Sigils and spells, p.73
Sigils & Spells, page 73
The vampire shrugged.
“He’s a tough guy,” I continued, “and … trust me, my opinions don’t matter to him.”
Alessandro scoffed. “Men don’t always say what they mean, Rebel. You need to learn that.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t about to discuss my man problems with a dead one who was blackmailing me. “Have you tried looking for Onyx?”
“What do you think? I tried to contact him in every possible way. Onyx is gone, and you need to stop the Fang Hunter on your own.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“But I’m a bibliophile, not a detective.”
He leaned closer. The coppery scent of human blood dangled on his breath. “Do I need to remind you what is at stake for you?”
I groaned. Alessandro knew my deepest, darkest secret. If people found out what I had done, I would be destroyed. He leveraged this knowledge to get me to start an academy for his wayward progeny and continued to hold it over me so that I would do his bidding.
During his long undead life, Alessandro had collected and traded many people’s secrets using them for his own purposes. It was like a hobby for him, and one had made him powerful and rich. I understood that, but I sure didn’t like him holding my life in his hands.
“Alessandro, you can’t—”
His jaw hardened for a beat, and then he spoke in his solemn voice. “If you don’t eliminate this threat to the students, I will consider our contract terminated.” His jaw firmed. “You know what that means. I will tell everyone your secret.”
I nodded, too afraid to trust my voice.
“Rebel?”
“How can I?” My mind reeled at the prospect of having to find the villain on my own. “Can I go into the tunnels?” Alessandro had taken over an underground network of passageways and caverns created by smugglers in the nineteenth centuries to move black market tobacco, booze, and drugs. It hadn’t been used in decades, but his band of night creatures had renovated it to suit their needs.
It’s how they got around town, how they escaped the sun, and where they fed most of the time. The student and staff residences had been built down there as well. I had been asking for a tour since we opened but had been denied each time I asked.
“No, not now,” he said, and then in almost a whisper, “Not ever.”
“Alessandro!”
“No, Rebel. The world below the academy is not a place for mortal beings.”
“But that’s where the crime was committed. How do you expect me to solve this case when I can’t even witness the scene?”
He shrugged. “Talk to the students and staff. They live down there. They will give you all the information you need.”
“But if I could just see—”
“No.” He folded his arms. His predator stare grew so intense I thought I might sizzle beneath it. “Under no circumstances are you to step below the ground level of the academy.”
I swallowed. “Okay. I will respect your boundaries.”
“And?” he said in a gravelly voice that raked my senses.
“I will find the Fang Hunter,” I said.
“Forty-eight hours.” Alessandro stood. “I’ll give you forty-eight hours. You work best on a timeline. Get this done.”
“Impossible.”
He tilted his head. “Thirty-six then.”
CHAPTER 4
Tick tock –the timeline to hell had begun.
The next morning after I had consumed a pot of coffee, I descended to my office on Fangsters’ ground floor and penned a to-do list. My body still hurt from the big brawl at the joint, but I didn’t have time to worry about my personal pain. More important things were going on in my world. I had become a tooth fairy—well, a fang fairy. Whatever. I had to protect Fangsters from a Fang Hunter. They were my students, whatever their specie, and no one was going to hurt them.
To-Do List
1 Contact a lawyer in case Dakota presses criminal charges.
2 Have René (our resident genius about everything) crack the CCTV data at Murphy’s Bar and send me the footage of Dakota finding his flat tires. A woman has to have some fun in her day.
3 Send Onyx a warm friendly cryptic non-apologetic apology message. Tell him I want need him back to deal with a security issue. Wave an olive branch with the condition he stay out of my private life.
4 Wait twenty minutes for a reply and then send an official academy request to Onyx demanding his assistance, stating there is no one better—anywhere in the realm—to neutralize a Fang Hunter. (I gagged as I wrote this sentence.)
