Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic (Dowser Series) (3 page)

∞

I was being stalked by an obviously insane vampire. It didn’t get much more terrifying than that.

Despite my numb, shocky state, I made it into the shower. Though not before I seriously thought about leaving a message on my Gran’s voicemail. The chances of her cell phone picking up in Tofino were slim, but I was loathe to interrupt her yearly vacation. I never had, not even the day Sienna found out her dad was dead and I’d moved her into the guest room at my Gran’s house. We’d gathered as many things as we could grab quickly and toss in a backpack. Sienna’s mother — drunk out of her mind — screamed obscenities about us and our “kind” the entire time. She also threatened to dump Sienna in the foster system.

Actually, Gran had been upset I hadn’t called that day. When she’d returned from her annual trip she’d dealt with Sienna’s mother somehow, and made sure there was legal paperwork in place that made us officially sisters.

It was pretty stupid to think I could take on a vampire by myself, but I was twenty-three. Did I really need my grandmother to be constantly overseeing everything and every choice I made? In the end, I decided Tofino was only a few hours away and I didn’t yet know if the vampire was a real problem, so I didn’t call.

I dried my hair and halfheartedly pinned it up. After I added some eyeliner, blush, and lip gloss to the look, I was pretty much done procrastinating.

The vampire said he needed approval to bite me. Could he get that approval in the next couple of hours? Was it safer to stay behind wards that I wasn’t sure could hold him or be out among people? Vampires were careful about exposure — all the magically adept were — but could he grab me without anyone even noticing? Maybe …
 

A key turning in the lock announced Sienna’s return to the apartment. She’d come through the main door rather than the bakery for which she didn’t have keys.

I pulled a hand-painted silk jacket over my ‘Attempted Murder’ T-shirt — it has two crows on it; think about it — and a pair of Seven jeans. The jacket was the nicest and most expensive thing I owned. Sienna was out in the living room chatting with Rusty, though I couldn’t specifically distinguish his voice. They sounded far, far away, and I thought then I might still be shocky despite the hot shower. I strapped my knife back at my hip and took a deep breath.

It was just dinner and dancing. The vampire wasn’t going to kill me in front of witnesses. Plus, my Gran was someone to be reckoned with — at least on the West Coast — and she wouldn’t be happy to come back to find me dead. Of course, it wouldn’t make much difference to me at that point.

I hustled out to the living room to find Sienna cracking one of my precious bottles of wine — a bakery grand-opening gift from the wine store that occupied the retail space next door. As she turned to pour Rusty a glass, she knocked over one of the barstools at the kitchen island flanking the living room. She wiggled the fingers of her free hand and the barstool froze in mid fall. Yeah, it was a flashy move — like I said, binding spells were Sienna’s specialty. I was just happy she hadn’t broken the globe wineglass in Rusty’s hand. I owned exactly three such glasses, made of actual crystal; the fourth had been smashed by an ex-boyfriend when I broke up with him. It had been an expensive lesson. Don’t break up with people when they’re in your home and holding onto fragile, expensive stuff.

“Hey, Rusty. Happy birthday,” I said as I entered the room. Rusty’s hair was brown, not reddish-orange as his name suggested. All witches of the earth persuasion — as in, they had an affinity for or sourced their power from the earth — usually took on a name that was also a color when their powers manifested. Unless they’d been born with that name, as Sienna and I had. Given our parentage, there was no doubt that we’d manifest some sort of witch gift, even if that gift was limited in our cases.

It was an odd, outdated witch tradition. Rusty’s mother was a necromancer, while his father was a witch. The necromancy — the ability to communicate with ghosts, or in some rare cases revive the dead — tended to only manifest in the female bloodline, so those powers were all but dormant for Rusty, which in my mind was less creepy all around.
 

Sienna’s boyfriend looked paler and more wan than usual as he leaned over to fuss with my jasmine plant. I always forgot to water it, but Rusty’s ministrations kept it two steps away from dead. By morning it would look practically as good as new. That was about as much necromancy magic as Rusty could wield, though.

“Up late last night?” I asked him as I snagged the third wine glass and held it out to Sienna. That was a fifty-dollar bottle she’d cracked, and I was damn well going to have a glass of my own wine.

