A Touch of Brimstone (Magic of the Damned Book 1)

by McKenzie Hunter

  She nodded. “On Wednesdays, twice a month. She believes it will be a good fit with the Wednesday crowd. You know how I feel about covers. It’s fun occasionally but I need to do my own music. Songs that I wrote and I let her know that.”

  “And?”

  “She agreed if I’d do a mix.”

  “What are you thinking about doing?”

  She guided my elbow as we took a different route back to the coffee shop, one with noticeably fewer people around.

  Taking a sip from my coffee, I waited for her to speak. She seemed to be having an internal debate.

  “A few artists have been discovered. Performing without the entire band seems like a betrayal,” she admitted. “Gus is on board—he doesn’t see it that way.” She rolled her eyes. “But maybe she saw something in just the two of us performing that I missed. The two of us might find more success. It will give us an opportunity to write more songs for the both of us. Two days a week, I’m turning my back on my band.”

  She shrugged and blew out an exasperated breath. “I’m twenty-six and unfortunately—” She frowned the rest of her statement; we’d gone through this a thousand times. She was always pointing out that her race, age, and “exotic” look might limit her. I wasn’t sure about the others, but her looks definitely would not hold her back, but it wasn’t the time to point that out. Her biggest complaint was that people were placed in boxes and artistic expression was limited for a myriad of superficial reasons.

  She looked at me earnestly. “It’s a great opportunity and could open doors for me.” There was still a hint of hesitation. “What should I do?”

  I gave her the impression of thinking about it for a long time, although the moment she asked, I had the answer. “I think you should do it.”

  Something snapped against my back, pushing the wind out of me as I fell face forward onto the ground. I quickly rolled onto my back, spilled coffee soaking into my shirt as I moved. Four supernaturals sped toward me. A vampire was to my right. Her finger under Emoni’s chin, she drew Emoni’s eyes to hers.

  “Thank you, Emoni, for bringing her to us. Forget that you saw Luna today. You called her and she said she’s visiting family. Return to the coffee shop.”

  She continued instructing Emoni, implanting a new situation in her mind. She wouldn’t remember our conversation or seeing these creatures. Anger and fear warred in me. I didn’t want them exposed, I wanted them gone.

  I scuttled back on my butt, trying to put some distance between me and the supernaturals, and looking for anything I could use as a weapon. Nothing. My coffee had spilled. My phone was in the car.

  Stopping the vampire from further compelling Emoni had to be my secondary objective. I wanted her to forget this.

  We had navigated to where factories and businesses had been converted to industrial-looking lofts. No one was around. Even if anyone wanted to come outside, magic would be preventing them.

  One of the four, a shifter, approached, his cold, predatory eyes fixed on me. I was cornered. He was about to shift, when his head snapped toward the vampire who had been staked. The vampire’s dusted body speckled the air. It was the first sign of Dominic’s presence. His claw sliced the vital arteries in the shifter’s neck. He collapsed to the ground, covering his neck, waiting for his preternatural healing to kick in. The silver blade Dominic shoved into his stomach would make that more difficult.

  No longer under the dead vampire’s compulsion, shock cut Emoni’s scream off. Open mouthed, her eyes widened at the violence before her, at Dominic’s violence. I hurried to her.

  “It’s okay,” I soothed, but it only made her direct her disgust to me.

  “Luna, what the fuck have you gotten yourself into?” She wouldn’t let me get close to her, shuffling back several feet for every step I took toward her. I felt the magic against my back, heard the violence of a gasp being cut off, and if I hadn’t already seen variations of what was taking place behind me, I would have been able to imagine the brutality from what was playing out on Emoni’s face.

  Wind gathered, whipping in the air, its cyclonic pull tugging us toward it. I looked over my shoulder. The remaining supernatural—a witch, her fingers whirling around. Emoni and I ran, fighting against the growing force. Before we could get any distance between it and us, the small cyclone disappeared and the elemental witch collapsed face forward on the pavement.