6 Talk to the police.
7 Get one of my sisters to brew a pain-killing potion for my killer of a headache before I kill someone.
Where the hex was Onyx? He drove me crazy in so many ways, but I needed him. I thought about how angry he looked when I used my magic to throw him across the room and against the wall, and how he had walked off in a huff. I thought we would make up soon enough, but maybe I was wrong about that. Maybe, the fanged one had feelings. Is that what Alessandro had tried to tell me?
I closed my eyes as I thought of him. Onyx was a super-hot guy. As I told my sisters he looked like Ryan Reynolds with bangs—and fangs. Being a dhamphyre—that is a predator with a vampire father and mortal mother—he lived in an in-between world. He wasn’t dead or immortal, but he would live a very long life. Daylight didn’t bother him, and his diet included food from all the realms as well as blood. Understanding both the mortal and immortal cultures he was the perfect security man for the academy and that’s why Alessandro had chosen him. He just wasn’t the perfect housemate for me. We fought a lot.
Needing to get on with playing detective, I read my to-do list out loud. Had I left anything out?
Harvey shrugged and said nothing, which said a lot.
The list covered everything, but it didn’t feel like it did. I grumbled. This was not a day I looked forward to living in the house of the undead.
Harvey, who lounged in a chair in the corner of my office, cleared his throat. “Please, don’t think that. You know what happens when you do.”
“Things get worse.” I smiled grimly. “I know I’m tempting the Fates. But things can’t possibly get worse this time.”
A raucous caw drew my attention to my open window. The raven had returned. When I looked his way, he made a clucking sound.
“Well, good morning to you too, my friend.” I saw him every day, sometimes at my bedroom window and sometimes here in my office. I figured he was hungry, so I left him breadcrumbs on pretty little dishes.
“But he doesn’t eat them,” said Harvey, sounding as smug as ever. “May I remind you ravens are known for pecking out the eyes of dying men?”
“So, you tell me.” Every day.
“I can show you pictures,” Harvey added.
“Stop glaring at him. Maybe he’ll start eating when he feels more comfortable with us.”
“You want to train a wild bird of prey?
“No, that’s not it. I just think it’s hospitable to offer food to a guest.”
“Hmm. Cuz training men is something you’re so good at.” Harvey muttered his words, but I heard them well enough.
And I laughed. “Maybe I should try cookies instead of bread?
“How about cake?”
“There’s an idea.”
“I was joking.”
I scoffed.
Someone pounded on the academy’s front door, and my heart skipped a beat. Who would be visiting me in the daylight?
I exhaled slowly. “You better not be right about things getting worse,” I said to Harvey.
I got up, but before I could take a step, I heard the front door crash open. A second later my office door smashed into the wall. Two big men strode towards me with fire in their eyes. With a sigh, I sat down and folded my hands on my lap.
Of course, it would be them. Only family would disturb my peace at—I glanced at the clock on my phone—six in the morning. My two brothers-in-laws marched to my desk as if the mahogany piece of furniture were an enemy to be seized and stared down their official noses at me. If I didn’t love them, I might have squirmed. But I knew their growls to be worse than their bites, at least as far as I was concerned.
On the right stood Gavin McGee, my sister Jane’s werewolf mate. He was the norm police chief in Mystic Keep, a big guy built to handle trouble. The glint in his eye made me cringe. Clearly, he considered me to be a problem. No one messed with the peace in his small town. His official blue uniform fit snugly over his muscular frame but didn’t hide his scuffed cowboy boots. He growled loud enough to shake my teaching license hanging on the wall behind me.
“Good morning, to you too,” I said.
Standing to his left, Donovan O’Reilly quirked a black brow. A warlock warrior with a legendary reputation, he had married my oldest sister, Merlina. He tossed back his magical cloak over his shoulder, revealing a lean, hard body fitted with top-of-the-line battle gear. No doubt this was an instinctual move he used to intimidate people he interrogated, but it did little to impress me. I had heard him coo to his baby son a few nights ago and knew just how soft a heart hid beneath the Kevlar gear.
