Bone Spell

by D. N. Hoxa

  “Am I missing something?” Why was he happy about being kicked out of his home?

  “Winter, I wanted to come here to stay. If I hadn’t made him kick me out, he’d have never left me alone while I was here. Trust me, he can be a real pain ninety-nine percent of the time, and I don’t want any interruptions while I’m with you for once, at least for a few weeks. Maybe even a couple of months.” Well, that made perfect sense.

  “Right. No interruptions,” I mumbled. I wanted that, too—more than anything, and I wished it were that simple, but it wasn’t.

  “We’re going to have interruptions, aren’t we?” Julian said. I looked down at the floor.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Well, what kind of interruptions?”

  Such a simple question. “It’s…complicated.” To say the least.

  “Whatever it is, we’ll get to the bottom of it real quick, and then I’m taking you away,” he said.

  “You are?” Away sounded like Heaven to my ears.

  “I am. And we’ll get going, just as soon as I use your bathroom. I’m in need of some cold water on my face.” He grinned.

  “Why?” He didn’t look like he was sweating.

  Julian chuckled. “I’ve got to get the image of kissing you and doing all sorts of things to you out of my head somehow.”

  Heat turned my cheeks red. “Oh.” What the hell was I supposed to say to that?

  “I’ll be right back,” he said, and planting a warm kiss on my forehead, he disappeared into the bathroom. I hit the wardrobe with my back. Maybe some cold water on my face wouldn’t be such a bad idea now.

  ***

  “Does Blood magic have any spells that can reveal someone’s true nature?” I asked Julian as soon as he came out of the bathroom. I waited for him in my office because having a bed there in his presence did things to me I didn’t need done right now. My weapons were packed, my mother’s jewelry in my pocket, and I was ready to go.

  “Not that I know of,” Julian said. He looked more sober now, too. That was good. We didn’t need distractions. “Why?”

  “Last night, when I walked out of the fairy event, there was a kid in my car, waiting for me,” I said, locking the door to my office. The lock wasn’t even broken so I had no idea how Jane had managed to get in without causing any alarms. Ms. Riley did keep the building protected. Guess I was going to have to plant my own spells all over the place.

  “A kid?” Julian asked as we crossed the road to get to Turtle.

  “A ten-year-old boy named Ezra. He said he saw a vision of how to run away from home and how to get to my car, hide in it, and wait for me.”

  Julian mulled it over for a second. “Did you believe him?”

  “Not at first. I thought he was just playing some sort of a game or something. He told me that his parents had practically locked him inside his house all his life.” I put the car in drive and once I made sure that there were no fairies around us, I hit the gas. “He told me that the coven leaders knew about it, too. I felt sorry for him, so I went to see my aunt to ask her about it. It didn’t go as planned.” In fact, it had been a disaster.

  “So, he was lying?” Julian asked, confused as fuck.

  “Um…no, I don’t think so. But I didn’t get to ask because my aunt threw me out. Didn’t even talk my ear off about what happened at the event, and that’s not like her. Not only that, but Ezra recognized his parents’ car parked right across from Amelia’s house. Needless to say, the whole thing didn’t smell right.”

  “Can I guess?” Julian said, grinning. “You went to the kid’s house.”

  I rolled my eyes, but all kinds of butterflies invaded my stomach and no matter that I’d never admit it to him, it felt sort of nice that he knew me well enough to guess what I’d done.

  “I did go to his house, just to see what I could find, and I found this.” I fished for the report signed by Monica Raymond in my back pocket and gave it to him. “Before I even made it to the car, three fairies found us. Seelie. They claimed they didn’t want any trouble—just the kid.”

  “Is that where the blood came from?” Julian pointed at my shirt.

  “Yep. One of them ran away and he must have told Jane about me. It’s why I found her in my office when I got back.” I flinched. Seeing her face again had not been pleasant.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but if you killed her once, how come she just disappeared without doing something? She had you alone in your office, until I showed up.” And he was right to ask that question.

  “I don’t know,” I mumbled, but her words were perfectly clear in my memories.

