Consumed (Unturned Book 5)

by Rob Cornell

  “I'm showcasing local artists. I've sold a number of pieces already. I only keep a small cut. I let the artists have the rest. I just want to get them seen. The world could use more art in its life.”

  “Yeah, sure. That's awesome.”

  Then came another awkward silence. He stared right at me. I felt scrutinized. Judged. I had never gotten that vibe from Sly before. He was one of the most accepting people I knew.

  “Hey,” I said, seizing on the first topic I could think of to kill the quiet. “Do you know a woman name Urvasi Sabio?”

  He wrinkled his brow, thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Doesn't ring a bell.”

  “I was over at Mom's grave. This lady popped up out of nowhere and claimed she was a friend of Mom's.”

  He looked at me with an unspoken, And? What's your point?

  “Aren't you a little curious?”

  “Should I be?”

  I sighed. “Come on, Sly. Work with me here. I'm trying my best.”

  He frowned, looked down at his book as if all he wanted to do was get lost in its pages again. He obviously didn't want me there. “I'm still not there, brother.”

  I almost squealed in delight. He hadn't referred to me as brother since the clusterfuck with the Maidens. Progress? Maybe. He used to call me that all the time. I would take whatever I could get.

  “I'm not expecting you to jump for joy at the sight of me,” I said. “But do you have to be so…disturbed?”

  He let his gaze rise up to meet mine. “It's funny you should use that word.”

  My stomach twisted a bit. I'd thrown out disturbed because I couldn't think of a better word in the moment. I probably should have said bothered. But from the look on Sly's face, I had used the right word after all.

  “I disturb you?”

  He scratched at his gray, stubbly goatee, seemingly contemplating his next words with care. “I was dead. Now I'm alive. That alone is unsettling, to say the least. It isn't like I don't appreciate what you did for me. It's that it came at too high a price. Your mom should be the one still alive. Not me.”

  This was the knot in our relationship. One I couldn't figure out how to untie. But I desperately needed to. Sly was the closest thing I had left to family. The only friend I had now was a seventeen-year-old kid who had been turned into a vampire barely two years ago, and hadn't known he was a sorcerer until not even one year ago. A lot of baggage there. I liked the kid. I'd warmed to him thanks to his goofy personality and the fact that he still seemed more human than monster. But that wouldn't last long. Eventually, he would begin to embrace his true nature. I could only pretend things were any other way for so long.

  But Sly was a different story. I'd known him since I was a kid. He was the last tether I had to my childhood. I couldn't stand to lose him. Hell, that was why I had gone through such hell to bring him back. Why I had gone as far as trading a piece of my soul for his. Which had turned out to be a colossal mistake. Still, I didn't regret it entirely. I just wished it had all gone down a lot differently.

  “What can I do, Sly?”

  He shook his head. “Not sure there's anything to be done, brother. Maybe, after enough time, I won't…” He trailed off and pressed his lips tightly together.

  “Won't what?”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, centering himself. When he opened them, the sadness I saw within made my heart twinge.

  “I won't see a face I resent.”

  I tried to swallow, but the chunk of something in my throat wouldn't go down. I wanted to argue with him, tell him it wasn't fair to put that on me. But it was fair. And I would just have to deal with it.

  “Okay. I gotcha. I'll let you get back to your book. The place looks great. I'm glad it's working out.”

  He nodded and picked up his book. He didn't open it, but it was a clear dismissal.

  I threw him a quick wave and left.

  The wind somehow felt more bitter, even though the afternoon sun had burned through the clouds and should have warmed things up. Maybe it was just me.

  Chapter Six

  Later that evening I sat at my dining room table with an interesting collection of items. First, the ceramic bowl I had pulled down from one of the cupboards. Something Mom had bought ages ago, and that had ended up collecting dust on the top shelf. The next item was a paring knife. If I stopped there, you might have thought I had sat down for some kind of snack. But I didn't eat ears, and the ear I had ripped off of little guy at the restaurant was yet another item before me. Then there was the rubbing alcohol and the vodka.

