Of Life and Death Read online

  It was so completely out of character I fought not to drop my jaw. He slid his hand down my arm until he found my palm. He squeezed it, and a hard object pressed into my hand. He pulled me into a hug. “I’ll see you Saturday.”

  I hugged him and then slid the object into my pocket. When I turned back around Mario was already heading out of the sitting room. I wasn’t sure if he had noticed that Oliver had given me something, but it didn’t matter. It was clear that Oliver didn’t want to draw attention to it so I wouldn’t tell Mario what it was anyways.

  I found the vampire waiting for me by the door, he’d already opened it, and the smell of rain wafted through the hall. I took a deep breath and smiled at the scent. There was always something about the rain that was calming.

  Oliver had walked with me, and I didn’t miss the joy that played crossed his face at the rain. His cocky smirk turned up just a little bit more into a smile, and his eyes seemed to brighten. Water was his element, so I’m sure the rain gave him some form of happiness.

  “Are you afraid of melting?” I stepped out into the downpour and looked at Mario.

  He shook his head. “I’m thinking of the river by the bridge we crossed on the way over here.”

  “I know an alternate route.” I walked to the car and climbed in.

  He simply transported himself to the car. “I would suggest taking that. I rather not be caught in a flash flood.”

  It was a route that I often took when it rained. I didn’t blame him for his concern. There had been a lot of fires here recently that upped the chances of flash floods coming down the bare mountainside, I didn’t think it’d rain that much already, but like him, I didn’t want to chance it. I started the car. “I’m already ahead of you.”

  I pulled out of the driveway and glanced back at the house. Oliver was standing in the downpour, but the water wasn’t touching him. It bent around him as his aura protected him from the moisture. Much like mine did when it came to fire, but for the first time since I met him, he looked perfectly at peace.

  “You want to tell me about the phone call from Jason?” Mario broke the silence.

  I focused on the road and the way the raindrops were bouncing off of everything, causing a fine mist over the road and the car as we drove. “Nope. I don’t need your help with that case. It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

  “It’s vampire business, and Drake has a connection to Ira, that makes it my business.”

  I shook my head. “No, not in my mind. If Ira actually enters the scene, then it’s your business. Levi trusts me to take care of my cases without help and without him looking over my shoulder. I expect the same from you unless it deals with Keira. Then I will share information, and I will let you in on the investigation.”

  “You are a very stubborn witch.” Mario snapped. “Do you not want protection? Do you not understand the implications of what is going on around you?”

  I nodded and my grip tightened on the wheel as I drove over a deep puddle. The pressure of the water pushed the car a little bit, but I was prepared. “I do, it’s been my life on the line a lot lately. But what I’m asking for is trust. Not for you to completely disappear.”

  The rain increased, and my heart sped up and I flicked the windshield wiper up a little bit more. I hit another puddle, and it pushed my tires more, hinting to me that I needed to slow down as I took the winding road. I let my foot off the gas to lower my speed. Mario didn’t respond, and I figured either he knew that the rain was starting to make me anxious or he wasn’t sure what to say about my request for trust.

  “If you want me to trust you, Abigail, you need to trust me,” His voice was quiet, and the response had taken him a few minutes to come up with. “I do not agree with the freedoms that Levi gives you, but he is King, he is your acting father, so he gets his say. I need you not to be so…what’s the phrase? Skitish? When it comes to me. No more throwing me in a circle, no more pushing against my protection and my new part in your life.”

  Hail joined the rain echoing through the car in a steady beat. I slowed down more and turned my wipers up again. This wasn’t unusual weather for here, but it wasn’t something I liked to drive in. My poor car was going to have hail dents all over it.

  I didn’t respond until I had finished navigating the small ice balls and the rain returned. “If you want me to trust you, you have to prove that I can.”

