Page 68 of Waltzing With Witches

I leave Town Hall and head up Main Street toward the coffee shop, Higher Grounds. Monsters of all species wave and greet me as I pass. When I get there, I notice a crack in the coffee house’s front door. Something inside me unfurls and spreads, all my focus moving to that crack.

It shouldn’t be there.

Wrong.

Without thinking, I place my hand on it. Heat sears up the length of my arm, but I don’t move my palm from the wood.

My mouth drops open in astonishment as the wood knits itself back together, the crack disappearing beneath my palm. And then it’s gone.

Fucking gone.

I blink, removing my hand from the door. Where there was a long gouge in the wood, it’s now smooth and glossy like the rest of the door. I clear my throat, trying to understand. Did I use my black magic to fix this door?

A bell hangs over the door to let the workers know when someone is entering. It jingles now, clanging loudly.

And I understand what it means. The coffee shop is thanking me.

“Holy shit,” I mutter. I can feel the coffee shop. I sense her relief at having the crack fixed. It was bugging her like a toothache.

I’m sure I look confused as I enter Higher Grounds, but other than a few waves and nods as I enter, nobody gives me a funny look. When I step up to the counter, Pietro, one of the two vampire owners, beams at me.

“Ah, Miss Morgan, lovely as always. What can I get for you?” He rolls the R in my name, and it always makes me chuckle. Wren’s name is about fifty-two syllables long when he says it.

I lean over the counter, giving him a conspiratorial look. “I could use your help, Pietro. If I wanted to, say, woo a vampire, what’s something special I could do?”

His eyes flash white for a moment, fangs elongating. He shakes his head and leans against the wall behind the checkout station. “My apologies, Morgan, that was an inappropriate response on my part.”

I gesture at his mouth. “The teeth?”

“And the eyes,” he says. “You have not seen the Keeper do this?” He stares at me, and his eyes flash white and stay white.

“Holy shit,” I bark. “What the hell is going on?”

The white disappears, and he smiles at me. “Vampires have a second eyelid much like a shark. It covers our eyes when we wish to bite something…or someone,” he tacks on with a wishful look. “It is considered rude to do so to another vampire’s mate.”

“I can overlook it,” I say gently. “Can you give me any insight?”

“Of course,” he croons, rolling that R again.

He grabs at his necklace, pulling it over his head and laying it on the counter between us. “This is a ziol. Gifting one of these to your mate is an ancient vampiric tradition. Vampires commonly mate between species, and bloodletting is a favorite gift of ours. For mates who do not have the ability to puncture their own skin, the ziol is a way to release the blood so we may drink it.”

He pushes the necklace across the counter toward me. “You may borrow this ziol from me for a time.” His tone goes bitter. “I don’t see myself needing it anytime soon.”

I grab the necklace to get a good look. The chain appears to be a thick golden strand with a chunky cross dangling from it, its surface inlaid with jewels of every possible shade of red.

Pietro strokes the surface. “Red for blood, as you might imagine. We vampires adore symbolism.” He shoots me a wink as I admire the beautiful pendant. His fingers move deftly, pointing at each corner. “There is a button on the back. If you press it, the corners become sharp edges you can puncture yourself with. Try it.”

I rub at the back, feeling a small button. Careful not to hold the cross by the edge, I depress the raised surface. Four sharp points slide slowly out of the cross’s four sections.

“And that’s the gist of it,” Pietro says happily.

I smile up at him. “Thank you so much, Pietro.”

He crosses his arms and gives me a big grin. “Let me make you his favorite drink. If you were to, say, puncture your finger and drip a few drops into it, he would, hmm”—he waves his hand around as if looking for the right words—“lose his mind.”

I chuckle and press the button, admiring how the points sink back into the pendant’s edges like they were never there.

Pietro turns and reaches into a refrigerator, bringing out a giant glass jar of milky liquid. I’d guess it’s some kind of milk, but it seems almost viscous, sloshing slowly around the jar.

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