whiskey witches 02 - blood moon magick

by blooding, s m

  Did the gate even matter?

  What else did she know?

  The shifters started disappearing three months before Paige had been sent to Louisiana.

  She put the date of the first disappearance on the wall.

  Oriel had said Sven had been on Earth too long, that he wasn’t as powerful.

  Sven was trying to separate the animal spirit from the shifters to insert into a different host.

  What if she wasn’t that host? What if it was him? He needed power and animal spirits were exactly that. Power.

  Paige added that to the board.

  Oriel had murdered Elizabeth Harwood.

  Another piece of paper to the wall.

  He’d done so in the governor’s body, leaving behind the governor’s DNA.

  Why?

  “You realize you’re trying to decipher the mind of a mad man.” Dexx’s voice was strong, confident.

  Paige swallowed, her heart racing. Should she fall for the hope that he was all right? That he was fine? That everything would be all right?

  No. She needed to brace for the fact that he might still die. She licked her lips and plastered on a plastic smile, slipping off the table to face him. “Yeah, well. I’ve got to do something. This isn’t just random.”

  Dexx wore a maroon shirt. He raised his eyebrows and grabbed a piece of paper, tearing it into smaller sections. “Well, let’s look at the details from his perspective.”

  Moving out of his way, she hid behind her coffee cup. “Feeling okay?”

  He gave her a tipped-headed nod and taped his pages to the wall. “Here’s what we think we know. Right? Sven’s the center.”

  “Put that up there already.”

  “Saw that.” The tape dispenser fell off the table. He swooped with lightning speed and caught it before it hit the floor.

  Paige bit her lip. Supernatural reflexes. Did that scare her?

  Not really. The war was real and they were smack dab in the middle of it. Those reflexes could be rather handy.

  Besides, she trusted Dexx.

  “I can smell you, you know,” Dexx said quietly.

  Paige chuckled. “That’s gotta suck. Did I remember to use my deodorant?”

  He hunched his shoulders. “I think I’m turning.”

  Her heart raced. With hope. With fear. “You still look human to me.”

  “And when I don’t?”

  As long as he didn’t eat her and she didn’t reopen a bloody war, everything would be ten kinds of all good. Reality? He would probably try to eat her at least once, and she would restart the war. By loving him? In what world could that be wrong? Hers. “We’ll figure it out.”

  “That’s what they say in really bad horror films just before everyone dies.”

  She needed him off this pity party edge. She knew from experience where that led. Nowhere good. “Look at our group, Dexx. We have a demon summoner with a damned demon door for a soul.”

  That should have garnered a reaction, but it didn’t.

  Crap. “We have a vampire, who, I think, is the ‘good guy’ in our group. That’s just kinda creepy when you think about it.”

  His shoulders rose and dropped. His lips loosened minutely.

  “We have a—” Shit. What were they going to call Jack? “—a death harbinger? If that’s even a thing.”

  “I don’t think it is.”

  She gave him an exaggerated shrug. “And now we have you.”

  “I could kill someone.”

  “Like you couldn’t with the damned arsenal in your trunk? Pull the ripcord on your butt, dude.” Paige raised her hands, palm up, and smiled. “This could be fun. You could be a puppy shifter.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Or a cute whittle kitty.”

  “Pea.”

  “Think about it before you bash the idea. You’re a little catlike and you’re adorable when you’re mad.”

  “I’m about to ‘adorable’ all over you.” His tone was harsh, but his crow’s feet crinkled around his eyes and the light she’d grown to cherish was back in his green eyes.

  “But!” She held up a pointer finger, a mock serious expression on her face. “If you have the opportunity to come back as a dragon, be a dragon.”

  He chuckled, frowning at her in consternation. “A dragon. I don’t think that’s an option.”

  “But if it is, take it.”

  He sighed, his shoulders relaxed. “You’re really okay with this?”

  Having the only man she could really be herself remain among the living? Yes. Hells, yes. “Don’t get me wrong. I have my concerns.”

  “You don’t want me to bite you.”

  “I’ll get a box of Band-Aids.”

  He snorted.

  “My biggest concern,” because she wasn’t about to lie to him. Not about this, anyway, “is the treaty.”

  He ducked his head.

  Discussing emotions was awkward for her, but she knew this was one of those moments where telling someone how she felt mattered. “I care about you a great deal.”

  “But…”

  “No ‘buts’. I’m seriously considering getting you pregnant to trap you into marriage.”

  He grinned, his head hanging down as his shoulders shook. “You’d do that for me? Make a real man out of me?”

  Now, that’s what she’d been looking for. “Yeah. I’m considering it.”

  He looked up at her, his green eyes bright with life again.

  “There are more than a few obstacles, though.”

  “Your personality.”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s absolute top of the list.”

  “I’m glad you’re aware.”

  “Oh, I am.” She pushed back the awkwardness and closed the distance between them.

  He widened his legs, his hands on his thighs. He narrowed his eyes.

  She stood between his legs.

  Stay away, her instincts cried.

  No, her heart thundered in response, empowering her hands to rise. She placed them on his chest. “You are amazing to me.” She didn’t know how else to say it.

