Nightsoul

by McKenzie Hunter

  “She’s worried about you and so am I,” he admitted. “She told me you were upset yesterday, had to pull a weapon on Mephisto—or in her words, ‘the blood-covered cretin who keeps coming around.’ She said he disarmed you, causing you to become upset.”

  “She took all the events and switched them out of order to give you a fantastical tale and make it sound a lot worse. And I’m positive her flawed retelling was on purpose. I had a situation that he helped me with.” Part of that was truth.

  The smile vanished from his face. “You called him first?’

  “No…no.” I didn’t have time to deal with this. I had an arrogant vampire and greedy, inflexible witches who were terrifyingly close to being on the receiving end of Landon’s wrath. Not only was that going to be a mess to deal with, but if I failed, it would be a nightmare PR situation for Madison. My mother wanted me dead, someone was bespelling me, and I might be part of a race considered extinct. My life was quickly becoming the hottest mess of all hot messes. The last thing I needed right now was to deal with Asher and his pack.

  “Technically I didn’t call him either. I told you I would call the person who could help me. I did. It was Cory. But like you, Mephisto seems to think I have an open invitation policy to my home.” I flashed him a smile. “When I finally move to an undisclosed location, you will know why.”

  His lips lifted into a wolfish smirk. “I’m sure I could find you,” he said.

  “Oh, well that’s not creepy at all,” I chided, hitching my bag of weapons farther up my shoulder.

  Seeing the concern on his face, I added, “We’ll talk later, okay? I’ll tell you everything.” Realizing he would need to hear the edited version, I amended with, “Everything I can. But for now, call off your little spy.”

  “You want me to tell Ms. Harp, Ms. Evelyn Harp, what to do?” he asked with incredulous amusement.

  “Yes, because that’s what you do.”

  He shrugged, backing toward his car. His slow pace and measured steps seemed to be inviting me to look at him. Because it wouldn’t be Asher if he wasn’t giving someone an eyeful. “As you wish,” he said. “But we both know she does the opposite of what I ask. And opposes anything I suggest out of principle.”

  He was right.

  “Leave her alone. I’ll handle it.”

  His easy confidence remained as he got into his car. “Once you’ve broken that code of getting Evelyn compliant with requests, I hope you’ll share the trick with me.”

  I’d just pulled up to Landon’s home when my phone rang. Wendy spoke in a strained voice as soon as I answered.

  “We’ll accept the offer but with our previous terms,” she declared with misplaced defiance. “We will not do a death oath.”

  Although she made an effort to sound confident, I didn’t have to be a shifter to hear the desperation in her voice. Her acceptance wasn’t out of any sense of fair play or altruism; she didn’t have a second offer.

  “And we will only work with you. Not him. I don’t want to see him.”

  Landon, how many threats did you direct at her this time?

  “Is there a problem?” I asked innocently. I knew the problem: Landon didn’t know how to keep his thoughts to himself.

  “He is not someone I want to deal with personally. I don’t take his threat against me and my coven lightly.”

  “Was he a big meanie after you reneged on your offer?” I should have been above this, but I wasn’t in a mood for taking the high road. If she hadn’t pursued Mephisto, this would have been over days ago.

  “No one asked for your sarcasm,” she snapped.

  “No worries, I offer it freely. No requests necessary.”

  She huffed in exasperation.

  “Let’s get this handled today. You’ll have your money and Landon will have the Amber Crocus,” I told her in a nicer tone.

  And you won’t have a chance to make the offer to someone else.

  She wasn’t likely to find another buyer anytime soon, but continuously being snarky or bitchy wasn’t going to make things easier. The deal needed to be over today because I had more pressing things to do.

  After my call with Wendy, I called Landon to tell him the coven had accepted his offer. I called Cory to arrange for him to get the necessary ingredients for the evanesco spell, so that he could perform it. I wasn’t surprised to find out he didn’t need anything and was familiar with it.

