by Kasi Blake
“We have a deal,” she reminded Matt. “I am not taking off the disguise. If you keep bugging me, I’ll lock myself in my bedroom until one of us dies.”
Matt mocked a surrender with hands raised. “It’s up to you. I just want you to know I’m okay with all this. We will find a cure. I promise you.”
“Look at the bright side,” Summer said. “If we don’t find a cure or if I die, you won’t have to make a decision about turning vampire.”
Cowboy’s head swung around. He gaped at her. What did she just say? “He is not becoming our fourth. No freaking way! Do you hear me, Summer? I will stake you, him, and Trick before I let this freak join us. I will start all over and rebuild my group from scratch.”
Humorless laughter bubbled up his throat. No one could see or hear him; his threats fell on deaf ears. If they didn’t find a cure, he wouldn’t need a group. As a guy who prided himself on not needing anyone, he was shocked to discover how much he missed having friends.
Matt glanced around and said, “Haven’t seen your vampire roommate in a while. Where’s Cowboy?”
Cowboy gaped at the nerd. Of all the people to notice he was gone, why did it have to be the intruder? He took a step towards the pair, mentally willing the conversation to continue.
“I have no idea,” Summer said with a shrug. “I thought he was being kind at first, leaving me alone as I asked. Then I remembered this is Cowboy we’re talking about. He isn’t kind. In fact, he was taking a perverse sort of enjoyment in my miserable state.”
Cowboy’s jaw tightened. “Shut up, you whiny brat. It took you this long to notice my absence? Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You’d need to stop thinking about yourself for five minutes to—”
“Haven’t seen him since... I don’t know when.” Matt shuffled the cards.
“He’s probably hanging with Trick,” Summer said.
“Nope.” Matt shook his head while rearranging the cards in his hand. “Trick has been splitting his free time between Dani and this crude hunter named Bash.”
“Bash?” Both Cowboy and Summer said the hunter’s name at the same time. Cowboy pointed at her. “Jinx. You owe me a Coke.”
Summer went on, halfway talking over Cowboy since she couldn’t hear him. “I almost got killed by a hunter named Bash about ten years ago. He was more of a psychotic maniac than your brother. I’ll never forget those cold green eyes.”
Cowboy grinned, remembering their run-in with the eager hunter. He owed that guy a wooden bullet in the shoulder. Too bad he was invisible and couldn’t challenge the hunter to a new battle.
Wait! What did Matt mean by Trick was hanging with the hunter? Had that little jerk replaced him with a new best friend?
“A hunter calling himself Bash is in town right now?” Summer shot to her feet, looking ridiculous in the head-to-toe black outfit. “If he’s in town, I need to leave. I can’t fight him in my condition.”
“You can’t fight him without me,” Cowboy said. “Take him on alone, and you’ll die before sundown.”
Matt got up too, and he took Summer’s hand in a tender way that made Cowboy want to punch them both. How many times did he have to tell them mortals and vampires were not a good mix?
“I won’t let him hurt you,” Matt said.
Cowboy wanted to throw up. “What a lot of garbage. You’re going to protect her? Right. Trick told me about you and your stand on violence. She’d be better off begging for the hunter’s mercy.”
Too bad they couldn’t hear him. So many great lines and they were being wasted on his own ears. What good was sarcasm if no one else heard it?
Summer hands went to what were probably her hips. It was hard to tell in the bulky outfit. She screeched, “If your idiot brother is hanging out with that maniac, you need to put a stop to it.”
“Trick doesn’t listen to me,” Matt said.
“Make him listen!” Summer shouted.
In the corner Cowboy said, “He would listen to me, I bet. Too bad I can’t talk to him.”
“Trick is a vampire,” Summer said. “And Bash is a hunter with a crazy reputation. He’ll sniff your brother out, find his fangs, and kill him. If Trick is stupid enough to mention me, I’ll be dead too. Is that what you want?”
“You know it isn’t.” Matt sighed. “Trick wants the guy to train him because he was buddies with Trick’s biological father. Bash took Trick hunting. Then the guy left him in the middle of nowhere. If he hadn’t been able to teleport, he would still be there now.”