  Emoni had no problem with her scream this time. It resounded like an alarm. I launched at her, slapped a hand over her mouth. “Stop. Please. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

  No part of this was okay. And nothing in my voice made it seem that way. She had seen the violent underbelly of the supernatural world. She was an unwilling pawn in an attempt to assassinate me. This was so many shades of wrong, and I didn’t have the skill to make it out to be anything other than the massive clusterfuck that it was.

  Her scream became a soft whimper against my hand as tears gathered in her eyes and spilled, wetting my hand. I knew the feeling.

  Dominic was on the phone; I assumed requesting a cleanup. Who knows, maybe he was feeling a little peckish and was ordering a pizza.

  “What’s going on?” Emoni breathed out in a weak voice once I removed my hand.

  “It’s going to take a while to explain.”

  “You can’t do it here,” whispered Peter, who had managed to sidle up next to Emoni, a protective hand on her back. I wasn’t happy to see him because he’d be another person pulled into the damage control process. I wasn’t sure what they’d do to him to clean up the situation. Whatever he witnessed hadn’t rattled him to the extent it had Emoni. Perhaps he missed the violence and display of magic and only saw Emoni’s response.

  “Let’s get away from here,” he urged, still in a whisper, but it was enough to carry to Dominic, who was removing identifying information from the fallen assassins and looking at their faces as if committing them to memory. His head snapped up and he stood quickly, racing toward us at full speed.

  Emoni and I looked back and forth, trying to make sense of it. Dominic’s face. It was twisted into a cruel and wrathful sneer. Emoni focused on the sphere of fire forming in Dominic’s hands. She missed the yellow illumination of magic and the innocuous mask fall from Peter, the Books and Brew book nerd. His eyes darkened several shades and the otherworldly feeling I had felt when ensorcelled by magic wafted from him. Feeling it again made me recognize there had been hints of it when I spoke to Jackson outside the store.

  I whipped in his direction. “It’s you!” I moved back.

  “I really didn’t want you to find out this way,” he admitted. His hand reached out to the air, smoothing the fire that Dominic had launched at him. When he returned an offensive-looking sphere of gray and white that looked like oxygen-siphoning magic, Dominic darted out of the way. Clearly, he wasn’t immune to Peter’s magic.

  I grabbed Emoni’s hand, pulling her closer to me. And once she was next to me, I moved to put my body in front of hers. Peter wouldn’t kill me, but I wasn’t sure what he’d do to her.

  The footsteps were barely audible. It was the whip of the sword through the air that announced Anand’s arrival. Peter grimaced, turned, and hurled a string of white illuminated magic at Anand. It smashed into him, sending him careening back several feet. Peter concentrated. The magic wove around Anand. His body relaxed to the ground, his breathing noticeably shallower. He was killing him.

  Dominic’s claws were exposed on one hand, so he used the other to toss fire at Peter, ending with a rapid fire of magic pelts. Peter responded with disinterest, his hand reaching up and snuffing out the magic as if it were merely a nuisance.

  Something pulled his focus. He grumbled his disdain, turned in my direction, smiled, and vanished. Reappearing behind Emoni, he whispered something, pressing his hand to her throat. She choked out a gasp before collapsing to the ground.

  Flashing Dominic a taunting smile, he said, “You can’t save her and come after me.” Then he disappeared again. />
  Anand rolled to his side, lethargic but alive. He’d lost his grace of movement as he lumbered to his feet. “The repellent has been broken. It needs to be restored,” he told Dominic.

  “It’s up again,” Madeline said from a few feet away, showing her dissatisfaction at the sight of me and Dominic.

  Dominic didn’t care about her displeasure; he was debating whether to go after Peter and he wore the indecision on his face.

  Cradling Emoni in my arms, I called out to him. “Help her,” I demanded, my words sharpened by my anger and his clinical assessment. He’d found the Dark Caster; he could go after him. She was one life lost to catch the big bad. “Now,” I snapped.

  Reluctantly, he kneeled next to her. He examined her and frowned. Shaking his head, rage flooded from him.

  “A necri,” he explained to Madeline.