  After all my arrangements with Cory, Landon, and Wendy, I called Mephisto. When the call went to voicemail, I sent him a text to thank him. When he didn’t respond, I considered calling him again. After his speech about our interests not always aligning, I wanted to know what had changed his mind.

  CHAPTER 14

  It was easier getting two million dollars from Landon than it was telling him he had to stay home. It’s astounding that he could live for a hundred years and yet still remain oblivious to basic social contracts. People you threaten with horrific violence don’t tend to want to meet. And there are some four-letter words you call people that put you on the “never want to meet” list. He’d managed to do both. Granted, with enough zeros behind a number, some people might be more inclined to forgive, but Wendy wasn’t one of them.

  Wendy answered the door, her nose raised to the air with a level of pomposity that made my eyes roll. Stepping aside to let us in, she gave me a passing glance, then Cory, and then her attention settled on Dallas. Cory was often on the receiving end of attention and, contrary to his self-admitted good looks, people were often drawn to the deep-set dimple that was revealed at the mere hint of a smile. If not his dimple, it was his honey-brown eyes with hints of gold that projected a magnetic warmth. People were drawn to them. In an effort to keep him humble, I never pointed out how stunning they were.

  Wendy and Stacey were immune to it, giving him the same sweeping look of indifference they gave me. Had they even seen the eyes? Maybe they’d seen him before or simply found them unimpressive. Whatever it was, they decided to ogle the hot vampire. Their attention stayed on him so long, I cleared my throat to pull their attention to me.

  Dallas was unbothered by the intensity of their attention; he was probably used to it. Was he numb to it? The vampire aura wasn’t doing him any favors, either. If witches could make a vampire aura anti-charm, they could get out of the blackmailing business. Stacey’s poor attempt at a furtive glance failed miserably. At what point was a stare held so long it became gawking? She’d passed gawking and was now openly ogling the man.

  I pondered if throwing in Dallas as part of the deal and getting a significant reduction in the asking price would make me a bad person. Nah, it might not make me a bad person, but it would definitely make me a pimp. That wasn’t a life choice I was prepared to make.

  “The evanesco spell,” I reminded the witches, who managed to drag their eyes from Dallas. He started to give them a faint smile and I shot him a quelling look.

  You keep your smiles to yourself!

  They pored over the oath in the spell, taking an exceptionally long time. I suspected they were looking for loopholes they could exploit. They wouldn’t find any. Cory knew the importance of the language and how essential it was that he didn’t leave room for ambiguities, which is why the meeting was made later in the evening to give him time to make the spell iron clad.

  The oath would be tied to the coven. It covered particulars such as name changes, addition of new members, continued binding of the oath in the events a covener left for another. It wasn’t that witches were any more nefarious or amoral than any other denizen, but memories are short and greed is strong. Five years from now, they could feel that the money wasn’t enough and would want to go back to the well and look for a way to do so. This wouldn’t allow them. Even with the death of the caster, the oath still held.

  Wendy’s tight-lipped grimace confirmed that it was iron tight. “It’s very thorough,” she acknowledged.

  It better have been after the death stare Landon gave me when I told him
Cory’s fee. Which led to me having to explain to him what a magical oath entailed and that his typical subpar witches, although fine for simple wards and spells, weren’t good enough for performing the oath. I trusted Cory. When Landon persisted, I pointed out that the cost of his tie could cover Cory’s fees and a magical oath wasn’t where he wanted to start bargain shopping.

  Finally, the witches gave the nod of approval. Dallas tapped a few things on his phone. “It’s done,” he said.

  After confirming the deposit, they flashed smiles that now matched their bank account.

  “Now the oath.” Dallas’s tone was curt enough that the witches’ gaze swung in his direction and stayed.

  “Then we’ll show you to the Amber Crocus. You’re free to do as you please with it.”

  “I should hope so. The vampires just paid a hefty sum to do that,” Cory mumbled under his breath. It was for my ears only, but Wendy overheard and shot him a glare.

  “He wants the plants destroyed and the land salted so nothing can ever grow in that area again,” I told her.