  Something to my right caught my eye, a red glowing. My heart fell. Mud and rock came tumbling down the steep hill, crashing into the side of the car with a sickening couch. Mario’s hand wrapped around my wrist, and in one moment I was in the car that was moving sideways over the road, and the next I was standing in the rain watching the mudslide take my car over the edge of the road and down the rest of the hill.

  I looked up at the hill and dirt continued to crumble down into the road.

  “Good enough?” Mario asked and handed me my bag. I wasn’t sure when he managed to grab it, but I was glad he did.

  It took me a moment to figure out what he was talking about. Trust. “It’s a start.” I rubbed my hands up and down my arms as the chill of water set in my bones. There was a fine shake to my hands, and I knew that it was because there was a little bit of shock going through me as well. I started laughing a little bit as I saw the dirt bury my car.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Mario looked over the cliff. “There is nothing funny about this situation.”

  I shook my head. “Oh no, it’s hilarious. That’s my fifth car in two years.” I started laughing harder. “I’m going to need the Hummer.”

  Mario put a hand on my shoulder, and the world disappeared for a moment. When the world came back, we were back in front of Oliver’s house.

  “Why here?” I looked up at the door.

  “Because I have a feeling he had something to do with it,” he snarled.

  I shook my head. “No, Oliver wouldn’t try to kill me.”

  “I felt the magic, and I know you did too.”

  I saw the glow of the rune, but I wasn’t going to admit that right now. “It wasn’t Oliver’s magic.”

  “She’s right you know,” my uncle said from the side of the house. “I felt it too. It was dark, but it wasn’t mine.”

  Mario spun me to look at him. “If it wasn’t him who was it.” The answer was in the pit of my stomach.

  “I have two theories.” I shook my head and walked into the house.

  “Abigail, you know exactly who it was.” Oliver followed me before Mario walked in. “You need to talk to him.”

  The Cult. “They don’t want me dead.” I shook my head.

  Mario followed. “Who are you talking about.”

  “None of your business,” Oliver and I said at the same time.

  I rubbed my eyes. “Mario, I need you to go get the Hummer.”

  “So you and Oliver can talk about this new threat? No.”

  There was one time that Mario couldn’t be watching me. The day. Oliver nodded as if reading my mind. “Go with him, Abby. Stay at Levi’s for the night.”

  He had his reasons. I sighed. “Will you go feed my cat?”

  “I will.” There was a laugh in his voice. “I’ll even be nice to him.”

  Mario looked at me. “Didn’t you feed the cat before work?”

  “He’s a hungry cat.” I shrugged. “Okay, take me to Levi’s.”

  Mario put his hand on my shoulder, and the world shifted again. This time replaced with Levi’s front door. I took a deep breath and scanned my hand. The door clicked open, and Mario and I walked in.

  Levi was in the entryway. “Abigail, Mario. I have news on Keira.”

  That wasn’t exactly the way I was expecting this visit to go. “For fuck’s sake.”

  Both of them looked at me, and I held my hands up. “I want some dry clothes, and then we can talk about the little child vampire.”

  Levi nodded. “That will give me a chance to fill Mario in on a few things.” I waved my hand and moved furth
er into the house, going to my room.

  A text came to my phone. “I will stop by the office tomorrow; we’ll talk about this then.” I tried not to roll my eyes at my uncle’s text. I thought he could trust me to make my own choices, except for when it had to do with the Cult apparently. But I wasn’t convinced that they wanted me dead.

  I ran a hand through my wet hair, my fingers tangling in the curls. Even if it wasn’t the Cult, someone tried to kill me in a magical mudslide, and I probably would have been dead or at the very least hurt if Mario hadn’t been there.

  Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad having someone watch my back. A moment of paranoia went through me. Could Mario and Levi have planned that?

  I shook my head. What if we had decided to take the bridge back instead? I flipped on the television in my room as I peeled my wet clothes off.

  The news flashed pictures of the mudslide, but then the bridge came up, well lack thereof. Images showed the concrete bridge had been washed out by a flash flood. A magical explosion and a washed-out bridge. Either way, I could have died, and it was someone who knew that I was going to be at my uncle’s that night.

