Druid Vices and a Vodka: The Guild Codex: Spellbound / Six Read online

  Desperate times called for desperate measures.

  Robin hadn’t been in the workroom, which meant she was up here. Turning away from the guild leadership offices, I tiptoed down a narrow hall. No, I didn’t need to tiptoe, but it seemed appropriate since, technically, I had zero business being up here.

  Most of the guild’s magic-usage rooms were in the basement—the alchemy lab, the sparring room, and a spell-testing bomb shelter sorta hole thing—but the Arcana Atrium was the exception. A white sign hanging on its door read, “Arcana In Progress,” and scribbled underneath was, “So keep out, losers!” I recognized Ramsey’s handwriting.

  Raising my hand to knock, I froze at an almost inaudible murmur.

  “… not happening.”

  Was that Robin’s voice? Canting my head, I saw that the door wasn’t latched, the gap allowing sound to leak out.

  “Forget it,” she continued, her words too quiet and muffled for me to make out everything. “You can’t … smelling … would I explain …”

  Smelling? Had I heard that right?

  “We’ll have to … right time. You’ll get … to … mages eventually.”

  Mages? What mages was she talking about? Eyes narrowing, I seized the handle and whipped the door open, revealing a largish room crowded with stuff. A permanent circle, aligned beneath a square skylight, had been etched into the dark floor, which was made of a smooth material that shone like glass. Cupboards, bookshelves, and a worktable, all well-worn and bursting with their contents, lined the walls.

  Perched a stool, Robin was facing a newish grimoire, open on the scuffed worktable—and beside her was her demon. He stood like a lifeless statue, his softly glowing eyes the color of bubbling lava. He didn’t so much as twitch at my appearance, staring blankly at the opposite wall, his arms hanging at his side.

  Robin made up for her demon’s lack of response by whirling on her stool with a frightened squeak. Her wide eyes goggled at me from behind her glasses, one hand pressed to the side of her face.

  “T-Tori,” she stammered. “Um. Just a moment, please?”

  She shifted her hand, and I spotted the cell phone she held.

  “I’m sorry,” she said to her phone. “Can I call you back? Thank you. Bye.” Lowering her phone, she rubbed her sternum. “You startled me.”

  “Sorry.” I only half heard her, my stare fixed on her demon. This was my first up-close look at him. “Who were you talking to?”

  She hesitated, taken aback by my nosy question. “Amalia.”

  Her blond friend she’d joined the guild with? If Robin was an absentee member, I didn’t know how to describe Amalia.

  I took a cautious step closer to her demon, amazed at his slight stature. To be fair, he was no pushover. A couple inches taller than me, the demon was all muscle—hard, ropey muscle that suggested agility as much as strength. Compared to the other demons I’d seen, however, he was a shrimp.

  My gaze traveled from the small horns poking out of his messy black hair and across his disconcertingly human face to the mixture of light armor and dark fabric he wore. Not that he wore much. Most of his reddish-brown skin was exposed.

  “Do you dress him?” I asked curiously, studying the metal plate over his heart, the center etched with a strange symbol. “Or did he come fully accessorized?”

  She peeked between me and the demon. “He—he came that way. Um. Can I help you with anything?”

  “Yeah.” I leaned sideways to get a better look at the demon’s midriff. “Damn, girl.”

  “P-pardon me?”

  I pointed. “You can see this, right? I know he’s a demon and all, but those abs. They might be the most demony thing about him. No man has abs that perfect.”

  When Robin didn’t respond, I glanced over. She was cringing on her seat, her blush so intense her face was glowing as red as her demon’s eyes.

  “I can’t put clothing on him,” she babbled, hands twisting together. “Extra clothes can’t go into the infernus with him. But—but it’s fine. He’s a d-demon, not a … not a … man,” she finished in a strained whisper.

  I arched an eyebrow. I hadn’t been suggesting she dress him—I’d merely been wondering if she enjoyed the view—but apparently, her demon being half naked and totally ripped made her uncomfortable for some reason.

  Planting my hands on my hips, I gave the unmoving demon one more swift assessment, this time comparing his eyes to Ezra’s when they glowed with demonic power. Before being bound inside a human body, had Eterran looked like this, or was he more like the winged demon who’d stalked us on Halloween?