Donovan’s Irish blue eyes sizzled with anger. “Rebel! This place is trouble.”
“And so are you two,” I said.
I glanced from one to the other and smiled. “I was just about to call you.” I figured that would make them feel better, as they were always telling me I should rely on them.
“There’s been nothing but problems since this place opened,” said Gavin. His nose wiggled as if he picked up a scent.
“Ah come on. That’s not completely true,” I said. There was never a dull night in my school for delinquent vampire teenagers, but we weren’t the only source of trouble. I cleared my throat. “We all know the real truth. There’s been unrest in Mystic Keep before I came to town. Ever since it became a haven for magic folk trouble has stirred. My school is just a … touch of whip cream on that sundae.”
Donovan pinched the bridge of his nose. “We were told there’s been an incident here.”
“Who contacted you?”
“It was an anonymous tip,” said Gavin, his gaze drifted to the window and whipped back to me. “But since your phone is off, we decided to pay you a personal visit.”
They both stared at me.
I looked past them at Harvey, still sitting in the corner. He shrugged.
“Perhaps you would like to sit down for this,” I said as I opened the file on my desk.
Donovan sat on the edge of my desk with a grumble. Gavin strolled to the window and stared outside.
“I was away for one day and one night,” I said. “When I came back…” I stopped to take a deep breath. “I found this file folder on my desk.” I didn’t tell them about Alessandro visiting me because that would raise their hackles. The less they knew about my relationship with him, the better. They knew Alessandro bankrolled Fangsters, but they didn’t know he’d blackmailed me to run it.
“Where did you go?” muttered Gavin.
I huffed. “Seattle, not that it matters.”
“Is that where you got the black eye?” asked Donovan.
Dang it all, I thought my make-up and witch charm hid the bruises, but warlocks have sharp eyes that can see below all of that. It’s as if they smell wounds. “That’s not important right now.” I waved my hand in the air.
“Seattle, eh.” Gavin glanced my way. “Isn’t that where the Ass Hat lives?” Ass Hat was Gavin’s pet name for Dakota. One of the many reasons I loved the werewolf.
“Yeah.”
Donovan stiffened. “He hit you?”
“No. No. I got this from a hysterical woman in the joint. Can we get back to business?”
Gavin snickered. “The joint? Do you mean jail? You?”
Donovan leaned toward me and sniffed. “She tells the truth.”
Gavin pulled out his phone and started tapping.
I cleared my throat. “As I said, my trip is not important.”
Donovan tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear. “It’s a real shiner, honey.”
“Hah,” said Gavin. “Here’s the truth. Our dear little sister was arrested last night for mischief. Apparently, she was caught slitting tires in the parking lot of Murphy’s bar.”
Donovan chuckled. “My, my, Rebel, you’ve been naughty. Hanging around vampires is turning you … wicked.”
I closed my eyes. My cheeks burned. “Can we talk business?”
Gavin kept tapping on his phone. “Her charges are pending, but she was supposed to appear in a Seattle court this morning. What do you think, Donovan? Shall we report her?”
“An escapee? Oh, this is getting even better. Wait until I tell Merlina.”
“No!” I jumped up and planted my fists on my hips. “You need to listen to me. I need help.”
“You’re a mild-mannered witch running a school for gangsters who bite. Why would you need help?” said Donovan with a sly smile.
Then it happened. I couldn’t help myself. I’m not that powerful a sorceress, but when I get angry, really angry, energy flows out of my body and effects the electric grid. It’s just a thing that happens, and I can’t control it. The lights in my office flashed on and off.
Gavin laughed. “Yup, she’s in trouble.” He returned to my desk and folded his body into a guest chair to face me.
Donovan eased himself into the other chair. “Tell us,” he ordered in his authoritarian voice that had led supernatural armies in battle.
My stomach twisted. “One of my students was assaulted.”
“While you were in the clinker?” said Gavin.
“Where was Onyx?” asked Donovan.
