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Against this grisly backdrop, Professor Valserak’s smile was a thing of nightmares. I drew on my power without thinking, forming a nebulous doorway behind us. I doubted the haze was visible, even to a vampire in the low light.
“Ah, Ms. Depraysie. I was hoping you’d drop by tonight. I knew it was only a matter of time after I scented you in my office.” He paused a moment, no doubt to let that thrilling information settle in. “Where’s Chesley? Trying to scout out Location A, I presume?”
“You’re not going to find him,” I said, voice coming out on a shaky exhale. “He’s already two steps ahead of you.”
Professor Valserak’s grin widened. “Oh, I don’t have to find him, dear girl. I’ve already found you. The rest will follow in time.”
He moved too fast to track. One moment he was standing at the bottom of the stairs; the next he was so close, I could smell fresh blood on his breath. I didn’t even have time to scream when his arms closed around me, vise-like and immovable. I flailed, kicking Oleander in my struggle to get free, which only made the professor chuckle... until Oleander disappeared through my doorway and was lost from sight, exactly as I’d hoped. The doorway popped out of existence in a flash of red-gold light, leaving only a shower of autumn leaves behind. I wasn’t sure if the portal would take him to the castle, as intended, or strand him in Autumn. Either way, he was out of the vampire’s reach and that meant he was safe—for now, anyway.
“What the hell was that?” Professor Valserak snarled.
“Magic, asshole,” I wheezed.
“Where did the faerie go?”
“Away. Somewhere you’re never going to find him.”
“We’ll see about that,” Professor Valserak answered, snaking one hand into my hair. He wrenched my neck at a painful angle and in a second, I realized what he meant to do. Right before it happened.
The clocks on the floor above began to chime, drowning my scream when Professor Valserak’s fangs pierced my throat.
Epilogue
Maverick
“I need you,” Taliyah said, leaning her weight against the door frame.
Unfortunately, she wasn’t wearing lingerie or speaking in that breathy, excited tone women adopted when they were in the mood. We weren’t even in private. She’d stepped into Wanda’s shop and addressed me without preamble, which meant this was business, not pleasure. More’s the pity.
Furthermore, her wardrobe supported the theory. She wore a pair of charcoal gray slacks and a silver blouse beneath the knee-length leather coat I’d enchanted for her. It had been a pain to do written spell work on the rigid medium, but the results were worth it. The luck and protection potions combined with the sigils had helped her avoid her brother’s fate more than once. She might have been immortal now, but that didn’t mean she was invulnerable.
Taliyah had pulled her shining silver hair into a no-nonsense braid, instead of letting it fall in loose waves around her back. This was definitely about work, then. She was watching me appraise her with a slight smile on her lips. It broadened when I sighed in resignation. Like most of the women in my life, she seemed to take some sort of perverse pleasure when she could make my day a little less comfortable.
Taliyah aimed her gaze over my shoulder, settling her attention on Wanda, who had camped out behind the till, idly sketching new clothing designs while I completed the stitched spell work on a double-breasted suit jacket. The trick for a piece like this was to hide the delicate work in places it wouldn’t be seen. Men’s wear had significantly less room for embellishment, which meant I’d come to hate working on it. Taliyah’s arrival was a welcome distraction.
“I need to borrow your cousin,” she called to Wanda. “There’s something in a lake north of the Hollow and it’s scaring the hell out of some mundane campers.”
Wanda immediately chuckled at that.
“What’s it doing?” I asked.
“It’s mostly making creepy noises at night and posing just long enough for blurry photo ops, so I’m guessing it’s some kind of nature spirit playing pranks. It shouldn’t take more than a few hours.”
Wanda’s lips curled into a smile, but she didn’t look up from her notebook. She waved an airy hand and said, “Sure, but have him back by his bedtime, Taliyah. I hate working with a grumpy warlock in the morning.”
“You hate working with a warlock, period,” I grumbled, finishing the section I was on before setting my needle and thread aside.
Taliyah was probably right about the time frame. If this was routine, we could have the reprobate out of the water and into a submersible holding cell before midnight. If it was a more complicated case, we might be chasing this thing for a day or two. She was right to ask Wanda to loan me out since I was technically still on Wanda’s payroll, so it would impact her profit margins. Still, it rankled to have the woman who was now technically my wife talking to my cousin like Wanda was a 50s matriarch approving our first date.
“See?” Wanda said, waving a dismissive hand in my direction. “Grumpy. If he doesn’t get a solid eight hours, you just can’t live with him. I pity his wife.”
“Ha,” Taliyah drawled. “You’re just so funny, Wanda. You should do stand-up.”
“Maybe I will,” Wanda said with an unrepentant smirk. “Good luck and Maverick, don’t get eaten because I need you tomorrow.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
I cleaned up my workstation and then paced back to Wanda’s back room to retrieve my coat, wallet, and keys. The weather didn’t bother me much, but my coat was a twin to Taliyah’s, offering extra protection against whatever supernatural shenanigans we were about to face. But when I bent to retrieve it from the table, I found curling red and gold leaves on my coat, and a piece of notebook paper folded on top of the pile.
