The Judah Black Novels Box Set

by E. A. Copen

  Scratch that—she went inside me, or at least her hands did. Cold like ice jabbed into my chest and wiggled around, while an intangible white cloud floated over me. I tried for a breath, but all that would come out was a gasp as the cloud formed into a face within a face. Something wet dripped from mandibles jutting out of the creature’s face and stung like acid when it hit me.

  Gritting my teeth, my vision white-hot with pain, I pawed frantically at the floor, searching for something—anything—that could help me. My fingers settled on the smooth, cool surface of the silver tray. Bingo. I picked it up and swung it. Had the tray been made of anything but pure silver, it might have been useless, but silver has a natural affinity for holding magick and affecting the supernatural. It must have surprised her as much as it did me, though, when magick shot down my arm and into the tray unbidden. The tray slammed into her head, and black fire licked at her iridescent form. She screamed. The cold flew out of my chest, and she exploded in an anti-climactic puff of smoke.

  The door to the den jerked open, and Cynthia looked casually down at me. Her stare was no less disapproving than it had been when I called her a secretary.

  “Congratulations,” I said breathlessly as I rubbed my aching chest. “It’s a ghost.”

  Chapter Twelve

  It took some doing, but I was able to get up on my own after a while. It was a good thing, too, because Cynthia never made a move to help. My chest felt like someone had used it as a punching bag, except that it hurt on the inside of my ribs. I pulled my shirt up and saw big, red, finger-shaped marks all over me. They’d be bruises tomorrow.

  Cynthia surveyed the broken chair, overturned table, and the smashed porcelain. “Did you get it?”

  I dropped my shirt and looked around. “What? The ghost? For now.” She’d keep coming back until I knew what was keeping her here. “Who is that in the portrait?”

  For the first time, I saw emotion in Cynthia’s face. She turned her head and beheld the painting as if it were the first time she’d ever seen it. Her pupils dilated, and her lips parted. The expression crossed her face in a quick flash before she turned away. “I’ve never had an occasion to ask. I’ve only been to the house a few times.”

  “I thought you said you came every Sunday to go over schedules?”

  She gave me a bored glance. “I do. I’m a new hire.”

  A new hire that Marcus trusted enough to leave alone in the house. That wasn’t like Marcus Kelley, ruthless businessman and over-cautious vampire, but I decided to let it slide. “Well, maybe one of the staff can answer that question.”

  “I can answer.” I gritted my teeth as Zoe stepped up behind Cynthia and put a delicate hand on the woman’s shoulder. She smirked when she saw my irritation. “Hello, Judah.”

  “I thought you’d be at the hospital with your daughter.”

  “I needed a change of clothes.” Zoe dismissed Cynthia and asked her to wait outside. Cynthia hesitated and frowned but made her exit. Zoe shut the doors behind her.

  “Who is she?” I asked.

  “The late Mrs. Kelley. Emiko, I think her name was. She was a sight, no?” Zoe placed her hands behind her back and paced closer to the painting. “I never met her, but some of the older staff here have spoken about her. They say she was a great woman. Powerful. Seductive. Fierce.” She turned her head to glare at me in profile. “All the things you are not.”

  “You sound like a pretty big fan, considering she’s the reason Mia’s suffering.”

  Her head snapped toward me and she narrowed her eyes, which had taken on a sickly yellow sheen. “Explain.”

  “I saw her at the hospital, leaning over Mia’s bedside just as Mia went into convulsions. Just now, she tried to rip my lungs out through my chest. She’s a vengeful spirit, almost certainly.” I paced up beside Zoe to stand in the shadow of the portrait. “Whatever she’s doing to Mia, though, is something different. I got a strong sense of…impatience. Hunger.”

  Zoe’s nostrils flared, and she made a sour face. “You reek of him.”

  “Who?”

  “My worthless ex-husband.”

  “Worthless?” I growled, going to stand in front of her. “Do you have any idea about the shit he’s gone through because of the stunt you and your boyfriend pulled last year? How much you hurt him by running away? How much you’re still hurting him?”

