Page 11 of Eyes of the Grave

For a moment he looked like he was going to argue, but his shoulders sagged, and he walked out of the room. I sat for a beat and then darted after him.

“Jack!”

He stopped, his hand on the open door. “Yeah?”

I lifted my bandaged palm, “Thanks.”

He smiled. “Anytime.”

When the door closed between us, the floodgates behind my eyes unleashed a torrent of tears down my cheeks. I wanted to ask him to stay, but distance was best. Savagely wiping my cheeks, I walked to the door and said the codeword to relock my wards behind him. “Hctocsrettub.”

Only then did my body relax. No one else was going to touch me unless I opened the door for them. I was safe. I could breathe again but breathing still hurt. Everything hurt without him.

I kicked off my shoes and padded into the hall. I needed a drink, and these days I kept the best stuff in the one place he’d never dare mess with.

Along the left-hand side of the hallway, there was a stretch of worn-out bricks in the wall with chipped paint. I tapped the one in the center at eye level, and a section of the wall popped inward. My very own secret door.

The wall slid to the right, and a series of lights lit up in the darkness beyond. Just looking at it made any residual tension seep from my system. TheAnnex Corporealiswas a pocket dimension created by a spell my family had passed down from witch to witch for centuries. A closely guarded secret, and my sanctuary.

I stepped across the threshold onto the top floor and the air smelled like a campfire, warm and welcoming. The string lights along the ceiling illuminated thirteen bookshelves. Each packed to the gills with magical tomes, reference books, and journals. Where most witches have grimoires, we have journals. Viktor’s journals, my father’s, my mother’s, my grandfather’s, his mother’s. We had journals dating back to sixteen hundred, and I’d read them all.

I descended the spiral staircase to the right of the door and walked across the lower floor.A collection of knickknacks lined the left side of the room. Objects Viktor had collected over the years. Things he thought were too dangerous for the public. The other side of the room was full of books I’d read for fun, and a massive stone fireplace.

I kept a workstation on the far side of the room for when I needed space to research a complex spell or mix a potion. Two large chests of a thousand tiny drawers flanked the long rowan wood table that was covered in half empty jars waiting to be used or refilled. Wax from a cluster of candles sitting on the corner had long ago melted over the side into a mottled waterfall that stretched all the way to the ground.

I was the only one that used the annex, but Jackson and Shado would come and visit on occasion. So, I kept the floor in front of the fireplace for entertaining. Shado liked to sit on the Moroccan cushions I’d found online, Jackson usually chose the mismatched leather chair, and I had taken more naps than I could count on that couch. The fire was always warm.

My drinks cart was pushed up against the wall in a small nook that divided my workspace and the seating area. Six crystal containers with six different liquids, each rarer than the last. I had a golden Goblin mead from the Borderlands Market, red Elvish wine, and a few witch-brewed whiskies, but the most potent was clear. True Ambrosia brewed in the depths of Sidhe. Shipped in special by the fae queen’s daughter and won in a game of poker. It was the most expensive by far, and my favorite.

Grabbing the bottle and a tumbler from the cart, I carried them back to the couch and sat down on the center cushion. I poured myself half a glass and set the bottle on the floor at my feet. The ambrosia rippled with an iridescent shimmer, casting flickering white light across my fingers as I tipped it back against my lips. A menthol cool burn spread across my tongue, and an overwhelming warmth spread through my bones.

Sinking back against the cushions, I relaxed into the sensation and let my eyes roam over the preternatural fire. Viktor’s fire. He’d spent so many nights crouched in front of it praying, begging forgiveness for the lives he couldn’t save. Doing penance for his failure. His whip had been brown leather with six long tails that rained over his back so often the ends were stained with his blood. My whip, the one he’d given me the day I turned thirteen, was black, and still sitting inside the red lacquered box on the mantel.

I hadn’t touched it in the six years since Viktor had died, but his voice rang in my ears even now. God gave us this gift to save people’s lives, but we are human and flawed. And the flawed must do penance.

Jackson had thrown a fit unlike any other when he found out about that whip. It was how he’d convinced me to move out of Viktor’s house. We’d moved in here and then everything went to hell. First Viktor got himself killed by a demon, and then the fates decided I’d be the one to kill Jackson. All the penance in the world couldn’t fix that. When all was said and done, there’d be no redemption for me. Just hell.

4

Unholy Communion

Loud operatic strains fromPhantom of the Operaexploded from my back pocket and I sat up with a gasp. I’d fallen asleep on the couch. My tumbler was on the floor and the ambrosia’s bottle was lighter by half. My phone rang again, and I pulled it out to find Shado’s face smiling up at me.

I answered and held it to my ear. “Shado?”

“Finally,” she said, shouting into the receiver. At least it felt like she was shouting. “I’ve called you like five times, where have you been?”

“Stop yelling,” I grumbled. “I fell asleep on the couch in the annex. What’s wrong?”

“I’m not—why are you sleeping in the annex?”

I rolled my eyes. “Why are you calling?”

“I’ve got Nadia all prepped and ready for you to do your thing. I figured you’d want to take a stab at her, no pun intended, before I got to work on the autopsy.”

“Nadia? Right.” I rubbed a hand over my face. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“Drive safe, please. That bike scares me,” she said, and the phone disconnected.

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