“Why not? There are jobs here, and your apartment is a dump. We can figure out what to do about the demon. There’s nothing there for you besides being alone. Is that what you want?” He gave me a little shake.
“How do you know it’s a dump? Anyhow, it’s not that bad.” I had no idea why I was arguing. Maybe I was just getting used to the possibility that I could stay. The hope. I didn’t like hope. It hurt most of the time.
“It’s a crummy flophouse, and stop dodging the question.”
“We aren’t the same people. You don’t know me anymore. I don’t know you,” I said, talking to his throat because this was the thing that worried me the most. Not just that we’d changed, but that he didn’t understand who I’d become, that he couldn’t really care about this new me.
The way his hands trembled told me he shared my doubts. Or maybe he was just scared he couldn’t convince me. The idea about knocked me flying. Could he really care so much? Love me like that? The whole concept seemed too incredible, too good to be true.
“I want to try,” he said, voice rough. “I want us to try together. No walking out without a fucking word.” Bitterness flew off the words.
I wanted to say I didn’t have a choice back then but I had. I’d been too deep in a hole to see it, but neither had I looked all that hard. I’d been convinced he could never trust me as a partner again, much less love me. That both were totally impossible and there was no point in staying. I’d been wrong. I didn’t want to be wrong now.
I was different now. Back then I’d been inexperienced—a rookie paired with a veteran agent. I’d done more taking than giving, and it had contributed to my need to leave. But I’d fought personal and real demons these past six years. I’d come into my own, and I was strong enough now to stand beside Law as an equal. Neither would he overwhelm me as he had. He hadn’t meant to. He’d wanted to help, but he hadn’t understood that I was just changing, not breaking. Not that I’d made it easy with my drinking and moods.
He was waiting for me, as he’d waited six years. I raised my gaze, looking into his eyes. Green fire flickered in the depths—fear, maybe, hope, and longing. He was certain to see the same in mine.
“No walking out,” I said.
He sucked in a sharp breath. “You promise?”
“I do.” I was promising a lot more than not walking out. I was committing to the fights and the push and pull of figuring us out, the disapproval, along with all the good stuff. My heart swelled. I didn’t know if my chest could even hold it. I brushed my lips against his to seal the vow.
His fingers tightened on my shoulders, digging hard. His eyes closed and emotion flickered over his face too fast to read. He looked at me again. “Then let’s eat.”
My brows drew together. “What?”
He grabbed my hand and dragged me toward the kitchen. “Food. Sustenance.”
“But—” I admit I’d been expecting something more romantic. I wanted nothing more than to jump his bones. One in particular.
We reached the kitchen, and he started to push me down into a chair at the breakfast bar. I tightened my hand on his, pulling him around to face me. “You’re hungry? Now?”
“You’re hungry and for what I have planned, you need your strength.” He smiled wolfishly as he pushed me down into the chair. “Plus, you’ve a call to make.” He picked my phone up off the counter and handed it to me. “Make it official.”
There was a challenge in his look. He still wasn’t sure of me. Nor did he make any motions toward opening up the barriers closing off Effrayant from the rest of the world. As if I might escape any moment.
I picked up the phone. “I left this in my suite.”
“All your stuff is here,” he said, his gaze daring me to protest.
“Convenient,” I said and tapped the speed dial for Ivan. He picked up on the second ring.
“Mal? Did you get it?”
I made a face. “I’m fine, thanks for asking. The incubus is dead. The box is gone,” I said, noticing for the first time that it sat on an ebony coffee table surrounded by red leather couches and chairs. It was open, the talisman within. I wondered how Law had retrieved it all, or maybe the power in both were gone.
“Gone? Where?”
I shrugged, though he couldn’t see me. “I don’t know. I got attacked by another demon, the same one that murdered the incubus. I don’t remember a lot after that.”
Silence. Then, “But you said you’re okay?”
I watched as Law worked on an omelet and both bacon and sausage. My stomach rumbled. “I’ll live. I found a guy with skills.”
Law glanced at me, the corner of his mouth lifting, his eyes crinkling. He looked happy. I stuck my tongue out.
“Can you track the box?”
Ivan was nothing if not determined.
“Don’t think so.”
He made a heavy sound. “Shit. This isn’t good, Mal. You’re the best. I expected better.”
I lowered the phone and stared it in raw disbelief. I returned it to my ear. “You what?”
“Damn it, I trusted you, Mal. This was a big job. Important. Failure wasn’t an option. Have you any idea how much this is going to cost me? Jesus. How could you have fucked up this badly?”
In the past I might have tried to explain, maybe apologize. I wasn’t in the mood today. “You know, Ivan, you’re right. You can do better. Next time you’ve got a job, call someone else. I’m done.” I hung up and dropped my phone on the counter.
Law looked at me, raising one eyebrow. “You okay?”
My phone rang. I glared at it and let it go to voicemail. It rang again. I shut off the ringer and pushed it aside.
“Mal?” Law said, frowning at me.
“I’m fine.”
“I can tell,” he said, flipping the bacon. Sausage sizzled in another pan. “So that’s it? You’re off Ivan’s payroll? Just like that?”
