Black Arts, White Craft (Black Hat Bureau 2)

“Her hand.” I crammed a blueberry donut in my mouth. “It just like, I don’t know, popped off her wrist.”

Camber and Arden would have squealed with delight at the fountain of spraying blood. Except for the fact it was, you know, real.

“Not quite.” His lips pulled to one side. “A y’nai was responsible. They’re too fast for me to see when they attack. That’s why Father chose them to shadow me. I have to focus, and even then, I hear and smell them more than see them.”

“That’s not comforting.” I bit into my third donut, a classic glazed one, having no regrets. “How did it know so quickly?”

“They can glamour themselves invisible,” he continued adding to my nightmare fodder. “It must have been in the room to act without hesitation directly after the infraction.”

“Yeah. No.” I shuddered. “Invisible hand-chopper-offers don’t need to be in my space.”

“They can’t harm you.”

“That doesn’t make it any less creepy.” I bit into my fourth donut then passed him the rest. “Seriously.”

With chit-chat out of the way, and his territorial urges sated, I asked the hard question. “How is Colby?”

“Her hands were healed in the process of helping you. There’s not so much as a smudge on them.”

Had her magic taken it upon itself to repair the damage? Was this yet another facet of our unique bond? Or had the book stuck its nose where it didn’t belong with a seemingly harmless suggestion Colby took?

With the grimoire forefront in my mind, I hated to ask, “How is she bookwise?”

“We’ve caught her talking to herself once or twice, but she claims she was praying.”

“I’ve never known her to pray,” I mused, “but then she’s never hurt me like that either.”

“It could be guilt,” he agreed, sounding unconvinced. “Or the book. It was in bed with her when I woke.”

Milk gushed out my nose, cementing my title as sexiest woman alive, and I almost coughed up a lung.

“She slept with it?” I used my comforter to wipe my face. “Tell me she didn’t do it on purpose.”

“I locked it in the hotel safe before I went to sleep. Its aura bothers me less than it does Clay. That’s why he brought you breakfast. I was returning the book to the safe after its little adventure.” He cut his eyes toward me. “Colby screamed when she woke up, that’s how I knew to go to her. She couldn’t get out of her room fast enough.”

“That book has to be my top priority when I get home.”

“I agree.”

“How did the hotel fare?”

“The center of the building caved in, and there’s extensive smoke damage to the rest. The fire department is blaming it on bad wiring.”

“Did anyone die?”

“No one was there.”

A vague memory of him telling me that surfaced, but I had been in too much pain to care at the time.

“The lot was full.” I folded my legs under me. “How were all the rooms empty?”

Then it hit me. Those congo zombies had to come from somewhere. From our hotel and its staff, apparently.

“There were several hotels.” I chewed my bottom lip. “How did Melissa know we’d pick that one?”

“Colby did her research, using Clay’s parameters. Melissa couldn’t know we would choose the one she selected, but she must have figured her chances were good. She ticked all the boxes. Clay or I would have chosen the same one based on the information available on the other three hotels. And, there’s also the fact she knew Clay, intimately, meaning they’ve spent some time together at hotels.”

Black Hats rarely liaised at their own homes. Few bothered with them. Most used hotels as apartments.