Black Arts, White Craft (Black Hat Bureau Book 2) Page 15

  “That can’t be…” I stepped around the daemon’s reach to gawk. “Annie Waite?”

  If it was the same woman, her mantra hadn’t changed, and that meant we had a run-of-the-mill zombie.

  Less exotic, but equally gross, and just as deadly if we underestimated its threat.

  Not glancing back, I pitched my voice to carry to Clay. “Have you heard from the other team?”

  “No.” Clay, and therefore Colby, sounded closer than I would have liked. “That’s not unusual, though.”

  Any team running secondary to one with me on it tended to cut a wide berth to avoid crossing my path. But it wasn’t like them not to text a warning the body they had been dispatched to retrieve the night before was missing.

  A chill swept down my arms, a premonition I wouldn’t like the answers I was about to get.

  “I can’t tell if she’s armed.” I nudged the daemon back. “Stay behind me until we know for certain.”

  Far from being a zombie expert, I didn’t want to find out the hard way they were handy with a gun.

  “No,” the daemon growled, prowling beside me. “Rue get hurt.”

  Cold-iron poisoning nearly took out Asa, and the daemon with him. I wasn’t hiding where it was safe this time.

  As much as it pained me to think of her as a weapon, I had Colby. Her power would protect us. All of us.

  “Book, book, book.” Garbled words poured into the air. “Book, book, book.”

  “Anyone else think that makes her sound like a chicken?”

  Bawk-bawk-bawk.

  “Chicken?” The daemon licked his lips. “Crunchy.”

  For the sake of my mental health, I chose to believe he meant fried chicken skin, not bone-in live bird.

  Death wasn’t a squeamish topic for me. Neither was a raw diet or even cannibalism. Hello? Heart eater. But there were perfectly good chicken tenders in the fridge back at the cabin, just waiting to be breaded and fried.

  A mop of dirty hair plastered to the side of a head that faced off center in a way that wasn’t natural rose from the shadows as the zombie lumbered into the path ahead of us. The witch’s corpse lacked the fluid motions of the zombigo, and its coordination. She had been slapped together without care on a deadline.

  Her uninspired shuffling ramped up when she set rheumy eyes on us, and she wet her lips.

  “Stay back,” I warned the daemon again, since I still couldn’t see her hands. “She might be armed.”

  Reanimated corpses had no agency of their own, but they followed simple instruction well.

  Point and shoot was easy, too easy, and I couldn’t let her get close enough to the daemon to try her aim.

  “No.” He nudged me aside. “Protect Rue.”

  “I’m sorry about this.” I let him get a smidge ahead of me then tapped his shoulder with my wand. He hit the ground like a ton of bricks, and his eyes promised vengeance. “It’ll wear off in five minutes.” I leapt a clumsy swipe of his arm. “Okay, so probably more like two.”

  With Clay and Colby on the scene, the daemon was safe as houses, freeing me up to focus on the threat.

  “You’re a bibliophile, huh?” I blocked her punch, grunting, but grateful she had no magic. “Me too.”

  Any power left in her body, and she hadn’t much to start, was spent keeping her upright and in motion.

  “Book,” she growled. “Give me the book.”

  “What book?” I let her get close then spun out and kicked her knee. “Hit me with a blurb or something.”

  Whoever was up here, sewing together zombies for funsies, I wasn’t sharing my card catalog with them.

  A prickle coasted over my skin, raising gooseflesh into stinging bumps that ached with irritation.

  “The ward,” I breathed in recognition. “We need to get to the cabin.”

  This zombie was a limited conversationalist, a distraction, and a darn good one.

  Murmuring a spell under my breath, I ramped up the power I funneled into my wand until its tip shone. I grunted when Colby joined her magic with mine, lighting me up inside, burning me like a shot of tequila.

  The zombie tripped over a limb and face-planted, too dumb to do more than wiggle its arms and legs.

  “Next time,” I said, easing closer to get in range, “come at me with an ISBN or something.”

  Light encased her when I touched the wand to her skin, and she burned to ash in a blink.

  We didn’t need the body, since we had already identified her and logged that intel with the Kellies.

