Bone Magic (Winter Wayne Book 3)

by D. N. Hoxa

  “No, no, no, it’s not like that.” Dena put her greasy blonde hair behind her ears and swallowed hard. “You see, Blake and I used to date for a couple of years, and I never realized he was stealing from me.”

  I was tempted to roll my eyes. She wanted me to beat her ex? Wow, I never realized I’d stooped this low. Even people coming in to make fun of me was better than this.

  “He’s been stealing stuff my grandfather left me. Important stuff. I want it back, and I want him to stop doing it, but I can’t make him. Nobody can.” Dena’s voice shook, her cheeks flushed.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Waldorf, but there’s nothing I can do for you,” I said with a sigh.

  “Listen, I can pay you. Anything you want. Please, this is very important.”

  Her eyes filled with tears, and she began to shake even more. Shit.

  “I wouldn’t be here if I had any other choice. I need my things back, and I need him to stop!”

  “Have you tried the Blood coven law enforcement?” Every coven had people dealing with internal affairs, such as this. And if not, then… “The ECU just loves cases like this, too.”

  Squeezing her eyes shut, Dena began to laugh, though one could easily mistake the sound for crying. Shaking her head fast, she stood up to face me. “I can’t touch him! His parents are rich. They’re very powerful people. The coven leaders don’t want to hear it, and neither does the ECU because I can’t prove anything. I let him in myself. He slept in my bed and…”

  Covering her face with her shaking hands, Dena took a deep breath. Something stabbed at my chest. Holy shit, this woman was really at the end of her rope here.

  “Please, Winter Wayne. Nobody else I know has a chance in a fight against him. If you could just beat him up real bad, get him to tell you where my grandfather’s things are…”

  With her eyes red and her chin quivering, she looked at me again. Damn it, I hated to see people cry.

  “I’m so sorry, Miss Waldorf. I really can’t help you.” The words tasted sour on my tongue, but I pushed them out anyway. I wanted to help this woman, I really did, but beating up a man I didn’t even know based on accusations made by his ex was low, even by my standards. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t. That was not the kind of thing I wanted people to come to me for. I wasn’t a damn mercenary for hire. I was a private investigator.

  “Then what the hell are you here for?!” Dena Waldorf shouted at the top of her voice, and before I could even ask her to calm down, she turned around and stormed out of my office, leaving me feeling like the biggest piece of shit on the planet.

  I stared at the door for a few more seconds before falling back on my chair with a loud sigh.

  “Why would you turn something like this down?” Lynn said from the corner of the office. I’d honestly forgotten she was even there.

  “Because I don’t beat people up for the heck of it.”

  “But she needed your help. That asshole betrayed her trust. He stole from her.”

  “And that should help her make wiser decisions on who to trust in the future,” I said with a flinch. It might have sounded harsh, but it was the truth. Dylan had betrayed my trust, too, and I hoped I was smarter for that now.

  “So you’re just going to let the guy walk away?” Lynn said. Seeing the pissed off look on her face was like a wake up call.

  “Who named you Jiminy Cricket? I’m running a business here. I can’t think like that or the next thing I know, everybody who wants to beat somebody will come knocking on my door.” I stood up with a new wave of energy. I’d done the right thing. Nobody could tell me otherwise. “I’m going to continue teaching myself spells now. You’re more than welcome to look and learn, too.”

  I expected her to say something else, but she kept her mouth shut. Her face said more than enough, though. Disbelief, anger, disappointment—everything was there in her eyes, directed at me. Instead of wondering how I got a teenager to hate me within minutes of meeting me, I turned to the kitchen and to my cauldron.

  ***

  It was almost eight in the evening when I washed and dried my last small cauldron. The day had pretty much sucked. I’d been too distracted to give all my attention to my stirring and spells, and I’d gotten the same spell wrong three times. When I ran out of ingredients for the first, I moved on to the second and blew that, too. Who the hell was I kidding? Stirring was not for me. I just wished I had a place to train in conjuring. That would make me feel a lot better.