Cowboy laughed. The image of Trick standing in the road, watching Bash’s taillights disappear in the distance made the vampire laugh harder. He wished he’d been there. Unfortunately, his curse kept him trapped in the mansion. He could teleport to other rooms, but he couldn’t leave. He couldn’t use his invisibility to spy on anyone outside the house.
Summer cleared her throat. “So you haven’t seen Cowboy either?”
Finally, they were talking about him again. He drew closer to them. Arms folded, he waited for one of them to have a brilliant thought. Frustration mounted.
Matt replied, “Not for a while. Maybe Oberon cursed him. Cowboy could have a problem like you do.”
“He called me earlier,” she said. “I didn’t answer. It was when you were texting and threatening to drop in, so I wasn’t in the mood for his brand of humor. But he’s fine. I’m sure. If he was cursed, we would know it.”
Cowboy had a brilliant thought. He pulled loose change from his pocket and let them drop. The coins rained down on the coffee table. “Put it together, morons,” he said. “I am invisible.”
Summer and Matt stared at each other, eyes wide.
“Either we have a ghost or he’s in this room with us right now,” Summer said.
Cowboy lifted his arms into the air. Victory! A rush of relief filled him. He was still invisible, but at least he wasn’t alone anymore. They knew he was in trouble. They’d put their heads together and find a cure.
Trick appeared in the center of the room, and Cowboy grinned. Things were about to get interesting. They were finally going to have a conversation he cared about, one about him.
His grinned faded when Trick announced, “John Foster is dead.”
Everyone forgot about him and his problem. With an angry growl he drew the cell from his pocket. If he called Trick now, the boy would answer. Summer would make him. He could tell them everything.
The phone slipped from his fingers and bounced once off the hardwood floor.
“Noooo!” He dropped to his knees. “Please, please, please.”
He tried to grab it, but his hand passed through the phone.
Dropping it had severed his connection with the thing. Now it was just another piece of junk he couldn’t touch. No one noticed it. Hope faded. The others began to talk about John Foster and his sudden passing. Lucky bastard. All his problems were over, but Cowboy’s had only begun. He could see it now. Invisible forever, he’d be doomed to watch others interact.
Tears pricked the backs of his eyes. For the first time in ages he wanted to weep like a small child who had lost sight of his mother in a crowded room.
Trick added, “I think Oberon killed him.”
Terrific. A stupid hunter got himself killed, and now that was all Trick wanted to talk about. His brother jumped right in, asking questions as if one less hunter in the world was a bad thing. The one time Cowboy needed Summer to be loud, she sat there quietly beneath the widow’s garb.
Anger surged to life within his gut. The lights flickered, and everybody’s cell beeped at once. Somehow part of him had connected with the physical world for a moment. If he worked on it, he could harness that power. He could reach out for help. Hadn’t someone told him ghosts could interact with electronics?
Cowboy left the room while everyone spoke at once. He planned to work day and night until he learned to control this new energy brought on by anger. Then he’d find a way to escape Oberon’s curse without any help from his former frien
ds.
♫
Until a few minutes ago Trick had been with Dani at her house, offering comfort to the broken girl. The paramedics came and went. John Foster was in the morgue by now. Baxter had returned home as they were leaving with his body. Seeing Baxter in tears had been unsettling for Trick. He hadn’t thought of her as an actual person with real feelings before. She had been his shrink for years, and he hadn’t seen a single crack in her stone-like appearance.
Now he couldn’t get rid of the image: Baxter hugging her stepdaughter. The two of them decided they wanted time alone to grieve. Trick worried Baxter would send Dani away to live with her aunt in Arizona. It really wasn’t any of his business. Whatever Dani needed to do to get through her father’s death was fine with him.
But he’d miss her if she left.
Delving back into his own troubles seemed like a good idea. Maybe it would keep his mind off Dani for a while. Summer told him Cowboy was missing and might be Oberon’s latest victim. “Oberon fits the curse to the person to make them crazy,” Trick said.
