Page 29 of Bent Out of Shade
8
Tuesday was a bust.
Unsurprisingly, my online search for the amulet engravings didn’t yield anything. I got hold of Nav while he was packing to head out of town on a job for a few days, but he didn’t recognize the artifact when I texted him a photo, and while he did a quick search of the Carpe Demon databases, those figures weren’t in there.
My failure on that front hammered home the importance of speaking with Nora and seeing if she had any intel about McMurtry’s killer. There was no way around it, I needed that ring.
Chugging my fourth cup of coffee to wipe away the memory of the last time I’d pissed Giulia off, I updated my whiteboard to include a sketch of the amulet. Then I switched over to my paying job, starting a proper file on Sabrina instead of notes on my phone and compiling my findings on her disappearance thus far. Well, in between multiple pee breaks from all the coffee.
Once that was done, I phoned Emmett and Tatiana. They were slowly amassing connections to vamps and humans with whom Vincenzo had business relationships. Vendors were happy to deal with him and appeared to be quite loyal. It lent even more credence to this being revenge for Craig’s prosecution, but if so, why the blood oath? Why didn’t Vincenzo want me speaking to anyone? Was it as simple as maintaining his appearance of power at all costs?
I floated the idea of bringing Eli on board with Tatiana. She didn’t love being asked to expand her staff until I assured her it was temporary and would come out of my pocket, then she agreed. Shocker.
Unfortunately, Eli was tied up in meetings because another gang member’s body had been found, bringing the total to four. If I couldn’t use my homicide detective ex-husband to find out where the Hastings Mill gang congregated, I’d go at it another way.
Ryann might know, but I had no way to ask without breaking Vincenzo’s oath.
Old-fashioned legwork it was. Two hours later I had a couple of promising locations, along with a sore back and dry eyes from scanning dozens of newspaper articles. An old story about a slew of murders in the criminal community mentioned the fact that gangs tended to abandon known locales after hits to make it harder to strike at them again.
I grabbed my car keys and headed out to scout Paxton Craig’s house, but the driveway was empty and there was a “for sale” sign in front. I crossed it off my list of where the gang had gone to ground and drove to the second address, which was in Burnaby, a good forty minutes away.
Tatiana really needed to pony up for a gas allowance.
The restaurant I found was closed for renovations, with papered-over windows and a heavy locked front door. Going around the corner onto a quiet street, I cloaked myself to check the open door at the back. The place had been gutted. Two tradesmen were plastering walls with nary a gang member in sight. I’d have to wait for Eli for suggestions, though I fired off a text to Vincenzo to say that I was closing in on the new gang HQ. The blood oath didn’t act up, so yay me.
While I pondered my next course of action and not the fact that in four hours Laurent would be here to pick me up for our date, Emmett sent me an address for a quick job, because our dybbuk enthrallment hotline was booming. Tatiana had renamed the service as dybbuk bounty hunting and was charging big bucks for it. Huh. I guess she had a point about the importance of branding.
I cracked my knuckles, more than up for destroying one of those fuckers.
At first, all signs pointed to a murderously fun time. A crying mother greeted me at the front door, wailing about how her poor possessed baby would have totaled the car and died had he not wrested back control of his body at the last moment. The car was replaceable but her darling son was not.
She led me out to the garage and left me with a teen whose scraggly beard made me want to shear him to put his facial hair out of its misery.
He sat in a folded-out lawn chair, staring glumly at a luxury SUV. The car’s entire left side had been reformed into an impressive modern art sculpture. Even the headlight fragments were embedded in a new and interesting way.
I stood next to the kid and crossed my arms, leaning my weight on one leg as I sent my magic into him to check for the dybbuk. “You sure you’re okay?”
He gave me a hangdog look and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Yeah. I’ve been studying pretty hard, and I guess I got enthralled during the last Danger Zone.”
“Wow. That’s rough.” I wandered over to the rack of tools on the side workspace. Ooh. Shiny. I lifted a handsaw off the rack.
“Wh-what are you doing with that?”
“This?” I furrowed my brows. “Didn’t anyone explain how I sever the dybbuk from you?”
He scrambled up so fast that the chair fell over. “You use magic.”
“Well sure, but also a saw.” I mimed sawing off my arm. “Key word being ‘sever’ and all.”
The kid whipped out his wallet, which was several inches fatter than mine, and thrust a bunch of bills at me. “Look, there’s no dybbuk.”
I bugged out my eyes and replaced the tool. “No way.”
“Way. I just said that because my dad will kill me for busting up his car.” He shook the money at me. “Take it.”
“Thanks.” Five hundred bucks. Sweet.
“We’re good? You’ll tell my mom I was enthralled?”
