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  He smirked at me. “Kill me and face the wrath of my maker.”

  There would always be another bad guy, someone else to take his place. As a PIB agent, I knew that. Killing Ira would do nothing except make me feel a bit of satisfaction that would be chased away by guilt.

  “I’m not scared of your maker.” My hand twitched, wanting to close it.

  “Abigail, don’t.” Levi’s voice came from right next to me now, forcing its way through my magical high.

  I glanced at Levi and then to my now empty circle. Ira had disappeared. Gone. He shouldn’t have been able to break through my magic like that. I searched my mind for an explanation. He’d done it to Merick’s circle too, but I had assumed it was because I broke it first by falling and Merick brought it down to get me out. Where did Ira go? He was fucking with my head. My magic slammed back into me, and I cried out. Warmth flooded out of me, and the world went black around me.

  I woke up to voices in a language I didn’t know. Aches coated my body as I forced myself to sit up. My warmth was still nowhere to be found, and three comforters slid off me when I finally managed to move. I felt my side for my gun and found it missing. My mind spun. Ira escaped, Levi allowed it, and Oliver…I didn’t remember seeing him past the moment I’d destroyed all the vampires. The thought made the screams echo in my mind. I dropped my head into my hands and let out a huge sigh.

  “How do you feel?” Oliver walked into the room.

  “Horrible. My head hurts, my heart hurts. I murdered a hundred people in one motion of my hand.” I muttered without looking up at him.

  He sat next to me. “Your aura’s not tainted by it. You can feel that; I know you can.”

  He was right; there wasn’t a heavy burden on my aura. But that wasn’t easing my guilt at all. “I was in perfect control of the magic.”

  “But not of your mind.” He stood. “Levi wants to see you.”

  “Where are we?” I stood and found that I wasn’t as shaky as I thought I’d be.

  Oliver smirked. “Romania.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Levi came here to go after Ira. What we found though…” He shook his head. “Levi wants to see you.” He said again.

  “I want my guns back.” I wrapped my arms around me.

  “You can’t, not here. I’m sorry, Abigail. I wanted to keep you from all this. Just remember that. I wanted to bring you in on just the case. Not wrap you in lies.” He motioned to the door. “I’ve been requested to not be in the room.”

  What the hell was going on? When the hell did Oliver start listening to people? What the fuck was I walking into? I forced my feet to continue forward.

  What I found in the room wasn’t what I was expecting. Bodies were laid out in rows; paramedics moved the ones that were still breathing out of the room. My head spun as I tried to take it all in.

  “Abigail.” Levi stepped up to me.

  “What is this? How has he killed so many people and your king has done nothing?” My voice shook. “He’s trying to change people. He’s killing them. He’s creating true monsters.”

  “We were able to find this because of you, his base of operations.” Levi motioned to it. “This has been here for years, covered in magic.”

  I frowned. “He’s working with a witch or warlock then.”

  “Yes.”

  And he had my blood. How screwed was I? “Oliver confirmed the spells?”

  “And he found evidence of life magic and was able to break the cloaking spell.”

  I’d dealt with someone who was using life magic, he was planning on bringing his ex-wife back from the dead, but this took it to a whole new level. “Why didn’t you let me kill him?”

  “He’s right; if you kill him, his maker would come after you. I can’t let you be the one who bears that.” Levi put a hand on my shoulder. “I won’t let Ira take more of your life from you. He’s forcing my hand in a lot of this.”

  What the hell was he talking about? I couldn’t find the emotions to be mad at this point, nothing but numbness was in me.

  A man in a uniform came up, and Levi turned to him and shook his hand. “We’re lucky that your daughter was able to find this location for us.”

  Levi didn’t correct him, which was a first, but he normally only corrected them when he wanted them to realize that I was human-ish. Not correcting was a way to say that I was part of this world. The man turned to me and bowed his head. “Princess, I heard you handled the situation in the states with great grace.”

  Princess. I turned to Levi with wide eyes and then back to the man. I kept my mouth shut about the title. “Of course. I’m glad we’re making progress.” Was all I could force out.

  The man and Levi conversed in a language I didn’t know, and I stood there idly watching the people work through the bodies.

  “Is that all, my king?” The man suddenly switched back to English, confirming my outrageous suspicions.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  The man left and Levi turned to me. “Abigail.”

  “When the fuck were you going to tell me you were the king?” I snarled. “How on earth did you manage to hide that from me?”

  He laughed and I clenched my fists to keep from punching him. “It wasn’t easy; I had to go to great lengths. There were a few times you almost discovered it on your own.”

  “Everything this last year…no, the last two years. People were trying to kill me, and you led me to believe that it was all related to my cases.”

  “Devon blowing up your car was related to your case.” He shook his head. “I was trying to protect you. People are worried that you’ll have power over the vampire community as my adopted daughter.”

  “I won’t though. I’d have to be your fledgling or your blood to take your position.”

  “They are worried I’ll change you.” He let out a sigh.

  I’d argue that he wouldn’t do that, but that wouldn’t make any difference to the people who were trying to kill me. “Ira wants anarchy, and he thinks the way to do it is for me to die.”

