Midlife Demon Hunter: The Forty Proof Series, Book 3 Read online

  He reached out a finger and tapped the yellow envelope. No questions, just a tap of a single finger bone, followed by a waggle of said bone.

  “Yeah, I know. I know! Okay, I should open it and see what it says, right?” I nodded even though I didn’t want to open it. Robert tapped the envelope again. I sighed. “Fine, I’m opening it. Don’t get pushy.”

  “Friend,” Robert said.

  “Friend,” I said as I put my finger to the opening of the envelope that held not only information on my gran’s death, but on my parents’ deaths thirty years ago.

  The minute I opened it, this quiet we’d been enjoying would be gone—I just knew it. Whatever darkness was trying to dig into Savannah would wake up, like peeling back the curtains and staring into the eyes of a demon. I shuddered and shook my head.

  “Like a Band-Aid, just rip it open,” I whispered.

  2

  I backed farther into my room, slid my finger through the edge of the yellow manila envelope, popped it open and dumped the contents onto my bed in a quick move before I could yet again change my mind. A whoosh of air seemed to fly through the room, dancing across my skin like a whole army of tiny ants crawling across it, biting me here and there. I smacked at my arms and legs, shuddering as the sensation slowly faded, leaving me tingling all over.

  That’s what I got for freaking myself out.

  The paperwork had its back to me, as it were. Maybe that was good. I could put off looking at it for a few more moments.

  “I don’t know if I’m ready for this.” I glanced at Robert. “I mean, I know that Gran’s death was probably a murder. And I know that it’s likely my parents were offed by someone too. And it’s one thing to think about that and want justice. It’s another entirely to look at pictures that might show them dead.” Or worse, not just dead but altered beyond recognition, something horrific enough to change what memories I had of them. I put my hand against the papers as if I could sense how bad it was just by touching them.

  Shaking more than I cared to admit, I forced myself to pick up the stack and start to turn them over.

  A boom of something against the front door spun me around, breaking my concentration, and I scrunched the papers then stuffed them back into the envelope. The banging on the door continued, quickly becoming a heavy-handed fist by the sounds of it. “Get that, Eric, would you?” I hollered down.

  Only there was no Eric answering the door. Where the hell had he gone?

  The banging thumped again and I hurried down the stairs. “Hold your horses, would you? You’re going to break the damn door!”

  I grabbed the knob and swung the door open. The person on the front porch was someone I would have happily kept on avoiding if she weren’t trying to hammer the door down. Her hair was pulled into a neat-as-a-pin bun, tight enough to give her a facelift. Her eyes were narrowed and she leaned heavily on a cane I wasn’t entirely sure she truly needed.

  Missy, Gran’s old frenemy. The literal witch who used to strike me with that very cane.

  “That’s quite the knock you have there.” I leaned against the door jam.

  Her entire body vibrated with energy. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

  I grimaced. “Seems like a bad idea, inviting bad mojo into my home, don’t you think?”

  Her eyes went from narrow to furiously bug-eyed in a flash. “I am . . . this book . . .” She kept starting and stopping with her words. I’d seen her this angry only once before.

  When I’d lit the bottom of her long skirts on fire for telling me I was a stupid, useless git. It had gone better than expected because she hadn’t noticed the fire right away, giving me time to put enough distance between us so I could feign innocence. Not to say that she didn’t suspect me, I’m sure.

  She held up the red leather-bound book I’d exchanged with her for information. “The spells . . . where is she, I want to speak to her.”

  I turned my head, fighting a grin. The book I’d given her was, of course, useless. Truly nothing more than a book of spells for beginners wrapped in the crimson cover that had originally bound Gran’s book of spells and information about the shadow world. I’d been waiting for this visit, to be honest. I hadn’t thought Missy would want to talk to Gran, though. I’d figured she’d be pissed at me for pulling a fast one. She’d given me help for a bum book. “Gran, Missy is here to speak with you!”

