Page 17 of Protecting His Vampire Mate

“Oh, no shit?”

“Soon you won’t be the only one who can be in two places at the same time. Assuming I don’t blow myself to bits or end up with a shard of my soul trapped in some nether dimension.”

Simone’s expression darkened slightly at that, but she said nothing. Which meant that the possibility of something happening to Poppy alarmed her, but she wasn’t willing to stop my sister from being… well, my sister. But that was one of the very best parts about Simone, wasn’t it? She’d seen so much in her exceptionally long life that she’d probably learned to accept others radically and completely, in a way that most people would never be able to. And Poppy needed that, way more than she’d ever let on.

“I’d tell you good luck, but you don’t need it,” I said to my sister, realizing for the very first time how good Simone was for her. I was actually kind of happy for them both. More than kind of. I added, “You’ll be fine. Seriously.”

She would be, too. One of the drawbacks of being twins was that people often compared us side-by-side in terms of magical power and skill level. I knew that Poppy was hands-down the best spell caster in the entire coven, apart from the Witch Queen herself. She had yet to run across an enchantment she couldn’t weave. Which was a big part of the reason she and Ethan were training together, so they could split leadership of the coven when Tatiana decided to step down.

“Thanks. Anyway, I’ll call you in a couple hours, once that’s finished up and I have a chance to work the locator spell. All you have to do is keep Bryan out of trouble until then.”

“Right,” I replied.

But, of course, I knew that was going to be much easier said than done. Especially since he wanted nothing to do with me.

CHAPTER FIVE || TOBIAS

After my conversation with my sister, I decided that the only way to protect Bryan would be to work this case with him, whether he wanted my help or not. Which meant figuring out exactly what kind of ghost we were dealing with.

I hadn’t really been paying much attention to Bryan’s setup, but I had caught some of it. A warding circle made from salt and iron, two of the most powerful protective substances on earth. And he’d gotten his hands on one of the coven’s books of necromancy. Which meant he had just enough information about ghost hunting to get himself killed.

For instance, when you use a warding circle and manifesting sigils, the sigils are supposed to be drawn inside a mostly sealed warding circle, luring the ghost into it. After the spirit shows itself, that’s when you seal it up, trapping the entity inside the ring. Bryan had done it literally backward, sealing himself inside the ring and giving the fully manifested and highly malevolent spirit full reign of the house.

It was about as bad an idea as you might imagine.

While I might have been able to go back to the house and step into the spirit world long enough to figure out what type of entity we were dealing with here, it was too dangerous to do that without another witch to guard my body. Possession isn’t especially common or anything, but it can and will happen if you leave a perfectly good body lying around unprotected. Especially if you’re dumb enough to do that in the presence of an evil spirit.

Given that it would be at least a few hours until my sister could get me the location of Lisa Chamberlain so I could question her, the next logical thing for me to do would be to view the body of the latest victim and check it for any telltale markings.

With that in mind, I drove to the morgue on the outskirts of town. I ended up having to put the lone security guard to sleep with magic in order to get past him, but I was sure he’d be fine once he woke up.

Bryan was already there with the morgue attendant when I took the elevator down to the subbasement where the bodies were kept. They both glanced up at me through the large glass window beside the solid steel door leading into the morgue as I stepped off the elevator.

The woman looked puzzled at my sudden and unannounced presence, but Bryan hardly even looked surprised. Instead, he glared daggers at me through the glass.

I beamed back at him. Then I tried the door. It was locked.

I might suck at divination and locator spells, but I’m fantastic at getting into locked rooms. I didn’t even pause to consider it. I performed a simple Gaelic unlocking charm under my breath, which my mentor, Ms. Davenport, had taught me years ago. It had the benefit of only being three words long, though unlike most other spells to open locked doors, it required the caster to touch the locking mechanism.

The lock clicked and the door swung open.

“This is a restricted access area,” the morgue attendant informed me as I walked into the room, managing to sound both startled and indignant at the same time. “I don’t know who the hell you are or what you think you’re doing, but you can’t be in here.”

“Sure, I can,” I told her, gesturing to Bryan. “I’m with him.”

If looks could have killed, I would have been six feet under on the spot from the way Bryan was glaring at me right then.

The morgue attendant’s eyebrows shot up and she gave me a doubtful look, no doubt taking in my rumpled clothing. “You’re FBI?”

Before I could stop myself, I chuckled, glancing over at Bryan. He was still looking like he might set me on fire at some point in the very near future.

“Yup. We’re definitely the FBI,” I told her brightly. “And, um, he’s my partner.”

“Who was supposed to be waiting for me in the car,” Bryan hissed. The steam was practically coming out of his ears.

“I got bored,” I told him, playing along. “You always get to do all the fun stuff.”

“You can go back upstairs now,” Bryan enunciated every word, his fists clenched and his jaw tight. “I’ve got this covered. Partner.”

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