Curses & Blood

by Kim Richardson

  That was a disturbing visual. “Just try not to get yourself killed. These are the highest, most respected members of our community. I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to either of us. Got it?”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t jeopardize your reputation.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  “Is it bad?” asked Faris cheerfully. “Are you known as a bad, bad, witch? Is your name, Pillow Princess Samantha, by any chance? Please say yes.”

  “Wipe that smile off your face before I do it for you.”

  At that, Faris let out a loud laugh. Yup. Meeting Cassandra had changed him. Not sure I liked this new Faris. Way too happy. Happy people annoyed me.

  Hopefully the members on those seats were ancient and wrinkled, and not pretty enough to tempt the mid-demon. If he started to hit on any of the females of the Council, I thought I might pass out. Or throw up. And not in that order.

  “Where’s Boy Scout?” continued Faris. “Shouldn’t he be here?”

  “He’s busy with angel stuff.”

  “Like puffy clouds and fluffy white wings and halos?” drawled the mid-demon. For a moment I thought he was about to break into a dance. He’d done it before.

  I smiled, imagining Logan with a glowing halo over his head. “Probably.”

  “Must be such a drag to always be perfect, to be pure,” he said, a bitter recrimination in his voice. “Who wants to be good all the time? It’s exhausting. I’m very bad at being good.”

  I gave a small laugh. “I don’t think angel-borns are anywhere near perfect. And they’re most definitely not pure.”

  “They think they are. And that’s worse.”

  He had a point.

  “Do you think your relationship has a future?” he asked after a moment.

  Where was this coming from? “I do.” I had no freaking clue. “We love who we love. Right?”

  Faris clamped his mouth shut and for a long time he was silent. “True. Love is a feral beast. And sometimes it cannot be tamed.”

  Right. “It’s not like I was looking for anything. It just happened. I’m not naïve enough to think of all that ‘meant to be’ and ‘soulmate’ crap. Relationships are hard. It takes work and comprise from both sides. I want it to work,” I said, and the thought of Logan taking me to only human restaurants made my anger resurface. “But I won’t drown in despair if it doesn’t.”

  Faris snapped his attention to me. “What happened?”

  Damn that demon was perceptive. “Nothing. Everything’s fine. Why would you say that?”

  “You’re lying,” said Faris. “I can tell. You can’t lie to your familiar, Sammy darling. I know something’s bothering you. Come on. Tell uncle Faris.”

  I wasn’t in the mood to talk about it. “Let’s just get this night over with. Okay? Preferably without incident.”

  My heart thrashed in my chest as I walked faster toward the elevator. I checked the index board next to the elevator. G.C. Enterprises, Inc, resided on the eighteenth floor. Nice. I bet it was luxurious too, with lots of mahogany and large, ornate doors, crystal chandeliers and burning fireplaces.

  With a ding, the elevator doors slid open. Two GHOSTS stepped out, both female.

  Oh boy.

  “Evening, ladies,” said Faris as he prowled forward. The top three buttons of his shirt had mysteriously unbuttoned, revealing his tan and hairless muscled chest. He reached out and dragged his index finger very slowly down the shorter officer’s arm. A pretty face looked up from under her gray cap as her cheeks flushed. Her blonde hair was pulled into a low bun. My nose was assaulted by the scent of old blood. Vampire. And a very pretty one at that. God help us all.

  “You Samantha Beaumont?” asked the taller one of the two, seemingly unaffected by Faris’s devilishly good looks and charms. I liked her immediately. Her dark skin was stark against the gray of her uniform. Unlike her companion, she wore no gun at her waist. Her tone was steady and her expression mild. I recognized a witch when I saw one. Witches didn’t need guns. Magic was their guns.

  “That’s right,” I told the witch as a flicker of annoyance flashed through me. “What’s this about?”

  “Your meeting with the Gray Council has been canceled,” informed the dark-skinned witch, her posture shifting with tension. Her fingers twitched, readying with dark spells, as though she was expecting me to challenge her.

