Page 46 of Blood Illusions

I leaned in, my brow furrowed in concentration. “It’s like they’re trying to…escape.”

“Tell me I’m wrong, but I hear the bastards breathing,” Damon commented.

“Unfortunately, you hit it on the nose.” Tim’s grave voice had a hint of bewilderment.

Goosebumps broke out all over me.

For a few more seconds, the ashes moved. Then, as if accepting their fate, they stilled. The room fell silent, the only sound our collective breathing.

Damon raised his eyebrows, looking at me, then back at the now-motionless ashes. “Well, that’s going in the ‘Grant Book of Ghoulish,’” he quipped, though the levity didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Whatever these ashes are, they’re more than remains,” Tim suggested. “They’re part of something much bigger and stranger than we thought.”

“What kind of ashes do such a thing?” I asked.

Tim tilted his head toward the conference room. “Like I said earlier, this stuff is nothing I’ve ever seen, so now we do research.” He grabbed a big, thick book off one of the shelves. “Don’t just stand there. Grab a book and get comfy.”

“I need a drink first.” Damon brushed past Tim. “You want one, sis?”

I sat back down to look through the botany books again. I was even more determined to know why the vampires burned up in the rock garden, especially after the tests. “A beer. And a cheeseburger.”

Damon waved his finger. “You got it.”

I flashed him a grateful smile. “Thanks.”

“Hey,” Tim added in a gruff voice. “What am I? Chopped liver?”

Damon grinned and aimed a finger-gun at him playfully. “Burger and a beer?”

Tim plopped into a chair. “Yeah, but make mine a double cheeseburger and a shot of whiskey.”

“Now I’m a waitress. It’s Saturday night. I might be awhile,” Damon remarked as he sauntered from the room.

I glanced at Tim. “He doesn’t like to do research.”

He loosed a bitter laugh. “I got that the first thousand times he tried to avoid it.” Tim’s laughter died away, and he grabbed a notebook. “We need to organize everything we found to make sure we’re not chasing our tails.”

He tore out a piece of paper and handed it to me. “I want you to start writing down all the plants you saw in the rock garden. Then, we’ll try to combine it with the results from the tests, and maybe we’ll identify the compounds in the ashes.”

“Besides the sage, I know there were purple and yellow columbines and purple lobelias.”

“I need to know exactly what type of sage,” he explained. “It’s important.”

I flipped through the pages of the botany book. “This is the one. It’s called white sage.” I pointed to a picture of a plant with sturdy, woody stems and clusters of delicate, tubular lavender flowers.

Tim glanced at the page. “That doesn’t surprise me. White sage has been used for centuries to smudge evil spirits and negative energies. But I’ve never heard of it being lethal to vampires.”

He tapped his finger on the table. “Keep looking through that book. Maybe there’s something else that was lethal. Maybe combined with the white sage.”

My brows furrowed. “What I don’t understand is, why wasn’t it harmful to Justice? It didn’t do a thing to him.”

He winked. “That’s what we need to find out.”

As soon as the door opened, the mouthwatering scent of burgers filled the air. Damon balanced a tray on one hand, expertly toting a precarious stack of three plates loaded with juicy burgers and crispy French fries. He set the tray on the table with a satisfied grin. My stomach growled in response.

Damon placed a heaping plate of food in front of me, complete with a cold beer. My eyes widened in delight as my senses were overwhelmed with the feast.

“Dig in.” Tim dipped a French fry into a gob of ketchup. “You don’t want it to get cold.”

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