  Lynn was at my desk, talking to Ms. Riley—or rather listening to my landlady talk her ear off with her stories. You could see from Lynn’s face that she wanted to drop off the face of the earth as soon as possible. Maybe she’d see what my life was like and she’d change her mind about wanting to be my “apprentice”. With any luck, Bender would call me later on and tell me that the agreement he got me drunk to sign was no longer valid.

  “It’s almost time to go,” I said to Lynn, and she jumped to her feet before I even finished my sentence. Grinning, I nodded at the door. “Let’s wait for your driver outside. Say bye to Ms. Riley now.”

  Eagerly, Lynn gave a less than enthusiastic bye to my landlady and got out of the office. “I’ll be right back,” I said with a wink, and Ms. Riley didn’t even look like she noticed how fast Lynn had wanted to escape from her. It’s why I loved my landlady. If you got to know her, it was impossible not to like her, but to get to know her, you needed to put up with her stories and privacy invasions first. Not many people were up for that.

  Outside, Lynn waited by the door with her hands in her pockets, looking at the busy street.

  “Not what you were expecting, am I right?”

  “Not really, no,” she mumbled. Definitely not happy.

  “Well, you better get ready. There will be a lot more of this in the days…” My voice trailed off when three black SUVs turned the street full speed and drove right by us.

  If there’s one thing experience has taught me, it’s that when ECU vehicles are in a hurry to get somewhere like that, it’s never good news. I walked closer to the street and began to see paranormals of all kinds running right where the SUVs were headed. I could barely see the crowd gathering not sixty feet from my office. Curiosity got the best of me in mere seconds.

  “Get back inside,” I said to Lynn and pulled her inside my office by the arm.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, but I didn’t have time to explain.

  “Ms. Riley, please stay with her until her driver picks her up. And lock up when you leave, okay?”

  Surprised, Ms. Riley nodded. “Of course, dear.”

  “Hey, I want to come with you!” Lynn called.

  “Don’t leave that office until your driver is here, you hear me? We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  I began to run down the street, following the crowd. My beads buzzed with excitement as if they couldn’t wait to be used on a real target, even though my fingers still hurt. My gun was with me, and so were my four knives. I had no Pretters in my hair, which I hadn’t even bothered to braid, but excitement aside, I knew I wasn’t going to get any action. Not in the middle of Geraldine Street with the whole world watching, anyway.

  When I finally made it to the corner and to where the crowd had gathered, I had to use my elbows to get to the front. People shouted and threw all kinds of curse words at me—nothing I hadn’t heard before—but I didn’t stop. Not until I was in the front line and I could see the dead body lying in the middle of the street.

  What the hell?

  ECU witches and werewolves were already putting red tape around the body, and two of them were on their knees, taking pictures and making measurements. I stood on the tips of my toes to get a better look at the dead guy.

  He was young, possibly my age, with a strong built. Could have been a werewolf. His eyes were closed, and the blood that had dripped from his nose had turned black. His brown hair was all over the place and one of his ears seemed to be missing. I cringed. There was blood on his green shirt, too, but
I couldn’t see any wounds from that far. All I could see was that his hands were fisted so tightly, they were already white.

  Who the hell had done this? I looked at the ECU officers. They were all looking at the crowd around them like they had no clue what the hell was happening, either. For the first time in forever, I couldn’t even find it in me to judge them. This sort of thing never happened. Nobody killed anybody and left them there in the middle of the fucking street in Manhattan. Not unless they wanted to get caught. Cameras everywhere, and people, too. Somebody would have seen something, and the ECU was going to take this one seriously because the whole world had already seen it. Everybody on Geraldine Street was probably going to be interrogated, including me.

  Curiosity burned a hole in my chest. Who was this guy and what had he done to get himself killed in the middle of the street like that? Who’d been the motherfucker with enough balls to do this?

