Alice Series Box Set

by Maria Dean

  An arm stretched past her, offering a credit card out to the cashier. "I'll be covering her order. Add a large black coffee to that."

  The voice wasn't real. It couldn't be. It was both too close to her body and the last thought on her mind. Astrid stood frozen in front of the cashier, afraid to move. If she moved, then he was real. If Astrid turned and acknowledged he was here, her days of ignoring people would all be for nothing.

  "Astrid," he said, her name a song on his lips. "I need to speak with you, if you'll allow it."

  "Your card, Mr. Russo." The cashier returned his credit card with a smile.

  He accepted it but stayed still, waiting for Astrid to make the call. "You don't have to," he finally added. "At least take the coffee."

  She only started to function again when the cashier served her lemon poppyseed muffin. "The back," she instructed with a wave. "There's a smaller table in the back, near the bathrooms. I will wait for my coffee." Astrid turned around and found herself nearly face planting into an Armani suit jacket. "I'm only doing this because it's you," she said to the jacket. "We have unfinished business."

  Giovanni chuckled, warmth spreading across his face. Last time Astrid had seen him, his perfect face was bruised and torn every which way. He was still recovering, blue and purple bruises fading with the aid of concealer. There was a long gash down his cheek, though, and it looks like it was there to stay. Astrid wondered why he hadn't shifted to heal his wounds. "I'm glad to catch you, then."

  Never mind he followed you here, Astrid's inner voice groaned.

  The cashier slid Giovanni's coffee across the counter. He accepted it and headed back where Astrid directed him. When he was seated and showed no signs of moving, Astrid nearly collapsed against the counter.

  "Ex-boyfriend?" The cashier asked as he prepared her coffee.

  "Not exactly," Astrid sighed. She retrieved her wallet and stuffed a handful of ones into the tip jar. When the cashier handed Astrid her drink, she registered the cup size. "Oh, sorry, I asked for a small. This is a medium."

  The cashier smiled sheepishly, a row of razor-sharp teeth. "Upgrade on the house."

  Astrid paused, noting how the café light bounced off a scaly substance scattered across the servers collarbone. "You really don't have to," she murmured.

  "I hear whispers," he replied with a shrug. "Stories about the Alice who's aligned herself with the Russo family to take down the alchemists. Let this be the least I can do to support you, 'kay?"

  Even with the cashier's insistence the upgrade was free, Astrid dropped another dollar into the tip jar.

  Giovanni eyed the cup when she arrived at the table. "I wish I'd known my followers were going to treat you like a god," he said. "I could've bargained for a better deal with mine."

  Astrid sat down across from him, her coffee sloshing against the lid. Two drops spilt down the side and onto her hand. Instinctively, Astrid licked the droplet off the side of her palm, freezing when she realized Giovanni was watching her. "What?"

  "Nothing," he said, drinking in her appearance. "It's been a long time, Astrid. Frankly, I'm still shocked you want to see me. After all the chaos my family has caused you, not to mention how my brothers and I have been treating you, I really thought you would take your drink and walk out." He shook his head. "I wouldn't blame you for it, either. It's what I deserve for being such a terrible friend."

  "You're the terrible one?" Astrid repeated. "Gio, I shouted at you in public and portalled away from you, standing you up at a taqueria!"

  He nodded. "That you did. And then you apologized. Not to mention the fact you had a good point. My brothers and I have been putting you on a pedestal without considering how you felt." Reaching out, Giovanni offered her his hand. "From now on, I want you to tell me when I'm idolizing you. If there are little things slip out, call me on it. Okay?"

  Astrid stared at his hand. "Only if you promise to call me on my shit," she said. "I can't keep blowing up on people, or letting my anxiety stall me from solving my problems."

  Giovanni nodded. "It's a deal, then." He flexed his fingers, waiting for Astrid to accept his outstretched hand. She did, hesitantly, flushing when she felt the heat radiating from his body. "Of course, I do have another request," Giovanni said, brushing his thumb against the back of her hand. "You owe me a date."

  The heat surrounding her palm coursed through her arm and into the rest of her body. Without thinking, Astrid squeezed his hand once. "Y-yeah," she agreed.

