by Mary Martel
I needed to hire a security team to sweep through for bugs or anything else that shouldn't be here.
"Uncle Quint," I whispered as I waived my hand around the space and pushed my pointer finger to my lips, hoping he would get the message.
If the Council had known about this place and the old blind lady who'd run it then I wasn't so sure I wanted to own it. I'd rather have it mowed down and turned into a parking lot than run a space they monitored.
Uncle Quint needed to shut the fuck up until we knew for certain there weren't any outsiders in our domain.
Eyes just slightly darker than mine narrowed on me before he nodded his head once in understanding.
“Hmm…” He muttered noncommittedly and I knew he understood my silent command.
He pulled out his phone and immediately began tapping at the screen. My phone beeped moments later with a text message.
Uncle Quint: I will contact the security company who installed the system at our house and get them out here to check the place over. You’re paying for it, though.
I smirked at him. No way was he going to make me pay for it, he was just giving me a hard time because that’s what he liked to do.
I didn’t mind him taking over and deciding what to do with the place. It was a big help on his behalf when he didn’t need to help me at all.
“Show me the rest of the building,” he demanded.
“I haven’t actually seen the rest of the building,” I admitted sheepishly.
Quinton sighed heavily and rubbed his hand over his eyes. “Don’t you think you should have seen all of it before you bought the whole damn thing, Ty? Not smart at all. What if the rest of it is dumpier than the outside? Then you’re fucked. What were you thinking?”
I rubbed the back of my neck in embarrassment.
“I was thinking about Ariel,” I told him honestly. “And how I think she’d love it here and she’s always wanted to get her cards read and hasn’t ever had it done. She will get a real kick out of this place. And she really needs something to do with her time, I thought this was perfect for her. I know she’s going to start training with… us soon but she’s still got a lot of time on her hands and I worry she’s going to get more depressed unless we find something to occupy her time with. We are never going to be comfortable with her getting a new job and working it so that she’s away from us and on her own for long periods of time throughout the day. She could work here, we all could, and she can train with Ra… with her magic, and learn how to read the cards so that she could even do readings for others eventually. It’s perfect.”
Shit.
I’d almost slipped up and talked about Rain in here before knowing if it was safe to do so. We really did not need the Council knowing anything about him right now, not with Quint talking the way he was.
Quinton shot me an ugly look before asking, "You think she needs a job or something to do with her time?"
I sighed and rolled my eyes. That's what he got out of what I said? Good grief, he really was an asshole.
"No, Uncle Quint," I sighed heavily. "I don't think she needs a fucking job but I do think she needs something to do with her time. Everybody does. She needs some structure in her life, something to do with her time. In case you missed it, she doesn't have any friends outside of us and she spends most of her time hidden away at Dash's. She doesn't go to school, and, yeah, I know she passed her GED but that's beside the point. She doesn't have anything to occupy her time with, she needs a purpose. We just came in, took over her life, or we tried to, and I really don't want her to get depressed. She needs things to do with her time besides hanging out with whoever is around and learning magic when we feel the gumption to teach it to her. She needs more than that and you know it. This is the perfect opportunity for her. She can learn and earn some extra cash at the same time. And," I held my hand up silencing him before he could argue with me. "You and I both know she doesn't ever spend the money Marcus left for her. She never spends money on anything except for maybe gas for the Rover and if she ever eats anywhere that's not at home. She needs to earn her own money and here she can do that. We can set her up with a paycheck for the time she spends here. It's the perfect way to give her money and the only way she'll accept it from us."
His face had hardened and turned a darker shade of red by the second as I spoke. He didn't like what I'd said, not at all and I couldn't really blame him. Quint was raised with an old school father who had certain ideals and expectations where the females in his life were concerned. Now, I'm not saying Uncle Quint was anything like my grandfather because he wasn't. But, and that's a really big but there, he wouldn't want his woman working for a paycheck when he could easily afford to buy her anything her heart desired and would see it as an insult that she'd rather work some crummy, low paying job rather than take the debit card and live an easy life of luxury.
Part of me wanted to do the same and coddle Ariel and give her the best of everything. The other part of me, the smarter part, knew she'd feel smothered and rebel against being treated like that. She'd see it as a hand out and hate us for it.
"I see your point," my Uncle grumbled gracelessly. "It's not healthy for her to have nothing to do with her time, but I guess I was just hoping she'd take that time to get to know us better and to get so in with us that she'd never want to leave."
My eyes narrowed on him. "You'd let her leave?" I asked him, sounding incredulous.
He winced and I knew he'd never let her go.
My mouth fell open when he said the unexpected and I ended up being wrong.
"Yeah," he whispered darkly. "If she really wanted to go and wasn't happy with us, with me, then I'd let her go. It would kill me, but I'd do it. For her."
I fucking knew it.
He loved her.
And not a puppy love kind of love, but a soul deep kind. The kind of love that would crush him and he'd never recover if she ever did leave him.
