Shadows & Surrender: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files Book 3)

by Deborah Wilde

“Mom,” Levi said.

  Nicola turned, her entire face lighting up at the sight of her son. “Levi. What are you doing here?”

  He took her elbow and led her outside. Rafael and I weren’t invited, but we followed and Levi didn’t protest. He didn’t register us at all.

  “Remember when I was younger, I had that hiding spot?” Levi said.

  She smiled. “Sì. Where you used to put your special toys and books.” She glanced at us.

  “You can speak in front of them,” Levi said.

  “Va bene. Anything you didn’t want your father to know you cared about.”

  “Yes.” Levi pressed his lips together, looking heavenward.

  I wished I could wrap my arms around him, but he had to face this on his own. Only that way would we be able to deal with it together.

  “The things that were in the box, what happened to them?” he said.

  “I packed them with all your other belongings. You remember.” She used her hands as she spoke, a trait that I found terribly endearing. “You came and picked them up a couple weeks ago. I told you that you had to go through it all.” She wrung her hands together now.

  Levi kissed her. “It’s okay, Mom. I will.”

  She grabbed his hand, a fierce expression on her face. “I despised him for how he treated you.”

  “I know. He won’t hurt either of us anymore.”

  All the damage had already been done.

  Levi spent the drive to his house in his Tesla white-knuckled and tight-lipped. I tried talking to him, but he didn’t respond to any of my pathetic icebreakers.

  Levi unlocked his front door, motioning for Rafael to go on in. He stopped me before I could enter. “Did he kill Adam?”

  “He ordered the hit.”

  Levi spun away from me and marched down a set of stairs off his kitchen into his basement. There were no biscotti, just a cold empty room that I wondered if I’d ever see again.

  I stopped Rafael. “I’m going to stay up here.”

  “Good idea,” he said, and headed downstairs.

  I strained my ears for any sign that they’d found the scroll. Then out of nowhere, sandstorm and hot wind snaked up into the kitchen.

  Rafael snapped at Levi to “seal it up,” while I clutched the doorknob upstairs to keep myself from moving.

  “Ashira?” Rafael called up. “The scroll is sealed once more. Are you all right?”

  “Give me a minute. Let the magic fade.” The doorknob splintered under my tense grip, but I didn’t move and slowly, the tantalizing magic dissipated.

  “I’m good.” I was, too—until they came up the stairs and stepped into the kitchen.

  The scroll’s magic engulfed me, the guys’ voices becoming Charlie Brown wah-wah-wahs. That ancient magic wound me in its loving grip, spiralling me higher and higher.

  “Ash?” Levi frowned.

  Rafael waved a short plastic tube at him. “It’s leaking. Get another container.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said to the Technicolor pixels of the two people standing there. “Everything is perfect.”

  I rode the magic out to the edge of the cosmos and when it demanded I fall into the darkness, I was helpless to resist.

  I didn’t want to resist.

  The taste of water slid down my throat. When I snapped into full consciousness, I had Rafael pushed up against the wall and was pulling smudgy magic out of a gash on his chest that I gulped down. In my eagerness, I’d pressed bruises into his skin, but that refreshing magic flowed into me, restoring me. The symptoms fell away, the floor firm under my feet. My urges died down, the song in my head quiet once more.

  “Rafael?” I said.

  His head was thrown back, his pupils were blown out, and his breathing was ragged. He shot me a besotted smile.

  Levi stared at us with cold, flat eyes. “You left a few details out about what your Attendant does, Ash.”

  I scrambled back from Rafael, who reached for me. His magic was still on my lips and in the back of my throat and I clutched him back, only releasing him when Levi flinched. “These aren’t my finest moments,” I said lamely. “Rafael.” I slapped him lightly across the face. “You need to take the scroll to the library. Can you do that?”

  He slowly blinked into awareness, closing his eyes with a grimace. “I’m so sorry, Levi.”

  “Don’t sweat it.”

