Page 16 of The Vampire and the Case of the Cursed Canine

Gunnar grimaced. ‘Bunny, we’d best check over the booth. Slow and steady. If you feel odd, step back and call me.’

‘The last curse, the one on the dock, was done with blood. Let me see if I can smell anything.’

Gunnar brightened. ‘Great idea.’

There was a riot of smells in the basement, including old blood, formaldehyde and a tonne of incense and floral ingredients. I closed my eyes and put my hands over my ears to block my other senses so I could focus on smelling blood. It helped that I was a little hungry.

I sank into my baser nature, embracing it. Suddenly the heartbeats around me were thunderous. Too many. Far too many. I opened my eyes. ‘Can we clear this place out? The heartbeats are distracting me.’ I wished we’d brought Fluffy with us; I bet he’d find the bloody curse in a minute. Well, fetching him could be Plan B.

Laura grimaced at my request but moved off to do as I asked. I heard her use the words ‘temporary closure’ a lot but then I blocked her out too. As the room emptied, I was able to ignore the few heartbeats that remained like Gunnar’s and the paramedics.

I walked slowly around the booth. As I got closer to Jeff, the scent of blood pulled at my nose. Deer blood. It wasn’t as tantalising as human blood but it was there.

Cautiously, I moved closer. ‘Bunny,’ Gunnar said warningly.

‘I’m being careful,’ I promised. Now that I had the scent, I opened my eyes. The blood smell was coming from Jeff, but it couldn’t be from an injury – the curse was on him. Somehow someone had lifted up his T-shirt, held him still and painted a curse on him with deer blood. No way could that have been done without someone seeing something.

Jeff’s back was arched, so I moved closer to look under his T-shirt. Sure enough, rune work. ‘Don’t touch him!’ Gunnar barked.

I rolled my eyes. As if. ‘I’m not the one with the history of touching dodgy substances, am I?’ I shot back. ‘The curse is on his back. Get me something to wipe it off with.’ One of the paramedics opened their bag and passed me a sterile wipe.

‘Gloves first,’ Gunnar ordered, chucking me a pair nitrile gloves. I caught them, but before I donned them I used my phone to document the runes and Jeff in situ. Then I snapped on the gloves and started wiping.

As soon as I disrupted the curse Jeff’s body went limp, his eyes rolled back into his head and he passed out. The paramedics rushed forward and started to do their thing. As they worked, they assured us that he would live; however, the curse he’d been under was horrendously strong, and they weren’t sure he’d recover mentally from it.

Things weren’t looking good for Jeff.

Chapter 10

The illegal market was entirely too good and too quick at closing up shop. By the time the paramedics had stabilised Jeff and taken him to hospital, every last person had cleared out of the funeral home – including Laura – and the fifty tables were bare. Only Jeff’s table remained laden.

I had a look through the pile of books, and sure enough there was a grimoire for fire elementals. Mum had said that without control I’d set myself on fire, so it seemed like a good investment. I turned to Gunnar, the heavy book in my hands.

He looked at me for a moment. ‘I didn’t see anything,’ he said finally.

I grinned and put all the cash I had on the table. It was meagre payment but I had kind of saved Jeff’s life so I figured we were square.

Gunnar and I turned back to assess the empty basement. ‘This blows,’ I muttered. ‘I really wanted to have a snoop around. Some of the wares looked cool.’ Gunnar slid me a glance. ‘And interview all the vendors as suspects!’ I added hastily.

His lips twitched. ‘Uh-huh. We’d better box this stuff up and take it into custody.’

We turned back to Jeff’s table – but now it was completely bare. All that remained was that one mug that said I Survived the Black Market. Someone was a total wiseass. ‘How the fuck did they do that?’ I demanded.

Gunnar sighed and wiggled his fingers. ‘Magic.’

‘Son of a bitch,’ I grumped. At least I had the book – and apparently a new mug. Gunnar pulled on some gloves, picked it up and bagged it. ‘Hey! I wanted that,’ I protested.

He grinned. ‘You can have it back after I’ve had Sig check it for hexes or curses.’

‘Oh! Good idea.’

He tapped his forehead. ‘I do have them sometimes,’ he said drily. ‘Let’s go. This place is a bust.’

We drove back to the office in silence. Fluffy was overjoyed to see us, giving us his finest barks and turning around in circles. Shadow lifted his head, looked at us, then closed his eyes and settled down again. It was a hard life being a cat.

Once we’d made a hot drink, we retreated to Gunnar’s office to plot our next moves. ‘Can I see the pictures you took?’ he asked. I unlocked my phone and passed it to him. He scrolled through the photos, looked at the runes on Jeff’s back then flicked to the runes on the docks. ‘Same style,’ he grunted.

‘What do you mean? Runes are runes, right?’

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