Sinners & Sorcerers: Four Urban Fantasy Thrillers Read online

  Damn.

  She gave me some blankets and dimmed the lights. “I’ll wake you up at four. You need anything?”

  I told her I didn’t. My resolve vanished in a puff of incense smoke when she headed upstairs, and I craned my neck to watch the globes of her ass flexing under her panties as she climbed. Double damn. Triple damn. Damnation above and below and everywhere in between.

  I waited until I heard her door close before finding her laptop.

  We all had them. The OPA issued laptops to its employees so we could take our work everywhere we went. No rest for salaried government employees, right? I usually left mine docked in its workstation, but Suzy was a workaholic. I knew it had to be around somewhere.

  As I suspected, I found Cat sitting on her machine in the entryway. He gave me an offended look when I tugged it out from underneath his furry butt.

  Our passwords needed to be changed every quarter, but Suzy’s password was always easy to figure out. She mixed up the ingredients that she kept in jars on her desk—always the same ingredients in a different order. Lotus, dragon’s blood, thyme, jasmine, moonstone. Not that I’d been watching her type or anything.

  Anyway, it took three tries to get the order right, and I was logged in.

  A quick search of the database brought up witness testimonies for Isobel Stonecrow, just as I’d been hoping. I printed them out. Stuffed them in my jacket. Put Suzy’s laptop back where I found it.

  I spent a full minute at the base of her stairs and thought about leaving while she was asleep. But someone had broken into Suzy’s house. If I hit the streets tonight, I would spend the whole time stressing about her all vulnerable in bed, tangled up in sheets that smelled like her peach body wash, wondering if she would look like Erin in the morning.

  I needed sleep. There was no avoiding that. Might as well do it where I could keep Suzy safe.

  The blankets she’d given me smelled like Cat. I wrapped up in them and closed my eyes.

  I was unconscious before my head hit the arm of the sofa.

  9

  I dreamed of Erin.

  We were tangled in each other, her hips rocking, my hands mounding the twin swells of her ass. She was grinding, groaning. Her head rolled back on her shoulders. Her chest was freckled. I licked the sweat from between her breasts and bit her nipple. She liked that—judging by the sounds, she really liked that.

  We moved in tandem, the two of us. Bodies slamming against the cabinets. Hands clutching at the counter. She was close to her peak. Her arm flailed and knocked the toaster onto the floor.

  There was something wrong here—something missing between us. Something I had forgotten.

  Couldn’t stop. Couldn’t think.

  There was nothing but our bodies and the hunger.

  She came hard, screaming. Her fingernails dug into my pecs. Even that knifelike pain was pleasure, carrying me toward the edge with her. I was balls deep, about to shoot a load inside this gorgeous woman, and I didn’t care that my heart had stopped beating.

  But I knew I was about to die.

  I shocked awake with a weight pressing on my chest. For a half second, I thought that I’d been buried alive. It was dark. I couldn’t breathe.

  Then I saw two pale circles staring at me and realized that I wasn’t in a grave—I just had Cat smothering me. He was purring like a jackhammer and kneading Suzy’s blankets under his polydactyl paws. His whiskers tickled against my chin.

  I pushed the cat off, let the sheets fall, pressed a fist to my chest. Heart was slamming against my breastbone. It wasn’t hot, but I was drenched in sweat.

  Needed to breathe. Could have used another poultice for strength, too.

  I raked my hands through my sweaty hair, leaned on my knees. I was all right. I was still here, even if Erin wasn’t. There was still time to get justice for her. All I needed was the manila folder on Suzy’s coffee table and some time. I checked the clock on the wall. Bad news was, Cat had only allowed me to sleep for two hours, and my eyeballs felt drier than granite and everything still hurt from yesterday. Good news was that Suzy was still asleep.

  I got dressed, donned my jacket, and was almost ready to go when I saw the phone light up on the table near the sofa.

  It was Suzy’s work phone.

