Flesh and Blood: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Half-Demon Warlock Book 2)

by J. A. Cipriano

  The demon acting as an auctioneer and his green-eyed witch assistant had found themselves the proud proprietors of a vial of Nate Cypress’s blood, the same blood his body had been completely drained of before he was dropped onto the hood of my car.

  My mind was a blur of a lot of different feelings as I stood there, frozen and watching the supernatural bidders pool toward the stage. They all seemed so eager to get their hands on this dead college student’s blood, but why? What was so damned important about Cypress blood, and what did that mean for Renee?

  Renee. The thought of her-of the way she’d feel about this- forced my hands into fists and my heart to breaking in a way which had previously been reserved for only the worst times in my life.

  It was the hurt I’d felt when I was thrown out of the coven, when I’d been called a monster and a lost cause by Scott’s family; a family I’d come to think of as my own.

  It was the hurt I felt when the pendant holding my mother’s soul was destroyed and her essence was dispersed out into God knows where. It was the hurt I felt the first time I fed my demon side and took a life.

  I shook my head. Getting lost in these sorts of feelings wouldn’t do anyone any good. I needed to man up. I needed to be the detective I knew I could be, the boyfriend I was going to have to be and-if necessary- the demon lurking inside of me in one form or another. In other words, I was going to have to suck it up and do whatever was necessary to get to the bottom of this.

  I felt a presence beside me and instantly knew it to be Scott’s. Though I hadn’t seen him in years before today, I’d never have to look over at my brother to know he was there. He was too familiar to me, too much a part of who I was. Which also meant the opposite was true, and he’d know exactly how this was affecting me.

  “Don’t lose your cool, baby brother,” Scott said, looking over at me- his own concern filling Thor’s eyes. “It’s just blood. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “We both know better than that,” I said in a low growl. My gaze was glued to the auction about to go into full swing in front of us.

  Blood was everything to these people. Blood was life. It was nourishment to the vampires, power and control to the witches and demons, but it was something even deeper than that. Blood was ownership. Having someone’s blood gave you everything about them. It made them a part of you, at least partially. That was why I took on the properties of the people I ‘ate’ for a short time. If I had been a full-blooded demon, they would become a piece of me permanently, their identities a captive inside of me.

  I wasn’t a full-blooded demon, but there were more than a few of them buzzing around here. If any of them were willing to pony up the cash to get ahold of the blood, they would be privy to all of Nate’s memories, to everything he knew- including more information about Renee.

  “Fifty thousand dollars!” the burlier vampire said as the auction started. I shuddered. That kind of money for a few ounces of blood spoke to its importance, and it spoke to the fact that everything in this room (sans Scott) knew something about my girlfriend and her brother I didn’t.

  “What is she, baby brother?” Scott asked. I could feel his body tightening and his breaths coming faster as he spoke. “I didn’t ask before because I didn’t think it was any of my business. Your girl, your issue. That’s the way I saw it. Especially with the way things are between us now.” He shook his head. “And with the ways things ended with you and Essie.”

  A weird sensation ran through me. I hadn’t heard that name in years, and I had willed myself not to think about the person attached to it. Hearing him say it now brought up old hurt I didn’t think still existed inside of me. As it turned out, it was also hurt I didn’t have time for right now.

  “This has nothing to do with Essie,” I said, setting my jaw. “Don’t mention her again.”

  “Point taken,” he answered. “Don’t bring up the ex-wife. It doesn’t change the fact that something is going on here. Your girlfriend is at the center of a series of supernatural suicides and now the deadliest creatures this side of the Mason-Dixon are fighting each other over a few ounces of her brother’s blood. What’s that about?”

  “I have no idea” I admitted, thinking back to what Fulton said when the Benefactor was about to rise.

  It’s Cypress blood. It’s the key.

  “You sure about that?” he asked, as the coven raised the bid to $100,000. “What’d she tell you, that she was a district attorney?” His face twisted into a skeptical mask. Anger blossomed in my chest, spreading all through my body.

