by Ciara Graves
“What do you mean?” Mercy sat down beside her.
“It’s Onyx. I haven’t heard anything from her in two weeks. Nothing.”
“Maybe she just can’t get away,” I suggested, but Gigi’s worried look told me that wouldn’t be enough to stop Onyx from reaching out. “You think they found out about her?”
“It’s possible.”
“Are you worried she’ll talk?”
Gigi glanced at Mercy, then away. “I don’t know. They might just kill her.”
And then we’d be out the only contact we had with the dark witch covens.
“The last I heard from her, the dark covens vacated Sector 13. No one was left after the attack at the hotel, but where they are or what they’re doing, I have no way of knowing unless I try to go back in or Onyx contacts me. And don’t worry,” she added when Mercy appeared ready to yell at her, “I’ve had enough of dark witches to last me a lifetime.”
I walked around the shop as Mercy and Gigi talked quietly. I didn’t really listen in, since Mercy was asking Gigi how she was really doing.
There was talk of meeting with Gigi’s coven to see if they would be able to offer any assistance, but Mercy told her until we had some definite information, she didn’t want them getting involved.
There were too many unknowns and with the Hunters possibly coming here, all it would take was one witch to say something about dragons, and we’d be in a worse spot than we already were.
If Onyx didn’t reach out to Gigi soon, we’d have to find another set of eyes to track down the dark covens and figure out what they were up to.
I mumbled something about waiting outside and left them in Gigi’s shop.
The afternoon sun was warm on my face, and I breathed deeply, hands gripping the metal railing hard, denting it.
Carefully, I opened my hands and rested them gently on the metal, hoping Gigi wouldn’t notice I’d ruined it
“Hey,” a cheery voice called.
I glanced down the steps.
Val walked up the stairs, wearing the same bright colors Gig was always in. “I didn’t know you and Mercy were stopping by today. I would’ve brought more food.”
“We won’t be staying much longer, don’t worry.”
“Is Mercy okay?” she asked, peering in through the front door.
“She is. And you’re holding up alright?”
The young witch nodded as she smiled, but there was a shadow in her eyes. “Yeah, I’m good. Gigi’s amazing. I’m learning as much as I can from her.” She fiddled with the bag. “You’ve been in situations like that before, right? The fight at the cage, I mean?”
“A few.”
She kept fidgeting with the bag, and though she was only five years younger than Mercy, at most, she looked like a kid. I placed a hand on her shoulder, and she looked at me, eyes wide.
“The nightmares will go away. The fear will take longer, but I promise you, they won’t come after you again. Ever.”
“Because you’re going to stop them?”
“We are. One way or another, we’ll stop them.”
Val smiled up at me. “You really think you can?”
I was about to say yes when a strange chill filled the air, as if the sun had gone behind the clouds. But it hadn’t. It shone on my face, as it had since I stepped outside.
Val’s eyes shimmered for a brief second, then they were back to being filled with worry and a hint of fear.
“Yeah,” I told her. “We will.”
The door opened behind me, and Mercy stepped out. Val greeted her, but left to get Gigi’s lunch inside. I watched her go, unable to shake the strange uneasiness.
“What’s with the frown?” Mercy ran her fingers over my brow. “You okay?”
“You get any weird vibes from Val?”
“I thought I did at first, but if there’s something off about her, Gigi would know. Val was raised a dark witch. Could just be the dark magic clinging to her.”
I supposed it made sense and let it go. “You up for some breaking and entering today?”
She laughed as we walked down the steps to the sidewalk. “And where exactly are we busting into?”
“Nor’s place. The higher-ups are starting to wonder where he is.”
“You really think he left behind a handy note that says, ‘Hey Rafael, on the off-chance you break into my apartment after I’ve been missing for a month, this is where I went. Oh, and by the way, I’m working with Damian, and I know what Mercy is.’ Not sure we’re going to find anything.”
She had a point, but that chill left me more anxious than before to figure out where they were. I’d been acting positive to keep Mercy from leaving town to find Damian on her own.
All the worries I’d buried these last few weeks rose within me and going back to the apartment to simply wait was not an option.
“Hey, we can go to Nor’s.” Mercy took my hand. “Who knows? We might get lucky.”
“That’s the hope.”
“Or we’ll get in another fight with those nefari bastards. I could go a few rounds.”
I scowled at her. She smiled back.
We set off down the sidewalk hand in hand. Since we’d walked to Gigi’s, what with her bike being out of commission, it’d be a bit of a hike to get to Nor’s, but that’d give me time to think. And wonder about Val.
I wanted to believe the young witch wasn’t going to be trouble, but a quiet voice in the back of my mind warned me not to get too comfortable.
The quiet before the storm had been hanging over us too damned long.
There’d been some minor disruptions, but all of that was leading to something far worse.
Any second, those dark clouds were going to burst, and I wasn’t sure we were ready for it.
Chapter 7
Mercy
Nor’s place turned up nothing. To be fair, we had checked it once already—Damian’s place, too—but something in Rafael’s face back at Gigi’s stopped me from reminding him of that fact.
