Nightshade (17 tales of Urban Fantasy, Magic, Mayhem, Demons, Fae, Witches, Ghosts, and more)

by Annie Bellet

  “So am I in?” I tried to hide my excitement but failed miserably. Digging my nails into the cushion beneath my butt, I had to remind myself to relax or I’d rip a hole clean through his nice leather upholstery.

  He shook his head. “I still haven’t decided, Scarlett. You’re a dark horse for me. My brain screams no.”

  Clenching my jaw, I swallowed the taste of bile on the back of my tongue. I had one final ace up my sleeve. One way to prove that they needed me.

  Mercer had made me promise to keep the secret, to tell no one of what I could do, to help guard my privacy.

  My brother knew a lot about vampires. A mystery I had yet to solve, but he knew. How he’d come to learn his information was a riddle for another day. But the one thing he’d taught me was that a vampire’s skillsets could be directly traced through their lineage.

  Some vampires could turn things beautiful with a touch. Others could call blood from the skin. Some could kill with a single caress.

  “Go out there and bring me an object involved in a murder. I don’t care what. It could be something big or small—just bring it to me,” I said with a short nod.

  Dr. Elijah Monroe’s eyes narrowed, and I could practically read the thoughts whirling through his head.

  What was I up to now? And why didn’t he already know about this?

  But I wouldn’t say a word. Sometimes in life it was better to show than tell.

  He could have refused, could have told me that I just wasn’t good enough. But maybe the mystery of what I had planned was what made him finally decide to get up and walk out the door.

  A cop peeked in a second later.

  It wasn’t like the precinct wasn’t used to supernatural types wondering through its halls, but I was a vampire without a leash.

  I curled my fingers into my shorts and looked back out the window. There’d be rain tonight. I could smell the water in the clouds.

  Dr. Elijah Monroe returned not five minutes later, closing the door gently behind him, and only then did I exhale.

  In his hand he held a pen. There was nothing special about this pen.

  It was black, with no lettering on it. There was a cap that showed evidence of bite marks, but that was it as far as distinctive impressions of it went.

  He held it in front of him like a shield for a minute, studying me. “You plan to tell me why you wanted this?”

  Shaking my head, I waited until he got close enough to me that I was able to reach up and snatch it away from him.

  Immediately I “saw” the life that’d once been attached to this pen. It wasn’t like a movie where I could see every nuance of every second, but just before death a human would experience a cognitive impression so intense that they’d often imprint it onto whatever was nearest them.

  In this case, the pen.

  “A man, late thirties to early forties, sitting at his desk.”

  There was a golden placard sitting at the front of that shiny desk with a name written on it.

  “Mr. Pendelton.” I nodded and looked up at the image. “Steel-blue suit. He wears a tie. Probably a banker, or some job like that.”

  A shadow crossed my periphery, and then Mr. Pendelton looked up.

  Mr. Romero, what in the hell are you doing—

  Then a man dressed in janitor clothing with dark hair and light brown eyes ran up to him, holding onto a knife, and in one smooth move spun behind Mr. Pendelton and….

  “Mr. Romero, the janitor, slit his throat with a butcher’s knife.”

  The image immediately faded. I blinked back to the present reality and looked up at a stunned face.

  “It took our best detectives almost five years to solve a crime you just did in less than a minute.”

  Tossing him the pen, I shrugged. If this didn’t change his mind, then nothing would.

  Slipping the pen into his pocket, he backpedaled to his seat and sat down heavily, rubbing his square jaw with manicured fingers.

  “You can’t tell no one what I did. You hear me?”

  He jerked as though startled to hear my words. “Yes, but we’ll need those skills, Scarlett.”

  I almost came off my seat with joy to hear him say that. They were gonna take me on. They wanted me now, they really wanted me, which meant I had leverage.

  “Only my partner can know. I’ll lead her to wherever she needs to go to make the records officially hers, but I can’t have just anyone knowing what I can do. It would make it too easy for him to find me.”

  He nodded. “Him as in—”

  “My killer.”

