Demon's Moon: A Celia Winters Novel Book 2 (2 page)

“Hi Berny, I have a would be assassin in the back, just so
you know.”

Bernadette tilted her head at me, “Seriously?”

Berny looked around, and her eyes went up when she saw the
bullet hole by the doorframe behind the counter that led to the back room.

“Well, I see your okay… are you okay?”

She shrugged, “It wasn’t a big deal, he’s a kid from
Charlotte, so I’m waiting for Ed to get here before…” she trailed off.

Berny lifted an eyebrow and asked bluntly, “Before you kill
him?”

That sounded so much worse when her beautiful young friend
said it.  Berny was definitely an adult, very mature at eighteen, but she still
showed hints of a lingering innocence at times, which made the bald unconcerned
statement that much more startling.

She nodded slowly, “That’s how it works, the idiot attacked
his own council’s enforcer.  But I don’t like it either, that’s why I’m
waiting.  Need to question him too, find out why or if anyone else was
involved.”

Berny came around the counter and gave her a hug, “You sure you’re
okay?”

She hugged back briefly and when Berny stepped away replied,
“Yeah, actually I’m more disturbed about how okay I am, if that makes sense. 
It was kind of… exciting.”

Berny snickered, “That’s your shifter side no doubt, witches
are too smart for that.”

She grinned, “They are a little nuts, aren’t they.  Shifters
I mean.”

Berny shook her head and let out a trilling laugh, “A
little?  You know I love you, and I even like Kelly and Tina when they stop by,
but yes, completely nuts.”

For some strange reason that made her feel better.  She
wasn’t even crazier than she thought she was, she wasn’t suicidal, she was just
a shifter.  That said, Berny didn’t really know about the crazy option, only
Paul knew about her alter ego.  She was also having second thoughts however
about her new hallucinations, she knew she didn’t have any powers to sense the
future, and the strange visitor out of the corner of her eyes had clearly been
warning her right before the gunman came in.

So… feeling magic, can’t look directly at it, and not
crazy.  She’d have to do some research and figure out what it was, what they
were.  She’d seen air and fire versions.

The door opened again and it still wasn’t Ed.  Cheryl
Saunders, a nine year old girl, ran at Celia and leaped up at her.  She caught
the young lady and looked up at her mother as she came through the doors
herself.

Elaine grinned, “How’s it going?”

Elaine had changed tremendously over the last month, and was
seriously considering joining the coven officially.  She was already living in
the coven house under the protection of Fran, from her old coven in Albany. 
Surprisingly there had been no more attempts from that source to reclaim Elaine
since then. 

For some reason she couldn’t really understand, Cheryl
really liked Celia.  Surprisingly Elaine had no trouble accepting Celia was
part shifter, since Celia had saved her life last month.  She also wasn’t as
anti-shifter as most witches were, simply because her ex husband hated them so
much and acted like shifters were a plague.

She wasn’t complaining, she had two more people in her
corner, even if one was still a rug rat.

“Going good, how are you two this morning?”

Elaine answered, “Great, we’re just here…” at the same time
Cheryl said, “Good, were here to pick up supplies.  We volunteered.”

Elaine snorted, “That’s what happened alright.”

Celia got the sense that Cheryl had volunteered them, and rather
strongly, from Elaine’s tone of voice. 

Berny said, “I’ll be right back,” and walked into the back
without hesitation.

Berny came back out with the stuff she’d packaged for the
coven last night and handed it over.  Elaine and Cheryl chatted for a while
about magic and the coven before they got ready to leave. 

Celia had found out just last week why Elaine’s ex Gerald
wanted to control their daughter so badly.  Cheryl actually had water and
psychometry as her primary witch gifts.  Psychometry was one of the rarest and
treasured gifts, it was worthless in a fight, but could be used to easily pull
secrets from someone’s past, simply by touching one of their objects.

It was the ability to read the life of an object, as it
related to all its past owners.  A regular witch could use a person’s object to
find a person by using the life energy imprint.  Psychometry could actually
read that imprint, and view a person’s life up until they stopped using that
object.  It also worked when touching a person directly.  In any case, they
finished chatting and made it out the door, which left her and Berny alone in
the store.

The door opened again, still not Ed.  It was a large shifter
in a long coat she’d never seen before, and he didn’t seem happy.  Then he
dropped the coat and her eyes widened in alarm, he was naked underneath and
started to shift into a bear.

“Crap, another one?  Get in the back Bernie!”

She considered shifting, but a bear and tiger fight in her
store would… be really bad for her displays and shelving, if not for herself,
so she went for the gun she’d taken off the last assassin and readied a stun
spell.

Bernie made a snorting noise of negation.

She glared at Berny and lifted the gun when the bear lunged
forward… and hit a wall.  He roared loudly and started to wave his paws as he
was held above the floor, helpless.  She couldn’t help it, she started
laughing.

Berny growled, “It is funny, and I’m good at telekinesis, but
the bastard is heavy.”

