“He never said anything … then to just … so sudden …”
Aaron’s fingers bit into the papers, crinkling the crisp white surface, but even as the packet shook with the force of his grip, I couldn’t miss the name on the form.
Kaisuke Yamada.
Ripping more pieces off the envelope, Clara sighed heavily. “I just can’t imagine the Crow and Hammer without Kai.”
“He’s transferring out?” I whispered. “He’s leaving the guild?”
Clara’s head snapped up. Her face paled as she took in our expressions. “You … you didn’t know?”
The documents crumpled in Aaron’s fist, then he shoved them at me. Turning on his heel, he swept out of the small office. I held the form, fighting the urge to tear it up.
“I—I’ll call him,” I said unsteadily. “Convince him to—to wait.”
Tears welled in Clara’s eyes. “The transfer is already done, Tori. That’s the signed paperwork for our records.”
I flipped to the last page. There at the bottom was Kai’s sharp, slashing signature. Below it was Darius’s scrawled autograph, and beneath that, a loopy name. The signatory: Makiko Miura, Acting Guild Master, MiraCo.
My jaw clenched so hard pain built in my teeth.
Tossing the papers toward Clara, I rushed out after Aaron. She half-heartedly called me back, but I continued through the empty kitchen and shoved through the saloon doors.
Aaron sat on his usual stool at the bar, elbows braced on the countertop and forehead resting on both hands as he stared at the scuffed wood. Aside from him, the pub was deserted, the neatly arranged chairs waiting for the dinner rush. I stopped across from him, breathing hard as I fought to calm my emotions.
“I should’ve expected it,” Aaron muttered. “They want to bury him in that guild as deep as they can. Of course they’d transfer him.”
I pressed both hands to the bar top, fingers splayed.
“We joined together.” He slid his hands up into his hair. “I’ve never been a member of the Crow and Hammer without him. I’ve never been a member of any guild without him.”
“He’ll be back,” I whispered. “He said he’ll figure it out. He promised.”
Aaron didn’t reply, his fists clenching in his copper hair. After a long moment, he dragged his head up. “I need a drink.”
I slapped my butt, searching for my phone so I could check the time, before remembering I’d left it at home on Philip’s orders. No electronics allowed during my witchy nature ritual. But even without my phone’s clock, I knew it was nowhere near four, when the pub officially opened.
With a quick look at Aaron’s morose pallor, I decided to ignore that. “What do you want?”
“Tequila. Lots of tequila.”
I got out a pair of shot glasses and fetched a bottle of silver tequila off the back shelves. After pouring two shots to the brim, I slid one to him.
He didn’t pick up the glass. “What the hell are we going to do? Kai’s left the guild, and Ezra is …” He swore, his voice hoarsening. “What do we do?”
I took hold of his hand and pushed the shot against his palm. Then I lifted my glass to my lips and stared at him until he raised his. In unison, we tossed the liquor back. I swallowed against the burn.
“Aaron.” I set my glass on the bar and picked up the tequila bottle. “You can’t volunteer to take Felix’s shift.”
He watched me refill our shot glasses. “Why not?”
“Because we have something else to do.” I slid his shot over and lifted mine. The cold glass pressed against my lower lip. “I don’t know what we can do for Kai right now, but Ezra needs our help.”
Aaron’s fair skin lost what little color it had left, and he threw back his shot like it was the only thing keeping his stomach down—which made no sense to me. Tequila had the opposite effect on my stomach.
His glass thudded against the counter. “There’s only one thing we can do to help Ezra.”
I poured the tequila down my throat, then slammed my glass down beside his. “Bullshit. I know you and Kai looked into it years ago, but neither of you has connections to the world of black magic. Zak did—or does.” I grimaced. “Whatever. What I mean is I asked him about it.”
“What did he say?”
“He said whatever the MPD knows about Demonica—or what they admit to knowing—is the kid-gloves version. It’s the basics and nothing more. Zak said that summoners are like druids, and that master summoners guard their secrets, never revealing them to anyone but their chosen apprentice.”