  Grunting, he shifted on his seat. “You have my word. You do as you just showed me, Scarlett, and you have my word I won’t speak of this to anyone.”

  “My partner has to be discreet, Dr. Elijah Monroe.”

  His smile was whisper soft. “You can call me, Monroe. Everyone here does.”

  I frowned.

  Slamming his hands down on his armrests, he shoved to his feet and, holding up a finger, walked back to the door. “I know who your partner will be, Scarlett. He’s a cocky, tough bastard and generally unpleasant to most everybody—”

  “Great. Sounds perfect,” I replied sarcastically.

  “But he’s loyal, and he’s quiet when he needs to be. Just whatever you do”—he paused by the door—”don’t make the mistake of falling for him like his last partner did.”

  “Please, don’t insult me.” I rolled my eyes, trying to hide my smile, but only because I was so damned excited to have made it through.

  He came back a minute later, and behind him stood a detective with the same skin tone and eyes as Monroe.

  Tall, handsome, and with a devilish glint in his eyes that I wasn’t sure what to make of. The man held his hand out to me. He had a wide palm and a firm grip.

  “This is Carter.” Monroe grabbed the man’s shoulder and squeezed. “Carter Monroe. My brother, and the best damned detective on this side of the Mississippi.”

  “So you’re my vampire,” Carter said in that same whiskey drawl as his brother, and it wasn’t hard for me to think of him as Carter and not Detective Monroe. There was something a little more devil-may-care about this brother.

  His clothes were nice, but nothing that screamed elegance the way Monroe’s did.

  Against my will, I found myself curious about the brothers and why they were here.

  “That’s what they say,” I said, keeping my eyes on his left shoulder.

  He nodded. His hair was buzzed shorter than Monroe’s, almost to the scalp. There was something gritty about Carter that I liked. Trusted immediately.

  He had the type of power that needed no words to back it up.

  “Ready to ride?” he asked with a challenging smirk to his words.

  I snorted, glanced down at my feet, and wished like hell I’d worn something a little more professional. I almost said something, but instead I shrugged. “Screw it. Hell, yeah, I’m ready to ride.”

  “That’s what I like to hear.” He nodded a goodbye to Monroe, turned on his heel, and made for the front door. “Today should be fun, little bat.”

  Frowning, not sure I liked his term of endearment, I decided that just for today I’d shrug it off. “Yeah, and why’s that?”

  Opening the driver’s side door of a black SUV, he gave me a lopsided grin. “’Cause today we get to track down a demon dog. Get it.”

  I groaned. “Oh, hell.”

  Tapping the roof of the car with his large hand, he chuckled. “It’s what you signed up for, isn’t it?”

  There was a dare twinkling in the depths of his eyes that had me tilting my head up.

  “I guess I did, blood bag.”

  His pause lasted a full minute. And at first I worried that maybe I shouldn’t have teased him back, worried that maybe he hadn’t understood I was only giving him back what he’d given to me. But then his lips twitched and, tossing his head back, he laughed.

  “I think this is gonna be the start of a great partnership, Smith.”


  And I couldn’t have agreed more….

  Enjoyed this short story? Then make sure to sign up for my newsletter to find out when Book 1 of the Southern Vampire Chronicles: Whiskey, Vamps, and Thieves comes out! Stay tuned for a sneak peek of Book 1.

  Selene Charles Books

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  Selene Charles is the pen name for a NY Times and USA Today bestselling author. She loves all things creepy and cool. Make sure to visit her little place on the web if you want to drop by and say hi, or write to her at selenecharleswrites@gmail.com

  Spirits of Bourbon Street

  Deanna Chase

  It’s Halloween on Bourbon Street, and white witch Jade Calhoun is ready to party. But when a sexy spirit traps everyone in the past, she’s forced to forgo the cocktails in order to save those she loves...again.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Holy abs,” Kat my best friend whispered as she gawked at the half-naked male standing in front of Pyper. He was dressed only in beige linen pants and brown leather work boots. “Where did she find him?”