She nodded a little contritely, “Sorry,” and started casting
her second sleep spell of the day.  The large brown bear started to snore.

“Can you get him in the back, put him on the floor I guess,
the table is full.”

Berny nodded and the bear started to fly into the back
room. 

What the hell was going on?  She’d been pleasantly surprised
when no one tried to actually kill her outside of lawbreakers for the first
month.  She’d started to believe it wouldn’t happen, and now twice in one
morning?  She shook her head and picked up the phone, this time she called
Josh, and he promised to be right in…

Ed and Josh showed up one right after the other, and she
showed them the two would be assassins in the back.  They both had no clue what
was going on, and the incidents were obviously unrelated to each other, as far
as the assassins went anyway.  One witch from Charlotte, and the bear had a
license from Georgia.

Ed looked at her with concern, “Sorry it took so long for me
to get here, I figured you had him iced and I wanted to check into some
things.”

Josh growled a bit menacingly, “Let’s wake one up, they’ll
talk.”

Celia frowned, that sounded rather ugly.  The fight had
excited her, but questioning someone under duress didn’t sound quite so
appealing.  She knew based on the look on Josh’s face, duress was probably too
kind a word. 

Celia put up a quick glamour on the door that would filter
out the sound from back here, as well as the view in case things got…
interesting.  She also hoped the human cops weren’t keeping an eye on her
anymore, she didn’t think they were, but so far today two men had entered the
store and hadn’t left yet, she wondered if they’d leave at all.

She asked softly, “Which one first?”

Josh nodded at the bear, and Ed just shrugged.  Apparently
Ed didn’t care enough to argue about it, and Josh wasn’t nearly as laid back as
their regular shifter partner Paul was.

Josh pulled out a thin wire cuff, put it around the shifter’s
neck, and he also cuffed the shifter’s arms behind his back.  It wouldn’t stop
a change, but if the bear changed the wire around his neck would cut deeply into
it.  The cuffs were quite a bit stronger than the human police used as well.

Celia waved a hand and used the one word dispersal spell,
and her sleep spell was ripped away.  It took a few moments for the bear to
come to, and he immediately started to struggle.

She winced a little when Josh kicked him in the solar plexus
and the bear started to struggle to breathe.

“Shut up, if you change, you die.  You’re going to answer
some of our questions… when you catch your breath that is.”

They waited while the bear caught his breath, seemed to
recover a bit, and then glared up at them.

Josh demanded, “Why were you trying to kill Celia, who is a
council enforcer for the Charlotte area?”

The bear laughed.

Josh growled, “What’s so amusing.”

The bear replied, “I’m dead either way, why would I tell you
a thing.”

Josh shrugged and said in a bored voice, “There are many
ways to die my foolish friend.  If you talk I can promise you a quick and
boring death, if not… well it will get very interesting for you.”

The shifter blanched and he wasn’t the only one.  Celia
turned away a bit so the bear wouldn’t see her own face, not to mention Josh or
Ed.  She’d had no trouble with the killing part, in the heat of battle, but the
idea of torture was abhorrent.  She had a spell she could use, from her
mother’s war spell book, which would get a look into his mind.  But… that
wouldn’t work, the whole point of having multiple enforcers was for
corroboration.

Plus, she wasn’t sure she wanted either the shifters or the
witches knowing about that spell, somehow she didn’t think her mom had shared
their family spell craft, and she was inclined not to either.

The bear sighed and shrugged after a while, as if it
wouldn’t make a difference.

“Fine, but it won’t help you anyway.  Someone put up a
hundred grand to take her out.”

“Who,” Josh followed up.

“I don’t know.  They put it up in a bond of sorts, a blind
account.  I provide a picture as proof, they send me the account number.”

Josh snorted, “How could you trust that, what if they don’t
pay?”

The bear shook his head, “The ones that post the bounty on
the underground network know who the buyer is, and they get a fee too.  If the
buyer backed out, they would regret it.  Using an anonymous middle man broker
like that makes it safer for everyone involved when going after targets not
sanctioned by a council.”

Celia frowned, he was telling the truth.

Josh laughed darkly, “Not for you it doesn’t.”

Ed looked very annoyed, “No wonder I couldn’t find anything
in the usual places.”

Josh frowned, “Is it a website?”

The bear laughed, “No, it’s not.  More like a blind drop.  I
just get an email when a new job comes up, and no I have no idea how I got
added to this guys list.  Like I said, I couldn’t tell you anything useful if I
wanted to.”

Lie.

Josh growled, “You know something else, what is it?”

The bear looked at Ed and sneered, “I got an e-mail for him
too.  It’s just a matter of time, both of you are walking dead.”

Josh barked, “Anyone else?”

The bear looked unimpressed but answered anyway by shaking
his head, “No.”

Celia flinched when Josh stepped forward and put the bear in
a hold that snapped his neck.

