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“No kidding. Jonas wants me to do a backing track on a song he’s working on, which means I’ll have to be, like, awake to do it.”

  “Sure you’ll be great.”

  “You’ve never actually heard me perform.”

  “I’ll hear you tomorrow, if you want.”

  She gave him a hesitant smile. “Studio is in the basement. Don’t expect much—a single raw track can sound really boring.”

  “I’ll risk it.” He told her good night and left. Part of him hoped she’d ask him to stay, but she didn’t. Guess the previous nights really had been because she had no better option.

  The lights came on again just as Dom closed Vinny’s door, reinforcing the impression that he’d been shoved out of some special bubble into the ordinary, Vin-less world again.

  He desperately wanted sleep, but he should check to see if the others were okay after the unexplained blackout.

  Downstairs, he found Emma in the kitchen, peering into the fridge.

  “Sorry about that,” she said. “It’s so damp and rainy around here that the electric goes wonky fast, even in new houses.”

  “This happens a lot?”

  “Sure. Well, enough that we’ve got a backup generator in case the power stays out for more than thirty minutes.” She tapped the fridge door to make her point. “Wouldn’t want to lose the ice cream.”

  “The blackout didn’t take you by surprise?”

  “Believe me, losing electricity was the least surprising thing today.” She narrowed her eyes at him.

  “I’ll try to keep a low profile,” he said. “Pretend I’m an exterminator. In any case, I should only be here a few days.”

  “Until you find some other problem, and then you want more money.” Emma’s voice turned sharp.

  Dom didn’t get offended; he’d had this sort of conversation before. “If I can’t solve the problem in a few days, more money won’t help. I’ll do my best, and tell you what’s what at the end. After that, you do what you want.”

  “Vinny said you were for real.”

  “Did she?” He was a little surprised Vin would vouch for him, when he knew she was angry before. But Vin never seemed like she’d be spiteful, and she never lied.

  “Yeah.” Emma still looked skeptical. “Guess we’ll find out.”

  “Did you see Jonas after the lights came back on? He’s fine?”

  “Yeah, don’t worry about him. Good night. See you tomorrow. I make pancakes at nine. Any other time, you can forage on your own. Mi casa, su casa.”

  Dom slept hard, but not well. He woke up with the sense that he’d had lots of dreams, most of them bad. Probably Rachel dreams. He hadn’t had those in a while. But there were no details, just the vague sense of despair.

  He looked to the foot of the bed, where Piewicket was curled into a tight circle. He breathed in relief. If Pie was asleep, things were all right.

  Thumbing his phone, he saw that it was only six. He pulled the pillow back over his head for a while.

  When he woke again, it was ten.

  He got up without disturbing Pie. He shaved and dressed, then grabbed some cold pancakes that had been left on the counter, accompanied by a post it note with a D on it. There was still coffee in the carafe, and Dom drank it down gratefully.

  Remembering Vinny’s words from the night before, he went down to the studio. He heard music, played loudly and then cut off, replaced by voices discussing some detail of the song, presumably. Dom didn’t know anything about how a song got written and recorded.

  Following the noise to an open door, Dom peeked into the room. It was divided into a few smaller spaces, including the one that now held the practicing musicians. The walls were painted bright, loud colors, and each wall had a gigantic poster on it, all Mercury Thief album covers. Each album cover had Jonas’s face on it somehow.

  There were also shelves with awards, from fake crystal-looking pyramids to silver and gold colored things. Dom recognized a Grammy, and a gold-plated record in a glass frame. Dom wasn’t a fan of Mercury Thief, but obviously a lot of people were.

  Nothing, not the awards, not the art, not the style of the space, referred to Emma. Just Jonas.

  Jonas was sitting on a tall stool, directing Vinny, who stood in front of a very expensive looking microphone.

  “Try that opening again, Vin,” Jonas was saying. “Go all growly.”

  Vinny retorted, “Let Tom Waits do Tom Waits.”