  I laughed and hung our costumes on a rolling rack. We were converged in a meeting room in the Jean Baptiste hotel just off the grand ballroom. In just five short hours we’d be throwing the most exclusive Halloween party on Bourbon Street. And part of the entertainment was body-painted servers. “Either the modeling agency or he could’ve answered the call on her website.”

  Kat fanned herself with her hand, her emotional energy giddy with attraction.

  “Stop. You’re entirely too into that guy, and it’s making me uncomfortable.” Kat was my best friend and because I was an empath, I was pretty much always tuned in to what she was feeling. Usually that wasn’t much of a problem, but when it came to sexual energy, it just made me feel gross. There were some things I shouldn’t be privy to.

  Kat ignored my remark and said, “He doesn’t look like a model.”

  I had to agree with her. The ones that Pyper usually hired for her body-painting gigs were metro sexual in the extreme: entire bodies waxed, hair styled with fruit-scented products, and they often wore concealer to hide any blemishes. They were pretty, but not manly men. Not like the perfect specimen standing before us.

  He had a couple days worth of growth in the facial hair department, thick, wavy, dark locks that fell to his chin, and a well defined upper body without an ounce of extra weight. He had broad shoulders and a trim waist, his muscles well defined, but not bulky. And judging by the slight farmers tan, I guessed his workouts came in the form of construction rather than weightlifting. He was ruggedly handsome in the extreme.

  “They don’t make them like that anymore,” Kat said.

  I elbowed her and was treated with another wave of her barely suppressed lust. Closing my eyes, I imagined my glass silo, the one I used to block out other people’s energy, and sighed in relief when I could no longer feel anything radiating from her. “You have a man. A gorgeous one.”

  She grinned at me. “Oh, I know. Believe me I haven’t forgotten. Did I tell you what he did to me last—”

  “La, la, la, la, la,” I chanted, sticking my fingers in my ears. “I told you I don’t want to hear about any more sexcapades between you and Lucien. He’s my second in command. I don’t want to be picturing the two of you…doing whatever it is you do when I’m at the next coven meeting.”

  She shook her head, laughing. “God, Jade. How can you be such a prude when your husband owns a strip club?”

  “One has nothing to do with other. Besides, I’m not a prude. I just don’t need the details.”

  “Whatever you say.” She scooted closer to Pyper and asked, “Where’s everyone else?”

  The black-haired beauty finished outlining the design on her model’s chest. “They’ll be here in an hour or so. Julius was a little early so we went ahead and got started. Check it out.” Pyper waved me over and pointed to a jagged line she’d drawn on his chest. “See this?”

  Kat and I both nodded.

  “I’m going to paint a skeleton hand ripping his heart right out of his chest. What do you think?”

  Kat grimaced. “It’s awesome if not a little gruesome.”

  “Well it is a Halloween party,” I added. “And it sounds amazing. Can’t wait to see what everyone else is going to look like.”

  Pyper winked and went back to work on Julius. He was completely fixated on her every movement. I had a hard time deciding if he was enamored with her work, or just her? She was tiny, a dancer’s body, black hair with a bright electric-blue streak in the front. Sexy as hell and usually a total flirt. Except at the moment, she was all business.

  She glanced up at him. “Do you need a break?”

  “From what?” he asked, his blue eyes nearly searing her with their intensity.

  She stepped back and averted her gaze as she vigorously dabbed her dirty paintbrush over a clean surface of her painter’s palette. Only instead of wiping off the excess, she pushed it through two colors making an even bigger mess. “Oh, crap!” She tossed the brush into a cup of water and put everything down, wrinkling her nose. “From standing still. If you need to sit for a while, just let me know.”

  “No. I’m fine here.” He pulled his shoulders back and seemed to grow an inch or two taller.

  “Look at those shoulder muscles,” Kat said, fanning herself. “Whoa. I think I need a drink.”

  Pyper glanced back at us, her expression amused. “I think we could all use a cold one. Get us something from the bar?”

  “Sure.” I suppressed a laugh and yanked on Kat’s arm, pulling her into the grand ballroom. “You need to cool off.”

