He worked through some of the paperwork piled on his desk. Information requests from the government on certain statistics, information for the PIB databases, and any cases that might pertain to the vampires in the territory. Luckily for him, this had been his territory for a few hundred years, and he’d kept it pretty clean from riffraff that would break human laws. And if they did, they’d be better off dealing with PIB than him. He’d executed his fair share without the help of the human courts.
He stopped at a letter that had been at the bottom of the pile. “Dear Sir, it has come to my attention that there is a new drug roaming the streets, one specifically meant for supernatural creatures, mixed with magic. Several overdose victims have shown up in the hospital. Either take care of it, or I will bring PIB in. Sincerely, Grayson Yorkingson.
He looked at the date on the later. A week ago. Why couldn’t the vampire pick up a phone and call him about it? Levi put the letter aside and looked up when his security system chimed letting him know that someone just walked in. Abigail.
“Levi?” Her voice came from the hallway, and he walked out of the office. She’d pulled her hair back at some point, making her look a lot more like Elizabeth than usual. There was just something about the look on her face that reminded him of her mother. Her height, however, she’d gotten from him.
“Ah, Abigail, I see you’ve brought me my package.” At the thought of the item, he felt a new wave of emotion flood through him with a hint of bloodlust, reminding him that he needed to feed tonight.
“Of course. I see you haven’t fed for the night.” So she had seen the flash in his eyes. He tried to keep it from her, but as of late he found it harder to hide it. He took the box from her and opened the lid just enough. He smiled at the thought of her legacy written on the pages of the Book of Shadows her mother and Tobias kept. The leather of the book didn’t look worn or damaged in any way. He’d put the book in storage and given it little thought until he realized that he wanted to give it to Abigail for her birthday in a couple years. He had Clarissa go and fetch it for him so he could make sure that it was still in good condition.
“Anything else you need tonight? If not, I need to get to work on a case.”
“The exploding barn one that I saw on the news? I do hope you weren’t in the barn or near it.” He met her gaze. He’d seen her near the explosion while watching the news, but he would give her a moment to confess what happened and not call her out on it.
“My magic may have set off a magical bomb.”
“Abigail.” His voice was sharper than he meant it. She usually had perfect control over her magic and shouldn’t have set off magical traps.
“I wasn’t hurt. The detective wasn’t hurt. I don’t see what the big deal is.” She crossed her arms. “I’m not a child, and you were the one who told me to work for the state.”
He’d only told her to go work for them because she had been so stubborn about any other option he presented. “An explosion can kill you. Guns, swords, shifters, all of those you can take care of with magic.”
“Don’t worry. I handled it with magic. Back to my task at hand. Anything that you need me to take care of?”
“Simon is in the back room. He’s been going on about magic in his bar. Make an appointment with him to check the wards.” It was one of the things he agreed to when it came to having a treaty with the pack. He would have a witch put the wards on the bar to keep it hidden from the humans, as long as the occasional wolf helped him out.
“Can’t Simon find another witch?”
“He specifically requested you, Abigail. I suggest that you be nice. He’s one of the strongest— ” he tried to remind her, but she cut him off.
“Wolves in the territory, I know, I know. I’ll play nice, but I’m taking my gun.”
Levi rolled his eyes. Her first reaction was almost always to protect herself with her guns. “It would not hurt you to go out on a date with him.”
“Says you.” She seemed to cringe. “He makes my magic itch.”
“I’m starting to think anything with a penis makes your magic itch.” He tried not to sound exasperated. She needed someone to watch out for her. Someone that he could eventually trust with her secrets. Simon would be a good match for her.
“Just because I’d rather work than fuck, doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with me.”
“You might loosen up a bit if you did.” Levi waved her away. “Go talk to Simon. I need to take care of this.” He motioned to the package. She wandered off to find Simon, and he went the opposite direction to put the book in his office.
He opened the box and put the book on his desk and stared at it. He couldn’t open it because of the spell on it, but he knew what it held. He’d seen it many times as Elizabeth poured over it looking for spells or adding new ones. When it came to the family tree inside it, she begged to put his name down as Abigail’s father.
The memory hit him hard.
“Because you are her father. Even if Tobias raises her. It’s your blood that runs through her. She’ll have to know the truth one day, Levi.”
He put his hand on the page, over the tree. “No, Elizabeth, we can’t risk it. We can’t risk anyone knowing that she is my actual child. Too many people already know, Ira, Oliver.” He shook his head. “Tobias. It’s only time until my maker knows and he’ll want her. Just like Ira wants her.”
“So she’ll never know you?”
The tone of her voice broke his heart. “You knew how we were going to handle it if she lived. Please, don’t make my guilt worse.” He could smell the tears before he saw them. He pulled her into his arms and held her. “My dearest Elizabeth.”
She leaned her head into his chest. “Our daughter though. Tobias…”
“Is a good man and he’ll make sure to take care of you both. Abigail can never know.”
He let her go so she could turn around. She took the pen and wrote down Tobias’ name and then Abigail, her hand hesitated at the last name and Levi sighed. “Collins. Promise me?”
