Page 21 of Holy Shift (New Orleans Nocturnes #8)

People loved to claim they were descendants of the witches they couldn’t burn. We actually were. Our ancestors literally could not be set on fire. Neither could we. My sisters and I were elemental witches, and fire was ours to command. The veil between worlds was thin in Salem, and we belonged to the order of witches duty-bound to keep the monsters at bay.

We were the Veil Keepers.

Yep, the witches were the ones that kept Salem safe. Ironic, right? It had always been that way too. Good thing my ancestors couldn’t burn, or this town—and everything around it—would’ve been screwed six ways to Sunday a long, long time ago.

Of course, they didn’t burn witches in Salem. Everyone knew that. They hanged them here, pressed one of them to death, but my family originated in England. Back in the sixteen hundreds, my great-great-who-knows-how-many-greats-grandma was tied to a stake and set on fire. Well, the wood around her was set ablaze. The flames incinerated her clothes, and when the inferno extinguished, Granny stood there naked and unscathed, laughing at the astonished looks on their faces.

Man, I would’ve loved to have seen that. She might or might not have set the village on fire to make her escape. The details didn’t matter. The important thing was that we were here in our little shop on the edge of downtown, preparing to take out yet another horde of monsters to keep safe the very people who would have murdered us four hundred years ago.

Fun times.

My sister Ember laid her forearm across the table, and I dipped my needle into the enchanted ink. Closing my eyes, I focused my energy, drawing from the goddess and infusing the sigil I was about to create with my vim.

“You’re raiding a vampire nest, right? So, speed and strength?” With my fingers wrapped firmly around the grip, I pressed the tip of the needle against her skin and drew the first line.

“Vampire ghouls, but yeah.”

Ick. There were two different levels of vamps in the world. First, the so-called normal kind, who could pass as humans. They still fried in the sunlight, but at night, a mundane wouldn’t know them from one of their own. The other kind, ghouls, were disgusting. Imagine if a zombie and a vampire had a baby and the zombie traits were the dominant ones. Mindless, bloodsucking monsters. My lip curled at the thought.

“Throw in a bit of protection, and I’ll be set.” Ember smiled, but her eyes were tight.

I pressed a little harder, clenching my teeth. “You know I don’t do those.”

She winced. “You could.”

“I can’t.”

“I wish you had more self-confidence. You broke the family curse for Hecate’s sake.”

That much was true. Another witch cursed our bloodline centuries ago. The third daughter of every Holland mother would die in infancy. Once birth control became a thing, our ancestors stopped after two kids rather than risk losing a little girl. Well, they tried to anyway. My mom’s pill failed, and I was the result. Somehow, she managed to keep me alive into adulthood, breaking the curse, but that didn’t mean I was some kind of prophet or whatever. I got lucky. Nothing more.

I turned off the machine and sat back in my chair. “The last thing I need is you going into a vampire nest thinking you’ve got protection when you don’t. I never mastered that sigil, and Cinder paid the price. I can’t lose you too.”

A shadow crossed her features, her gaze shifting downward before meeting mine. “We’re going to find her.”

“Are we? She searched for Mom and Dad for months, insisting they were alive, and now she’s gone too. Who’s next? You or me? We won’t find her.”

Her jaw tightened. I couldn’t tell you how many times we’d had this conversation, yet no matter where we looked or what we tried, our sister had vanished, and I was to blame.

“Okay. Speed and strength will do.” She pressed her lips together, giving me what she probably thought was an expression of sympathy.

It looked like pity to me, and I was not having it. I picked up the machine and returned to her sigil, losing myself in the rhythmic pulse of the needles. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t take a tiny bit of pleasure in knowing these things hurt like a bitch. It was “no pain, no gain” in the most literal sense.

Black ink penetrated her skin, the faint blue glow indicating my magic was infusing her with the desired properties. Okay, it wasn’t all my magic. Mostly, I channeled the goddess and the power of the universe, the energy traveling into me and out through the enchanted ink. But my vim went into every sigil I tattooed, and it took a while to recharge when I’d done a lot, like tonight.

Ember was my last canvas out of five in the past hour. With a hunting party that big, they must’ve been expecting a slew of bloodsuckers to come out of that nest.

