Page 262 of Sigils & Spells

“I will find the Fang Hunter,” I said.

“Forty-eight hours.” Alessandro stood. “I’ll give you forty-eight hours. You work best on a timeline. Get this done.”

“Impossible.”

He tilted his head. “Thirty-six then.”

CHAPTER4

Tick tock–the timeline to hell had begun.

The next morningafter I had consumed a pot of coffee, I descended to my office on Fangsters’ ground floor and penned a to-do list. My body still hurt from the big brawl at the joint, but I didn’t have time to worry about my personal pain. More important things were going on in my world. I had become a tooth fairy—well, a fang fairy. Whatever. I had to protect Fangsters from a Fang Hunter. They were my students, whatever their specie, and no one was going to hurt them.

* * *

To-Do List

1Contact a lawyer in case Dakota presses criminal charges.

2Have René (our resident genius about everything) crack the CCTV data at Murphy’s Bar and send me the footage of Dakota finding his flat tires. A woman has to have some fun in her day.

3Send Onyx awarmfriendlycrypticnon-apologetic apology message. Tell him Iwantneed him back to deal with a security issue. Wave an olive branch with the condition he stay out of my private life.

4Wait twenty minutes for a reply and then send an official academy request to Onyx demanding his assistance, stating there is no one better—anywhere in the realm—to neutralize a Fang Hunter. (I gagged as I wrote this sentence.)

6Talk to the police.

7Get one of my sisters to brew a pain-killing potion for my killer of a headache before I kill someone.

* * *

Where the hex was Onyx?He drove me crazy in so many ways, but I needed him. I thought about how angry he looked when I used my magic to throw him across the room and against the wall, and how he had walked off in a huff. I thought we would make up soon enough, but maybe I was wrong about that. Maybe, the fanged one had feelings. Is that what Alessandro had tried to tell me?

I closed my eyes as I thought of him. Onyx was a super-hot guy. As I told my sisters he looked like Ryan Reynolds with bangs—and fangs. Being a dhamphyre—that is a predator with a vampire father and mortal mother—he lived in an in-between world. He wasn’t dead or immortal, but he would live a very long life. Daylight didn’t bother him, and his diet included food from all the realms as well as blood. Understanding both the mortal and immortal cultures he was the perfect security man for the academy and that’s why Alessandro had chosen him. He just wasn’t the perfect housemate for me. We fought a lot.

Needing to get on with playing detective, I read my to-do list out loud. Had I left anything out?

Harvey shrugged and said nothing, which said a lot.

The list covered everything, but it didn’t feel like it did. I grumbled. This was not a day I looked forward to living in the house of the undead.

Harvey, who lounged in a chair in the corner of my office, cleared his throat. “Please, don’t think that. You know what happens when you do.”

“Things get worse.” I smiled grimly. “I know I’m tempting the Fates. But things can’t possibly get worse this time.”

A raucouscawdrew my attention to my open window. The raven had returned. When I looked his way, he made a clucking sound.

“Well, good morning to you too, my friend.” I saw him every day, sometimes at my bedroom window and sometimes here in my office. I figured he was hungry, so I left him breadcrumbs on pretty little dishes.

“But he doesn’t eat them,” said Harvey, sounding as smug as ever. “May I remind you ravens are known for pecking out the eyes of dying men?”

“So, you tell me.” Every day.

“I can show you pictures,” Harvey added.

“Stop glaring at him. Maybe he’ll start eating when he feels more comfortable with us.”

“You want to train a wild bird of prey?

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