Aaron clenched and unclenched his jaw. “Zak is a lying bas—”
I raised my voice over his. “I also talked to an ex-summoner from Odin’s Eye, who told me there’s no standard method of creating a demon mage, and each summoner who does it has a different technique.”
Pressing my hands to the counter, I leaned across the bar. “To unmake a demon mage, we need to know how he was made. We need to dig into the dark magic of Demonica—the scary, illegal shit that MagiPol doesn’t want anyone to know about.”
“And how will we do that?” he asked with a mutinous scowl, like I was suggesting we cancel Christmas.
I exhaled harshly through my nose. “I get it, Aaron. You don’t want to hope. You already tried everything, and you’ve been steeling yourself for this for years. It’ll just hurt more to try again and fail.”
“If you understand, then why—”
“Because I won’t ignore a chance, no matter how slim. I don’t care if the odds are one in a million. I’m going to try everything before I let you or Kai or Darius end Ezra’s life.”
He absorbed my vehement words, then huffed. “I’m not doing anything about Ezra without Kai, but Darius knows what happened. You can’t stop him from—”
“I can. I already did.”
Aaron’s eyes widened.
“I talked to him. He’s going to wait. He even cleared my shifts so we can leave immediately.”
“We—leave? What? Where?”
I splashed more tequila into my shot glass and raised it in a toast to no one. “We’ll go first thing tomorrow. I just need to arrange a few things, and talk to Kai … and Ezra.”
“Go where, Tori?”
Knowing he wouldn’t like my answer one bit, I tossed the shot back and smacked the glass down. I met his demanding glower with a steady stare.
“We’re going to Enright.”
Chapter Two
Thanks to a cold walk home, I was sober enough to hesitate as I swung open the door to my basement apartment. Poised at the top of the steps, I listened.
Silence.
And that was all kinds of wrong.
My hand went to my back pocket, where for eight months I’d carried the Queen of Spades. But my trump card was no more, and I hadn’t replaced any of my magical defenses. I didn’t even have my phone on me.
Well, if trouble was waiting for me, I’d just have to improvise. With my fists.
“Hoshi,” I whispered.
A silver shimmer. She appeared behind me, paws resting on my shoulders and nose bumping my cheek.
“Are there any fae or druids down there?”
She cocked her head, then sent me a blip of dark red. Negative. Thank goodness.
I opened the back door then slammed it shut to make it seem like I’d left the house again. With Hoshi trailing behind me, I tiptoed down the stairs, skipping the squeaky fifth step. Heart thudding with adrenaline, I crept to the bottom, crouched, and peeked down the hallway toward my living room.
There was someone in my apartment. A man sat on my sofa, his back to the hallway, but I recognized that brown hair and those broad shoulders.
The tension left me all at once. I sucked in a deep breath—then let it out in a furious shout. “Justin!”
My brother started violently and whipped around.
“What the hell are you doing in my apartment?” I snarled, my post-adrenaline-rush temper riled real good. “Did you break in? What’
s wrong with you?”
“I didn’t break in,” he spluttered, shoving to his feet. “You gave me a key!”
My stomping steps faltered. Oh right. I had given him a key—back when we’d been speaking. Before I’d killed a mythic in self-defense and Justin had unilaterally decided I was a criminal in a magic street gang.
He scrabbled for something on the sofa cushions, then straightened, a cell phone in his hand. “I called you about six times. Why did you leave your phone at home?”
I strode over and snatched my phone from his hand. “Why are you here? In case you forgot, we haven’t talked since before Christmas, when you shouted at me that we weren’t family anymore and stormed out.”
He flinched.
“And,” I added, summoning more anger to hide my hurt, “you didn’t even respond to my Merry Christmas message.”
He stared at the floor, arms hanging limply at his sides.
Heaving a sigh, I headed into the kitchen. “So? What do you want?”
He stopped beside the breakfast bar as I opened the fridge. “I’m sorry, Tori. For what I said … and for everything else.”
I straightened so fast I almost clipped my head on the inside of the fridge and goggled at my brother. He wasn’t the apologizing type.