  His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Yeah, well.” He placed his hands on her hips and brought her closer. “You’re pretty amazing to me.”

  Warmth unraveled within, her heart uncurling like a new fern frond. “I’m not good at this.”

  “I’m not either.”

  “I’m not nurturing or loving or warm.”

  “I’m all of that,” he said, blinking coquettishly at her, “and a box of chocolates.”

  She smiled. She’d succeeded in bringing back the life to his eyes, but she didn’t want to overfill him with hope. “But this treaty. It’s real.”

  Dexx raised his head and expelled a long breath. “Yeah.”

  “Got a history lesson from Sheriff Karl.” She shook her head. She wanted so badly to rest on it on his chest, to feel his arms around her. “This could get really bad, and I can’t bring this home to my family. I can’t.”

  “Okay? Then, we won’t.”

  She stopped fighting her need to be professional and leaned her forehead against him.

  His arms brought her closer, surrounding her in strength and warmth.

  “I’ll defy the world for you, Dexx,” Paige said. “As long as it’s just me who pays the price for it.”

  He remained quiet for a long moment.

  “Leah’s protected.” Anger churned in her chest just saying that out loud.

  “I hate to admit when she’s doing good.”

  “Me, too, but right now, she is. With Leah sheltered, I can support you.”

  “And when you get Leah back?”

  Paige pushed away.

  His arms didn’t let her go far. His gaze grabbed hers, his hips grinding into hers.

  And if they were talking about anything but this, she was certain all kinds of crazed sex-energy would be flowing through her. But the painful flare of twisting rage killed it all. “I will never have my daughter back.”
<
br />   She hadn’t realized the tears were so close to the surface until she heard them choke her voice. She batted them back.

  “And when you do?”

  She raised her face to the ceiling, a pissed off grin on her face. Clucking her tongue and regaining her voice, she met his gaze again. “You don’t get it, do you? I’ve lost. I will never have a relationship with my daughter.” The word “pain” was such a small word to describe what she felt. Wracked. Gutted. Torn.

  He licked his lips and bit down on the bottom one. “So, you’re not even going to entertain the idea.”

  “It’s easier for me to see the real possibility of going to war over a man I love than to see me even getting to see my own daughter.”

  He blinked and tipped his head to the side. “Love?”

  She swallowed. She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. The last man she’d loved had died. Accident. Drunk driver.

  But the more she learned about her history, the more she wondered just how “accidental” his death had been.

  “Yeah,” she said, wishing she could say otherwise. For him. For her. Wanting to be with a man and loving him were two totally different levels of psycho. “Love.”

  His nostrils flared.

  Blessed Mother, he could smell her. “You’re my home, Dexx,” she whispered before she lost the courage to say the words out loud. “We could be anywhere.—anywhere—and, as long as you’re with me, I’d be home.”

  He brought her head to his chest and crushed her to him with just enough power to not break her ribs.

  This was exactly where she wanted to be.

  Taking in a deep breath, he released her and rose from the table’s edge.

  She instantly missed his arms around her. But she was glad to be focused on the case again. And that she had her Dexx back.

  Dexx stepped up to the wall. “We know Sven was after the key that opens the Gate to Heaven and Hell. We know it’s broken into three parts and that he has one of them. We also know he was cramming demon souls into the key to power it.”

  When she ignored the demon door in her soul, certain pieces fell into place.

  Cramming demon souls into a key.

  Cramming animal spirits into hosts.

  “He’s after power,” she said.

  “So, what? He just wants to recharge his ring?”

  She didn’t get his ring reference. “What if he doesn’t have a long play? What if he’s just after power? Everything makes more sense that way.”

  “But why?”

  “Because his tails are spent?” Whatever that meant.

  He quirked his lips, the scruff on his chin darker than it had been that morning.

  But that didn’t make sense, either. If he was really so powerless, how had he controlled Sam to send Tony and Dexx to the meadow to find his note?

  Maybe that had been Oriel. After all, he’d been the one to bring her to the case in the first place. Maybe his hand controlled the chess board.

  Except he’d told Sven he wasn’t interested.

  What if he’d lied?

  So, what was worse? A serial killing demon hungry for power? Or a really old demon watching the game unfold?

  That last thought nagged at her. Sven might be a sick fuck, but what if Oriel’s reason for bringing her to the case was to break the treaty? What if his “big plans” for her involved reopening the war between witches and shapeshifters?

  That thought scared the shit out of her.

  “I smell…fear.”

  Paige glanced at Dexx and took in a shaky breath. “Oriel.”

  He tipped his head to the side, waiting.

  “What if he’s making a call to the Eastwoods? Right now? What if they’re going home? Right now? Leslie’s about to have a baby. Grandma’s getting old. She’s not as strong or as powerful as she used to be.”

  “So, you’re saying Sven’s not the big fish?”

  “He is.” She shook her head. “Just, maybe, not the biggest.”

  “Why would he do that? Oriel? Start the war again?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Dexx cocked his jaw to the side and stared at the board. “What do you know about the Eastwoods?”

  “Only what Karl told me. It’s not good. I can tell you that.”

