Sin & Magic (Demigods of San Francisco Book 2)

by K. F. Breene

  I had a feeling that someday I’d be back here, and I’d need to chat with Mr. Cheater and his miserable mistress about all the entrances to the hidden hallways.

  “He stole some of my clothes a few weeks ago, and from that, and his clearly detailed eye, he figured out my measurements and arranged for clothes to be purchased for me.” I flicked my hair, pretending like that was totally normal. “He has always assumed he’d get me in his bed, and clearly he was ready to lord his conquest over me. It’s no big deal.”

  “But you didn’t end up in his bed?”

  “No!” It wasn’t lying, simply omitting that I’d ended up against his wall.

  Heat washed through me. That situation had been so incredibly hot that now I was pretty sure beds were overrated. I might never want to bang in a bed again. Not when a wall was present, teamed with a man strong enough to hold my weight and then some.

  Bria shook her head. “Dare I ask how you ended up in his room in the first place?”

  I followed her down the hall, flustered. “That ghost from earlier got me into a secret hallway, and I ended up in Kieran’s room. His room takes up half the top floor of the house.”

  “Uh-huh. So he found you in his cavernous room and then happily showed you your drawer?”

  “Not happily. He tried to push his weight around, and I gave him a piece of my mind.”

  “Uh-huh.” I could tell by her tone that she knew exactly what had happened.

  I clenched my fists. “And then I had sex with him. Okay? Happy? I slapped him across the face, then gave in and banged him.”

  “Well. You sure showed him.” She raised her hand and grabbed something imaginary. “Toot, toot.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “All aboard for the train of bad decisions.” She tugged what I now realized was a chain again. “Toot, toot.”

  “It was just this once,” I said, trying really hard to believe it. Maybe if I said it enough, it would be true. “Now I know what it was like, the question was answered, and I’m done. It’s out of my system. Besides…” I wiped my hand across my suddenly flushed face. “Guys like him just want the conquest. He got it, and now he’ll get bored. It’s finished.”

  “Guys expecting to get bored don’t give a woman her own drawer.” She glanced back at the large canvas sack I’d stolen from his closet and stuffed nearly full. I dragged it along the hall behind me. “And they surely wouldn’t expect the object of their affection to then steal everything out of said drawer and take off.”

  “That’s his fault. Clearly he doesn’t know me very well.”

  “Clearly.” She stopped at a double door, one of the doors slightly cracked.

  “Wait…” I blinked and looked around. In my Kieran-induced haze, I’d shut off my survival instinct, thinking wrongly that Bria would lead me out of the house. Kieran had texted her the instructions, after all.

  Stupid me.

  “Where are we?” I asked in hush.

  “Valens’s room. Probably. Come on, let’s have a quick look.”

  “Wait, what? No!” I looked down the empty hall, half expecting Valens to come strolling along at any moment. “We need to get out of here.”

  “We will. Right after we have a look.”

  “Bria, no. Wait.” I grabbed her arm and pulled her back, rougher than I’d intended. “We just had a narrow miss. We can’t chance another run-in.”

  Bria faced me, her bearing confident and mood calm. I had no idea how she did it. Or how she was still alive.

  “We’ve been through all this…to give up in the final hour?” she asked, her tone disappointed. “We’re right here, Alexis. We’re right outside his door, and we’ve got time. Time that we’re wasting right now. That trophy room gave us a couple great clues. Maybe this room will give us another. Or hell, maybe he’s got the skin in there. I wouldn’t doubt it, as fucking nutty as he clearly is. You think a drawer is a bit much? This guy built a fountain. A fucking fountain, Alexis. It would stand to reason that his room would have something of interest. And if it doesn’t, I bet his office would…”

  I held up a finger while pressing my lips together, matching her disapproval. “I might be convinced to duck into this room for a moment, but I am not going into his office. I am drawing a hard line on that one.”

  A smile spread across her face and she winked. “I figured that would work. Come on.”

  She pushed open the door and dashed into the room.