“Yeah, you know,” Rusty answered. He slanted his eyes toward Sienna, who giggled.

“It was his birthday, we had to celebrate!” my sister said.

“Yeah, I’ve never quite celebrated like that before. I didn’t get up until two this afternoon.”

I could feel the binding spell on the stool weaken, and grabbed it before it could finish its crash to the floor. Sienna pouted at me. She liked to leave things hanging in midair, which, now that I thought about it, was good a metaphor for her life in general. Everyone always bumped into those damn stools, but I liked eating breakfast at the kitchen island. And by breakfast, I meant whatever piece of fruit was nearby.

Rusty swirled and sniffed his wine as he crossed by the island into the living room, then sprawled on my beat-up leather couch. I gave Sienna a warning look. Whatever she and Rusty had done last night obviously had an exhausting after effect. Rusty’s level of fatigue indicated the spell they used was beyond their ability, and therefore potentially dangerous.

Sienna shrugged her shoulders in response to my look. My sister liked boyfriends of a magical persuasion, and swore the sex was “out of this world better” with a little help from a spell or two. Of the two of them, Rusty was the more focused, so he took the brunt of the magical weight — hence his need to sleep. However, to judge by the smile plastered across his face, pale and tired or not, he wasn’t complaining.

“Vampires’ eyes go red when they’re angry, right?” I abruptly changed the subject to the problem occupying my every thought.

Rusty straightened out of his slump. “Your vampire came back?” he asked. Sienna must’ve filled him in on the bakery sighting.

“I thought you didn’t believe me,” I said to her.

“Whether you’re seeing things or not, it’s still good conversation.” My sister sipped her red wine.

“Is that black lipstick?” I asked. Yes, I’m easily distracted.

“Really red. Irritated blood red.” Sienna smiled.

“Vampires’ eyes bleed red when they need or want to feed,” Rusty said, bringing us back on topic.

“I want to stop by Gran’s to look up vampire lore in the
Compendium
.”

“You really think one is stalking you? A full-blood?” Rusty asked.

“He looks it.”

“How would you know when you can’t even remember the eye thing?” Sienna asked, her regular smirk firmly in place.
 

“His magic coats him and glistens off his skin. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“It makes sense,” Rusty said, thoughtfully. “They’d be classified as magical creatures if they weren’t so crazy smart.”
 

“I’m starving, Jade. Get the book tomorrow. Rusty remembers all that stuff anyway.” Sienna finished her wine in a single gulp.

I looked down at the glass in my hand. I hadn’t even tasted it. As I set it on the kitchen island, it looked a lot like blood.

Rusty scrambled off the couch. “I got you covered, Jade. Ask away. I studied magic and dead things my entire childhood. When, you know, the parents thought I might come into some actual talent. That included a lot about vampires.”

“After the restaurant,” Sienna said, as she spun toward the door. Her short, brown plaid skirt lifted to show a generous portion of upper thigh. Her dark hair was flat-iron straight and shiny.

I was so out of it that I hadn’t even noticed yet what she was wearing. I felt bad that I hadn’t made more of an effort with my appearance. But then, Rusty wasn’t my boyfriend.

Sienna led the way from the apartment. I forced myself to step through the wards, only breathing again after I wasn’t instantly attacked and drained.

I locked the door and turned to see that Rusty had waited for me at the top the stairs, his face in the shadow of the overhead floodlight.

“Just what is a full-blood vampire doing in Vancouver?” he asked. His voice was pitched low as if he didn’t want to startle me, but I had no answer.

“The better question is, how do I kill him if it comes to it?”

Rusty shuddered. “You don’t, Jade. Killing a vampire is serious business. There aren’t many of them in the world. They’re super protective of their … everything.”

“According to them.”

“Right. Well, that same ‘them’ have a strict set of rules. A code against randomly draining people. Their very existence would be in jeopardy pretty quickly if the rest of the Adept ever united against them. No one likes vampires. Biting the granddaughter of Pearl Godfrey would be a serious offense.”

“I’d prefer to not be bitten at all, rather than just have my death avenged.”

“Right. Well, if he was crazy, there’d be bodies everywhere.”
 

Oh, that was comforting. Insane vampires were slaughtering fiends. Since I hadn’t noticed anyone dead, I must be first on his list.

