I glanced at Mario. “You don’t look happy about that.”
“You just told me that you’d go during the day so it’s safer, but now you want backup.”
“Yep, but I agreed to go during the day, so I wouldn’t run into Drake, not because I wouldn’t run into something else. Drake is a warlock; I’m not going to take my chances not having backup in case I run into something nasty.”
Mario opened his mouth to protest but went silent when Levi lifted his hand. “Remember, Mario, we had a deal that you would not interfere with PIB cases unless she was in immediate danger. She’s taking in backup, which is more than she usually does, so she is being cautious.”
And I might have been trying to make up for my insanely stupid mistake from the night before. “Thank you, Levi.”
“Shall we go? We have a meeting with Hannah tonight.” Mario held his hand out. “I want to get in and out of there as fast as we can.”
I agreed. I’d already picked up on his tension anytime I mentioned his maker or the conversation turned to his past. I took his hand. “Promise you won’t let her bite me?” I joked.
He shook his head. “You know I can’t.”
Which worried me, I glanced at Levi, and he nodded. “There’s nothing Mario can do to protect you from his maker. You have to make it clear that you are there as one of my people, hold your ground, do not use your magic unless you have to.”
I felt like I was walking into a trap. “So this is how vampire politics go.”
“Yes.” They both said at the same time, and Levi’s sitting room disappeared.
We reappeared in a different sitting room. The dark velvet curtains draped down the walls of the room, and blood-red couches were set out around the room, a couple with humans draped on them, blood dotting their necks or wrists. I felt the panic rise as the power in the room brushed against my skin, raising the hairs there, calling to me to come in further.
Mario put his hand on my back, and the power faded a little bit. He wrapped his arms around me and pressed his lips to my check. “It’s her ability; I won’t let her drag you down into it. I promise.”
I squeezed his arm to let him know I heard him. This wasn’t what I was expecting when he said we were going to meet with Hannah, hell I hadn’t seen a vampire’s sitting room look this cliche before. Of course, I hadn’t seen a lot of sitting rooms either.
A woman came out, draped in a sheer red negligee, her black hair fell in waves over her breasts, making her pale skin look almost porcelain. Her red lip pouted a little bit as her eyes landed on us.
Mario’s hug on me tightened just a little bit, and I knew we must have been looking at Hannah.
“Mario, I thought you were kidding about bringing your pet witch along.” She crooked a finger at me, the light glinting off a perfectly manicured black nail. “Come here little one.”
Part of me wanted to, but I stayed against Mario who seemed to be taking the edge off the power. No way was I going to walk to her willingly.
“My name is Abigail Collins, the adopted daughter of Levi Felcos, and I am here on his behalf.”
She rolled her eyes. “Titles, formalities.” She waved her hand in the air. “It means nothing here. What I know is that you’re a witch, and I want to taste your blood, but clearly, Mario doesn’t plan on sharing.”
“That is true.” Mario relaxed a little bit. “Hannah, we’re here to speak to you about Keira.”
The woman paused and wrapped her arms around herself as if suddenly self-conscious. “What about her?”
“She’s killing again and has been for quite some time.” Mario stepped to my side.
She turned away from us and sat down on a couch with one of the humans. She stroked the man’s hair and looked up at Mario. “She knows the rules; her killings are to stay under the radar. She has her dolls and her donors, sometimes she just gets bored.”
Under the radar? Mario put a hand on mine as if realizing I wanted to lash out, but I knew the rules too. “She’s caught the attention of the PIB branch in Levi’s territory.”
Her eyes snapped to me. “How?”
“She left bodies for them to find, and one of the agents walked in on her killing another person. She has also murdered a vampire in Levi’s territory.” See, I could play by the rules. No lashing out, no giving out connections, just giving the information Hannah needed.
She looked at Mario. “Is this true?”
“It is, Levi has petitioned the king to have Keira killed if you do not rein her in.”
“Which explains why you’re here.” She sighed and looked at the human. “You and I could have been so great together Mario. You had to run off to serve as a king’s guard. A glorified messenger that takes orders from whatever puppet the king has set up.”
Interesting, so that’s how they thought that all worked.
“You’ve taken up a lover in another vampire’s territory. His adopted daughter, status, power.” She chuckled a little bit. “You want me to rein in Keira? Go tell her to come home. She always listened to you best. She was always scared you’d seek revenge.”
“Death or come back to you? How do we know you’ll control her?”
Hannah was suddenly in front of me, her face right in mine. “The killings will stop, you have my word on that little witch.” She looked to Mario and kissed him. “Tell her to come home, you know she’ll listen to you, and if not, then let the king kill her. It might be the time that she’s gone from my life.”
The last statement held a type of sorrow that I wasn’t sure I could name.
“Since we have your word, we’ll meet with her and tell her that she may choose her fate.” Mario grabbed my hand. “Have a good night Hannah.”
“I’ll see you again Mario, maybe even your little pet witch too.”
My stomach dropped as the world around us disappeared, when we reappeared, we were standing outside of Levi’s house.
“It’s time for you to go home, Abigail.”
