Page 12 of A Touch of Brimstone

He nodded. Screw it, I was all in. Coven, shifters, witches, vampires, magic, books that bite and self-destruct. Yesterday, dammit, I saw a hellhound.

My head pounded and I became increasing lightheaded. I held the counter for support. The lightheadedness wasn’t from the plunge into the unknown, but hypoglycemia. I hadn’t eaten since dinner the night before. And it hadn’t been much of a dinner. I needed food.

“I’m going to fix a sandwich. Do you want one?”

He nodded, taking the same care I had as he flipped through the book. There was nothing to gain from it since all the pages were blank, so he laid the book face down and studied the patterns on the front and back covers.

“I don’t know what these sigils mean,” he said. “The spell, was it in English?”

“Everything was,” I told him, quickly making us a turkey and cheese sandwich with a side of a pickle and chips. Giving him a glass of water, I studied him. He looked like he needed something stronger.

“You have a coven of witches like you?”

“I only know of witches like me. We don’t have strong magic.” He waved his hand around the apartment. “Whatever happened here was strong magic. Out of my wheelhouse.”

“Do you think someone in your coven knows witches who might have experience with magic like this? Maybe they can help?”

“I’ll ask but”—he looked contemplative between the bites he took—“we’re supposed to be discreet. If I bring this to them, I risk being tossed out because they’ll know I told you I’m a witch.”

“I don’t want you to risk that.” I didn’t but I needed someone with magic that didn’t seem like an Instagram job.

“No, I’ll do it. There just needs to be some discretion,” he said.

After we finished lunch, he took several pictures of the markings on my finger, the sigils on the book, and had me send him the video.

After he left, I couldn’t stop thinking about Dominic and his role in this. I needed to find him.

Without a last name, finding Dominic was nearly impossible. I searched Facebook first, scrolling through pages and pages of names, viewing profiles for someone who looked remotely like him. But what would happen next? Did I friend him? Send a message? What was I going to do, search hashtags? I couldn’t even imagine the rabbit hole that would have sent me down.

After two hours of searching Facebook and Instagram, I was so desperate, I contemplated roaming the streets and just calling out his name. It would have yielded the same results. He had found me, twice. Could he be looking for me?

It wasn’t long before I found myself at the scene of our first meeting, in Books and Brew, sitting at the counter people watching and sipping coffee under Emoni’s questioning gaze. Secrets. I now had them from her. Did I tell her? The coffee shop was busy, which diminished my guilt about keeping yesterday’s events to myself. I couldn’t burden her with it until I knew what was going on. Come on, Dominic.

Increasingly restless, I went to the bookstore. Nothing says you’re living your best life than hanging out at your place of employment on your day off. After perusing the newly released and books on my to-be-read list, I purchased five books. It took effort to ignore Lilith’s “Really?” look as she rang me up. It was less a look of incredulity than more along the lines of a “you’re a pitiful loser” look.

With a weak smile, I paid. It wouldn’t seem odd to her that my purchases included an epic fantasy, a psychological thriller, and a YA coming of age book, along with books about Wicca and witchcraft. My taste was rather eclectic.

“You changed your ring,” Peter acknowledged, his head tilted to the side as he examined it with a frown.

I nodded, the urge bubbling in me to say, “No, a book bit me, a lot of strangeness happened, and now I have this plain-ass ring covering marks on my finger. And now I have to play amateur sleuth to find the person I think is responsible.”

He closed the thick hardback in his hand to get a closer look. “Same style. This one fits you better.” He gave me that half curl of a smile that had entrapped so many people into unrequested history lessons. His eyes dropped to my bag of books. He took a look at me in my Converse, jeans, Baby Yoda t-shirt, and messy ponytail that displayed the minimal effort I put into styling it.

“If you’re not in a rush, do you want to have coffee?” He flashed me his wayward smile, which I quickly realized wasn’t as unintentional as I’d previously assumed. He was setting out bait. Not today, Mr. History Man. Not today.

“Maybe another time. I have a ton of errands to run. I just needed something to read tonight,” I lied. Although listening to Peter’s lecture would have been a good distraction to keep me from looking at my phone and waiting to hear from Reginald or pursuing my quest to find Dominic.

Blind determination, wariness, and obstinate curiosity led to me trawling the area where I’d seen Dominic. I even went back to the bar where he’d threatened Jackson. Desperation wouldn’t allow me to rule out any possibilities. I wished there were dark, dangerous, and broody Bat Signals I could deploy. Maybe if I left a trail of ristretto…

Standing on the middle of the sidewalk, I was planning where to search next when a hand girded my waist, pulling me against a firm body. Coolness wove around me, engulfing me.

“Close your eyes,” the stranger ordered.

I didn’t. Dropping the bag of books, I clawed at the stranger’s offending arm and stomped indiscriminately, aiming for his foot, until the building that surrounded me and the distant view of people several blocks away disappeared. I was plunged into darkness.

When the arm released me, I doubled over until my head stopped spinning. When it eased to tolerable, I straightened up to find four people seated at a semicircular conference table, watching me.

“I told you to close your eyes,” someone said from behind me. “You never really get used to it unless you’re the one zoning.”

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