  Ignoring my whispering conscience, I flipped it open. It was from the OPA, not a boyfriend. She had gotten a standard tracker text—an alert telling her that a suspect in her current case had been sighted. It contained a series of digits that would translate to coordinates once decoded. I scribbled the number in my notebook before deleting the message from her phone.

  The first four digits attached to the code were the same as the serial number on my manila folder. It proved what I already suspected: someone else had been given the Stonecrow case.

  And that someone was Suzy.

  What the hell? I’d told her that I wanted to talk to this Stonecrow witch, and she’d just told me to blow town. Suzy should have told me that she had the inside track on locating Stonecrow. On the bright side, now I wasn’t going to have to search very hard to find Stonecrow. The morning was already looking up.

  I gave Cat a rub, got out the door.

  The witch wasn’t going to catch herself.

  + + +

  Working for the OPA, you don’t get out on your own until you’ve already been walked around a few times on a short leash. Aside from the mandatory ride-along every agent has to do with the Union, there’s also a six-month probationary period where you get all the baby cases: kids slaughtering the pet cat to try to raise the dead, snake oil salesmen, housewives trying to emulate spells on Charmed and accidentally summoning demons. All the stuff that has no malicious intent and no victim but still has to get cleaned up.

  Shady Groves Cemetery was the number one site of these bullshit cases. It was right next to a high school on the outskirts of the city, so that was where most complaints of lurking “Satanists” (emo teenagers without enough extracurriculars) got reported.

  I’d been on so many somnolent stakeouts at Shady Groves that I had the layout memorized. It was up on a hill. Parking lot on the south side, school on the west side, bodies all up under the trees. The mausoleums and Victorian-era statues are the real tourist draw. The place has more creepy buildings than a small town in Louisiana.

  If Stonecrow was the real deal, then she wasn’t a big player. Because that was where the tracker text was sending me: Shady Groves Cemetery. The little leagues. Training wheels for people who want to be necromancers.

  So I didn’t bother preparing before heading over. I didn’t borrow Suzy’s kitchen to brew a magic neutralization potion. I didn’t get ropes or other restraints. I did take the gun—figured that’d keep my ass covered well enough if Stonecrow turned out to be hostile. I might even be able to shoot someone with it if they stood still long enough for me to get my bearings.

  In retrospect, it wasn’t one of my best plans. Mostly because I had no plan at all.

  I hit Shady Groves Cemetery about an hour before dawn. Even at four in the morning, Los Angeles traffic blows monkey balls. It was stop and go the entire way—mostly stop.

  Eventually, Shady Groves came out of the predawn gloom. I didn’t park the stolen Toyota in the parking lot, since it would be visible from the graves. I took it up a frontage road around back. The tires thumped along for a couple hundred yards, bouncing me around like dice in a cup.

  I could have picked a better car to steal. As in, maybe one with any suspension whatsoever.

  Then I heard a thump and a hiss, the Toyota sagged on one side, and suspension was suddenly the least of my problems.

  “Of course,” I muttered, killing the engine and getting out to look, even though I already knew what I was going to see. I’d blown a tire on a sharp rock that had been invisible in the darkness. Guess that was just my luck that week.

  I kicked the tire. My short, illicit affair with the Tercel was over.

  I found my way through the bushes to a
section of chain-link that had been cut away long before I ever started working with the OPA. It was probably one of my trainee predecessors that did it; all of us have been through Shady Groves during our probationary periods, and I can think of at least one or two fat-assed agents that would have gotten sick of having to climb.

  Pushing through the bushes, I beat away the snarls of metal and stumbled into the cemetery.

  The second I freed my jacket, I realized that I should have taken at least a few seconds to prepare before going after Stonecrow.

  Mostly because I was suddenly suffocating.

  I’m not much into big showy rituals, but I know what it feels like when someone else is doing one. The air goes thick with magic and it’s like trying to breathe underwater. That was what happened to me when I crossed over the invisible line of wards underneath the trees rimming Shady Groves. My chest clenched up, throat closed, eyes watering.

  I sneezed into the elbow of my sleeve. And then sneezed again, and again.

  Shit. If I’d been on another OPA training run, I would have gotten so many points off on covert ops. Needed to clear my head. And my nose.