  “Assistant district attorney,” I shot back. “And I don’t like your tone.”

  “What tone is that, baby brother?” he asked, even though we both knew what I was talking about.

  “That smart ass, smug tone that implies my girlfriend has been lying to me, and I’ve either been too stupid or too pussy-whipped to see it.”

  He shrugged. “You said it. Not me.”

  “She’s not lying to me, Scott. I know Renee. Whatever’s going on with her is just as big a mystery to her as it is to the rest of us.” I shifted uncomfortably, going over things in my head. I knew her. I knew what Renee was capable of, and I wasn’t about to let Scott of all people tell me differently. Still, something about his conviction set me off.

  “Get real,” he answered. “You think she’s an ordinary human, Roy? You think every nasty bastard in this city is falling all over themselves to get the blood of a Greek immigrant’s grandson for no reason? You think the fucking Benefactor is forcing rare supernatural creatures to off themselves at your girlfriend’s feet for shits and giggles?” He shook his head again. “You don’t think that, baby brother. You’re too smart for that, too crafty. That woman has got a little something extra going on. And, as two people who have more than a few check marks in the ‘extra’ column ourselves, we both know that’s not the sort of thing that goes unnoticed.”

  “Slow your roll, Scott,” I said, watching the auction heat up. “That’s my girl.”

  The bidding was up to half a million now. The vampires were still in it, but the coven had pulled out; leaving the bidding war to vamps, shifters, and the lone demon leaning against the wall.

  “That’s what you keep telling me, baby brother. But who the hell are you trying to convince. If she’s a demon, there’s a good chance she’s playing you.”

  “She’s not a fucking demon, Scott. She’s a human being. I would know if she was a demon.” I tried very hard to make it sound like I wasn’t trying to convince myself the words I was saying were true. I would definitely feel it if Renee was a demon… wouldn’t I?

  The idea lay in my head, like a seed that was ready to take root. The moments I’d spent with her played out in front of me, and I found myself examining them. Then I found myself mad about it. All the days we’d spent together, all the nights we’d spent laughing under the stars and all that; they were special. They were important to me, and now I was letting my brother’s ideas spoil them.

  “Would you?” he retorted. “Because it can be hard. Tracking demonic energy is high level magic shit. It took years for us to sense it in you, and it wasn’t even being cloaked. If Renee is powerful enough to hide it from us, there’s no telling what she’s capable of.”

  My eyes flashed red. I couldn’t stop it. The idea of this woman lying to me in such a primal way dredged up the betrayal I had lived with every day of my life since the coven threw me out. I couldn’t go through that again, and I wouldn’t have to. I was smarter than that now. I wouldn’t open myself up to someone who could do something like that to me again.

  I turned quickly, hoping everyone was too enthralled in the bidding to have noticed what had just happened with my peepers.

  “Get it together,” Scott said sternly. Apparently, he had seen it.

  “Then stop pissing me off,” I answered, gritting my teeth.

  “You’re a grownup, Roy. You need to figure out how to keep your fucking emotions in check. I’m not here to babys
it you, and I’m not here to hide the truth. Something’s not right with your girlfriend, and I’m betting she knows exactly what it is. I mean, come on. You’re a demonic warlock. That makes you fearsome. It makes you just the right kind of protector. People are afraid of you, baby brother. They don’t want anything to do with someone who can eat their souls with the flick of a wrist.”

  “You son of a bitch,” I said, turning back to him. My eyes were burning with desire to go red again, but I somehow managed to keep it quelled. “You’re saying the only reason Renee is with me is because I can keep her safe? You’re saying our entire fucking relationship has been a lie.”

  “I’m saying there’s obviously more going on here than you understand. I just don’t want to see you get yourself killed trying to protect someone who doesn’t deserve it. I’m just looking out for you.”

  He couldn’t.

  “That’s a first,” I growled, a deeper anger coloring my already enraged tone.

