The Bone Coven Chronicles: The Complete Series Page 23

  “Yep, of course!” Her voice was too bright, too cheerful, a sure sign she wasn’t as happy as she wanted me to think. “The dog is just having some training issues.”

  “No kidding.” Pressing my lips together, I tried to find the right words to say. “Speaking of, is there any way you can work on the howling? It’s starting to creep out the customers. What with the rumors about ghosts and demons flying around, they’re starting to think the place is haunted. We’ve had at least twenty people leave tonight because of it.”

  Juno sighed and slumped onto the shredded couch, her shoulders sagging. “I’m sorry, Zoe. Things have just been so crazy lately. What with the dog acting up and my own demon problem.”

  My grip tightened on the beer bottle I still held, and my breath froze in my lungs. There was no way I’d just heard what I thought I’d heard. “Your own demon problem? What are you talking about?”

  Juno was one-hundred percent human, but she and Nathan had become close over the past few months. He’d told her everything about the supernatural world, despite my repeated requests to keep the whole thing a secret. The night he’d been kidnapped by the vampires had really shaken him, and he hadn’t been the same ever since. Juno had been there for him in ways I couldn’t be. So, she knew every morbid detail, minus the truth about my shadow powers. Because even Nathan didn’t know that.

  “Here, let me have that. I think I need it,” she said, reaching for the beer that I gladly dropped into her hands. After a long gulp of the bitter liquid, she shoved her fingers into her mess of red hair and closed her eyes. “There’s a demon in my mechanic shop. It actually keeps to itself most of the time, but it’s attacked customers a couple of times.”

  “Attacked.” I blinked and eased onto the edge of her destroyed coffee table. The likelihood of a demon being loose in an auto repair shop was next to none. For a year, I’d taken on cases from people who thought they were being tormented by demons, only to discover there were a hell of a lot of humans who had overactive imaginations. Only one case had been real, but that time didn’t count. Because that client hadn’t been human. He’d been fae.

  “The other day, a customer crumpled to the floor, jerking like some kind of ghost was attacking him.” Juno shuddered. “Nathan said it sounded like a demon attack.”

  “Juno,” I said quietly, not knowing how to word this without coming across like I was being too dismissive. “Nathan wasn’t wrong. That’s what a demon attack looks like, but this man was probably just having a seizure. In all my time spent hunting demons, it was extremely rare for me to actually come across one.”

  “That’s right.” She lifted her gaze to meet mine, peering out through her messy red strands. Her eyes were ringed by dark eyeliner, highlighting the haunted look on her face. Even if she wasn’t being targeted by a demon, she truly thought she was. “You used to hunt demons, didn’t you? You handled this kind of thing all the time. Before you joined the witch squad.”

  “It’s not…” I shook my head at the term ‘witch squad’ but decided not to correct her. “Yes, I did. In a way. But I don’t do that anymore unless it’s official Enforcer business, and even then…There just aren’t any demons around to banish.”

  In other words, I’d stopped conning people. There was no need to anymore. With the bartender job and the Enforcer salary, I was finally able to pay rent on time and put more than just ramen noodles on the table. No more crime for me. Every now and then, I still felt the siren call deep down inside, the pull to skirt the line between right and wrong. But I knew that was just my shadow nature talking, trying to lure me back into the darkness.

  “Can you get rid of it for me?” She took another swig of the beer and gestured at the mess around us. “Please? I could really use some help right now.”

  “I ah…” I should say no. Turn around and walk away from this as fast as I could. Because the truth was, it was highly unlikely that Juno had an actual demon lurking in her auto repair shop. The veil between realms had been strengthened after the war, and demons were rarely able to break through. But she looked so hopeful and sad, slouching there on her chewed-up couch that I couldn’t bring myself to turn her down.

  “Have you seen any kind of markings on your floor? Something that looks like this?” I whipped my phone from my pocket and scrolled through my photos to find an image of a typical summoning rune.

  Juno frowned and shook her head. “No, nothing like that.”