  “I’ll just… Yes.” He snatched a large Tupperware off the counter and disappeared.

  Then there were two.

  “I can’t do this,” Levi said.

  “Because of the magic thing? It’s a healing remedy. That’s it.”

  “Is that what you’re calling it?”

  No. I wanted to scrub the taste of Rafael’s magic from my mouth, because it turned my words to lies. With everything laid bare between us, we needed truth.

  “I was scared to tell you, okay?” I said. “I feel like I’m betraying you and I don’t ever want to be that person. We tried to not do this after the first time, but it’s the only thing that brings me back from the brink.”

  “I saw your faces.” Anguish flashed across his features and I wondered how we’d looked, Rafael and me, curled up together. My stomach turned as Levi’s mouth twisted. “Or was I just imagining things?”

  “I’m not going to lie. It’s an incredible connection when it happens. It quiets my urges and the magic bump is amazing. But it’s completely hollow next to what you and I have. I’ve trusted you with all of me. Not even Priya has gotten that. I’m all in. Do you understand?”

  “I do. And if that was all it was…” He reached out to touch my shoulder, but stopped himself before making contact, and took a step back. “You said you’d kill 26L1. Hell, I swore I’d support you in that, Ash. But my own dad?” His voice broke on the last word. “And how do I look you in the eye every day given my father murdered yours?”

  I stared at the distance between us, an odd buzzing noise in my ears. “That’s them. Not you and me.” My words were even. Measured. They were calm and a far cry from the scream lodged at the back of my throat, eager to come out. “You’ve already suffered so much at his hands. Are you going to let him ruin this for you? Ruin us?”

  Levi bowed his head, gripping the doorframe. “It is us. Our pasts don’t exist in a vacuum. How are we supposed to be together in the face of all of that?”

  The truth shall set you free. I’d steered my life by this sage wisdom, only to find it was a crock of shit. The truth had cost me Levi.

  “You’re a coward.” I blinked back tears. “Go hide behind your illusions. I was ready to face this awful truth. With you. Let me know when you’re ready to do the same and fight.”

  “Please go.” His words were barely audible.

  On the way into Hedon, I’d told Levi that he had to be prepared to destroy whatever secret desire he harbored. Guess he’d taken that to heart. I couldn’t even blame him. I mean, I could and I did, but I understood. That’s why I walked away without a second look back, my heart in pieces at Levi’s feet.

  Rafael was wrong about revenge. It wasn’t a luxury. It was my life’s mission. And Isaac Montefiore and Chariot were going to burn.

  Thank you for reading SHADOWS & SURRENDER!

  Get ready for the final chapter of Ash’s story! REVENGE & RAPTURE (THE JEZEBEL FILES #4).

  Ash is tightening the noose on her enemies…

  … and losing her grip on reality.

  Ash’s revenge plans for Chariot and Isaac Montefiore take a surreal turn when Isaac’s wife hires Ash to retrieve an item that Isaac is obsessed with finding. Ash takes the job, but this quest throws her back into Levi’s path and puts Rafael in grave danger.

  Meanwhile, Ash runs across a crime victim who possesses mysterious magic. Ash’s search for the attacker once again pits her against the Queen of Hearts and sends Ash down the rabbit hole of what’s real. Sanity is highly overrated, anyway, right?

  To top it all off, Ash’s mother is being blackmailed by som
eone threatening to expose Ash as a Rogue unless Talia resigns from her political career for good. Talk about putting the “fun” in family dysfunction.

  Secrets, vengeance, and magic collide in the final chapter of The Jezebel Files. With love, family, and her enemy’s immortality on the line, a con set in motion fifteen years ago comes to an explosive conclusion, and Ash only has one chance to come out alive.

  CLICK HERE TO BUY REVENGE & RAPTURE NOW >

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  Turn the page for an excerpt from Revenge & Rapture ….

  Excerpt from Revenge & Rapture

  Vancouver was burning.