  “This really is something,” Julian said when he read the report. “Why would she want a ten-year-old boy?”

  “No idea. As far as I know, he’s just a Bone witch, but that report makes me want to dig deeper. It’s why I asked you about a revealing spell. What about fairy magic? Can it do something like that?”

  “I’m not sure but we could definitely try,” he said, shaking his head. “Raina. It’s so weird. I’ve known her all my life and I didn’t notice a thing.”

  “Yeah…the Raina you know is probably dead. I’m sorry,” I whispered. It sucked to be the bearer of bad news.

  “But isn’t she—”

  “When I first went after the Hedge witches, they used actual wolf bodies to disguise their appearances through some enchanted items. They’d killed the wolves and literally took their skin for themselves. Not sure how the spells work, but I think that’s how Jane is hiding in the fairy realm. She killed the real Raina and she’s now using her body, but I have no idea why she looked like the real Jane—with fairy ears—to me.”

  “Could it be because you killed her once?” Julian asked.

  “My guess is as good as yours.”

  “This is really incredible. Must be some heavy black magic. I mean, I met Raina a few days ago back home and she moved and spoke the way she always did.”

  “That’s Jane Dunham for you. She probably studied the poor girl for weeks, even months, before she killed her.” I flinched because I could almost see how she’d done it. The smile on her face, the cold look in her eyes. “I think she was the one that made Galladar, too. I saw her after I killed him.”

  “The woman with the red scarf?” Julian asked, and I nodded. I’d asked him to send his people after her when we were in the fairy realm, but nobody had been able to find anything. “So, what’s the plan?”

  Pressing my lips together, I shrugged. “We’re going to get Lynn and Ezra first. After that, we need to find out what he is. If we know why Jane wants him, it should be easier to lure her out here and hunt her down.”

  Julian sounded. “And?”

  I looked at him for a second. “And nothing.”

  His thick brows rose up. “You’re keeping something from me.”

  “No, I’m not.” Fuck. I spoke way too fast, exactly like someone who really was hiding something would do.

  “Spill it out, Winter,” he demanded, and I wanted to start shouting in his face, to tell him that he hadn’t been honest with me before, so why should I be honest with him now?

  But I didn’t. I’d already sent him to hell once in the fairy realm. I’d regretted it immediately, and I didn’t want to make the same mistake again. Julian did have his reasons for lying to me, and I understood them. Did I trust him? Maybe not completely, but I could learn to. As far as I knew, he hadn’t lied to me about anything else since.

  These were just thoughts that spun in my head while I convinced myself to just spill the beans. I really needed to get what Jane said off of my chest. Like asap. Leaving reasoning aside, I took in a deep breath and I spoke.

  “Jane mentioned my father.” Ugh. I thought hearing that word had become hard. Saying it had become disgusting.

  “What about him?”

  “She said she knew where he was. And she said that I should ask my aunt about it.” Because she wanted to destroy my world altogether from the inside,
out. God, where did she even get words like that?

  “She’s probably just trying to get into your head, Winter,” Julian said, but he wasn’t so sure about it.

  “Maybe.” It’s what I told myself, but it wasn’t a maybe. It was a definite yes. She really was trying to get in my head—she already had—and that’s why I believed that she was telling the truth. I’d seen it in her eyes.

  “What do you know about your father?” Julian asked me and another surge of anger grabbed me by the throat. Biting my tongue, I took a few seconds to calm down.

  “Nothing.” There it was, the ugly truth rearing its head out for all to see. I knew nothing about the man who’d conceived me.

  “He’s Unseelie—you know that,” Julian mumbled. Yes, I’d figured that when the Seelie King had told Julian’s father that I was his at the fairy event. It didn’t get much clearer than that.

  “Well, whatever else I don’t know, I want to keep it that way.” I wasn’t going to let Jane Dunham get into my head or turn me against the only member of my family I had left. She could go screw herself instead.