Summer made him think of a small black boulder in her mourning clothes. She was a lump sitting on the couch with Matt next to her. The dark material ballooned out instead of molding to her slender shape. Her head was easy to spot because she had on a huge hat on with a long veil. He couldn’t see anything through it, not even with supernatural vision.
“Why hasn’t he cursed you?” she asked.
“He did,” Trick said.
“You look the same,” Summer said. “Got off easy, huh?”
“Yeah,” Trick scoffed. “I got off easy. He made you ugly because you spend your days gazing into the mirror.”
“Hey!” Summer shouted.
“What could he possibly have done to Cowboy?” Trick asked. “What would be the worst case scenario as far as Cowboy is concerned?”
Summer shrugged thin shoulders beneath the heavy black material. “Can faeries send people back in time? Cowboy hated the 70s.”
Matt reminded her of the falling coins. Then he added, “I think you were right when you said Oberon made him invisible. He might be standing in this room right now, making sarcastic comments we can’t hear.”
“Silver lining,” she said with a drop of sarcasm. “I’ll get my phone. Maybe he left a message.”
The second she disappeared around the corner Matt asked about Dani. Trick didn’t know what to say in response. She was devastated at the loss of her father. He wanted to comfort her but couldn’t. He was afraid of losing control and hurting her instead. The last thing she needed was a vampire boyfriend.
But that was only part of the problem.
“I kissed Scarlet,” Trick said. “Dani doesn’t know.”
Matt gaped at him. “Do you like Scarlet now? Do you want to be with her?”
Trick laughed without humor. The laugh ended on a groan. He rubbed the back of his neck, hoping to get rid of some painful tension. But it just made the ache worse.
“That’s the million dollar question. I feel caught in the middle, torn between them.” Trick plopped down on the couch and stretched his legs all the way to the other end. With ankles crossed, he put his arms behind his head. “Dani is everything a guy could want in a girl. She’s beautiful, smart, sexy, and fun. Her eyes light up when she talks about saving animals, trees, whatever her mission is that week. The girl has more heart than anyone, and she makes me want to care about stuff I don’t care about.”
Matt lifted an eyebrow. “Are you saying she makes you into a better person?”
“She makes me want to be a better person.” He sighed. “But then there’s Scarlet, my best friend, someone I can’t live without. She says she loves me. I don’t know what to do with that.”
“Do you love her?” Matt asked. “That’s the real question.”
Trick hesitated before shrugging in a half-hazard fashion. “We kissed. It was pretty hot. I’m not sure it means anything. I just don’t know what to do. I don’t want to lose either of them, but I have to make a decision. Should I be with Dani or Scarlet or neither?”
Summer spoke from the doorway, interrupting the easy flow of conversation between brothers. “I’d go with neither.”
Trick glared at her while Matt gave her a look of warning.
She added, “If you want to know who you’re in love with, dump them both.”
He shook his head. Summer made even less sense to him as an old vampire than she had as a young one. Saying goodbye to both girls, losing them both made his stomach muscles clench. What a stupid idea. “Shut up,” he said.
Summer sighed beneath the heavy veil. “Boys can be so dense. I’m talking about letting them go for a short time to figure out who you love. If you walk away from them both, you’ll start to miss one more than the other. You might even realize you can’t live without that person. Then you know it’s love.”
Matt beamed at her.
Trick scowled even though he knew she was right. Problem was, he couldn’t dump Dani seconds after she’d lost her father. They had sort of said goodbye earlier, intent on going their separate ways, but that was before finding John’s lifeless body. He’d save the idea for another time. Answering the question who did he love wasn’t life-or-death. They had more important things to worry about, like finding John Foster’s killer. Trick hoped he was wrong and it had nothing to do with Oberon.
♫
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Do You Believe in Magic?
Trick didn’t sleep that night. There were a hundred thoughts in his mind vying for attention. He didn’t even try to sleep. Instead, he wandered around the mansion, exploring a variety of rooms. Countless bedrooms and bathrooms—who needed that many? He found a bowling alley and a room just for making crafts.
