Page 29

Chapter 29

“ W hat’re you doing?”

I twitched violently, whirling around to see Hecate stretching by the door. She yawned, kneading biscuits in the rug. The shock dissipated, soothed by the relief at seeing her up.

“You’re alive,” I teased, and strode over to pick her up.

“If you were so worried, why didn’t you take me to the hospital?”

“For the last time, Hec.” I bundled her up in my arms and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “They won’t see you at the hospital. That’s for people.”

“Well, I won’t be seen dead at a vet. ”

“Now you don’t have to.” I ducked through the doorway and back into my bedroom. Recovering or not, I couldn’t risk Hecate noticing that I had relocated my most important powers. “Do you want something to eat?”

“I don’t suppose you could order in a fresh salmon?”

“You can have whatever you want.” But the sound of my phone vibrating somewhere in my room had all thoughts of takeout disintegrating.

I picked it up off the bed and checked the number; private number . My first instinct was to cancel the call. Most of the time those numbers belonged to scammers promising ridiculous and too good to be true potions. But before I cancelled it, I remembered the call I was expecting. I doubted Asher's mysterious contact would use a traceable number.

I answered it. "Hello?"

"Are you ready to hear where your next power is, little dove?" They spoke as if we were old friends.

How had they found one so quickly when my own efforts had taken ages and come up with nothing?

"I'm ready," I said.

"There's a middle-aged rancher in rural Australia who has done well to keep himself hidden so long," they said. "But nobody escapes me if I'm looking for them."

I wondered if they had the power of detection. Although no way would they have told me if they did.

"He has the power you're looking for," they continued. "He can - and has - tracked down hundreds of people in his past just by looking at a picture of them."

"A picture?" That was advanced. Most supernaturals who had any sort of tracking ability or could cast a decent tracking spell would need something that belonged to the person they were looking for. This person really was good.

"That's what I said, keep up. You got a pen and paper? You're going to need to write down the address."

I scrambled, all but flinging Hecate onto the bed. She mewled with irritation, but I ignored her to barrel through to my work room and grab a scrap piece of parchment and a pen.

"Go on," I said, the pen lid clamped between my teeth as I smoothed the parchment out on the floor with one hand.

They told me the address, which I repeated back to them three times to make sure I had it right.

"So...this guy," I said. "I kinda have a rule with the people I take powers from."

"If you had any fine print, you should have pointed it out to me beforehand." They sounded irritated, but since I had the address, I didn’t care about pissing them off anymore.

“Does this guy deserve it?” I asked. “Has he done anything to warrant having his power taken off him?”

“That’s the most childish thing I’ve ever heard.” They sighed on the other end of the line. “The Australians don’t take powers off anyone, whether they’ve done something horrendous or not. Most countries don’t, last time I checked. So what bad behaviour do you qualify as “deserving it”?”

I barely had the emotional bandwidth to figure out my own life, let alone think about that philosophical question. But in fairness to everyone, I did have to answer it. Where did I draw the line? At what point did my vigilante behaviour become justified?

“If it makes a difference, which I’m sure it will,” they said, judgement dripping from every syllable. “Your target spent a lot of time tracking people down for New York’s demonic mafia. Which is why he’s hiding out. In fact, you might even be doing him a favour by taking his power. That way, they can’t make him work for them again.”

So the guy had tracked down and handed people over to one of the biggest supernatural mafia outfits in the world? Not all of them would have been bad guys. In fact, my money was on a bunch of his victims not deserving what had happened to them.

“That’s good enough for me,” I said. “Does this guy have a name?”

“Brandon McKinley. At least, that’s the name he uses now.”

“And his old name?” I needed to do my research on this guy before I went anywhere near him, and his new name would have nothing of his history attached to it.

“Gerald Markel. You won’t get complacent once you’ve done a little research on him.” Their tone almost sounded smug.

Even in my vulnerable state, I wouldn’t let them intimidate me. I had dealt with people like this before. Well, not exactly that well connected, but…almost? Either way, this guy wouldn’t see me coming even with his power.

“Great, uh…thanks?” I said. I didn’t exactly know how these technically black market conversations ended. “Are you going to tell me what power you need and where I can get it?”

“Told you, little dove. I’ll be in touch when I need it.” With that, they hung up and I was left with a follow-up question in my mouth.

“Goodbye to you too,” I muttered, putting my phone down.

Hecate stood up on her back legs, pawing at my shoulder with her front two and stared at me with those endless voids of galaxies she called eyes.

“Power two of two,” I said, showing her the address.

Just like that, I had the next step of my plan in hand.

I finished the latest commission in just a few hours after my phone call with the mysterious contact. It had lit a fire under me to hold commissions off for a while so I could concentrate on taking the power of Brandon McKinley.

I set about pausing my commission application page on the shady website I had bought an advertising segment of and focused on finishing the almost complete grimoire. The other commission, which was still missing a power, would become my next priority.

Up to my eyeballs in my new plan, I forgot about dinner until Laura came up with a plate for me and a bowl of chicken for Hecate.

“Priya said you might want some privacy this evening,” she said, putting the plate down on my bedside table. “Everything okay?”

Huddled up on my bed, laptop on my thighs, I had all but disappeared in the giant hoodie I had crawled into. “Yeah, everything’s fine.”