  “Why’ve you got him out, anyway?” I asked.

  “I …” She patted one cheek as though to make her blush fade faster. “I’ve been looking into … the magical properties of … demon blood.”

  That sounded unsavory. With a thoughtful “hmm,” I parked my butt on the table beside her, happy to put the girl between me and the demon. Great bod or not, he gave me the heebie-jeebies.

  “So … I want to ask you something.”

  “Something else,” she muttered under her breath, a hint of an annoyed bite in her voice.

  “Yep.” I squashed my final doubts and jumped right in. “Do you know anything about demonic artifacts?”

  “You mean objects used for summoning and contracting, like the infernus?”

  I glanced at the silver pendant hanging around her neck. “I mean an artifact made with demon magic. Made by demons. Is that a thing?”

  Asking her was a risk, but neither Ezra nor I had much to lose. I had to ask someone, and I’d rather take a chance on a guild member, however new and possibly untrustworthy, than a complete stranger.

  Robin absorbed my question, her expression serious. “Why do you ask?”

  “Just some research I’m doing for a job.”

  “Oh.” Another hesitation, then she turned to her demon. She rapped her knuckles against the square plate over his heart. “This is a demonic artifact. It has magical properties, but I don’t know more than that. Summoned demons might carry artifacts, but once contracted, they can’t use them or create new ones.”

  Her demon’s armor was magical? Interesting, but not helpful. “Any idea who might know something about these sorts of artifacts?”

  “Short of discussing it with a demon, I don’t know how anyone could learn much …”

  “Do people do that? Have conversations with a demon?”

  “Well, summoners talk to demons before making a contract with them, but … even if someone has studied it, finding Demonica experts is difficult.” Her brow wrinkled, and she sighed like she also knew how it felt to run into dead ends at every turn. “Summoners aren’t common, and experienced, knowledgeable ones are even more scarce.”

  Frustration burned through me. How was I supposed to learn anything about the amulet, then? The MPD’s database listed only one active summoner in the greater Vancouver area, and he was currently in custody—on charges I didn’t have clearance to see. Even if I could talk to him, why would he tell me anything?

  My hands clenched as I fought back a wave of anxiety. Ezra’s life depended on me, and I was getting nowhere.

  Robin cleared her throat. “I’m also researching more obscure facets of Demonica. Not about that, specifically, but …” She fidgeted with the hem of her sweater. “There’s a mythic … a retired summoner. He’s an infernus maker now. I heard he’s a collector of esoteric Demonica knowledge. I was planning to go speak with him but I …”

  As she trailed off into a mumble, I caught the words, “go by myself.”

  “Can I come along?” I asked immediately. A retired summoner—that was exactly the sort of approachable Demonica mythic I needed. “We can both see if he knows anything about our … research topics.”

  Her blue eyes warmed. “That sounds good. You work most evenings, don’t you? When’s your next day off?”

  “Saturday,” I answered promptly, then silently swore. Saturday was only two nights from the
full moon. That was cutting it way too close.

  Robin was already nodding. “Okay. Let’s meet here at seven.”

  Would it look suspicious if I tried to rush things? Damn it! “Seven it is.”

  Her face brightened with a smile. I squinted at her open, obvious pleasure at having a research buddy and wondered what on earth Aaron and Kai thought this girl was up to. She didn’t have a deceptive bone in her teeny, five-foot-nothing body.

  I sighed. “Robin? Can I offer some advice?”

  Her brow furrowed. “Yes?”

  “When someone butts in on you and starts asking questions you’d rather not answer, ‘get the hell out, you nosy asshat’ is a good response. You should try it.”

  She blinked. “Oh.”

  “See you on Saturday.” With a final glance at her demon, who hadn’t even blinked during our conversation, I left her to whatever weird “magic blood properties” thing she’d been up to before I burst in.

  At the stairs, I paused with one hand on the railing, reconsidering my new plans with the odd demon contractor. She seemed so harmless … but that demon definitely wasn’t. Even if it didn’t make sense to me, I knew better than to disregard a warning from Aaron and Kai.