The fatigue was worth it to do my part. Goddess knew I couldn’t fight a monster to save my life. That was why I was the coven librarian and Ember was the badass butt kicker.

“If you’re not covered in vampire goo when you’re done, do you want to have a drink at the Twisted Thistle?” I shook the tension from my hand before putting the finishing touch on her sigil, bringing the bottom loop down and around like the tail of a cursive G, ending it with a fine point, exactly how my dad had taught me.

She scrunched her nose. “I made plans with Shade and Chrys. Sorry.”

“Oh.” I tried to hide the disappointment in my voice, but I failed miserably. “That’s okay. I should head to bed early, anyway. I’m re-cataloging the grimoires tomorrow. Dad’s organizational skills were lacking at best. He never reshelved anything in the right place.”

The back door opened, and Shade poked his head in. “Hurry it up in there. The sun’s about to set, and I do not want to miss prime hunting time.”

“Speak of the devil,” I muttered as I wiped the excess ink from Ember’s arm. Shade had been the earliest and most vocal witch in the coven to point out my inadequate fire magic. Not that he had any room to talk. He relied on incantations and enchanted artifacts—which he checked out from my library—to do his job. I might’ve been the lamest pyrokinetic in town, but he was the lamest witch all around. I fought the urge to stick my tongue out at him.

Ember pursed her lips, cutting her gaze toward the door he disappeared through before looking at me. “You know what? Why don’t you come with us? If we are covered in ghoul guts, it’ll be nice for someone else to drive. Congealing innards get sticky fast.”

I tugged my dad’s Zippo from my pocket and popped open the top. An orange flame grew from the center, flickering in response to my magic. “You want me to go monster hunting with you? I think you’ve forgotten what happened last time.”

Her nostrils flared. There was a reason Ember knew all about ghoul guts, and that reason was me. “You can wait in the car. Be our getaway driver.”

“I’ve been banned from hunting.” I touched the flame to the new sigil on her arm, activating it, and the design glowed bright red before fading to a cool blue. The magic would last at least six hours. Once it dissipated, the tattoo would disappear along with her enhanced powers.

She arched a brow, admiring my work. “You’re getting really good at this.” She tugged her sleeve down. “And you won’t be hunting. Just driving.”

I laughed dryly. “I don’t think the rest of the crew will go for it.”

“They won’t have a choice. I’ve made up my mind. You’re coming.” She rose to her feet and tossed me the keys. “Let’s go.”

“If you say so.” I locked the shop and followed her out the back door. Our black van, complete with magically tinted windows and a hidden arsenal in the floor, sat in the alley behind the eighteenth-century building that had been in my family from the beginning.

The reason Ember was so sure the other witches wouldn’t object to my tagging along was that they couldn’t. Our parents were the High Priest and Priestess of the Salem order, as were my maternal grandparents and great-grandparents. Being in charge was our birthright, and when Mom and Dad died, the power passed to us.

Well, it passed to our older sister, Cinder. When she went MIA, Ember inherited the torch. And me? I was the introverted librarian tagging along for the ride on my family's coattails.

Actually, that’s not fair. I wasn’t an introvert. I just hated people.

A gust of wind whipped through the alley, blowing my hair into my face. Blue strands stuck to my lip gloss, and as I peeled them off and pulled my locks out of my eyes, I found Shade glowering at me.

“Ember…?” His teeth didn’t part as he spoke.

My sister smirked and smacked the hood of the van. “Load up. We’re burning daylight.”

Shade’s mouth dropped open. “She’s…”

Sis cut him a look that could have melted a glacier in one hot flash. She might have once threatened to roast his chestnuts on an open fire if he ever insulted my magic again, and she probably would have done it. Or at least singed them a bit.

His Adam’s apple bobbed, and his right eye twitched. “She’s not dressed for hunting.”

I crossed my arms over my black corset and shifted my weight to my left leg. Shade wore black spandex pants with a matching shirt. His blond hair was slicked back into a man bun, and a pair of what looked like seatbelt straps crisscrossed his chest, holding a set of wooden stakes.

