Page 61 of Shadow Scorching

“Who the fuck are you, why can’t I shift?” Jet gasped, wheezing from the sucker punch.

Dante leaned down. “Does the nameTillymean anything to you?”

Jet’s eyes widened. “Oh,” he said, lowering his voice. “I’ll give everything back, let me go.”

“You can’t give back the life force you drained from her,” I said, pulling out the duct tape.

Jet closed his eyes and muttered something under his breath. A little spark of energy snapped, but nothing happened.

“Don’t even try it. None of your magic will work here,” I said, slapping a piece of tape over his mouth. “I don’t want to give him any chance,” I told Dante.

“Good, because the sound of his voice makes me want to beat the crap out of him,” he said. He turned back to Jet. “You hurt my aunt, and you’re going to pay.”

At that moment, there was a knock on the door.

Dante answered. A woman stood there, tall, with skin the color of night. She wore a purple cloak over a lavender pantsuit.

“Laleilee?”

She nodded. “You’ll need to deactivate the magical dampers. Don’t worry about him. He can’t shift out of this realm without verbalizing his spell. I know these creatures. I’ve encountered a few during my lifetime. But, to make certain…”

She brought out a syringe and, none too gently, jabbed Jet in the arm. Five seconds later, he slumped forward, unconscious. I poked him a couple times to make certain, but he was down and out for the count.

“All right, take down the dampers.”

I motioned to Dante. We deactivated the devices, then returned to the other room.

“They’re down,” I said. “What will Hecate do to him?”

She stared at me, her face a blank slate. “He wears murder in his soul, and he’s harmed numerous women. Do you want to know?”

I thought for a moment. “No. I think I can do without the details.”

Laleilee cut his bonds, then lifted him as easily as I might lift a child. I raised my eyebrows, but said nothing. Now that the dampers were down, magic undulated around her in waves, filling the room, leaving no doubt of her status as a high priestess.

“I’ll be off. You’ll never have to worry about this one again,” she added.

Before either of us could speak, she faded from the room with Jet. I knew she told the truth. We’d never hear from him again, nor would anyone else.

Exhausted by the past twenty-four hours, I sat down on the bed. “Well, that’s that.”

“I took his wallet and keys from him while you tied him up. We can go ransack his house. Maybe some of my aunt’s jewelry is still there.” He paused. “Are you all right?”

I thought about it. We’d sent a man to his execution. But he’d killed others, and he would have killed Dante’s aunt.

“Yeah, I’m all right. At least I don’t have to ask Benny to keep hold of Jet for us. I’ll call him and let him know later today. Let’s go check out Jet’s place,” I said. “At least Tilly’s safe.”

“That might be true, but she and I are going to have a long talk about dating sites. And I’m going to check on whether the Elda-Care department of my Pack is doing anything about my anonymous tip.”

With that, we cleared the room of our things, and headed for Jet’s house.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The tripto Jet’s house proved fruitful. He hadn’t had a chance to pawn any of Tilly’s jewelry yet. And we found more—we found a book of his victims. He had noted down every detail he could find about them, as well as notations as to what stage their ‘relationships’ were at, and what their net worth was. Several of the women’s names had checkmarks after them. A quick search on my phone showed that at least a few of those women with checks had been found dead from unknown circumstances.

“I wish we could give this to the police, but we can’t tell them what happened to Jet.”

“We could send the book to them anonymously, but your aunt’s in here and that might lead them back to us,” I said.

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