Page 51 of Curses & Cold Brew
25
RAMONA
At the sound of Iris’s scream, I bolted into the kitchen in nothing but a bra and briefs. Panic lanced through me when I heard glass shatter. Was she hurt? Did she faint? Did a portal to hell secretly open in my linen closet?
Those were the only three things I could guess as I ran, but what I saw when I entered the kitchen made my heart plummet.
“No.”
Iris was held by the throat, her back pinned to her captor’s chest—a captor who was the only other person who could get into my house.
Terror morphed into confusion. What in the fuck?
“Naphula,” I growled. “Let. Her. Go.”
My best friend squeezed the witch’s throat tighter in response. Iris’s eyes bulged in panic, the vein in her forehead pulsing.
“Naphula. Listen to me.” I tried speaking like I was calming a skittish horse, but I was beginning to suspect my friend’s mind wasn’t in the building with us.
Naphula’s glassy eyes were unfocused and stared blankly at . . . nothing. They were empty voids that held no hellfire,just blank spaces that reflected the morning light like obsidian mirrors. It was as if her body were just the shell of my best friend, a conduit, a vessel for another. I didn’t know if she had chosen to work for Esme or whether she was under the vampire’s curse, but in that moment, with her hand around Iris’s throat, I didn’t care.
“Naphula, let her go!” I shouted this time, but she didn’t move. My mind reeled with all my potential plans of action, but each one ended with Naphula snapping Iris’s neck. “If you try to take her, I will slit your throat right here and now. Do you hear me? Damn our friendship to hell.”
“Ramona—” Iris rasped as Naphula’s grip constricted, threatening to choke the life out of her.
The air around them started whirring, and my gut plummeted.
“No, no, no!” I yelled, rushing to grab Iris, but I couldn’t reach her in time.
She and Naphula vanished before my eyes, leaving no traceable essence for me to follow.
Gone.
“Fuck!” I picked up a vase of roses from the island and slammed it into the wall. The spray of water and ceramic shards joined the shattered glass where Iris had dropped her drink.
How could I have let this happen?
I bolted up the stairs to my room and threw on the first items of clothing I could find. Then I shoved my feet into my running shoes and tied them with a wave of my shaking hand before I took the steps two at a time to my front door.
My rage burned brighter than the forges of hell. I would turn the entire town upside down to find them.
Goose bumps rose on my arms as I ran toward the center of town, a wave of nausea curdling my stomach. It was eerily calm, even for this early in the morning.
Too empty. Too calm.
All the while, a vein of evil was running in the undercurrent of our sleepy town.
Esme and Naphula had taken Iris somewhere, and even if I had to call in every soul and every favor I’d ever collected to find them, so help me Lucifer, I would.
My lungs burned, but I pushed harder until I practically crashed into Agnes just outside the antique shop.
“Ramona?” she asked, instantly concerned. “What’s going on?”
“Naphula took Iris,” I huffed, cursing my human form and the fact that I couldn’t use portal magic the same way Naphula could. She was the perfect tool for Esme—my friend and confidante, a demon with incredible magic, the keeper of all of my secrets . . .
“Naphula?” Agnes balked. “But I thought it was Esme we were looking for?—”
“She’d been cursed,” I gritted out before breaking into a sprint. “Her eyes, there was nothing behind them. She wasn’t herself. It was as if she couldn’t even hear me.”
