Chapter Eleven
I’d found it on her cell after she passed and loaded it onto mine. Because it made me sad, I didn’t listen to it often, though Mom had exquisite taste in music.
I took a sip of the Dr. Pepper I’d picked up at a drive-thru after leaving the cemetery, set the phone to airplane mode and the playlist to random. Up popped “Stone Cold Crazy” by Queen.
“You must find a way to communicate with her, Betty.”
The words wound through my head in Sexton’s cold, gentle voice. Gentle? Sexton? It was the wrong word to associate with him, yet it had also been completely right. Today, at least.
“…if you don’t have her cooperation, your magic won’t survive…”
“Sure, Sexton. I’ll just dial up ol’ Demon Betty and ask her over for tea and scones,” I said aloud. “What could possibly go wrong?”
“Stone Cold Crazy” led into “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC, and I considered turning it off even though it was a great song, because Mom’s playlist was starting to hit KLXX-levels of clairvoyance.
Instead, I went with it. I belted out the chorus at the top of my lungs, relegating the late, great Bon Scott to backing vocals. I was pretty sure he’d have been cool with it, given the circumstances.
“…your magic won’t survive—dark or elemental.”
I sang until my voice cracked, but it didn’t drown out the voices in my head.
“…your magic won’t survive…”
“Highway to Hell” ended, and “Ever Fallen in Love” by the Buzzcocks began. It felt like a sign, so I pointed the Mini in the direction of the guy I loved and headed home. Halfway there, “Come and Get Your Love” started up and sent me straight back to my childhood.
Odd how that song had been the thing that brought me back from the dark side today. Odder still that Margaux had known it would. What else had Mom told her?
I waited for some emotion to kick in—annoyance, spite, maybe even a little jealousy. All I came up with was gratitude. If Margaux hadn’t played that song there was no telling what might’ve happened.
The Mini was low on fuel, so I decided to gas up at a Circle K five blocks from the Siete Saguaros. I’d just slid my ATM card back into my pocket and poked the pump nozzle into the tank when a black SUV with darkly tinted windows pulled up to the curb across from me.
Tingles walked on spider feet up and down my spine.
The spot between my shoulder blades didn’t just itch, it burned.
As in the Wicked parking lot, I had no reason to believe the driver was Floyd—the man usually had other people carting his carcass around—but I sensed it was.
It couldn’t be Mason at the wheel, not after that phone call.
Or could it? What if this whole Miles thing was an elaborate ruse concocted by Mason and the Org? Or Mason and the pack? I was certain of one thing—and one thing only—about Mason Hartman: he couldn’t be trusted.
I reached for my cell phone in my pocket, belatedly recalling that I’d set it to airplane mode before starting up the music. Keeping my attention on the SUV, I leaned against the car, pulled up the settings on my phone, and switched on my data.
The SUV continued to idle at the curb. Lurking. Could a vehicle lurk? Because if so, that was exactly what it appeared to be doing.
I circled widely, bringing the license plate into view. I raised the phone to take a photo—
Bzzt-bzzt-bzzt!
My cell vibrated in my hand. Alerts flooded in one after another, indicating dozens of voicemails and missed calls.
Ronan: “Betty, call as soon as you get this.”
Ida: “Why is your phone off? Call the second it’s back on.”
Cecil (from my burner phone): “Home, asshat.” The voice was digital, the cursing deliberate.
The texts were similarly urgent. There were at least twenty of them from Ronan alone.
I dismissed the notifications and opened the camera app again.
Held up the phone and snapped a blurry photo because one, I was distracted, and two, the car was now halfway down the street.
Then I threw myself into my Mini, shoved my foot on the gas—blowing five bucks’ worth of fuel out my tailpipes—and headed for the Siete Saguaros.
Gladys met me at the entrance. She looked a little pale, a little shakier than usual, but otherwise fine. “Good to see you’re feeling better, Gla—”
“Betty, where the hell have you been?” She stuck her arm through mine and dragged me toward my house. “The boss has been looking all over for you.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
Ronan burst out of the house and made a beeline for me, his eyes glowing like the Smokethorn sun at noon. He was a foot taller than usual, his musculature had doubled in size, and fur covered his neck and most of his hair.
“Betty.” He hugged me to him, and his heart beat a tattoo against my chest.
“Ronan?”
“You’re safe. Thank the gods. I’ve been trying to call you for nearly two hours.”
It occurred to me that I’d been selfish in turning off my data at a time like this. Especially given the attack on Gladys. I’d only considered my need to be alone with my thoughts, not how the people who cared about me might feel if they couldn’t find me.