  She’d just played me. I needed to stop being so damn gullible.

  Light greeted me as I stepped into the large room, a tiny bit smaller than Kieran’s, but twice as plush. Half of the view was a sparkling blue expanse, and the other half appeared to be the corner of the neighbor’s beautifully cultivated yard and the glittering orange of the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance. In keeping with the rest of the house, a cream rug spread across the hardwood floor and a gaudy mirror and some crappy abstract paintings decorated the walls. An enormous bed jutted out in the middle of the room, and a little sitting area comprised of a cream couch and a white-topped coffee table had been arranged beside the windows. An uncomfortable looking chair pushed back against the wall next to the dresser.

  “Clearly someone was just trying to fill the room,” Bria said, already scanning the bookcase in the far corner. “What stupid little knick knacks in front of a useless shelf of books. I mean, if he’s some great reader and didn’t want to walk down the hall to get—”

  I let her words drift away as I closed my eyes, slipping smoothly into that light trance. The more I did it, the more natural it felt.

  No magic buzzed through my body. No vibration beckoned to me. The room was clear.

  “Nothing,” I said, opening my eyes as disappointment dragged at me. It would’ve been so much easier if he’d been keeping the skin in his closet. Or under the bed. But he wouldn’t have stowed it somewhere and left it unprotected.

  “Are you sure?” Bria asked, moving toward the closet as though she’d heard my thoughts.

  I nodded, looking over a weird statue on the dresser, and then a picture of a little boy, four or five, with a tiny fish on the end of his fishing pole. Wild weather whipped the boy’s hair and boiled in the sky. White points capped the waves in the body of water behind the boy—a lake or a bay. The bow of a simple wooden boat could be seen in the corner of the frame.

  “Kieran,” I said, leaning closer. I could see the resemblance of this little face to the man he was today, his triumphant smile making those stormy blue eyes glitter with pride. His cheeks and the tip of his nose were red, the biting cold leaving its effect. “Kieran in Ireland. Must be. We don’t get weather that extreme here, not even in the magical zone when Valens is in a bad mood.”

  Bria stopped behind me. “You must be right. Wow. I wouldn’t expect Valens to be a proud papa.”

  “Me neither. But then, I wouldn’t have expected him to have a big fountain of his dead wife, whom he basically tortured. Just goes to show…”

  “That he’s a nutter, I know.” Bria nodded as I moved away. “Jump off that train, lady. This isn’t a family you want to join.”

  I did a quick scan of the other surfaces. I didn’t really know what I was looking for… until I found it.

  On his nightstand, the last thing he saw before he rolled over and closed his eyes, was a photo of the subject of the fountain.

  “Where is this?” I pointed at the photo of Kieran’s mother on a beach, her raven hair ripped to the right by a gust of wind, her smile wide and gorgeous on her beautiful face. Her cream dress billowed, alive and electric. She looked young and free and without any worries. White foam crawled up the wet sand behind her, a wave coming in and reaching for her bare feet. Far in the background, a violent wave had just crashed against a jagged cliff, throwing spray into the air. The effect framed the photo, setting her off perfectly.

  The photo was stunning. She was mesmerizing.

  “Where is this?” I repeated, tapping the glass wi
th my finger.

  Bria leaned in and an oh shit expression crossed her face. “It’s the edge of Ocean Beach. Just down the way.” She grinned triumphantly. “You were right all along. Look at you, reading people. Come on! Let’s unleash the Kraken.”

  25

  Alexis

  Mordecai jumped out at us as we ran across the front yard of a neighbor’s house down the street from Valens’s. Kieran told us to hop fences until we reached the blue house, and then go out through the side of their yard—they were rarely home.

  “I was worried sick,” Mordecai said, his eyebrows lowering in confusion as his eyes shot from my attire to the sack I lugged behind me. “Did you steal something?”

  “Is it stealing if it was bought for you by a misguided Demigod who wants his way?” I returned.

  “No, it is not. It is reclaiming what is yours. You are totally in the right.” Bria stopped up short when she noticed the Mercedes was gone. “Well shit. We have to hoof it.”

