The Bone Coven Chronicles: The Complete Series Read online

  “So,” I asked in a low whisper. “What did you make of all that?”

  “To be honest, I’m not sure what the fuck to make of it,” Dorian said in a matter-of-fact tone. “She’s seen a demon? And there’s no rune? Doesn’t really add up if you ask me.”

  “It doesn’t.” I frowned, glancing over my shoulder as Dorian pulled the door shut behind us. On the curb, Juno stood waiting, her arms still slung around her body as if she needed to hold herself steady. “But why would she lie? I don’t know her super well, but what I do know of her, she’s not out to cause trouble. And she’s helped Nathan get through his attack when I haven’t had the time to do anything other than smile at him at work.”

  “She doesn’t have to be lying to mean something is up,” Dorian said, pulling his own dagger from its sheath. “Nathan’s on the supernatural radar now. By helping him, she could have attracted the wrong sort of attention from the wrong sort of people.”

  “Yeah, but.” I gestured at the seemingly empty mechanic’s shop. “Even if that were true, how does that explain everything else? The lack of a rune? The fact she can see the demon? There are rules, Dorian. The physics of the supernatural world. Her story goes against all of that.”

  “Sometimes, rules are broken.” Dorian frowned as he scanned the silent shop. “Or, the rules end up being different than what we’ve been led to believe. I think we found that out ourselves with Vincent. Who would have thought someone could control demons?” His eyes caught mine as a storm cloud rolled across his face. “Besides, during the demon war, humans were able to see some of them.”

  An uneasy shiver slid down my spine as the implication of his words sank in. “Are you saying the rules might have changed? That the demon wasn’t summoned here? That we should just throw out everything we know about how these creatures exist?”

  Dorian tucked his finger under my chin and gave me a sad smile. “Don’t look so scared. I’m just saying that we should keep an open mind. Things might not be the way they’ve always been.”

  Shivering, I held my dagger higher before me. If Dorian was right, then the supernatural world as we knew it would never be the same. If demons were now acting like they had during the war, what did that mean going forward? Were we headed back to a time like that again?

  “Alright, let’s get started,” Dorian said, flicking the tip of his dagger toward one end of the garage. “It’s lurking in here somewhere, and we need to flush it out. You go that way, and I’ll go this way. If it comes at you, draw the rune and banish it.”

  “By myself?” My face blanched. “But, Dorian, I—”

  “Zoe. No arguments.” Dorian’s voice was all business, and I felt my gut clench tight. Even though a part of me felt annoyed by this hardcore, bossy side of him, a part of me felt drawn to it. There was a certain amount of admiration and respect I felt when he took charge, confidence and power radiating off his body. It was impossible not to straighten up and pay attention. “Listen to me. You can do this. We’ve been practicing the spell for months, and you’ve done this once before.”

  “Okay,” I said with a nod, though my palms were so slick that my dagger slipped around in my fisted hand. “I’ll do my best.”

  He smiled, and my heart flickered. “Your best is better than most. Call out if you need me.”

  And with that, he began moving down the left side of the shop. With a deep breath, I turned right and inched past a row of elevated cars, my footsteps echoing on the concrete floor. Something plopped heavily beside me, and I jumped back, my heart batting wildly against my ribs. But when I whirled toward the sound, I saw that it was only droplets of oil falling from a beat-up truck.

  Shaking my head at myself, I continued to move on. I needed to get a grip. Demons were able to smell fear. They revelled in it. It was almost like a siren call for them, a sign that an innocent human was there for the taking.

  But I was no innocent human.

  As I moved around the side of the truck, a chill swept across my skin as if I’d stepped in the path of an air conditioning vent on full blast. My hair billowed behind my shoulders, and my teeth began to chatter. With my heart lodged in my throat, I glanced around. The demon was nearby. There was no doubt about that, especially when a shrill hiss rang out from behind me.

  I whirled in my boots and widened my eyes at the towering demon before me. Its body shifted like rolling clouds, all darkness and shadows and grief. Large wings spread out behind it, spanning the width of the truck. In an instant, it was rushing at me, its mouth open wide and its roar grinding against my ears.

  “Dorian!” I shouted. “Over here!”

  But I didn’t wait for my partner to arrive before beginning to cast my spell. If I did, there might not be enough of me left. I could already feel the demon sucking at my soul, trying to devour me like a lion with its prey.

  With a deep breath, I dropped to my knees and drew a banishment rune on the concrete floor. My hand shook as the chalk dug into the ground, but I’d practiced this so many times that my body took control while my mind reeled. Bitter air whipped around me as I stood and held my hand up before me. My dagger buzzed as I pointed the blade at the demon.

  “Go. Leave this place now.” Power trembled within me, rushing out of my hand and blasting toward the creature. The last time I’d performed this spell, the demon had disappeared within seconds. Banishment magic was strong. Much stronger than most spells. All mages in all covens could harness this power. All it took was a rune and the strength of knowing you could. It could make the ground shake and the sky crack, and it could twist a demon inside out.

  But that wasn’t happening now. The demon roared and stretched its wings, its growing body breaking through my magic. I sucked in a sharp breath and stumbled back, feeling the power within me snap like a broken string. It left me raw and empty inside, all the bright tendrils of power vanishing into nothing.