  I had a vision spell planned. Still not an area of magic I excelled at, but I had done a couple now, and had gotten better each time. A little, anyway.

  The ear was the connection I needed to the Bull so I could walk backwards in his shoes and hope to glimpse something in his past that could help me find the Maidens.

  I plopped that baby in the bowl. It had gone a little gelatinous and wiggled for a second when it landed. It smelled like old cheese. I stuck to breathing through my mouth for the time being.

  The next ingredient was something the magical lexicon referred to as a weakness. Something that would keep the target's soul from rebelling against the spell and causing various kinds of mayhem. That's where the vodka came in. I was guessing here. I didn't know for sure that the Bull had a drinking problem. But he had looked a little extra ruddy around the nose. Hopefully, it was enough of a vice to keep his soul at bay.

  I dumped only enough vodka into the bowl to wet down the ear and have a little pool at the bottom. It was a cheap fifth I had picked up from a drug store on the way back from Sly's, but cheap or not, no sense wasting booze. You never knew when you would need a quick shot. Gods knew I had earned some.

  I used the rubbing alcohol to sterilize the paring knife. If I wanted to merge my mind with the Bull's past, I had to have some skin in the game. Or, in this case, some blood. I sliced the pad of my left thumb and squeezed a few drops into the bowl. Most of it went into the cup of the ear, though I hadn't been aiming for it. The blood just needed to have some contact with the source.

  I sucked my thumb, then pushed a tiny bit of magic into it and knitted the cut closed. That was about as much healing as I could consciously give myself. Healing was a particular art all on its own, and most sorcerers didn't specialize in it. We left most of that stuff to the druids and alchemists.

  I rested my hands in my lap, closed my eyes, and focused my will on the bowl's contents. I took deep, steady breaths. The trick with more subtle spells like this one—as opposed to flinging around bolts of flame—was not to put too much power into it, yet use enough to give you the results you needed. I had never been that good with what I used to call small magic. I hadn't thought I needed it. When you're a demon hunter, a whole lot of fire and wind took care of most situations just fine.

  I could feel my magic hum around the bowl like a miniature aura. The bowl began to rattle against the table. I opened my eyes and watched it skitter a couple inches to the right. The vodka started to bubble.

  I was putting too much into it. But it felt like I was hardly touching it.

  I released an even breath and scaled my magic back.

  The bowl went still. The vodka behaved like room temperature vodka was supposed to.

  But now I didn't have any sense that the spell was working. Had I pulled back too far?

  Gods, I hated this shit. Let me go burn up another restaurant.

  I clenched a fist against my thigh. I was screwing this up. I would end up tainting the spell and blow another possible lead.

  No.

  I clenched my teeth and pushed more power into the spell.

  The bowl started its little dance again. The ceramic made a burrrrrr sound against the table's wooden surface. I stared at the bowl so hard my eyes dried out from not blinking. My knuckles grew sore from clenching my fist so tightly.

  “Damn it,” I said under my breath. “Work. Just…work.”

  The
bowl stopped again.

  A sudden phosphorescent blue mist wisped away from the contents. The last two times I had done a spell like this, I hadn't seen a blue mist, but I was pretty sure it meant I had sparked the spell. Now for the gross part.

  (Why did there always have to be a gross part?)

  I dipped my fingers into the liquid, squished the ear a little to make sure I touched all three ingredients—blood, vodka, and ear. Then I closed my eyes, lifted my fingers out of the bowl, and smeared the mixture over my eyelids.

  Old cheese and vodka made a terrible scent combo. My throat closed as I nearly gagged.

  I made sure to breathe through my mouth again and settled back in my chair. I relaxed my body and focused on the darkness behind my eyelids. The light hanging from the ceiling in the dining room was on, so some light still seeped through. But after an instant, the blackness turned absolute.

  When I scooped the gunk out of my eyes and opened them, I no longer sat at the table.