  Without skipping a beat, she pointed down the hill and picked up the pace.

  “No, no. Wait—” Mordecai cut off as a black BMW rolled toward us from the opposite direction, stopping by the curb. The tinted window lowered, revealing an angry-faced Jack.

  “Good thing he holds grudges,” Bria said, changing direction. “He’s the one we need.”

  We climbed into the car, Bria sitting in the front passenger seat to take the brunt of Jack’s anger. I’d already been yelled at by Kieran—it was her turn to take some heat. Besides, she was the one who’d actually dosed him.

  Jack slammed the car into gear before easing pressure onto the gas pedal. If it had been a different situation, I was sure he would’ve stomped on it and peeled out. But we had to maintain a low profile.

  “What happened to the Mercedes?” Bria said, pulling out her phone.

  “Zorn dropped it in another part of town,” Jack said, fury simmering just below the surface. Either he was terrible at hiding his anger, or he didn’t want to. “Kieran didn’t want it drawing attention up here.”

  “Cool,” she said, not affected by the intensity of the large man next to her. “We need to head to the top of Ocean Beach by the cliffs.” She showed him a picture. “This end. Just down the hill.”

  He didn’t glance over. “Like hell we do. I’m taking those two home, and you—”

  “We might know where the skin is,” Bria said, before explaining what we’d found.

  By the end, Jack had let off the gas.

  “You’re sure about all this?” he asked, his dark eyes boring into me through the rearview mirror.

  I shrugged. “I can’t be sure of anything until we check it out, but it makes sense. It fits.”

  He nodded slowly, pulling over to the curb. His fingers tapped against the steering wheel and he gazed out the window. “Did you tell Demigod Kieran?”

  “It clicked two seconds ago,” Bria said. “He’s out with his dad. I figure it’s worth checking out. We can text him if we find something. Unless you think they swim around that area?”

  He pulled away from the curb again, back to full speed. “When they’re together, they swim way out. They test each other. A gentleman’s competition.”

  “What’s a gentleman’s competition?” I grabbed the corner of his seat and leaned forward so I could hear better.

  “It means they silently try to outdo each other while pretending it’s a normal day,” Bria said, stowing her phone. “Ego at work, if you will.”

  “What happened in there?” Mordecai asked as we left the neighborhood and turned onto a road that would wind down the hill, hugging the cliffs.

  I quickly went through everything, trying to skip the part in Kieran’s bedroom. I should’ve known Bria wasn’t finished with me yet.

  “Did you use a condom?” she asked suddenly.

  “Shhh,” I said, my face flaming again.

  “Why? You don’t want Jack to know?” Bria glanced back. “Trust me, it’s obvious. You’ve got that glow of a good lay. You can’t hide that shit.”

  “Would you stop?” I lightly jerked my head at a wide-eyed Mordecai.

  Bria laughed and turned back around. “That kid is edging into the Wild West of hormones. If he’s not already thinking about sex daily, he will be soon. The best thing you can do is keep everything out in the open so there are no secrets, and so he’ll know to use protection. You used protection, right?”

  “Talking about sex is not the problem,” I muttered. “It’s him knowing I gave in when I really shouldn’t have.”

  “What did you do?” Mordecai asked me.

  “Well, the cat is out of the bag now.” Bria glanced back again, and I swear I wanted to throw myself from the moving car out of pure mortification. Or maybe I wanted to throw her out of the car. I’d never been shy when talking to the kids about these things, but in the past, I hadn’t been talking about my life.

  I sucked it up. I was a role model, no matter how unqualified. I needed to set an example.

  “I’m covered. The pill is free when you’re below poverty level, and he’s a Demigod—he can’t give or receive STDs. It was safe. I was safe.”

  I lifted my chin, feigning confidence and trying to hide my embarrassment.

  “He didn’t use a condom?” Jack glanced back, shock written clearly on his face.