They went through the same routine with the witch.  The guy
didn’t need threats though, he was already scared out of his mind.  It seemed
Celia’s contract was his introduction to the whole secret assassination club,
or whatever they called it.  Someone knew something though, if the assassins
got blind drops, how did the ones that did the hiring do it?

Someone had to know something.  Maybe the one who ran it
could not only find those willing to assassinate people, but also could somehow
find the ones willing to pay to have it done?  That would almost certainly
leave out shifters, it had to be someone with magic.  Didn’t it?

Ed frowned, “I’d thought at first this was about your
nature, apparently not.  Any ideas who’d want to off the both of us?”

She went over the last few weeks, but nothing came to mind
as they’d been pretty tame after they’d executed Brice.  Just a few interviews
for witches passing through town, and as far as she knew it had nothing to do
with the shifter side anyway, or Paul would be on the list as well.  Really…
she could only think of one person that might have the motive to kill both her
and Ed.

She shrugged, “Gerald Burrows, Albany coven leader.  We took
out those two enforcers, and he never sent a follow up.  Maybe he doesn’t want
to risk a war with us, but he still wants us to pay for keeping Elaine. 
There’s no proof of course, I guess that’s the whole point though.”

Ed narrowed his eyes, “It’s a good guess, but it might be
wrong.  It helps you’ve been doing this just under a month, less history to
check to find out who we pissed off.  I’m calling it in.”

He pulled out his phone and called the council.

Josh waved at the dead bodies on the floor in the back of my
store.

“I don’t think you need me for this, seems to be a witch
thing.  Can you do that thing you do, so I don’t cause a panic when I put these
in my trunk?  I’ll take care of them.”

She nodded and put a glamour over both bodies.  People just
wouldn’t… notice them.  And pictures would be blurred out.

He picked them up and threw them one over each shoulder, and
turned to her.

“I might need you later, I’ll let you know.  Got word of a
couple of independent wolf shifters in town, we need to figure out what they’re
doing here.  Stay safe would you?  My wife likes you for some reason.”

She snorted, noticing he didn’t say he did.

“Alright, let me know when you need me.”

He nodded since his hands were full, and left right out the
front door.

Ed hung up and looked resigned, “They want us to stay
together until we figure this out.”

She wasn’t sure how she felt about that, but apparently
didn’t get a choice.  Things were just starting to get normal between them
again.  Even though she hadn’t been with Paul yet, because they’d been waiting
for the test results, but she’d kind of picked Paul over Ed.  Ed had been
attracted to her as well, but Paul completely overshadowed it because they were
both tigers and…

She wasn’t really sure why, it was just how it was, she just
couldn’t see anyone else when Paul was around.  Ed was attractive though, and
outside of his almost constant grumpy annoyed demeanor a good man.  She didn’t
want for things to get… awkward.  It did make sense though so she didn’t object,
they’d be able to guard each other’s backs when the next assassin showed up.

Her eyes widened a moment later as something occurred to
her.

“What about Elaine and Cheryl?”

He furrowed his brows, “What about them?”

“Suppose I’m right and it was Gerald that put out the hit,
once he took out the witch enforcers for the area, do you think he’d simply let
the rest of it go, or make a play for them again?”

Celia pulled out her phone without waiting for a response
and called Fran, maybe she was crazy, but she wasn’t taking any chances.  It
took her a while to go through all of what just happened.

Fran said with steel in her voice, “We’ll keep her safe
dear, don’t worry.  She won’t leave the house without an escort, and if anyone
is foolish to attack here, at the center of our power, they won’t live to
regret it.”

“Thanks Fran, let me know though, if anything happens. 
We’ll need real proof he’s involved if we’re going to do anything about it.  I
think your end of things is our only chance for that, the assassins are too
clean.”

Fran agreed, and promised to fill in Elaine as she got off
the phone.

She caught another one of those compressed air things out of
the corner of her eyes.  It was just still, and seemed to be watching her.  She
knew she should probably be more concerned about it, something or someone was
spying on her, but since it wasn’t agitated like the last time, she actually
relaxed a little. 

It was possible the two things were related but she didn’t
think so.  Especially after the seeming warning, and whatever it was had been
around for a while before the two attacks this morning.  She also wondered how
she was going to research what they were with Ed constantly looking over her
shoulder.

She’d been keeping them a secret, because she’d thought they
were hallucinations, even in their world seeing things that aren’t there wasn’t
a good thing.  But she was still reluctant to share the information now, and
she wasn’t entirely sure why that was.  Except, why wasn’t Ed seeing or sensing
the thing right now? 

She looked at Ed, “What now?”

He looked thoughtful for a moment, “Lunch?”

She laughed, “You said the magic word.  I’m always up for
food.”

Berny asked them to bring something back for her as they were
leaving, and to be careful.

Ed replied confidently, “We’ll be fine, there were probably
only two in the first wave.  It’ll take time for the person running the show to
send out new emails, and then travel time for the assassins.  But don’t worry,
I won’t let anything happen to Celia.”

Celia felt a shiver down her spine, and wondered how many
would be in the second wave.