Page 3 of Taken by the Twins (Sombra Demons #7)

CHAPTER 3

GRIMOIRE DU SOMbrA

TANDY

I t’s a book.

Now, I’m not much of a reader. Never have been. It happens. While Billie’s nose was always in a book, and she nagged Sierra enough that they formed their own little two-person book club while I napped on the tour bus, I never saw the point in reading. Part of a best-selling girl group by the time I was fifteen, touring the world from sixteen to twenty before it all came crashing down… I had more than enough adventures in my real life. I didn’t need to read about them.

Same thing with romance. Before Jared, I convinced myself I was in love with Corey, the bad boy of Cool Guyz. He was my first everything, and when that didn’t work out, he left me easy pickings for his bandmate to scoop up.

I’ve been head-over-heels in love—or believed I was. I’ve experienced heartache. Betrayal. Hurt. None of my romances came with a happily ever after, and reading about them made me jealous of the fictional characters who had them.

True love doesn’t exist. There’s infatuation and lust—I won’t deny that—and sudden attraction that’ll have my ankles up by my ears for a guy with a charming smile and slick line. But romance?

Like chivalry, I’m pretty sure it’s dead.

But that’s okay. I don’t need love to get laid, and if I’m not happy with my lot, that’s what the new year is for, right? Things will get better.

Hey. At least I’m not the one knocked-up, yeah?

But a book… I shouldn’t be nosy. Not that it’s going to stop me or anything. That book isn’t mine, and for all I know, it’s a baby name book. Maybe it was a gift from Billie to Sierra for Christmas. I could see her giving Sierra an old, rare book that was hard to get her hands on amidst plenty of other gifts.

Then again, there’s no sign that anyone celebrated Christmas only just last week. And though I’d bet that Sierra and Billie have a housekeeper and a crew that would put up decorations for the famous starlet, then take them down when the holiday is over, I kind of expected there’d be some hint of the holiday lingering.

It’s only New Year’s Eve. Way I see it, we’re in that weird no man’s land week that separates Christmas Eve from New Year’s Day. When you lose track of what day it is, and when your work schedule is fucked.

I don’t have another show until January 3rd. This is my vacation, and instead of spending it at a New Year’s Eve party, drinking champagne and cruising for my conquest, I’m snooping around my old friend’s seemingly empty apartment.

I should’ve known better. Whiskey fucking Rose wouldn’t be hanging around her apartment on New Year’s Eve, pregnant or not. Bille, maybe, but I haven’t heard from her in a while. I actually kind of thought that the only reason Sierra got into touch in the first place was because Billie needed to step back in her role as Sierra’s manager and closest friend and now Sierra, like me, was feeling a little lonely.

Yeah… I’m pretty sure I just transferred my own feelings and insecurities onto a wealthy, famous, powerful celebrity. But that book…

The more I look at it, the more I think I might’ve seen it before.

Setting my clutch down on the back of Sierra’s maroon couch, I moved until I’m standing next to the coffee table. This close, I know my strange sense of deja vu wasn’t an exaggeration.

I have seen this book.

Like I said, I’ve never been much of a reader. The truth is that I was put off of reading when I was a teen because, for almost two years consistently, I kept dreaming about one in particular.

Weird, huh? What kind of normal sixteen-year-old girl falls asleep and her recurring dream is searching for an old leather book that she could never, ever find. It was super frustrating, and the first time I got drunk in Amsterdam, it was because I was trying to burn the memory of the strange book out of my head.

It worked… eventually. One day, I dreamed about the book and a pair of large, featureless shadows whirling just beyond the lectern it was kept on. The next? I fantasized over Corey Hanks, his pouty lips, and his expensive emo haircut.

After Corey, there was Jared. Tucker. Coop. Marcus. Benji. Jaime… the list goes on and on, I’m sure I’ve forgotten a couple that came and went in the first few years after my world came crashing down, but when boy crazy Tandy spent all her time looking for the next guy to make her feel something , she stopped dreaming about books.

To be honest, I forget about it entirely—until right this very second.

I’ve never told anyone about my strange dreams before. Well, no. That’s not exactly true. I mentioned it once, Sierra and Billie teased me so mercilessly over it that Roy had to step in before it turned into a catfight, and I refused to discuss it again. Realizing the topic made me touchy—and a far better friend to me during our Thr33peat days than I ended up being to her—Sierra didn’t bring it up. Neither did Billie.

And yet, for some strange reason, it’s here. Sitting in the middle of Sierra’s coffee table, almost as if it’s waited for close to fifteen years to find me…

Bending over slightly, I get a better look at it.

The book is old . From the pitted leather cover to the yellowed pages, I can’t even begin to imagine how long it’s been since it was printed and bound. Ages. Unless it’s some kind of prop for one of Sierra’s new movies. It’s possible. It could just look old?—

I pick it up. The ‘old book’ smell is noticeable as I bring it close to my face, but there’s something else that has my nose wrinkling and tickle forming in the back of my throat. A sort of nasty ‘rotten egg’-y smell that has me choking a little.