  He tilted his head to the side, narrowing his gaze as he scanned her expression. "Yeah?" There was a teasing note in his voice, questioning if that's how she wanted to speak to him. The fire breathing bastard knew damn well what he did to her.

  "Yes, Giovanni," Astrid replied, ignoring her slip up.

  He gave her a full, sparkling smile, squeezing her hand back before letting go. "Then it's settled. We'll go out once we've sorted out the alchemist's mess."

  Astrid snatched her coffee and poured it into her mouth. Her hands were absolutely not shaking. Not at all. "Right," she said as she tried to collect herself. "I really have been meaning to get back you y'all on that. It's just difficult when your brothers are asking me to forgive them for being overprotective."

  Giovanni nodded, sneaking a piece of her muffin while she fretted over her coffee. "Lorenzo and Christian mean well. I don't think they've had enough time to recover from the attack. Nor do they realize they're driving you crazy. Lorenzo should know better, though I believe he blames his absence for this trouble. I've never seen him care this much." He chuckled, adding, "You have the strangest effect on my family."

  And you on me, she added internally. "That doesn't matter. I'll talk to them soon enough. For now, we need to figure out how to handle my dad. He has the jade pendant." The one thing keeping the alchemists from destroying everything Giovanni held dear. "My mom visited last night," Astrid continued. "She said he's going to try to break into the gated realm."

  "We suspected as much," Giovanni replied. "Beatrice was fussing about it at the manor. I hate to say it, but there is a reason those dragons have been locked away. They're the families that were averse to entering a new realm. If you thought my opinions on humanity were disconcerting, you wouldn't like the imprisoned dragons very much." He sipped his coffee, focusing on the wall behind Astrid. Or maybe he was staring at her, and she didn't want to admit it to herself.

  The former was much more comfortable.

  "We can't let the dragons out," Astrid surmised. "But we can't let the alchemists win. They're animals, all of them."

  "Even your father?"

  "Especially him." Astrid picked at her muffin. "He took some of my only friends and tortured them, with the full intention of killing you all and tearing your bodies apart. I couldn't love him again if I tried."

  Giovanni nodded. "Then we'll need another solution," he said. "We can't let either side win, now Aaron has a key to unlock the gate."

  Frowning, Astrid asked, "There's only one key to the locked realm, right?"

  "Indeed. It was never meant to be opened, either." Giovanni squinted. "I see the gears turning. What's on your mind?"

  "Well." Astrid dug through her memories, remembering a text she'd found at Ronald Hope's house. It felt like ages ago, though it had only been a few weeks. "What if we made a new lock? One that couldn't be opened from the inside and had only one key on the outside?"

  "It's doable," Giovanni said. "But I don't know how to."

  Astrid started to clean up her mess, already preparing to leave the café in search of the text. "I do. Or at least, I know someone who might be able to." An absent someone who'd left his house unoccupied.

  The Dragon-shifter checked his watch. "I don't have any appointments until three. Why don't we give this person a visit?"

  "I don't think he'll be home." Astrid stood, shoving the rest of her muffin into her mouth. "C'mon, we gotta hurry."

  She forgot Giovanni could terrify when he wanted to. When he rose, he to
wered over her. "Are we breaking and entering?" He asked in a hushed tone. "That seems a little illegal for two lawyers."

  Astrid shrugged. "You're a dirty attorney. I thought crime wasn't a problem for you."

  Giovanni reached over and brushed crumbs off her lips. He held her face there for a moment, running his thumb over her lower lip. "But you're not a dirty attorney, are you?"

  Cursing herself for the unintentional double entendre, Astrid flushed and pulled away from him. "Come on," she said, speaking straight into her coffee cup. "Something tells me this guy isn't going to mind if anyone breaks into his house."

  "Astrid," Giovanni said, catching up with her as she barreled out the door, "how exactly are we going to get there? I don't have a car." She paused, glancing at him with a raised brow. "I took the bus. I never realized how far the transit system could take me."

  God, he's into public transit now too?

  Shaking herself out of her thoughts, Astrid guided Giovanni toward an empty alleyway. "We're going to try something new," she explained. "This may or may not leave me extremely winded. Or comatose. We'll see where we land when we get there."

