“I am,” I said.
“We can’t change our minds, Byron,” Erin insisted. “People have been murdered—”
“Vampires are already dead,” the other woman at the table, a redhead in a charcoal business suit, said matter-of-factly. The man next to her, probably Carla’s age with a gray beard and papery white skin, nodded sagely.
“Undead,” I snapped, heat flaring to life in my chest. “They can still be killed, like those two victims in your vacation house.” Erin put her hand on my arm and I shook it off.
“We deeply regret their deaths, of course,” the bald man, Bryon, said. “That sort of ritual is—”
“Deeply frowned upon,” Carla interjected when Byron hesitated to find the right words.
“And obviously we’ll punish whomever is to blame,” the young woman with the pink streaks in her hair added. “But we took a vote and decided—“
“You can’t vote without everyone, Kiki, and I wasn’t here,” Erin insisted.
“Erin, it was unanimous,” Kiki said quietly.
Anger flashed in Erin’s eyes and she looked to Evan, who was now watching her instead of the pot. “Seriously?”
“Sorry, sis,” he said. “After talking it over, we all decided it’d be smarter not to get anyone else involved.”
“Too late,” I said, not bothering to hide my irritation. “I’m already involved. I saw the crime scene. Whoever murdered those vampires needs to face justice, and I’m going to make sure that happens.”
The group at the table exchanged uneasy looks.
“We can’t just change our minds,” Erin said. “It’s not that simple.”
Carla glared at Evan until he ushered Erin into the hall for a private chat. I tried to listen, and heard something about danger and vampires before Byron cleared his throat loudly.
“It’s not personal,” Byron said to me, almost apologetically. “I’m sure you’re great at what you do. We just feel this is more of an internal affairs situation.”
“Indeed,” Carla said. She walked over to the table and the white-haired man got up to pull out a chair for her. It was the chair at the head of the table and allowed her to keep an eye on Erin and Evan in the hall. I got the impression Carla was the leader of the Guild, though thought it odd no one had introduced her that way. Maybe that was more than they wanted to tell an outsider.
I strained to hear more from the conversation in the hall, but I couldn’t make out more than hushed whispers.
“Nice place,” I said after a moment of tense silence.
“It’s Evan’s house,” Kiki offered.
“But the farm is a Guild space,” Carla added immediately. “Evan and Erin’s grandparents willed the house to Evan, but the farm has always been a place for our practice. Particularly the open fields.”
I stared, unsure what to make of this.
“Is it true?” Byron asked me. “That you used to be a—” He hooked his fingers in front of his mouth in an approximation of fangs.
“Yeah, it’s true,” I said, shifting uneasily on my feet. I didn’t like the way the rest of the table snapped to attention, eyes all turning to me like I was suddenly a curiosity rather than a visitor.
“Incredible,” one of them—the older man, I thought—muttered under their breath.
“Must be a relief,” Byron said.
“Not really,” I said sharply. “I didn’t want a Cure. I was happy being a vampire.”
That brought him up short. He didn’t seem to know what to say to that, and neither did the others.
“Who do you think is behind the murders?” I asked, hoping that catching them off guard might get me an answer.
“We don’t know,” Byron said.
“But it’s one of yours,” I said. “A witch.”
Carla’s eyes widened. “We’re not sure.”
“If you think it’s an internal affair, then you’re pretty sure,” I countered.
She pressed her lips together in a tight line and glared at me. “It’s none of your concern.”
Erin and Evan returned. Erin didn’t look happy. Evan clapped her on the shoulder. Erin gestured for me to go.
“We’re sorry to have wasted your time,” Carla said, standing to see us to the door.
“Oh, it’s not a waste,” I said, being cryptic on purpose. Carla clenched her fists at her sides and I could tell she wasn’t happy. Good.
