Witch’s Storm
The Bone Coven Chronicles
Jenna Wolfhart
Witch’s Storm
Book 2 of The Bone Coven Chronicles
Cover Design by Orina Kafe
Copyright © 2017 by Jenna Wolfhart
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
About the Author
Chapter 1
A long howl ripped through the night. Everyone in the crowded space fell silent. Even though it was a Wednesday night, Blue Moon Tavern was bustling with activity from a peculiar combination of humans, mages, and vampires.
When word had spread through the magical community about what I’d done to repair the alliance between the vampires and the Bone Coven, the bar where I worked had turned into a verifiable hub for supernaturals. Half were curious about the newest bone witch on the scene and half were just glad there was another haunt to add to the college bar crawl. The latter was humans, mostly.
Not that the majority of the humans here had any idea they were rubbing elbows with bloodsuckers. The vamps were allowed to chug cheap beer in the tavern on one condition and one condition only: no feeding on my customers. But not all humans were still blissfully unaware that danger lurked under the surface of the normal world. There were rumors circling through the underground Boston scene, ones that spoke of demons and vampires and mages who killed.
“What the hell was that?” One of the locals asked from where he was perched on a barstool next to Anastasia, the female Daywalker who still showed an uneasy amount of interest in my best friend, Laura, even though it had been three months since Laura got her coven mark.
Anastasia twirled a long strand of blonde hair around her finger and smiled at where Laura wiped away a spillage of port. “Sounded like someone screaming in agony, though sometimes pain can be pleasurable. Don’t you think, Laura?”
I scowled at the vampire. She’d been saying shit like that to Laura far too much for my liking. Her smile only widened as I raised my voice for the entire bar to hear. “Nothing to worry about, you guys. Just the upstairs neighbor’s dog. He’s been howling like that for months. Now, drink up!”
Immediately, the mood shifted back into rowdy dive bar mode. Shot glasses clinked against shot glasses, a group of frat boys howled in the back corner, and a cluster of vampires began swaying lustily to the melancholy rock ballad playing on the jukebox. Just another night at Blue Moon Tavern.
As I turned to grab two pint glasses for the next customer, Laura scooted over to my side and dropped her voice to a whisper. “We really should talk to Juno about that damn dog.”
“No kidding,” I said, glancing up at the ceiling. While the dog had been howling off and on for months, he had gotten a hell of a lot louder recently. Ear-splitting was a pretty accurate description. Like Anastasia had said, the poor creature sounded like he thought the world was ending. “That’s two nights in a row the howling has freaked out customers. This place is booming right now. Don’t want to scare people off.”
“Or, maybe that’s part of the ambience,” Laura said, blushing as she glanced over her shoulder at Anastasia. She still hadn’t gotten over her embarrassment about what had happened a few months back at the vampire club, Slayerville. Without understanding the repercussions, she’d downed a vampire elixir that had caused all her inhibitions to go flying right out the window. And she’d ended up in Anastasia’s lap, getting fed upon.
Back then, Laura had been an unmarked witch, which meant she hadn’t officially belonged to any coven. So, she’d been fair game for vampire dinner. Not anymore though.
“You mean, the creepy supernaturals like the creepy vibe? Who would have thought?” I turned the tap and watched the foamy liquid fill the glass. “Are you sure you’re okay with Anastasia being here? I can escort her outside if it’s too weird for you. Plus, I don’t want her getting any bright ideas about having a second helping of Laura blood.”
“No, it’s okay,” Laura said as she grabbed a new bottle of whiskey from underneath the counter. With her long hair twirled into a messy bun, her slender neck was very much on display, and Anastasia did nothing to hide the fact she had her eyes locked right onto Laura’s pale skin. “She won’t touch me now that I have my coven mark.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” I mumbled, but I decided not to push it. Anastasia didn’t seem like the kind of vampire to care much about the alliance, or else she wouldn’t have fed on a witch in the first place. Laura might have technically been up-for-grabs, but vampires tended to avoid drinking from mages, marked or not. The alliance was far too tenuous to rock the boat.
Thankfully, Laura no longer had that problem. When she’d helped me cast the blood spell in order to reverse the curse on my grandmother, the magic had been strong enough to trigger her coven mark. She was now an official member of the Blood Coven, though she hadn’t yet been welcomed into their folds. While there were a few blood mages in the Boston area, the official coven headquarters was located in Scotland, and Laura had little desire to leave behind the only home she’d ever known.
Another howl shot through the night, a grating, goosebumps-inducing noise that spoke of pain and fear and anger. A momentary bout of silence followed as everyone in the bar turned to stare up at the ceiling. Several girls grabbed their purses and made a move for the door, whispering about angry ghosts. With a roll of my eyes, I leaned down to adjust the speaker controls that were located underneath the counter and pumped up the volume of the jukebox. If this didn’t stop soon, more people were going to leave.