Weird.

Breathing through my nose until the stink is gone, I look over the closed book. No title. No author. Nothing. Flipping over the front cover, I see a list of names handwritten on the cover: Susanna . AMY. Shannon. Kennedy.

No Sierra, I notice. Hm. I wonder what that’s about. The second name looks like a kid wrote it, while the other two names are smeared so while I’m not one hundred percent what they say, I don’t think I’m wrong.

I look at the next page.

Grimoire du Sombra . There’s no author. No copyright year. Just a title in an unusual font.

Grimoire? Like a magic book? Spells?

Okay. So I’m thinking this might be a prop after all. I don’t change my mind when I finally notice that there’s a vivid pink bookmark poking out of the top.

Shrugging, I use my fingernail to flip the page open to the page Sierra was on, careful not to lose her bookmark or her place.

Verus Amor . Beneath the printed title, someone wrote beneath it in a classic script: true love . Considering the script matches, it could be Susanna, the first name written on the inner cove. It looks faded, too, like it was written a long time ago. Years, definitely. Decades, probably.

A second later, it sinks in, and I blink.

A true love spell?

This is a true love spell?

Hell, yeah. Sign me the fuck up!

A laugh escapes me. I know it can’t be real. Sierra’s probably practicing for her role as a lovesick, lonely woman using magic to find her true love instead of relying on online dating. It’s an amazing dupe, though, so props to the, well, prop department, I guess.

The little details really make you second-guess if a spell book could actually exist. From the names scrawled on the inner cover to the translation beneath the title, and even the added comments in the margin…

Lifting the book closer to my face, completely ignoring the fact that my last eye doctor appointed revealed I’ll need reading glasses sooner or later, I see that the same doodler marked two individual paragraphs. Each one is written in a language unlike any I’ve ever seen before, but the notes are in English. Next to the top paragraph, it says ‘manifest’. The second claims it’s a ‘promise’. There’s also a drawing of a pentacle, and something about using white chalk and salt to create it or something… I don’t know. I’m more fascinated by the idea that this could possibly be an actual true love spell.

Isn’t that what prop departments do? To make it as realistic as possible, they do their research.

Now, do I believe that, if I read these two paragraphs out loud, my true love is going to walk through Sierra’s apartment door, whisk me off of my feet, and carry me off to our happily ever after.

Ha. Not a chance.

But if it, I don’t know, helps the right guy somehow find me? I wouldn’t say no.

Can you believe it? Deep down, Tandy Lewis still is holding out hope that there might be someone out there for her. I’ve always figured I was just too much for one man to handle, but what if there was really someone out there for me? Who’ll love me, never betray me, and want me for me?

What if I have a true love?

I don’t bother with chalk. Salt? This isn’t my place, and even if it was the hotel I’ve been renting for the run of my latest show, I rarely use the condiment. I might have a couple of those tiny packets from my take-out orders, but that’s it. Enough to draw that five-point star with the circle around it? Unlikely.

Besides. Nothing’s going to happen, and I begin reading the strange words even while I believe that.

The sounds make no sense. The syllables are harsh, and some of the words make me feel like I’d be better off gargling rocks than attempting to read them. Part of me thinks that, even if it did work, I’m butchering the language so badly, the spell will fail regardless.

Um. Spoiler alert.

It doesn’t .

To my surprise, something actually does start to happen after I finish the first paragraph.

It’s December in the city, where my teeth chattered all the way to the front door because my dress is so short and the temperature is so fucking cold out right now. It was warmer inside the climate-controlled apartment, but as my eyes travel to the second paragraph—the ‘promise’ part—it seems like the heat kicked in or something.

Sweat forms at the base of my spine, my meticulously styled hair started to curl a little in the sudden blast of powerful warmth. Like when you walk past an open oven and get a face full of hot air, it slams into my back.

There’s only one light on in the apartment. It’s a cooler shade of white, but the living room I’m in becomes awash with orange by the time I’m halfway through the second paragraph.

Then, just as quickly, the room shadows over. It’s so dark, I think Sierra came in and turned off the light to catch my attention.

I spin on my heel, searching for her?—

—and that’s when I see a large… circle, I guess? I don’t know. There’s, like, this giant hole on the other side of Sierra’s gaudy chaise. Dark on the edges, but full of flames in the middle, my brain goes: fire .

If it is a fire, it’s contained. The flames lap at the edge of the massive pit hovering about two inches over the floor.

“What the?—”

Something flickers out of the corner of my eye. Turning slightly, I notice something strange in the shadows that have fallen over that side of Sierra’s living room.

Unless I’ve lost my fucking mind—and considering what led me to this exact moment in time, I very easily could have—there is a… a… a figure standing in the middle of the shadows.

I stare, and the shadows move .