  “Come on. It’s hot when you growl.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “I meant when chicks growl.”

  Vinny put her hands on her hips. “You just called me a chick?”

  Jonas laughed. “Am I pissing you off?”

  “Damn right.”

  “How much more do I need to piss you off to get you to growl the damn lyrics?”

  Dom did not like the way this conversation was going. Jonas might be teasing Vinny, but it was clear that Vinny turned him on. Then again, it wasn’t up to Dom who she turned on or not. And she was certainly capable of telling a guy to get lost, if that’s what she wanted to say.

  Then she started singing, and Dom forgot his whole train of thought. Holy shit, Jonas had a point. Dom couldn’t say what the lyrics were. He didn’t care. He just wanted Vin’s voice in his ears, all the time.

  “Wow,” he said, when Vinny stopped to take a drink of water. It was literally the most intelligent critique he could manage at that point.

  “She’s great,” Jonas said proudly. “Can you imagine someone wasting her at a piano keyboard?”

  “Thought she played bass in her bands.”

  “Still a waste.” Jonas turned to Vinny. “Second opinion confirms, Vin. You should absolutely be on this track.”

  “Wait, I didn’t say that.” Dom didn’t want to get drawn into anything. “What track?”

  “Jonas’s doing some work for a movie coming out next year,” Vinny said.

  “You’re perfect for it, Vin. You’ll get a nice paycheck, and we can doll you up for some events.”

  “Doll me up?”

  Vinny’s eyes narrowed, and Dom instinctively stepped away from the blast radius.

  Then a loud crackling filled the air.

  “Fucking feedback!” Jonas yelled, rushing to a sound board to fiddle with some knobs. “I swear I’m going to get my money back on this equipment. Spent a fortune, and it behaves like some third-rate set-up in a community college.”

  Dom left the room before the awful sound repeated. He also wasn’t sure he could hear Vinny singing again without something very awkward happening. He already felt an urge to find a quiet spot to take care of the physical reaction her singing voice had caused.

  The promise to stay out of her way might be harder to keep than he thought.

  Chapter 15

  Dom ran into Vinny again an hour later. After coming up from the studio, she must have taken a quick shower, because her hair was wet and shiny. Her t-shirt was a white one he’d never seen before, because he would have remembered. It hugged her body so close that anyone could tell she was wearing a lace bra underneath.

  Dom had a backpack slung over his shoulder and a few things in his hands, including several candles and his knife.

  “What are you doing with all that?” she asked.

  “Um. Magic.” He went on, “Whatever the exact details of the haunting, some basic spellwork should help clear the air, and confer some protection on everyone here.”

  “So you’re doing a protection spell? That’s nice of you. Need help?”

  “No. Not to be rude. But it’s a solo assignment.”

  “Would my presence break your concentration?” she teased.

  “Maybe.” He was not going to stare at her very tight white shirt. Holy Christ, she would murder his concentration.

  His gaze slid over her shoulder, grateful to have something else to focus on. “I should probably go. Don’t want to waste my client’s hard-earned cash.”

  Vinny glanced around and saw Emma
watching them with amusement and something else in her expression. She looked back to Dom. “Yeah. You go bust some ghosts. And be careful with the knife. I don’t want to have to come rescue you if you stab yourself.”

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  “Hey, I never doubted that. I’ve seen you in action.” Vinny bit her lip. “Um. With the vampire fight, I mean.”

  Sure that’s what you mean.

  Dom smiled at last, thinking of her growly singing voice in his ears. “And I’d do it again. Save you from monsters, I mean.”

  Vinny’s cheeks flushed with pink, which was adorable. She said, “Okay. Gotta go. Good luck. I’d give you a lucky charm,” she added, plucking at her necklaces, “but something tells me you don’t need it.”

  “I wouldn’t want to take your luck, Vin. But thanks.”