I could understand wanting to keep things in-house. Cazimir did the same thing at the Factory, back when he had run it, and I had no doubt Lark would continue that trend. No reason to bring in outsiders when you could solve the problem yourself, especially if outsiders—in this case, the vampires—might make things worse when they realize what was happening. But vampires had been killed for the sake of some magical ritual I couldn’t begin to understand. It wasn’t going to stay in-house, especially if it happened again.
From how scared they all seemed to be, and based on Erin’s rush to involve me if it might help, I was pretty sure they all expected it to happen again. Which meant I had to do my damnedest to make sure that didn’t happen, never mind getting justice for those who had already died.
Evan stopped Carla. “I’ll see them out,” he said firmly.
Carla hesitated before sitting back down and letting us go without her.
Outside, Erin let out a breath. “This is ridiculous. Not to mention irresponsible. We know it has to be one of our people. They used Barry’s house.”
“I know,” Evan agreed. “I’ve even wondered if maybe…” He trailed off meaningfully, and Erin shook her head.
“He’s dead.”
“Who’s dead?” I asked.
Evan glanced at his sister and then said, “You tell her.”
“It’s supposed to be a secret,” Erin said, sounding unsure.
“Maybe, but if you want me to help, you have to let me know the whole story,” I insisted. “I’m not a professional detective, but even a PI would want to know the basic facts. If there’s a suspect, even a dead one, you have to tell me.”
Erin fiddled with her purse string and Evan nodded at her.
“Or I could go sit in my bathtub and let the sick fuck skeletonize even more people,” I said. It was a bluff. I was already in this, and I knew from experience that just because I wanted to ignore a murderous monster didn’t mean the monster would let me.
Erin gave her brother a tap on the shoulder. “Take care, okay? Don’t let Carla boss you around too much.”
Evan smiled. “Don’t worry. She knows she’s not actually in charge.”
“I know, but she likes to push,” Erin said, and climbed into the driver’s seat. “And I think I’d lose my shit if someone did…that…in grandma’s house.” I guessed that was a ritual sacrifice, and I didn’t blame her for not wanting family property violated that way.
“Won’t happen,” he assured her. I got in and buckled my seatbelt. Evan waved us off.
* * *
“So, who’s dead?” I asked again, once we were inside the car and heading back down the dirt road toward the highway.
“Remember the guy I told you about, the one with cancer?”
“Yeah.”
“Evan thinks someone is trying to bring him back.”
I thought of the corpses in Barry’s former house and shuddered. “Can they do that?”
“No,” she said firmly. “I mean, I don’t think so. Death magic is forbidden and rare, and there are rumors it can do all kinds of things, but Barry’s been dead for months. I don’t think there’s anything that could bring him back at this point.”
Something didn’t add up. “What aren’t you telling me? What ‘secrets’ were you talking about?”
Erin puffed out her cheeks. “Look, if I tell you this, it’s like…high security stuff, okay? You can’t tell anyone I told you, especially not other members of the Guild. I’d get kicked out for divulging information this confidential.”
“You showed me the corpses,” I said.
Erin sighed like I was a massive idiot and her patience for dealing with my stupidity had hit a wall. I curled my fingers into fists so tightly that I had to release them a second later, before my fingernails drew blood from my palms.
“I was authorized to show you the crime scene and give you the basics. What I’m about to tell you is something most of the Guild hasn’t heard. The people you just met, the Elders, we’re the only ones who know.”
“And they’ve decided my services aren’t needed.”
“They’re being paranoid. But we need to figure out who’s doing it, and frankly, I think we’re all too close to it to honestly assess who should be a suspect.” She tapped her perfectly manicured nails on the steering wheel. “This is top secret. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“At the end of his life, Barry was acting kind of funny. Like, he’d rant about how he deserved to live, and how he could cull the power he needed from others. There was a young woman who was murdered not far from Barry’s house. Her corpse was found in a circle of salt surrounded by candles, but it was intact. Not bones like the corpses tonight.” She glanced over at me. “It was reported in the news, and all of us thought it might have been death magic. But you have to understand, usually crimes that look like freaky dark magic are just the result of stupid teens who get their knowledge of magic from movies and don’t actually intend for anyone to get hurt. Stuff gets out of hand, the kids flee the scene… None of us took it too seriously.”