“As soon as Nathan shows up,” I said as I glanced at the neon-lit clock on the wall, “I’m going to have a chat with Juno. She needs to get her dog under control.”
Laura blew at her jagged bangs and wiped away a bead of sweat on her forehead. The heat was almost stifling with all the warm bodies and the flowing booze, despite the dropping temperature outside. “He’s been late all week. There’s no telling when he’ll show up. No, you go ahead now. I’ll be fine.”
“You can’t man the bar by yourself.” I gestured at the bodies that had begun to crowd in close, a cluster in the front leaning forward with money in their hands. “It’s way too busy.”
“I’ll be fine for five minutes while you talk to her.” She grabbed ten shot glasses and began to line them up in a row, throwing me a thumbs up.
With a nod, I shrugged through the crowd, finding relief in the cool air when I stepped outside. Overhead, the sky was dark and clear, and a full moon glowed like the brightest of bulbs. I shivered in my thin cotton shirt, suddenly wishing I’d grabbed my leat
her jacket. Winter was in full swing in Boston, and soon enough, snow would begin to pile on the city streets.
I turned toward the door that led to the staircase, pushing the buzzer for Juno’s apartment, which sat directly on top of Blue Moon Tavern. A moment later, the door screeched, signaling that she’d let me inside. One short flight of stairs later, and I stood on the landing outside of her apartment, staring back at a pair of dark green eyes that peeked out through a cracked door.
“What’s up, Zoe?” she asked, keeping the door open just enough for me to see a sliver of her face. There were bags under her eyes that emphasized her light freckles, and her red hair was twisted into a messy bun. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days. The dog was obviously not making things easy on her either.
“I need to talk to you, Juno, and I come bearing gifts.” I lifted a bottle of her favorite beer. “You going to let me come in?”
She nibbled on her bottom lip and glanced behind her. “Um, okay. Just give me a second.”
After disappearing into her apartment and rustling around, Juno swung open the door and ushered me inside, her cheeks pink with color. She hugged her arms around her ratty band t-shirt and stared down at her pajamas-clad legs. If she were anyone else, I’d feel bad about dropping by so late, but Juno was a night owl. And there was no way she’d been asleep with all that howling.
“Sorry about that. I just…the place is a wreck,” she said.
She wasn’t wrong about that. I let out a light exhale as my eyes drank in the state of Juno’s apartment. The coffee table had been knocked sideways, and chew marks were indented on every wooden leg. The stuffing had been ripped out of her couch, and paint chips from the wall were scattered across the floor from where it looked as though someone—or something—had tried to claw its way out of the room.
I raised my eyebrows and let out a low whistle. “Everything okay, Juno?”
“Yep, of course!” Her voice was too bright, too cheerful, a sure sign she wasn’t as happy as she wanted me to think. “The dog is just having some training issues.”
“No kidding.” Pressing my lips together, I tried to find the right words to say. “Speaking of, is there any way you can work on the howling? It’s starting to creep out the customers. What with the rumors about ghosts and demons flying around, they’re starting to think the place is haunted. We’ve had at least twenty people leave tonight because of it.”
Juno sighed and slumped onto the shredded couch, her shoulders sagging. “I’m sorry, Zoe. Things have just been so crazy lately. What with the dog acting up and my own demon problem.”
My grip tightened on the beer bottle I still held, and my breath froze in my lungs. There was no way I’d just heard what I thought I’d heard. “Your own demon problem? What are you talking about?”
Juno was one-hundred percent human, but she and Nathan had become close over the past few months. He’d told her everything about the supernatural world, despite my repeated requests to keep the whole thing a secret. The night he’d been kidnapped by the vampires had really shaken him, and he hadn’t been the same ever since. Juno had been there for him in ways I couldn’t be. So, she knew every morbid detail, minus the truth about my shadow powers. Because even Nathan didn’t know that.
“Here, let me have that. I think I need it,” she said, reaching for the beer that I gladly dropped into her hands. After a long gulp of the bitter liquid, she shoved her fingers into her mess of red hair and closed her eyes. “There’s a demon in my mechanic shop. It actually keeps to itself most of the time, but it’s attacked customers a couple of times.”
“Attacked.” I blinked and eased onto the edge of her destroyed coffee table. The likelihood of a demon being loose in an auto repair shop was next to none. For a year, I’d taken on cases from people who thought they were being tormented by demons, only to discover there were a hell of a lot of humans who had overactive imaginations. Only one case had been real, but that time didn’t count. Because that client hadn’t been human. He’d been fae.
“The other day, a customer crumpled to the floor, jerking like some kind of ghost was attacking him.” Juno shuddered. “Nathan said it sounded like a demon attack.”
“Juno,” I said quietly, not knowing how to word this without coming across like I was being too dismissive. “Nathan wasn’t wrong. That’s what a demon attack looks like, but this man was probably just having a seizure. In all my time spent hunting demons, it was extremely rare for me to actually come across one.”