  Damn. Dom almost took Vinny up on her offer to help just so he could get her alone and peel that shirt off. Yeah, he liked Vinny.

  But he hated this house.

  Piewicket agreed. She only stayed in the house because Dom begged her to help with the spellwork. Otherwise, the cat preferred the verdant, hilly landscape outside.

  Your focus is fractured.

  Dom turned and saw Piewicket sitting just at the top of the stairs he was climbing. For a cat, she was punctual.

  “Is that your only insight?” he asked.

  No. There is evil here, inside the bones of this house.

  “What kind of evil?”

  The cat lashed her tail once or twice. I don’t know.

  Cats hated to admit when they didn’t know something.

  As I said before. A malevolence…strong, yet hidden. Concealed.

  “A ghost without a ghost story to go with it.”

  Possible.

  “My other option is to think that the client, who paid a lot of money to get me here, is lying.”

  Humans lie as much as they breathe.

  “Some more than others.”

  Piewicket yawned as the conversation shifted to the failings of humans, which was too broad a topic to keep her interest.

  When we’re done, I am going to hunt. I smell rabbits here. Rabbits are exceedingly stupid and fat. Piewicket licked her chops in anticipation.

  “This shouldn’t take long,” he promised.

  He looked around the room, an unfinished attic he’d noticed on his first exploration of the house. Judging from the size, the attic only covered one wing. There were probably other attics. This one was sufficient, though. It was almost empty, which was good, since he was going to cover the floor in symbols.

  Using a piece of chalk, he drew a circle. Piewicket helped by walking it first. All he did was follow the path of her paws. He didn’t know why she was good at circles—it was only one of many, many things that made Piewicket different from other cats. He long ago learned not to ask.

  When the circle was marked out, he moved around it on his hands and knees, drawing symbols of protection and warding. Some of the symbols were ancient, but many spellcasters developed highly personalized versions of a circle of protection. His Uncle Patrick included both a Christian cross and an image from Space Invaders, because that worked for him. Magic was as much an art as a science. Dom liked it that way, perhaps because he’d always felt a more primal connection to magic, something that wasn’t easily quantified.

  Dom put eight candles around the circle, at the four cardinal points, and then the points halfway between each of them. Again, that was his preference. Others did it differently.

  “I’m going to cast the spell now,” he told the cat.

  You hardly need me to do something so simple.

  “But I like having you around.”

  Piewicket pretended not to be flattered. She remained outside the circle while Dom sat in the center of it.

  Dom took a breath, calming himself, opening his senses to the otherworlds. He muttered a phrase in Latin, a basic spell intended to show the lines of energy running from the real world to the otherworlds. The circumference of the circle burned briefly, in a sputtering, dim green light.

  He then cast the protection spell. It was one he’d cast so many times before that he no longer even thought about it on a fully conscious level. He held the image of the house in his mind, and more importantly, the people within it. He pictured Jonas, then Emma, then Vinny.

  Vivid, Pie commented, as the image of Vin practically glowed in his mind.

  Unfortunately, the spell prevented him from speaking any stray words out loud. Dom settled for sticking his tongue out at the cat, and then proceeded with the spell.

  He called up a ward for the house and its inhabitants, asking for aid from spirits of each element, as well as a personal request for Santa Muerte. Not an obvious choice on the surface, but to Dom, it felt basically like asking for help from his parents. While they’d been with him, they’d always helped.

  He completed the spell and felt the power circle around him. Then it settled into the accustomed pattern. Good.

  Dom stood up and stepped carefully over the chalked symbols to get out of the circle.

  Piewicket meowed to signal that someone was coming. Dom looked toward the door. “Come on in.”

  It was Emma who appeared. She looked around the attic, at the candles and the chalk circle. Her expression swung between interest and skepticism.

  “Don’t worry. Nothing’s permanent,” Dom assured her. “And I won’t set the place on fire.”

  “Is it magic?”

  “Yes,” he said simply.