  Gran floated down the stairs, stopping just behind me. I stepped back so the two old “friends” could talk. Curiosity kept me close, that and the fact that I didn’t trust Missy further than I could throw her.

  “Yes, Missy?” My gran clasped her hands in front of her. “What can I do for you?”

  Oh, that was pretty formal even for Gran.

  Missy held up the book with one hand and jabbed at Gran with her walking stick with the other. Not that it would hurt her, but the indignity of it was meant to wound. “What clouding spell is on this book? I’ve tried them all!”

  I turned my head and coughed to cover up the jaw drop I’d experienced. Missy thought the book was still the real book, but covered with a spell?

  “Then perhaps you aren’t the witch I thought you were,” Gran said.

  Missy let out a low hiss that filled the air. “May I remind you that you are dead, and I am not?”

  “I’m quite aware,” Gran said, her words dry as a popcorn fart. “The fact that you feel the need to remind me makes me wonder if dementia has finally begun to set in. Was your mother not affected by the brain fog? Perhaps you need to speak to a doctor before you try any more spells. I’d hate to see them backfire on you.”

  I couldn’t resist. “You mean like when she set herself on fire?”

  Gran nodded solemnly. “True, I often forget about that slip. Terrible.”

  Missy vibrated where she stood. “Celia, you have no power.” She thumped the doorframe with her cane as if she’d like to thump Gran the same way. “Tell me how to read the damn book!”

  Oh, she broke out an almost-a-cuss word.

  Still shaking, she hit the frame of the house again, and Gran actually took a half step back. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  Missy spun, and leaning heavily on her cane, she strode down the steps and through the garden, switching off the heads of plants as she went like a petulant child.

  The gate slammed behind her and I watched as she left a veritable cloud in her wake.

  “You’re going to have to be careful of her.” Gran shook her head. “I can’t stop her like I used to.”

  “I’m not worried. Nothing in that spell book, remember?”

  Gran reached out and brushed a hand over my face. “But when she figures out that she’s been duped, it will be a dangerous moment for you. She’s not evil, Breena, but she’s dark. There is a difference.”

  Her words unsettled me for reasons I couldn’t pinpoint, but I found myself stepping out of the house and following the path out to the gate. The air in the garden felt tense, tight, and not unlike the coming of a storm.

  I didn’t like it.

  Our neighbor’s little girl, Charlotte, was across the street jumping rope. She paused and waved at me, flashing a big grin with a single missing tooth, her long dark hair in pigtails off to the sides of her neck. I waved back, forcing a smile. “Hey.”

  “Is Eric baking cookies today?” she asked. “He said I could come get some before I leave for New Orleans.”

  “I think he just stepped out but come by later. I’m sure he’ll have something,” I said, wondering where he’d gone. Maybe to talk to Kinkly?

  “Oh, that’s great. I told my auntie and uncle that he makes the best cookies, and I said I’d bring some with me this time.” She leaned on her fence and stared across the street at me, waiting for a car to go by before picking up her thread. “My mom is being deployed again. I don’t know for how long. So I want to take enough cookies to last me for a while.”

  I swallowed the prickling worries I had running through me. “But you’ll have f
un with your auntie and uncle, right?”

  She shrugged. “I guess. They live in an apartment. It’s smaller than our house here, but they think our place is haunted. Which is funny, because I’m pretty sure they have a ghost living with them.” She sighed and leaned hard on the fence. I looked past her to the house and nodded. I didn’t think it was haunted, but I knew there was something supernatural living in the basement. I’d seen a tiny figure darting in and out a few times in the shadows of dawn and dusk.

  “You know, they’re probably right. Most places in Savannah have a spirit or two. But like my gran, they’re there to watch over the people who live here. To protect them.”

  Charlotte grinned. “I know that. Our ghost is named Bridgette. She talks to me sometimes through the vents.”

  Of course she did. That earned a real smile from me. “Come over later, Charlotte. You can have as many cookies as you can carry.”