  I cocked my head, pulling the magic from my sigil rings in case the witch did anything stupid, like try to stun me or something equally banal. “What?” I said dryly.

  Faris jumped in. “She said the meeting with the—”

  “I know what she said,” I snapped, a ball of anger tightening in my chest. “Do you know why?”

  The witch shook her head. “No. Just that we were told to come and tell you.”

  Faris leaned forward and whispered something in the vampire’s ear making her giggle. Good lord.

  “I see,” I said turning my attention back on the witch. Great. They made me come all this way for what? To show me they could? I knew what this was. This was their way to demonstrate their power. To prove to me they were in control and I wasn’t.

  But it also told me more. They didn’t want me to know what was stolen from their vault. Whatever it was, it was important. And they wanted to keep it secret because this book was a very, very bad book.

  Which, of course, had set my curiosity meter off the scale. Now, I really had to know.

  And I would find this book.

  “Okay, then. Let’s go, Casanova,” I told the mid-demon, who had his arm wrapped around the vampire’s waist and his face buried in her neck. Great. Just freaking great.

  I reached out, grabbed his arm, and pulled him off her. “Let’s go.”

  “Call you later, Daphne,” said Faris, smiling one of his most dazzling smiles, which I was sure made him very irresistible to all things female. Once we were out of earshot, he turned on me. “You’re such a party pooper. It’s not like I had her naked or anything… well… give me another five minutes, and I could have made that happen.”

  “Wipe that demon smile off your face. This is serious,” I said, my boots thumping loudly on the concrete floor of the underground parking garage as we made our way toward the exit.

  “I know. I could have had her naked in under five minutes.”

  “Faris. Please.”

  The mid-demon shot me a glance. “Why are you so uptight? We weren’t doing it in the elevator. We were close. But you stopped it. Nice going.”

  “You’re welcome,” I answered as we climbed the slight slope and exited the underground parking garage. Exhaust fumes hit me like I was walking through a thick mist as cars went by. The sidewalks were crawling with humans, despite the late hour, and the sounds of the city rose around us like a coarse symphony of engines and horns.

  Faris sighed heavily. “You’re like the party police tonight, without the sexy outfit.”

  I hit the intersection, turned on West 100th Street and went east. “We’re not here to party. We’re here on business.”

  Faris pulled the sleeves of his shirt. “I know that, dearest. But since the meeting was canceled, I thought I might get the night off. There. I said it.”

  “You can’t get the night off if I’m still working.” Guilt pulled at my insides. Faris hadn’t had any personal time since he’d seen Cassandra, and that had been over four weeks ago. The demon was a giant pain in my ass, but he did deserve some time off once in a while. Familiars weren’t slaves. They deserved a break from us witches. And us from them.

  “I promise you’ll get your time off,” I said, after a moment. “After we’ve solved the case.”

  Faris halted, straightened, and clicked his heels together. “Thank you, master,” said the mid-demon, bowing from the waist.

  I let out an exasperated breath and kept walking. “We need to find out what book was stolen from the vault. The Gray Council never intended for us to figure it out. But we did. And I’m willing to bet som
eone told them I was asking about the book.”

  “The GHOSTS,” replied Faris.

  “And they canceled the meeting because we know. Big surprise, the Council doesn’t want me asking questions about this mysterious book. And now, I want it bad.”

  “How bad do you want it?” purred Faris, and I didn’t like the seductive tone in his voice. I’d walked right into that one. Good one, Samantha.

  “That book’s important,” I continued, ignoring the stupid smile on the demon’s face. “The faerie Sarek died for it. And I want to know why he was killed.”

  Faris’s eyebrows rose. “Ideas?”

  A smile curved over me. “If the Council won’t let me come to them, I’ll just bring the Council to me.”

  Faris’s eyes widened in delight. “Sounds like you’re about to do something naughty. Being naughty is one of the many demon mottos I personally identify with. When it comes to naughty, I’m all in.”

  My pulse rose with excitement at the prospect of breaking the rules and getting my hands on the precious book the Council didn’t want me knowing about. It being so enigmatic made it all the more desirable and alluring. I just had to have it.