I frowned at him, hearing the accusation underneath the words. “It’s not the same as you and me.”
“Sure.”
I took a breath and let it out slowly. “First, I thought you didn’t like Ivan. Second, he didn’t warn me what was in the box or what I was up against. He had to have known something about it. So now he’s getting pissed at me for not adequately handling a situation he knew would probably get me killed. Third, I don’t want to work with someone who blames me when he sabotages the job from the first and can’t be bothered to give full disclosure. And finally, Ivan’s a prick and he’d been screwing me for ages. I let him because I was too lazy to go out on my own.
“At some point, after he’s had a chance to stew and realize what he’s losing, I’ll let him apologize to me, and then I’ll agree to take jobs of my choosing, and I’ll make it clear that if he lies to me again, whatever he loses on this job will be a bare fraction of what I will do to him. I’m not his whipping boy.”
I leaned back and folded my arms, watching Law, keeping my face carefully blank. “He’s also going to pay through the nose. The point is, this situation is nothing like you and me. I suggest you use your words if you think it is because we aren’t going to work if we don’t talk to each other like grown-ups.”
He was staring at me now, like I’d turned into a giant eggplant. “You’ve changed,” he said.
“I mentioned that.”
He nodded. “All right. Words. I jumped to a stupid conclusion. It’s going to take me a while to believe this is real. That you won’t leave again. That hurt like having my spine ripped out. Try to be patient with me.” He flashed a wicked grin. “I promise to make it worth your while.”
I wished I’d known how he’d felt. I wished I hadn’t hurt him. I wasn’t good on patience, but I’d find it somehow.
I stood and came around to take a slice of bacon off the plate, brushing myself up against him. I wasn’t wearing a bra, and the cashmere was erotic against my skin. He was erotic against my skin.
“Food and sex? That’s your sales pitch?” I asked husk
ily.
“Good food and mind-blowing sex,” he corrected. He flipped the sausage patties in the other pan and set the spatula down, turning to pull me tight against him. “And forever. Whatever it takes, Mal. I want forever.”
“Me too,” I said. But we both knew that what we wanted and what actually would happen might turn out to be very different things. Everything depended on us. I hoped we were strong enough.
Epilogue
The phone rang in the middle of the night, a shrill noise. I groaned and wriggled deeper under the covers. Law lurched up beside me as he grabbed for his cell. A draft of cool air swirled down between us where the blankets gapped. I scooched closer to his burnished heat, putting an arm around his waist. I slid my hand over his cock, smiling wickedly in the dark. He twitched and thickened in my hand. Law grabbed my wrist, but didn’t move my hand. I continued to stroke my fingers over his velvet hardness, teasing him to rock hardness, my body tightening with hunger.
“Law Stanger,” he growled. A pause. “For me?” And then, “A what? Christ. I’ll be down in a minute.”
His phone clattered to the nightstand. He pushed me aside as he launched himself out of bed.
“What is it?” I asked, sitting up, alarm cooling my ardor. “Is everything okay?”
Law yanked his pants on. “It’s nothing. I don’t know. The Gwylls checked out. They left something for me.”
“Left you something?” I echoed, scooting to the edge of the bed and reaching for my clothes. “What?”
He stopped, facing away from me. He held his shirt in his hands. Moonlight silvered the supple length of his spine curving down between muscular shoulders. He drew a long breath and blew it out. My stomach clenched. This couldn’t be good. Finally he turned around. I couldn’t read his expression. His eyes disappeared into shadowed pits. His mouth slashed his face in a thin line.
A chill prickled the hairs on my neck. What had the Gwylls done? Didn’t matter. Whatever it was, we could handle it. We’d handled So’la. We could do this.
“What is it? What did they leave?” I asked as I grabbed for my socks.
“A goat,” he said. “They left me a goddamned goat.”
~The End~
Thank You
Thank you for spending your time and money to visit my world and spend time with Mal, Law, and So’la. Rest assured, there will be another book coming soon. In the meantime, I’ve a number of other books available that might interest you. Just follow the link to my website and you can rummage around and read some first chapters and some free stories that I have posted. You can also find links to my facebook page and my twitter feed.
www.dianapfrancis.com
Another great way to get updates about forthcoming works, special offers, and exclusive snippets, is to sign up for my newsletter. Follow this link and it will take you right there:
Newsletter signup
And finally, if you enjoyed this book, or hated it and want to warn everyone off (and I’m so sorry if that’s the case) please consider leaving a review at your favorite bookseller site, Goodreads, or on your social media outlets. I would so appreciate the word of mouth.
Acknowledgements
A great number of people helped in the making of this book, and I’d like to convey my heartfelt gratitude for their support and expertise in bringing this book to print. In no particular order: Chrysoula Tsavelas, Devon Monk, Vonda N. McIntyre, Nancy Jane Moore, Alma Alexander, Sherwood Smith, Lucienne Diver, the BVC collective wisdom, Christy Keyes, The Rainforest Writers Village crew, the Word Wars crew, Fiona Jayde, Andrea Howe, Barbara Cass, and all the readers and booksellers who’ve been so kind as to enjoy and share my writing. I thank you all. I know that I have missed a few important people, and I have to apologize for being forgetful. Know that you are valued and appreciated.