“I think there are a few things I’d like you to clear up for me.” I crossed my arms, and he shook his head.
“Not tonight. Not until I’m ready to share that part of my life with you.” He turned away from me. “I’ll text you that address. Be safe.” He walked into the mansion and closed the door behind him.
Chapter Twelve
When I had gotten home, I’d sent Liz an e-mail asking for backup, I’d set the coffee pot for the morning, and then I had crawled into bed. My sleep wasn’t peaceful, and by the time my alarm went off, I felt like someone had run me over with a truck.
I laid in bed waiting for my motivation to kick in, but it apparently wasn’t awake yet. I reached for my phone and checked my e-mail, Liz had agreed to be my back up and even agreed to let me take point. As my team lead, that surprised me, but I wasn’t going to question it.
I had a text message from Mario with the address.
And a text from an unknown number. I click on the text and frowned.
There was a picture of Levi holding a baby; it was a picture I’d seen many times before. It was one of him and me together. But now, in red digital letters, the word lies was written crossed it.
This wasn’t the first time I’d received a message like this. The last time someone had left the picture in my house and written on the back.
I shook my head and got up. I could smell the coffee from downstairs, beckoning me to get going. I shuffled to the bathroom to take my shower and tried to forget about the message.
A hot shower and clean clothes later, I was downstairs fixing my coffee when Merick came walking into the kitchen. He put a binder on the breakfast counter and flipped it open.
“I’ve organized the pictures and written notes on the back of them, adding to my father’s notes.”
“What do you make of it so far? I haven’t really had a chance to look.”
He nodded. “I know you haven’t and I’ve been borrowing your notes to compare some of the runes.”
“An
d?” I went and got a second coffee mug for him.
“And the only conclusion I’ve come to is that it’s a much older version of the Cult of Ra. Old enough that the only similarities is the base writing.”
I tapped the picture that he was looking at, as I passed by to get the sugar. “Where were these taken exactly?”
He went silent. “I can’t let you know that.”
“Ah, secrets, secrets.” I handed him his coffee and the sugar container. “I’ll see if I can help translate it, but that’s about all I’m going to be able to do if you don’t tell me any more about the situation.”
“That’s all we want you to do.” Merick met my gaze. “Because if you knew any more, you’d have to join the Cult or be killed.”
I searched his face for any signs of him joking and there were none. His lips were in a straight line, his brows flat, and no humor shone in his eyes. “Well, that’s good to know.” Because I didn’t want to join the Cult, nor did I want to die by their hand. If I could, I wanted to avoid the fate of my parents.
I sat at the breakfast bar next to him and looked at the picture. “I’ve seen this somewhere before, this writing.”
“Recently?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s kind of like that distant memory that you can’t quite grasp.”
“Interesting.” He flipped to the next picture. The rune was carved on a different surface than the first and for some reason dread filled my stomach, dragging it down. I put my mug down, away from the binder.
Something was tugging at the back of my mind. I knew these symbols. “Do you have any references to the Cult’s original runes?”
He gave me a droll stare. “They were hieroglyphs.”
“Okay, after that, when your Cult started using runes?” I sipped my coffee, and my phone buzzed. I looked down at it to see Liz’ text.
“Meet you at the office.”
I downed the rest of my coffee. “Okay, time for me to head out. I’m going to pick up Liz from the office and go check out a workshop location for Drake. Don’t let anyone bring in poison wine, okay?”
Merick rolled his eyes. “I will see you later, Abigail, be safe.”
I grabbed my bag and keys then headed out to the Hummer. I don’t know what compelled me to trust Liz, but for some reason, I knew she’d have my back in this situation, plus it was a good time to make an impression on my team lead.
I pulled up to the office to find Liz standing outside. I rolled the passenger side window down. “Jump on in.”
She climbed in and buckled up. “Nice ride you got here.”
“It’s temporary.” For some reason, a small smile crossed my face. “My normal ride was taken out by a landslide.”
She stared at me, and my smile grew. “Special Agent Jefferson —”
“Liz, please.”
“Liz,” I corrected. “What have you heard about me?” I wasn’t sure if she was aware of my record with cars.”
“Depends on who I talked to. Some say you’re cursed; some say that you’re damn good at what you do. I know you’ve taken on some tough cases, had your partner killed.”
“I’ve destroyed five cars b within the last two years. You’ll get used to seeing the yellow Hummer around.” I laughed a little bit. “But I’m glad people are speaking highly of me.”
“I’ve heard about your cars, you shooting a suspect on riot grounds.” She glanced at me. “I’ve also heard about your partner’s death, your parents’ death, and the fact that the local vampire territory leader adopted you. None of that matters though as long as you know how to close the cases, protect yourself against Black Magic, and don’t kill your teammates on purpose.”
I cringed. “I didn’t kill Nick, and technically, it wasn’t a riot until I tried to shoot the suspect.”
She laughed. “Lighten up; I just thought I’d tell you the bad with the good. So, how did you get the address to this place?”