  “Yes.”

  “And what happens when you actually capture Ira? If you can’t kill him.”

  “I didn’t say I couldn’t kill him. I said you couldn’t.” He motioned over the scene again. “This, like you said, is progress though. We found his research, his blood samples; we can slow him down now.”

  “Good. Now that the cat is out of the bag, what happens? I’m not giving up my position at PIB.”

  “And I wouldn’t expect you to. As of right now, nothing changes. We act as we always have. You’re just in on the secret now. I’m sending you home with Oliver, and until he is sure your magic and emotions are back in check, you will be staying with him.”

  “I want to stay at home.”

  “Abigail, please. I’ve never seen you so…power-crazed before.”

  There was a begging to his voice that I hadn’t heard before. “For a week.”

  “Until he says you’re ready.”

  I wasn’t going to win this argument. “No more secrets.”

  “I can’t promise you that.” He turned away from me. “I’ll be home as soon as everything is settled here.”

  I turned back to the room I’d been in and found Oliver sitting on the bed still. “How long have you known?”

  “Since Elizabeth met him.” Oliver shook his head. “She wouldn’t want this for you. I fought for you, but it was clear in her will that you were to stay with him.”

  “Why?” I demanded. “Why did she leave me with the king of vampires?”

  Oliver stood. “Come, I’ve booked us a flight back home.”

  He was avoiding my question. “Oliver—“

  “I don’t know, Abigail. And I’ve spent the last twenty-one years trying to figure it out.” He walked out of the room and past the vampires who were talking to Levi. I walked behind him. “Why are we flying home, Levi can just poof us home.”

  Oliver glanced over his shoulder at me. “I kno
w you hate to travel that way, but I wanted to give you some time to digest everything before you’re thrown back into your life, your work.”

  I caught up with him when he stopped outside the building. A car waited idly at the curb. “Speaking of work, I’ve been gone for too long; I may not have a job to go back to.”

  “Boss Man received a call from those who handle the king’s cases and was told that you’d been requested to come on the case. You’ll be paid hazard pay and overtime.” Oliver and I climbed into the back seat, and he spoke to the driver in what I now assumed was Romanian.

  “So Levi being king has advantages.” I rolled my eyes.

  Oliver leaned back as the car started forward. “The changes will be subtle at first. A bow of a head here or there, Mario may be assigned to protect you. I don’t think Boss Man knows about Levi, but it’s hard to tell. Ira forced Levi’s hand in making it known that you now know about him. He had managed to keep it hidden from you for so long some people may just choose to continue to not say anything around you.”

  “The vampire king is supposed to be this big bad boogie man; no one is supposed to know who he is.”

  Oliver nodded. “It’s very select who knows. That’s why you may not notice anything has changed. The good news is, your clearance will go up at PIB to the proper level it should be.”

  I growled. “Levi kept me from having access to all that.”

  “For your protection.” Oliver reminded me.

  I snorted. “For my protection, that’s everyone’s excuse. Clearly, it’s not working right. I was attacked by a fucking horde of hybrid vampires. I killed…” I swallowed. “A hundred of them. Ira is out for my blood…literally. All hiding things from me did was make things worse. And get my partner killed.”

  “We don’t know if Nick is dead; so I wouldn’t pin that one on Levi just yet.”

  I closed my eyes. “So I’m living with you for at least a week. Is there anything I should know?”

  “You’re not staying with me. Levi won’t be done with this mess for over a week, Merick can make sure you’re under control.” He looked out the window and not at me.

  “You don’t want to help me?”

  “Abigail, you saw my circle. Do you really think I’m the person that should be watching over you and making sure you’re not power crazed?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think you’re that bad.”

  “There are things about me you don’t know.” And he left it at that.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I walked into my house, and Merick was waiting on the couch with Simon. “Wow, what did I do to deserve this welcome?”

  “Oliver called us and said you’d want company.” Simon shrugged. “I figured we could order pizza and watch some stupid television.”

  Pizza sounded amazing. I’d only had crappy airline or airport food in the last sixteen hours. “That sounds great. I’m to be supervised for the next week at least.”

  “I have strict instructions from your uncle to make sure that I go with you and supervise any spells you might do. Whatever happened must be one hell of a story.” Merick raised a brow. “Care to tell us?”

  I shook my head. “No, not really.” I wasn’t sure if either of them knew about Levi. Merick would know soon enough once I added it and the new information on Ira to my board. Simon didn’t need to know though, not now. I didn’t want him treating me any differently. I wasn’t exactly sure how any of this was going to play out, but tonight I didn’t want to think about it. Tonight, I wanted to enjoy company and pizza…tomorrow I’d worry about being the princess of vampires and a witch.

  The End

  Of Life and Death

  Book Five

  A.L. Kessler

  Chapter One

  I stared down at the box sitting on the sidewalk. Normally, this wouldn’t be my issue. It wouldn’t be the Paranormal Investigation Bureau’s issue, but this box happened to be sitting outside of the North PIB building and had a puddle of blood under it.

