Blood & Ash: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files Book 1) by Deborah Wilde

Author:Deborah Wilde [Wilde, Deborah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Te Da Media
Published: 2020-01-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

The ride back was as silent as the one to the auction had been but for very different reasons.

Levi was in as bad a shape as I was, sitting with his eyes closed, still blind, still maintaining our stupid illusion for the driver’s sake since this was Santino and Lillian’s ride.

How temporary was temporary?

I had my arms wrapped around myself, literally attempting to keep my shit together, curled into the door as cramps rolled through me. I was shivering so hard my teeth audibly rattled.

No wonder the smudges I’d destroyed felt so foul. They were atrocities. It was also why they smelled rotten. Without the flesh to anchor them, the magic was dying. These ghostly abominations weren’t simply feeding to survive. They were attempting to find a new permanent host.

Smudges were inherent magic ripped from the body.

By people like me.

Blood magic was the “technology” that caused smudges, which meant there were more people out there with this power, living in secret.

Why were they doing this? For the money? For chaos?

Or because taking magic was better than any high, and even through all my shame and self-disgust, I would have sold a kidney for the chance to feel that again.

The driver dropped us off at the Wickanninish Inn, a world-famous resort out here on the edge of the west coast of Vancouver Island. I couldn’t appreciate the beauty of the place because I was still in a pained fog, my body spasming like a junkie who’d gone cold turkey from every drug all at once.

I don’t know the effect on my body if I’d pulled the smudge all the way out of Birthmark Man, but this coitus interruptus nipped at the heels of my car crash for worst pain ever.

I hissed as a fresh wave of hell rolled through me.

The second the Town Car had pulled away, Levi dropped the glamours and staggered forward.

My relief at seeing him was dizzying, but it was bound up with anger over the monster comment, fear over how bad off he was, and these cravings that rode me hard.

“We’re not staying here,” he said between harsh breaths. He jerked a thumb to the left, which because he couldn’t see was actually the lobby of the Inn. “One property over.”

I shoved him down onto a bench, then bent over double, a spasm punching the air from my lungs. Wiping sweat off my brow, I pushed to my feet. “Stay.”

Squeezing the briefcase handle hard enough that it bit into my flesh, the sharp bite of pain allowed me to put one foot in front of the other, head inside, and have the receptionist call a taxi.

When I came out, Levi’s face was pinched, his shoulders rounded forward. His eyes were still closed.

“When is this going to wear off?”

At the sound of my voice, he jerked up, affecting a “relaxed” position as if nothing was wrong. Other than him looking past my ear instead of into my eyes.

“I’m fine,” he said tersely. “I need rest and food and there’s both at the cabin.

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