I nodded. That made sense. Every so often, “vampire” murders got reported in the news, where a body was found drained of blood or with funny holes in its neck. Ninety-nine percent of the time, those deaths had nothing to do with real vampires, and even though the media called them “vampire killings,” no mortals really believed vampires existed or had been involved. Vampires largely ignored those reports.
“But then at the end,” Erin continued, “Barry was on some serious pain meds and other drugs, and he got kind of loopy. He was trying all sorts of weird healing spells, ones that left a lot of dead squirrels in his yard.” She winced at the memory. “Total unrepentant death magic. One night, he confessed to Evan and Byron—Byron is his nephew—that he’d murdered that woman in an attempt to cure his cancer.”
“Holy shit,” I said.
“Yeah. It was messed up. Evan thought maybe he was making it up, but Byron was convinced, and he found some of Barry’s spellbooks. The guy had mapped out different spells for things like invincibility and eternal life. Seriously creepy spells and potions. By the time the Elders were convinced he’d actually killed the woman, Barry was dead. We locked his spellbooks away and decided not to let the rest of the coven know what he’d done. They thought he should be remembered as the giving, caring man he’d once been, instead of the desperate man willing to kill to save his own skin.”
“Where are his spellbooks now?”
“Sealed in our vault,” Erin said firmly. “Trust me, none of us wants that stuff out there.”
“But Evan thinks someone is using those spells to bring Barry back.”
“Which would be foolish, especially now that his body is probably in bad shape. Unless they’re trying to bring him back as a ghost or something.”
“You’ve encountered ghosts?” I’d never seen a ghost. I’d met mediums, especially while bartending at Underground, but I thought they were largely smoke and mirrors, with the occasional lucky hit.
“Sure,” Erin said. “A few times. Most ghosts aren’t more than shades of the living, though. The idea that someone is that dedicated to bringing Barry back is pretty absurd. Evan’s paranoid because Barry was… At the end, he was really angry he was dying. He threatened those around him.”
“That’s interesting.”
Erin shrugged again. “Everyone reacts to death differently. You ought to know that.”
I ignored the jab, or what I took as a jab. “What do you think was the purpose of the ritual with the vampires?”
Erin tapped her fingers on the steering wheel again, considering. “I think it’s probably some kind of immortality spell, maybe riffing off Barry’s work. But I can’t be sure, and only the Elders know about it.” She glanced over at me. “Did any of them give you a murdering asshat vibe? Because I don’t see any of us doing this. We’re all pretty powerful, and if they were going to go all dark side, they’d be smart enough to do it somewhere they wouldn’t get caught, even if someone thought they’d come out of it impervious to consequences.”
“I’ll be honest. I didn’t get warm, fuzzy feelings from any of them, but none of them struck me as the type to try murder and mayhem. Then again, after nearly a century as a vampire, I can tell you one thing: there isn’t really a type. You never know what someone is capable of.”
“Well, that’s comforting,” she said.
“Tell me about it.”
Chapter 5
The next night, I walked into Underground like I owned the place, trying not to resent that I’d been fired from bartending there the moment I’d been shot up with the Cure and turned human. Now that I’d been fired from my mortal job, too, I was in a mood to pick a fight.
What I needed, though, was information. Since the Elders weren’t going to be forthcoming, and I wanted a perspective other than Erin’s, I decided to question the only other witch I knew: Mark, my former coworker, who bartended at the arcane hub.
It was pretty crowded for a Monday, with butts on most of the bar stools and all of the tables filled with drinkers. I quickly realized a large group in one of the bigger booths was made up of mortals. Mortals I recognized. The former residents of the Factory.
I scanned the group until I spotted Elliot, one of the only mortals I knew by name. He had dark skin and a shaved head. He wore layers of sweatshirts, the top one dark blue.
