Blood Magic by Laken Cane

Chapter Eight

“I wish you’d stay in Shadowfield,” I told my mother.

Lucy was waiting in the yard, playing with the hounds, and Max was already in the car—front seat this time—buckled in and ready to go. The three women staying at the house were washing dishes, laughing and talking, and I couldn’t help but smile to hear them.

“I appreciated Jared’s help,” she said, “but the pack doesn’t want me there. Oh, they’re less hostile to me than to you, but I’m not sure we’re ever going to be anything more than outsiders to them, Kait. I feel better here.”

I understood. “You need to make sure you’re more secure and prepared this time. If Adam and his thugs come back—”

“They won’t return for me. I’m not worth them risking Jared’s wrath. But you, Kait…Adam isn’t going to give up. He’ll manage somehow to take you, though he’s terrified of you.”

I frowned at her. “Mom, why is he afraid of me? Why does he want me now when he cast me out to begin with?”

“He thought you were neutralized, I suppose. He’s afraid of your wolf’s power, and I can’t know why. He has his reasons. Remember when you cut him? He has that scar to this day. That should never have happened.” She stared off into the distance, remembering. Finally, she murmured, “Just watch your back. He doesn’t want to kill you—he’s an asshole and a bully, but he’s not a killer. He wants to control you, and if you’re in his possession in a cage, he can do that.”

I gave a disbelieving laugh. “Not a killer! How can you say that when he murdered dad?”

“Sweetheart,” she said, frowning. “He didn’t murder Daddy. He fought him, and he won. He’s the alpha. Daniel wanted to be. Adam could have let his warriors kill him, but—”

“But he let them beat him nearly to death and then he stepped in to “fight” him. I call that murder.” I couldn’t help that my voice was cold. My ex-alpha was a killer. Just because he hadn’t sneaked up on my father and stuck a knife in his heart didn’t mean he hadn’t murdered him.

She pulled me into a hug. “Be careful, Kaity. I have no doubt that Jared would burn Stonebridge to the ground to find you, but…” She squeezed me, hard. “Just be careful. Adam may not want to kill you, but he is not above hurting you.”

Ten minutes later, Lucy, Max, and I were on our way to Long Shadow.

Max was not a fan of Huntersburg. “I will be very happy to see the city,” he said, shuddering.

Lucy laughed. “I cannot believe you’re scared of chickens.”

“Um, I’m not scared of chickens?”

“He just feels sorry for them,” I said.

“Laugh all you want, both of you. I consider myself lucky to have made it out unmolested.” Again, he shuddered. “That place gives me the creeps.”

I rolled my eyes. “For God’s sake, Max. It’s a tiny little town in the country, not Deliverance.” But then I thought about the girl the vampires had murdered, and I knew Max was going to see that as one more mark against Huntersburg. “I disappeared before lunch,” I said, “because I was approached by a dead girl named Sara. She was killed and buried by vampires, and she can’t cross over until her brother finds her body. I have his phone number. Can you look it up for me, see if you can find a name?”

“Oh my God,” Max said. “How sad. I’ll look into it as soon as we return to the city.”

“How will you say you found the body?” Lucy asked.

“I’ll get the detective involved. He’ll say he got an anonymous tip from a witness who saw some men digging a grave. After he takes a team there to dig her up, I’ll call her brother.” I glanced at him. “Also, she said the vampires didn’t rip her throat out—they compelled a human woman to do it.”

“Wait a minute,” he said. “This is what the vampire girl in Alexandria was talking about. The experiments, the master going beyond the shading…”

I nodded. “I need you to find out everything you can about Sara’s disappearance—and her brother. I don’t know his name, but—”

“Remy Simon,” Max breathed. “Oh, fuck. We have Sara Simon.”

My stomach tightened and my heart began to pound a little too hard. “Remy Simon? Why do you think that?”

“I saw an article,” he said. “I knew the sister of Remington Simon was missing—I just didn’t know she’d made her way to Clinton County. Why was she here?”

“I don’t know. Her words were sporadic and unclear, and I didn’t get specifics.” I hesitated. Remy Simon was a boogeyman to the supernatural community, used to scare children when they misbehaved. He stayed under the humans’ radar, but the shifters knew him as the hunter we did not want on our asses.

I went after supernaturals for fucking with humans. Remy went after supernaturals because they existed.

“How do you know about him?” Lucy asked Max. “You’re human. I’ve never heard of him, and I’m psychic.”

“I know a lot of things,” he murmured, but there was no cockiness in his voice.

“The dark web,” Lucy said. “I had a dream about you, Max. You were stuck in a dark web, but that wasn’t literal. It’s the world inside your computer, isn’t it?”

He neither denied nor confirmed. Like the rest of us, Max had his secrets. “Sara disappeared nineteen days ago from her apartment in Cleveland.”

“That’s over a hundred miles from here,” I said. “How did she end up dead in the woods of Huntersburg?”

He nodded. “Exactly. And I will bet everything I own that her brother is already in Jakeston. Tracking is what he does.” He hesitated, then, “Drop me at my car before you go to Long Shadow, Kait. I need to start digging. I can call Joe to meet us at your place.”

“No, don’t call him. I can go alone.”

“You won’t be alone,” Lucy said. “I’m going with you.”

“No,” Max and I told her, at the same time. “Too dangerous now.”

She sighed, but I don’t think she was too disappointed.

Max ignored my orders not to call Joe and called him anyway. “He’ll be happy to go with you,” he said, when I frowned at him. “The mayor would kick both our asses if we let something happen to you.”

“Max,” I said, “you forget that Joe doesn’t know about vampires. What if there is one buried in Long Shadow and—”

“He needs to know,” he said. “It’s time he stopped hiding from the truth. Let him see it, Kait.”