  “What the hell?” Eyes wide, my back hit the truck as the demon surrounded me.

  The demon cackled and rose higher from the ground, its mouth widening once again. Heart banging wildly in my chest, I gripped my hand into a fist and tried to cast the spell once more. But nothing happened. No power flew from my fingers. No magic even trembled in my body. It was like the demon had broken it, like it had ripped all my power to shreds.

  “Give up, witch,” the demon hissed, sending every hair on my arms on end. “Your magic has no power over me.”

  A hand wrapped around my arm, and I jumped, my heart lurching into my throat. Dorian whirled me to face him, his eyes wild and his face even paler than it normally was. Blood roared in my ears at the sight. Dorian Kostas had never looked scared in all the months I had known him, and yet he looked horrified now.

  Something terrible was happening.

  “We have to run,” he said in a harsh whisper. “There’s more than one, and they’re immune to our spells. The banishment rune isn’t working, Zoe. We have no power over these creatures now.”

  Chapter 8

  “Are you okay?” Dorian asked when we slammed the shop’s doors behind us, trapping the demon inside the bay. Or, at least, we hoped so anyway. These demons weren’t operating anything like the usual kind, so who the hell knew what kind of rules they had.

  “Well, I’m freaked the fuck out, if that’s what you’re asking,” I said, hands trembling as I slid the dagger back into my sheath. “What the hell was that?”

  Dorian’s face rippled as he clenched his jaw. “I don’t know, but it’s not a good sign.”

  “What do you mean?” I shoved my hands into my black leather jacket and shivered, both from the cool night air and the encounter with the demon.

  “What are the odds that these are the only demons out there like this?” He raised his eyebrows. “How many more are there?”

  I gaped at him. What the hell would we do if there were more? And how would we even begin to fight them? It didn’t make any sense. As far as I knew, there’d never been a case where a mage couldn’
t banish a demon, not unless the demon killed the mage first. And sure, sometimes it was difficult to complete the banishment if the demon was a particularly strong one. But never impossible. Not like this.

  “What’s going on?” Juno asked, taking timid steps toward us. Her face still glistened with sweat, and her hands were clenched tight together. The wrench trembled where she pressed it against her stomach. Clearly, she’d overheard that something went wrong. I hated to tell her that we’d failed.

  “Don’t panic,” I said, glancing at Dorian, “but we weren’t able to get rid of it. At least not yet.”

  As much as I hated to walk away from this, there was nothing we could do right now. We’d have to try again after we regrouped and formed another plan, but we didn’t have a shit ton of time. The longer the demon was here, the weaker the veil between realms would get. And then a couple of immune demons would be the least of the entire world’s problems.

  If the veil weakened enough, we’d be thrust back into a supernatural war.

  “You mean, it’s still in there?” Juno’s voice cracked and tears sprang into her eyes. “Zoe, I can’t go back near it. I just can’t. I swear, it felt like it was ripping me to pieces.”

  “It’s okay.” Softly, I took her hand in mine and squeezed tight. “You don’t have to go back in there. Just shut the shop for a couple of days until we figure out what’s going on.”

  “I have clients,” she said. “Cars to fix. Jobs to fulfill. This could ruin my business.”

  “We’ll fix it,” Dorian said. “It just might take a couple more days.”

  Back at Dorian’s apartment, I plopped into a leather recliner we’d picked out at a second-hand shop when I had convinced him that normal non-vampire people liked to have places to sit. Otherwise, his home was as bare as it had ever been. It was a tiny basement apartment with a single room that had been divided into two sections, one half hidden behind a thick curtain. I knew from earlier visits that it was his bedroom, even though he didn’t sleep. He said that sometimes he liked to lie down and stare up at the ceiling, pretend he was the mortal he used to be.

  I always wondered what that man had been like. Was he anything like the Dorian Kostas that I knew now? The one-hundred-year-old vampire with a warlock soul?

  “There’s no time for you to sleep in my recliner. Get up,” Dorian said, flicking his fingers at his desk. “We need to get started on research and see if we can find anything to explain how these demons resisted our magic.”

  “Hand me a book.” Without budging from the chair, I held out my palms and gave him a cheeky smile. He scowled, tossing a book my way. It fell heavily into my palms, the faded leather smooth and soft against my fingers.

  “One would think you’d be less inclined to lounge in a chair after what just happened.”

  “One would think I’d want to catch my breath.” I flipped open the book and fanned the pages, the musty scent of age-old paper filling my nose. “Trust me, I don’t want to lounge, but that took a lot out of me. Did you feel your magic snap or was that just me?”

  “That happened to me as well,” Dorian said with a nod, grabbing another book from the impossibly tall pile. “I drew the rune and began to cast the banishment, but it felt like the demon ripped the entire spell to shreds.”

  “Do you think they, I don’t know, consumed our power or something?” Frowning, I tried to imagine what that might mean. It would be deadly for us all if they’d figured out how to do that. A demon by itself was terrible enough. But a demon with mage powers? Specifically shadow magic? The world would never be the same.