“I have a plan if you guys will hear me out,” Brad, the surly gothic one I also knew by name, was telling the others. Some of them nodded in agreement. The others looked unsure. They all stiffened when they saw me.
“Elliot,” I said. He met my eyes, expression grave. In fact, none of the Factory mortals, who’d been recently evicted from the Factory-turned-palace-turned-vampire tourist stop, were smiling. They were all talking quietly and quickly in hushed tones, expressions ranging from furious to exhausted. Some of them smelled like they needed a shower. Others were clean and wore fresh clothes. But all of them looked uniformly unhappy.
“Henri. What’s up?” he asked, but in a way that suggested he didn’t really care and was being polite so I’d cut the small talk and go away.
“Nothing, it’s just odd to see so many humans in here unescorted.” Underground was patronized mostly by preternatural beings, like vampires and humans with connections to magic: witches, psychics, mediums. Sometimes the human familiars—vampire groupies, as I tended to call them—would come in hoping to meet a vampire. Sometimes they came in with their vampire friends or partners. But it was odd to find so many gathering without a vampire among them.
Elliott shrugged and some of his friends shifted uneasily in their seats.
“We’re just having drinks,” Elliot said, a little defensively. “Is that okay with you?”
“Of course,” I said.
I’d have had to be completely oblivious not to get that hint, so I turned to go find my own seat at the bar. I’d come here to speak to Mark anyhow, not a bunch of surly vampire wannabes. As I stepped away from the table, I heard one of them say, “You know, it’s funny that Lark is using the Blood Traitor as her guard dog.”
I stiffened but kept going, glancing back only when I was on the bar stool. I turned and waved, smiling, and tried to figure out which of them had made the jab. I couldn’t tell who it had been, but they all turned away quickly and went back to their whispered conversation.
I didn’t really give a damn what the mortals thought. I’d liked Elliot when we’d met last month, but I hadn’t thought we were BFFs. I wasn’t thrilled at their assumption that I was che
cking up on them because Lark, the vampire who ran the Factory now that “King” Cazimir was out of commission, had sent me to do so. I wasn’t anybody’s attack dog. But in the end, what they thought didn’t matter. It was just more fodder for the rumor mill. And really, they’d have to try pretty damn hard to start rumors about me that were less flattering than the ones already circulating.
Mark stood behind the bar, pouring a pink cocktail from his shaker into a set of martini glasses. Mark was an attractive guy. Muscular and tan-skinned, with curly black hair. He appeared to be in his thirties. He wasn’t my type, but I could definitely see why people were always flirting with him.
When he finally noticed me, Mark didn’t look happy to see me either, and frankly, I was getting a little tired of being treated like a pariah. The fact that I’d been made human against my will was bad enough. Having everyone act like I was unwanted and unwelcome was wearing thin.
“Hi, Mark,” I said. “I’ll have a gin martini, two olives.”
Mark made my drink and quietly put it in front of me, along with the bill, which was his way of saying he hoped I’d leave after one round. He helped some other customers and I sipped my martini while I watched him, making sure I was looking in his direction every time he looked in mine.
Finally, after he finished doling out drinks and washing the same glass for the sixth time, he came over to me. “What?” he asked.
I smiled at him. It was a vicious smile, one that I’d perfected when I’d still had fangs. It probably wasn’t as effective without them, but I tried. “What do you know about immortality spells?” I asked.
Mark’s face shifted in several directions before settling back into a carefully neutral expression. “Mostly that they’re bullshit.” He leaned over the bar so he was closer to me and looked around. “I get that you’re probably desperate, but trust me, anyone peddling that kind of crap might as well sell you a bottle of vampire blood and some property under a bridge.”
“I’m not asking for me,” I said, surprised. Though to be fair, he’d jumped to the most obvious conclusion. I remembered Erin saying they were keeping the murders from most of the local witches, and tried to think of a way to phrase it without spilling the whole story. “If someone were trying to create a spell like that, what would it take?”
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