Lucy perked up. “If Joe is going—”

“No, Lucy,” I interrupted.

Then I pulled up one of my contacts and when it went to his voicemail, I left a quick message. “Hey, Sixten. I need some juice—just one. I’m not home so put it in the usual place. We can settle up soon.”

“What was that about?” Lucy asked.

I didn’t answer. I doubted she’d understand that Sixten was a “friend” who supplied me with things I couldn’t walk into a store and buy—a syringe of blood, in this instance—and he didn’t ask questions. I knew when I arrived home, the blood would be packaged and waiting behind a loose brick beside my front door.

Joe was already waiting when we reached my house, leaning against his car, his arms crossed.

“My God,” Lucy murmured. “He is so hot.”

Max laughed. “Girl, you need to get laid.”

“I’m trying,” she complained. “He’s not taking the hint.”

“Since when did you ever hint about anything, Luce?” I asked. “Maybe you should just ask him if he’s interested and put yourself out of your misery.”

“But what if he’s not?”

“Then you can move on.”

“There’s something about him,” she said, before we exited the car. “He makes me feel shy. I can’t just come out and ask him if he wants to bang me.”

But when we reached him, she clung to his arm and smiled up at him, and there wasn’t a person present who didn’t know that Lucy Shannon wanted to “bang” Joe Patrick. Including Joe Patrick.

She ran her hand over the front of his shirt. “Blue is my absolute favorite color,” she told him. “We have so much in common.”

He stared down at her, his eyes twinkling. Then, “I like dick, Lucy.”

For a second, she could only gape, but she recovered nicely. “So do I! See? So much in common.”

But Joe was watching as Max sauntered toward us, his stare on his phone.

“Oh,” Lucy said, and then sighed. She dropped Joe’s arm. “Be careful out there, you guys. I’m going to tend to Ash and then find myself a date. Or maybe I’ll just bake half a dozen cakes.”

“I like that idea,” I said. “Kiss Ash for me. Let me know what you find out, Max,” I called. He got into his car without saying goodbye, then sat there lost in his phone.

I grinned at Joe. “You didn’t have to come. Max is a little paranoid.”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t doing anything else, and someone needs to keep you safe.”

“Fuck you,” I said mildly. “I can take care of myself.”

He laughed, then opened his car door. “I’m driving.”

I glanced at my car, then shrugged. “I’ll get my bag.” I jogged to my car, grabbed my kill kit, then went to retrieve the vial of blood. Finally, I walked back to stand at the passenger side of Joe’s car. “Do you have a shovel in your trunk?”

“Of course,” he said, making me laugh. Like everyone carried a shovel in their trunk.

I’d call Detective Moreno while Joe drove and give him a heads up about Sara Simon. He wouldn’t waste time getting out to Huntersville to find her body. I’d wait until he was there before I informed Remy.

“Why not just skip the detective and call Simon?” Joe asked. “Take him there. I’m sure he’d want to bring her out of the ground himself.”

“Because I don’t want him to know who I am,” I said. “I don’t want to meet Remy Simon in the woods and tell him his dead sister led me there.”

“You’re afraid he’ll hurt you?”

I was a wolf. Remy Simon hunted wolves. “I’m afraid he’ll try,” I said, finally. And I was afraid he’d somehow see inside me, would know that I was a wolf. That was one secret I didn’t want to get out. “Also, the detective won’t get me involved. He won’t tell the world that I found Sara. That I talk to the dead. The police would want to see me as a suspect if I took them to a buried woman.” I sighed and rubbed my temples. “It’s just too complicated, Joe.”

He nodded. “That would put you in a bad position.”

“Yeah.” It was one thing telling the world I was a human who did PI work investigating the supernatural. Most of the public would see my office and think I was a swindler, preying on desperate folk. But if a guy like Remy Simon got people interested in me, I was in for a bad time.

No. I promised Sara I’d make sure her brother found her grave. I didn’t promise I’d be the one to take his hand and lead him there.

“Someday,” Joe said, “the world is going to find out what’s living in it with them.”

Joe didn’t realize he was about to discover that very thing himself.

Detective Moreno picked up on the third ring.

“How’d you sleep after I left?” I asked the detective, causing Joe to cock an eyebrow at me.

“Like a baby,” he said. “I might need you to get me to sleep every night.”

Then we both fell into an awkward silence until he cleared his throat and asked me what I needed.

“It’s about a missing woman named Sara Simon.”

“Sara. Yeah, I know the case.”

“I know where she is. Where she’s buried.”

“Son of a…” He pushed out a breath. “Do you know how she died?”

I didn’t know I was going to tell him until suddenly, I was. “Vampires. They’re fucking with humans. They shaded a woman and caused her to rip out Sara’s throat.”

“Bullshit.” His reflexive denial was immediate. “Come on, Kait.”

I wasn’t going to try to convince him. “Look, Detective. Dig her up. She has a brother—”

“Remington Simon. Yeah. I know him.” He didn’t sound too happy about that, either. “He’s a hard case.”

“I’ll call him when you and your team are in the woods. He needs to see her coming out of the ground.”

“Kait—”

“He has to be there, Rick. It’s what she wants. Text me when you guys are on your way there.”

He was silent for a few seconds. “All right. Send me the coordinates.”

I texted them to him. “I piled some rocks over the exact spot. Thanks, Detective.”

As soon as I ended the call, Joe pounced. “Vampires, Kait?”

It was the beginning. I could feel it. Humans were beginning to get the veil of blessed ignorance ripped from their eyes, and not just by me.

Maybe it was time, but dread and fear tightened my stomach and made me want to run away from something that was inevitable.

The thought of humans finding out about shifters and vampires was terrifying. Their knowledge could very well mark the beginning of our end.

When we had to come out of hiding, the world would change forever.

For all of us.