  To tell Julian that I no longer wanted to talk about it, I took my phone out and texted Lynn. Wherever her hiding spot was, it was close to Finn’s office, and we were almost there. I told her to meet me in the alley right after the office, which was just a couple of blocks from my favorite Pretter master.

  Now, I just needed a place to hide the kid until I figured everything out, because Ms. Riley was no longer an option. Jane had come right to my office, and it would only be a matter of time before she started to come after me and Ezra with everything she had. The building I lived in would probably be at the top of her places-to-look-for-Winter list.

  Thirteen

  Armed with eleven new Pretters—the best of the best—I drove to Finn’s office and the alley next to it. Lynn and Ezra waited for me, hiding behind the black dumpster. The second she saw me, she put Ezra in front of her and they both ran to the car.

  I didn’t need to stop for longer than two seconds, and they were both in the backseat.

  “Julian?” Lynn said, a dumbfounded smile on her face.

  “Hey, kiddo. Fancy meeting you right where there’s trouble,” Julian said, grinning.

  She all but melted. Her cheeks were red, her fingers slightly shaking…holy shit! “It’s so good to see you again,” she said, and batted her eyelashes at him.

  I bit my tongue to keep from laughing. Lynn had a crush on Julian!

  “It’s good to see you, too,” Julian said with nod, as if he couldn’t even tell she was fangirling all over him. “You must be Ezra. I’m Julian,” he said, and offered his hand to the kid.

  Ezra looked good. Not nearly as scared as I thought he would be, thank God. I didn’t want him to worry about a thing. He was only ten years old.

  “Hello,” the boy said, shaking Julian’s hand.

  “You’re pretty big for ten. Do you play basketball?” Julian said.

  Ezra smiled. “Sometimes. I have a basket on the back of my door. I can score without even sitting up from my bed.”

  “All right!” Julian hi-fived him. Ezra’s cheeks went bright red. His face couldn’t contain his huge smile. “I’m not that good, but I’ll play with you sometime. Maybe you can teach me a few tricks.”

  “Sure thing,” Ezra said, his voice high pitched. He looked suddenly happy.

  How weird was it that my heart almost burst with pride seeing Julian talk to him like that?

  “So, how are you, Julian? How is everything in the fairy realm? I bet you’re having a lot of fun,” Lynn said, her voice practically melting all over us. Then, she turned to Ezra. “He’s a Prince, you know? An actual fairy Prince.”

  Julian laughed. “I assure you it’s not as fun as you think.”

  “Are you really from the fairy realm? What’s it like there?” Ezra asked, then he turned to me. “Is it true that Lynn was there, too?”

  “Of course, it is! I told you all about it,” Lynn said.

  “Yes, it’s true,” I said to Ezra, looking at him through the rearview mirror.

  “Wow,” he said, and fell back on the seat in awe.

  “I’ll tell you what, when you get older, I’ll take you there. Would you like that?” Julian said to him, and my heart did that almost-bursting thing again. God, I couldn’t handle myself right now.

  “Yes!” said Ezra, so happy he could fly.

  “All right, then. It’s a deal,” said Julian.

  Lynn, probably mad because she couldn’t have Julian all to herself, folded her arms in front of her and looked out the window. I still couldn’t get my head around the fact that she was crushing on Julian, and every time I remembered it, it took a lot of biting my tongue to keep from giggling like a schoolgirl.

  “Where are we going?” she said without even looking at us anymore.

  “I’m not sure yet,” I mumbled when it occurred to me that I still hadn’t figure out where I was going to take Ezra. Shit. I couldn’t just drive around the city forever.

  “I might have an idea,” Julian said, then looked at me as if to ask if he should go ahead and talk. I nodded. No point in keeping this hidden from Lynn and Ezra, when they were obviously coming with. “There was a guy they brought to the institution when I used to work for the ECU.” Holy spell, I’d completely forgotten that Julian used to pretend to be a Blood witch, and he actually worked for the ECU themselves.

  “What guy?”