  The witches rolled their eyes but nodded. They’d probably assumed Landon would leave that to them, but Cory and I were tasked with destroying the earth, ensuring the land was left barren. Landon was being trivial. The oath restricted them from growing Amber Crocus, but he was preventing them from growing any ingredients for spellcasting at all.

  Wendy held the coven’s crest to her chest with such reverence it sparked a tinge of empathy in me. I had to remind myself that most oaths didn’t come with a seven-figure reward.

  Her hold on the crest tightened when Cory requested the item that represented the bond each within the coven had made to each other. A blood oath to the crest and in turn to the coven. Several beats passed, her gaze darting to Dallas as if she was expecting a stay or for Landon to exhibit clemency and revoke the requirement.

  Keep waiting, it’s not happening.

  After several minutes, her jaw set with confidence, but her eyes were pools of regret as she dropped it into Cory’s hand.

  “Let’s proceed,” Dallas urged, his voice warm and smooth but latent with command. Severe dark eyes remained on Wendy, and she watched him carefully before inching closer to Cory.

  Magic oaths were more ritualistic than most spells. After each invocation, Wendy vocalized her agreement as the oath taker. At the final oath, the paper was set alight. Patterns of bright colors danced in the air, mingling together to form a light sheath that covered the crest, sealing the oath.

  “It is done,” Cory said, handing the crest to Wendy, who stared at it before taking it from him.

  We followed her and Stacey to the garden. Stacey gasped. Wendy gaped. Chunks of soil were scattered near holes where the plants had been pulled up by their roots. There wasn’t a plant to be seen.

  Dallas surveyed the garden, then his gimlet eyes snapped to the witches.

  “Where is it?” he ground out.

  “I don’t know.” Wendy’s voice was tremulous. I wasn’t sure if it was from fear or anger since both emotions were warring for dominance on her face.

  “You didn’t have a ward around it?” Cory asked, incredulity sharpening his words.

  “I did, but I had to remove it. Every time we erected one, the plants started to die.”

  “There’s a Klipsen ward with a trigger.” Stacey pointed at the trail of pods lining the perimeter. Sleeper pods that were triggered to break if the ward was broken. A Klipsen ward would prevent a person from even Wynding. Whoever stole the AC had disabled the ward without triggering the sleepers. Or they nullified them.

  Dallas moved so imperceptibly fast that I didn’t register the movement until he had the witches braced with thin iridium cuffs, his hands wrapped around their necks and his fangs bared.

  Both were wide eyed and struggling for breath. My gun was out but I didn’t have a clear shot, and neither did Cory with his magic. It twirled around his fingers each time he moved. Dallas moved, too, using the witches as a shield.

  I could see the moment Wendy realized she’d underestimated the vampires. It wasn’t a deficiency in her knowledge or failure to observe them. Vampires did it intentionally, luring people into a false sense of security by allowing them to only see a fraction of their speed and strength. It wasn’t until moments like this, when their intent was to kill, that the person was treated to the full extent of their strength and cunning. The older the vampire, the more dangerous.

  Dallas was too young to exhibit speed like that. I wasn’t under any illusion that Landon wasn’t aware of that fact.

  “Dallas,” I entreated, hoping I could reason with the angry vampire. I was now fully aware that the amiable vampire with the dazzling smile and unquenchable magnetism was nothing more than a cleaner—an assassin if needed. Every denizen had their version. The STF was often able to keep things under control, but the supernatural world, like anything else, had a darker and nefarious side.

  I tried to stay knowledgeable of who these cleaners were. For the vampires, it was Elon. If Landon had paired me with Elon for this job, I would have been prepared. Would have had a stake at the ready and watched him more carefully. Instead he sent Dallas, sweet, kind, unassuming Dallas. He’d caught me off guard.

  “They didn’t do this,” I said. “But the Amber Crocus is out there. You kill them, it will be up to the vampires to find it. I won’t help and you’ll be too busy dealing with the STF to find it yourself. Is that what you want to do, ruin any chance of getting it off the streets?”