  With a shake of my head, I continued downward. Her infernus-maker lead was all I had, and I wasn’t backing out now. I’d just be careful.

  After all, what sort of dangerous secrets could a girl like Robin be hiding, really?

  Chapter Two

  With my mind on a hundred different things and my gaze on my feet, I trotted down the stairs. I was so lost in thought that when another pair of shoes appeared in my line of sight, I didn’t react.

  Until I ran right into the sturdy body attached to those shoes.

  Strong hands caught my elbows, steadying me, and a mouthwatering scent teased my nose. I looked up into mismatched eyes, one warm brown like melted chocolate, the other pale as ice with a dark ring around the iris.

  “Ezra!” I gasped. Should I have pulled away from him? Yes. Did I? Hell no.

  His hands slid down my arms. Even with my sweater between his palms and my skin, I shivered, fighting the urge to plaster myself against him. Did this man have any idea what he did to me with a casual touch?

  He smiled that soft smile of his. “Has Odin’s Eye left? Am I clear to go downstairs?”

  Yeah, he had no clue.

  “You’re good,” I replied, only slightly breathless. “I was coming to get you. I need your help.”

  “With what?”

  “Making Kai blush over his super-crush on Izzah.”

  Ezra laughed. “We’ll make it happen.”

  I grinned, battling the renewed urge to touch him as my heart did painful flip-flops against my ribs.

  It’d been like this for weeks. I wanted to touch him, hold him, drag him straight into my bed. But he’d asked me to be his friend, so I was pretending as hard as I could that we’d never shared an earthshaking kiss. He was pretending too. Neither of us had mentioned it since Christmas, and I suspected that was the only reason he wasn’t avoiding me.

  Luckily, I had lots of practice pretending I wasn’t wildly attracted to him. The bigger problem was the way my throat closed with panicky anguish whenever I got near him. That reaction was more difficult to hide, but I’d been doing a damn good job anyway. The last thing Ezra needed was me tearing up every time he walked into a room.

  Still grinning, I caught his hand and tugged him across the landing. He’d asked to be friends, but holding hands was the one thing I couldn’t resist—and he didn’t seem to mind either.

  We got halfway down the stairs before I realized the noise level in the pub had risen. Ezra slowed, his fingers tightening around mine. Had the Odin’s Eye team returned?

  Cameron wheeled around the corner at the bottom of the stairs and charged up them. Ezra and I pressed into the wall to avoid getting run over.

  “Oi!” I yelled. “Where’s the fire?”

  “You won’t believe who just came in!” he called over his shoulder. “It’s Shane Davila! I’m getting Cearra!”

  As he vanished into the second-floor workroom, I frowned. “Shane Davila? I think I know that name.”

  “He’s a bounty hunter,” Ezra supplied. “Pretty famous. He was at the Sinclair Christmas party.”

  “Oh, I remember! Wait—he was at the Christmas party? Why didn’t anyone point him out? I didn’t notice a bounty hunter.”

  “He’s hard to spot in a crowd. Come on, let’s go see.”

  In the pub, everyone was clustered in a tight group, and I spotted Aaron’s telltale copper hair. He was enthusiastically shaking the hand of a man in his forties. Next to Aaron’s well-muscled, six-foot-one build, the new arrival looked laughably short and frail, with a slight potbelly on his wiry frame and a perfectly spherical, bald head. Round spectacles gave him the air of a grumpy middle manager.

  No wonder I hadn’t noticed him at the Christmas party. I’d probably mistaken him for some rich dude’s valet. Face scrunched in disbelief, I circled the group and dropped onto Aaron’s vacated stool. Only Kai had remained seated, his phone in one hand and the other elbow propped on the bar.

  “So that’s the famous bounty hunter Aaron admires?” I asked dubiously as Ezra settled onto the stool beside me. “Not what I was expecting.”

  “Don’t let his appearance fool you,” Kai warned. “Shane Davila is a genius. He’s a modern-day, mythic Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Does he have the magic power of deduction?” I asked as Shane patiently shook hands with each Crow and Hammer admirer, a worn briefcase clutched under his other arm. Completing his odd getup was a pair of black leather gloves.