  “An old man. Werewolf. He doesn’t belong to any pack, but he used to be a Beast,” he said. The Beasts were a small pack of werewolves living in Detroit. I hadn’t heard a lot about them, because there hadn’t been much to hear. “He had a sharp sense—the best we’d ever come across. Others used to joke that he had the third eye, but the guy was the real deal. He could tell you exactly what you were by sniffing at you.”

  “Did he sniff you?” I joked, because a werewolf with the third eye? I wasn’t buying it.

  “Oh, no. I stayed away from him while he was there. Others ran tests and tried to determine where that power of his came from, but they never found anything concrete, so they let him go.”

  “You think he can…” I looked at Ezra through the rearview mirror. Julian got the point. I didn’t want to ask the whole question because the kid had already been through enough as it was.

  “I think so, yeah. If he agrees to give him a sniff, maybe he can tell us what we’re dealing with,” said Julian in wonder. “That’s if he’s even still alive. He was eighty-one when he came to the institute—three years ago.”

  “Werewolves live pretty long,” Lynn said, and I nodded.

  “But do you honestly think it’s true? It just doesn’t sound right to me. A werewolf who can smell your energy?”

  “You’ll have to see it to believe it, but it’s true. I’ve seen it with my own eyes through a one-way window.”

  I bit my bottom lip as I thought about it. I still wasn’t sure that this old wolf could really do what Julian said he could, but going to see him did sound better than driving around the city. It was already starting to get dark, anyway.

  “Do you have an address?” I asked, and unconsciously, I wished it was far, far away from Bloomsburg. Right now, I needed to be as far away from my aunt as possible.

  “I saw his record,” Julian said. “He’s in Springfield.”

  “Springfield, Massachusetts?” Julian nodded. “What’s that, three hours away?” Which would make the distance between me and Amelia a six hour drive…

  “Roughly,” he said. “What do you say?”

  I said yes.

  ***

  “I need to use the bathroom,” said Lynn an hour later. It was already dark outside, and Turtle was running out of gas.

  “We’ll stop by a gas station and grab something to eat, too,” I said. Julian had put the address in my phone application, and according to it, we would be there in just a little over an hour.

  “Where are we going to sleep?”
Lynn asked. “I’m not sleeping in the car.”

  “You’re going back home, remember? You’re not staying the night. As soon as we get back to Manhattan, I’m throwing you on a bus.” Not really, but I was going to have to ask Julian to drive her back. Shit, I hated not having a concrete plan of action. Everything flowed better with a plan.

  “Too late,” Lynn said and showed me her phone. “I already told my parents I’m staying over at Jessica’s. Unless you want to get them really suspicious, I would advise against sending me back.” She grinned like a little devil.

  “I don’t mind them getting suspicious, Lynn.” I did mind, but she didn’t have to know that.

  “Either way, I’m staying,” she said. “Besides, I know exactly where we can go to spend the night. We can’t all fit in your office. And we do need to hide.”

  I opened my mouth to tell her to stop insisting, but Julian beat me to it.

  “What exactly do you have in mind?” he asked, and she was more than eager to answer.

  “My uncle Eli’s house,” she said. “One of them. He never goes there, and I do know the combination to his alarm system. And I’m cleared from his protective spells, too. So is whoever comes with me.” She smiled proudly. Just the mentioning of Bender’s name brought shivers down my back. Did he know something about my father, too?

  Don’t go there, my mind warned me, and it was right.

  “Are you sure?” Julian asked while I tried to come up with more reasons why we shouldn’t go there. We would be trespassing, for starters.

  “Absolutely. He told me I could go there whenever I wanted. I even have a key, but I left it at home.” Oh, she was a damn good liar. “Nobody’s going to find us there because nobody knows about that place.”

  Ah, hell. She did know how to make it all sound so sweet.

  “Winter?” Julian asked me, but I had no idea what to say.

  “I could really use a bed. Your car is very uncomfortable, Winter,” Ezra said.

  What were they, ganging up on me now?

  “Where is it?” I asked, not entirely convinced, but very close to it. A place where nobody knew we’d be sure sounded better than my office, and Lynn was right. The place was not going to fit us all in.