Page 15 of Nightmares and Numerology

Taliyah shrugged. “It’s your funeral, Angelo.”

Yeah. That’s what I was afraid of. I hadn’t figured out what was happening, and soon it might be the end of us both. I had to find what had attacked me and shake some answers from it.

“Let’s hope not.”

“I need to call someone,” Taliyah continued, her tone softer now. “They think you’re under the influence. It won’t look plausible for you to walk out of here reeking and drive yourself home. Give me a name. Anyone who’ll take you.”

The winter queen looked formed from ice. She was cold,sleekly sculpted, with hair the color of frost. Her eyes were too bleak a blue to capture me, no matter how hungry I was. I was from an infernal realm. Nothing as chilly as a winter queen would be able to satisfy the urges I had.

“Not Lydia,” I insisted. “I don’t want...”

I didn’t want Lydia to worry. If she saw scarlet staining my skin and clothes, she’d fly into a panic. She’d already been scared once today when Vin tried to force his power onto her. I’d nearly been too late to stop him from trying to take her after the injury she’d inflicted on him. I wouldn’t do the same thing to her. She didn’t need to fear me as well. This was my problem, not hers. Going home now was wrong. Cheating.

I’d promised not to cheat at the bargain. And despite the dark thoughts below, I was sticking to that.

Taliyah’s sigh wasn’t one of frustration now. She looked... sad. “Fifi then? Or Roy? You should at least get cleaned up before you go home to Lydia. You look like you tussled with Vorhees.”

I felt like it too. My entire body ached, not just my head. I could feel a migraine coming on, which almost never happened to me. I was convinced that whatever had attacked me had done worse than knock me out. But the only wound that remained was a line of pink scar tissue near my navel. It looked like someone had cut me open, but the incision was too small to remove anything vital. It wasn’t even a good spot to draw blood, being so far from an artery. You’d have to dig deep to find the large vessel that supplies the organs. I would have been far more hurt if someone had been after that. I figured I must have landed on a shard of glass, cutting myself deeper.

“Fifi. She can take me where I need to go. I don’t want to deal with a lecture from Roy tonight.”

Taliyah nodded. “I can do that. Just promise me you’ll tell Lydia what’s going on, eventually. Trust me. She’ll want tounderstand.”

“I promise.”

I’d tell Lydia soon. After I could guarantee I wouldn’t hurt her without meaning to. Tomorrow morning, at the latest. I had a showing at two, which left a few hours to make it up to her.

Taliyah turned back to me after a moment of hesitation. “Stay safe, Angelo. I don’t want to lose another person under my protection to the bullshit this town comes up with.”

“Amen, Chief,” I said wryly. “A-fucking-men.”

Chapter Seven

Lydia

“Just go in already,” I muttered to myself, pacing the sidewalk outside my shop like a lost puppy.It’s just up the road. You pop in, buy something, and then come back. It’ll take fifteen minutes, max. Just go.

But I couldn’t force my legs to move. My entire body felt heavy, and the reason was deceptively simple.

Angelo hadn’t taken me to bed last night. Hell, he hadn’t taken me anywhere last night. No call, no texts, nothing to explain why he’d bailed. He’d made grand promises, but in the end, he hadn’t come in until after midnight, dragging himself onto the couch with a groan. He’d smelled so much like whiskey that I assumed he’d been elbow-deep at the bar by the time last call came around. I wasn’t sure what had sent him into the arms of Jack Daniels, but I had a sneaking suspicion that I was somehow involved.

Had he finally taken off his rose-colored glasses and gotten a good look at me? I’d always been afraid he’d wise up and realize that when it came to looks, he was way out of my league. There was nothing I had to offer that he couldn’t get elsewhere from someone more attractive. No, I wasn’t a hideous monster or anything, but I was still fairly ordinary—girl-next-door pretty at best, with all the physical earmarks of being in my forties. I wasn’t an ageless faerie like Taliyah Morgan. I wasn’t full-bodied and confident like Wanda or any of the other witches I’d met. I wasn’t ridiculously attractive like the succubae he’d grown up around. Maybe he was mulling over how to let me down easily over a glass of aged whiskey. Or thirteen.

You can pout about the rejection or do something about it,I chided myself, actually missing Indigo’s voice in my head. She would have told me to end the pity-party like yesterday.There’sa potion shop right up the street with a few handy solutions. Just move your ass. It’s not even that far.

My feet remained stubbornly unconvinced. I kept flicking Angelo’s lighter restlessly as I paced tiny, depressing circles around the front door of my shop, Occult Oddities. A few people glanced my way, watching me curiously, but almost no one stopped to stare. I was just an odd duck pacing like a lunatic in front of a black arts shop. It would probably be weirder for tourists if I wasn’t a bit strange.

The fire coming from the lighter was probably eye-catching in the gloom, though. An unseasonable fog was rolling in, chilling my face and hands. It was part of the reason I’d grabbed Angelo’s lighter. He always kept it nearby these days. He smoked a hunger-inhibiting herb most mornings and evenings, drawing in at least a few women who had set their sights on my hunky roomie. It had been great for business, if not for my fragile ego.

He’d left the lighter behind today. Did that mean he wasn’t hungry? That he was done waiting for me and had gotten food elsewhere? I couldn’t blame him. He shouldn’t go hungry because I was being indecisive. I just wished he’d told me as much, instead of avoiding me. He’d left before I could even ask why he’d flaked.

As if in response to my thoughts, the lighter suddenly flamed up in my hand, as if it had just exploded for no good reason. I gave a little yip, then glanced down at it, realizing the heat from the flame hadn’t harmed me at all. In fact, it hadn’t even hurt.

“Well, that was interesting, wasn’t it?”

I yelped when I turned around and found a witch standing only a few feet away, hand on one hip, watching me pace like a caged animal. In my distracted state, it took me a second to distinguish this brunette from the rest of the pack. Well, “coven” was more accurate. The ink-dark hair and intense gray of her eyes were dead giveaways. She could only be a witch, and one Irecognized better than most.

I pressed a hand to my chest. “Wanda! You scared me!”

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