Dark of Night

by Emily Goodwin

  The Ley line.

  Twice in the last week, it’s felt weird. The Ley line affects everyone in this town, even though they have no idea it’s even here. I couldn’t say exactly what was wrong with the Ley line, other than it felt weird. Did I dismiss it too easily?

  “I love you.” Kristy takes the iced coffee from my hand.

  “I know.”

  “Seriously, though, I need the caffeine right now. And maybe a shot of vodka.”

  “Then you’re really going to love this.” I open the lid to a sheet cake. “I kept my promise and brought you cake.”

  “Happy First Birthday?” Kristy reads, cocking an eyebrow.

  “You get a free smash-cake when you order a first birthday cake.

  Kristy tips her head, looking at me. “You never fail to impress me, Cal.”

  “I’m a genius, I know.” I go around the counter. “Have people been assholes all day?”

  “Yes! It’s like every other person in here has something to complain about.”

  Crap. That’s what I was afraid of. I decided to stop by our bookstore on the way home from getting groceries to not only thank Kristy again for finding someone to cover my shift tonight by bringing her the cake I promised as well as coffee, but to check in on how things were going.

  “It’s taking all I have not to snap back,” Kristy confesses. “Even Betty is getting there, and she’s the nicest person in this town.”

  “Remember the other day how I said something felt weird about the Ley line?”

  Kristy’s eyebrows go up. “You don’t think—” She cuts off when a customer comes up, complaining that we sold out of a new release already and now her whole day is ruined because of it.

  “Is it terrible I wish something is wrong with the Ley line?” Kristy heavily sits on the stool behind the counter. “At least that way people aren’t actually turning into assholes.”

  “Right?” I pop the lid off the cake I bought and hand Kristy a fork. Yes, we’re eating it right out of the box. I sink my fork in and take a bite. “I’ll go investigate when I get home.”

  “Speaking of home…” She gets a forkful of frosting. “Everything is okay there?”

  “As okay as it will be. Scott is gone, thankfully.” I take another bite of cake. “I told Lucas everything.”

  “Everything, everything?”

  “I didn’t write a novel, but yeah. He knows how I was sold, tested and tortured, and how Tabatha came to get me.”

  “I’m surprised he didn’t rip your father apart last night.”

  “He wants to. He wanted to back at Penny’s party.” I regret admitting that the moment the words leave my lips. Just last night, Tabatha, Evander, and Kristy told me they are worried Lucas is going to cross a line he can’t uncross. “But he won’t. He won’t do anything I don’t want him to.”

  Kristy just nods and looks down at the cake again. “This is good. You know I love buttercream frosting.”

  “It’s the best. Anyone who prefers whipped has something wrong with them.”

  Kristy laughs. “Right? I’m going to emotionally eat this the rest of the day in order to avoid cursing people.”

  “I say curse ‘em.”

  “Now I’m really glad I got Vanessa to come in for you tonight.”

  “Want me to come back after I unload my groceries?”

  “No, I’m leaving in like an hour anyway. But thanks.”

  “Call me if you need anything.” I take one more bite of cake and head out, slowly walking down the sidewalk. I’m almost directly over the Ley line and everything feels normal. Stopping by a manhole cover in the sidewalk, I drop down to my knee and pretend to tie my already-tied boot. Holding my hand over the cover, I read the energy coming from inside.

  I almost don’t feel it at first, it’s so slight. But the energy is pulsing, like a heartbeat.

  “Shit,” I say out loud this time. The energy flows, coming off stronger some days than others. But it shouldn’t pulse like this. Looking back at the store, I debate on going in and telling Kristy. She’s stressed enough as it is from dealing with crabby people all day.

  I hurry to my Jeep, needing to make it home fast before my cold food items spoil in the heat, and to send my familiars out to investigate. If something is going on with the Ley line, the coven needs to be alerted right away. This isn’t something to mess around with, and even though calling the Grand Coven back is the last thing I need right now, they’ll have to come.

  Protecting the Ley lines is a priority.