  Dammit, it needed to be said. Here was this woman, one he had given everything to, and she could do nothing but spit in his face. Even if Sal hadn’t been my boyfriend, he was my friend. Friends stand up for each other when monsters talk about them behind their backs.

  Zoe snarled. “Hurting him? I haven’t seen him since…” Her voice trailed off, and then her painted lips twisted into a sadistic grin. “You’re in love with him. Poor thing.” She threw her head back and laughed shrilly. “Are you less of a monster than me? Are you better than me?”

  She grabbed me by the shoulders and lifted me so that we were at eye level. I couldn’t stop myself from hissing in pain. “He’s using you. That’s all he can do. That’s all any of them can do. They use you up and throw you away. You should get away from him, Judah, before he eats you alive.”

  Zoe let go of me. My drop to the floor was short but sudden. With the injury the ghost had left me with, it felt like ramming into a speeding train. I lay there, trying to pull myself together and fight through the pain to breathe, but I managed to choke out a response. “Marcus and Han are using you. And Mia.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “I know Han wants her for medical experiments. That’s not something any decent mother would allow.” I glared at her. “You’re not fit to call yourself a mother.”

  In response, she turned on her heel and stormed away. I tried to get up and follow her out when she left, but a sharp, shooting pain in my chest floored me all over again. I had to lie flat on my back, staring up at the ceiling, pain shooting through my chest with every breath, until Cynthia came to get me. It must have been a half-hour or more before she appeared over me, a cell phone pressed to her ear.

  “Yes, sir.” Cynthia shifted the phone to speak to me. “Marcus has had to step out on business. I’ve arranged a ride home for you,” Cynthia reported, then turned back to her phone call.

  “What about the promise he made me? He promised he’d tell me what he knew about the Kings.”

  Cynthia paused and glared down at me. I could tell she was listening to whatever Marcus had to say for himself. “He says he told you he’d tell you, not when he’d tell you.”

  “You tell him he’s a slimy son of a bitch.”

  She hung up and dropped the phone into her pocket without relaying my message. It didn’t matter. I knew he’d heard me since I’d said it plenty loud enough.

  I extended a stiff arm toward her. “I need a hand.”

  Cynthia helped me up, and I limped out to the car. It wasn’t as nice as the one Marcus had driven earlier, but I was glad I didn’t have to step up into it. The door closed, and I leaned my head back in thought. Even though I was now one hundred percent sure a ghost was behind Mia’s strange sickness, I was still missing answers. For example, I had never seen a ghost become twisted and deformed on the inside like this one had. How had she infected Mia, and why? Why hadn’t she infected me, too?

  And what was going on with my magick?

  I cracked open an eye and looked down at my hand as I flexed my fingers. Twice in the last day, I’d used magick without even thinking about it. Without effort. Maybe the magick was a reflex. There were explanations, but it still made me uneasy. I couldn’t just let spells fly like that. I needed better control.

  There was no way I was doing any more research tonight. My body was too badly beaten, and the lack of decent sleep was catching up to me. Thank God for Saturdays. Too bad it was only Wednesday.

  The car dropped me off at Patsy’s to collect my Firebird. It took three tries to coax my old car to life, and longer than usual to make i
t back to Sal’s. I almost stopped at my house before I remembered the condition it was in. Sal had said Valentino, Shauna, Daphne, and Ed were supposed to come by and work on it, but I didn’t think they were done. A big green rental dumpster still sat in my driveway, and all the lights were off. If they were done, Hunter would have gone home. Well, maybe. Maybe he was excited to stay with Sal. He always did like sleeping over there.

  Sal’s bike wasn’t in the driveway when I parked, and neither was Chanter’s truck. I got out and noticed there was an unusual pool of light coming from the back. There was a dusk-to-dawn floodlight back there, but this light looked too low to the ground for that. As I came around the side of the trailer, there was a loud clang, followed by a string of cursing in English, Spanish, and whatever Native American language Sal and Chanter spoke all the time.

