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“Holy shit,” I muttered, rubbing the back of my neck. “I thought it was a myth.”
“What?” he frowned, flipping through more of the photos.
“Cassandra’s Curse. Judging by her search history, she was either obsessed with the subject, or she had it. No wonder our visions were so different. Her curse wouldn’t let me see the truth.”
Jackson stopped looking at the pictures for a moment and leaned on the table. “I’m confused. Who’s Cassandra?”
“The name comes from an old Greek legend. I only remember it because Viktor made me study ancient curses,” I said. “The god Apollo apparently fell in love with a Greek princess. He tried to woo her with the gift of prophecy, but Cassandra turned him down. So, like every Greek God spurned by a woman, he got angry, and her gift became a curse. Cassandra’s visions were one hundred percent accurate, but Apollo took his revenge by making it so that no one she told would ever believe her. As far as I knew it was a myth, but judging by the websites and research Nadia was doing…”
“That could explain why you were so opposed to working with her, too. Your vision was wrong, and then when she insisted that she needed help, the curse made you mad.”
I nodded. “Makes sense.”
My temper on a good day could rival any of the wolves in Jackson’s pack. It didn’t take much to piss me off, but the day Nadia came into my office, my reaction to her had been extreme, even for me. Under any other circumstance I would’ve just laughed her off, but that day I’d gotten angry. Really, really angry. The curse had to be the reason.
Shaking my head, I looked up at Jackson. “Did you find the—”
A bell half hidden in the rafters rang over our heads with a delicate trill. Jackson looked up at it for a second and then down to check his watch. “Someone’s at your door? At this time of night? It’s after nine.”
15
Shutterbug
Upstairs in the hallway, I could hear someone banging on the front door. Jackson pulled the gun from his holster and motioned for me to stay behind him.
“Easy, tiger,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “If they were a threat to us or the house, the wards would have blown them clear across the street.”
“How do you—never mind. Just see who it is,” he grunted, and his gun remained poised even as I walked past him.
In the office, I kept to the shadows of the front room and squinted through the window. The person banging on the door wore a dark trench coat, but I recognized the bright white dreadlocks in an instant.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I groaned, dragging my feet as I crossed the room.
“Who is it?” Jackson asked, dropping his gun to his waist.
“Ingrid Fucking Tanis,” I said as I threw the door open. A blur of white hair tumbled past me and hit the table I kept for my brochures. “What the hell are you doing, banging on my door at this hour?”
Ingrid flipped her hair back over her shoulders and turned to face me. “It’s about damn time. I’ve been banging on that door for over an—”
Magic flared around my hands, and the witch paled to a sickly shade of white. “Ingrid. What are you doing here?”
“I need your help,” she said.
I let out a loud singular laugh. The last time Ingrid and I were together she’d tried to poison me. If it wasn't for Viktor’s meticulous training, I’d have ended up in the hospital.
Jackson cleared his throat. “We good here?”
“Yeah, you can put the gun away.” I closed the front door and leaned against it. “Just don’t drink anything she offers you. She likes to sneak rat poison in when you’re not looking.”
Ingrid scoffed. “Oh, would you let that go? It was years ago.”
“Why. Are. You. Here?” I glared at her. “Don’t make me ask a fourth time.”
“I told you. I need your help.”
My jaw clenched, and my hands curled into fists. Every bone in my body told me not to trust Ingrid. In the ten years we’d known each other, we’d never agreed on anything, not once. We’d fought on a thousand different occasions and she’d given me more than enough reasons to hate her. Now, she was in my office, begging for my help.
I gave Jackson an exasperated look, and his lips twitched, fighting a smile.