  Sighing, I slid my phone back into my pocket. Despite her hound from hell, Juno was one of the most easy-going people I’d ever met. Kind and generous and loyal to a fault. She’d done a lot for Nathan. For that, I felt I owed her, especially since I was the one who had gotten him sucked into the vampire mess in the first place. And I didn’t know how to tell her that it was all in her imagination, brought on by any number of things. Stress, fear, past trauma, sleep deprivation, drugs. She didn’t seem like the kind of person to suffer from any of those things, but I wasn’t a stranger to hiding the real truth about myself from the rest of the world.

  “I can pay you,” she said quickly as if she could sense my hesitation. “How much do you charge?”

  “Keep your cash. For a friend, it’s free.” I held up a hand when she began to smile. “But I’m not promising anything. I’ll come by and take a look at the shop, but I have to be honest with you. What you’re dealing with doesn’t sound like a demon. You sure it isn’t your dog wreaking havoc?”

  The last bit was a joke, but Juno’s face clouded over as if a dangerous storm had suddenly rolled across the blotchy ceiling. Maybe I really had read her wrong. Maybe there was more troubling her than it seemed. Could she really have a demon in her shop? It seemed hard to imagine, but for her, I’d check things out.

  “So, we good?” I raised my eyebrows and stood. “I’ll check out your demon problem, and you’ll work on training your dog. Deal?”

  She nodded, swallowing hard. “You won’t hear another peep from him tonight. I promise.”

  “What did she say?” Laura asked when I rejoined her behind the bar. Nathan had finally shown up, hair frazzled and eyes sunken. Frankly, he looked like shit. A pang went through my heart. I hated that he was struggling so hard to come to terms with what had happened. It was so bad that sometimes I couldn’t help but wonder if there was more to that night than what he’d shared.

  According to him, the vampires had found him closing up Blue Moon Tavern. After he’d tried putting up a fight, they’d stuffed him into the trunk of a car before bringing him to Dorian’s apartment to make the deal. The problem with that story? There were hours in between that weren’t accounted for. At first, I’d been scared that they’d drained all his blood, but there were no teeth marks on his neck, and he’d recovered fast enough.

  “She’s going to keep the dog quiet, but Laura….” I turned my back to Anastasia who could hear us even though I’d dropped my voice to a whisper. Vampire hearing was the worst. “Juno thinks she has a demon in her shop, and she looked spooked. I’m starting to think you know who’s emotional state is rubbing off on her.”

  Laura flicked her gaze to where Nathan stood by the stockroom door, rubbing his purple-ringed eyes. “He looks hungover again. The poor guy. You don’t think Juno is dealing with a real demon, do you?”

  “Do you?” I smiled at a customer, took his drink order, and turned back toward the beer tap. “I mean, what would be the odds of that actually happening? To someone we know?”

  “Three months ago, I would have said the odds were pretty fucking close to zero.” Laura frowned, pausing as she balanced four full pint glasses. “But now? I don’t know, Zoe. I think anything is possible. Look at how things are in our lives. I’m a blood witch. Your partner is a cursed vampire. And you killed a guy inside the demon realm.”

  Well, when she put it like that…

  Nathan edged toward us as he grabbed a bar rag from behind the counter. I fell silent, not wanting him to overhear our conversation. “Did I hear you
guys say something about Juno’s dog?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I had to go talk to her about him. He’s freaking people out. Have you heard the rumors going around? People are starting to say this place is haunted. If this keeps up, we’ll only be left with vampires as customers.”

  He winced and turned away. “Well, we definitely wouldn’t want that.”

  “Sorry,” I said quickly. “I know it’s a sore issue for you, but—”

  The door slammed open and hit the wall with a loud crack. Three girls piled into the room, their faces white and their hands clutched into fists by their sides. Once again, the entire bar fell silent. Only this time, I didn’t try to turn up the noise.

  “This place really is haunted,” one of the girls said, her voice wobbling. “And someone’s been murdered.”

