Wrath and Magic (Spells and Sins Book 5)

by Melody Raven

  Dennis, a bit distracted by the phone, muttered, “Huh? Oh, him. No. This is my wife.”

  Laura and Anna exchanged a look at each other. They had assumed Dennis was single considering he didn’t wear a ring. Anna would have suspected him of hiding the fact he was married, but if he were, why would he so freely admit who was calling him?

  The phone stopped ringing. Dennis broke the silence. “Well, I really need to head home. This has been a very informative meeting, everyone.”

  There were collective good-byes all around, though they sounded more hopeful than normal. Now they had Mr. X. They might actually make progress with this stranger, albeit a melodramatic stranger.

  No matter his intentions, this was something to move the group forward. They had caught someone’s attention. That meant they were getting somewhere.

  As Anna stepped into the chilly evening air, she headed toward the nearest subway station. She glanced at the sun that was just beginning to lower itself behind a skyscraper and thought of that last sunset she and Evie had seen together.

  Maybe by next year, she might actually have an idea of what happened to her best friend. At that thought, she felt the familiar unease take over her body. She looked over her shoulder.

  There was no Charles looking back at her. She laughed a bit at her own nerves. She smiled as something else occurred to her. By next year, she might not have to look over her shoulder in fear.

  When Anna got back to her apartment around six thirty, she couldn’t stop thinking about her meeting with the Stakes. She thought of the few murders they'd gone over, trying to determine if the deaths were supernatural in any way.

  One in particular stood out. The daughter of a congressman. Her father was probably the only reason the poor thing had gotten any space in the newspaper at all. There'd been no photo of her in the article. Just one life, full of potential, wiped out way too soon. Just like Evie...

  It made Anna sick. The image of empty, black eyes came back to her mind. She shook her head to get rid of the vision and then looked out the window to clear her mind. The sun still gave light to the city, though most of the streets were now in shadow.

  She quickly changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt, tossing her cell phone and identification into a light shoulder bag. From the nightstand drawer, she pulled out a .45 caliber pistol. She didn’t have anything fancy like silver bullets, though she hoped anything that came at her from the shadows would at least pause when shot with normal bullets.

  With everything securely in her bag, she put on her running shoes and grabbed her MP3 player. She set it on a soundtrack from an older action sci-fi movie. Fast songs to keep her pumped up.

  She started to run in the cool air, swerving between people while she moved her feet to the pounding song in her ears. Her lungs started to work for oxygen while her heart pounded faster.

  As she ran, she imagined a pair of black eyes following her every move. Thought of Mr. X sitting somewhere with Dennis’s personal information in front of him.

  What kind of intel did he have on her? Did he have the file from the Westpoint Police Department? The one mentioning the crazy child who had seen monsters? She ran faster to try to clear her head, trying to focus on the book assignment her students were working on now. Trying to think about what she could do to make the students falling behind do better in class.

  She turned a city corner about two miles from her apartment. She’d been on such a grueling pace she thought she could feel her body vibrating. Suddenly she realized it was her cell phone that caused the vibrations and not her body.

  She shook her head at herself and stopped next to a bus stop. She pulled off her headphones and twisted her bag from her back to her front. By the time she had her phone, it had stopped ringing.

  She flipped open the older model cell phone to see whose call she’d missed. Before she could see the missed call, her phone rang in her hand. The unexpectedness of it caused Anna to jump. She looked at the screen. All it said was unknown number.

  Usually she wouldn’t take calls while running, but on this particular night, she could use a distraction from her dark thoughts. Hoping it was a student asking for help, she pressed on the green Answer button.

  “Anna Roberts speaking,” she said in her professional teaching voice while she made sure her heavier breathing couldn’t be heard on the other end of the line.

  “Hello, Ms. Roberts. I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.” The caller was male but didn’t have much of an accent. A deep voice that resonated of upper class. It irked Anna that he didn’t announce his identity immediately.

  “Your timing is fine. May I ask who is calling?” Anna tried to sound as pleasant as possible.

  “I apologize. I believe you may have heard of me. You may call me Mr. X.”

  Anna stood up straighter at the ridiculous, yet ominous name.

  “What do you want?” All pleasantness had left her tone.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you, Ms. Roberts. I only called to offer you a gift.”

  Anna didn’t want any gifts from this stranger. “I think Dennis would prefer your gifts. You should call him.”

  She should have hung up the phone, but he spoke again. “This is specifically for you.”

  “I’m not meeting you anywhere. Now I really have to—”

  “You don’t have to go anywhere,” he interrupted her. “Your gift is right behind you.”

  Anna immediately turned around, while her free hand went to the butt of her pistol in her bag. There was no one behind her. Just the empty bench next to the bus stop. She turned in a full circle to search for a man on a cell phone looking at her.

  No one. There were men on phones, but they all walked past, paying no attention to the resting jogger.

  “There's no one here,” she said into her phone, still looking to see whether anyone’s mouth moved when he started to talk again.