“It isn’t an excuse, but I—I haven’t been coping well with things.” He sat heavily on a stool. “Back in August, when you were arrested and I found out you … you’d joined that guild … Sophie had left me a couple weeks before that and I felt like I’d lost both of you.”
He scrubbed at his short beard, unable to meet my eyes. “I did a lot of thinking while I was away over Christmas, and I realized I’d handled this all wrong.”
Eyebrows scrunched, I pulled cheese and butter from the fridge. “Want a grilled cheese sandwich?”
He smiled weakly. “Sure.”
Grabbing a loaf of bread and a cutting board, I started laying out slices. Surreptitiously, I studied my brother. His brown hair was cut shorter than I remembered, the beard I’d convinced him to grow neatly trimmed, but despite his well-groomed appearance, there were dark circles under his hazel eyes.
“You’ve been a massive asshole,” I told him bluntly, slathering butter across the bread.
He nodded.
“I tried to explain things to you, but you wouldn’t listen. I tried to introduce you to my friends, but you didn’t want to meet them.”
Another nod.
“And you’ve changed your mind about all that?”
“Yes. I want to know everything.”
Dropping my gaze to the cutting board, I cut slices of marble cheese and stacked them beside the bread. My chest ached, old wounds and more recent ones reopened by his presence. Part of me wanted to run around the counter, throw my arms around my big brother, and tearfully unload all my pain and fears on him.
Before Christmas and our fight, I would’ve done exactly that. But now, after so much had happened, I wasn’t pouring my heart out to anyone with the potential to add to the beating it’d already taken.
“Well, I’m not explaining anything.” Pulling out a frying pan, I set it on the stovetop and turned on the burner. “Not anymore. I gave you a chance—several chances—and you threw it all back in my face. I want things to be right between us again, but I’m done justifying my choices to you.”
“How am I supposed to understand if you won’t tell me anything?” he asked stiffly.
I spooned a blob of butter into the warming pan, fighting a fresh wave of anger. “Are we family, Justin?”
“Of course. Tori—”
“Then you don’t need to understand anything. You just need to be my big brother.”
He put his elbows on the counter. “You can’t expect me to pretend nothing has changed. I need to know what’s really going on.”
“Why?” I demanded.
“So—so I can …”
“So you can decide once and for all if I’m a mythic crook?” I pointed my spatula at him. “Is that why you’re here? So you can judge me some more?”
“No! I want to fix this, Tori.”
I tossed the buttered bread into the pan and let the slices warm. As I flipped them and layered cheese on, Justin watched me, his brow furrowed and jaw set with stubbornness.
I closed up the sandwiches and flipped them again. When the outsides were golden brown and crispy, I slid them onto two small plates and set one in front of Justin.
“Then be my brother,” I told him. “Not the moral police.”
He looked down at his sandwich, a breath rushing through his nose. “All right.”
We ate in silence, weighing each other with our gazes. Justin and I knew each other very well, but our adult selves kept running face-first into our past expectations. He was wondering how hard he could push this grown-up Tori, and I was wondering how far I could trust my once-hero brother with my poor, battered heart.
I shoved the last corner of my sandwich into my mouth. “I’ll be busy until next week at the earliest. When I’m free, we should get coffee on your lunch break like we used to.”
“What are you busy with?”
I narrowed my eyes, warning him not to go all “interrogator” on me. “A friend needs help. I’ll be busy with him.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
Yeah, he could not twist up my emotions when I already had so much to deal with, but I wasn’t mean enough to say that. “Thanks, but no. I’ll send you a message next week.”
Recognizing his dismissal, Justin scooted off his stool and stood. He hesitated, then held out his arms hopefully. I circled the bar and stepped into his hug. He squeezed me tightly.
“Missed you, Tor,” he murmured.
“Missed you too,” I sighed. “Please don’t be a dick this time.”
He huffed a laugh.
I saw him to the door, shaking my head as he climbed into his shiny, dark blue Dodge Challenger. My brother and his muscle cars. I should’ve noticed it parked on the curb.