  “What’s it for?”

  “Protection.”

  “For you?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “For everyone in the house.”

  “Hmmm.” She shifted her attention from the surroundings to him. “You busy?”

  “Nothing I can’t stop doing. Something up?”

  She glanced around as if to check that they were alone. Then she squared her shoulders. “I want to know what’s up between you and Vinny.”

  “Why?” He’d expected her to confront him about the job. A lot of people thought he was a con artist.

  Emma stepped up to him. “Look, I’m not being nosy. Okay, I am being nosy, but because I love her, you know?”

  “I don’t really have an answer for you,” he said.

  “But there’s something going on.”

  “Is that a problem?” Damn, Jonas had grilled him about Vinny the first day, and now Emma was too, though in a different way. Why was everyone so concerned about her? She was tough as nails. Even when she met a vampire, she snapped back to her normal self within a few minutes. “Vinny can make her own decisions.”

  “You didn’t cast a spell on her, did you?”

  Now he was angry. “What.”

  “The way she looks at you,” Emma said. “I see her face, and it’s different. Like she’s… Let me put it this way. When she’s had relationships, it was only after a multi-stage vetting process with background checks and interviews and probably some spiritual consultation with a Buddhist monk or something. She’s careful. Presidential appointments move faster than Vinny. But she met you what, four days ago, and she’s all twitterpated? No offense, but magic sounds like a pretty rational explanation to me.”

  “No offense?” he said. “Trust me, that’s offensive.”

  “So you didn’t magic her up?”

  “No, because that’s wrong. On so many levels I can’t even get into it now. You don’t cast at people without their knowledge. You just don’t. Not if you’ve got a soul you want to keep.”

  “But it can be done?” Emma was staring at him intently.

  “It can be done, yes,” he said. “But it puts you down a path that’s hard to leave, even if you try to turn around later. And most people who do start down that path never try to leave it. I don’t really want to discuss it. But believe me, I would never hurt Vinny. And messing with her mind through magic would hurt her.”

  Emma leaned back, drawing a long breath. “
I’m sorry.”

  “Sure.”

  “I mean it. I can tell you’re pissed. But I don’t know you, and I do know Vinny. I don’t want her to get hurt.”

  “Neither do I.”

  She tipped her head, considering. “Still doesn’t explain how you got fast-tracked.”

  “I haven’t been,” he said. “You’re reading too much into this. I just gave Vinny a ride.”

  “Yeah. And trounced a monster that was going for her. And slept with her every night since. She told me about the road trip.”

  “I didn’t sleep with her.”

  Emma raised an eyebrow. “You slept near her, then.”

  “Not last night.”

  “You look a little sad about that,” she said shrewdly.

  He was a little sad about that. But he sure as hell didn’t want to talk about it. “What do you want me to say?”

  Emma’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know. Maybe nothing. But Vinny’s not as tough as she seems. If you hurt her at all, if you make her cry once, I will come after you.”

  He didn’t say anything, but she caught his look. “Don’t laugh, demon hunter. You might have magic or whatever. I have money. And lawyers. And I’m not afraid to use them.”

  “Vinny said you were her best friend. I can see why.”

  Emma suddenly smiled, all threat gone. “She is my bestie. We watch out for each other. Don’t you forget it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Only after he said that did Dom remember that he’d already made Vinny cry. Back at the motel room, when she almost left.

  “Since you’re here,” Dom said quickly. “I have a few professional questions.”

  “Shoot.”

  “It’s true that you and Jonas built this house?”

  “Yup. About ten years ago, just in time for our wedding. We were married in the backyard.”

  “And since the house was built, there was no significant sad or painful event that you know about?”

  Emma’s face clouded briefly, but then she laughed as if there was nothing to bother her. “You mean a murder or a suicide? I’m sure Jonas told you already. Life in this house is pretty calm.”

  “He did tell me that, but…” Dom left the words hanging, inviting Emma to share more.