“That’s right.” She lifted her gaze to meet mine, peering out through her messy red strands. Her eyes were ringed by dark eyeliner, highlighting the haunted look on her face. Even if she wasn’t being targeted by a demon, she truly thought she was. “You used to hunt demons, didn’t you? You handled this kind of thing all the time. Before you joined the witch squad.”
“It’s not…” I shook my head at the term ‘witch squad’ but decided not to correct her. “Yes, I did. In a way. But I don’t do that anymore unless it’s official Enforcer business, and even then…There just aren’t any demons around to banish.”
In other words, I’d stopped conning people. There was no need to anymore. With the bartender job and the Enforcer salary, I was finally able to pay rent on time and put more than just ramen noodles on the table. No more crime for me. Every now and then, I still felt the siren call deep down inside, the pull to skirt the line between right and wrong. But I knew that was just my shadow nature talking, trying to lure me back into the darkness.
“Can you get rid of it for me?” She took another swig of the beer and gestured at the mess around us. “Please? I could really use some help right now.”
“I ah…” I should say no. Turn around and walk away from this as fast as I could. Because the truth was, it was highly unlikely that Juno had an actual demon lurking in her auto repair shop. The veil between realms had been strengthened after the war, and demons were rarely able to break through. But she looked so hopeful and sad, slouching there on her chewed-up couch that I couldn’t bring myself to turn her down.
“Have you seen any kind of markings on your floor? Something that looks like this?” I whipped my phone from my pocket and scrolled through my photos to find an image of a typical summoning rune.
Juno frowned and shook her head. “No, nothing like that.”
Sighing, I slid my phone back into my pocket. Despite her hound from hell, Juno was one of the most easy-going people I’d ever met. Kind and generous and loyal to a fault. She’d done a lot for Nathan. For that, I felt I owed her, especially since I was the one who had gotten him sucked into the vampire mess in the first place. And I didn’t know how to tell her that it was all in her imagination, brought on by any number of things. Stress, fear, past trauma, sleep deprivation, drugs. She didn’t seem like the kind of person to suffer from any of those things, but I wasn’t a stranger to hiding the real truth about myself from the rest of the world.
“I can pay you,” she said quickly as if she could sense my hesitation. “How much do you charge?”
“Keep your cash. For a friend, it’s free.” I held up a hand when she began to smile. “But I’m not promising anything. I’ll come by and take a look at the shop, but I have to be honest with you. What you’re dealing with doesn’t sound like a demon. You sure it isn’t your dog wreaking havoc?”
The last bit was a joke, but Juno’s face clouded over as if a dangerous storm had suddenly rolled across the blotchy ceiling. Maybe I really had read her wrong. Maybe there was more troubling her than it seemed. Could she really have a demon in her shop? It seemed hard to imagine, but for her, I’d check things out.
“So, we good?” I raised my eyebrows and stood. “I’ll check out your demon problem, and you’ll work on training your dog. Deal?”
She nodded, swallowing hard. “You won’t hear another peep from him tonight. I promise.”
“What did she say?” Laura asked when I rejoined her behind the bar. Nathan had finally show
n up, hair frazzled and eyes sunken. Frankly, he looked like shit. A pang went through my heart. I hated that he was struggling so hard to come to terms with what had happened. It was so bad that sometimes I couldn’t help but wonder if there was more to that night than what he’d shared.
According to him, the vampires had found him closing up Blue Moon Tavern. After he’d tried putting up a fight, they’d stuffed him into the trunk of a car before bringing him to Dorian’s apartment to make the deal. The problem with that story? There were hours in between that weren’t accounted for. At first, I’d been scared that they’d drained all his blood, but there were no teeth marks on his neck, and he’d recovered fast enough.
“She’s going to keep the dog quiet, but Laura….” I turned my back to Anastasia who could hear us even though I’d dropped my voice to a whisper. Vampire hearing was the worst. “Juno thinks she has a demon in her shop, and she looked spooked. I’m starting to think you know who’s emotional state is rubbing off on her.”
Laura flicked her gaze to where Nathan stood by the stockroom door, rubbing his purple-ringed eyes. “He looks hungover again. The poor guy. You don’t think Juno is dealing with a real demon, do you?”
“Do you?” I smiled at a customer, took his drink order, and turned back toward the beer tap. “I mean, what would be the odds of that actually happening? To someone we know?”
“Three months ago, I would have said the odds were pretty fucking close to zero.” Laura frowned, pausing as she balanced four full pint glasses. “But now? I don’t know, Zoe. I think anything is possible. Look at how things are in our lives. I’m a blood witch. Your partner is a cursed vampire. And you killed a guy inside the demon realm.”
Witch's Storm (The Bone Coven Chronicles Book 2) Page 1