“What the hell?” I cried out, fear and anger boiling the Cloud Red in my gut. Instinctively, I reached for the dagger in my back sheath, but Dorian threw out a hand to block me. I ground my teeth together, glaring up at him. The vampires had my best friend. They could drain all of her blood. They could consume her entire life-force. If we didn’t act soon, she could end up dead.
“Don’t,” he said quietly. “We need to handle this carefully.”
“They’re. Drinking. Her. Blood.” I choked out every word like it was a bullet. “It’s against the alliance. I have every fucking right to draw a weapon now.”
“I know.” He gripped my arm tight in his hand and squeezed. “But we’re surrounded by at least a hundred vampires. I hate to say it, but we can’t take them all on our own.”
Okay, so he had a point. Still, it was hard to see past the rage turning my vision to red. There were few things in life I loved enough to toss my own safety to the wind, but Laura was one of them. Her and Grams. I’d do anything for them, even if that meant sacrificing myself.
“Come on,” he said as he began to stride across the room, his grip still tight on my arm.
When we reached the two vampires, he towered over them, pure power radiating off his body. It was impossible not to notice. Even the vampires around us took note, and they were born with the potential for much more power than either one of us had. The women paused in their feeding, extracting their teeth from Laura’s neck and glancing up at us with a mock innocence that made me want to smack the smug smiles from their pale faces.
“Is there some kind of problem?” one of them asked in a lyrical voice that set my teeth on edge. Her pupils were dilated from the fresh blood, and her words rang with strength and life, the sound echoing in my ears. It was almost too much to bear.
“Let her go,” I snapped before Dorian could stop me. “She’s off-limits, and you fucking know it.”
“She is not off-limits,” the other said, pulling her lips away from Laura’s throat. “You can hate us all you want, witch, but we’ve done nothing wrong.”
I opened my mouth to spit back at them, anger fueling me in a way I’d never felt before. I should be scared in their presence. As strong as I was, they were stronger. Faster. And any wound I inflicted would be a temporary slice of their very long life. For me, it could be fatal.
“We have an alliance,” I said, heart hammering hard when one of the women turned back to Laura’s neck. “No feeding on members of the Bone Coven. It’s been that way for five years, so it’s not like you could have forgotten.”
“You are a strange one to speak for the Bone Coven.” The vampire smiled, her teeth stained with Laura’s bright red blood. “And this one here has no coven mark. She’s not a member of any of them, so she’s up for grabs.”
“A technicality,” Dorian growled. “She’s still a witch, and she’ll have her coven mark soon enough.”
“Soon isn’t now.” The vampire shrugged, and her dress strap fell off her shoulder to reveal even more smooth, pale skin. “And right now, I’m hungry.”
“Anastasia and Georgina,” came a cool voice from behind us. I turned to see an old vampire—a rarity—hovering behind us. As little as I knew about the vampire community, I recognized him in an instant. The head of the Boston clan, Christian Dogaru. He and his family came from Romania centuries ago to build a better life, escaping the Nosferatu that plagued Eastern Europe.
He was one of the oldest Daywalkers in America, and it showed in the lines on his face. Because while immortality was a gift for the vampires, it required constant feeding for the ones before us now. Even a day without blood would turn their body clock closer to death. And this guy must have missed a few days, to say the least.
“Yes, Papa?” Anastasia asked, sitting up a little bit straighter, suddenly focused on something other than my best friend’s life-force. The vampire before us might not be the direct descendent of Christian Dogaru, but he was the father of them all, in one way or another.
“Let the poor girl go,” he said with a kindly, grandfather type of smile that I knew hid the true killer underneath. A vampire didn’t get to be the age he was without tasting a lot of human blood. “As you can see, she’s with her coven friends here, and we don’t want to cause any skirmishes, now do we?”
“But she is not a member of the Bone Coven.” Georgina flipped down Laura’s shirt to reveal her smooth and very bare skin. “She’s not a member of any of them. And her blood is so very sweet. It sings of magic.”