“Damn, I messed up. I’m sorry. Something happened today, and I just needed to think.” It was a bad excuse, and I knew it. “Sorry I worried you.”
Ronan gave me one last squeeze then held me out in front of him. “I thought Floyd had…”
It was a good opening. Now was the time to tell him about the black SUV showing up twice today. I looked into his exhausted, worried face and said:
Nothing.
I couldn’t do it, couldn’t bring myself to worry him even more.
Ida and the boys stepped out of the garden room, and I took advantage of the interruption to erase the pic of the SUV from my cell. It was a useless shot anyway. The license plate numbers were blurry.
“You’re real lucky you’re home,” Ida said. “Cecil here was about to whip up a tracking spell that would set off a panic alarm in every cell of your body. From what I gathered, you’d probably end up peeing your pants, but that was a risk he was willing to take.”
I narrowed my eyes at the purple hat poking out from behind Ida’s left leg. “The only way you could cast a spell like that would be if you already had some of the components in place. When did you put a tracking spell on me, Cecil Lennox?”
The mischievous little man made a nervous peep and scuttled back into the garden room, his feet clicking loudly on the tile.
“Trim your toenails, gnome,” I called after him.
Ronan hugged me to his side, his grip tight, possessive. “I got a message you might be in trouble.”
“From whom?”
“Margaux Ramirez.”
Damn it, Margaux.
With Ronan supporting my weight, I let my head fall back and stared up at the late afternoon sky. Let out a long, tired breath. How was it four o’clock already? I was caught in a push-pull time loop where it felt like a week had passed in a day, but oddly still felt like morning.
“I’m hungry,” I said, after a moment. “Let’s discuss this in the kitchen.”
“What if we discuss it at the pub? In my office over tacos?” Ronan asked.
I brought my head down so fast my neck made a disturbing snapping sound. “Tacos? From El Rancho Grande?”
“Yeah. I put in an order for my staff. No reason I can’t call up and add in a few more.”
Ida stared down at Fennel. “Looks like we’ll be getting the story later. No way she’s turning down tacos. I can see the drool from over here.”
“What sane person would?” Gladys asked. “Anyway, she’ll be with the boss, so we don’t have to worry about her now.”
Another scoop of guilt piled onto the mountain I was already feeling. I really needed to be more considerate.
“Sorry, everyone,” I said.
“Heard you the first time, kiddo.” Gladys winked then turned to Ida. “Hey, you and Cecil still coming over tonight to watch that new Jason Statham movie?”
The tip of a purple hat appeared around the doorway.
Ida glanced behind her. “The one with all the explosions?”
“Don’t all his movies have explosions?” Gladys shrugged. “That’s why we like them.”
“That’s not the reason, and you know it, Gladys Jiménez.” Ida waggled her brows. “The man’s beautiful. Are you sure he’s not a shifter?”
“Not a wolf, at least,” Gladys said. “We’d know. Right, Boss?”
“Yep.” Ronan’s eyes were back to normal, and his fur had retracted, though he hadn’t shrunk down to his normal size. Not that his normal size was diminutive, but compared to his wolf, even a sumo wrestler was small.
I reached up and stroked his oversized jaw. “You’re going to need to shift all the way to human. I’m not sharing my tacos with you in this form. You’ll hog all the salsa.”
His smile was reluctant, but it finally showed up. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back to human size by the time we get there.”
Gladys went home, Ronan headed into the house to dress for work, and I shuffled into the garden room to apologize to Ida and the guys.
“What I did today wasn’t right,” I began.
“Yeah, we know,” Ida said. “You already apologized. Stop going on about it.”
Fennel jumped on the chaise, tail making Zorro swishes, and I sat beside him and stroked my hand down his back. “I went to see Sexton.”
Cecil perched on the edge of his workstation and swung his tiny legs.
Ida sat on the stool by my worktable. “Why?”
“Because I was hoping he could tell me how to get rid of my demon side. Long story short—it didn’t work.”
“Did he say anything helpful?”
You must find a way to communicate with her, Betty.
“Nope.” It was a lie, and I didn’t lie to Ida, Fennel, or Cecil. “Well, kind of. What I mean is he said some things he thought were helpful.”
“But you weren’t ready to hear them?” she asked.
“I feel so lost. Ida, I fight demons, I don’t become one. That’s not who I am.”
“No,” she said, “it’s not.”
“And now this thing with Bronwyn has me in knots.” I gave her and the boys an overview of the afternoon’s events. “The thing is, if they weren’t after me, I’d probably be fine with an organization that casts demons into Hades. But I don’t belong there. I’m not evil.”
“Of course you aren’t,” Ida said.