  I pull the Jeep around back, parking as close as I can to the back porch. I grab my bags of cold items first, taking them in to put away. Binx comes to greet me as soon as I’m through the door, and Pandora and Freya want to know what kind of food I bought for them. I ask them to go look into the Ley line and promise I’ll make them food once they get back.

  I put my freezer items away first, glad my ice cream didn’t melt, and then go into the living room to look for Lucas. What I see makes my heart stop and heat as hot as the sun wash over me.

  He’s sleeping on the couch—naked—with his face turned up to the sun. There’s no gentle rise and fall of his chest as he sleeps. No soft breathing. When vampires sleep, they truly look dead.

  Smiling, I take a moment to appreciate his glorious body, and then sneak back out to bring in the rest of the food. I’ve put almost everything away when he wakes up, coming into the kitchen.

  And he’s still naked. Damn, I’m a lucky witch.

  “You seem to have lost all your clothes.” I shove a can of soup into my now-full cabinets.

  Lucas looks down at his body, acting startled. “I hate when that happens.”

  I laugh and cross the room, going over to him. He takes me in his arms, and his skin is warm from the sunlight streaming down on him, and now it makes sense why he took his clothes off. After over sixteen-hundred years of living in the dark, I’d sunbathe naked too.

  “Did you freak Eliza out?”

  “I did.” He grins. “It was fun.”

  “Everything is okay at the bar?” I ask, fearing a bit for the answer. The health code violations were fake, but if word got out there were rats at The Taproom, people might not want to go.

  “Yes,” Lucas says, and I let out a breath of relief. “Luckily, Mondays aren’t busy days for us anyway.”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  Lucas smooths my hair back. “We’re still on track for a boring afternoon.”

  “Let’s hope so. What do you want to do for our date tonight?”

  “I made us a reservation at Almeida for eleven-thirty.”

  Almeida was a swanky restaurant that became incredibly popular after extending their hours and serving top-shelf human blood, bringing some of the older and wealthier vampires in from all around the country. And rich humans find the vampires to add something exclusive about the experience, making it one of the top places to eat in all of Chicago. I blink. “That place books months in advance! How did you get a table?”

  Lucas smirks. “I have my ways.” He leans down and kisses me, reminding me that’s he’s very much naked right now. His hand goes up my shirt, unhooking my bra.

  “So, we’re meeting with the bank after sunset to finalize the house stuff, and then we’ll leave?”

  Lucas nods. “Yes, and I want you to come with me because I’m putting the house in your name too. I want it to be our house.”

  I already knew he was doing that, but hearing him say it out loud brings a big smile to my face. “I want it to be our house too.”

  “I love you, Callie.” He tips my head up to his, and my heart skips a beat. In a swift movement, he picks me up and carries up upstairs. The rest of the afternoon isn’t going to be so boring after all.

  Chapter 18

  I’m back in the woods.

  All light is gone, save for the glowing blue flames in front of me. The hellfire retreats, surrounding the demon. I stand in the flames, watching myself command the fire.
The blue-eyed man is next to me, watching everything play out along with me.

  “Why are you showing me this again?” I ask, but my voice is lost to the flames. Suddenly, the flames go out, and I hear Lucas calling my name.

  My eyes flutter open, and I blink away the last remnants of the dream. I fell asleep after having sex, and Lucas’s body is spooned around mine. It’s getting later in the afternoon, and he’s used to being asleep right now. I’d love to go back to sleep too, but I’m all jittery from that dream.

  Maybe Lucas was right and it’s a nightmare. It was pretty traumatic, after all. I wouldn’t be surprised to keep dreaming about it. But I know it’s not just a dream.

  The blue-eyed man is trying to tell me something…but I have no idea what. I’ve lived through that moment three times now. Once in real time and twice in my dreams.

  “I’m going to go for a run,” I tell Lucas, getting out of bed and stretching my arms over my head. “Just a quick one. I’ll be back by sunset.”

  “You want to check out our house, don’t you?” He lazily rolls over, pulling the sheet over his long legs.