“Trust me, my sweet,” he said, coming closer. Instinctively, I shifted to the side to put some distance between us. Something about his aura made my skin crawl, and my neck tingle with pain. “I know the lure of a witch’s blood. But a momentary hit of power isn’t worth breaking the peace. Continue enjoying your redheaded human friend here instead.”
Anastasia huffed out a breath, shoving Laura off her lap and turning to the human girl swaying beside her. My friend stumbled unsteadily on her feet, her eyes half-lidded and a lopsided smile on her sheet-white face.
“What the hell have you done to her?” I asked, grabbing her shoulders before she tumbled to the concrete floor.
“Oh, it’s just that drink,” Georgina said, waving her sharp fingernails in the air. “She’s high on Cloud Red. It’ll wear off in a few hours.”
“Great.” I grimaced as I held my friend steady, glancing up to meet Dorian’s hooded gaze. He looked as pissed off as I felt, and his fists were clenched tight by his sides. Despite all his talk about staying calm and keeping the peace, he looked ten seconds away from pummelling the next person that so much as glanced in his direction.
“Now that that’s all settled,” Christopher Dogaru said, lacing his fingers together as he turned to face us, “I believe it’s time for the witches to go.”
“We’re not done here, Christopher,” Dorian said, his voice edged with danger.
“Oh, but we are.” The head of the Dogaru Clan smiled. “And don’t let me see you in here again. Next time, I might have a taste of the lone witch’s blood myself.”
Dorian and I carried Laura up the stairs of my fifth floor walk-up before depositing her on the couch. Grams looked on with a frown from the doorway, her face wrinkled with tension and her hands laced tight by her heart. She’d heard the commotion and managed to push up out of bed all by herself, clearly worried that something terrible was happening to me.
As hard as I’d tried to keep her in the dark about my extracurricular activities, it was impossible to prevent her from discovering how dangerous my life had become these days. Bringing Laura here meant my secrets were about to be whisked out from behind my curtain of lies. Because I couldn’t abandon my best friend when she was in this kind of state, when blood still eked out of the two pointy holes in her neck. And I couldn’t leave Grams alone all night either.
So, here we all were.
“Zoe.” Grams pressed her lips together until they went stark white. “What’s wrong with Laura? And who is this strange man in our living room at the crack of dawn?”
“Grams, this is Dorian. He….” I trailed off, not sure where to begin. He’s an Enforcer. He’s a stalker. And he’s helping me catch a demon-summoning warlock so the coven can’t pin a murder on me.
“A friend,” Dorian filled in for me. A much easier way of explaining things, even if it wasn’t exactly true. Friend was the last word I’d used to describe the Enforcer. “The three of us went out for a few drinks after Zoe’s shift, and Laura had a little bit too much to drink as you can see.”
Her eyes went razor sharp, reminding me just how smart Grams truly was. Despite her condition, there wasn’t much anyone could sneak by her. To be honest, I was surprised it had taken this long for her to clock on to the fact that I’d been hiding things from her for a very long time.
“You’ve got some power in your veins, Dorian.” The two of them stared at each other for a long tense moment, unspoken words passing between them. Some kind of recognition or
understanding that I couldn’t name. I frowned. What was this all about? “I’m hoping I’m right in thinking you will bring no harm to my girl.”
“Yes ma’am.” He gave her a solemn nod. “I’m only trying to help Zoe.”
“Good.” Grams turned to me just as her eyes began to go fuzzy, a milky haze blotting out her steel blue irises. “Zoe, can you help me back to my bedroom? I’m starting to feel the clouds rolling in.”
After tucking Grams back into bed, I found Dorian still waiting in the living room, staring into the refrigerator with a frown etched into his face. I was half-surprised he’d stuck around. There was nothing more to do here tonight. No more leads to follow, at least for now. And our little trip to the vampire club had only left us with more questions than answers. Confirmation that Jeffrey Baker was a blood bag didn’t help us very much. We needed a name. Someone else to speak to. Another lead. Otherwise, it felt like we were at a dead end.