  Her face contorted to the same look of disgust and contempt. “It is used to simulate death. A difficult spell to perform and one of the few that are illegal with no exception.”

  Peter wasn’t abiding by any of their rules, the very thing the Awakeners wanted the freedom to do.

  Watching the unhurried and measured way in which Dominic undid the spell, I knew it was dangerous. Like defusing a bomb. I wasn’t sure how long it took. It felt like hours although it might have been minutes. My heart was beating so fast it had to be distracting.

  When the veil of death lifted from Emoni, a silver light unwinding around her, she sat up. Apprehension filled her eyes. She attempted to scoot back away from us when Dominic called her name. It was an unearthly, captivating sound. Melodic. It wasn’t just Emoni being urged to hear its lure and respond.

  Madeline stepped back, preoccupying herself with removing all signs of the assassination attempt. Her efficiency was a reminder that they did this all the time. Too many times.

  Tears formed in my eyes, watching Emoni be bespelled, as Dominic manipulated her memories to make her believe she saw me today and we had coffee in Books and Brew. She then followed him to Café Intermezzo, where I was sure he’d manipulate more thoughts to explain her standing in front of the café.

  The only solace I could find was that at least we knew the identity of the Dark Caster.

  20

  Dominic watched me pace back and forth in the ridiculously sterile apartment that felt like a luxurious hospital. It lacked the warmth of a home. The gray wood floors, lifeless neutral walls, and light streaming in from the window all seemed so much harsher now. I knew the room hadn’t changed; I had. The world looked irreparably different.

  “It had to be done,” he assured me for the third time, but it was more than just Emoni that bothered me; it was speculation about Peter. The Dark Caster had been under our noses the entire time. Watching me, commenting about the ring that covered my markings, knowing damn well why it looked different. He had chosen me, out of all the people he had encountered, and I wanted to know why.

  Dominic finally blocked my pacing, looking down at me. “What is this helping?”

  “Thinking. It’s helping me think.” It wasn’t. Moving was just giving me a distraction.

  “In less than an hour, we’ll meet with Emmanuel, get the magic you need, and then this will be over for you, Luna.”

  “Will it?” I challenged, putting all my frustration and anger into it. “Assassins came after me. Once the prisoners are recaptured, I’ll no longer be at risk of assassination, but what's to stop you all from using magic against me—against us? From where I stand, the enforcement of the law against using magic against humans seems really lax. And the level of magic allowed to protect you all from being discovered is awfully broad. How do we stop being compelled by vampires?”

  “Don’t look them in the eyes.”

  Well, thanks. That was the same information Anand had given me, which simply infuriated me.

  “If we don’t know they exist, we can’t even take that simple measure.”

  The Awakeners had a valid argument: Supernaturals needed to be revealed. Give humans a fighting chance to protect ourselves. But they wanted to be elevated to some royal status. Not live as equals but our betters. The Conventicle and their acolytes wanted to cling to the shadows, but from what I could see, they weren’t sufficiently enforcing supernaturals’ limits of magic on humans.

  “And the attack yesterday. Who are they? What’s their ideology? What are their goals? How can you enforce your rules on them when they don’t seem to have any allegiance to anyone?”

  “I’m still looking into leads. I think it’s an uprising—a coup in the making.”

  Once I was dead, the people attempting the coup could persuade those who wanted to maintain the supernaturals’ anonymity to switch their support to them. After all, that was the group that got things done. Would they be better or worse than the Conventicle? The assailants from the attack wanted me dead, so even if they were better at controlling the supernaturals than the Conventicle, I still couldn’t root for them. At least the Conventicle wasn’t actively trying to kill me.

  “Luna, you’re out of this after today. I will work on behalf of humans’ best interest.”

  I wanted to believe him. Even more when his warm hands rested on my hips, amber eyes entreating me to do so.

  I couldn’t. He worked on behalf of his own interest. I needed to work on behalf of mine. It would be great if we had a common goal, but I didn’t see that happening.