  Necromancer or not, Stonecrow had real power. But I left my gun in my holster as I crouch-walked through the bushes, trying to make as little noise as possible for a six-foot-tall ape like myself. I plastered my back to the edge of a mausoleum and blew a few more muffled sneezes into my sleeve.

  When I finally got control of my breathing, I heard the drums.

  The rhythm immediately made me think of tribal things. The jungles of Central America. Wildcats and parrots. Those big bass drums that you pound with mallets before battle and make your enemies shit themselves because it sounds so badass.

  The drumming was punctuated by a dry jangling noise. Not metal, but maybe wood.

  A thickly accented voice echoed over the graveyard.

  “By the light of the coyote moon, I summon the spirits,” she said. “By the dirt of these hallowed graves, I summon the spirits.” More rattling, another beat on the drums.

  That accent didn’t sound like anything I’d heard before. I could barely understand a damn thing she was saying. But between what I did understand and the overwhelming sting of her magic, I knew that I’d found the suspect.

  I peered around the edge of the mausoleum. Further down the hill, I glimpsed faint, flickering candlelight reflecting off of smooth brown skin. Bare skin, to be exact.

  A woman was standing in front of a grave with her arms raised. Bone bracelets encircled her wrists. That was the only thing she seemed to be wearing above the waist, aside from a feathered headdress that had probably required the death of an entire endangered species to produce. There was some serious meat on those half-naked hips. The swell of her ass was covered in a strip of coyote pelt.

  Beyond her shoulder, I could make out a pair of terrified-looking faces. They were far beyond the light from her fire. The candles lit their eyes with bright pinpricks. It was enough to tell that they were both wearing suits, like they’d be off to office jobs once they were done with the graveyard girl.

  So this would be Isobel Stonecrow and her latest clients.

  She was still talking in that thick, obscure accent. “Gods of the sky and stars! Deliver to me Brad Stewart!”

  “Brian,” said the woman in the suit skirt. “His name was Brian.”

  A pause, and Stonecrow called, “Brian!”

  I sneezed repeatedly into my sleeve, trying to smother my face with my suit so that nobody would hear. The magic was too much for me. I slid to the ground with my arms over my nose and mouth, sitting on muddy grass that was still wet from yesterday’s rain.

  Fortunately, Stonecrow was drumming again, even louder than before. She beat that damn drum until it sounded like the skin might break.

  Then, suddenly, she stopped.

  “Cindy?” Her voice sounded different, higher-pitched and with an American accent. “What are you doing here, Cindy?” The magic was still thick, but it had stopped building in intensity. It felt like the whole world had stopped to listen to Stonecrow’s voice.

  The other woman gave a cry. “Brian!”

  Magic surged, hard and sudden.

  I sneezed.

  There was no drumming to cover my ass this time. There was a clattering of bones as Stonecrow whirled to stare at me, only halfway concealed by the corner of the mausoleum. The candlelight from the tapers lit up the side of her face, giving me a glimpse of a very beautiful woman. She had big lips. I’d always liked big lips.

  Crimson striped her cheeks, nose, throat, breasts. Was that…blood?

  She lifted the mallet for the drums in one hand like she was going to hurl it at me.

  “Who’s there?”

  So much for sneaking up on her. I stood and put a hand on my holster. “Isobel Stonecrow, you are under arrest for necromancy.”

  Her clients didn’t need to hear anything else. They turned tail and fled down the hill toward their red Lexus. The woman was wearing three-inch heels, so it was a slow fleeing. At another time, it would have been funny to watch her stagger through the mud.

  Stonecrow flung the mallet at me. I ducked. It twirled harmlessly over my shoulder.

  In two strides, I had crossed the space between us and seized her wrist. Her headdress held back straight brown hair. She wore a necklace of bones around her neck, interspersed with white and black beads. And holy hell, that really was all she was wearing above the waist. Her nipples were encircled by blood, too.

  If Pops ever caught one of my cousins in public like that, she’d have been sitting tender for a week. Me? I didn’t mind so much. But it’s not good to stare at the suspects.