“You hungry or something?” I asked as he closed the refrigerator door and moved toward the window over the sloped and uneven floorboards.
“Very.” He swallowed hard. “But it looks like you’re out of food.”
“I’m always out of food. Perks of being dirt poor. Anyway, what was that all about earlier? You and Grams were acting really weird.” I joined him beside the window and shivered when his iron-like arm brushed up against mine. The vampire elixir must not have worn off yet. Ignoring the sensation, I leaned forward and glanced down at the sidewalk below. The streetlamp was still out, but no shadowy figures stood underneath it now.
“Seemed pretty normal to me,” he said after a moment. “A strange guy showed up with her granddaughter and an unconscious best friend at five o’clock in the morning. How else is she supposed to react?”
“Right.” I nibbled on my bottom lip. It made sense but…it really felt like there was more to it than that. Maybe I was just paranoid after the crazy past few days and the serious lack of sleep. Or maybe he was still hiding things from me.
“Zoe, can I give you a suggestion without you acting as if it’s an insult?” Dorian paced back and forth in front of the window, occasionally glancing out at the streets below. Did he see someone down there that I couldn’t? Or was he just gazing into the distance to gather his thoughts? Either way, I couldn’t help but shiver. The entire past twenty-four hours of my life had put me seriously on edge.
“You can try,” I said. “But I can’t promise anything.”
“I think it’s time you put some wards up around your apartment,” he said quietly. “Really, you should have done it a long time ago.”
My heart thumped hard in my chest. “Why? You think I’m in danger?”
“I think this thing, whatever it is, that we’ve found ourselves in is far bigger than we realized. It might go beyond the coven. Beyond warlocks.”
“Beyond the coven?” My mouth went dry. “So, you do think the vampires are involved.”
He gave a quick shake of his head. “I’m not sure. Bloodsuckers can’t summon demons, but they can be cunning. Maybe this entire demon attack was a distraction from what really killed Baker.”
I pressed my sweaty palms against my black jeans, shivering at the thought. “What makes you think that? I mean, besides the fact that Baker was a blood bag. And the fact that the vampires seemed royally pissed off to see us at their club.”
“I never told you how we knew to check out the morgue in the first place.” He put his hands on the windowsill, leaning forward to stare outside, sighing heavily as if this entire situation exhausted him as much as it exhausted me.
“I just assumed it was because you’d been following me around.”
“No. Vincent said we got an anonymous tip. Someone called and told us there was going to be a demon attack at the morgue. And that the killer was a woman in her early twenties with dark wavy hair. They also knew that she’d be leaving the scene of the crime when we showed up, probably through the back alley.”
My mouth dropped open and blood roared in my ears. “Are you fucking serious?”
“I don’t joke around, Zoe.”
No kidding.
“But…” I shook my head, trying to wrap my mind around this new information. “I don’t understand. Who the hell made the call? I didn’t kill that guy, Dorian. I swear to the goddess. I may do a lot of shitty things, but I’d never murder someone.”
“I know you wouldn’t.” He turned to me then, his eyes dark and hot. They held an intensity that made my heart tremble in my chest. “The real killer made that phone call. There’s no other explanation. And I’m starting to think Jeffrey Baker might not have died from a demon after all. The vampires could have made it look that way. They know how we work and how we cast our spells. Easy enough to mimic a rune.”
“Shit.” I blinked up at him, beginning to understand the puzzle pieces he fit together far quicker than I had. It made sense. So much sense that I couldn’t believe we’d been so blind to it before now. All this time, someone had been out there trying to take me down for a crime I didn’t commit. I’d been beating myself up, feeling like Baker’s death was all my fault, when some puppet master had been orchestrating everything behind the scenes. My hands morphed into tight fists, a white hot anger burning through my gut. “Fucking vampires. They set me up. How can we find out for sure?”