  Letting my mind calm down, I focused on what the people around me were saying.

  “I was just here and everything looked normal,” a woman was saying.

  “It was a vampire. Who else could have gotten away so fast?” a man said, and he did have a point. But I could see the dead guy’s neck, and it wasn’t torn to pieces. Something was telling me that this wasn’t a vampire’s doing.

  “Is that a gunshot?”

  “Who is he?”

  “No idea…”

  “I think I heard someone say his name.” My whole being focused on the guy to my right speaking to his friend.

  “Who? Is it a wolf?”

  “No, it’s a witch. A Bloodie. Powell something.”

  My heart all but stopped beating, but I didn’t dare move just yet, from fear he’d say something else and I’d miss it.

  “Shit. The Bloodies are gonna flip,” his friend said, and I could hear the grin in his voice.

  “I really want to know who did this.”

  “Are you afraid, dude?” the friend said, full out laughing now, and that’s when I turned around to leave.

  Every cell in my body was begging me to start running already, get back to my office and find Dena Waldorf. What were the odds that a guy with the last name Powell died on the same day that she asked me to beat up her ex with the same name? This was no coincidence. Had she managed to find someone else to do this? Who? I didn’t know any assassins for hire, and she’d asked me to beat him, not kill him.

  When someone popped right in front of me, I was so lost in thought that I jumped back, scared shitless. A blink later, and I saw Lynn’s dark eyes staring back at me.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I hissed. Before I realized, I had my fingers around her arm and was dragging her to the sidewalk, away from the crowd.

  “I followed you,” Lynn said. She didn’t even look like she was sorry. Instead, she was on the tips of her toes, trying to get a better look at the dead body, just like I’d done minutes ago.

  “I told you to stay in my office. Your driver must be there by now,” I said, too distracted to be properly angry at her. All I wanted to do was to find Dena Waldorf and ask her who she hired before the ECU found out.

  “I don’t care. Did you find out what’s going on? Who died?” Lynn said.

  “Nobody you know,” I mumbled. “Come on. Let’s get back.”

  “Just tell me who he is,” she insisted, but she did follow me.

  My mouth opened to tell her to drop it, when someone called my name.

  “Winter?”

  To my horror, I did recognize the voice. It was James the vampire. Pretending that I hadn’t heard him wouldn’t work, but I tried anyway. With my head down, I walked faster.

  “Hey, Winter, how ya doing?” And before I knew it, the vampire was by my side.

  Knowing he’d follow me if I continued to walk—and I did not want him in my office—I stopped and faced him.

  “Hello, James. Why aren’t you at the Lair?” I said in a rush, eager to get this over with. That was where most vampires spent their nights.

  “Because I didn’t feel like going tonight,” James said, his eyes on Lynn, a weird smile I didn’t like on his face. Anger rose in my chest. What the hell was he looking at? “Who’s this?”

  “None of your business,” I hissed while Lynn analyzed him from head to toe. “Look, I need to go now, and you should, too. People are saying that vampires killed that guy, and you don’t want to be here when the ECU starts asking questions.” Scaring him would be easy, and he’d be out of my face in no time.

  Except, he wasn’t.

  “This was not a vampire,” James said, smiling and shaking his head. “I knew the guy. He had no trouble with us.”

  Oh. Well, that changed things. It definitely made me want to continue talking to James.

  “How did you know him?” I asked. It was then that he seemed to realize what he’d said, and he sure as hell regretted it. His flinch said so.

  “Just from around,” James mumbled. “Anyway, what have you been up to? I heard about them Hedge witches. I’ve been meaning to come by your office for a—”

  I cut him off.

  “James, how did you know the dead witch?”

  Dena Waldorf was a safe bet, yes, but it didn’t hurt to have more information on the victim. And since James knew him, that meant that he did something he was probably not proud of—and maybe Dean Waldorf had spoken the truth about him. Assuming this even was her ex boyfriend.