Chrys, the friendliest witch on the team, wore a similar outfit, though the leggings looked much better on her petite frame. Her chin-length jet-black bob shone in the fading sunlight, and she rolled her eyes, fighting a grin behind his back. Ember and the others wore the same kind of clothes. Take the weapons away, and they all could’ve been on their way to goth yoga.

“She might snag her tights.” Shade crossed his arms to mimic me, so I parked my hands on my hips.

“Fishnets are replaceable. My boot up your ass might be permanent.”

“Load. Up.” Ember opened the passenger door and cocked her head at me.

“As you wish.” This time, I did stick out my tongue.

If Shade glowered any harder, his skull might crack, but he did as he was told and climbed into the van with the others.

I slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine. “Where are we headed?”

“The old cemetery outside town. Chrys spotted a few near the mausoleum just before sunrise this morning.”

I nodded and reversed out of the alley before hanging a left on Washington. “Let’s go kick some vampire butt.”

Shade blew a hard breath through his nose, but I ignored him. He was still miffed because I wouldn’t go on a second date with him last year. One night with an arrogant prick was more than enough, thank you very much.

The orange sun sank toward the horizon ahead, painting the sky in rich reds and purples. As we approached the top of the hill, the cemetery came into view. Most of the graves had simple headstones, many sinking at awkward angles due to years of neglect, but our target stood near the back fence. The decrepit mausoleum where who knew how many ghouls rested inside.

I pulled as close to the gates as possible, parking sideways so we could make a quick getaway if things got out of hand. Tension built inside the van, making my skin prick. With the sun so low in the sky, the tree’s bare branches looked like black bones silhouetted against a watercolor canvas. Spindly fingers stretched across the canopy, their long shadows crisscrossing on the ground like an intricate web.

Leaving the engine running, I turned in my seat to look past the headrest. The witches behind me sat utterly still. Chrys pressed her palms together in prayer to the goddess, while Shade rested the tips of his middle fingers against his thumbs, his lips moving as he silently recited an incantation. Miles and Ginger in the way back seat closed their eyes, either in meditation or prayer. It was hard to tell with those two.

Ember took a deep breath and blew it out, ending her prayer to the goddess. “Everybody ready?”

“Almost,” Ginger said.

I pursed my lips, a question forming in my mind. “If vampires fry in the sunlight, why do you wait until dusk to take them out? Seems like you could go in at noon, leave the door open, and stake them all in their sleep.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Ember winked before sliding out of the van, and I rolled my eyes. Her life was in peril on a daily basis, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. The threat of a mile-high stack of grimoires falling on me was the extent of danger in my life, but someone had to hold down the fort while the big kids played. Lucky me.

Chrys opened the side door, and the rest of the witches filed out of the van. She popped open the secret hatch in the floorboard and pulled out a utility belt with a few knives attached at the hip. The rest of her tools belonged in a garden. She had a spade, a hand-held hoe, and one of those thingamajigs with three claws at the end that was normally used for breaking up dirt. How her gear would help her fight vamps was a mystery to me. Earth witches were weird.

Ember grabbed her enchanted sword, a three-foot-long, solid silver blade with a fireproof rosewood handle and skull pommel. She swiped it through the air as if testing its balance, which was totally unnecessary. She’d had the thing for five years, so she was probably showing off. After twirling it at her side, she gripped it in both hands, blade pointing to the sky. Fire erupted at the hilt, cascading upward until flames engulfed the entire blade.

Yep, definitely showing off.

The rest of the witches pounded pavement toward the gate, but Ember hung back, giving me that supposed-sympathy-but-looked-like-pity expression. “You’ll be okay waiting in the van?”

I held up my phone. “I’ve got three ereader apps and a million books in my Tbr. I’ll be fine. I might even take a nap.”

She nodded and slid the door shut before joining the rest of the crew. They hopped over the waist-high brick fence, not bothering with the gate, and prowled through the cemetery. I could practically hear the dry leaves crunching beneath their boots as they shrank into the darkness and disappeared. Shade’s shadow magic came in handy sometimes. I had no problem admitting that, despite his sour demeanor.

While the big kids went off to play with monsters, I clicked my favorite reading app and opened the next installment of the romance series I was addicted to. My goal was to read one hundred novels this year. I still had forty to go and only three months to do it. If these damn monsters would stay on their side of the veil, it would be easy-peasy. With the way things were going lately, I might not make it.