  I flashed the demon my teeth. “I happen to know where one of the Gray Council members lives.”

  “Excellent.” Faris paused and a dangerous gleam flashed in his eyes. “Torture?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Faris made a show of wiggling his fingers. “I’m an excellent torturer. Loads of experience. Top-notch techniques.”

  I bet he was. “He lives in the Upper East Side on 5Th Avenue. Across from Central Park. Not too far from here, actually.” I knew the address only because my aunt Evanora had mentioned it to me a while back when we were discussing better living arrangements for her—a place where she wouldn’t have to do her own cleaning. Not that she ever did.

  “Cab?” offered the mid-demon.

  I shook my head. “Let’s cut through the park. It’ll probably be faster on foot anyway.”

  “Any ideas why they’re keeping it so secretive other than the obvious ‘this is a very evil book’?” asked Faris, walking alongside me.

  “No,” I said, my lips tugging into a smile. “But you can bet your ass I’m going to find out.”

  CHAPTER 4

  The moon shone above us as we crossed West 100th Street and headed for the entrance to Central Park. A brisk breeze made my hair flap around me as we entered the park. A smooth gravel path lined by majestic maple and oak trees greeted us as we made our way deeper. Tall streetlamps rose on either side of the trail, their soft, yellow light casting long shadows over the grass and path like long black fingers creeping toward our feet.

  “And who’s the lucky guy or gal whose place we’re crashing?” inquired Faris, just as we passed a couple of midnight joggers, two men in their late thirties.

  I never understood the concept of jogging for pleasure. For me, I ran when a demon was trying to kill me. That got my juices pumping.

  “Lars Woodbury,” I answered. “He’s one of the Head witches. Got his seat on the Gray Council a few years back. You know the type: wrinkly, small wet eyes, old as dirt with a bit of a smell.”

  Faris laced his hands behind his back, matching my steps. “And how well do you know this Lars Woodie?”

  “Woodbury,” I corrected. “And no, I don’t know him. I’ve never actually met him. But I’ve seen him in his Gray Council robe from across the street in Mystic Quarter a few times. My aunt pointed him out to me.”

  Faris eyed me. “But you know where he lives. How delightfully stalkerish. I love it.”

  I laughed and looked up as another jogger, female this time, ran past us. Faris spun around and walked backward to get a better view of her running away. Males.

  I rolled my eyes. “Don’t get too excited. He’s not going to be happy to see us.” Rage, disdain, shock, utter confusion, even fear were some of the emotions I imagined showing up on the old witch’s face.

  Granted, the thought of the Council brushing me off like that did a number on my mood. I could have done the “right” thing and sent a message to the Dark Witch Court, informing them about the missing book and the Council’s last-minute brushoff.

  But why do the right thing when being bad was so much more fun?

  Having to go through the proper channels also meant a day or two of negotiations between the Council and the Court. And I hated to have to wait. Plus, who’s to say the Council wouldn’t pull the same thing on me again. I had a feeling they would. They didn’t want me poking my nose in their business. Too late for that.

  Still, Lars was as old as dirt and had the magic to go with it. He might be strong and powerful, but was I was younger and faster. And I had a mid-demon with me. Though a jackass, he still had his uses. I didn’t want to hurt the old witch. I just wanted him to tell me about this book. Then, he could go back to his nap.

  One thing was for sure, before the night was over, he was going to tell me.

  “This Lars of yours,” said Faris, his voice echoing around us with barely controlled mischief. “You think we can make rainbows shoot out of his ass? I’ve always wanted to try that. It’s on my bucket list.”

  I shrugged. “If we can get him to spill the beans, you can have unicorns shoot out of his ass for all I care. Just don’t kill him.” Yeah, I was going straight to the witch prison after tonight.

  “Excellent.” Faris let out a loud breath. “I just knew tonight was going to be one of those nights. It’s why I have my lucky shoes on.”

  I eyed his shoes. “They look exactly like every other pair I’ve seen you wear.”