And I did not find one single thing to be jealous of or upset about. I felt nothing but happiness for my Uncle because he deserved to love and be loved back and he deserved to be loved by a girl like Ariel. And she did love him back. I know she'd not said as much out loud because there was no way any of the guys would have been able to keep something like that to themselves and wouldn't have gone blabbing to the rest of us. But I knew she loved him. It was there for anyone who knew her to see when she looked at him. Maybe not always when she was talking to him or about him, but it was there when she looked at him. It was also there to see in the way she put up with all of his bullshit but didn't let him walk all over her at the same time. I wasn't so sure he saw it or knew exactly how she felt about him, it was always harder to tell when it was your heart on the line.
I wanted her to love me as much as she loved him. Hell, I just wanted her to love me at all. I knew better than to get jealous, though. There was no room for jealousy in this relationship of ours. This was a lesson I had learned all too well once before and knew better than to repeat it now or ever again. Jealousy would tear my family apart faster than any female ever would.
"Well," I said quietly, "she's not going anywhere. She's with us now and she doesn't want to ever leave us. We just need to make sure she's happy, too."
"Alright, Nephew," he mumbled. "You're point has been made and I can't say that I disagree with you."
I blew out a gust of air in relief. That could have gone really bad and I counted myself lucky it hadn't. Especially since I knew he was upset with me when he showed up here, I shouldn't have been doing or saying things to upset him but to try and make things right between us. Instead, here I was irritating him and pushing his buttons like normal.
It was a good thing we were family and, therefore, forced to love each other. If we weren't family we'd probably hate each other because we argued so often and constantly got on each others nerves.
"How 'bout we tour the rest of your building now?" He asked in a teasing voice. "I mean, you've gotta at least be curious to see wha
t you've paid for."
I shrugged. "Sure."
No matter how hard he tried to rile me up about the fact I'd bought a building without seeing it in its entirety, I refused to be embarrassed.
We spent the next hour and a half going through the entire building in all of its grimy glory. Uncle Quint managed to keep his snide comments to himself the entire time, for which I appreciated because the place was definitely worth a few snide remarks.
It needed a lot of work. A lot of work.
The apartment above the shop reeked like cat piss and cigarette smoke. I wondered if this was where the old blind witch had been living and, if so, what the hell had happened to her cats. I liked cats but no fucking way was I bringing one home that pissed all over the place, I wasn't interested in cleaning that kind of mess up on the daily. I might adopt one if it were cute though, but, then again, maybe not. Ariel only seemed interested in getting a cat if it was that ugly hairless kind and I thought those were expensive so there was no way there'd be one hidden away up here in this mess.
If the smell wasn't bad enough, every single ounce of wall space was covered in disgusting wallpaper that looked to be straight outta my nightmares. The carpet looked like it had unfortunately been white at one point in time but was now mostly yellow and covered in stains. It needed to go but Uncle Quint and I pulled up a corner in every room and miraculously discovered beautiful hardwood underneath all that ugly carpet. Unlike the wallpaper, the carpet could easily be removed and tossed into a dumpster. I added getting a dumpster out here onto my mental to do list.
The kitchen was small, the appliances outdated, and the entire room needed to be gutted and replaced. The price tag just kept climbing higher and higher.
The one and only bathroom was small and scarily covered in an offensive shade of pink. The bathtub, the sink, even the tile around the shower head. It, too, needed to be gutted and replaced.
Outside of the kitchen and the bathroom, there was a rather large living room and two decent sized bedrooms. All in all, it wasn't a bad space. I could pay people to fix the shit that needed to be fixed and then rent it out easily if I wanted to.
I had no intention of renting the space out but I did have other plans for it.
After we left the apartment we went down the back set of stairs to where there was a door that led to the outside of the back of the building, a door that led to the office space and a door that led to the back of the shop. The space needed new lighting in the ceiling so that it was actually well lit and would make whoever had to walk through here feel a whole lot safer as opposed to the shady dark that filled the space now and could easily potentially hide people or things in the shadows.
Another thing I added to my mental to do list.
I stuck my key in the lock, turned the knob and, hopefully not unfortunately, let us into another space in the building. This had once been an office space for some low rent attorney but had been empty for several years now because the attorney had been dirty and found himself in a jail cell beside a bunch of hardened criminals he'd lied and cheated in order to keep out of prison. Thankfully for him he'd mostly been good at his job so I imagined he had a better time in prison than most attorneys did. When you worked for the bad guys instead of against them, prison didn't really seem like a bad place to be.
I didn't know about Quint, but I walked through that doorway with a heavy heart and ready for disappointment.
It didn't take long for my spirits to lift and my attitude to change.
There was no dirty carpet in here and no cat piss smell. It was dusty and in need of a cleaning, to be sure. But that was only due to the fact the space had been closed up and unused for years and not because anything in there was really dirty.
Uncle Quint knelt down and brushed the palm of his hand across the hardwood floor. He swiped away several layers of dust to revel a beautifully polished floor that didn't need anything outside of an initial cleaning.