“We need to see the body.” He pointed at the sun beginning to rise over the tops of the buildings, an orange glow that reminded me of the bone magic I’d never been able to master. “After we’ve both had some rest. We won’t be at the top of our game if we’re sleep-deprived. I’ll pick you up tomorrow evening, and we’ll check the body for blood. In the meantime…get those wards up. I know vampires need to be invited inside, but better safe than sorry. There was a man on the sidewalk watching this place when we first got here. He’s gone now, but…I have a feeling he’ll be back.”
Chapter 8
“Rise and shine, sleepy head,” I said as I plopped onto the ragged couch next to Laura. She’d been down for the count for at least six hours while I’d tossed and turned on the hardwood floor. I’d put up the wards, like Dorian had suggested, and a charcoal rune was now drawn in the center of the room.
It would keep out anyone who tried to come inside, though I knew there were ways that powerful witches and warlocks could destroy this kind of ward. But even though it wasn’t foolproof, it would keep the vampires from getting to my Grams while I was out hunting a killer. Leaving her alone was what worried me the most.
Laura groaned and sat up on her elbows, peering at me with puffy eyes. Her hand flew to her neck, and she gasped, feeling the raw puncture wounds that had turned a crimson red. “Oh no. What the hell did I do?”
“You, ah,” I said with a slight grimace, “got yourself eaten last night. By a pair of them.”
“Oh my goddess.” Her face flushed to a deep red that was the same color as the wound on her neck, and she covered her face with her hands. “This is mortifying. What was I thinking?”
“You had too much of that vampire drink,” I said, pulling her hands away from her face before touching her shoulder with a smile. “It lowers your inhibitions and makes you high as a kite. Could have happened to any of us.”
“It didn’t happen to you,” she pointed out.
Little did she know.
“I only had a sip.” I reached over to the side table and grabbed a steaming cup of coffee before pressing it into my best friend’s hands. Even though I’d known she’d be fine after a few hours of rest, I was relieved as hell that she looked like herself, if not a little worse for wear. A part of me had been worried the Daywalkers had done permanent damage, but she was awake, breathing, alive.
“Listen,” I said, standing from the couch. “I have to get started on the case for Alice. I need the other half of that payment if I want to keep me and Grams from getting evicted. But you don’t need to get up. Stay here for as long as you like.”
“Why is there a massive rune i
n the middle of your floor?” Laura cut through my words, her eyes suddenly wide and fearful. “Is that a protection rune? What’s going on, Zoe?”
“Dorian thinks I may have gotten the attention of the wrong crowd. There’s a lot going on with this case that doesn’t make sense, but one thing is certain. This is about more than just a demon attack.” I knelt down and traced the lines, feeling the power hum underneath my fingertips. “The wards are just a precaution.”
“Are we in danger, Zoe?” Laura stood from the couch. Even though she was wobbling on her feet, she looked strong and fierce and ready to take on the world. There wasn’t much that could knock Laura down, even getting attacked by two vampires.
“Maybe,” I said, finding no reason to lie. “But the only way to make the danger go away is to find out who is behind it. Otherwise, I might never be safe again, which means Grams won’t be either. This person has targeted me, for whatever reason. Since it didn’t work the first time, he might try again.”
Laura gave a nod, her lips pressed tightly together. “Then, you have to track him down.”
Alice’s husband worked at Boston University as a professor, so I figured I’d start there. He was into rare books, apparently, which wasn’t a particular surprise since he was a warlock. Most of our spells were housed in ancient grimoires, most of which were one-of-a-kind. Needless to say, over the years, many of our grimoires had vanished, taking half the knowledge about our powers right along with them.
Some witches and warlocks dedicated their entire lives to finding these old books. And it looked like Alice’s husband was one of them.
When I entered the lobby, my eyes scanned the red brick interior walls and the display cases highlighting some of the more impressive finds. There were documents and books from the Civil War, as well as news articles that highlighted current events from decades past. If I weren’t on a case, I might stop to browse the exhibit. Back when I thought I was going to college, I had been interested in rare books myself. There was something thrilling about the thought that I might be able to locate one of the lost grimoires that no one else had been able to find.
The Bone Coven Chronicles: The Complete Series Page 6