  “Look all you want, Ms. Roberts. You will not see me.”

  Anger boiled up inside her. “You have three seconds until I hang up the phone.” She didn't bother to hide the annoyance.

  “Look under the bench. Your gift is there.” Though he just told her she wouldn’t see him, she couldn’t help but look around again. There were so many buildings around, and he could be in any of the windows.

  She cautiously approached the bench. She didn’t want to get on her hands and knees in the middle of a public street, but she sure as hell wasn’t sticking her hand under that bench without looking first.

  She got onto her knees and set her phone down on the ground, leaving one hand still firmly planted on her gun. She leaned down and looked at the underside of the bench.

  Sure enough, a business-sized envelope was taped to the bottom. She grabbed it and pulled it free before she picked up her phone and sat on the bench. “What's in the envelope?”

  “No. You have to open it first.”

  “Jackass,” she whispered under her breath as she put her phone down. Unfortunately, she needed two hands to open a sealed envelope. She let go of the comforting metal of the gun in her bag and made quick work of the envelope.

  There was a single scrap of paper inside. She pulled it out and stared at it. In elegant scrolled handwriting, there was an address and a name. “Nicolas Zolkin,” she read out loud. She looked at the address. She realized the street listed was the same one she currently stood on.

  Looking up, she also realized the building number right across the street from her was the same as the one that stared up from the paper at her. She picked up the phone again. “What the hell is this?” she demanded.

  “This is what you have been looking for, Ms. Roberts.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what exactly you think I’m looking for?” Anna debated hanging up the phone right then and there. Damn it, she was curious though.

  “You’re looking for a vampire. I’m giving you one.” He sounded haughty, and Anna wished again he would give her this attitude to her face.

  �
�Giving me one? So is this Nicolas Zolkin supposed to be a vam—” Anna broke off before she said the word in the middle of a crowded street. “Is he supposed to be one of them?” she asked instead.

  Instead of answering her question, he continued. “His schedule is not exact, but he tends to leave his apartment most nights around eleven.” There was a pause. “At night, of course.” He chuckled at his own joke.

  “What is this supposed to mean to me?” she asked.

  “I really must go, Ms. Roberts. I wish you good luck on your search.”

  “Wait!” she shouted, but he’d already disconnected. “Son of a bitch,” she said to no one in particular.

  She hung up the phone and looked up at the building across the street. A vampire lived there, apparently. Two miles away from her. Anna had been looking for one for years. However, she’d never given much thought to what she would do when she found one.

  How was she supposed to know whether he really was one of the damned? She couldn’t walk up and ask him. She couldn’t run up to him with a crucifix to see whether it burned his skin. If he was a vampire, he would kill her right then and there.

  She could go back to her apartment and let the Stakes know about her latest contact with Mr. X. That wasn’t the best idea because she still didn’t know what any of their motives were.

  If they tried to kill this Nicolas or tried to convince him to convert one of them before Anna could question him, he might leave town. It could take years to get another opportunity like this.

  Whatever she did, it would have to be on her own. She put her headphones back on and headed back to her apartment to formulate a plan of action.

  Later that night, Anna had the beginnings of a plan. She needed to know what this man was before she could decide what to do about him. All she knew was his name, his address, and the time he usually left his apartment. And there was only one way to find out more about him without arousing his suspicions. She was going to try to get into his apartment after he left.

  Anna wasn’t what anyone would call experienced at breaking and entering, but she knew a bit. Thanks to her rather unhealthy paranoia, she’d made sure she knew how locks were cracked before she purchased the five different types that currently adorned her own door. That had been years ago, but she hoped she could still manage one lock. It was a vampire. He might not even have great locks due to the lack of people willing to break into a monster’s apartment.

  The fact that his apartment was on the fourth story of the building was also in her favor. Most burglars were smart enough to not go after the apartment farthest from an exit.

  Anna thought about wearing all black, but that wouldn’t work. She had to get into the building somehow, and that would mean blending in with the other tenants. She chose blue jeans and a navy sweater.

  Her hair was back in its normal ponytail. She couldn’t wear sunglasses because, at this time of night, it would cause more attention than she needed. She did put on her everyday glasses though. They had black rims and added to the non-threatening air she was going for.

  Apparently a lot of thought goes into the outfit worn for breaking into someone’s home, thought Anna.

  She had to dig through her closet for a while in order to find her old lock picking tools. After kicking up a lot of dust and making a mess of her bedroom, she pulled them out of an old storage container.

  She took the same small bag she’d taken jogging. She added an older faculty ID badge she’d found while digging through her closet. If she needed to ask someone to let her in, she could hold it up while her thumb covered up the name portion. All it would show was her picture and that she was a teacher at the university.

  No one would find a college professor going to meet one of her students that threatening.

  She didn’t have any gloves that would work well for her purposes, but she had never been fingerprinted, so she would take the risk of getting her prints lifted.

  She grabbed a flashlight from her junk drawer in the kitchen area of the living space. She stopped before she left the apartment to do one more mental check of what she might need.