  Dorian strode closer, dropped down to meet my eyes, and placed his hand on top of my own. The spot where our skin touched suddenly felt overwhelmingly hot, even though Dorian Kostas had the coldest hands of anyone I’d ever met in my life. I sucked in a sharp breath and forced myself to keep my gaze locked on his, convinced something huge was about to happen. He’d rarely touched me like this, not since we’d wrapped together in an embrace in Vincent’s house three months before. And I hadn’t dared do it myself.

  My heart throttled at top speed, making my breath tremble in my lungs.

  Dorian’s lips spread into a wicked smile. “Want some answers, Zoe? Time to put your head down and read the fucking book.”

  My face flamed, irritation and embarrassment waging war inside of me. I couldn’t believe I was dumb enough to think he’d come close to me for some other reason. Dorian didn’t have those kinds of feelings for me. And I didn’t have them for him, either, I had to remind myself. We were merely Enforcer partners and nothing more.

  “Yeah, I got it,” I said in a clipped tone. “No rest for the weary.”

  “I thought the phrase was, ‘No rest for the wicked.’” He raised his eyebrows.

  “Same thing,” I said in a sigh. “But if you’re going to keep me working all night, the least you can do is feed me.”

  Once again, my face flamed. Every time I thought about eating in Dorian’s presence, my mind drifted back to the moment when I’d sipped his vampire blood. It had tasted far better than I wanted to admit, and his power had hummed in my veins for days. It was intoxicating, to say the least. No wonder people got addicted to the vampire lifestyle, frequenting Slayerville every night of the week. Even though they didn’t drink vampire blood, they did drink their elixir, and Laura had explained just how intense it had felt to have a vampire’s fangs in her neck.

  Everything about them was addicting, even if there was nothing more to it than that. It was a fact I could never forget.

  An hour later, Dorian returned with a bag of fast food. He dropped the salty goodness onto my lap and pulled his desk chair over to my side, lowering his chin onto his fisted hands.

  “Here’s your food,” he said. “Now, what did you find in the book?”

  I dove my hand into the bag and pulled out a cluster of french fries. “Not much. There were a few passages that mentioned demons being visible to humans, but they didn’t go into much detail. And they didn’t say anything about immunity to mages.”

  “Hmm.” Dorian frowned. “We’ll just have to keep looking. Some of the other covens have access to more research material than we do. It might be worth reaching out to the Blood Coven headquarters since we’re helping an offshoot of theirs. See if they’ve heard of anything like this.”

  “Speaking of,” I said as I popped a fry into my mouth, “what are we going to do next about that case? I feel like we aren’t any closer to solving her murder than we were before.”

  “I found this in Sylvia’s apartment,” he said.

  Dorian reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring. He slid it across my lap where it glittered underneath the pale moonlight streaming in from the window behind me. I frowned and flicked my gaze up at Dorian. His eyes held an intensity that I didn’t understand, like the object meant something to him that I couldn’t see myself.

  “Why’d you take her ring?” I asked. “Does it mean something?”

  “Something about it caught my attention when we were there,” he said in a low voice. “I didn’t know why, so I thought I’d bring it with me in case I needed to compare it to an image of something else.”

  “And did you?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I found it earlier today. In this book, actually. Flip to page seventy.”

  I followed his orders, skipping to a page I hadn’t quite made it to yet. “You could have waited for me to come over before you researched this, you know. I want to be involved in this case as much as I can.”

  “You were at Blue Moon Tavern,” he said with a shrug. “And I knew you were dealing with a lot regarding that. Angry customers, cops, dogs that won’t stop scaring people off. I thought I’d wait for a better time to bring it up.”

  “And while I’m munching on french fries is a better time?” I asked with a laugh.

  He shrugged and smiled. “At least I know you’re happy when you’re eating.”

  “Hey now.” Laughing, I punche
d his shoulder in mock-irritation. But really, I felt warm inside. When we’d first partnered up on the case to clear my name, Dorian never would have considered my feelings. Sure, he’d been kind—at times—but he’d been impossibly bossy, and we always did our investigation on his terms. Never mine. If I was busy? Too fucking bad.

  The fact he’d done research on his own because he thought I needed the break? Well, it made it difficult to remember why I was so against the idea of having feelings for the guy.

  “So, here’s the ring,” he said, holding up the diamond-encrusted gold. “And here’s a drawing I found.”

  He tapped the page, and I drew my gaze from his eyes to the drawing. He was right. It was an exact match as far as I could tell. A smooth gold band with diamonds lining the entire surface. A dark stone sat on the very top, holding a pool of midnight blue.

  “Right. So, this blood mage had a magical ring. That’s not too out of the ordinary, is it?” I grabbed another batch of fries and popped them into my mouth.

  “Not until you understand what it does,” he said. “I know you can’t read Latin so I’ll translate it for you. The ring in question was designed to protect the wearer from a supernatural creature.”

  “Protection?” My eyebrows popped to the top of my forehead. “Okay, so I see what you mean. If it was supposed to protect her from something, then maybe she was worried she was in danger. But from what?”

  “That’s just it,” Dorian said, tapping the page again. “The ring was supposed to protect her from werewolves.”