by Michele Hauf
“Then you have to find another means of sacrifice. And quickly. The blood moon is soon upon us.” He crossed his arms and turned to study Tor, who still stood outside, back to them, observing Duck waddle about the yard. “And the day after the full moon, the heart gets returned to the Archives.”
“If there’s anything left of it. I mean—” Mel avoided his questioning gaze. “Yes. Promise.” She crossed her heart, a binding that all witches took very seriously. “And Tor is protecting me, so everything is good.”
“That man is not an ally.”
“Nor is he a foe.”
CJ lifted a brow. “True enough. But he got in my way a few years back—”
“He’s helping the Jones family now. Accept that.”
“Very well. But he is merely human. I’d be much more accepting if you had someone with actual skills or magic to protect you.”
“Tor has skills. He knows his way around a weapon and how to keep his clients safe. You know that well. He protected that vampire tribe from your dark magic.”
“Indeed.” CJ rubbed his jaw. He’d lost to Tor, but he should have never taken on the entire tribe in the first place. Her uncle wasn’t always kind or benevolent. In fact, his magic was often malevolent.
“I looked in your eyes outside on the steps. I saw the new female revenant,” CJ said. “Is that about the heart, as well?”
“The revenant vampires are a different situation Tor has been dealing with. A human woman was bitten and—she had to be slain. We’re not sure those vamps’ presence in Paris are related to Hecate’s heart.”
She was pretty sure they were. But Mel had a hard time assigning blame to the innocent woman who’d been victimized.
“I don’t like this. It’s too sketchy. Maybe I should do the spell.”
“I can do this, Uncle CJ. I have to do this. I know Amaranthe the best.” She splayed her palm so he could see the scar on it. “We had a bond like no one else in this family.”
He nodded. The man was a twin to her father, and his sons were twins. They each had a bond that was inexplicable. Though she and Amaranthe were not twins, they had formed an equal bond through a blood ritual when they were little. A cut on each palm, some magic words and the desire to never be apart and to always have one another’s back. Was such a bond unbreakable? Death had broken her physical bond to Amaranthe. And spiritually, she had not been able to communicate with her ghost. It seemed only her mother could see and hear Amaranthe.
But she would do what she must to reaffirm their bond. Even if it killed one of them. Again.
CJ peered out the patio windows. “What is he doing out there?”
Tor was now prodding the toe of his shoe at the edge of the garden where the dirt had been pushed up. “Uh, I had an issue with zombie dogs.”
“There’s no such thing as zombies, Lissa.”
“You see? You and Tor do have a common bond. You both have the same belief. But trust me, when the dead rise from their dirt beds, I call it like I see it. Zombies.”
CJ scratched his head. “Disturbing. I’m going to look into that. And I’m going to have a few words with the man digging through your clematis.”
Mel caught her uncle by the arm as he headed toward the patio doors. “Just chill, all right? He’s helping me. He didn’t want to, but he is. Don’t do anything to piss him off.”
“We’ll see.” He shrugged out of her grasp and headed outside.
* * *
Not a day ago, Tor had stood in this same spot and had felt the same creep of dread crawl up his neck as the other half of the notorious Jones twins had come out to the yard to give him a piece of his mind.
He’d expected a conversation with the dark witch. The time a few years back when he had successfully defended a tribe of vampires against CJ’s dark magic, Tor had not spoken personally to the man about it. The witch had been so enraged, he’d charged off before Tor could offer his side of the story. He’d been hired to protect clients. He did his job well. Even if they were vampires.
Vampires were not inherently evil. Most humans would not be able to pick them out of a lineup, and some might even have vampire friends without knowing it. They blended in, and they insinuated themselves into the mortal realm because they chose to do so. They did not need to kill for blood to survive; a drink every few weeks sustained them. And transforming a human to vampire was not a requirement to get that sustaining blood.
Tor straightened his tie as the witch approached him from behind. A glance to the house confirmed the bag he’d tucked behind a wicker chair was barely visible.
“Listen, bloke,” Tor started. “Your niece hired me to protect her, and I’m going to do that.”
“Lissa is paying you?”
Tor nodded.
“Don’t take any money from her. Send me your bill. Got that?”
“Of course. Thank you.” And her dad had offered the same. He’d sort it out later. “I promise you I will be the first to make sure that annoying heart is back in your hands on Monday morning after the spell is completed.”
“Funny, I would have thought you’d keep it for your Agency.”
“I’m not head of that organization anymore. Dez Merovech has taken it over, and as it is, the Agency has its hands full. Hecate’s heart belongs in the Archives. That’s where it will be returned.”
“I appreciate that. The Archives is a repository for dark magic. Your Agency is still so young, untested with handling such vile objects.”
“We fare very well. You’d be surprised the objects we have in storage. And apparently, under much better security and surveillance than in the Archives.”
The witch lifted his chin at that dig. It had been deserved. Tor was tiring of being confronted by pissed-off dark witches. He wasn’t working for them. Mel was his client. And he would defend her against her own family if he had to.
