapt for me.
We rolled on the dirty, dingy ground littered with debris. He went for my neck, trying to choke me, but Tony didn’t know what I was.
I half-shifted.
From the Grave Page 8
