Black Arts: A Jane Yellowrock Novel (49 page)

We had been really, really lucky back at the golf course house. Really lucky.

I had been a lot less lucky in other ways. I remembered the feel of Leo holding me as I cried, his arms stronger than a human’s, but cold as death. Holding me because my former ex-boyfriend had become my once-again ex-boyfriend. Dumb. Stupid. I had been both dumb and stupid to let myself care so much about Ricky Bo.

Rick was out of my life, and I could accept that now.
I could
. And if a still, small voice, one that liked drama, continued to whisper that he might come back, I could ignore it for the dumb, stupid thing it was.

There were things I still had to deal with, like the betrayal by Reach. Or the supposed betrayal. Technically, our spy
could
have been someone else. It just wasn’t very likely. And I needed to determine if Cym, hiding under a don’t-see-me, don’t-smell-me charm, had drunk on Tattooed Dude when he was in captivity at Leo’s, and killed Hawk Head, which meant looking through hours of slo-mo security camera feed. I kinda hoped the mystery vamp was Cym, because I’d rather it be her than the alternative: Leo had enemies at HQ, but hopefully all of them had scent signatures.

I had managed to tell Katie that I had killed the kidnapper of her girls—the woman with the nose ring, Shoffru’s heir and partner, not a witch like him, but a former human carrying a potent forget-me magical charm. I’d forgotten her all along, but once she was dead, I remembered every time I’d seen her. Every time she had done something that affected me—like exchanging Molly’s pillows and towel in her hotel room. On my first visit, the original ones had been white. On my second visit, the used ones had been cream. Visual clues like color were things I tended to miss. I relied too heavily on scent and motion. I needed to work on that. But mostly I was just glad to have survived Katie’s demands.

And we needed to clarify the timeline of the events that led Adrianna—who had her own plan in place from the day Grégoire left for Atlanta—to merge her plans and her goals with Shoffru’s, because that’s surely what had happened. Nothing else made sense.

All we had so far was: Jack discovered the Damours were dead. Jack wanted the blood diamond. Jack hired an investigator—likely Reach—and found the gem was in Molly’s hands. (Except it wasn’t.) And the investigator discovered the identity of Shiloh E. Stone, something even Leo hadn’t put together. And so Jack got Molly to come to him, then took Molly, and then took Shiloh and Katie’s girls. And in there somewhere he had found Adrianna and convinced her to work with him to mutual goals. I was sure there was a lot more.

Overhead, I heard the floorboards creak and placed the sound as coming from Bruiser’s room. He was up and moving early, getting ready to do whatever it was that Onorios did. Maybe saving the world. Maybe he was dressing in a cape and tights. Which—unlike seeing the Kid in such a getup—I would pay to see.
Oh yes.

Eli and Syl were in his room. They had been remarkably silent, for which I was grateful. The Kid had been sleeping on the couch, his tablets on his chest, moving with each breath, when I went to bed. I figured he was smart enough to still be there.

Across the hall from him, Molly and Evan slept together. They had been closeted alone there since KitKit joined them. I wasn’t stupid enough to think they were sleeping the whole time. The house had thin walls and thinner floors. The rest of us had made a lot of noise several times, turning up the TV, clattering pots and pans in the kitchen, to give them privacy. I was gonna tease them unmercifully about it later. Like much later. Like tomorrow.

For now, I snuggled deeper into the linens and closed my eyes in sleep.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Faith Hunter
was born in Louisiana and raised all over the South. She writes full-time and works full-time in a hospital lab (for the benefits), tries to keep house, and is a workaholic with a passion for travel, jewelry making, orchids, skulls, Class III white-water kayaking, and writing.

Many of the orchid pics on her Facebook fan page show skulls juxtaposed with orchid blooms; the bones are from roadkill prepared by taxidermists or a pal named Mud. In her collection are a fox skull, a cat skull, a dog skull, a goat skull (which is, unfortunately, falling apart), a cow skull, the jawbone of an ass, and a wild boar skull, complete with tusks. She would love to have the thighbone and skull of an African lion (one that died of old age, of course). Faith recently bought a mountain lion skull, and it rests on a table below the enormous painting of Beast in her living room.

She and her husband own thirteen kayaks at last count, and love to RV, as they travel with their dogs to white-water rivers all over the Southeast.