He’d been on edge the entire time we searched, eyes darting around as if he expected us to be attacked at any second.
To be fair, I did too, but no dark shadows appeared. We were left completely alone.
Then there was what Rafael had said. His question about Val had gotten to me, and now I wondered if we’d been wrong to trust her.
Gigi was a powerful witch. I had faith in her to know if Val was trouble. But Gigi had been off her game since she was kidnapped, though her instincts remained on point.
Seeing bad guys in every shadow, waiting to attack, wouldn’t do any of us good. There were enough real villains hanging around eager to take us out.
After we left Nor’s apartment, we went to a local diner for an early dinner.
All loud sounds set my teeth on edge, while my face continued to sting. I had the charms that I was to hang in Rafael’s apartment in my pocket . If they didn’t keep away the dark magic while they were on me now, I had to wonder how effective they’d be at home.
I leaned back in the booth.
“What are you thinking about?” Rafael asked, spinning his beer bottle around and around.
“Home,” I said quietly. “I never thought any place would feel like home, but I don’t know. Your place does.”
He tilted his head. “Is that a good thing?” he asked tentatively.
“Think so,” I replied, and he laughed. “What? Don’t you think it’s good?”
His eyes narrowed slightly. A quiet growl rumbled through him and my breath caught at the intensity of the emotions in it.
“Anything else for you two?” the waiter asked as he came to our table.
“Just the check,” Rafael answered without looking away from me.
The waiter handed it over, and Rafael reached for his wallet. He handed over three bills and told the guy to keep the change.
Rafael rose and held out his hand, then we were out the diner and around the corner. He pulled me down an alley and wrapped his arm
s around me, kissing like the world was going to end.
To be fair, it could any moment with all this shit going on with the ley lines and hybrids.
Rafael’s growl washed over me. I dug my nail into his shoulders.
The last few weeks had been beyond incredible, almost like we’d been living in our own little world. Even with the attacks from the nefari, it wasn’t enough to bring me down and make me believe this could all go away.
Even so, I repeatedly told myself not to get too comfortable. Any second, this bit of peace was going to end.
Until it did, I was going to take in every moment I could with Rafael.
He rested his forehead against mine as we stopped to catch our breaths. “I enjoy it when we aren’t at each other’s throats,” he teased.
“You’re just saying that cause you know I’ll kick your ass.”
He snarled and captured my lips with his, kissing me until we were breathless, again.
Then he set me on my feet. “We have one more stop, then we can head home. We need to check Damian’s place again.”
By the time I opened Damian’s front door, I couldn’t get the idea out of my head that we were going to walk in there and find Damian dead.
I hadn’t been by his place since the first time I tore it apart looking for clues. I’d figured there was no point in checking back to see if anything new had magically cropped up. If Damian came back, he would’ve called me, right?
Rafael grabbed my arm. “Hold on.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” I told him. “The door was locked.”
“Just let me go first.”
I gave in and stepped aside letting him walk into Damian’s office.
He checked around the counter, then disappeared behind the curtain.
I counted off the seconds in my head, waiting for him to give me the all clear. I was reaching for the gun at my side when he finally popped his head back through.
“Empty.”
“Did you think someone would be here?” I walked inside and closed the door behind me.
His lips thinned then he said, “I didn’t want you to find his body, just in case.”
I gave him an appreciative nod. “Good point. I guess we should check everything. Again.”
We’d given it a thorough look the first time, but I’d been pissed off and recovering from the fight in Sector 13. There was a chance I’d missed something.
I moved around the counter and removed the painting of the mermaid from the wall. The safe was untouched as far as I could tell.
I unlocked it. There were several stacks of bills inside, but not nearly as much as there usually was. I shifted them to the side and reached in, searching for anything else that might give me a hint of what he and Nor were doing. Where they’d gone. There was nothing aside from the cash.
I slammed the safe door shut.
Rafael gave me a worried frown, then went back to checking the stacks of papers behind the counter.
“There won’t be anything in those,” I told him, certain I’d sifted through them well enough before. “That’s where he keeps a list of potential targets. Sorts them by bounty prices offered, who’s offering it, and how dangerous they are. As far as I know, he hasn’t added any new names to the pile in months.”
I glanced over his shoulder, and saw one of the files. Rufus, that rotten bastard. Maybe it’d been longer than a few months.
I was going to move to the back rooms when I caught sight of a folder tucked under a ledger. I pulled it free and flipped it open.
“Who’s that?” Rafael asked, peering over the edge of the folder.
“I don’t know. I never chased him down.”
The photo staring back at me was of a man, but there was something odd about his dark brown eyes with flecks of amber. They came alive the longer I stared at them, as if he was looking directly at me. There were two small horns peeking through shaggy, brown hair. His face, it was familiar, but I couldn’t figure out why. I’d never seen him before. Fighting back the urge to snap the folder shut, I turned the photo over and studied the information on the pages behind it.