  Hot breath hit the back of my neck when I stood, and my short hairs stood on end.

  Slowly, I turned to face this new threat, but it was too late.

  12

  The daemon bent, fit his shoulder to my squishy gut, then stood with a growl that brooked no argument.

  As tempted as I was to zap him, and the urge was strong, I had already hit him with one spell tonight.

  For his own good.

  Something told me any argument I made would fall on deaf ears, so I hung there, fuming, longing for the days when people cowered before me rather than slung me over their shoulders like a bag of rocks. It was a rude awakening to go from revered to manhandled—daemonhandled?—on the job.

  I reminded myself the lack of fear from the residents of Samford was a good thing, and it was reaffirming to be accepted on my own magicless merit (mostly magicless), but it was fast becoming as plain as the button nose on my face that I hadn’t thought I would return to action as a white witch.

  I entered this lifestyle on the run, and the trade-offs were worthwhile, until danger stalked those I loved and forced me to admit I was much less than I used to be.

  The grimoire was looking better and better, and that was how I knew it was time to read it and burn it.

  Temptation always started as an easy solution to a thorny problem that wouldn’t hurt anyone, or a hit of instant gratification that couldn’t be bad when it felt good and harmed none. Then it escalated. Slowly, a trail of chocolate cake crumbs that led to scrumptious damnation with the best intentions.

  “Zombies,” the daemon rumbled, then set me down gently before frowning at me. “Careful, Rue.”

  “That goes double for you.” I frowned right back. “You see a gun, you run.”

  “Rue like me.” He preened, chest out and fangs sharp. “Rue care.”

  All that kept him from offering me a hank of his hair was the knowledge we needed our hands free.

  “Yeah, yeah.” I shoved him aside. “Rent a billboard, why don’t you?”

  On Colby duty, Clay kept a step behind, but we were almost back to the cabin, and things looked grim.

  “I want you in the air,” I told her. “Stay high, stay safe.”

  “Will do.” She shot into the cloudless sky, words trailing behind her. “I could help if I had my sword.”

  Sliding Clay a glare that ought to have singed his wig’s roots, I said, “Thank you for that.”

  “Just wait until you see her wee daggers.” He shook out his arms. “They’re adorable.”

  Colby was dangerous all on her own. Tiny weapons didn’t make her more lethal. They put my eyeballs at risk, but that was about it. As we crept down the path, I decided my problem was I didn’t want the teeny sword to become her Excalibur, or whatever they killed orcs with these days, or for it give her a false sense of safety.

  A low moan drew me from my worries and focused me on a tall man dressed in a familiar black suit.

  He was handsome enough, until he turned his head and flashed us gray matter seeping from what skull he had left on the far side. I didn’t recognize him, but that wasn’t saying much. Clay probably knew him.

  What mattered wasn’t who he was, or what he was, but who he had been.

  Black Hat.

  The black witch orchestrating this zombie fest wasn’t afraid of the Bureau. That wasn’t a comforting thought. A witch with that kind of power, who wanted more? Pfft. Who was I kidding? Any witch with a drop of m
agic wanted it to manifest into a well. But why target this one specific grimoire? How did they even know that Taylor had it? Or that Asa had given it to me for safekeeping?

  The grimoire hadn’t been entered into evidence. Black Hat didn’t know, officially, that it existed, let alone who possessed it. That meant someone with access to the evidence logs had noticed its absence and decided one of the primary agents on the case had found it and kept it.

  I was the logical choice, as the witch on our team.

  But only one subject within its pages lent it more value than any other grimoire.

  The information on Colby.

  More than ever, I was grateful to have left it at home.

  Even if someone was testing the wards. Someone I hoped was a bunny or a chipmunk or a squirrel.

  “That’s Joe Brunswick,” Clay said from beside me. “Sonofa—” he made a fist, “—biscuit.”

  Three more bodies dressed in expensive suits shambled toward us, classic zombies, drawn by the first agent’s moaning. This must be the rest of his team. Or maybe Asa and I smelled like fresh meat. Fresh brains? I wasn’t clear if that part was lore. Also? I did not want to find out. Firsthand or ever.

