Black Arts, White Craft (Black Hat Bureau 2)

6

Midnight came two seconds after I shut my eyes. That was how it felt, anyway. Rest proved more elusive than usual, thanks to the possibility of my grandmother being a daemon. No. That wasn’t quite it. What I couldn’t shake was the fact I had never questioned her absence. Never thought to ask who she had been or why she had been erased from our family history.

As a child, living with the director, I assumed she had wronged him or been found unworthy of him. That he refused to so much as give her a name comforted me with the belief someone else been lacking in his estimation. I hadn’t thought of her once since joining Black Hat, like I had forgotten my father must have had a mother until Asa mentioned it. Even now, my thoughts jumbled up if I focused on her for too long.

What if the reason she never crossed my mind was the director made sure of it?

Fear trickled down my spine to think his tea might have done more than erase memories of my parents.

What else was I missing from those early years? What other questions had I never known to ask? Or had they been deleted from my repertoire after being asked one too many times? I didn’t suffer from what a doctor would call repressed memories. They weren’t hidden, they had been obliterated with dark magic.

They were gone. Erased. There was no retrieving them.

Done wallowing, I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the bed.

To tint the windows and lay the temporary ward around the cabin had left me with a headache the fitful sleep I managed hadn’t cured, but I wanted to avoid pulling on Colby in case we needed firepower later.

The ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump of Asa’s heartbeat, imprinted on my memory, came from the kitchen.

I rubbed the bracelet on my wrist, worried all over again that I had accidentally mated a daemon prince. I bet the director would love that. Then again, if he knocked up a daemoness to produce an heir with untold powers, then he very well might be tickled pink if his granddaughter got crowned the high queen.

Ugh.

Of all the men to tempt me, Asa had to come with more strings attached than a spider minding its web.

After dressing in jeans, boots, and a tee, I palmed my athame and strapped on my spell kit.

The spell kit reminded me of a bulky leather fanny pack, except it buckled like a belt at my waist then fastened around my upper thigh to provide extra stability for potion vials. The overall effect was very steampunkish, but it was an heirloom piece, and its weight comforted me.

Given what the night would bring, I slid my wand into the slim pocket in my pant leg and fastened it shut.

With no busy work left, it was time for me to face the music.

The music, aka Asa, stood with his back to me while he coaxed rich coffee from a complicated machine.

No sign of Clay yet, but I heard him stomping around in his room, a sure sign he was still in a mood.

A pale flash announced Colby as she drifted down to land on my head with a wide yawn.

“Your cell may or may not work, depending on the weather,” I reminded her, “but the landline is solid.”

That was the first thing I tested before agreeing to let her stay behind in the cabin while we hunted.

“I know, I know.” Her wings drooped into my eyes. “If I lose internet, I’ll know my cell is dead.”

Forget using the cabin’s Wi-Fi, though I was sure it worked fine. I wanted her laptop tethered to her cell so she would know the second a spell was cast to cut out our ability to communicate. Any blip in streaming her game would notify her trouble was afoot. It was a better system than even the traffic light I’d rigged for her back home.

“And then what will you do?”

“Call for help on the landline if I can.” Her legs twitched. “If I can’t, I run—er—fly away.”

“Good girl.” I patted her butt to keep her from sliding off me altogether. “We’ll be back in six hours.”

Wendigos were nocturnal. Zombies were too. Black witches were diurnal, but it was safe to assume ours would keep the creature or creatures’ schedule. Zombies, if that was what we had, required supervision. Plus, the bad guys loved to work the nightshift. It was this whole thing. We would be home before dawn.

“Okay.” She kicked off my eyebrow to get airborne. “See you later.”

Outside, I breathed in the crisp night air and did my best to get in the right frame of mind.