  She didn't give Giovanni time to react. Wrapping her arms around him, she took her mind back to Ronald Hope's home. Her heart opened, pounding and buzzing as her body filled with energy. Astrid sunk backwards into the cold darkness of space. This time, Giovanni's warmth kept her soaring. This time, when they landed, Astrid had every drop of energy she had before they portaled.

  CHAPTER 2

  Ronald Hope's home was ransacked from top to bottom. A tornado ripped through his bookshelves upstairs, scattering Hope's ancient texts throughout the rest of the house. The railing was lined with books thrown askew. Flimsy paper covers littered the stairwell, pages torn out underneath them. On her own, it would take Astrid at least a day to sort through the endless paper storm. With Giovanni's help they could cut the time in half.

  Giovanni required some time to adjust to his new environment. They'd landed on the couch, the velvet surface cushioning their fall. Giovanni detached from Astrid in favor of falling on the floor, heaving until he was sure he wouldn't throw up. He felt around the floor for something to hold on to, grabbing a book on his first instinct.

  "Astrid, love," he panted, "what the hell was that?"

  Her attention was elsewhere. "Destroy the house, tear up the bookshelves," she recounted, "but yeah. Fix the couch. That makes perfect sense." She ran her hand down a fresh seam where only a month before the couch had been torn in two. The overbearing scent of dog pee was gone, replaced with bleach and carpet cleaner. "You going to be okay?"

  Giovanni looked up, watching her fuss with the couch. "Astrid, we just teleported through space. You're concerned with the couch?"

  "Absolutely," she replied. "Someone went through all the trouble of wrecking Hope's bookshelves in search of God knows what, but took the time to fix the couch. No one lives here anymore." Astrid set her fretting aside and helped Giovanni steady himself. "I guess I'm more used to this," she said when Giovanni fell forward and gripped her shoulders. "It's taken time to adjust, but I've got a lot better since the first time."

  "This..." He trailed off, searching her face. "This is how you ended up in my apartment. You've got a handle on your portalling." Giovanni grinned, giving each shoulder a squeeze. "Astrid, this could be monumental."

  "As long as I'm careful," she replied. "You did hear the part about falling into a coma, right?"

  Her Dragon shifting companion settled, dusting off his jacket. "I did, though I'm choosing not to worry about that. You're at least handling it with some humor." Giovanni glanced around the room. "This is quite the mess. We may need another hand or two."

  Astrid's gaze trailed up the stairwell. "Maybe not," she murmured. "Last time I was here, I stashed a bag of books somewhere in Hope's bedroom. One of the texts I hid was about a Biblical seal. I didn't think about it at the time, but it could be useful now."

  "The Seal of Solomon," Giovanni mused. "I know very little about how it was used in the past. It's part of a scholarly field I don't chose to investigate very often. Too close to the realm of slayers and hunters." He paused. "You're staying with Zion Wells and his son, correct?"

  "Yeah," Astrid nodded as they scaled the staircase. "But Zion's not going to know how to make a seal. He runs the Slayer's Church. X might be the better option."

  "And he's the young, attractive one Matilde has seen you gallivanting around with," Giovanni chuckled. He stepped past her, squeezing Astrid between his body and the wall. Giving her a wry grin, he scaled the stairs two at a time. "Why don't you invite him over? I'd love to get to know him. Just so I can ensure he treats you well."

  The wide, toothy grin said otherwise.

  "X is just a kid," Astrid repeated for what felt like the thousandth time.

  "A kid who has captivated your attention." Giovanni stopped at the top, waiting for her so she could take the lead once more. "I would just like to see what the fuss is all about. In case you choose to leave us for the hunters when this is all done."

  Astrid slowed, unsure if he was still teasing her. "He's a friend," she said sternly. "Nothing more."

  The second floor was a landmine field. Astrid stepped over books and damaged alchemic artifacts, waiting for one of them to blow up on accident. The first floor had nothing on the destruction done to the house's upper level. Whoever had come through decided to obliterate any artifact that could give the hunters an edge. That, apparently, was all of them.