  Outside my office window came the sound of breaking glass followed by a wailing alarm, while loud angry voices yelled ugly taunts. The simmering tension of the past couple months between Nefesh and Mundanes had exploded on this June night.

  Sirens shrieked nonstop and the smell of smoke drifted in through my shut window. Every cop in the city must have been on patrol.

  Inside, all was still, the air sharpened to a pointed focus. I scanned the wall that I’d turned into a link chart. At the top were photos of the four scrolls of the Sefer Raziel HaMalakh held by Team Jezebel, along with facts such as the place of their capture and any encounters with Chariot in obtaining them. Pieces of string ran between connected information. I’d rejigged the chart numerous times but had yet to find either the one piece of the Sefer still held by Chariot or any more of the Ten’s identities.

  My phone buzzed and I distractedly stabbed the answer button. “Stop waiting up for me, Pri.”

  “They’ve closed the bridges in and out of downtown,” my best friend and roommate said in a tense voice. “And it’s uncertain how much longer they’ll keep Hastings Street open. Come home or you’ll be stuck there.”

  “I’ll sleep in my chair. I spoke with the company who bought the party warehouse where the golem was patrolling. Totally legit local developers are turning it into condos.” I fired a dart into a photo of Isaac’s head, half-turned away from camera. “Another dead end.”

  “Cut yourself some slack. Jezebels have been fighting this for four hundred years. You’ve barely been on it four months. You need to sleep.”

  “Saving the world comes first,” I said.

  “Is it about saving us or beating them?”

  “Does it matter so long as they’re stopped? I’m doing my job,” I said. The noble cause of dispensing justice warred with my desire to destroy Isaac Montefiore so comprehensively that his life would be a smoking ruin, my signature writ large in the ashes like a painter signing his masterpiece. Work goals were important.

  “It matters a lot,” Priya said gently. “Your dad was murdered. Don’t you think you should get help? This isn’t healthy.”

  “I had enough of talking out my feelings when I was thirteen. Taking Isaac down is the only therapy I need,” I snapped.

  Mrs. Hudson, my pug, lifted her head from her doggie bed in the corner and whined softly. She hated when her mommies fought.

  “That’s exactly what I mean.” Priya gave an aggrieved sigh. “This isn’t about Chariot anymore for you. It’s all about Isaac. He’s cost you two men you loved and—”

  I hung up on her.

  Her words lodged under my skin like a splinter. I rubbed my eyes, nearly blinding myself at the boom that rocked the building. After a second boom—someone ramming the front security door downstairs—came the joyous cries of emboldened rioters entering and looking to mindlessly pilfer.

  Not on my watch.

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  Acknowledgments

  Enormous thanks to my darling daughter Kiki for the idea of emotion perfumes and for having a serious conversation with me about “What does paranoia smell like?” How clever of me to have trained you so well in matters of storytelling.

  Alex Yuschik, my incredible editor, you continue to inspire me with your brilliant insights. It brings me insane amounts of joy to work with you.

  The last edits on Shadows & Surrender were done during the early days of self-isolation. Sure, I always work from home and regularly make jokes about being misanthropic, but my life these days really hammered home how important human connection is to me. Thank you to all of you in my FB group and on my mailing list who have reached out. You have been an incredible source of comfort during these strange days. xo

  About the Author

  I’m Deborah (pronounced deb-O-rah) and I write sexy, funny, urban fantasy.

  I decided at an early age to live life like it was a movie, as befitted a three-syllable girl. Mine features exotic locales, an eclectic soundtrack, and a glittering cast—except for those two guys left on the cutting room floor. Secret supernatural societies may be involved.

  They say you should write what you know, which is why I shamelessly plagiarize my life to write about witty, smart women who kick ass, stand toe-to-toe against infuriating alphas, and execute any bad decisions in indomitable style.

  “It takes a bad girl to fight evil. Go Wilde.”

  www.deborahwilde.com