  I stood in the parking lot of a seedy motel. Well, it was the Bull who stood there, but I rode along inside as if we were one and the same. I stood near the front office, though with my back to it. I had my hands tucked in the pockets of a pair of imitation Armani slacks. The air tasted like exhaust and had a chilly bite.

  Above me, the motel's neon sign buzzed. The sign told me there were still vacancies, that each room had cable TV, and that the name of the dump was Kingston Estates. I internally laughed at the name. The Bull, on the other hand, wasn't laughing. In fact, where his emotions should have sat, I felt nothing but a cold void. I didn't know if I had tripped up the spell somehow, but I should have had access to how he was feeling just as clearly as I could interpret his other senses.

  Not that I needed it. I just needed this memory to lead somewhere.

  He turned around and looked through the window into the motel's small reception area. A guy in his late twenties still battling acne flares on his cheeks sat behind the desk, glassy gaze locked on his phone as he swiped at the screen with his thumb.

  I realized I couldn't get a read on the Bull's thoughts either.

  I really had jacked up the spell. I could deal with not knowing his emotions. Thoughts, though, were key, damn it. For all I knew, he could have been thinking about where he'd been, where he was going, maybe even something specific about the Maidens. This left me at a serious disadvantage.

  I stuck with it, though. I would just have to rely on his perceptions alone and hope for a tip.

  After checking out the kid behind the desk, the Bull strode across the parking lot, straight for room six. I poked around his other senses. Couldn't feel a key in any of his pockets. Maybe one of his other buddies had it already inside the room. But I was hoping for something better.

  When he reached the door, he knocked immediately. He took a deep breath. Nerves? Damn it, I really wished I had full access. His stomach did a tumble. Yeah, definitely nerves. I hoped I knew what had him worked up, but I didn't want to set myself up for disappointment.

  He had to wait a good twenty seconds before the door finally opened.

  Out in the real world, where I sat at my dining room table, I gasped. I recognized the girl at once. A red-headed, freckled girl with knobby elbows and a seemingly permanent scowl. I also knew she had a twin.

  It was either Tara or Fia. Didn't matter which. She was one of the Maidens of Shadow.

  Could I have really gotten this lucky? The first memory I had hopped into, and the Bull led me right to them?

  The girl gave the Bull a once over, nodded, and swung open the door.

  His stomach did another tumble as he took in the sight.

  Every one of the remaining witches in the coven were in the motel room. A few sitting on either of a pair of full-sized beds. A couple more milling about. Four of them were young, about college age. The other three were older, mid-forties at least. One of them had straight red hair and her own dusting of freckles. Obviously the mother of the twins. The other had her back to the Bull. She gazed out the room's back window that only had a view of a gray cinder block wall.

  The twins' mother glided toward the door with a thin, lopsided smile. “Mr. Groski,” she said. “Do come in.”

  The Bull hesitated a second, then crossed the threshold.

  A searing white light blasted across my vision. Pain cracked through my skull as if someone had clocked me on the head with a sock full of ball bearings. The sensation of falling made my stomach lurch. Then came the impact.

  Next thing I knew, I was back in my dining room and staring at the ceiling. It took a second for me to get my bearings. I had tipped backward in my chair. I was still sitting on it like an astronaut in a rocket ready to launch. My head throbbed like a motherfucker. I didn't know what had happened, but one thing was for sure—the spell was done.

  I rolled off the chair and got to my feet.

  On the table, the ear in the bowl had turned to a wet, black lump. Inky smoke rose from it. The stink made the old cheese smell seem like roses in comparison. It smelled like someone had lit three-day-old road kill on fire.

  I stared at it absently, my mind a little cloudy. Then I blinked away the daze and hurried into the kitchen. My laptop sat open on the counter. I tapped at the track pad to wake the computer up. Then I got online and looked up the Kingston Estates motel. Once I had an address, I plugged it into my phone's GPS.

  I grabbed my coat and was almost out the door when I froze.