  “Do they have a coven?”

  “I don’t know.” But the thought chilled her bones.

  “Do the Whiskeys have a coven?”

  “Not that I know of, but I doubt I would have been invited anyway.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her.

  “Demon gift? I would taint the circle.” Duh.

  He scrunched lips in a grimace and waved that off. “They need to get over that.”

  Yeah. If the war really was going to start again, they couldn’t afford to be divided.

  And if the Eastwoods discovered she’d broken the treaty, her and Dexx being together wouldn’t be that big an issue. Not really.

  “Well, shit.”

  Her thoughts exactly.

  Paige’s phone rang. She held up a finger and answered. “Whiskey.”

  “Hey.” Tony’s voice was gruff. “Jack had a vision and a pretty powerful one. Someone’s going to die at the church today.”

  Paige straightened. “Wha—back that up and try it from the beginning.”

  “A man, early twenties, wearing a ratty t-shirt, is going to go into the church where he will be killed. As in minutes from now.”

  A heads up. Maybe Jack was a death harbinger. “What church?”

  “Ask Jennifer. Get your ass over there. Now.”

  Paige didn’t have to hang up. The screen flashed and the big, red button to disconnect disappeared. She tapped Dexx’s shoulder and exited the room.

  Sheriff Karl was already headed out of her office, keys in hand. “I got the message. Ready?”

  “Yeah.”

  Paige twisted slightly to make sure Dexx was following. There was enough noise in the precinct as the officers cleaned up the mess from earlier that she couldn’t make out the heavy clunks of his steps. She needed to keep him in the loop. “So, Jack got a vision.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “What?”

  Dexx matched step with her. “I heard.”

  “I was on the phone.”

  “I was in the room.” He gritted his teeth and pulled ahead. “I heard.”

  What would she do with super hearing? Hmm. The thought was tempting.

  Cool air hit her in the face as soon as she stepped out of the building, making her wish she’d remembered to grab her jacket. Neither Karl nor Dexx were bothered by the chill, so maybe she was just being a wimp.

  Dexx strode to Jackie. “I’ll follow.”

  Karl nodded and brought her government-issue brown sedan to life.

  Paige slid into Jackie’s passenger seat as Dexx made her purr.

  Dexx twisted in his seat, backing the large car up before turning back to follow the sheriff. “What are we going to do about the treaty?.”

  “Good question.” Paige watched the tall pine trees pass. “Did you know that witches can live for hundreds of year?”

  “Nooo.”

  “Yeeees.”

  “How—” He glanced at her, his face twisted in confusion. “How is that even possible?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m guessing it’s blood magick.”

  “You don’t—” He pushed his lips out and shook his head before continuing. “—you don’t know how to do that, do you?”

  “Yeah, sure. I’m fairly certain there’s chickens involved.”

  “Oh, good. I was worried.”

  This was what she loved about him. Her understood her sarcasm, got her dark humor. Also, he brought it out in her.

  Karl disappeared down a small one lane road.

  “Portland, for some reason, has been calling to me.”

  Dexx frowned and followed. “I vaguely remember you saying that. Out loud.”

  “Weird, that. Well, there might be a reason
. The Eastwood Witches. That’s where they are.”

  “Like, in the TV show?”

  “There’s a TV show?’

  “You really need to get out more.”

  “And by ‘out,’ you mean ‘in and on the couch,’ right?”

  He glared at her.

  The demon door gyrated inside her, shadowy arms leaching forward and tugging on her. “Demons!”

  Dexx slammed on the brakes.

  Karl turned up a drive and disappeared again.

  “Where?” Dexx demanded, Jackie rumbling around them.

  “Close.” The door pulled on her, wanting to go to the demon. She almost heard a siren song singing her into submission. Her will was slipping.

  “Give me something.”

  “I don’t have anything!”

  “Think! Now, come on. Where?”

  Her witch abilities were super-charged. What about her demon gift? Was it? She hadn’t tried. Didn’t want to. Couldn’t.

  But he was right. They couldn’t afford for her to be useless. Skirting around the flaring edges of her raw gift, around the runes that seemed to glow a steel blue and ooze a black smoke, she reached inside herself. Where?

  The blue steel flared and the smoke drifted to the left where Sheriff Karl had disappeared.

  Paige pointed to the left.

  “Okay. How many?”

  She had no idea how to tell. She didn’t have her scry globe. She couldn’t just open her palms and see how many demons were around.

  The smoke fluttered like a finger beckoning, then a single tendril pulled forward.

  That was new. “One. I think. I don’t know.”

  “We can take one.” He put Jackie back in drive and pulled forward. “You just tell me when the pull becomes too much.”

  She nodded, but remained quiet.

  Tony’s car was already in the driveway. Tony and Jack greeted Sheriff Karl at the base of the steps to a wooden church.

  “So,” Dexx said to the group by way of greeting, “there’s a demon inside, which means we’re one man down.”

  Karl frowned at him.

  “I’ll stay out here,” Paige said. “Play defense if something gets out or if something wants to come in.” This was stupid. She felt so helpless. Gah!

  Karl shook her head, then nodded. “Okay. Are we ready?”