  Glass shattered in the direction of the cabin, and I crossed my fingers they didn’t reach the loft and trash Colby’s custom gear. Tiny tech carried huge price tags. As for the poor cabin, well, its repairs fell to Black Hat and the homeowner’s insurance company. Maybe the owners would believe bears were at fault?

  “Can you handle these shamblers?” I watched them another second. “I’ll take the daemon with me.”

  Eyebrow cocked, he quizzed me. “You mean Ace?”

  “Yeah. Sure.” I was more and more convinced they were separate entities sharing one body, like shifters and their animal souls, but now wasn’t the time to have a semi-theological debate. “Let’s go, buddy.”

  The daemon fell into an easy lope, aiming for the action, and I struggled to keep pace with him.

  His lengthy strides would leave me in the dust before long. No doubt, that was part of his plan.

  Ditch me, secure the residence, then allow me to walk in over dead intruders while he puffed his chest.

  Asa did a fair job of letting me do my thing. Even though I was figuring out how much of my thing I could do in my present circumstances. Especially when my power shot through the roof when I tapped Colby through our familiar bond. If I wanted to survive this consultation gig, I had to get a handle on my base power level and my supercharged magical threshold. Otherwise, one day, I might get us all killed.

  Since I couldn’t outrun him, I had to get sneaky. I let him pull ahead, let him feel good about himself, let him hear me huffing with feigned exhaustion. Then I cut hard to the right, away from the chaos that beckoned to him, a smile on my lips as he sprinted on toward the zombies. Me? I hit the front door, found it unlocked, and entered the rental with my wand at the ready.

  A silver blur caught the edge of my vision, faster and sleeker than the zombies out front.

  No heartbeats in the house.

  Whatever it was, it wasn’t alive, and it was made better than even the zombigo to move like that.

  “I hear you’re looking to borrow a book,” I called to it. “Swear not to dog-ear the pages?”

  A serpentine hiss poured from the darkest corner. Not the most promising response.

  “The Proctor Family Grimoire.”

  Head cocked, I couldn’t decide if it had spoken or if the voice had projected from that vicinity by design. The old look at my left hand while my right punches through your chest and rips out your heart trick was a true classic. Very popular with the dark magic set.

  “I’ll have to check my shelves.” I pushed to see what answers I could get. “Why do you want it?”

  The sibilant warning drifted to my left, but I hadn’t seen the creature budge. Its master was throwing their voice to trick me into thinking I was surrounded by creatures.

  “Give me the book, or I will kill the people in your town, one by one, until you concede victory to me.”

  Not in town or in this town but in your town.

  It meant Samford.

  My town.

  My home.

  My people.

  “Threats are not the way to get what you want from me.”

  A boom shook the house, and more glass exploded as the daemon fell through a skylight to the floor. He held a severed arm in one hand and a leg bone in the other. As the creature shot out to attack, the daemon used the limbs as clubs to batter it away from him.

  “Rue mine” was his battle cry, which was equal parts cute and cringy.

  The thing was a giant silver worm with a bullet-shaped head. The scales and unusual color had thrown me. So had the fact its head unzipped down the middle, revealing jaws with needlelike teeth jutting up like the world’s deadliest pincushion.

  Goddess bless, what a mess.

  I only prayed the creature was this much of a nightmare before the witch got ahold of it. I was hardly an authority on oddities of the magical world. There were simply too many. New ones born every day. I just hoped this one was natural. We did not need an enemy this creative. Or gross.

  Silvery coils tightening, the worm readied to spring at the daemon’s head, jaws wide open.

  The daemon let it come, and he punched it in the face. Except it had no face. Just mouth. His arm shot down its throat, there was a meaty wrenching sound, and the daemon pulled back a handful of organs.

  The nightmare worm thrashed on the warm oak floor, its blood tinting the planks a milky pink.

  I tore my focus from the spectacle to check for a second worm, but I saw and heard nothing, proving the creative witch had been creating the sound effects to distract me.

  “Smell bad.” The daemon dropped the vitals onto the floor. “Long dead thing.”