"Nice floors," he muttered appreciatively and I found myself sighing in relief. Thank fucking god there was something nice in the place.
Towards the back, there was a small, galley style kitchen with barely any room to maneuver but it wasn't in need of a facelift. The appliances were black and probably bought not long before the attorney had found himself in prison. Nothing in there needed to be replaced.
The doorway to the entrance and the kitchen opened up to a small reception area with two other doors.
I peeked in the first door and was relieved to see a small, white bathroom that was so different from the bathroom in the apartment upstairs it wasn't even funny.
The second door was different from the first because the top half of it was covered in a piece of frosted glass and had a name printed in black across the bottom. A peek inside showed a spacious room with a large, wide window that had been boarded over. I knew from having seen it from the outside that there was nothing wrong with the window, so I wasn't entirely sure why it had been boarded over.
We left the office without speaking and headed back into the shop.
Uncle Quint stopped in front of a door tucked underneath a tilted ceiling that clearly was underneath the stairs leading up and he knocked his knuckles against it.
"What's in here?" He asked me.
I shrugged.
Really, how the fuck was I supposed to know?
"Don't know," I muttered. "Only one way to find out."
Quinton smirked at me happily before turning his back on me and going for the door handle.
The door opened and he pushed his way inside. I didn't know what the hell he had to smirk about but I dutifully followed behind him.
A click sounded right before light burst to life. I blinked away the dark and grimaced at the string that hung down from the ceiling where Quinton was lowering his hand.
A wooden set of stairs led down into a dark abyss and there were no railings on either side of the stairs.
I shook my head as I followed Uncle Quint down the stairs. I wasn't surprised he walked right down them as if he'd been there before a thousand times and knew just exactly what he was walking into. He acted as if he owned the place.
I wasn't about to argue about who'd bought the place, not when he was walking down those stairs first and headlong into the unknown dark.
Chapter Ten
Love you, Uncle Quint
"Jesus, fuck," Uncle Quint muttered under his breath.
I couldn't blame him, I, too, was looking around the space with wide eyes, taking everything in.
When we made it to the bottom of the stairs, I had followed behind Quint's dark shadow until he stopped abruptly and another click sounded as another bulb flicked to life.
Another fucking pull string.
I had sighed before looking around the basement we stood in.
Then I looked around in disbelief.
Jesus, fuck, was right!
"Maybe we should just burn the place down," I said in horror. "There's no fucking way I will ever be comfortable owning a place like this now."
"It can be cleansed," Uncle Quint muttered in disgust.
I shook my head. I didn't believe him.
There was no cleansing for a place like this. It was a goddamned horror show.
"We should call Julian," I muttered.
"Fuck Jules," Uncle Quinton muttered back. "We should probably call the cock sucking Council in on this shit."
I agreed, but shared anyways, "I don't actually think any of them are cock suckers, so I don't think it's fair of you to call them that."
Quinton glared at me. Under any other circumstances I would have grinned at him.
The room around me kept me from grinning.
The walls down here were painted an absolute shade of black so dark it sucked away some of the brightness coming from the light bulb hanging down from the ceiling.
There was a circular alter in the middle of the room draped in a heavy black cloth. The entire table top was covered in bowls and jars. Some of
the jars were filled with what looked and smelled like old blood. The bowls that were crusted with it smelled rotten. A wide, circular mirror lay face up underneath the table and was smeared in blood. There were black candles on the floor, ringed around the table. The cement floor was covered in splotches of wax from where previous candles had been placed on the bare floor and burned out. There was a smell to the room that wasn't old or musty like I thought I would get when we came down here but instead sour, almost rotten.
"Well," Quinton drawled. "At least we know how she stayed hidden away from the Council now."
"Please tell me you don't think there are bodies, either animal or human, down here that once belonged to all that blood."
Uncle Quint shrugged like it didn't matter either way to him.
"I think the smell is just from the blood," he said casually. "Besides, I don't see anywhere to hide a body, even a smaller one, like an animal."
That was reassuring.
Not.
"Unless," he muttered thoughtfully, "something's been walled over. This space doesn't run along the entire building."
"Jesus," I muttered, hoping he was joking but knowing there was no way in hell he was anything but serious.
"Maybe you should run your hands along the walls," he suggested darkly. "See if you can feel anything out of whack."
I shot him a dirty look. "Why do I have to do it?"
"Because it's your shitty building," he shot back.
Oh yeah, it was my shitty building. A building I was regretting purchasing by the second.
It seemed the old blind bat wasn't exactly an innocent witch in hiding after all.
Reluctantly, I walked around the room, running my hands along the wall, searching for any change in the surface.
Thankfully, I found nothing. I turned to tell Quinton he was wrong and something under the stairs caught my eye. Without pointing it out to my Uncle, I moved that way to investigate.
I ducked underneath the stairs and walked straight towards the open doorway hidden beneath the stairs.