  “That’s not fair,” Scott said and, in the passion of the moment, his faux accent fell away.

  “Might not be fair, but it’s true.”

  “What happened back in the day—”

  “You mean you giving me up?” I asked, my voice raising higher than it should have given our current situation. “You mean when I came to you with tears in my fucking eyes telling you how scared I was, how I didn’t know what was happening to me? You mean how you went behind my back and gave me up to the coven? How you got me thrown out because you couldn’t fucking handle the truth? Is that what you mean?”

  Scott stared at me for a long moment, and I thought I saw tears in his eyes when he responded. “We were children, Royce. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I was scared.”

  “How do you think I felt, Scott? What did you think was going to happen to me? You think they were going to throw me a parade? I’m lucky they didn’t banish me to Hell, and for what? For the way I was born? I was your brother, Goddamn it. I was your brother, and you treated me like a stranger. You looked at me like I was a monster. I think that was the worst part, the way you looked at me. It’s sure as shit the part I can’t forget.”

  “Royce,” he said quietly. “I didn’t—”

  A woman collided with me, wrapping arms around my neck and stinking of liquor. “Hey there boys. There’s no need to fight.”

  I looked up. She had four eyes, all purple, and her tongue forked at the end as it slid across my cheek. I shuddered.

  “W-what?” I stammered, looking up at the stage. There was a golden crucifix on it now, but what had happened to the blood? Who won? Where the fuck was it?

  “Oh no.” Scott’s eyes widened as he realized we had missed it. “Who won the auction?” he asked the drunk woman.

  “That damned vampire pack,” she said, her breath reeking of gin. “The same people who win everything. Just this week, they won a genie, a rain queen, and some South African kid with ancestor magic.”

  “Oh God,” I muttered. It was them. They were behind it all. “Where are they?” I looked around, realizing they had gone.

  Scott pulled me away from the drunk woman.

  “I don’t know,” he breathed. “But we’re going to find out.”

  21

  We were out of the auction house and halfway to Perimeter before I realized I was still wearing the face of the lesser Hemsworth. Though Scott ditched his Thor mask the instant we were out of sight of the supernatural meeting place, he'd forgotten mine and my mind was racing too frantically for me to remind him about it.

  Everything that had happened to us since the moment I brought Charles Whitmore into the station that night was because of the Benefactor, and I was a step closer to finding out just who he was.

  These vampires would have the answer, assuming they themselves weren’t the answer. I figured the Benefactor was a demon. After all, he’d been after transportation out of Hell, and that meant he’d been banished there either by witches who saw it as their mission to rid the world of the worst sorts of demons imaginable, or he’d pissed off the wrong contemporary and found himself on the wrong end of a transferring blade.

  I suppose the Benefactor could have been a vampire though. Even though it was uncommon to banish their kind, I had heard the errant tale or two of vampires who found themselves stuck in Hell. They never fared well in the stories. One of them ended up tied to some huge mountain with his eyes being pecked out by buzzards for all eternity, but maybe that was the reason this vamp tribe was trying to get him out.

  Still, I had no idea what any of that had to do with Fulton. Isa was a fairy. They looked down on vamps, saw them as leeches and bottom dwellers. Why would Isa-even in her Fulton state- deign to work under one of them? It just didn’t make any sense.

  Hopefully, after we tracked down these vampires, I’d have all the answers I needed along with a way to put an end to this nightmare once and for all.

  “Getting anything?” I asked, looking over as Scott as he kept pace with me, his eyes closed tightly. It was a tracking spell, one we’d both learned when we were kids. It was meant to be used on other witches as a sort of insurance policy in case someone went missing. A few tweaks allowed it to work on vampires though.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head and keeping his eyes closed. “I thought I felt something a few minutes ago, but it faded out. They must be cloaked by some strong energy.”

  I grunted and pulled the hand I’d had on Scott’s shoulder to guide him away. He stopped along and opened his eyes, causing the energy of his spell to dissipate.

