Black Arts, White Craft (Black Hat Bureau 2)

A notification from a spam-blocking app I used to track all calls to my private line lit up my phone screen. A now-familiar blocked number flashed, and I checked the time against his previous attempts at contact.

The director was a smart man. He would get the message I had nothing to say to him soon enough.

Alone in the quiet, weighted down by exhaustion, I allowed the resilient mask I wore for the girls’ sakes to drop, and granted myself permission to wear my true emotions on my face where no one could see.

Guilt over what was done to them.

Fear—no, scratch that—absolute terror the director knew about Colby.

Shame over how the town treated me so well.

Anger directed at myself for thinking I could have this life.

The rest spiraled out from there, an endless loop of regret, until I couldn’t hold still another second.

Proving Arden right, that I was a just one last thing-er, I found myself stocking the shelves that had finished curing from the night before to make the shop less naked. The gleaming nooks with uneven numbers of bottles left me twitchy, but I would get in enough trouble with the girls without caving to the urge to mix lotions to fill in the gaps. Already I would be joining them for dinner sweaty and dressed in the same dirty outfit.

A light tapping noise on the door at the back of the shop drew me out of my head.

No one else used that entrance. The girls exited out the front and crossed the street to the parking lot at the diner. All thanks to Mayor Tate issuing me one spot instead of the two covered in my lease. For the same reason, lack of available parking spots, repairmen and deliveries tended to enter via the front too.

The knock came again, louder this time, and I dried my hands before seeing who wanted what now.

Night had fallen while I puttered around in the shop, and a nearby streetlamp illuminated my doorstep.

A familiar daemon towered over me, his large hands clasped behind his back, his regal head bowed.

His dark red skin was sheened with sweat that made his onyx rosettes glitter. Thick ebony horns curled from his temples back over his head, and his hair hung loose. There were miles and miles of it. Black silk.

A breath punched out of my lungs when his burnt crimson eyes rose to mine, and I breathed, “Asa.”