  “Let go!” she cried, trying to yank free of my grip. She had obviously never fought a guy twice her body mass before. She didn’t get anywhere with it.

  “I’m Agent Cèsar Hawke with the Office of Preternatural Affairs, Magical Violations Department.” I automatically reached for the cuffs on my belt only to realize that I didn’t have them. I never went anywhere without my handcuffs. What had I done with them?

  Right. They had taken a vacation on my headboard the night Erin died, so the cuffs were probably in an evidence locker right about now.

  My eyes swept over the ritual scene. Her circle was small, and now that I had crossed her salt line, it wasn’t resonating magic. The candles had melted into place on top of Brian Stewart’s gravestone. Add the drum and incense and animal bones to the mix, and I was certain I could prove she had been doing magic in front of mundane humans, if nothing else. Definitely an arrest-worthy offense.

  Too bad I wasn’t taking her back to the OPA offices.

  “We’re going to have a talk,” I said. Maybe in one of the mausoleums.

  She kicked at my knees with sandaled feet. I grunted and hauled her down the hill toward a slightly more hospitable-looking tomb.

  “Let me go! This wasn’t supposed to happen tonight! He told me I could do another job!”

  What the hell was she talking about? And more importantly… “Are these cat bones?” I interrupted, shaking her wrist.

  She gave her bracelets a surprised look, as if seeing them for the first time. “Raccoon.”

  Well, at least Cat was safe from her.

  Eyes on the road watching for other OPA agents, I pushed her toward the tomb. She stopped dead when we came out from behind the trees.

  “Where’s your SUV?” Stonecrow asked, glaring at the parking lot.

  Shit. She had obviously seen us before. We drove big black SUVs, much like the Union, though ours had lights and plates like the FBI’s did. And the fact that I didn’t have one now was, apparently, a big fucking giveaway.

  I really should have borrowed Suzy’s handcuffs.

  “Traitor!” she hissed.

  With surprising speed, Stonecrow wrenched free of my grip. The bone bracelet snapped, leaving me holding a fistful of raccoon ribs and what looked like a car key dangling among them. I wasn’t even sure how she’d
escaped me. She must have been feigning weakness when I first grabbed her.

  Stonecrow reached into her animal skins and pulled out a fistful of gray powder. My eyebrows lifted, and I couldn’t help but grin a little bit. She looked like she was naked under her butt-flap. Did I want to know where she had been storing that dirt? Probably not.

  “Stand down or I’ll shoot,” I said.

  I made it two steps down the hill before she flung the powder into my eyes.

  It was like having a beehive tossed in my face. I crashed to my knees with a roar, clawing ineffectually at my eyes. Fuck, that burned. Fire swept up my jaw, cheeks, forehead. Blisters bubbled under my hands. They popped. Gushed down into my collar.

  There was no surge of magic and not a single sound, but by the time my running eyes cleared, Isobel Stonecrow was gone.

  10

  I staggered into the public library as soon as the librarian unlocked the door. She stepped back, giving me a wide berth and a shocked look.

  “Oh my,” she said, crossing herself as she scurried inside. I might not have been popular with the ladies, but I wasn’t “turn pale and run away” ugly. That was a bad sign. Real bad.

  Slamming into the lobby bathroom, I flipped on the light switch. Considering how old and musty the building had looked from outside, the place sure got painfully bright, like jabbing huge fucking knives into my eye sockets. And, unfortunately, it let me see what Stonecrow had done to my face.

  My square features were covered in boils. The left side was bad, but the right side was worse. My eyelids were swollen, lip sagging with the weight of pustules.

  Fuck. This was not one of my better weeks.

  I splashed water on myself to get off the last of that nasty gray powder and tried to decide what, if anything, I could do about it. It was more uncomfortable than painful now. Little Tylenol and it probably wouldn’t ache.

  I poked one of the boils on my chin. It broke and made an audible splat against the porcelain sink. Underneath, the skin looked raw and red.

  Pops’s wise advice about popping zits echoed out of distant teenage memory.