Laura was the last person I would admit anything was wrong to at that moment. I couldn’t let her feel guilty for the issues Asher had caused during his visit. Those were on him, and she deserved to have who she wanted around for her birthday.

“Sure? Whoa!” Laura almost dropped the bowl of chicken as Hecate launched herself at her, eyes as wide as saucers. “All right Hec, jeez.”

She put the bowl on the floor and Hecate nearly fell over scrambling to get to it. In all the excitement, I had forgotten to get her any food. To her credit, she hadn’t bugged me about it once, perhaps noticing how engrossed I was in the new plan.

“You’d tell me if something was up, right?” Laura placed her hands on her hips and ducked her head to glare at me under the rim of my hood.

“I’m just working.” I shrugged, hoping I looked casual enough to send her on her way. “Thanks for dinner.”

Apparently satisfied, but with suspicion still lacing her expression, Laura waved her goodbyes and left.

A huffed a large breath out through my nose. Another upside to leaving; no longer needing to cover for myself when anyone came snooping.

“It’s your own fault you can’t come. That private investigator is just waiting for me to slip up.” I stuffed the wrapped grimoire into my rucksack while perched on the edge of my bed. “He can’t see us together.”

That wannabe cop had made it clear he was following me, and I couldn’t take a chance on anything until I knew he had stopped.

Dropping off a package to a lock box might look suspicious if Shawn decided to tail me that night, but unless he knew what was inside, he couldn’t do anything about it.

“How rude.” Hecate mewled as she dug her claws into my coat arm. “I don’t want to stay inside anymore. It’s not good for me.”

If an indoor cat like Hecate had complaints about staying inside, she definitely needed a little field trip. But it wouldn’t be tonight.

“I’ll smuggle you to a wildlife park or something soon so you can bully the jaguars,” I said, zipping up my bag.

“I’d rather you took me to a museum so I could help myself.”

“Gods, you really are a British cat.” I deposited her onto the bed and scratched her behind the ear. “We’ll do something special, okay? Just hang tight here until I get back.”

Hecate reached up to touch the back of my hand. “Fine. But I expect you to pick up some salmon on your way home.”

“Consider it done.”

With Hecate appeased, I slipped out of the house and drove on my bike to the teleportation tunnel, popping out in Seville this time. It was one of the few Spanish towns I hadn’t already dropped grimoires off in before. I liked Spain.

As soon as I drove out onto the roads of Seville, a burst of warm air enveloped me despite the stars twinkling up above. Even with winter approaching, the heat in Spain tended to linger, and that was to say nothing of the glorious amounts of sun it experienced. Maybe this was somewhere to consider moving to if I decided to leave.

I zipped through the streets, careful to meander around the many cats that crossed my path, unbothered by the loud engine on my bike. Once I had parked up next to the postal lockers, I unlocked one and put the packaged grimoire inside, locking it up with a payment from my phone. When the lock clicked into place, I stuffed my phone back into my pocket and turned to return to my bike.

"I wouldn't move if I were you."

The familiar voice from the shadows had me whipping around on the spot. I searched the darkness for the person it belonged to, and out of the shadows stepped Shawn Donnelly. With one hand in his pocket, the other held out a wooden wand in my direction, the fiery red crystal at the end making my heart skip several beats.

A cacophony of questions wished to tumble from my mouth, but I held my tongue. If there was one thing that dancing on the edge of knives like this had taught me, it was that you limited what you said. Especially if someone in the vicinity was looking to nail you for something.

Out of all the mayhem happening in my head, one thought stood out like a diamond in a coal pile. I had expected him to follow me, but not threaten me with magic. What had he learned that made him think he could hold me at wand-point?

"What are you doing here?" I asked. "And what are you doing with that ?"

He was cute if he thought the wand made him look intimidating.

"I know it was you who stole Troy Franklin's power." Shawn took several slow steps toward me. "With the help of your little grimalkin friend."

I kept my poker face firmly on. How had the guy come to that conclusion without coming near Penny, me, or Asher? Nobody else knew. Unless... I swallowed, hard. Had Asher sold me out? No, even he wouldn't do that. Not to people like the Franklins, anyway.

"Listen." I held my hands out palms facing him. "I don't know where you're getting your intel, but I don't have that power you were asking about, and I don't know anything about a grimalkin. You're barking up the wrong tree."

"No." Shawn stopped almost right in front of me, and tapped on the door of the locker I had just shut. "I'm not."

"That was you who wanted a grimoire?" I asked. "Why?"

"Because that would confirm the fact that you're indeed stealing powers to sell your merchandise, which means you have the power I suspected," he said.

My eyes narrowed. I never put my real name up on that page. He had really done his research to find the service I ran without any identification connecting me to it.

"Where did you even get the idea that I had that power in the first place?" I asked, slowly lowering my hands.

"That would be me." From out of the shadows, a pair of high heels clicked their owner into the pool of a streetlight's glare.

Wearing a fur lined trench coat, a fancy handbag swung off her arm, and her red curls bounced with each step. It was all I could do to stop my heart jumping out through my throat and tearing off down the street.

"Louisa," I hissed. My cousin and lifelong enemy growing up; Louisa Bishop.