More than anything Trick needed someone to confide in about his fear of becoming a monster. Maybe he already was one and hadn’t realized it yet. He needed to talk, but nobody was available. Baxter and Dani were grieving; Matt was upstairs asleep next to Summer; Cowboy was missing; his parents didn’t know he was a vampire; Scarlet was at home because it was her father’s night off.
Even if he could sleep, the sword wouldn’t let him.
He had left Bash’s sword under the couch in the mansion’s living room , but it popped up everywhere he went. It was on the fireplace mantle. Next, he found it leaning against the wall in the hallway. Then it was in the bathroom when he went in to take a shower.
The sword silently demanded to be cleaned.
He ignored it.
He was not polishing Bash’s weapon.
The stupid thing followed him everywhere, but he was NOT cleaning it.
He gave in at four in the morning. At least it kept his hands busy for a while. If he wanted the gruff hunter to train him, he’d have to follow orders.
His change of heart took place in the kitchen. The sword was waiting on the counter, stretched across the gray granite as if it belonged there. A flash of King Arthur came to mind. The scene would have been so much cooler if the sword had embedded itself in the polished rock. Then he could have grabbed the jeweled hilt with both hands and pulled. If he removed it, he was worthy of being a great hunter.
Trick rolled his eyes at his train of thought. “This is what happens when I don’t sleep,” he mumbled. “Delusions of grandeur.”
He ate a snack before cleaning werewolf guts off the blade. Taking his time, he polished the steel until he could see his reflection.
At six in the morning, the doorbell rang. Beautiful chimes echoed throughout the mansion. The sound reached him in the study where he was snooping through Cowboy’s personal papers. He still couldn’t believe a vampire actually had papers. His father often told him vampires were nomads, traveling the world like mindless beasts seeking their prey. Ian Carver probably would have dropped dead from shock upon seeing Cowboy’s financial statements. The vampire even had stock in a few companies.
The enigma that was Cowboy kept Trick guessing. The doorbell interrupte
d his journey into the vampire’s financial past. He made a mental note to pick up where he left off as soon as he got rid of their visitor. He hoped it was Scarlet. Maybe she’d forgotten her key at home. He opened the door to find Bash and a delicate stranger with odd, birdlike features.
The two made an odd pairing. As usual, Bash looked like a hunter after a long night of killing monsters. The other fellow was wearing a suit and a smile.
“This is Benjamin,” Bash said. “I thought you might want to meet a real wizard.”
Another game? When would the hunter tire of them? Bash kept playing with Trick instead of teaching him, and Trick was at the end of his patience. “Everybody knows real wizards don’t exist,” Trick said. His curious gaze swept down the stranger from head to feet. “Is he a faerie?”
Benjamin lifted the hat off his head, a gray derby, and gave Trick a brief nod of greeting. The hat only remained in his hand for a moment. Then it was back on his head with a daring flip. The man’s pointy nose, too long for his oval face, sniffed the air.
“Vampires live here,” Benjamin said in a matter of fact tone.
Trick paled. His eyes flicked over to Bash to see what the hunter made of the statement. The last thing Trick needed was for Bash to discover his secret identity; the hunter didn’t seem to be paying any attention to the wizard. His gaze was on his sword.
Bash held his hand out.
“Vampires used to live here,” Trick said with a scoffing laugh tacked onto the end. “I just killed them, and I was about to leave. Thanks for ruining a great getaway.”
“My sword,” Bash said. “Hand it over.”
Trick bristled at the command, but he gave up the weapon. Bash checked the blade from every angle, probably looking for a spot Trick had missed. He wouldn’t find a single drop of blood. “Where did you get a magic sword?” Trick asked.
Bash grinned. “What makes you think it’s magic?”
Trick sighed. They both knew the thing possessed power. Obviously, Bash wasn’t going to admit to anything. Trick’s curiosity about the hunters, all of them, continued to grow. How did they get their hands on such unique weapons? The Sugar Bomb? A magical sword?