  Satisfied with what she had, she left the house in order to commit a major felony.

  Anna started to think that this Nicolas guy would never leave his apartment. She had gotten back to the bus stop bench around ten thirty in case he left earlier than usual, and no one had left the building in over an hour. There were only two apartments per floor. On the fourth, one was dark while one had lights on and shadows moved behind the curtains. Anna assumed if Nicolas was a vampire, his was probably the one with movement.

  She hadn’t seen anybody leave the apartment, so she needed to solve her problem of getting in the building. She hoped she could convince someone to let her in as they were entering.

  That would raise suspicions if the tenant she recruited to help her was later notified of a break-in, but Anna wasn’t planning on taking anything, so Nicolas should have no idea she’d even been there, let alone notify the police.

  She was going to have to think of some other way for her to gain access to the apartment. Luckily for her, this street wasn’t busy at night. Anna blended into the shadows of the building on the side of the bus stop, so the few people who did walk by didn’t notice her.

  As she started to think of different ways she could get into the building, the lights on the fourth story went out. Now or never, she thought.

  She started across the street with a falsely confident stride. When she got to the building, she glanced through the glass of the doors at the empty staircase.

  There was still no man approaching. She made a show of fiddling in her bag for the keys to her own apartment. As she heard footsteps approach, she acted as if she dropped them.

  “Darn it,” she said in a voice a bit louder than an honest person might have, hoping the man approaching might hear her. She reached down and picked them up.

  When she straightened, a figure came down the last flight of stairs, toward her. She took the key to one of the smaller locks on the main door to her apartment and made it look as though she was about to unlock the door.

  As she hoped, he opened the door before she could put the ill-fitting key into the lock. It was only when the door opened that she finally looked up at him.

  Her breath left her. He was magnificent. Not model beautiful, but powerful. The sharp planes of his face, along with his massive height, would intimidate even Brad. He towered over Anna, marking his height as well over six feet.

  His black hair only caused his eyes to look darker in his pale face. Anna immediately noticed his eyes were not black, but a dark brown. These were not the soulless eyes she’d seen fifteen years prior.

  This assessment of him took only a fraction of a second. She immediately looked down and shuffled past him, trying to not be noticed, even though she stood right in front of him.

  Apparently he wasn’t that suspicious of her, because he was out the door without a word and walked down the street and away from Anna. Even though she knew she should rush upstairs, she paused to watch him go.

  He didn’t have the black eyes of the monster from her memory, but that didn’t mean anything. Maybe they only were black while they were feeding, or the monster Anna saw could be something other than a vampire. These uncertainties were exactly why she had to question Nicolas if Mr. X was indeed right about him.

  Once the man was out of sight, she let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. She turned and continued up the stairs to apartment 4A.

  When she reached the door, she confirmed her suspicions that 4A was the apartment that light had been coming from earlier. To prove it was empty, she knocked loudly a couple of times. After a few moments, no one had answered.

  As quick as she could, she sank to her knees to inspect the lock. She was in luck. It was an older model, and she was confident she could get it open.

  She grabbed her tools out of her bag and got to work. It took longer than she’d remembered. Anna
wasn’t sure whether that was due to the fact that she hadn’t done this in years, or because she knew what she was doing was wrong. Each second she spent working on the lock stretched and felt like an hour.

  She moved her right hand a certain way and heard the telltale click that informed her she was successful. She smiled at the small victory. This plan might actually work...

  There were some scratches on the knob where her tools had been, but they wouldn’t be noticeable unless someone looked for proof of a break-in.

  Anna stood up and put her tools in her bag. She set her hand on the doorknob and turned. The door swung in. Her heartbeat, which had already been echoing loudly in her ears, seemed to go even faster.

  Before anyone noticed her lingering in the hallway, she stepped inside and shut the door behind her. Immediately, she was surrounded by darkness. She dug in her bag for the flashlight so she could see again.

  The apartment, like most city apartments, wasn’t large. This layout appeared to be thin and long. The main door opened into a living area that spread out to her right. The rest of the apartment sprawled out from the hallway at her left.

  It was an older building, and the hardwood floors had seen better days, but the high ceilings and peeling paint on the walls gave Anna shivers down her spine. She turned toward the living room.

  There wasn’t much by way of furnishings. Only an old couch across from an outdated television that sat on top of what she assumed to be a coffee table. The only other furnishings were the bookshelves that lined the walls of the room.

  They were six feet tall and shoved into every inch of available wall space. Anna approached the shelf closest to her and shined the light on some of the titles.

  The styles ranged from classic literature to modern day fantasy. There were biographies and old textbooks, and they were all arranged in no order at all. The shelves were so full that even the top of the shelves were covered with books.

  She took another look at the room with the light. Books were in stacks on the floor and lying about the couch. Nicolas didn’t just have full bookshelves to show off to friends, like some professors and students Anna had met in her time at the university. He actually read all of these books.