“Guys!” Sienna howled up the stairs. She was waiting at street level.

“How do I kill him, Rusty?”

“I doubt you can, not with a spell at least. I don’t think even Sienna’s binding would slow him for long. They’re pretty impervious to magic, crazy strong, and maybe immortal.”

“Fire? Sunlight?”

Rusty shook his head. “Maybe with a newborn or the newly risen. No, decapitation and fire, maybe. Think your knife can cut faster than he can heal?”

“I doubt it.”

“So do I. Stay out of his way and get your Gran. Her magic will give him pause.”

“It’s not like I sought him out in the first place.”

Rusty laughed. “You attract magic, Jade. You were probably his second stop after he got off the plane. Check into the hotel, follow the pretty magical signature —”

“I was behind the bakery wards.”

“Oh?”

Yeah. The vampire shouldn’t have been able to feel any magic from me behind those wards.

“I’m just going to lie down and die of starvation now,” Sienna yelled up the stairs.

I turned away from Rusty with a sigh that felt far too heavy for my typically simple fun life. I headed down the stairs.

“Jade, you want me to call my mom?”
 

Vampires didn’t like necromancers at all. I’d probably get Rusty’s mother killed on sight. I shook my head and Rusty nodded, looking relieved.

Then I tried to forget all about it and get my sister to the restaurant before she threw a temper tantrum on the sidewalk.

∞

We walked to the restaurant — the best Mexican in Vancouver. Hell, the best I’d ever had, and I’ve been to L.A. a couple of times. Then we cabbed it to the dance club.

We were early, and the line still stretched around the block — clubs always liked to appear packed — but Sienna didn’t wait in any line in the entire city. The bouncer looked like he might be one-quarter troll, but his smile softened his face as I passed under his arm. Though he held the rope barrier up for us, Rusty, situated between Sienna and me, got a definite scowl from him.
 

I was accustomed to being smiled at. A bouncy blond with a light permanent tan stood out in Vancouver, no matter the season. The greens and blues of my silk jacket would only make my eyes brighter blue. Problem was, smiles rarely progressed into anything deeper, at least not with anyone magical. Like I was too much to handle, too much to commit to — and then those rare men who did want something long term bored me easily.

I returned the smile anyway with a brief flash of teeth as I followed Sienna into the club. The music, already loud at the street entrance, promised to drown out any thoughts in my head. I welcomed it.

∞

I left Sienna and Rusty at the bar and skirted the half-full dance floor to the bathrooms. I was still feeling uneasy about the vampire and had only agreed to come dancing because I thought there was a chance there’d be more than humans here tonight. Vancouver wasn’t exactly a destination of choice for the more powerful of the Adept, but a few low-level spellcasters, small time sorcerers, and a couple of part witches could usually be found in this club. Not that I had anything against humans — I was half-human myself, of course — but they didn’t offer the extra layer of protection I was seeking. I couldn’t even hide within the small crowd on the floor; my magical affinity was like a beacon to anyone who could sense that sort of thing. However, I could blend among others of the Adept even if they themselves didn’t know they had magical ancestry, which was the case in Vancouver most of the time. The Adept were a dying breed. My Gran thought witches were diminishing because of the ongoing destruction of the environment. The earth was dying and so was witch magic.

Actually and regrettably, I usually had to firmly dissuade any new boy that came into Sienna’s life — unbeknownst to my sister, of course. It was purely a magic thing, and had nothing to do with the guys actually wanting to be with me over her. Rusty had kept his distance, and once Sienna started sleeping with him, he seemed to completely relax around me. Anyway, I usually kept my guard up around any of the Adept, with a few specific exceptions. But tonight, I would have put up with a lot of looks and maybe even some handiness to be surrounded by more magic.

The club was playing popular hits tonight, which I preferred over techno or electronic anyway, and I felt more at ease in the low light of the club. Occasional strobes of black light flashed over the dance floor — they were going old school tonight — and some more of the tension eased from my neck. I always got a stiff neck when stressed.

I slipped into the women’s bathroom, lamely called
Dames
according to a sign on the door. I wove around a few tipsy ladies to a sink to wash my hands and refresh my lip gloss.