Grinning at the memory of him teaching my seventeen-year-old self how to do a burnout in his old Mustang GT, I hurried back inside. As I hopped the last step, a bush poked up from behind the sofa, followed by a pair of huge chartreuse eyes.
“The human is gone?” Twiggy asked in his high voice.
“Just left.” I swept into the kitchen and turned on the tap. It’d need to run for two minutes before I got any hot water. “I’m surprised you didn’t scare him off.”
“I tried, but he wasn’t scared.”
I almost dropped the plates I’d picked up off the counter. “You did? What did you try?”
“Spooky noises first.” Twiggy walked along the sofa cushions, head bobbing as he searched. “I made the lights go on and off, and the shadows move, but he didn’t run away.”
He stuffed a long-fingered hand between the cushion and armrest and pulled out a TV remote. Turning to the screen, he pressed a button. The television came on with an ear-splitting blare of sound—an audience cheering.
“Turn it down!” I yelled, dunking the plates in the sink. “What else did you do to Justin?”
Twiggy dropped the volume by a few notches, his eyes glued to the spinning wheel on the screen as the game-show announcer described the prizes on the line for contestants. The faery didn’t react to my question, all thoughts of Justin gone from his leafy head.
Rolling my eyes, I finished up the dishes, headed into my room, and pushed up my sleeves. Aaron and I were hitting the road tomorrow, and I needed to pack.
Problem was, I wasn’t sure what to pack.
Combat gear, for sure. I hauled it out of my closet and tossed it on my bed. What else? I might need to blend in, so street clothes of several varieties. I rifled through my closet, selecting likely contenders. Crouching, I dug through my shoes, tossing the occasional pair over my shoulder. What else?
Toiletries, I supposed.
When I opened my bedroom door, another blast of sound hit me. A screeching woman on
the screen was jumping up and down in hysterical excitement as three beautiful models posed beside the powerboat she’d won. Shaking my head, I wondered if the woman even wanted a powerboat. Did she live near water?
In the bathroom, I pulled out my toiletry bag and loaded it with the usual hygiene supplies. Zipping it shut, I opened my makeup bag and pondered its contents for what I might need. Fake eyelashes? Yeah, no. Been there, done that, and never doing it again.
My fingers drifted past a tube of mascara to a round powder compact. I picked it up, brushed some pink dust off the top, and flipped it open. My pale face frowned back at me in the tiny mirror as I lifted the spongy applicator puff.
Dark metal glinted beneath it.
The demonic amulet lay in the compact, neatly nestled on top of its chain. A ring of creepy sigils encircled a larger symbol in the center—a symbol that matched the one etched into the breastplate of Robin Page’s demon.
Vh’alyir’s Amulet, Eterran had called it. All I knew was that it could interrupt a demon contract. How the spell worked, why a demon had been carrying it, what the sigils meant, how it was connected to Robin’s demon—I had no answers. I’d spent a month searching for answers and found nothing.
Maybe the amulet could save Ezra, or maybe it would give Eterran full control of his body. I didn’t know, but if I couldn’t find answers in Enright, I would try it. How could I not? Ezra would die anyway. If there was even a tiny chance this could save him …
Replacing the puff, I snapped the compact shut and returned it to my makeup bag. With the two bags tucked under my arm, I walked out of the bathroom—and heard the faint ringing of my phone.
Twiggy’s game-show audience let out another eardrum-rupturing cheer as I dove for the counter where my phone sat, the screen alight with an incoming call from an unknown number.
“Turn it down,” I called as I fumbled for the phone. The volume didn’t change, and as I hit the answer button, I whirled toward the sofa. “Twiggy, turn the TV down before I throw your green ass out the window!”
With a rebellious scowl, he lowered the volume by half.
Returning his glare, I slapped my phone against my ear. “Hello?”
“Tori?” a female voice inquired with a distinct note of uncertainty.
Lost Talismans and a Tequila (The Guild Codex: Spellbound Book 7) Page 2