  “Energy from who? They’re vampires. They can’t even muster enough life to keep their skin from going ghostly pale. Where the hell are they getting enough magic to cloak themselves?”

  “I’m guessing from someone else working for the Benefactor,” Scott answered and let out a sigh. We hadn’t spoken of the argument we’d had back in the auction house, and neither of us saw the need to rekindle it now. There was more at stake and besides, bickering was what stopped us from seeing where the damned vampires went in the first place.

  When I didn’t respond, Scott continued, “You said Isa, or Fulton, I guess had a mixed bag of races, right? Demons, vampires, witches, the fae; they all worked under her. And she worked under the Benefactor. There’s no reason to think he wouldn’t be able to pull of the same thing, even from Hell.”

  “That’s true, but it doesn’t change the fact these vampires are on the front lines. You heard that drunk lady with all the eyes. They got Bhandal, the rain queen, and the genie who killed herself in front of you while I was unconscious. If they’re not responsible for what’s going on, they sure as hell know who is.”

  “Unless they don’t,” Scott said, swallowing hard and narrowing his eyes. “I think you need to be prepared for the fact these vampires might be as clueless about what they’re doing as Bandhal was when you woke him up. They might be milling zombies, just doing the bidding of a master they’ve never even seen.”

  “They might,” I answered, hoping he was wrong with all my heart. “But they might not. They might hold the answers to all of this, and if there’s even a chance that’s the case, we need to find them.”

  “Find them how?” Scott asked, throwing his hands out at his sides. “I’ve done everything I can. The magic cloaking them is stronger than me, and since I’m stronger than you, I think we might be done.” He took a deep breath. “It’s bigger than both of us, Roy. We’d need an entire slew of witches to pierce through their cloaking spell, and since I don’t think calling the coven is something you want me to do, I’m kind of out of options.”

  “I’m not,” I said, a glimmer of a smile dancing across my eyes as an idea came to mind.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, his eyebrows crinkling.

  “We need the magic of a lot of people to make the spell work, right?” I asked.

  “Theoretically,” Scott answered, eyeing me warily. “But they couldn’t just be any people, Roy. The focus would have to
be laser sharp. They would all have to be acting like our coven does, acting as one.”

  “Or they’d have to be one,” I said, the smile traveling from my eyes to my lips. “Come on Scott. I have an idea.”

  22

  “This is a stupid plan,” Scott said as we made our way back up the stairs toward my apartment. It had been a few hours since we’d left and though Scott promised the new enchantments he’d put on the place would keep anything out (at least for a while) I was still worried about what I was going to find on the other side of that door. For all I knew, the StayPuft Marshmallow Man had hung himself from my ceiling fan while I was gone.

  “Maybe,” I answered. “But it’s the only one I’ve got at the moment. You said we needed a bunch of magic focused on a single point. This will give us that.”

  “It’ll also give us a whole assortment of other crap to deal with,” Scott said, huffing as we settled in front of my doorway. He grabbed me and turned me toward him. “When I spoke about that, I meant I thought it would be a good idea for you to get in touch with the coven. I didn’t mean for you to try to suck the ancestral magic out of the South African in your guest bedroom.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I don’t have a guest bedroom. How much do you think they pay detectives, anyway?” I scoffed. “But I know what you meant. I also know what happened the last time I saw the coven. I know what they said to me, and I know what they think of me. They threw me out, Scott. Threw me out like I was garbage. The only reason I’m even alive today is because I was too fucking stubborn to let them win. I swore I would never let those people get the better of me ever again, and I meant it. I wouldn’t care if the entire world was falling down around my feet. I’d never ask them for help.”

  “What if it was falling down around Renee’s feet?” he asked, his brows shooting up accusingly. “Because that’s what’s happening, baby brother. She might not be my favorite person in the world, and I might think she’s being less than truthful with you, but I know you care about her. I just don’t want you to think you could have done more if this doesn’t turn out the way you want it to. I don’t want it to be like Essie.”