  Stopping next to the bedroom door, they took a breath before pushing the door open. It teetered back and plummeted to the ground. The hinges ripped straight off the doorframe, clattering against each other as they fell. It was an omen, they discovered, a forewarning of what they'd find inside.

  You couldn't call it a bedroom anymore. The mattress was torn to shreds, stuffing covering the ground like a fresh blanket of snow. Color cropped up every now and again thanks to Ronald Hope's clothing, which was tossed out of the dresser. Half of the bedframe lie splintered on the ground. The other half was lodged in the wall, next to the remains of a mahogany bookshelf.

  "I'm going to start digging," Astrid said as she surveyed the fluffy floor. "I dropped my bag under the bed."

  Giovanni watched as she dropped to her knees near the splintered half of the bedframe. "What are we looking for?"

  "I think it was blue," Astrid said as she discarded a black notebook. "And it said 'Seal of Solomon' on the cover. Really conspicuous, if you ask me."

  Her companion crossed to the bookcase. Giovanni pawed through the books below him, sorting them based on color. Books that weren't blue he placed in a pile on his left, while he dropped the blue ones on his right. "There's a lot on love spells," he noted as he dropped the fourth red notebook in a row.

  "Too bad he couldn't get them to work," Astrid replied. "No one has come looking for him aside from the alchemists. I doubt the man even had a family in the cities. Dad, Aaron, must have counted on no one caring about Hope. Otherwise he wouldn't have done this." With their latest venture in demolition, the alchemists cabal grew from a thorn in Astrid's side to a cancerous lump on her heart. Months ago they were a mere annoyance, a weird trend in her cases she wouldn't have put together without the Russo family's help. Now they were hunting the same family and throwing curveballs at Astrid every step of the way.

  Digging through the fluff proved to be more difficult than Astrid anticipated. Every time she grasped something hard, it was either a hunk of the bedframe or an unrelated text. Hope stashed a lot of cookbooks in his bedroom. If he hadn't been an alchemist, he could've started his own kitchen. Many of the books had notes in the margins detailing additions or subtractions from the recipe.

  "Any luck, love?" Giovanni hovered over her. He'd left his rainbow pile to lend her a hand. "Those are all spell books. A few texts on alchemic lore, but nothing regarding the seal."

  "It should be over here. That's where I hid it." Still focused on
Giovanni, Astrid stuck a hand out into the fuzzy mess and winced. A grainy wood fragment pricked her palm. She flexed her hand, testing how far the pain would spread. It was dull, rippling only in small circles around the offending splinter. Gritting her teeth, Astrid tensed her palm and reached over to remove it on her own.

  "Don't you want to wait to get?" He crouched down next to her, steadying her hand with his own. "At the least, let me go search for some tweezers."

  Astrid shook her head. "We don't have time. The longer we wait, the closer my father gets to opening the locked realm. Then who knows what will happen."

  Giovanni sighed. "If that's the case," he said, holding up his hand, "allow me."

  A bewildered Astrid watched as his left thumb and pointer finger grew. His bones cracked, elongating into draconic claws. Giovanni's nails grew the most. The sharpened claws came to a point at their tips, allowing him to pull out her splinter with precision. "Now," Giovanni said as he tossed the splinter over his shoulder, "let's find that book."

  "I could've done that," Astrid grumbled. "You're not cool just because you can turn your fingers into claws." Her wounded hand grazed over a scaly, leather surface. Frowning, Astrid pulled the object out from the fluff. Fuzz flew everywhere when she dusted the cover off. "Holy hell," Astrid murmured. "Would you look at that?"

  She tilted the blue book so Giovanni could read the title. "The Making of the Seal of Solomon," he read aloud. "I know you don't like it when I say this, love, but you can really make anything happen if you put your mind to it."

  Relaxing against the bedroom wall, Astrid shook the book in the air. "It's a whole lot of luck and some goddamn perseverance," she replied. While Giovanni made himself comfortable next to her, Astrid flipped through the pages of the book. "Though we have a great understanding of other-realms," Astrid narrated, "there are still worlds we shall not touch. For these, it is imperative we develop wards of protection. We must keep our loved ones safe, just as we shall keep our opponents safe in their own realm."