  She gave me a double thumbs-up and went back to her jump rope. She was a sweet girl, and I felt bad that her mom was being deployed again. That was the life of an army brat, though—you went where your family went, or you got shipped off to another family. At least according to her mom, Ryoko.

  I gave her a last wave and headed back into the house. My mind was all wrapped up with Missy’s visit. She’d threatened Gran, which I didn’t like, but then again, what could she do to a ghost? Not much, methinks.

  The kitchen was a mess, so I started in on the dishes. I couldn’t help myself. My years with Alan had made me a little bit . . . crazy about a clean house. He’d never done the cleaning himself—no, he hated cleaning—but he’d always been quick to tell me what I’d done wrong and how I could do it better, all the while acting as though he never made a ducking mess.

  “Son of a mother ducking donkey!” I all but threw a pan into the water, sending a splash of suds out onto the floor.

  A throat cleared. “I know I haven’t been around.”

  I spun to see Corb standing there, staring at his shoes. “Look, I’m sorry. I know I was a bastard. I wasn’t honest with you, and I should have been, right from the start.”

  A sigh slid out of me. “You aren’t the bastard. Alan is.”

  Corb didn’t look up. “I messed up too, Bree. I . . .”

  I waited, but he struggled to find words. So I helped him out.

  “Look, did you divorce me after treating me like shit for twenty years? Constantly nitpick my faults? Pin me with every debt we ever accrued together and then some? Lawdy gawd only knows what the final tally is! And I let him, that’s the worst part, Corb. I let him because I thought that was what a wife should do. I thought I had to stick it out.”

  I breathed out the words and my knees failed me. They damn well buckled as a hot flush of horror slid through me. As much as I wanted to just hate Alan and his games, I had played a part in them, and I had to own that.

  I’d let it happen, afraid to rock the boat.

  “How, Corb? How the . . . how did he do this? No judge would have approved this B.S. This is not how the legal system works!”

  I was on my butt on the hardwood floor, looking up at the underside of the table as if there were answers to be found etched into the wood. Corb lowered himself into a crouch beside me.

  “Best I can tell, he had some help from the shadow world. You were right about that, though I wasn’t able to get many details. I’ve been looking since you asked me.” He reached out, carefully took my hand and then covered it with his other hand. “It’s how he moved up the ranks so quickly in his office. How he made partner without truly putting in the work. I think he’s been at this for a while. The signs are all there now that I’m actually looking for them.”

  I bit my lower lip and looked at him. “That’s how he screwed me over.” I’d known it. I’d known there was no other way Himself could have gotten away with so much.

  “Yeah, it’s how he screwed you over. Completely unethical even in the shadow world, but you know how seriously supernatural people take their bargains. There must be a copy of that deal somewhere. We just have to find it. He tried to steal your gran’s spell book and her talisman she gave you; that had to be part of the deal.” He sat and scooted around me until I was in the cradle of his arms, his legs to either side of me. “Whoever he’s working with has some major mojo. I’m sorry I ever discussed this world with Alan. I never would have if I’d thought he’d take me seriously.”

  His words slowly sunk in and I closed my eyes. “That’s why you were at his office building that day I ran into you? You were telling him about the shadow world?”

  Because Corb had been there the day I’d found out that Himself had taken my house out from under me and had me evicted (Gran’s house wasn’t the only one he’d stolen). I’d gone to his office to confront him, only to find Corb in the elevator. He’d walked to Himself’s office with me, so both of us had gotten an eyeful of Alan banging the tar out of his new lady lawyer friend. I couldn’t have cared less at that point. We were already divorced—if only by days—and even if we hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have cared anymore. Thinking back, though, the look in her bright hazel eyes irritated me still. Like she relished hurting me. As if it had been personal for her too.

  Maybe it had been.

  “No,” Corb said slowly as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to keep going. “I’d already told him about it by then. He asked me to come down and look over this contract he was signing with someone in the shadow world. Must have been the last of all this shit. I didn’t end up looking at it because I was busy helping you get out of the building before the police caught up.”