  I smile. “I do. It sounds so good to say it like that. Our house. I can’t believe it’ll be ours tonight.”

  “Believe it, my love.”

  Giving him a kiss, I grab my workout clothes and go into the bathroom to get dressed. I do want to look at the house during the daylight, but I also want to check out the Ley line myself before leaving for the night. I’m bound and determined to have a date with Lucas tonight. I want to go to Chicago, eat fancy food, have one too many glasses of overpriced wine, and end the night in his bedroom, bleeding for my undead lover.

  But I have to be sure the Ley line isn’t leaking magical energy or something before I can leave.

  My familiars didn’t find anything when they canvased the woods not that long ago. It’s the same thing that happened before, and I know I’m missing something. I felt the Ley line pulse. People all over town are acting a fool.

  Something is going on, and I’m not going to just pack up and leave town before I’m sure it’s safe to do so.

  But dammit, I want to eat a piece of hundred-dollar tiramisu.

  “Come on,” I say to Binx when I get into the kitchen. I pull my hair into a ponytail and step out onto the porch, walking fast down the driveway as a warmup and then stop to stretch my muscles.

  “You don’t feel anything, do you?” I ask Binx, who shadows down the road.

  “Nothing,” he says, deep voice echoing through the air. “Nothing right now. That’s not to say it’ll stay that way.”

  “Lucas was right.” I take off. “I am the optimist out of all of us.” I stick to my usual route, heading down the road and in the direction of the house that will soon be in my name. Binx and I slow when we get to the overgrown driveway, and I turn off the road and jog to the house.

  “This is going to be ours soon,” I tell him. As a spirit, he doesn’t really care, but as my spirit, what makes me happy makes him happy. He shifts into cat form and walks with me up to the big front porch.

  “Just think of all the sun bathing you can do on this big porch.” I carefully move along the weak wooden floorboards, not wanting to cave through. “Want to take a look inside?” I ask Binx, going to the front door. It’s locked, and I hold my hand up, using magic to unlock it.

  The front door creaks open, and I toss up an energy ball, illuminating the large two-story foyer. I run my eyes up the wide staircase, following along the path of the balcony. I can see it all decorated for Christmas, like I told Lucas, and feel my heart fluttering at the thought.

  “We can make it look really cool for Halloween too.” I spread my hand open more, and the energy ball glows brighter. I could spend the rest of the evening looking through this house, plotting and planning for how we’re going to restore and decorate this place.

  “You’re right,” I tell Binx, who’s reminding me I need to go back onto the road to finish my run and feel for weird energy coming off the Ley line…and then be back in time to go to the title company to make this house ours.

  I lock the front door and jump off the porch steps. The moment my feet hit the dirt, Binx growls. I jerk my head to the side, feeling the shift in energy only seconds after he did. The scent of rotting garbage wafts from the woods, twisting my stomach.

  “Scrappers.” I look at Binx. “I was wondering when the others would show up.”

  I hold out my hand, conjuring a string of magic. “Let’s go get them.” Scrapper demons are easy to kill and are almost fun to hunt. Okay…they are fun because they’re so easy.

  They’re the bottom of the barrel when it comes to lower-level demons, following behind other demons and eating their leftovers, which is how they got the nickname of scrappers. One energy ball to the chest is enough to stop a scrapper, though Lucas’s method of ripping out their hearts seems to work well too.

  Binx walks along next to me as we go around the big house and toward the woods. The woods that run behind this house are the same that go behind my small brick house, which houses the door to our coven and direct access to the Ley line.

  I toss up the energy ball, watching it explode into a million tiny pieces of blue light. Scrappers are attracted to magic, not smart enough to be able to discern between good magic and demonic magic. All I have to do is watch and wait for the scrapper to come out, hoping to find some sort of leftover to eat, and I can hit it with another energy ball.

  But it doesn’t come out of the woods.

  The smell of rotting gets stronger, so I know it’s there.

  “What the heck?” I throw another energy ball into the air…and nothing. I look at Binx, who gives me a curt nod. We take off toward the trees, breaking into a sprint. Magic sizzles around my fingers, ready to hit the scrapper demon.

  As soon as we step into the forest, I feel something else. The Ley line is pulsing again, but this time, it’s like there’s a cut, and it’s bleeding magic. It’s pouring out with each heartbeat, making me almost feel dizzy from the increase of power.

  “What the fuck?” I mutter, wide-eyed and looking at my familiar. It’s like someone tapped into it and magic is streaming out of the hole faster than they can handle. I wave my hand in front of my face, swatting mosquitoes away. I’m in the woods now, and the thick canvas of trees cools the air, bringing some relief from the heat of the day.

  I follow the pull of the magic and then stop, unable to tell where it’s coming from anymore because it feels like it’s all around me.

  “That’s never good,” I mumble. The energy is coming off in waves, making me a little jittery. I crouch down, planting my hands on the soil beneath me to help ground myself. Something moves through the trees behind me, and I jerk up, spinning around. The energy shifts, and this time I know it’s dark.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” I call to the demon lurking in the shadows. “I can see you.” I bend my elbow, bringing one hand up in front of me. Magic buzzes around my fingers but I don’t conjure an energy ball just yet. Lower-level demons are easy prey and seeing me holding raw energy in my hands might send them running. Then something moves behind me, and I whirl around, blue energy pouring from my fingers. The demon takes off with a grunt.

  “Dammit.” I release the energy and take off after it, jumping over a fallen tree and stumbling my way through a thick of thorn bushes. The flesh on my legs tears open, but I don’t have time to stop and acknowledge the pain. Not when there’s a demon just feet ahead of me.

  Spotting the demon, I conjure another energy ball and throw it. It hits the demon in between its shoulders, causing it to fall to the ground, trembling like I hit it with a taser. It’s twitching by the time I get to it, mouth open and jagged yellow teeth bared.

  It’s a scrapper, for sure. One hit from an energy ball should have killed this fucker, and yet it’s on the ground in front of me, fighting against the magic and trying to get up.

  I rub my thumb over my fingers, conjuri
ng up another string of magic and throw it down at the demon. This time, the energy goes right into its chest, causing it to explode.

  “I did not think that through,” I grumble, flicking demon bits from my hand. “Gross.” I let out a sigh. At least I don’t have a body to bury. I take a few steps away and use leaves to wipe what I can off my hands and legs.

  Binx’s dark shadow circles around me for a few seconds before zooming forward, able to sense something I can’t. I hold out my hand, conjuring another blue energy ball, and suck in a breath as I listen to the forest.

  Something is moving toward us, and it’s coming fast. The energy is all chaotic again, making it hard to tell just where it’s coming from. I whirl around, hearing tree branches snap behind me.

  Two more scrapper demons barrel at me. They’re twice the size of the one I just killed and have glowing yellow eyes and long talons.

  “What the hell?” I ask, so stunned I almost miss my chance to throw the energy ball. But the scrapper holds up his hand, blocking my magic. He shouldn’t be able to do that.

  Binx shadows past again, knocking one to the ground. I throw my arms out this time, sending a wave of telekinetic energy at the scrapper who deflected the energy ball. It’s thrown back, head whacking against the large trunk of an oak tree. The force was enough to crack open the scrapper’s skull, but that doesn’t slow him down.

  “Why aren’t they dying?” I shout to my familiar as I conjure more energy. The scrapper comes at me again, and I plant one foot hard on the ground, holding steady as it races toward me. The energy in my hands glows brighter, and my heart hammers.

  At the last second, I turn my head and release the energy, sending it deep into the scrapper. It runs through his body, lighting up every single vein from the inside out. Light pours from his eyes, and he lets out a harrowing scream before he explodes.

  The force of the blast knocks me to the ground, and I cover my face with my hands, keeping demon parts out of my eyes. Binx has the other scrapper pinned to the ground. His face is right up to the demon’s face, but instead of killing the demon, he’s trying to get a read on him, trying to figure out why these bottom-of-the-barrel demons are giving us a run for our money.