Finally, writing would be impossible without the support and love of my amazing and patient family. They are the rock beneath my feet, and the dose of sanity when I’m losing it. Without you, I could not do this thing that I love so very much.
Click here to go directly to Diana’s webpage to learn more about all her books.
Copyright & Credits
The Incubus Job
Mission: Magic
Diana Pharaoh Francis
Book View Café 2016
ISBN: 978-1-61138-585-4
Copyright © 2016 Diana Pharaoh Francis
First published: March 1, 2016
Production Team:
Cover Design: Fiona Jayde
Copy Editor: Andrea Howe, Blue Falcon Editing
Proofreader: Nancy Jane Moore
Formatter: Vonda N. McIntyre
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Digital edition: 20160203vnm
www.bookviewcafe.com
Book View Café Publishing Cooperative
P.O. Box 1624, Cedar Crest, NM 87008-1624
About the Author
Diana Pharaoh Francis writes fantastical, adventurous, and often romantic books. Her award-nominated books include The Path series, the Horngate Witches series, the Crosspointe Chronicles, and Diamond City Magic books. She's owned by two corgis, likes rocks, geocaching, knotting up yarn, and has a thing for 1800s England. For more, visit www.dianapfrancis.com.
About Book View Café
Book View Café is a professional authors’ publishing cooperative offering DRM-free ebooks in multiple formats to readers around the world. With authors in a variety of genres including mystery, romance, fantasy, and science fiction, Book View Café has something for everyone.
Book View Café is good for readers because you can enjoy high-quality DRM-free ebooks from your favorite authors at a reasonable price.
Book View Café is good for writers because 95% of the profit goes directly to the book’s author.
Book View Café authors include New York Times and USA Today bestsellers, Nebula, Hugo, Lambda, Chanticleer, and Philip K. Dick Award winners, World Fantasy, Kirkus, and Rita Award nominees, and winners and nominees of many other publishing awards.
www.bookviewcafe.com
TRACE OF MAGIC
Diamond City Magic, Book 1
Copyright © 2014 Diana Pharaoh Francis
Published by Bell Bridge Books, an imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.
Reprinted with permission.
Chapter 1
EVERYBODY LEAVES a magical trail of sorts, like an indelible ribbon unrolling behind them. It isn’t actually on this plane, but in a sort of other dimension that only tracers like me can see.
It fades pretty quick for most tracers, disappearing in a matter of hours or maybe a week or two if they are really strong. It never fades for me. I can even see dead trace. It can be tricky to follow, and doing it can leave you vulnerable to the spirit world. I try not to follow dead trace if I can help it. Altogether, those talents make me a unicorn, the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny, and the Loch Ness Monster all rolled into one. In a word, I am unique. A very special snowflake.
I grimaced. It makes for an interesting life, in the Chinese curse sense of the word. I spend most of my time figuring out ways to hide out and stay below the radar of every Tyet faction, crew, and boss. I make a living tracking cheating spouses, missing employees (they usually took money with them), missing persons in general, and the occasional thief or housebreaker. It isn’t a lot of money, but then I don’t need much.
On the side, anonymously, I track down stolen kids. Nine out of ten times, some sadist in the Tyet is responsible. About half the time I find the kids alive. If I didn’t look for them, the odds would be about perfect that they’d be found dead. I’m that good. I wish I was better.
I swallowed, my teeth grinding together, thinking of little Philip Johns. He’d never seen hi
s first birthday. His kidnappers had suffocated him with a plastic bag before tossing him into a dumpster. So help me, Nancy Jane Squires was not going to die. Not on my watch.
Nancy Jane and her mother went missing on the second day of January. It was a Tuesday and Nancy Jane’s birthday. She was seven. From the moment I heard about it, I knew it was one of my cases—the ones that either I solved or the victims died. Sometimes they died anyway.
Patti had texted me with the news. She’s my best friend and part owner of the Diamond City Diner, where I hold my office hours, such as they are. She didn’t say much, just: Another one. Check the news. I got the message at eight in the morning as I was on my way to pick up groceries. I never go near my house with my phone on in case I’m being tracked. I had powered it up when I got to the central metro station this morning. By then, Nancy Jane and her mom had been missing more than twelve hours.
I didn’t have a lot of time. This kidnapping stunk of yet another damned Tyet tug-of-war, which meant Nancy Jane and her mother were entirely dispensable. The only good news was they hadn’t been killed on site; that meant the kidnappers hadn’t just wanted to make a bloody statement. They wanted something and needed the girl and her mother alive to get it.
It wasn’t hard to find coverage. The story was plastered all over the place along with an Amber Alert. There weren’t a lot of details. The two had been taken outside a shoe store in Midtown about six thirty the night before. It was out on the south side, where Tyet turf wars seemed to explode every other day. There weren’t any witnesses or video. The kidnappers had used nulls to shut down the magic in the area and vanish all trace.
The Incubus Job Page 15