I rolled down the window, stuck my feet through the opening, and sank into my seat, losing myself in the story. Reading had a way of making time stand still and move at warp speed all at once. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been sitting there when the shouts echoed from the mausoleum, but it couldn’t have been that long. I’d only devoured three chapters.

I snapped my head toward the cemetery, squinting as I peered into the trees. Shade and his damn shadow magic. I couldn’t see a thing. I mean, sure, we had to hide ourselves from the humans. If they knew what monsters lurked in the darkness of their quaint little town, all hell would break loose. They’d destroy each other faster than the monsters ever could, so secrecy mattered.

But it didn’t stop the irritation bubbling in my gut. I wasn’t part of the hunting party, so I was as blind as a human out here in the van.

“Ember!” Chrys screamed, and a flash of firelight illuminated the mausoleum for half a second.

My pulse thrummed, and I sat upright, shoving my phone into the cupholder. Shouting was normal, right? They loved it when the monsters fought back. Danger was wired into their DNA.

The shadows flickered, Shade’s magic faltering. That was also normal. Using magic drained us. Even a master witch couldn’t hold on to a spell forever.

Another shout. A smack like a body hitting concrete. A pained grunt.

It was the vamps getting their undead asses kicked. Ember was the toughest witch in Salem. She might’ve been a little reckless, but so were most adrenaline junkies. It was fine. Everything was fine.

Until it wasn’t.

The magical shadows rolled toward the mausoleum, billowing at the base of the door before dissipating into the ground. Actually, no. Not the ground. Into Shade. He lay flat on his back, a bloodsucker pinning his shoulders down.

Crap. Where was everyone? Shade was a pain in my rear end, but I didn’t want to see him become dinner for the undead.

I opened the door, and my boots thudded on the pavement as I hopped out of the van. My chest burned, my fire magic concentrating in the center of my being. Ember described the sensation as a raging inferno, but to me, it felt like heartburn. The warming sensation spread down my arms until my fingers tingled. My leg muscles tightened, and my stomach clenched as I prepared to sprint into the fray.

But before I could take a step, Ember emerged from the mausoleum, her flame-licked sword swinging through the air and slicing the vampire’s head clean off. She kicked the corpse, and it rolled to the ground before melting into goo. After giving Shade a hand up, they both raced back inside.

The final rays of sun disappeared behind the horizon, and I was about to return to the safety of the van and the comfort of my book when movement around the side of the structure caught my eye. A shirtless vampire crept toward a five-foot marble cross, its pale skin gleaming in the moonlight. Dark red blood rimmed its mouth, making my stomach sour. Hopefully the vamp had made a mess of his meal last night, and it wasn’t my friend’s life force smeared across his face. I held my breath, waiting for a witch to dart out after him, but he kept creeping, and no one noticed.

Well, crapity crap. I couldn’t let the monster leave the cemetery. I might have been banned from hunting, but I was still a Veil Keeper, and it was my responsibility to keep the city safe. I chewed my bottom lip, scrunching my nose as the vamp made it halfway to the gate.

I should alert the others, call for Ember or Chrys to come out and nab the bloodsucker. They had the tools and the skills to take it out easily. I had neither. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I forced a scream, “Vamp overboard!”

The commotion inside the mausoleum continued as if I’d only whispered. The vampire, however, heard me just fine. He stopped, tilting his head and looking at me like I was the most delicious slice of blueberry blood pie he’d ever seen. Baring his fangs, he hissed and bolted toward me.

Great plan, Ash. Shouting was definitely the way to go.

My palms tingled, sparks dancing around my fingertips as I bounced on my toes three times. Then I ran. My boots gripped the pavement, propelling me forward, and thank the goddess, I reached the stone wall before the vamp. I planted one hand on top of the fence, kicking up my legs and clearing it easily. I’d have to send my high school track coach my thanks when this was done.

There were four ways to kill a vampire: sunlight, fire, beheading, and a stake through the heart. Since I didn’t have a sword or a UV lamp, my inborn gift of flames would have to do. That and a swift kick to the gut.

