Natural Mage (Magical Mayhem #2)(52)

“Because…I won’t, that’s how.” Of all the weak arguments…but I doubted she’d believe me if I told her she was the one I was worried about.

“Look.” She spread her hands, and my heart sank. She had a fast car and I had none. If she planned to leave me behind, there was nothing I could do about it. “It’s not my place to tell you how to live.”

I opened my mouth for a hotheaded and extremely swear-y rebuttal, but paused when her words finally registered. “Huh?” I managed.

“We’re working side by side. I’m learning as much as you are. You’re making me stronger at understanding spell work and unraveling it. As far as I’m concerned, you’re a peer. I have no more power over you than you have over me. Beyond that, I’m the absolute last person on this green earth who’s in a position to tell anyone the best approach for sticking to a low-key life. But you need to understand what you’re getting into. I’ll be working with other mages. Well”—she waggled her hand back and forth in a so-so gesture—“I’m supposed to work with them. They usually just slow me down. But they’ll be there. And we’ll be combating an extremely dangerous magical creature that you don’t know the first thing about. There are worse things than vampires and shifters that go bump in the night.”

“Smokey said as much.”

She nodded. “He should know. He nearly got his soul stolen by a doozie of a creature.”

I squeezed the edges of the counter to keep from grimacing.

“You’re also going to leave yourself wide open for the Guild,” she continued. “I’ll be busy. So will the other mages. You will be completely on your own. If they spot you, you’ll be ripe for the plucking.”

I blew out a breath. Even one of these risk factors should’ve been enough to keep me home. I turned my head to the side and closed my eyes on the sly, listening to my intuition.

“God, you’re weird,” I heard her say.

Not so sly, then.

Her boot scraped against the ground, shifting. She was probably anxious to get to the door. To leave.

“Let me get my stuff,” I said, hurrying to my bedroom.

“This is probably a terrible idea,” Reagan muttered as I passed.

I had to agree, but I was doing it anyway. Hopefully, this wasn’t one of the times my temperamental third eye led me into troubled waters.





23





“Let a vamp suck on your neck and get paid like a painted lady, is that it?” A pointy-faced man with a huge Adam’s apple and receding hairline stood off to the side as Reagan got out of the dented, recently scratched Lamborghini. She’d tried to slide across the hood like in a cop movie, without remembering the buckle on her fanny pack and her lack of finesse. She’d ended up scratching the car then tumbling onto her head.

Reagan shut the door, exuding a rough-and-tumble malevolence that had my stomach fluttering. She was smack dab in her element.

We were at an old-timey plantation, about an hour outside of New Orleans. From what little Reagan had heard (she apparently wasn’t overly concerned about details), a banshee gone rogue was plaguing the tourist attraction, making people drop dead with very little warning. So far, four people had suffered an untimely fate at the plantation, starting a rumor that the place was cursed, since humans didn’t believe in banshees, and hadn’t been told about this one.

“Painted lady…that’s a whore of some sort, isn’t it?” she asked, not at all bothered. “My, my, Garret, your insecurity is showing. Or are you speaking from a place of experience?”

His beady gaze shifted to me as I got out of the car. “Who’s this?”

“My work associate.”

He centered his weight, using a wide stance that spoke of authority. “Your work associate?”

“Yes, Garret, I know words are hard. I’ll give you a second to think through that sentence.”

She stalked straight past him, moving toward a group of five people gathered around a huge tree with sprawling branches that seemed to weep from it. A great house crouched in the distance, with large pillars all the way around. Manicured grass, mostly dark at this time of evening, stretched across the property with more of the large trees dotting the way.

Garret, unfortunately, caught up. “She doesn’t have associates, except for that vampire she sold herself to,” he said, eyeing me.

I pulled my sweater—some fashionably bright red affair that Marie had bought for me—tighter across my chest and hurried after Reagan. I might have more confidence now, but I’d never been the type for hostility among perfect strangers. Besides, this guy reminded me of my nemesis, stupid Billy Timmons. I didn’t intend to find a new bully in New Orleans.

Reagan stopped just outside of the circle of hard-faced men and women. One of the men, a dark-skinned man sporting a decent-sized belly, stopped what he was saying and turned toward Reagan.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said as the circle shifted, creating a hole for her to step into if she so chose. She didn’t. “My plus one decided to come.”

The potbellied man frowned before looking at me. “I didn’t authorize that. Only you are on the contract.”

“It’s fine, captain.” Reagan waved the thought away. “She knows she won’t get paid.”