“Collins. Will you tell her when the time comes?”
“If a time ever comes that she has to know, yes. I will do anything to protect her, even lie to her.” He kissed Elizabeth gently on the lips. “No matter what, you three will be taken care of.”
She turned away from him and shut the book. “Does it pain you?”
“That I’ll be watching someone else raise my daughter? Yes. I’ve always wanted children, and now I have one that I cannot raise.”
Levi put a hand to his heart as he tried to push the memory away. Little had he known he’d get to raise Abby, but only as his adopted child and at the cost of Elizabeth’s life.
He put the book up in a drawer and walked out of the room. He paused outside the lounge where Abby and Simon were talking.
“Can I interest you in dinner?” Simon asked.
“Sorry, I ate on the way up here.” There was no hesitation in Abby’s voice. “Tomorrow night? For the wards, I mean, about eight?”
Levi shook his head and started down the hall. Another failed attempt at a date. Maybe he could do it the old fashion way and just start signing up suitors for her. He heard Simon come out of the lounge and head towards him.
Levi turned around to face the wolf. “No luck on dinner?”
“Obviously you overheard, but yeah, no luck. I don’t know what else to do. She’s not interested, and I think you pushing too much more is just going to make her angry.”
Levi shrugged. “Maybe so, but in my time, she’d have been married with a family by now.”
“Welcome to the modern world, Levi. It doesn’t work that way anymore.” Simon chuckled. “Since that was a big fail, I’m heading out.”
Levi nodded and watched Simon continue down the hall toward the entrance. Meanwhile, he heard Abby’s soft footsteps heading the opposite direction toward the library. He followed her and looked in the doorway.
She was looking longingly at the photo he kept of her with
Elizabeth and Tobias.
“They’d be proud of you.”
She jumped a little bit when he spoke. “I know. I just wish they were here to guide me.”
He snorted. “On what?”
“How not to get nearly blown up by magic, how not to get caught and charged with warding a bar from humans, and maybe how to be normal.” He didn’t miss the note of sarcasm there.
“Normal isn’t an option for you anymore.” It never has been. “Are you sure you don’t want to add how to get a date to that list?”
She rolled her eyes and glanced at the books, and he found himself grateful that he hadn’t decided to keep the Book of Shadows there. “Nope. I take it you heard me turn Simon down.”
“I did. And he told me that you turned him down again.” He couldn’t keep the irritation from his voice. “He’d be able to protect you if—“
“If what?” Her eyes grew wide. “Oh no, no, no, no. You are not setting this up as a betrothal thing.”
“If something happens to me. You can’t push everyone away, Abigail.”
“I don’t need someone to protect me, Leviticus.”
His eyes flashed red at the use of his full name.
“The answer is no. I’m not going to force a relationship just because you think I need one so that I am protected.”
“You are such a stubborn human.” Just like her mother.
“I’m a witch,” she snapped back and then went back to the spines of the notebooks. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to get done. I’ll be down in the chamber for most of the night.”
He didn’t say anything, but disappeared, taking himself back to his office and cursing her independence.
Levi sat at his desk and looked at the letter that Agent Yorkingson had sent him. He needed to look into this vampire and this drug in his territory. If it had been a human, he wouldn’t have worried about it. Magic infused drugs were new, but if it was killing people, he couldn’t have that.
The doorbell rang, and he paused in his motions. No one ever rang the doorbell at the mansion. He looked at the security screen and saw a young man standing there. Levi let out an annoyed sigh and took himself to the front door. He flung it opened and stared at the man.
“What?”
To his credit, the man didn’t flinch at the hardness in his voice.
“I have a message to deliver to Abigail Collins. I was told that I could find her here if she wasn’t at home.”
His words set off a warning in Levi’s mind. “You went to her home?”
“Yes, to give her this.” He held up an envelope.
Levi held his hand out. “Give it to me. I’ll make sure she gets it.”
“No,” he said carefully. “My instructions are to deliver it to her directly. That’s what I was paid for.” He took a step forward.
“You won’t step foot in this mansion without me ripping your throat out. Now, if you want her to get the message, I will give it to her, and if not, then you can leave.”
The man debated for a moment and then handed Levi the letter before turning around on his heels and marching back down to the driveway.
Levi shut the door and opened the envelope. Runes were written on the paper. He’d seen similar ones before, but he had never managed to master runes of any kind. Maybe they were ones that Tobias and Elizabeth had studied at some point. He shook his head and walked further into the house to the basement door.
He hated interrupting Abby while she was working magic or just hiding in her chamber. He had it built for her so she always had a place to practice magic that didn’t put everyone at risk. As a young witch, she had a hard time controlling her magic. Now she controlled it with grace, and any time he got the chance to watch her perform magic it reminded him of her mother. Luckily, Abigail hadn’t taken up any of her mother’s bad habits of using magic for questionable means.
He walked in to see her standing in a purple circle, bent over one of Tobias’ books.
Abby glanced up at him. “What’s up?” she asked and turned back to the book, flipping between pages.