  “Just about. He’s a psychometric. He can read an object’s past by touching it.”

  “Huh? Read an object’s past? How does that work?”

  “Mr. Davila!” Appearing from the kitchen, Ramsey had joined the group and was shaking the bounty hunter’s hand with both of his. “It’s an honor to meet you!”

  Returning from the upper level in a rush, Cameron and Cearra squeezed into the group too, and Shane nearly vanished beneath the press.

  “Guys!” Aaron waved his arms. “Give Shane a little space here. You’re gonna crush the guy.”

  The mythics backed up and Shane reappeared.

  He cleared his throat. “Thank you, Aaron. A drink, perhaps?”

  As the others goggled at the realization that Aaron and the famous bounty hunter were on a first-name basis, I hopped off my stool and hurried around the bar. I was properly in position when Aaron and Shane reached the counter. Shane set his briefcase on the floor.

  “Rum and coke, please,” Aaron ordered. “Shane, what would you like?”

  “Vodka, straight.”

  My eyebrows rose. Not quite as sissy as he looked. I grabbed a rocks glass and a small tumbler.

  “Shane, you remember Kai and Ezra, right? We didn’t get much of a chance to talk at Christmas.”

  I grumbled silently as Shane shook hands with the other two mages. So they’d gotten to meet the bounty hunter, but not me? I’d been with them most of the night. Must’ve been bad timing on my part.

  “You were in Europe before this, weren’t you?” Aaron asked, leaning against the bar. “On a special MPD case?”

  “Yes. It was an interesting one. I wish I could tell you the story, but it’s classified.”

  “That’s no fun,” Aaron complained, amused rather than annoyed.

  Ezra listened with interest, but Kai’s attention was on his phone, that little smile back on his lips. I’d bet my paycheck he was texting Izzah.

  “Bounties are my livelihood,” Shane replied good-naturedly. “I can’t go around revealing my cases or methods. The MPD is always too interested in what I’m up to next.”

  I considered the vodka in my well, then decided this guy was important enough for the good stuff. I ducked into the kitchen to see what was in the fridge. Quality vodka needed to be chilled.

&n
bsp; “How about a hint on your current case?” Aaron was asking as I returned with a frosty bottle. “My dad said you’re in Vancouver for a big bounty.”

  As I filled the small tumbler, Shane smiled mysteriously.

  “Perhaps I can do better than a hint,” he said. “I have some investigative work to complete before I’m ready for the tag, and I could use a skilled combat mythic as an escort. Would you be interested, Aaron?”

  Aaron’s eyes widened. “Damn right I’m interested! It’d be a privilege to work with you.”

  “Perfect. I’m still working out the details, but I’ll be in touch in the next few days.”

  I slid the mythic his drink. “It’s on the house. Enjoy.”

  “Thank you, Miss …”

  “Dawson, but call me Tori.” I canted an exasperated look at Aaron. “Thanks for introducing me.”

  He winced. “Oh shit, sorry! I didn’t realize you hadn’t met. Shane, Tori was at our Christmas party too, but you might have missed her.”

  “I remember you.” Shane picked up the tumbler and sniffed its contents. “However, we didn’t have a chance to speak.”

  He remembered me? Must’ve been my dress. I’d looked smokin’.

  “So, what’s the job?” Aaron asked eagerly. “I know Vancouver inside and out, so I might be able to steer you in the right direction.”

  Shane lifted his glass to his lips, took a sip, and rolled it in his mouth before swallowing. “Are you familiar with the Ghost?”

  I froze halfway through pouring rum into the rocks glass. Aaron’s expression blanked and Kai’s gaze snapped from his phone to Shane. Only Ezra’s poker face didn’t flicker.

  “Uh … reasonably familiar.” Aaron couldn’t quite suppress the cautious note in his voice. “Every bounty hunter from here to Seattle knows about the Ghost, but it’s always a dead end.”

  “Some interesting information has come to my attention, and I’d like to see where it takes me.”

  Realizing I’d filled Aaron’s glass halfway with rum, I set the liquor bottle aside and topped his drink with cola. Here’s hoping he wouldn’t choke on his first sip.