  I peeked around back to find Sal sitting beside his motorcycle, rummaging through a toolbox. He had one of those orange cords with the lightbulb at the end wrapped around the front of the bike so he could see the ground. The cord ran up into the kitchen through the window. He didn’t look up at my approach, but that was probably because he’d borrowed Hunter’s iPod and earbuds. I could hear the angry scream of a guitar and the pounding of drums from several feet away and wondered how his sensitive ears could stand the volume up that loud.

  After I stepped into his field of vision, he popped one of the earbuds out and raised his eyes to regard me. I sucked in a breath through my teeth. Sal’s eyes were normally a light shade of honey-brown. When he was angry, I’d seen them flash gold, but I’d never seen them tinge with red like that. I didn’t know what that meant, but I knew better than to stare an angry werewolf in the eye, and he sure seemed angry. I dropped my eyes to the ground. Maybe it wasn’t enough. He shot up so that he was standing over me, ripped the other earbud out of his ears, and dropped the iPod into his toolbox.

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  His tone made me want to shrink but I didn’t. “I can come and go whenever I want. You don’t own me, Sal.”

  He ignored my protest. “And why are you dressed like that?” I heard him draw a deep breath through his nose. A low growl rumbled from his chest. I probably reeked of vampires. Dammit. I should have thought of that, but I didn’t expect it to set him off.

  He pitched the wrench he had in his hand into the desert and ripped the light off his bike. He cast it aside hard enough that the bulb shattered. Whatever he’d been fixing on his bike must not have been anything too serious, because he climbed on and fired it right up.

  What if he was going to start something with Marcus?

  I put a hand on the front of his bike. “Sal, you need to calm down.”

  “Get out of the way,” he snapped at me and revved the engine.

  I didn’t think he would hit me, but I wasn’t willing to risk it. I stepped aside and he zoomed away on his bike, leaving me choking on dust and exhaust. After the fight with the ghost, my lungs were already strained, and coughing brought me to my knees. For just a moment, I understood how Chanter felt as I fought for breath.

  I should have been livid. All the anger, the strain of dealing with Marcus, and the pain in my chest had worn me out. My muscles ached, and my head throbbed from the coughing fit. As much as I wanted to go after him, I was just too tired and sore, so I dragged myself up the stairs and inside.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The first thing I did inside was unplug the cord to the light Sal had been using. I’d go out and pick up the glass tomorrow morning if I had time. Or maybe I’d leave that for Sal since it was his mess. Having not eaten with Marcus, I was starving, but I wanted to get out of the dress first. I hadn’t rescued any of my clothes from the house yet, and it didn’t look like they had either. I went digging through Sal’s dryer and found a pair of sweats with a drawstring I could pull tight and a tank top to throw on.

  After I’d showered and dressed, I walked out of the bathroom to find Hunter staring absently into the fridge. “Hey, kid,” I said and ruffled his hair. “What’s for dinner?”

  I leaned in behind him to stare into the fridge. Food options were limited to an unidentified stew of indeterminate age and a carton of eggs. I frowned. Sal normally kept his kitchen better stocked. Not eating could account for part of his bad mood. Werewolves needed a lot of calories to keep going.

  “How about I order us a pizza?” I offered. “We could play some cards or a board game or something?”

  “It’s a school night,” Hunter said, his voice flat. He turned to look out the front window toward our house. “I heard you two fighting outside.”

  I winced. It probably wasn’t easy on Hunter with things tense between Sal and me.

  “Everything’s going to be just fine,” I promised him. “Sal just needs some time to himself. There’s a lot going on.” I gave my son a gentle shove away from the fridge and felt his body stiffen under my hand. “Why don’t you go pick us out a movie to watch while I call in the pizza order?”

  Hunter picked out something zombie-related, and we watched it together after the pizza showed up. Well, mostly, he watched it. Dealing with undead things in real life meant I didn’t have much of a taste for fictional monsters. Besides, everything Hollywood did with zombies was totally wrong. This studio needed to fire their fact-checker since the last time I checked, covering yourself in guts didn’t do anything to hide you from zombies. It just made you smell bad.