“Lissa is no expert on handling such magic,” CJ said. “I don’t want to stand back and let her do this alone, but I respect her decision to take it over when it might have been left in my brother’s hands.”
“She knows what she’s doing. And if she doesn’t, I’ll be there to pick up the pieces.”
“Yes, well, we’ve figured out why her cloaking spells have not been effective. In order to access dark magic, a witch must show it she means business.”
“And how does Mel go about that?”
“That’s for her to figure out.” CJ narrowed his gaze on Tor. “Do you really know what you’ve gotten into, Rindle?”
“Of course. I’ve handled it all, from vamps and weres, to harpies and unicorns. And now mother-freakin’ zombies. Trust me, I’ve got this one covered.”
“Yeah?” The witch’s gaze averted to the talisman at Tor’s hip. “What about ghosts?”
Chapter 16
Seething from what Certainly Jones had told him, Tor marched around the side of Mel’s house, stomped on a climbing vine that tried to trip him up, and took the front steps in a leap. Once through the front door, he stalked down the hallway to find her standing before the fridge holding a bunch of celery.
“What part about I don’t do ghosts did you not understand?” he asked.
Mel’s jaw dropped open. The celery hit the counter, and she clasped her hands before her. “Tor, I couldn’t tell you that part.”
“Why? Because you’re keeping secrets? Because you have to do something weird and strange to make your dark magic take hold? What else haven’t you told me?”
“I’ve told you everything. At least, everything that I could. I didn’t think it was important to mention the part about my sister being a ghost because, well, first, I thought you’d figure it out. And second, if you didn’t, it wasn’t important because you wouldn’t ever have to deal with her, anyway. And I don’t know what your deal with ghosts is. You only said I don’t do ghosts. How’s a girl
supposed to interpret that vague statement?”
“Vague?” Tor resisted fisting his fingers, but it was a struggle.
The nerve of her to keep important information from him. And he had generously agreed to help her, even after he’d decided against doing protection work.
When she started to speak again, he put up a palm between them. “Enough. Let me state this one more time, loudly and clearly. I. Don’t. Do. Ghosts.”
“I got that, but—”
He shook his finger at her. “No. No more buts. If you can’t be truthful with me and respect my one small caveat, then I’m out of here.”
He swung around and sailed down the hallway. Expecting her to rush after him, he fled out the front door and slammed it behind him.
He marched out to the van without turning around to see if she’d be peeking out the window at him or yelling for his return.
She had broken a rule that he had adhered to for years. And he couldn’t conceive of relenting now.
* * *
Mel turned toward the counter and caught her head in her hands. Tor had every right to charge out all angry and alpha. Which is why she hadn’t run after him. She’d wanted to. But her only excuse would have been because she felt desperate and had lied to keep him on the job.
She hadn’t lied to him; she just hadn’t divulged all the details.
He wasn’t going to protect her anymore?
She glanced to the plastic container sitting next to the celery on the counter. Ugly things had surfaced, attracted to that heart.
“What if they come for me?” she whispered.
Jerking her gaze to all the windows, she looked for moving shadows in the grayness caused by the setting sun. She might like to think she was strong. She might even think she could invoke the dark magic required to save her mother’s life. But she wasn’t brave. And any courage she had had just marched out the front door.
Bruce came into view, hovering near her left shoulder.
“What are we going to do, Bruce? He left. I don’t have a big, strong man with weapons to protect me should something evil and dead charge through my front door. The doors! We’ve got to batten down the hatches.”
Bruce moved over to the chair in the dining room.
“Right!” After slapping her palms together, Mel began to move furniture. A few magical words and gestures lifted the heavy chairs, which were carried down the hallway to park before the front door. And...she’d have to blockade the kitchen door and the patio, as well as the spell room. “We’ve got our work cut out for us, Bruce.”
* * *
Tor tossed the body bag with the revenant body into the incinerator and then kicked the machine’s on button that burned the contents to ash. A brand-new revenant didn’t ash, remaining in human form with death. Rather, a second death, since the person actually died as they transformed to vampire.
The majority of vampires—a good ninety-five percent of them—were alive. They did not die when bitten and then transform to vampire. The vampire taint was passed to the victim and then, with a massive blood exchange, they also became vamp.
No death. Hearts still beat. Blood still flowed.
Revenants were literally a dying breed amongst the species. Because it was difficult for anything that had already died to maintain life for long after death. But they could, and they did manage to blend in with humans surprisingly well. Save the obvious smell of decay and their voracious hunger for blood—that hunger being the only thing that kept them resembling aliveness and able to stand upright instead of falling apart like...
“A zombie,” he muttered as the flames flared before him.
Two different things, revenants and zombies. And he’d never believed zombies were real until he’d seen the dogs in Mel’s backyard. They existed. And he didn’t like it one bit.
The dead witch’s heart possessed some vile energy. He should have taken it from Mel that first night and been done with it. And now? Now the whole world had become a shit storm of dead things.