  Chapter 2

  Everyone piled onto the sidewalk in a giant wave, Laura and I caught up in the current of frantic bodies. Half of the crowd wanted to flee faster than their feet could take them. The other half? Well, they wanted to take a good look at the body, particularly the vampires. Because Daywalkers tended to feed from willing humans they liked to dub blood bags, they didn’t usually feel the need to kill. But a fresh body? I shivered, not daring to imagine how tempting that would be.

  Laura and I shoved our way to the front of the crowd. The body was in the alley behind the bar, and the small space was far too cramped for all the rubberneckers to fit. The two of us managed to squeeze our way in, but once I got a better look at what had happened, I almost regretted the decision. It was a girl. Young from what I could tell, but she was in such bad shape that I couldn’t be certain of her age. The body reeked of death and blood. Both of her eyes had been gouged out of the sockets, and deep claw marks were raked across her neck.

  Nausea bubbled up in my throat as I stumbled back, horror filling my gut. Since becoming involved in coven business, I’d seen my fair share of dead bodies but none like this. This…this was something else. Several shades past violent and more gruesome than I’d ever seen. Whoever had done this hadn’t just meant to kill the woman. They’d meant to destroy her.

  “Holy shit.” Laura gasped. She pressed her hands against her stomach and turned away, her face the same shade as the white blonde streaks in her hair.

  My throat choked around my words when I finally found the will to speak. “We need to call the police.”

  “I don’t think it’s the police we need to call, Zoe.” She took a deep breath and turned back toward the body, inching closer to the gruesome display. My voice bubbled up in my throat to warn her to stop, but I was far too full of horror to do anything but watch. Kneeling down next to the body, she took in a sharp breath and squinted at the neck where the wound was oozing blood.

  For a moment, I thought she might be gazing at the carnage the same way she’d gazed at Dorian’s blood bags. As a blood mage, she was intrigued by the bright red liquid in a way I would never understand, though I imagined it was similar to the way I felt drawn to the darkness.

  “We need to call Dorian,” she said in a whisper. “This isn’t just any murder, Zoe. This girl here? She was a blood mage.”

  The words clanged against my skull as if they were in a foreign language, one I was unable to speak. How could that even be possible? For one, there were very few members of the Blood Coven in the area. For another, why the hell had she ended up here, of all places? The Blood Coven and the Daywalkers had an alliance, just like we did, but the two of them were still mortal enemies. The feud went back centuries to when the Blood Coven created Slayers with the intent to destroy all vampires, not just the Nosferatu. If it weren’t for the shaky alliance, they’d still be creating them to this day. And the Daywalkers knew it. Other than Laura, a blood mage wouldn’t be caught dead at a bar where vamps hung out on a nightly basis.

  “Listen,” I said, turning toward the crowd. First things first, we needed to get all these people out of here. Otherwise, this situation could escalate in a way we wouldn’t be able to control. “Everyone just go on home. This is a crime scene, and this many people will just get in the way.”

  And destroy the evidence, if there was any.

  Anastasia was at the front of the crowd because of course she was. She didn’t strike me as the type to miss out on a dead body in an alley. She crossed her arms over her chest and gave me a glittering stare. “You aren’t a cop. Why should we listen to you?”

  “No, I’m not a cop.” Narrowing my eyes, I lowered my voice so that only Anastasia and the rest of the vampires could hear my next words. “But I am an Enforcer for the Bone Coven, and they would say the same. Everyone needs to go home. Now.”

  It took awhile to clear the area, but the crowd finally thinned until there was no one left but me and Laura. Even Nathan had gone home, probably freaked out by what had happened. He hadn’t recovered enough to handle day-to-day life very well, much less a murder at his place of work. I should call and check in on him, but that would have to wait until later. First things first, we needed to take care of the body.

  “Zoe.” Dorian shook his head when he joined us in the alley. With the sun down, he had no need to don his trench coat, his hat, or his sunglasses. So, instead, he wore a tight black t-shirt that rippled as he moved, his thick muscles straining against the thin material. “I thought we’d left all your dead body finding days behind us.”