  What if the witches were still there? I couldn't rush in there half-cocked.

  I looked outside. Even at seven o' clock, the sun still had plenty of light left. Fucking daylight savings time. I needed the dark, because I needed Odi. I wouldn't make the same mistake I had at the restaurant.

  See? I could learn my lesson.

  Waiting for dusk was excruciating. As each minute passed, I grew more and more convinced I was letting the Maidens get away. It did give me time to contemplate how to tackle the situation if they were, in fact, still in that motel room. I wouldn't rush in. That would be suicide. I would have Odi shadow walk his way close enough to determine if they were inside. If so, the next part was easy.

  I'd burn down the whole fucking building.

  Chapter Seven

  The motel was on the outskirts of the city. It sat between a pawn shop and a closed down Mexican restaurant. Odi and I sat in my car, parked across the street. The place looked exactly as it had during my vision. Only a couple cars were in the lot, neither one parked in front of room six. I couldn't see any light coming from the window either, but the heavy curtains were drawn shut, so I couldn't be sure no one was in there. It wasn't even ten o' clock, but maybe witches went to bed early.

  Or maybe this was another dead end.

  While I would have loved to march up to the door, blast it off its hinges, and start flinging fire at anything that moved inside, that probably wouldn't end well whether the Maidens were in there or not. Thankfully, I had a vampire with me.

  “You want to do some shadow walking?” I asked. “See if you can peek in around that curtain?”

  Odi sucked his teeth and thought it over for a few seconds. He pointed toward the motel. “Too many lights. Especially from that tall one. There aren't enough shadows to get me around it.”

  He was right. A pair of antenna-shaped lights loomed over the lot on either side. Not even the overhang above the doors to the rooms cast much of a shadow in the yellow glow. The one on the left lit the area Odi would need to sneak through. One damn light stood in the way.

  I climbed out of the car. Odi followed suit. He looked at me over the roof of the car.

  “What are you gonna do?”

  I nodded toward our light enemy. “Watch and learn.”

  I held out my hand and focused on the glowing bulb. I felt the heat it generated. I drew on that heat, made it stronger. Hotter. Brighter. I could feel the flame ignite within, then the bulb exploded, shards of glass and sparks spraying and falling to the asphalt below.
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  Darkness enveloped half of the motel's front lot. Now the overhang above room six cast thick shadows. So thick I couldn't make out the door until my eyes adjusted.

  “That dark enough for you?”

  He smirked. “Easy peasy.”

  He strolled across the street, and when he reached the lot, he faded from sight.

  The kid was a master at shadow walking. I had seen him meld with the tiniest sliver of darkness. Which always made me smile. His first attempts at the vampire trick had sucked horribly.

  I waited patiently, trying not to pay too much attention to the burnt rubber smell hanging in the still air. The night kept some of the day's warmth. The temp probably floated somewhere in the high fifties. The inconsistent Michigan weather at it again.

  It only took Odi a couple of minutes, and then he stepped out of the shadows and crossed the street back to the car. He shrugged. “Didn't see or hear anything. Looks dark inside. I don't think anyone is in there.”

  I gritted my teeth and hissed a breath out through my nose.

  “What now boss?”

  I rapped my fingers on the roof of the car in a steady rhythm as I thought things through. “They could have left some clues behind,” I said. “We should check it out.”

  “You want to break in?”

  “That a problem?”

  “Only if we get caught, I guess.”

  “We won't get caught.”

  Together, we crossed the street. I wasn't worried too much about anyone seeing me. The darkness was probably enough to keep me out of sight of the front office. And whoever manned the desk that night hadn't bothered to come out to see what had happened to the light. My guess was, that guy with the acne who I'd seen in the vision, obsessed with the game on his phone, was probably on duty.

  It must have been second nature for Odi to slip into the shadows. He disappeared from my side, and I had no sense of his relative position to me, but I knew he was still there.

  “Show off,” I muttered under my breath.

  I heard a suppressed chuckle from the darkness.