  Yes, there were police involved, and a high-speed chase through downtown Seattle prior to my arrival at Alan’s office. What can I say? When I’m riled up—aka evicted from my own house—you really shouldn’t cross me.

  It had surprised me when Corb had reached out on Facebook and offered me a place to stay—and like I said, it had surprised him even more when I’d shown up at his doorstep, interrupting a hookup session.

  “I’m sorry, Bree. I had no idea he’d—”

  I waved a hand. “It’s not your fault he’s a useless limp dick. Good for nothing but disappointing everyone.” I paused a moment, a thought coming to me before I pressed on. “Is that why you offered to help me? Because you felt responsible?”

  “To ease my guilt?” Corb nodded and rested his forehead against my shoulder. “Yeah. Initially. There’s more, though.”

  I wasn’t sure I could handle more right in the middle of my pity party. “Another time, okay? Was there a reason you came by today? Or was it just to confess that you’re a bastard?” If he knew who was helping Alan, I wish he’d just come out and say so.

  He didn’t lift his head. “I came to apologize. I made moves on you when you were drunk, when you were not in a good head space. You’d just killed a man, and—”

  I twisted around. “And? Did we have sex and I don’t remember? Because that would be a shame.”

  “What?” He snapped his head up, eyes wide. “I don’t think so, did we?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Corb, you were under a spell. And I am a grown-ass woman. If we’d knocked boots, it would have been because I wanted to. If anyone would have been coerced, it would have been you, and I’d be apologizing for taking advantage. Besides, I know exactly how to cut your balls off if you made a move I didn’t like, okay?”

  The relief on his face would have been funny if not for the fact that I’d threatened his balls. Okay, maybe that made it funnier. What I knew was that Crash had threatened Corb at some point and made it clear that he needed to apologize. While I appreciated the notion, it wasn’t really needed. I wasn’t so precious that I was offended a younger man had hit on me. Even if it was because of a spell.

  Robert slid into view, just behind Corb. “Friend. Coming.”

  I looked at Corb. “Kind of late, Robert.”

  “Other.”

  Corb lifted his hand to my face. “I do care about you, Bre
ena. Not like . . . not because you were family for years.” Something along his jaw ticked and he ducked his head close, pressing his lips to mine, surprising me. Just a quick kiss and he pulled back. “Okay? Can we start again? Maybe I can take you on a proper date where the restaurant doesn’t blow up?”

  I was confused, mostly because there were too many emotions galloping through me. Worry about what Missy was up to. Anger that Alan, who’d always ridiculed me for believing in magic, had used it against me. Confusion and uncertainty because of Corb’s confession. And then a hot flush of desire hit me, so wild I thought it would strangle me. I blinked a couple times and found myself looking past Corb, spotting the source of the sudden heat curling through me.

  Crash stood in the back door, his eyes on Corb and me sitting there wrapped up in each other’s arms.

  At another time in my life I would have stuttered and tried to explain. At another time I would have felt embarrassed to be attracted to two men at once. But that was then, and I was a new kind of cougar.

  I grinned up at Crash and winked. “Want to join us?”

  3

  No, I really wasn’t into a threesome, despite my question, but Crash and Corb didn’t know that. And their differing reactions as I sat there between Corb’s knees on my kitchen floor opened my eyes more than a little.

  Crash gave a slow grin. “I doubt you could handle both of us at once.”

  Corb let go of me and pushed to his feet. “She’s bluffing.”

  I sighed and slowly pulled myself up using the edge of the table. “The young ones never think I’m capable. But the truth is I could show you both a trick or two, right, Robert?” I looked to my skeleton buddy for support.

  He lifted a hand and gave a bony thumbs-up.

  Corb raised his eyebrows. “I can’t see this Robert you’ve been talking to all this time. You know that, right?”

  I looked at Crash. “What about you? Can you see Robert?”