“Someone sent me a note.” He waited to see her reaction.
She stopped what she was doing and looked up at him. “What kind of note, Levi?”
“Have you found anything that matches the runes yet?” He purposely ignored her question. He wanted control of the situation, not the other way around.
Her jaw locked. “That’s not an answer to my question.”
“Nor is that an answer to mine,” he snapped back and stepped up to the circle. He couldn’t step through it. Nothing could that wasn’t originally inside. That was the great thing about circles. She’d often used it against him when she was a child. He could feel the hum of the magic march up his skin the closer he got to it.
“Not yet, but I’ve been looking in modern versions of the runes, now I’m going back towards the older ones. Now, what kind of note?” She ran her fingers over the pages, engrossed in her research.
Levi cleared his throat, and she looked up. He held it up so she could see it through the circle.
Her eyes grew wide, and she uttered a curse under her breath.“They sent you a note in the form of a spell? What the fuck.”
“Same ones?”
She looked at it closer before nodding. “Looks like it. But those are a little different, same coven though. I’d be stupid to think otherwise. The bases are the same.”
“So whoever it is, they are sending me a message too.” Levi walked over to the desk and left it on top. “What do you know about them?”
“Not a whole lot. I have a feeling that they are old, super old, but until I find the base of those runes, I won’t know for sure. I’m hoping it’s someone who’s just more versed in old magic than I am, but my age or at least my skill level.”
“Why?” He knew that she’d taken on criminals twice her age before.
“Because if they are sending you notes, it means that I’m going to end up facing them. If they kill again, it means I’m going to end up facing them. There’s only so much I can do against a witch or a warlock that is more powerful than me.”
Levi tapped the table. There was nothing he could do to protect her from magic unless he locked her away. “Best you leave it in here until you figure out what the spell is.”
“Obviously wasn’t meant for you,” she muttered and closed the book. “Or it probably would have activated already.” She rubbed her eyes and gathered up the papers around her.
“Do you think it was for you?” He raised a brow, messing with her. “Isn’t that a bit pompous, Abby?”
She snorted. “Who delivered it? What did they look like? Did they happen to give you a name?”
“A young man, my height, brown hair, hazel eyes, no noticeable scars. Probably would have tasted good.” Maybe he should have taken his meal from the stranger. The thought was a sharp reminder that he needed to find a donor and feed tonight.
Abigail shot him a nasty look, and he smiled to tell her that he was joking.
“He didn’t leave a name, just said he had been paid to deliver it to an Abigail Collins.”
“Must have just pissed him off when you said you’d have to give it to me.”
“He wasn’t pleased. He had already tried your home residence.” Levi shrugged. He wasn’t going to let a stranger into his home.
She closed her eyes, and the magic around her disappeared. Magic never ceased to impress him. Levi motioned to the note. “It’s yours, do what you will with it.”
She seemed to think about it for a moment before finally speaking. “Step out of the room, if you hear me scream or fall or something, come back in.”
Like hell he was going to leave her alone with something potentially dangers. “Why out of the room?”
She licked her lips. “In case it explodes.”
“Is that a possibility?” Why did she tend to attract trouble like this?
She glanced down at the paper. “Yes, but these aren’t the same
runes, so I don’t expect it. If it makes you feel better, just stand outside the doorway.”
“I think that might be a better option for us here.” He marched to the door and stood just outside the frame, not willing to go any further away. He watched her closely as she slammed her hand down on the note and he chuckled at her need for dramatics.
He felt the magic flare up and crash against the chamber walls, nearly knocking him off his feet. Abby fell to the ground, her body shaking and jerking violently against the stone floor.
He rushed to her, gathering her in his arms as she involuntarily fought against him. Panic settled in his chest as he realized that she’d been cursed, and he did the only thing he could think of. He closed his eyes and took them to Clarissa’s house.
The woman squealed when he appeared. “Levi, you scared the beejesus out of me.” Her eyes went to Abby, and she jumped off the couch. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. She got a note with runes on it, she touched it, and this happened.”
Abigail started to calm, but her skin paled, and he realized he couldn’t hear her heart beat. “Clarissa.”
“I know.” It was like she read his mind. She ran to the kitchen and returned a moment later with a small cup of something. She sat it on the table and started CPR on Abby, continuing until her heart started again.
“Drink up,” Clarissa whispered and tried to get Abby to drink the liquid. It simply dribbled out of Abby’s mouth. Clarissa started chanting, but Abby remained still on the couch, only twitching every couple of seconds.
“I can’t heal this,” Clarissa said her voice high. “She’s trying to fight it. I can feel the magic in her, but Levi, she needs a human hospital. Now.”
He didn’t wait for her to say any more. He grabbed Abby and Clarissa’s hand, taking them to a human hospital. The crowded ER gasped as they appeared, but he paid no heed, he needed to get Abby help and now. He swore he heard her heart skipping beats every time she jerked in his arms. If he didn’t get her taken care of, she was going to die, and then there would be a whole new host of problems.
The King's Gambit Page 3