  “Yeah, well.” I crossed my arms and jerked my head toward the body. “Hard to leave something behind when there are so many asshole murderers in this world.”

  He gave me a sad smile and moved closer to the body, letting out a low whistle at what he saw. “I have to admit, I didn’t quite believe it was as bad as what you told me on the phone. Unfortunately, it’s worse.”

  “She’s a blood mage,” Laura said, her eyes glistening with tears. “Or was, I guess.”

  Dorian nodded and knelt down to examine the wound. I couldn’t help but notice how his body reacted to the sight—and probably scent—of so much blood. Every muscle in his back and neck went tight, and he pressed a white-knuckled fist against his nose, the bottom of his chin trembling. Even though his vampire nature had been cursed upon him, he still craved blood like any other bloodsucker in the world. And he had to drink it in order to survive. Sometimes, I thought he even desired it, but if he did, he’d never admit it, least of all to me.

  “That’s a Blood Coven mark, alright.” With a deep sigh, he pressed his fingers to his forehead. “They’re not going to respond well to this.”

  “Why?” I asked with a frown. A long time ago, the covens had been enemies of each other. Battles were fought and wars were waged. But there had been peace for so long that the fighting was only a distant memory written in books. There was no reason to assume they’d get angry about this, at least not toward us.

  Dorian stood and moved back to my side, his body relaxing now that he’d put some space between himself and the body. “Things have been tense since we captured Ivan Wagner. They want him returned to them unharmed, particularly since they believe he was merely coerced by Vincent. They think he should be given a reprieve and let off with a slap on the wrist. Plus, they aren’t particularly happy that Laura has chosen to stay within Bone Coven territory. They feel like we’re stealing their members in an effort to get our own numbers back up after the Daywalker attacks.”

  “That’s crazy. Professor Wagner came after us. We should have the right to deal with him as we see fit. Innocent?” I barked out a laugh. “Yeah, right. He knew what he was involved with from Day One.”

  Vincent might have found himself on the receiving end of my dagger, but Professor Ivan Wagner had been found and captured by the council. They’d decided to sentence him to forty years in the Bone Coven’s magical wards for conspiring to upend the current council, as well as assisting in the murder of two innocent humans. In effect, he’d been found guilty of treason due to the unspoken peace agreement between the two covens. An attack against one is an attack against us all
. Unfortunately, the Blood Coven didn’t agree with the verdict.

  “It appears he did,” Dorian said with a frown. “But he isn’t talking, so it’s impossible to prove anything. And since they think that’s an aggressive move? They might suspect we went a step further and murdered one of their own. Don’t forget that word is out about Zoe’s kill. Some think she’s capable of so much more.”

  Laura’s eyes widened, and she stepped in close to weave her arm around my back. “That’s ridiculous. I know that’s the furthest thing from the truth, and I’m a member of their coven. Surely they’d listen to me if it came to that.”

  “Except, they aren’t happy with your decision to stay here. They’ll question your loyalty,” I murmured. Truth was, Dorian was right. A blood witch had shown up dead outside the bar where I, the mage who killed, worked. And there was no doubt whatsoever that she had been murdered by supernatural means. I could see how it might look.

  This was starting to feel a hell of a lot like September all over again.

  “Well, I’m not the only blood mage in the United States who decided not to move to Edinburgh.” She lifted her chin, refusing to back down in her typical Laura way. It was something I loved most about her. “There are some others in Boston. They’ve formed a small group, so to speak. About ten of them. I wouldn’t call it a splinter coven because they are still full-fledged members of the original coven, but they sort of operate as their own thing here. So that they can have a support system without moving abroad.”

  I lifted an eyebrow. Clearly, she’d been doing her homework. Again. “How’d you find out about this splinter coven?”

  She elbowed me in the side and quirked her lips. “I took a page from you and dug around in some internet forums. I haven’t met any of them in person yet, but I’ve talked to a few online. Asked some questions. Even though I don’t want to move to Scotland, I want to know how my magic works, you know?”