I planted my boot in the vamp’s stomach, and he stumbled backward into a pile of dead leaves. Rubbing my hands together, I willed the heat to gather in my palms. My fingertips crackled, and as I curled them inward, the sparks ignited.

“Hey, Drac. I’ve got a kiss for you.” I held up my hand and blew on the tiny flame growing from my palm. Fire rolled across my fingers and dropped to the ground a foot shy of my fangy foe. Whoops. I’d been aiming for his pants, but the leaves made perfect fodder for burning him alive…umm…undead.

It hadn’t rained in weeks, and the dried shrubbery lit up like a bonfire, taking the vampire with it. He wailed as the flames consumed him, leaving behind nothing of his body but goo and ashes. Enemy number one vanquished. Why was I banned from monster hunting again?

I walked into the fire, being careful not to ruin my boots in the sludge that was once a vampire, and stomped out the flames. Well, my plan was to stomp out the flames. The problem was, they’d already spread out in a four-foot circle and licked upward into a thick spruce. Uh oh.

This was magical fire, though. I should have been able to pull it back inside. To extinguish the flames with my power, just like I’d lit them to begin with. With a deep inhale, I focused again, imagining a cool fog rolling over the flames, putting them out.

The fire grew hotter. The flames jumped from the burning spruce to a maple. You’d think bare branches would take a while to ignite, but no. Magical fire, remember? The inferno jumped from tree to tree, thick gray smoke billowing into the sky.

“Ember…” I backed away from the chaos I’d created before turning on my heel and darting toward the mausoleum. “Ember, I screwed up again!”

My boot caught on an exposed root, and I tumbled toward the entrance, scraping my knees on the concrete. I shot to my feet and launched myself through the door, straight into the path of the last vampire attempting to flee. It smacked into me, our skulls knocking together with a crack before I careened back and it landed on top of me, fangs bared.

I struggled beneath its weight, but it reared back, ready to strike like a viper.

Shade appeared above my head, his face pinched like he’d sucked on a lemon and whiffed a foul fart at the same time. He jabbed a blade into the vamp’s back and twisted it before yanking it out. He’d saved my life.

He had not bothered to remove the corpse from atop my body, however. His sour expression turned to one of smugness as the vampire’s form melted into a gelatinous mess right on top of me. Cool, sticky goo rolled over me, soaking my corset and making my skin crawl. It smelled of rotten fish and sulfur, and a bit of the nastiness dripped from my cheek backward to my ear.

Covered in ghoul guts. That was what I got for trying to help them.

Ember offered her hand, so I accepted the gesture and let her tug me to my feet. She pointed a finger at the goo on the ground, and a flame shot out, incinerating it. If I wanted to keep my clothes, I’d have to wait until I got home to wash the mess off myself.

“Ash…” Chrys called from the doorway, her voice incredulous. “What did you do?”

“I stopped a vampire from escaping.” I followed her out the door to find the entire cemetery engulfed in flames. Heat permeated the threshold like when you first opened an oven door, and the blaze crackled, tree branches snapping and falling to the ground.

“You lit the place on fire.” Chrys kneeled, digging her hands into the dirt. She whispered an incantation, and a shockwave extended out in a circle, dirt rising and falling on top of the fire.

Her attempt helped. She extinguished the flames on the ground, but she couldn’t do anything about the trees. “Where’s a water witch when we need one?” she said as she rose to her feet.

“Can’t you call the fire back?” Miles asked.

I held in a dry laugh. He hadn’t been in the coven long, but he should have known better. Everybody knew better.

“Her magic doesn’t work like that,” Ember said in my defense.

“It should,” I muttered under my breath.

Sirens blasted in the distance, growing louder as they approached, and Ginger jerked her head toward the van. “The humans will handle it. Let’s jet.”

“Agreed.” Ember nodded. “Cloak us, Shade.”

The air thickened as the shadow magic activated. Everything took on a grayish tinge, meaning we could see the world but the world couldn’t see us. If only I could unsee the vampire guts dripping from my corset.

We ran to the van, Ember heading to the driver’s side. I tossed her the keys and opened the passenger door. As I climbed inside, Shade stopped beside me and eyed my bloodied knees.

“I told you you’d snag your tights.” He smirked and crawled into the back seat.

I hated it when he was right.