Cursed To Death

“What a fabulous turn of events.” Baron Montague strode through the crowd at Fi

“They still have that barrier to us at Dugan’s Bed & Breakfast?” a willowy, pale platinum blond murmured through her fangs. “Drat! Geoff, let’s play with them tonight. There are two humans upstairs copulating, and the boy is on the sofa, bored, watching television. We could easily run all three of them out into the night. Sasha would come home to ashes. We could just burn it down.”

“Yes, yes, can we, and then we could feed on Sasha’s humans?” her flame-haired companion begged. “That would twist that bitch’s gizzards with guilt when she came back to find her three cherished, defenseless humans sucked bone dry.”

“The old man is also by himself-her father,” another said pulling on Geoff’s arm. She flung her silky black hair over her shoulders, giggling as they passed unsuspecting patrons that only noticed them as a chill. “He may have that dreaded, tainted Shadow Wolf blood in him, but we could snap his neck and leave him for dead… Maybe just savage him so it looks like a wolf did it.”

“But all of those delicious options would involve us directly, mes cheries.”

“Oh, poo,” the blond said, nipping his neck. “You’re no fun.”

“That’s not what you said a little while ago.” He whacked her on her backside as they giggled and left by way of the open windows. “Patience is a virtue, and when you live forever, you can afford to exploit as much of that natural resource as required. Besides, Dugan’s B &B is valuable real estate, love. Firebombing is so pedestrian, so yesterday.”

Sasha’s hair was still wet from the shower when she got behind the wheel. Sir Rodney’s top advisor had called and asked her to go look again at where the bodies had been. She couldn’t blame them for not wanting to be outside of the Sidhe at night, especially with their magick waning. And even though she wasn’t sure what they were after, she’d gladly gone along with their request-she had needed space and had needed to get Shogun’s scent off her, drop her clothes in the laundry, and get the hell out of there. Listening to Clarissa hit high notes and Bradley bottom out in bass notes was not how she was going to spend her night. There was an investigation to conclude, even if she was laboring under the influence of a jacked-up spell.

Doc might have been irrational, giving in to some Father Knows Best rerun playing in his head due to the dark magick, but he did have a point-they had to find out more information and get ahead of the spell reactions before anything else crazy happened. That would have led her back to the last place she probably should have been, even if Garth hadn’t called: Ethan’s Fair Lady.

Police crime-scene tape barred the entrance as she drove by. Okay, made sense; somebody heard the shotgun blast, no doubt, called in the authorities; they saw the hole in the ceiling, maybe even Fae arrows and scorched walls from Dragon blasts, and now the authorities couldn’t find the owners on what should have been a bustling business night. Not good.

Sasha parked her jeep two blocks away and tucked her Glock into the back of her jeans’ waistband, covering it up as best she could with her tank top. She slipped around the back of the building, avoiding the shadows, not wanting to escape into one and accidentally bump into Hunter and Silver Hawk-she was not ready for that yet. But there had to be something in that cellar that she hadn’t seen before. Without any male triggers to create a diversion and in there alone, maybe she’d get to the bottom of it.

She kicked in the back door after listening to be sure there were no human authorities still snooping around, and slipped inside, her wolf night vision helping her to stay concealed in the darkness.

Hesitating for a moment, she stood at the top of the cellar steps. She could still smell the ash and added trace of human sweat. “Aw, man…” Sasha let out a hard breath. Humans had been down there mucking around in a supernatural crime scene. Something still drew her, pulled at her, and she crept down the steps on guard.

“Shit!” The humans had left boot prints everywhere, as well as their scent layer. Now any hope of going back to examine a fairly intact crime scene was shot.

Sasha stooped down to where the victim had been and stared at the eerie impression of the body that was left. Crouching closer, she stared at the floor and then began brushing away the slight film of remaining ash. Beneath it a strange series of new symbols became visible. They were totally different from the ones that had been on the actual Phoenix’s body ash. Why had Desidera’s body been lying right on top of this larger sigil, hiding it?

The images burned into her mind’s eye. Sasha stood up quickly, bolted up the stairs to find Ethan’s office. She needed paper and pencil, had to copy it down exactly as she found it. Yanking out drawers, she finally ran to the copier and snatched a stack of pages, swiping a pen from the desk on her way out.

But as she returned to the ashy spot, there was nothing there except unintelligible soot.

CHAPTER 13

Hunter entered the bed-and-breakfast with Silver Hawk. Both men stopped and just stared for a moment. Winters was sprawled out on the sofa amid pizza boxes, beer bottles, and a blaring TV tuned to the Sci Fi cha

“We’ve lost our familiars for the night,” Hunter said, staring at the ceiling.

“And our dark arts specialist,” Silver Hawk said calmly, with no judgment in his tone.

“Oh, hey,” Winters said, rousing slowly and yawning. “Everything cool?”

“You tell me,” Hunter said, growing edgy. “Where are my men?”

Winters sat forward chuckling and rubbing his eyes. “Oh, man. Those guys went out hours ago. As soon as the moon went up, they were out. But you can probably hear better than me,” he added, hunting for a cold slice of pizza, “and the reason I’m down here drowning out the sound… Fisher and Woods brought back live game. And Bradley and ’Rissa are ‘researching,’ if you get my drift.” He bit into a slice, and then made a gesture to offer Hunter and Silver Hawk a bite, which they declined. “Sometimes I wish… I just don’t know how those guys do it. The one Woods pulled is killer.”

“What direction did Bear Shadow and Crow Shadow go?” Hunter asked, his tone dangerous. “I gave them a direct order to protect this location!”

Silver Hawk landed a steady hand on Hunter’s shoulder. “They have not had the benefit of your clarity in the shadow lands. This is not how they generally conduct themselves as your lieutenants. Be mindful of that.”

“They rolled out with a blond and a brunette from across the street, left their jeep-probably going to the girls’ place… which is a good thing-could you imagine the racket that would have been going on in here with five couples knocking boots? Sheesh.” Winters yawned again and stretched. “It’s cool, though. When the pizza dude came, I was on the porch and saw Bear driving a really cute chick’s car with Crow and her friend in the backseat all snuggled up… so I think your guys are doing just fine. No worries, no attacks, everything is peace, as they say. But I doubt you’ll see ’em before tomorrow morning. Seems like all of New Orleans was over at Fi