  Fear and rage were the worst bedfellows.

  “And you’ll break the oath, giving them free rein to disclose how to make it,” Cory added, magic still twining around his fingers as he waited for an opening.

  Wendy and Stacey clawed at Dallas’s hands without success as he scrutinized me and Cory. I really hoped he couldn’t detect the lie Cory just told about the oath. The oath would still be in place upon the deaths of these witches, and the living witches would still be bound to it.

  He lowered them more gently than I was expecting and turned them to face him, keeping them in striking distance. His dark eyes were turbulent with rage. Wendy and Stacey stood taller in defiance and met his gaze with the same ire.

  Drawing back his lips, he said, “We trusted you. We paid you. We honored our end of the agreement. You didn’t.” The low timbre of his voice was more frightening than if he’d snarled. “This could have been resolved days ago, but you decided you’d place our lives in jeopardy to get a better deal without the restriction of an oath. If a vampire dies from this…” The threat faded into the whoosh that accompanied a vampire Wynding. It clipped the air, leaving us staring at the vacant space where the vampire once stood.

  “If you know something, you need to tell me now,” I urged the witches. Landon wasn’t known for his patience.

  They were having a difficult time focusing and kept tugging at the magic-restricting iridium braces clamped around their arms. I retrieved my picks from the car and removed the braces. I’d return them to Landon as a consolation gift after I ripped him a new one for blindsiding me with an assassin.

  Cory and I inspected the area. The ward had been removed, which meant a magic wielder stronger than Wendy had done it. This reduced the number of suspects significantly. There was a privacy fence that blocked the garden from being seen, and a lock. The lock would just be a deterrent for petty thieves, but the ward should have blocked everyone else.

  “How many people did you approach about the AC?” I asked.

  “Just Mephisto,” Wendy said, her voice hoarse. There wasn’t any visible bruising, but I was sure her rough voice was from the shock of seeing anyone demonstrate the ability to brace and disable her so quickly. I wondered if she was recalling the warning I’d given her about dealing with vampires and regretting blackmailing them. It was too late for regrets.

  “Wendy, I need a list of any witch or mage whose magic ability rivals yours.”

  She rolled her eyes at “mage.”
Even with her life at risk, she couldn’t ignore her witch-superiority bias enough to consider them a threat.

  “Put any mages you know at the top of the list. If it got out that you had the Amber Crocus or that you were blackmailing the vampires, I wouldn’t put it past a mage to do this.” Landon wouldn’t let anyone know he was being blackmailed; his ego and reputation couldn’t handle it.

  Stacey and Wendy worked on the list longer than I expected. Several times Wendy’s jaw clenched at Stacey’s insistence on adding certain people to the list. Stacey gravitated toward caution.

  While they worked on their list, I mentally compiled mine. I didn’t suspect a coven. It was probably a witch without a coven or a mage without a consortium. I’d seen Wendy in action, knew the extent of her magical ability, and knew how difficult a Klipsen ward was to disable. The thief not only disabled it but did so without setting off the trigger. The number of people who could do that was minute. I was in the presence of the few who could.

  CHAPTER 15

  “What the hell, Landon!” I snapped the moment he opened the door. A taunting sneer tugged at his lips and I gripped the karambit tighter at my side. I had it with me despite Cory’s suggestion that showing up at Landon’s home armed with a weapon would seem hostile. Damn straight it looked hostile, because among innumerable other feelings, hostility was ranking pretty high.

  “I take it that things didn’t go as expected,” he said airily.

  “You know they didn’t. Who the hell is Dallas? Was he even the person who found out about the AC or simply a plant that you used?”

  “Ah, he is quite unassuming, isn’t he? That’s the advantage of him. He’s enthralling, I’d even go so far as to say breathtaking. People are so busy being beguiled by him that they underestimate his abilities. But if you are aware of them, something went wrong.” Landon turned his back on me and headed down that hall. It was a slight, dismissing me as inconsequential, someone he didn’t consider a threat.