  She frowned and shook her head as if trying to dislodge whatever had come over her. “Wow. I don’t know what happened back there, but either I was spelled or my hormones took a turn down slutville alley.”

  I slipped behind the temporary bar and pulled a couple of beers from a giant bucket of ice. “Spelled? You think he was a witch of some sort? What did he do, cast a lust charm?”

  “Oh, shut up,” she said smiling. “It could happen.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t think so. I would’ve felt something.” The thought had me frowning in confusion. I hadn’t gotten a read on Julius at all, had I? When we’d first walked in I’d felt Pyper’s intense concentration and then Kat’s inappropriate lust connection, but I hadn’t sensed one thing from Julius. Interesting.

  “Well, whatever it was, I’ll stay here. If I’m gonna start in on that beer, I don’t want to get caught drinking and drooling.”

  “Good plan.” Chuckling, I opened two Abita Ambers and retreated back into the meeting room. “Okay beers—whoa.” I stopped in my tracks and gawked. Pyper was wrapped in Julius’s arms and the pair of them were going at it like sex-starved teenagers. He had one hand on her ass and the other curled into her hair, while she had one leg wrapped around his waist and her nails dug into his bare shoulders.

  I silently placed the beers on the nearest table and backed up slowly, trying my damnedest to not be seen. I was almost to the door when—

  “Oomph.”

  I ran smack into someone coming in from the other room. “Oh, no, I’m so sorry,” I said spinning around right into the arms of Kane, my husband. My husband. Was I ever going to get used to thinking of Kane that way? We’d been married for six months, and I still got giddy every time he called me his wife.

  “Hey there.” He circled his arms around me. “Where are you going in such a hurry?”

  I grimaced and jerked my head toward the make out twins.

  Kane glanced over my shoulder and grinned. “Oh, I see.” He inclined his head in greeting. “Hey, Pyper. Looks like we might be intruding.”

  “Uh…well, no not exactly,” I heard her say breathlessly.

  Kane laughed while I turned around and sent her an apologetic look. She was completely rumpled, her
face flushed, and her smock smudged with beige and white body paint.

  “We’ll be in the other room,” I said and tugged Kane back into the ballroom as fast as I could.

  “Well, that was interesting,” Kane said wrapping his arms around my waist.

  “Interesting?” I glanced up at him, exasperated. “He’s a client. And what about Ian? Holy cow. What if he’d walked in?”

  “Oh my god! Is Pyper macking on that model?” Kat asked, her eyes alive with excitement.

  Kane nodded, his lips curled into a ghost of a smile.

  “Oh, good for her. Someone needed to taste that delicious piece of man meat.”

  I shook my head. “Does no one care about Ian? Did you two forget about him?”

  “Ian’s out of town. Again,” Kat said. “He’s working on that ghost hunting cable show with what’s her name. The high school friend that has a crush on him. If I had to guess he’s not exactly worried if Pyper walks in on him, if you know what I mean.”

  Kane grabbed a beer from behind the bar. “About time she moved on. Ian’s been gone more than he’s been home for the last three months.”

  “But that’s work,” I said. “Don’t you think we need to give the guy the benefit of the doubt?”

  “I would if he stayed in touch.” Kane’s expression turned flat with irritation. “Did you know she hasn’t heard from him in over two weeks? Not even a text.”

  I frowned, worried now. Ian wasn’t the typical guy. He was a ghost hunter, and was known to care more about his work that anything else. But going a few weeks without getting touching base with Pyper wasn’t normal for him. “Something must’ve gone wrong on his investigation. He’d never—”

  “I talked to him yesterday.” Kat popped a piece of chocolate in her mouth. “The investigation isn’t leading to anything. He’s considering going to another site before he comes home.”

  “Seriously?”

  She nodded. “I think they might’ve already broken up, but neither really talking about it.”

  The door flung open and Pyper came striding out wearing a fresh smock. She grabbed my arm and tugged me over to a corner away from Kane and Kat. “I need a favor.”