  Not every bar has the welcoming vibes created by music loud enough to be heard from outside but not be overwhelming and an exterior that welcomes you in to have a drink and good times. Two harsh lights that wouldn’t be out of place in an interrogation room were at each end of the single-story dingy blue stucco building. Dirt and discoloration from age obscured the signage. The inside looked dim, and if it weren’t for the number of motorcycles parked outside, I would have thought the building was vacant.

  “So, this is where Emmanuel hangs out?”

  Dominic nodded, apparently not sharing my concern. It wasn’t just the grim building; it was also that the bar wasn’t on the main street, it was thirty miles from the city, and the only other business establishments were several miles away. They could be as loud as they wanted here without disturbing anyone. Which meant no one could hear screams for help.

  “He doesn’t have a home where we could have met?”

  “Of course. He wanted to meet here.”

  “That didn’t strike you as odd?”

  “Doesn’t matter either way to me.”

  He got out of the car and when I stayed put, still eyeing the place, he came to my side and opened the door.

  Ignoring his extended hand, I hopped out of the car. I got this. Just a powerful witch I’m borrowing magic from, at a bar way off the beaten path, where screams won’t be heard. Easy-peasy.

  I had to stop reading mysteries and crime novels.

  The inside was just as poorly lit as I expected, and all eyes turned to us. Well, Dominic, dressed in a crimson shirt, granite-colored pants, and leather shoes, with the messy coiffed hair and rugged low beard of a man who belonged in a posher bar than this. Even with his sleeves rolled to the middle of his forearms, showing the arcane symbols and intricate designs that were understated compared to the tats of the bar patrons. Most wore short sleeves or tanks, showing off an impressive and beautiful tapestry of colors. Others were dark with portraits of predatory animals: wolves, panthers, and snakes.

  All eyes remained on us, the interlopers. Dominic traipsed through the bar with airy confidence, people parting for him instead of him having to weave around them. Pulling my shoulders back, I stood taller, trying to put on the same airs. It’s easier to do when you have magic, claws, and preternaturally fast and precise movement.

  Dominic slowed until I was next to him, a hand well placed on the small of my back, momentarily redirecting my attention from the crowd to the tinge of warmth that spread over my back at his touch.

  He leaned in and whispered in my ear. “It’s fine.
This is just a power move by Emmanuel, to unsettle us.”

  “He succeeded. I’m unsettled.” I would’ve preferred to meet at a restaurant. Maybe an ice cream shop. Nothing menacing in a Coldstone Creamery.

  Staying close to Dominic, I tried to present the same level of confidence he radiated. I thought I was pulling off the “don’t screw with me vibe” in its entirety. I will knock you out with my phone. Squash your man grapes and elbow you in the tatas.

  I was grabbed by the waist and slammed back against a firm chest covered with a softer layer of fat. A rough beard rubbed against my cheek.

  “You don’t seem like the type that goes for the pretty boys,” the alcohol-laced breath whispered in my ear. Before I could raise my foot to smash it into his and ball my fist to punch him, the hold he had on me relaxed.

  Dominic was no longer in front of me. He was behind the man, hands clamped around his throat and knife held at his jugular. The stout man huffed out a breath through clenched teeth. His eyes were ablaze with anger, but as the knife bit into his skin, flight and fury shadowed his face.

  “I’m the nice one. You touch her again, I’m going to let her at you.” Dominic continued to hold the man, looking far too confidently at people who were now armed with blades and guns. One was scarily close to Dominic’s temple. He eased his hostage around, using him as a shield. What lingered in his eyes was calculating, cold, and dangerously unsettling.

  “Let him go and there won’t be any trouble,” said one woman with a gun trained on Dominic. The implication was there wouldn’t be any trouble for Dominic and me, but her voice didn’t hold the confidence that she believed it.

  His lips kinked into a mirthless smile, his voice rough and hinting at unspeakable levels of violence. “We’re just here to visit Emmanuel. You don’t give me any trouble, I won’t give you any.”

  “Release him,” the woman demanded.

  The grin firmly in place, Dominic said, “Of course. Your wish is my command.” No semblance of humility was in his words.