“Wait, does that say Vargan? Isn’t that Damian’s last name?”
It was. The photo was of Horace Vargan. I held it up again, and my jaw dropped. “His brother?”
“You’re not sure?”
“No, Damian never told me about his family. Any family.” If this was his brother, why was he in the pile of bounties? I handed the picture to Rafael and read over the pages more thoroughly. There was no mention of crimes he’d committed or what the bounty amount was on him.
“Hang on,” Rafael said as he stood quickly. “This file came from the Feds.”
“You’re sure?”
He tapped the edge of the pages. “These are copies. That right there is the edge of the classified stamp.” He tapped the upper right-hand corner of the paper where there were marks and a logo. “I would wonder how he got this information, but I’m going to assume it was from Nor.”
“Why do the Feds have a file on Damian’s brother?”
Rafael coughed and backed away from the counter.
“Did you know he had a brother?”
“Uh, no, I didn’t know that, but it makes sense there’d be a file on him, since we have one on Damian.”
“And me,” I added with a sigh and slapped the file down. “Right.”
“Mercy.”
“I’m not mad. I’m just tired of having this shit dumped on me. I want to know everything and just get it over with.” I waited a beat longer, glaring at the file and the photo that slipped free of it. “I’m going to check the back rooms. You coming?”
We tore Damian’s living quarters apart, but there wasn’t a scrap left behind to give us a hint. Not one damned hint of where they’d gone.
Furious, I kicked the couch in the sitting room, and it slammed into the far wall, putting a hole in it. The coffee table was next. It shattered on impact.
I panted and glared as flames sparked to life at my fingertips. My scar burned and I winced, pressing my hand to it.
Rafael came toward me.
I backed away. “I just need a minute.”
He let his hand fall and stayed where he was.
Without Damian here to lead the charge, we’d have to come up with a plan of our own to stop Shuval, go after the reapers, and track down this Franklin Monroe bastard.
We had to do something. I couldn’t go back to that apartment and sit around for Shuval to find us. Or patiently wait for the Blood Moon to rise.
“Let’s go home,” Rafael told me after a while. “We’ll call Bowen and the others in the morning.”
I sucked in a deep breath and let it out.
I was moving toward him when the front door opened.
Rafael put a finger to his lips and reached for his gun.
I drew mine, too and we moved to either side of the curtained doorway.
I strained to hear.
Two voices. No, three. Male. One of them laughed.
I gritted my teeth. Ignoring Rafael’s protests, I pushed through the curtain.
Three figures stood near the front door, all wearing black cloaks, hoods covering their faces.
I knew who two of them were.
None of them noticed me yet, too distracted with dumping gear on the floor.
The third figure was against the wall. He grunted in pain. Blood covered his clothes.
My anger was slightly tampered by the sight of a wounded person, but I wasn’t about to lower my gun, not until I saw Damian’s face.
“You just had to get your ass stabbed, Horace,” Damian muttered as he straightened.
“Not like I planned on it, asshole.” The second voice sounded almost exactly like Damian.
“I’m going to grab the kit and check the place since the front door was—” Damian turned and stared at me as he threw his hood back. “Mercy.”
Nor threw back his hood with a curse.
The wounded
figure—still against the wall, but now on the floor—I assumed was Horace, looked at me. “Did you say Mercy? As in the famous bounty hunter Mercy? Damn.”
“I could’ve shot all three of you.” I glared at Damian.
“Mercy, you can lower the gun,” Damian said, eyeing it warily.
“You sure about that? You’ve been gone a month with no word. And lo and behold, you were on that trip with none other than Chief Nor.” My finger twitched.
Damian licked his lips, his face warring between anger and hesitation.
“I want answers and I want them now.”
“Put the damned gun down.” He took a step closer.
I raised it, aiming it at his forehead.
He shook his head. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, huh?”
“How about I’m sick of being left out of the loop. By you and Bowen. I’m not the only one.”
Rafael stepped out from behind the curtain.
From the way Nor stiffened I had no doubt Rafael was glowering at the one person he thought he could trust in this world.
“Chief,” Rafael said quietly. “Odd to see you here.”
“I understand if you both have questions.”
“Did you not get any of our messages?” I asked. “We left plenty of them. For both of you.”
“Lost our phones. There was a bit of trouble.” Damian scowled at me, his gaze on the gun in my hands. “You really going to shoot me?”
“Thinking about it. Kneecap maybe, so your mouth can keep working.”
Damian took a step closer and my hand tensed on the gun. But he wasn’t looking at it any longer. He tilted his head, his brow furrowing as he studied me, then Rafael.
His eyes darkened and a look I’d seen plenty of times right before I was about to get a lecture appeared on his face. “What did you two do?”
Rafael reached for the gun. “Mercy, put it away.”
My brow lifted in protest, but I tucked the gun away. “It’s a long story,” I muttered.
“As much as I’m enjoying the show,” Horace said from the floor, throwing his hood back, “bleeding and possibly dying here.”