He walked out of the salvage yard, punched in the digital code to lock the gates and met the knight waiting at the back of his van with arms crossed. “You know all the spots, don’t you?” Rook asked.
“For disposal? That I do.” Such knowledge would never afford him a real job. A normal job. But a bloke didn’t need such expertise to sit behind a desk in a cubicle. He couldn’t wait for that to happen.
“This was a tribe,” Rook said as Tor went about removing the hazmat suit, hanging it up in the van and replacing his shoes. The usual after-disposal routine. “And I’m not sure we got them all.”
Rook had called Tor an hour earlier. He had been fighting revenants in the 18th. Tor had made it there in record time and had joined the knight. They’d slain eight vampires in a dark warehouse. Tor was confident no one had witnessed their actions. But he wasn’t sure the vampires had actually been nesting in the warehouse or if they’d just been trapped by the UV lights set up in a stand outside the building. Some local-artist exhibit was photographing graffiti on a time control, and the lights had been left on all night without supervision.
“What’s up with revenants in Paris?” Tor asked. “Aren’t they rare? And don’t they prefer unpopulated areas? Those things were wild, bloke. As close to animal as a vamp is going to get.”
“Yeah, I don’t know.” Rook winced. “The knights haven’t seen any revenant activity in over a decade. And those we just took out were all drones.” He closed one side of the van doors at Tor’s gesture. “No leaders present that I could determine. Mindless, yet hungry. Something is directing them. And I’m not sure I buy that it’s an old witch’s heart in a box.”
“Why not?”
“It doesn’t fit with the woman attacked the other day. That was purposeful. She was lured to the park and bitten.”
“Might have been the leader, creating new blood. That last one I burned was new, unable to ash with second death.”
“We can be thankful the older ones do ash. I don’t understand revenants,” Rook said. “They don’t survive long in a city. They are monsters. But they don’t decay like a zombie and can live undead for a long time. Years, even. To risk coming into the city was stunning.”
“Can they procreate?”
“No. It wouldn’t have made sense for them to change the woman with hopes of her birthing vampire children. Revenants don’t work that way. They all begin as humans, who then die and are brought back to life with the blood exchange. But to be safe, maybe we could get that heart under lock and key?”
“It’s needed for a full moon spell. Then it’s back to storage.”
“So the next day will be spent tracking dead things. Joy. The Order ranks in Paris are currently me, Kaz and Lark. And at the moment, both Kaz and Lark are on a business trip to Romania.”
Business trip? Such a euphemism was something Tor would use in his own fast-talking spiels. “Seriously? Romania? That’s about as cliché as it gets when it comes to vamps and slaying.”
“I don’t write it—I just slay what needs slaying.”
“So it’s just you and King in Paris right now?”
“King is...”
Tor didn’t need an explanation. The elusive founder of The Order of the Stake had recently been discovered to be vampire. Really. A vampire had founded the Order that slayed his own kind. King had been lying low. Though his knights had stood by him. Hell, he really was a former king of France, and despite his questionable authority, his Order did do a good job at slaying the vamps who needed slaying.
“I’ll help when I can,” Tor offered, “but I’m quitting the business.”
“Quitting?” Rook laughed. “That’s like me saying I’m going to pull on some yoga pants and start teaching classes outside in the park.”
Not a stretch for the knight who had been practicing yoga for centuries and was a y
oga master.
“I’m serious,” Tor said. “I’ve had enough of this crazy shit. I want...”
“You’ll never have normal, Tor. Trust me on that one. The things you’ve seen, known and done cannot be unseen, unknown or undone. There’s not a talisman big enough in this realm to make that happen.”
Tor clasped the quartz that hung from his belt. Rook knew what it did for him because he was the man who had introduced him to the witch who’d charmed it for him.
“Don’t we pay you enough?” Rook asked.
“It’s not the money. I have more than I’ll ever need. It’s...peace of mind.”
“Protecting innocent humans from the weird shit doesn’t give you peace?”
Tor sighed. It should. It did.
And it did not.
“If not this, then what the hell are you going to do with yourself?” Rook asked.
“I have an interview in a few days. Office stuff. Normal human cubicle stuff.”
Rook grasped his throat, mocking a choking motion, and stuck out his tongue.
“Have you ever tried the normal?” Tor challenged.
His cohort shrugged. “I’m no longer immortal. Gotta beware the vamp fangs as much as the next human. As for normal? What’s so great about that? If you ask me, I’d much prefer knowing than not knowing. And like I said, it’s too late to put that genie back in the bottle. Not unless you have a memory-loss spell. Which I’d highly recommend if you’re serious about this career change. Because you can give normal a try. But you’ll always know what’s out there.”
Again, Tor touched the crystal, its heavy weight reassuring. It had taken away his ability to see ghosts. A memory-loss spell? It was a good suggestion.
“I guess a man has to do what he has to do,” Rook conceded. “It’ll be tough not having you to call on when we need you.”
“You’ll find someone to replace me. I haven’t been doing much work for the Order the past few years anyway.”