  Instead, I settled in to browse the news on the internet, occasionally glancing up to watch the way the blue light of the television lit up Hunter’s face. I’d almost fallen asleep when he turned to me and said, “I’m worried about Sal.”

  I looked up from my phone. “What?”

  “Something’s wrong with him.”

  “Chanter’s health problems are stressing him out,” I said. It was only a half-truth, but I hoped it would be enough to calm Hunter’s worry for now. I agreed, though. Something was off with him and had been since the night before, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was either.

  Hunter let out a sigh and turned back to the screen. A bunch of zombies slowly lumbered down an abandoned city street after a screaming lady. Her screams only managed to draw more of them out after her. After a moment of staring at it, he reached out, grabbed the remote, and turned off the film.

  He yawned and stretched. “I’m tired,” he said, standing. “Man, I almost wish we didn’t have to go back home once things are fixed up. When Sal’s not being moody, this place isn’t so bad, you know?”

  I smiled and put down my phone. “Night, Hunter.”

  As he shambled down the hall for bed, I grabbed the uneaten pizza and took it to the fridge, exchanging it for a beer before kicking it closed. As tired as I was, I wasn’t relaxed enough to pass out, so I sorted through Sal’s DVDs, looking for something else to watch.

  I had it down to either The Untouchables or Chinatown when the landline rang. The digital clock on the wall ticked over to eleven thirty-six, too late for anyone but the pack or one of the Kings to be calling Sal. If it was Istaqua, I didn’t want to talk to him. On the off chance that it might be Chanter, I decided to answer the phone.

  “Sal’s phone. Judah speaking. Who’s this?”

  “Ah, I’m glad it’s you and not your boy, Ms. BSI.”

  It was Bran, and he sounded both winded and irritated. I almost hung up until I thought about what he’d said. Bran had called knowing Sal wouldn’t pick up. “What’s the matter, Bran?” There was a loud sound in the background. I thought it sounded like glass breaking. Something scuffed against the speaker of the phone, and Bran’s muffled voice called out in Japanese. At least, I think it was Japanese.

  “Everything okay there, Bran?”

  He returned to the phone with a grunt. “You had better come down here and get your boyfriend.”

  I pushed away from the counter I was leaning on. “Is he okay? What happened?”

  Bran sighed. “Nothing he won’t heal.” There was
a slight pause before he added, “I might have broken his nose. You’d better come quick. He’ll regain the ability to speak soon, and next time, it might not be me he picks a fight with. It will be someone who likes him a little less, I think.”

  “I’m on my way,” I promised and hung up.

  After I scrawled a quick note for Hunter in case he woke up, I grabbed my keys and headed out the door. The night air held a standard November chill, and I immediately regretted the tank top, at least without a jacket to accompany it. I had to hurry, though, so I didn’t go back for one. Bran and Sal had seemed pretty close before, always laughing and joking with each other. If they’d gotten into a fight, Sal must have gone looking for it. Given the mood he’d been in, I wasn’t surprised, but I was pissed.

  Back when Alex and I were married, I used to get calls like that all the time. One of his buddies would call me to come and pick him up because he’d gotten piss-drunk and picked a fight with someone twice his size. I swore up and down he did it just to irritate me. Now that I knew he’d been a werewolf, there was a part of me that wondered if it wasn’t just his way of letting the wolf out. I’d been pissed at him every time, too. Every time I picked him up, I gave him an earful and let him sleep it off on the sofa. I’d swear up and down that was the last time, but it never was. God, why had I been such a pushover? It made me a little ashamed of myself. I couldn’t let Sal get away with that. I wouldn’t repeat the same mistake twice.

  The roadhouse parking lot didn’t have any lights, but I could see the neon from a long way off. It was the only building out there in the middle of nowhere, making it even easier to find. The minute I pulled into the parking lot, the front door opened, and Bran stepped out. He was wearing his Kings’ vest, of course, and a white cotton shirt underneath that sported fresh bloodstains. He stopped in front of my car and waited for me to get out.