  “Exactly.”

  The demon was off his meds. I eyed him for a moment. “What did that beetle call you? Tarkide?”

  “Tar’khydae.” Faris’s smile faded and he clenched his jaw. I knew I’d hit a touchy subject.

  “Sorry, none of my business. I was just curious.”

  “It’s hard to translate.” Faris stared at the path. “But it means traitor. Blood traitor. Race traitor. It’s basically the worst thing you can call a demon. The very worst.”

  “Because you’re my familiar?” I asked, feeling a bubble of guilt bouncing in my gut.

  “For one. But mostly because I chose to help you and Logan in the Netherworld, when a real demon would have enjoyed seeing you perish, would have given your fresh entrails as a new necklace for our mistress Vorkol.”

  Nice. My guilt redoubled. “I’m sorry.” I had no idea what else to say. If Malark treated him with such open prejudice in our world, how would the demons in the Netherworld treat him? Faris could never again return to his homeworld. Not unless he was willing to die.

  Faris halted and looked at me with a forced smile. “I am an outcast, Sammy darling. I prefer being the black sheep of the family… the color is slimming.”

  A cracked a smile. “You’re one crazy demon.”

  He flashed his pearly whites. “That’s why you can’t get enough of me—”

  A searing, blue-white light exploded around us, blinding me for a second. Then there was a deafening crash like thunder, as though the earth itself had split apart. My ears popped at the sudden change in pressure.

  And then the shock wave hit.

  Both Faris and I went hurling violently to the ground, hit by an invisible force. My breath escaped me as my chest hit a hard patch of grass that felt more like solid concrete. We both lay there for a moment, stunned. Then the light vanished, and the park was calm again. But not my heart.

  Adrenaline soared, my heart beating madly in my eardrums in a sudden panic. My ears rang. I threw my gaze around the park, dark curses forming on my lips. The scent of sulfur rose as I brought forth my magic, glad I’d taken the time to replenish two of my sigil rings.

  But the shock wave never came again. Neither did the light. The path was deserted. There was only darkness with empty park benches sitting in shadows. Trees and grass and more trees. No mages. No witches. No one.

 
Faris and I exchanged looks. “Okay,” I said, catching my breath. “What the hell was that?”

  The mid-demon shrugged. “A planet fart?”

  A scream pierced the night air, slicing through the sudden silence.

  I froze, listening.

  Another scream, just beyond a cluster of trees to our left and off the path. The sound was so loud, so brutal, so primitive, it hardly seemed human. The hair on the back of my neck rose on end, sending a tiny prickling down my spine. The scream turned into a gargle and then nothing. Judging by the level of volume, it was very close.

  Faris settled next to me. “She’s got some serious lungs, that one.”

  I looked at him. “She?”

  “Definitely a she.”

  Then the breeze shifted, bringing forth a scent on the air that smelled disturbingly like burned bacon.

  Faris’s teeth gleamed in the moonlight. “Nothing like the fresh smell of frying human flesh to get those old juices flowing.”

  Okay. Gross. “Come on,” I told him. With a whistling in my ear, I jumped to my feet and made for where the screaming had come from, pulling on the magic of my rings as I pumped my legs to go faster. Guess it was my time for a midnight jog.

  With his long legs, Faris was four strides ahead of me. Lanky bastard. He disappeared behind a cluster of shrubbery and ash trees. I reached it as I came around the bend—and halted next to Faris.

  A body lay but twenty-five feet from us, the skin scorched, blackened and still smoking. There was no way to tell the difference between burnt flesh and burnt clothes or whether this was the woman who’d screamed.

  Above the body crouched a demon. Not just any demon. A yeehnu demon. The race of lesser demons looked like a cross between a dragon and hyena. The size of a medium dog, its body was covered in red scales except for a long black mane that sprouted from its head and flared to the tip of its tail. Long, muscled legs ended in three-fingered, clawed paws. It had two sets of eyes, one luminescent white and one glowing red. Its lips were pulled over a long narrow snout, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth.