“Ohh, thanks for the idea!”
Lucas shakes his head, and I laugh. “Love potions don’t work, do they?”
“No, you can’t make someone love you. You can make someone think they do, but those feelings are obsessive, and they can turn dangerous. People do crazy things for the ones they love, and they tend to go completely homicidal when they’re forced into a fake obsessive type of relationship. But if all they need is a nudge in the right direction…”
“Don’t make me take your cauldron away from you.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
We laugh, and Lucas opens the door for me. The bar is busy tonight, with a live band playing. Eliza’s behind the counter, making drinks, and looks up as soon as we walk in. Moving at vampire speed, she finishes serving the customers and comes over.
“I can smell the magic coming off you from across the bar,” she tells me. “You’re like a walking Happy Meal for vampires.”
“Let them try and lay a fang on her,” Lucas says, and I roll my eyes. Vampires are stronger and faster than me, and a vampire Lucas’s age could easily best me, but I think I’ll take my chances with them.
Eliza’s perfectly lined lips move into a smile. “It’s good to see you two. What are you doing here…in a bar…when you’re pregnant?”
“I wanted to see you,” I tell her, knowing both she and Lucas miss not seeing each other as often. They were together for hundreds of years, and part of me honestly expected Eliza to move into the estate with us. I wouldn’t have minded if she and Lucas were a package deal, as long as she gave us space, which I’m sure she would. She likes it in Chicago, though, and having the fancy-pants Lincoln Park house is nice when we want to go to the city for a weekend or even just overnight. I know Lucas won’t sell that house for years, holding out as long as possible to make the biggest profit. “And I wasn’t quite ready to call it a night. We just had dinner.”
“You mean you did,” she says pointedly, overly concerned again that Lucas isn’t drinking enough of my blood, which he can’t do while I’m pregnant.
“I ate,” he says, sounding annoyed. He’s been a vampire long enough to know how to survive and won’t go without, since we need him at full strength. I move my hair to the side and show Eliza the fresh wounds on my neck.
“So it’s been a day?” Her eyebrows go up.
“Just a few hours.” I carefully touch the bites, surprised to feel them scabbed over and the skin around them isn’t tender anymore. “That healed fast.”
“Faster than usual,” Lucas notes, sweeping his fingers along my neck and making me shiver.
“The payroll reports are done and on the desk,” Eliza tells him. “And we got everything back from the accountants from the last year.”
“You want to go look at them, don’t you?” I ask Lucas. “It’s fine. Go look at the reports.”
“I love you,” he tells me, walking with us toward the bar but continuing on to go into the office.
“What do you want to drink?” Eliza asks, waving her hand at a guy sitting on a stool. “Let the pregnant lady have a seat at the bar.”
“Nice,” I tell her but gladly take the seat. “And make me something with cranberry juice.”
“Cranberry and seltzer?”
“Yeah, sounds good.”
I unzip my coat and take my phone from my purse, logging onto Instagram. Most of what is posted on Novel Grounds’ account is related to the store, but Kristy, Betty, and I have realized that people are liking the few and far between personal posts we put up, and I smile as I read through some of the responses to the photo I posted of Lucas and me at dinner.
“Hey,” a couple comes up to the bar, crowding in my personal space. They lean over, looking at Eliza. “You’re a vampire, aren’t you?”
I automatically go on high alert, and I sit up straighter, magic buzzing around my fingers.
“Who’s asking?” she replies, flashing her fangs.
Instead of pulling out a wooden stake, the girl holds up an old school Polaroid camera. “Can we get a picture with you?”
“Are you buying a drink?” She runs her tongue over the tip of her fangs. Both Eliza and the other vampire bartender, Rene, have said they get people coming in here just to get a drink served to them by a vampire.
“Yes, I want that, but can you make it redder?” the girl asks, pointing to my cranberry drink.
“Like blood?” Eliza asks.
“Oh my god, yes!” The girl turns to her boyfriend, who’s just as excited. Giving them her signature eyeball, Eliza mixes up a cranberry and vodka and serves it in Mason jars. I still find it amusing that someone like Lucas owns a place like this, but hey, it’s trendy and the hipster crowd has been very accepting of vampires.
“That’s the third one tonight,” she huffs when the couple walks away. “I should start charging for each little photo session, but Lucas would say that’s exploiting our nature.”
“I can see his point, though he likes money.” I take a sip of my cranberry drink and pick up my phone. “Want to take a photo with me?” I joke, though I really would like a picture. I don’t have many of us together, or of myself in general. The one photo I have of my mother is precious to me, and if something were to happen to me, I want my daughter to have something to look back on. It might piece together the mystery that’ll be left in my wake, and she won’t have to wonder as much what kind of person I was.
“Sure. Your tits look nice in that dress.”
“I had no idea the can of worms you seeing me naked would open.”
“What?” She shrugs. “I admire and appreciate all bodies. And yours just happens to be very nice.”
A lot of vampires are bisexual, and I suppose I might bat for the other team every now and then if I lived for hundreds of years. Well, and if I wasn’t married, though I’m not totally opposed to a threesome.
Eliza leans over the counter, and I turn around, holding up my phone for a picture.
“Oh, speaking of nice bodies,” she says when Easton’s name pops up on the screen. “He’s another one of your friends I’d like to taint with darkness.”
“Gross,” I say and lower my hand to answer. “Hello?”
“Hey, Callie. You’re in Chicago, right?”
“Yeah, how do you know that, you creep?”
“Melinda follows you on Instagram,” he tells me.
“Oh, right. Is everything okay?”
“I think so, but Melinda insisted I call you,” he says, and I can hear her in the background, telling him to give her the phone so she can talk to me.
“Why?”
“We have a demon,” he starts.
“Have?” I interrupt. “Like you have a demon problem, or you have a demon tied up in your living room?”
“Uh, tied up, but we’re in an abandoned building, not my living room.”
“And you need my help?”
“No. I can handle demons. This one, though, he’s a chatty son of a bitch and mentioned you by name.”
Chapter 12
“By name?” I repeat, even though I heard Easton loud and clear. “You’re sure he meant me?”
“Unless he’s talking about a different Callista.”
“What else did he say?”
“We don’t know. He’s only speaking Latin. Melinda is trying to transcribe some of it. You were taught Latin in school, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t do very well, and I’ve retained even less. Lucas speaks it, though.”
“Right, he’s old enough to have lived in a time when it wasn’t a dead language,” he says, and I’m not sure if he’s trying to insult me or not. Easton’s made it very clear that he doesn’t think I should have married a vampire, though he’s becoming more accepting of it. Or he’s finally realized nothing he says is going to change my mind, and he’s not really one to talk, considering he tricked me into a fake relationship that felt very real to me and ended when I realized his plan was to kill me all along.
>
“Where are you? I’m in Lincoln Park right now but can leave here ASAP.”
“Wicker Park. I’ll send you a pin with our location.”
“Be careful until I get there,” I tell him.
“I can handle a demon,” he repeats. “Be careful, too.”
“I always am.” I end the call and meet Eliza’s gaze. “A witch’s work is never done.”
“Apparently not. Have fun telling Lucas you’re back to hunting demons.”
“I’m not hunting this one. It’s already been hunted and is tied up and waiting for me to force answers out of him,” I say, forgetting I’m in a public setting, which isn’t the first time I’ve said something out loud like this. I avoid the curious looks from the patrons going up to get a drink from Vampire Barbie as they call Eliza, which is a very accurate name, by the way. She’s impossibly gorgeous, with long, blond hair, perfectly winged eyeliner, and likes to dress in pastel colors more often than not.
The office door is closed but not locked, and Lucas is sitting at the desk, looking over the reports.
“So I have some interesting news.” I close the door behind me and go over to the desk. “Easton just called and—”
“I’m blocking his number.”
“No, you’re not.”
“You’re mine, he has feelings for you, and I don’t like him calling you.”
“I am yours,” I say, dropping my purse and coat on the little tufted bench in front of the desk. “By choice because I just happen to, you know, love you. I can be friends with Easton.”
“But I don’t have to like it.”
“Vampire possessiveness aside, you’ll want to hear this.”
Lucas closes the laptop, which has a pink sparkly skin, and looks at me. “Okay.”
“They have a demon who’s only speaking Latin but did say the name Callista, and there’s a good chance that demon is talking about me.”
“They currently have it?”
“Yeah, tied up in some building in Wicker Park. They don’t know what he’s saying since they don’t speak Latin.”
“Typical uneducated hunters.”
I ignore his comment, though there is some truth to it. Most hunters don’t receive a traditional education. Only the lucky ones graduate from high school. I’m not sure if Easton ever went back and got his GED or not, but I do know he made sure Melinda was able to not only graduate, but finish her senior year at the same school because she’d made friends.
“My Latin ain’t what it used to be, either.”
Lucas comes around the desk, buttoning his suit jacket once he stands. “Do you need anything?”
“I think I have everything I need.” I hold up my hand, and bright blue magic crackles. “Besides, I do remember two Latin words.”
“The hand trick Lucifer taught you.”
“I really shouldn’t have phrased it that way.”
He smiles and puts one hand on the small of my back and the other on my stomach. “You are my badass, fearless, and quite dangerous witch, but please, my love, leave the impulsiveness to me tonight.”
“I will. I promise. This demon is already caught and tied up. I’m just going to question it.”
“Do you have an address?”
“Yeah, Easton sent me his location.” I get my phone from my purse and show Lucas the address. “I’m not familiar with this part of Wicker Park.”
“I think I know the general area. If I’m right, it’s in one of the busier parts of town. Wicker Park had a decent nightlife.” He picks up my coat and holds it for me to put on. “Ready?”
“Let me pee first. Meet me by the bar? Eliza will want to say bye to you, I’m sure.”
“She will, and I’ll be there.”
I give him my coat and purse, not wanting to take it with me, and hurry to the bathroom, thankful there’s no line today. Lucas is leaning against the bar when I get back, either unaware or totally unfazed by the attention he’s getting. If people come here knowing Eliza is a vampire, then someone had to have recognized Lucas. Though even if you didn’t know he was undead, him in a suit is like sex on a stick.
“Good luck,” Eliza says, eyes narrowing. “Is that the right thing to say? Maybe I should say don’t die instead?”
“That’s always the base of my plan,” I tell her, sticking my arms through my coat sleeves. “Don’t die and kill the bad guys in the process.”
“Let me know what this asshole has to say, not that I care,” she quickly adds. “It’s a slow night and I’m bored. Spilling the demonic tea will be slightly entertaining.”
It’s far from a slow night, but I don’t push it. Eliza’s refusal to let people see how much cares probably has some deep psychological scar, probably from when Lucas left her in the ground, trying not to care himself.
“I’ll text you,” I tell her. Lucas gives her a hug and kisses her forehead, saying something to her in French. I really need to pick up Rosetta Stone and learn the language. I hike my purse up over my shoulder and take Lucas’s hand, walking out into the cold night.
“We’re not too far,” I say, knowing a ten-minute drive could easily take half an hour if we hit any sort of traffic. It’s late on a Friday, so we’re past rush hour at least.
“Oh wow,” I say when we pull onto the street of the abandoned building. “You weren’t kidding about it being busy.”
“I considered opening the bar here,” he tells me.
“Why didn’t you?”
“There were too many other similar bars in the area.”
“That’s a good reason.” We drive another few minutes and then pull over, finding a parking spot a ways down from the building. “I assumed abandoned meant old and isolated,” I say when we dodge around the back of a former yoga studio. I pull my gloves off and send Easton a text, letting him know we’re here. “Though a heated building would have been nice.”
Melinda opens the door for us, and we slip in hopefully unnoticed.
“Hey, guys,” she says, clicking on a flashlight. The room is still dimly lit, so I conjure an energy ball to hold out in front of us.
“Any updates?” I ask, looking at the posters on the wall depicting different yoga poses.
“Nope. He’s just mumbling the same thing over and over, but he’s talking so low and fast I can’t make anything out to translate. He did seem surprised when we recognized your name. I got the feeling he wasn’t supposed to let anyone know about it or something. It was the only time he quieted down for a while.”
“How did you find the demon?”
“He popped up on our radar when we heard reports of Kenny Gray, who died of a heart attack this morning, walking out of the morgue.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty obvious. And if he’s possessing a dead body, he’s probably a lower-level demon. Does he have signs of powers?”
“No, thankfully. Those suckers are quite a fight.” She looks at the glowing ball of magic floating before me. “That would be useful.”
“It comes in handy more often than you’d think.”
We go up a flight of stairs and into a room that I think was used for barre classes, judging by the wall of mirrors with a bar running through the middle. The demon is sitting tied to a chair in a circle of salt. His head is bowed down, and I get what Melinda was saying about not being able to discern anything this demon is saying. He’s mumbling, and it sounds like gibberish.
Easton is slowly walking around the demon, gun in one hand and a bottle of holy water in the other. He and Melinda are similarly dressed in what I call the unofficial demon hunter uniform of hiking boots, jeans, some sort of flannel or sweatshirt, and a Carhartt jacket.
The demon jerks his head up, black eyes shimmering from the reflection of my energy ball. He’s still muttering the same thing over and over, but his voice gets louder the closer I get.
“Do you know what he’s saying?” Melinda quietly asks Lucas.
“Yes. He’s saying, ‘I’m going to find her and give her to him,’ and
I assume he means Callie,” he tells us and draws his fangs.
I toss the energy ball up into the air, hovering just a foot above the demon. He doesn’t so much as flinch.
“I heard you were talking about me,” I try, but the demon keeps mumbling. “I’m Callista. If you want me, come get me.”
Still nothing.
“Fine. If I’m not good enough for you, then I’ll see if one of your friends wants me.” I turn to Melinda. “Can I borrow your knife?”
“Sure.” She pulls a knife from her ankle and hands it to me. I put the blade against my wrist and hold out my arm.
“Hey, demons! I’m Callista, and I hear I’d make a really nice gift for one of your cronies!”
The demon suddenly lurches forward, scooting the chair and causing one of the legs to push into the ring of salt, breaking the circle. He opens his mouth, letting out a harrowing roar, and breaks one arm free from the ropes, tearing his skin open in the process.
Lucas speeds forward, shoving the demon back down, gnashing his fangs at him. The demon struggles against him, but he’s no match for my vampire’s strength.
“Do you have any more rope?” I ask, and Easton pulls a decent length from a duffle bag. He gets the demon tied back down, and I wait until Lucas steps away to cast my own circle around him, trapping him to the space. It’s a basic demonic-trapping spell, one that won’t hold anything stronger than a lower-level demon, and one that wears off rather quickly. It’s just another layer of reassurance, keeping the asshole in his place.
“Power of the moon, power of the night, bind this space, hold my circle tight.” I wave my hand, and faint blue light glows along the salt circle for a second before fading from view.
“What happened to not doing anything impulsive?” Lucas grumbles, and I give him a pointed look.
“It got his attention, and it proves he was talking about me. Of course,” I sigh and give the knife back to Melinda. “All right, start talking. And normally, I’d say we both know how this will end—with your death. But I’m in the mood to make a deal.” I take a step closer to the demon. “You tell me exactly who you were going to wrap me up and send me to, and I’ll send you back to Hell—alive—so you can give the other demons a warning.”
Reign of Night (The Thorne Hill Series Book 7) Page 11