  I walked into the library where I found Levi and Mario sitting and not talking. I looked between the two of them.

  “Your uncle is getting out of control,” Levi stated the moment I walked in. “I will find another elemental to train you.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not your call to make. Oliver wouldn’t be trying to kill me unless there was something in it for him.”

  “Oliver seemed pretty sure he knew who did it, but you shut him down quickly.” Mario folded his hands. “Who was he referring to and why don’t you think they want you dead?”

  I sighed and sat down. “He thought it was the Cult of Ra.”

  “And why do you think it’s not them?” Levi growled. “They tried to take you out before.”

  “I was visited by one of them today. They said they weren’t aware what was at stake if I died.” I looked at Levi. “Do you have any idea what they were talking about?”

  Neither vampire said a word.

  “And see, this is why I can’t trust you.” I pegged Mario with a stare.

  “I would assume he’s talking about Levi.” Mario shrugged. “Otherwise, I would have no idea what he was speaking of.”

  I met Levi’s gaze. “And you?”

  He motioned to Mario to say that he agreed. “Your uncle has still brought a lot of trouble to you. Whoever attacked you, Cult or not, they knew where you were and which way you’d take home.” He was echoing my paranoia, but I wasn’t going to say that I agreed with him.

  “You really think he has something to do with this?”

  Levi nodded. “I do, and until it’s proven otherwise, I want you to stay away from him.”

  “Not your choice to make,” I said again. “My life, my choices. That was the deal. I’m almost twenty-seven, you can’t control my life.”

  “That was before you knew I was king.”

  “Which is supposed to be a giant fucking secret. You can’t suddenly change everything. Ira already knows who I am; your advisory council knows who I am. There’s no hiding it from the people who matter to your political standing.” I put my hands on my hips. “Boss Man is going to notice if I suddenly pass up certain cases, Oliver won’t let me go long without seeing him because he is the only one who can help me with the elemental abilities, the coven already knows something is going on. If you want it to remain a secret, then my life needs to remain normal.”

  Both vampires stared at me for a moment, and I spun around to leave. I wasn’t sure where I was going, but I wasn’t going to sit here and listen to them talk about protecting me and how Oliver was bringing me trouble.

  “Abigail,” Levi called.

  I ignored him and started heading towards the basement. The basement here held my safe place, a place for me to practice magic without risking damage to the house or the people inside it if something went wrong. It felt like home, and that’s what I needed right now. My place, a place for me without the two vampires.

  I heard footsteps behind me but didn’t look back.

  “Abigail.” Levi put a hand on my shoulder and spun me around. “Do you want to know why I don’t want you near your uncle? Why I kept him out of your life for so long?”

  “You told me it was because he wanted to bind my magic.” I met his gaze and dared him to admit to me that he had been lying.

  He took a deep breath and looked over his shoulder. “Come, let’s talk in your chamber.”

  The chamber was what we called the basement room. I nodded because I didn’t really want Mario around to hear what Levi had to say and Levi tended to be easier to deal with when the other vampire wasn’t there.

  He followed me down the stairs, and I opened the door at the bottom of the stairwell. The room was made out of magically enhanced stone to protect the rest of the house if something went wrong with a spell, a circle was etched in the middle of the floor, and at the far side of the wall, there was a desk that held all my supplies I’d need for spells.

  I spun around just as Levi shut the door. “Don’t want to talk with your bodyguard around?”

  “I’m getting ready to tell you something that Mario doesn’t know. Oliver was at your house the night of your parent’s murder, trying to convince your mother to do some type of spell with him. It was dark magic, and she would never touch it.”

  Because everyone thought she was so good and so pure, except Oliver’s words contradicted that.

  “Your uncle had ties to the Cult, long before now, and I knew he had something to do with her death.”

  I flinched. “Oliver loved my mother more than most people realize. He wouldn’t have put her in harm’s way.”