  “Look, I’ve got to go, too. I’ll see you later?”

  James took a step back. It only made me want to know more. If they knew each other like he said they did, why would James look so uncomfortable all of a sudden? No, he was definitely hiding something, and I couldn’t wait to find out what.

  I took a step closer to him. “You’ve got a little less time than you think. I don’t see your daughter anywhere. That’s going to make things easier for me.”

  Threatening was my go-to method whenever talking to James because, as experience has shown me, that kind of talk worked best with him.

  “For fuck’s sake, woman. What is it with you?” James said and his eyes grew darker as he got angrier.

  I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him even closer. “Tell me what I want to know, right now.”

  “You save my life once!” he said instead.

  I laughed dryly.

  “You almost cost me mine twice!”

  “Shit,” James whispered.

  He knew I was right. I almost got killed twice because of him, and I hadn’t touched a hair on his head for it.

  “Okay, okay.”

  Abruptly, he grabbed my arm and got really close to me. Instinct told me to reach for my gun already, but then I realized, he was getting close to my ear so he could whisper to me. I held still and focused.

  “A guy I know got the package from him then had me find someone to deliver it to Inwood.”

  He whispered so slowly, I almost didn’t understand him. When I did, the hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention. The package I delivered to Inwood for him. The package I delivered to Julian Walker in Inwood for him. The goddamn dragon blood.

  “Can I get the hell out of here now? People are beginning to notice us getting close and shit,” James said, but I couldn’t care less about people right now. I pushed him back and without a word, I continued to walk to my office.

  This changed things. This changed everything. Who the hell was Blake Powell and where had he gotten the dragon blood he sold to Julian?

  “What did he say? What package?”

  For the second time that day, I’d completely forgotten about Lynn’s existence. She was right next to me, walking as fast as I did.

  “This doesn’t concern you,” I mumbled and almost sighed in relief when I saw the black car in front of my office, and the guy dressed in a classic black suit by the door. Her driver. It had to be him.

  “Of course it does. I’m your apprentice!” Lynn cried.

  I ignored her and stopped
in front of the driver. He looked surprised to see me, then disgusted as he realized what I was. “You here for her?”

  “Yes, I am.” He acted like he couldn’t wait to look at Lynn, as if his eyes were getting dirty by looking at me.

  “Get in,” I said to Lynn and opened the back door.

  “I want to know what the vampire said!” Lynn’s cheeks were bright red and her eyes wide as she looked at my lips, impatient to hear what I had to say next.

  “Tomorrow,” I said. “We’ll talk tomorrow.” Right now, I just needed to get my thoughts in order.

  “But, Winter—”

  “No buts. Just go!” I said and waved for her to get in the car. Reluctantly, she did so without a word. The driver kept looking at me through the corner of his eye until he turned the ignition on and drove away. In that moment, I didn’t even have it in me to get pissed.

  I could barely find the keyhole to my office door. Ms. Riley had left and locked up after herself, just like I’d asked. She’d turned off the lights, too, so it was dark when I got in. My laptop was more important, though, so I didn’t bother with the switch.

  That’s why I didn’t see whatever was on the floor right in front of my desk until I hit it with the tip of my sneaker.

  “What the hell?” I whispered to myself as shivers ran down my back. My gun was already in my hand as I blinked and blinked, and the silhouette turned into a body. A body was lying on the floor in my office.

  Slowly, I walked back to the light switch by the door and turned it on, ready for whoever it was to attack me.

  When my eyes adjusted to the light and I saw clearly, the gun slipped from my hand.

  Julian Walker was lying on the floor, right next to my desk, and he wasn’t moving.

  Five

  I had no idea I’d even moved, but I found myself on my knees in front of his face. His bloodied face. Fear gripped me by the throat, and with shaking fingers, I checked the pulse on his neck. It was weak—very weak—but it was there. Julian was alive.

  A cry escaped my lips as I put my hands on his cold cheeks.