  I was apparently the first one Boss Man thought of when someone reported the bloody box to him because he sent me down to investigate it. The blood slowly crept out of the cardboard and onto the cement sidewalk. I sighed and pulled out my cell phone to call Detective Mason.

  “Abigail, this is unusual, don’t I normally call you?” His gruff voice came across the line. He was right, of course, he normally called me in on cases he thought were paranormal related.

  “Yeah, but I’ve got a bleeding box on the sidewalk outside of PIB, I’m not exactly sure whose case this should be. Want to call forensics and head over?”

  I heard him chuckle.

  “Have you opened the box?”

  “No.” I glanced down at it. The brown, unassuming box, came from a popular online retailer, but the blue security tape had been cut and resealed with clear packing tape. It was about two feet wide and four feet long with a mailing address, unreadable, scribbled on the top, and there was no return address. Hell, there wasn’t even a shipping label on the box to tell me what carrier might have dropped it off.

  “Get some gloves and open it. Tell me what’s in it, so I know what I’m looking at.”

  It wasn’t exactly normal protocol, but I couldn’t really blame him.

  I tried not to sound irritated as I pulled some gloves out of my bag. “Okay.”

  “Maybe it’s just a dead animal or something.”

  “Yes, because someone would drop a fucking animal on PIB’s doorstep.” I got my nail under the tape and pulled it off the box. The ripping sound seemed to echo through the parking lot. I pushed the flaps opened and looked down.

  A body was crumpled into a very odd position with its torso bent over the legs, and arms crossed over the stomach, and the head was twisted at a very scary angle. Bile rose in my throat as I realized there were at least two inches of blood in the box.

  “Abby?” Mason asked.

  “Yeah, it’s not a dead animal. It’s a human body.” I put the back of my hand to my mouth like it’d keep me from throwing up. Who on earth would put that much effort into stuffing a body in a box?

  “I’ll be down there in a bit.”

  I technically couldn’t handle the case yet because other than it being on PIB’s doorstep there was no reason to believe that it was supernatural related. There was no note that I could see in the box, and the label had been unreadable, so there was no telling who the intended target was. “I’ll see you in ten.”

  I disconnected the call and stared down at the body. I didn’t want to move it until forensics got there and did their thing. I hauled my butt upstairs and to the room where security monitored the cameras.

  I knocked on the office door. It swung open and a man dressed in PIB uniform opened the door.

  “You’re here about the box?”

  I nodded. “Sure am, did you notice anything?”

  He looked away sheepishly and fiddled with his hands. “Nothing unusual came up on the camera. Not even a delivery person. There’s a small glitch at the time…”

  “Someone messed with the stream without you realizing it?”

  “We can’t have eyes on all cameras at once. That’s why we record them.”

  Of course, I knew someone who managed to avoid their cameras and mess with their streams on a regular basis. I made a mental note to talk to Boss Man about the competency of our security guys. “Show me the timeline please.”

  He led me to a wall with multiple screens spread across. Each section had a different area of the building on screen. I could clearly see the box sitting out at the front of the building.

  The agent tapped a few buttons, the screen rewound, and the box just disappeared. He hit play and I watched the little digital numbers on the corner of the screen. It took an extra second to change just as the screen seemed to shake. Then the box appeared on the screen. Almost like magic.

  “See?”

  “Whoever did it did a great job getting the box there, but
a crappy job messing with your feed since you caught it.” I crossed my arms. It didn’t give us anything to go on, so there wasn’t much more I could do up here. I headed back to the box to wait for Mason to show up.

  By the time I got outside, I could hear the sirens closing in on the parking lot. The noise cut out when an ambulance and a fire truck pulled into the parking lot, leaving a ringing in my ears. Mason’s cruiser pulled into the closest parking spot, and he jumped out. His hair had grown out some, showing the salt and pepper color that matched the age shown by the lines crinkled at the corner of his eyes. “Abigail, leave it to you to find a body.”

  “At least this isn’t a building blowing up, or a car, or a barn.” I shrugged a shoulder. “It’s been a few months since something else has happened.”

  He nodded. “Things have been quiet since your last big case.”

  The last big case had included skinned werewolves and a massive break in the blood-starved vampire case. Mason didn’t know about that last part though because I had been working with the vampire king. Levi, my adopted father, king of all vampires, and I was still pissed at him for hiding something like that from me. “Yeah, luckily for me and PIB, only smaller cases have come in.”

  “What’s considered a small case for PIB?” He raised a brow and motioned to the box. “This?”

  “Oh you know, a body here a body there. We’ll see what this turns out to be before I even claim it as a PIB case.”

  A couple people in white jumpsuits came up, and I stepped away from the body. They’d do their thing and then determine if it was a supernatural cause of death or not.

  “For your sake, I hope it is, it’ll give you something to do,” he muttered. “I’d hate to think that a human was capable of something like this.” He motioned to the scene. I was sure he’d seen worse from humans, just like I’d seen worse from the supernatural world, so his comment struck me as odd. I didn’t push though, not at the moment.