  Unsure if he meant it was a long and also dead thing or a thing that had been dead a long time, I let it go to avoid asking. Mostly because I didn’t want to open my mouth and taste the air in this place. The room was downright foul from the ripe bodies the daemon had torn into pieces to reach me.

  “Reminds me of those dancing tube things at car dealerships.” Clay stepped beside me. “What was it?”

  The daemon didn’t answer, so I gagged as I told Clay, “A giant worm with a head zipper.”

  “I’ll grab some pics for our records, but you need to ash him quick.”

  “Why?” I brought up my wand. “The mess is made.”

  “Some worms can regrow bodies from their heads and heads from their bodies if you cut them in two.”

  “I…did not know that.” I cranked my head toward him. “Have you seen one of these before?”

  “A contestant on Spooky House Delights got fined for using store-bought gummy worms to decorate their Halloween gingerbread house. He mentioned the tidbit about the worm, and it was so freaky I had to look it up, but it didn’t do him any good. The ruling stood, and he lost. Pity too. It was an impressive feat of cookie construction.”

  “Halloween gingerbread is a thing?”

  Phone in hand, he recorded the worm thrashing then took snaps for good measure. “Yup.”

  “Learn something new every day,” I mumbled, staring in morbid fascination at the worm.

  “I could drop a word in the mayor’s ear, see if she might want to add a gingerbread competition to those holiday festivities coming up in December.” His expression was delightfully evil. “I might offer to judge.”

  “Give that woman any more ideas, and I will mold you into a birdbath for Mrs. Gleason’s backyard.”

  Mrs. Gleason was eighty pounds soaking wet, with a beehive hairdo that added a foot onto her height. A good neighbor and a better friend, I was lucky to have her watching the house while I was away. Her and her shotgun, Bam-Bam, who wore matching outfits. Yeah. It was a whole thing.

  That said, she had also shot Clay in the butt the first time she spied him sneaking around my property.

&nbs
p; “That woman has fine aim.” He rubbed his left cheek. “I was impressed by how steady she held the gun.”

  “We’re clear.” Asa joined us in his ratty slacks and bare feet. “The horde is dead.” He frowned. “Again.”

  “We need headshots of the zombies to send the Kellies. Failing that, we need fingerprint scans.” I wrinkled my nose at the task. “Families need to be notified. So does the director.”

  “I’ll get on it,” Clay volunteered, pulling out his cell. “I’ll give Colby the all clear while I’m at it.”

  Alone with Asa and a whole lot of dead zombies, I raked my gaze over him slowly, checking to ensure he hadn’t taken any new damage. If a hipbone caught my eye and snagged it, it wasn’t my fault. His pants, I decided, definitely had elastic, but the waistband had been stretched to its limit.

  “I like the way you look at me,” he rumbled, his eyes burnt crimson.

  “Like I’m worried you might have fresh holes I need to plug?”

  “Like my pants are in your way, and you’re considering sliding them off my hips with your teeth.”

  The smile I gave him would have sent any other man running, back in the day, but he only purred as he let the threat stoke some inner fire until his eyes shone with desire.

  Potential daemon heritage or not, I could tell Asa and I were turning a corner.

  Fast.

  Sharp.

  Hard.

  Sweat drenched my spine as I held his gaze, and I couldn’t decide if I wanted to run to or away from him.

  The sensible thing would be for me to stop feeding him, if I wanted time and room to think this through.

  But since when was I a sensible person where Asa was concerned?

  A streak of white light zipped up and over my head, landing in the loft. “Thank Baldr, my stuff is safe.”

  Clay ducked his head in, letting me know I was on Colby duty. “Who’s Baldr?”

  “Not sure,” I muttered, “but I bet he hates orcs.”

  Knowing Colby, Baldr was a deity in her game. To be on the safe side, I would Google it later.

  The name rang a distant bell, and the last thing I needed was to discover he was a real god, that her prayers were going somewhere. Most of the gods in this world had given up on us and left, but their selective hearing kicked in when someone praised them. Given she was a bright soul given form, I didn’t want her to risk catching celestial interest.