I sighed. “Here’s the thing … Onyx is missing, and I need to fix a missing fang problem. I can’t talk to any of the vampires until dark. So maybe you guys can help me.”
“Hmm,” they grumbled in unison like a boy-band chorus. “You have a fang problem?”
“Yes. There’s a Fang Hunter in town. All the information I have is in this file,” I explained.
CHAPTER 5
Before I could look in the file, Norman, my norm janitor tapped on my open office door and entered with a tray of coffee. He was a middle-aged man with wispy salt and pepper hair and a paunch dressed in a blue flannel shirt and jeans. My brothers glared at him for the intrusion.
“Don’t bite me,” he said. That was his standard line. It usually worked well, but these guys were a hard audience.
They shook their heads in disbelief.
I bit back a laugh. “Thanks, Norm.”
As he put the tray down on my desk, the three ceramic mugs rattled. Norm glanced at the file. “I see you’re busy. I’ll leave you to it.”
When the door clicked behind Norm, Gavin’s brow furrowed. “Who is that guy?”
“The janitor. Onyx hired him weeks ago.”
“Since when does a janitor deliver coffee?” asked Donovan.
“And how did he know how many mugs to bring?” added Gavin.
“Hey, stop complaining. I trust him. And, it’s free coffee,” I poured a cup and gave it to Gavin. “Norm has grown protective of me during the day, because the vampires are all resting. He keeps an eye on any visitors coming or going. It’s sweet, really.” Though I guessed he was paid to make reports to Onyx.
Gavin grunted.
“Take the coffee.” I handed him a cup. “Whatever’s in this file will be easier to face with caffeine.”
Gavin examined his mug. It was one of my favorites, with the words Vampires Suck written in red text that dripped as if it were dipped in blood. A faint smile lightened his expression as he studied the slogan. He took a gulp. “Tell us about the Fang Hunter.”
Donovan groaned but didn’t refuse the coffee handed to him. It was a red mug, with a black silhouette of Dracula dancing across the words, The Fangdango.
I lifted my mug in a silent toast and took a sip. Pure heaven. Norm had been bringing me coffee every morning since he started working in the academy. We’d swap stories. He would tell me about the old days when he was an engineer on the trains, or of his many travels to the Arctic. Since one man couldn’t experience that much adventure in one lifetime, I doubted all his tales were true, but I didn’t care how much he stretched the truth. I enjoyed his tales. They had become a thing that made living in the house of the rising dead feel more normal. The saying on my cup was Good to the last bite. I smiled and took another sip.
Gavin got up, locked my office door, and returned to his seat. “So, what’s in the file?”
“A summary report and a flash drive.”
Donovan nodded. “Read it.”
“Incident Report, Friday, filed by René @ sunrise.” I stopped. “You remember René, right?”
“He’s the brainy one,” said Gavin. “With the French accent that makes women purr.”
Donovan nodded. “The savant who runs a gambling business. I recall you saying it was motivational, but I think he’s skirting around a lot of inter-realm laws.” He grimaced. “Yeah, we know all about René.”
I didn’t like his tone, so I stopped to take a long drink of my coffee just to annoy him. It burned my tongue. I continued to read.
“Observations: When we arose at sunset, Xiu, who rests next to me, was missing a fang. It had been pulled.
Victim: Xiu, thirty-year-old vampire of Chinese descent, appears sixteen, slim, healthy, smart—maybe too smart. Sired by Alessandro, he is always in trouble with the norms. His last mistake was passing counterfeit one-hundred-dollar bills to a gang of mobsters in Chicago. They chained him to a cement wall in a duplex and took wagers on how long he could last without blood. Alessandro rescued him and brought him here.
Investigation: Terror spread quickly below ground. Someone had come into our dorm, assaulted Xiu, and escaped seemingly unnoticed. Unable to locate Onyx or Rebel, I took over the role of head of security. I interviewed all the students and faculty. You can find recordings of the interviews on the thumb drive.