  “Are you so sure about that? Your uncle wanted to bind your magic, that causes harm. If he’s willing to do that to you, what makes you think he wouldn’t harm your mother?” Levi shook his head. “Your trust in him has gone far enough.”

  I straightened myself up and met his gaze. “I can make my own choices on who I can trust and who I can’t. Oliver expects me to be my own person. He doesn’t baby me.”

  “Because he thinks you’d be better off dead,” Levi snarled, and his power shot through the room. Dust and dirt flew up from the floor and vials on my desk shattered as the desk itself moved a couple feet.

  I threw up a circle before the wave could hit me. I stared at him with wide eyes. “Do you want to explain why you think that?”

  “I can’t.” He spun and left the room, leaving me speechless and wondering what the hell would make him lash out like that.

  Anger clouded my reasoning. I wanted to go up there and demand that Levi tell me what was going on, what he was hiding, but I knew he wouldn’t answer me, and my anger was not something I could afford right now.

  I shoved my hands in my pockets, and my finger jammed against the object that Oliver had given me. I pulled it out and examined the small flash drive. I didn’t have my laptop here, and I didn’t dare try it on one of the computers in Levi’s mansion. I didn’t want him to know Oliver gave me anything, especially the way he was acting right now.

  There was a knock on the door, and I put the flash drive back into my pocket. “What?”

  “Levi sent me down here to give you the information on Keira. He needed to go handle something.” Mario walked in.

  “Like his temper?” I went to my desk and pushed it back the couple feet. I sighed as I looked at the glass that covered the top. I wanted to say something, but I held my tongue.

  Mario looked around the room. “He didn’t say what happened down here, but I’m assuming it wasn’t good.”

  “No, it wasn’t. Anyways, what’s the news on the child vampire?”

  “Levi believes that she is currently staying with a vampire named Kathrine, on the south side of the city. One of his vampires spotted them together.”

  I nodded. “We’ll check it out tomorrow night.”
/>   “Don’t want to go tonight?”

  I shook my head. “Not really. I’ve got enough to focus on, and I need to meditate or something before I lose my temper.”

  “I’ll let you be then.”

  Chapter Seven

  I woke the next afternoon and lay in my bed. Hopefully, by tonight, Levi’s temper would have calmed down. I’d stayed in my magical chamber until dawn because I didn’t want to face any of the vampires. Now they were both tucked away, and I could pick up the Hummer and get to the office. I needed to look up Carmen Jones, and I needed to figure out what Oliver put on that flash drive for me.

  I finished getting ready and walked out of the mansion without much thought but stopped when I saw a ring of pink lawn flamingos. There was nothing I could do but stare at it. They were placed in a perfect circle around the Hummer. Each of them standing on one leg, buried just a little bit into the ground so that they wouldn’t fall over. Thirteen in all.

  There was no magic coming from the circle, which was a good sign. There was nothing really menacing about it, but it was certainly unusual. I wasn’t exactly sure what to think of it. I walked around the circle and picked up one of the plastic flamingos. On the leg was a tag with the name ‘Flowerama’ printed on it.

  I was familiar with the place; it sat on the corner of Circle and Yawl not far from my old house. The place always had flamingos and little windmills sitting out front. I guess that I would stop by there today. I gathered up all the flamingos and threw them into the back of the Hummer.

  I got in and started the Hummer. There was no sign of magic at the start of the engine which made me wonder if the flamingos were just a gag. I’d have to check Levi’s security footage later; I knew he had a camera out here somewhere.

  I pulled the Hummer out of the driveway and headed towards the highway. I’d go to my house first. It was early enough that no one would really expect me in the office, so I had time to kill. The drive from Levi’s gave way from trees to houses dotting the forest and eventually to the city. I lived on the north side of the city, back in a secluded part, filled with trees that were untouched by the recent fires over the years. It was peaceful, and I didn’t have to worry about my house exploding, or imploding, as the case may be.