Page 6 of The Blood Witch
“Yeah, I have them. Did they get into the apartment?” I ask, pacing. I need the movement to help ground me, to keep me from losing my shit and leaving this place whether they want me to or not.
“No, just the shop. It was pretty trashed, broken bottles and tipped shelves, but it doesn’t look like they robbed the place.”
Flashes of Rogan and me wrestling around the shop when he first made me his familiar play in my mind, and I cringe. We left the shop trashed. I thought I’d have time to go back and clean it up, but I wasn’t able to before Rogan and I hopped a ley line to Tennessee.
“Oh shit, Hoot!”
How did I forget about the stink pot until now? Who is looking after him and Rogan’s skunk while we’re here? I add it to the pile of questions I need to ask Rogan the next time I see him. Dammit, that sure is going to put a crimp in myhe’s dead to meplan. How am I supposed to never speak to him again when he’s the only one who can answer these questions?
“Hold up, Tad, what makes you think the shop was broken into?” I query, holding my breath for his answer.
“Because it was trashed.”
“But were the front doors locked or open? Any windows broken?” I press as I recall myself pulling potions from shelves and chucking them at Rogan’s head.
“No, the doors were locked and the windows fine, just the damage inside. Ma called Grammy’s necro buddy, and he came and smudged. He said there were two distinct magical signatures there last, and then one he wasn’t sure about. He said it was off, like milk just past the expiration date,” Tad explains, and confusion trickles down my spine.
The two magical signatures could easily have been Rogan and me, but the third, I’m not sure what that could have been. The tether maybe? Our magic is supposed to be separate, so maybe tethering it makes it resonate as off? I rack my brain for other explanations. Could it have been Grammy Ruby, like her magical signature was starting to change as her body failed? I dismiss that option almost as soon as I think it. The necro knows what death and its trail feels like. No. This must be something he’s not experienced before. I huff out a frustrated breath and add this question to the Rogan pile too. Maybe he’s heard of tethered magic feeling different to necros. At the least, he can ask his aunt about it if he hasn’t.
“Okay, thank you, Tad. I don’t know about that rotten magic part, but the mess in there is from Rogan and me. Remember how I told you about the fa—” I cut myself off and shoot a look toward Prek. He’s cleaning dirt from under his fingernails and pretending to not pay attention to every word I’m speaking. “Remember how Rogan and I met?” I correct instead. “Well, we left that mess behind,” I explain, mentally crossing my fingers and hoping that Tad won’t say anything about familiars or tethering or anything that Prek might overhear that would create even more problems for me.
“You ride that dick yet?” Tad asks instead, and Prek chokes out a cough, making it clear that he can hear both sides of this conversation loud and clear. “Is that why you were ghosting? Too busy screaming his name to pick up the phone?” he teases.
“No!” I shout a little too emphatically, and I can practically hear the raised eyebrow that I know Tad is giving me on the other end of the line. “There will be none of that...ever,” I add, feeling my face heat with embarrassment and anger.
“Leni, the dick gods have blessed you, how can you be so ungrateful?” he starts, pausing to pull in a breath that will fuel a lecture that I’m sure will scar me in some way.
“He fucked me over,” I blurt before Tad can get going. “And no, I don’t mean he fucked me; he lied to me and screwed me over,” I clarify, humiliation, betrayal, and hurt painting my tone.
“What do you mean? What happened?” Tad demands, his voice now dead serious, not a hint of teasing or levity in sight.
“He’s not who I thought. He was renounced, outcast. He tricked me and then sold me out to save his own ass,” I explain, leveling a look on Prek, who’s no longer pretending not to listen. I can see him filing this information away, looking at me now as though I’m more victim than perpetrator.
“Sold you out? Wait. Where are you?”
“I’m in Chicago with the Order. They forced me here against my will for my own protection.”
The phone is snatched from my hands, and I’m whirled around by the shoulder until I’m chest-to-chest with Prek, staring into his annoyed brown eyes.
“What are you doing?” he questions, holding the phone away from both of us. I can barely hear Tad’s worry-filled, shouting voice on the other end. “You’re making trouble for your Lesser family. There are no Lesser authorities that you, or they, can turn to. You’re setting them up either to spill secrets that will get them killed or to spend a lifetime searching for a place they’ll never be able to see with their own eyes,” he practically growls at me.
“A lifetime?” I challenge, pouncing on that statement. “I thought I was free to go after I answered some questions? Why would they go a lifetime without seeing me if that’s true?”
His eyes bounce back and forth between mine, like he’s quickly trying to calibrate what I’m about and how to answer me. He lets out a breath that tickles my face, his arrogant mien disappearing out of nowhere.
“Tell him you’re fine and you’re going to call him tomorrow,” he commands, and I raise a brow and offer him a look that saysfat fucking chance.“I’ll explain what’s going on, and youwillcall him tomorrow. Protect your family, and tell them to stay where they are.”
Now it’s my turn to study Prek’s face, to try and read what he’s not saying and gauge what I should do. I reach for the phone, and Prek sets it back in my palm.
“Hey,” I greet as Tad releases a barrage of worriedhellos.
“What happened? What’s going on, Lennox?” he demands, and his use of my name and not a nickname shows me just how freaked out he really is.
“My babysitter didn’t like what I was telling you,” I state evenly, and Prek reaches for the phone again. I skip back from him and hold up a hand for him to give me a minute. I watch him debate what to do, but he doesn’t try for the phone again or close the distance I just put between us.
“Are you safe?” Tad demands.
“Yes,” I answer, not hesitating even though I’m not entirely sure if it’s true. Like it or not, getting my family involved in all of this isn’t wise. What can they do when they’re up against the witch police?