  We descended the hillside, now overlooking the strip of beach pounded by messy, windswept waves. Swirling fog clouded the sky, promising a crappy beach-going experience. An experience Valens must have purposely cultivated, because back when the picture had been taken, he’d kept this area as clear and lovely as the rest of the magical zone. He didn’t want people down here.

  Butterflies surged through my belly. That information had just increased the likelihood that we were right.

  “Did he ask you if you were on the pill?” Bria asked, cutting through my nervous excitement.

  “He might know,” Jack said. “He’s been thorough when it comes to her.”

  “Yeah, but…she could sabotage the situation,” Bria murmured as we pulled into the sandy parking lot. A small smattering of cars and trucks dotted the lot, most of them pushed up right next to the walkway overlooking the beach.

  “He clearly trusts her.” Jack put the car into park.

  “Yes, he does, doesn’t he?” Bria shoved open the door, and before she was fully out, I heard, “Toot, toot.”

  I sighed and followed them out of the car. What a mess.

  “Right, so…” Jack stopped on the walkway, littered with trash and piled with sand where the sidewalk met the graffiti-marred barrier, a semi-circular wall to keep any extreme swells or rises in tide from washing out onto the street above. At a break in the barrier, steps led down to the windswept beach.

  Bria looked first one way down the sidewalk, then the other, before eyeing the barrier itself. “I’ve always thought this area was neglected because it’s right next to the dual-society zone. But now I’m starting to wonder…”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” I said as I descended the four steps onto the rocky, trash-strewn sand. “People rarely come out here for pleasure. They go over to the other side of the point where the weather is good.”

  “Then what are these cars doing here?” Mordecai asked, gesturing around us.

  “Some are fisherman, and some…” Bria glanced at a beat-up motorhome. “Are probably doing drugs. Speaking of which, I need to grab my car.”

  “Thane took care of it,” Jack said with a smirk. “He dropped it at your house. You’re at our mercy now.” Violence glimmered in his dark eyes. A shiver ran the length of my body.

  Bria laughed, chugging through the sand beside me. “Sure, sure. Keep thinking you’ve got the upper hand. Let me know how that works out for you. Better yet, I’ll let you know how it’ll work out for you…when you least expect it.”

  Cold moisture touched my cheeks and slid across my skin, the fog so thick it felt like a sprinkle. Swirling sheets of gray obscured my
vision. Large, half-burnt pieces of driftwood hunkered in the sand as we passed. The hard-packed wet sand bore evidence of the beach’s desolation. There were no footprints.

  “It’s like some dystopian scene,” Bria whispered, looking out toward the cliffs.

  The boom of a wave crashing against rocks interrupted the wind blowing against the shell of my ear. A rumble followed, the waves rolling down along the sand break.

  “I hit this beach every so often,” Jack said, squinting through the fog to the cliff on our right, the one in the picture. “Never this far down, though. The base of that cliff face is really rocky, from what I remember. It gets hit with some hard currents and rip tides. If you got caught up in it, it’ll slash you up pretty good. Through the shifts in the fog over there”—he pointed—“it looks like a washing machine. All that white means keep out, rough seas.”

  “Could Valens get in there and leave a trunk or something?” Bria put her hand up to shield her eyes, as though the sun were the problem and not a thick sheet of fog.

  “He could, yeah. Easy.” Jack worked at the buttons on his shirt. “He could just still the waters and swim on out there. Or push the water aside and walk. He’s a descendent of the god of the sea. He has power over—”

  “Right, yes. We got it,” Bria cut in.

  “Pushing the water away,” I said, nodding. “That would make it easy. He could get someone across to refresh the spell on the skin. The treacherous area makes it safe, because even if someone wanted to check it out, they wouldn’t be able to because of what Jack said.” I blew out a breath and ran my fingers through my hair. “Which means we don’t have much but a hunch. Kieran will have to…”

  Jack shrugged out of his shirt, displaying his robust chest and huge arms. He unhooked the clasp on his pants and pushed them down his muscular thighs. His underwear quickly followed.