I drove out of the parking lot and shrugged. “One of my contacts was able to get it for me. He wasn’t sure what I might be walking into, so I wanted backup. You told me to let you know if I needed any support.”
“I’m happy to be your backup. So no idea what we’re walking into?”
I shook my head. “None. I talked to Drake’s granddaughter who told me that he could make himself appear in people’s visions as whoever he wanted
“That talent doesn’t flow in many bloodlines. Do you think she was telling the truth?”
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel. “She had no reason to lie to me. I didn’t tell her about the murders or why I was there to talk to her.”
“He could have warned her though.” Liz looked out the window. “Just trying to consider our options.”
“She has the ability too, just not to appear as different people.”
Liz was silent for a moment. “Well shit.”
“Exactly.” I looked down at the GPS for a moment to see where my next turn would be. “All I know is that the vampires changed this guy because one of them thought they needed his ability. He turned even more insane than he was before. Two out of three of our victims have connections to him; I’m betting the third will too.”
“What kind of connections?”
“They were both seeking him out for something.” My phone rang, and I looked down to see Jason’s number. I answered it on the handsfree system. “Special Agent Collins and Special Agent Jefferson.”
“Aw Abby, did they pair you up with another person?”
I snorted. “No Jason, I called her in for backup. Whatcha got for me?”
“Mason said you wanted to know if any of our victims had wine or some sort of sweet drink before they were killed.”
“Yeah, I have a theory, and that was the first step of confirming it.”
“Turns out that they both had some red wine within an hour of their death.”
“Thanks, that’s what I needed to know. Anything else come up?”
“Nope, sorry Abby, there’s really not much on the bodies that are going to help you.”
I sighed. “All good, Jason, thanks for checking in.” I disconnected the call. “So Drake is using a poison to incapacitate his victims.”
“Like the one you were dealt last night?”
I nodded. “Luckily for me though, my boyfriend was there to stop anything else that might have happened.”
“That was pretty lucky.”
I exited off the highway and headed into a housing development. The rows of houses gave way to empty lots, leading me to a lone house. No lights were on that I could see as I parked in front of it.
“Yellow isn’t a very inconspicuous color,” Liz mused.
“It used to be dark green, Levi had it repainted, and I don’t know why.” I shrugged. “I won’t drive it if I’m ever aiming for stealth.”
She motioned to the house. “Does this not call for a time that needs stealth?”
“Drake is a vampire; his daughter should be down at the shop.” I closed my eyes and let my magic leak out from me, reaching to and around the house, searching for a circle to activate or anything else that might tell me there were hidden dangers. My magic hit three different circles somewhere in the house, and it shot my magic back into me.
Liz and I gasped at the same time. I resisted the urge to jump up and down saying ow. I settled for shaking my hands out. I saw Liz doing the same thing and laughed. “You felt it too then?”
“Yeah, zapped me as well. So let’s go see what we found before someone reacts to us touching their circle.” She marched up to the walkway that led to the front door.
She knocked. Knocked again. And once more. But nothing came, not that either of us expected someone to answer the door. She waved her hand over the knob, and the tumbler clicked.
“Breaking and entering with magic,” I chided. “On what grounds Agent Jefferson?”
“On the grounds that I heard a scream.” She winked at me and walked in. I didn’t enter right after her,
we both paused to make sure nothing was activated. Neither of us sensed a hex or a protection spell, just the three circles, but being cautious never hurt, especially in our line of work.
Once I was sure nothing was going to blow up or kill us, I walked in after her and shut the door behind me. I turned around stared at all the creepy dolls that were looking at us.
Dolls lined the walls. Some looked brand new; others look old and frail. There were a few in glass cases while others seemed haphazardly thrown on the shelf. There was one doll on the end table that looked familiar. A ragged doll, with only a few strands of yellow yarn hair left on its head and a tattered black dress. It was the doll from my vision.
I walked over to pick it up, a sinking feeling claiming my stomach. Not only was it the doll from my vision, but it also it matched the girl from my vision. When I picked up the doll, something warm went through me. I looked at Liz. “There’s some type of spell on this doll.”
“Then put it down.” She shook her head. “Don’t risk it being a hex.”
“I don’t think it is. It’s warm and comforting.” I put it down anyway, and we moved out of the living room and down the hall to the bedrooms. There were three bedrooms and a bathroom, divided evenly on either side of the hallway.
Liz started opening doors without any true method. She opened, looked in, and moved to the next room. Unlike me, her hand wasn’t itching to pull out her gun. That could mean a few different things, but my mind went straight to paranoia.
Liz looked at me. “What’s up?”
“You don’t sweep with your gun.” I narrowed my eyes.
She nodded. “I don’t like my gun or my taser; I prefer to use my magic.”
Interesting. I was the opposite and never thought about another PIB agent preferring magic over their gun. “Got it.”
“Let’s find the basement.”
Basement. Why did it always have to be basements? I walked back down the hall and to the kitchen. There was a door right where I expected it to be.
“Know the house?” Liz asked.
“No, it’s a common layout.” I looked down the stairs and noticed a faint red glow. “I think the circles are down there.”
Of Life and Death Page 18