Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 171450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 857(@200wpm)___ 686(@250wpm)___ 572(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 857(@200wpm)___ 686(@250wpm)___ 572(@300wpm)
“I was going to pick up coffee. I’ll poach some tourists on the way,” he promised as he stood, oblivious to Rosetta’s train of thought.
Because this wasn’t the first time she had met Graves.
Though it wasn’t like him to not remember first meetings.
She was raised by a coven in the Bronx, and her abilities had yet to come. She’d thought she’d get to be a showgirl forever. It was the height of the Roaring ’20s, and she was a dancer in a nightclub for monsters. Not that they displayed that. Her daddy played saxophone in the band while her mama ran the business side. It was a family affair.
Graves had walked in the stage door, through the dressing rooms, and she had come out in full stage attire and tripped over her own feet onto him. It was one of the best places to conduct business for the monsters of the time.
“You all right, Miss…?” Graves said, in lieu of apologizing as he helped her to her feet.
“Miss…Miss Davis,” she sputtered.
When she looked up into his sharp-white features and scowled brow, she saw little figures marching around his head. Only the coven magic kept her from screaming in terror at seeing something over this monster’s head.
“What is it?” he asked apprehensively.
“You’re going to have great pain and torment in your life,” she blurted before she could think better of it.
Instead of scowling further, he actually laughed. “Yeah. Tell me something that I don’t know, kid.”
“I…”
“Do you have some of your mother’s sight, Miss Davis?”
“I don’t have any sight, sir.”
He nodded. “Well, pain and suffering aren’t premonitions, if that helps.”
He moved to step around her, but she couldn’t let it go.
“There’s a sword. There’s a sword in your future.”
He stalled. “What about the sword?”
“It’s…in a market,” she said. “It’s not good for you, though.”
His eyes lit up at the words, something like hunger in them.
“Thank you for that advice, Miss Davis. You have a good night now.”
Then he disappeared into the gloom. She never saw him again or found out why exactly he was there that night to see her family. By the looks of it, pain and torment had lingered in his life. But she didn’t know what ever became of that sword. If he’d ever found it. If it had made him worse than before.
Rosetta grabbed her cell phone and found the number she had been looking for. She hadn’t told Graves about their first meeting. And she hadn’t told them the whole truth about Dallas’s mentor.
She knew Kingston. He’d contacted her about helping Dallas in the first place. He’d even fronted the initial money for it. And paid her to contact him if anyone came snooping.
“Yes?”
“Dallas is dead.”
“Yes. I already knew that,” Kingston said darkly.
“You were right that people would come snooping around,” she said.
“Who?”
“Graves and his apprentice, Kierse.”
Kingston was silent a long moment. “They seem to keep getting in my way.”
“Is there anything that you’d like me to do?”
“No. I’ll take it from here.”
Then he hung up.
Rosetta tossed the phone down. If he hadn’t paid her so much money, she would have told him to go fuck himself. Maybe it was time to leave Vegas. She could feel the tension in the country like the feeling in her knees when a storm was brewing.
She wanted to run. That was what had kept her alive all this long century. But what Kingston hadn’t said, what Graves hadn’t said, either, was that things were changing for those with magic. And maybe it was time to be at the front of that change.
She picked up the cream card that she’d initially discarded on her counter. An invitation to be a delegate at the upcoming convocation to discuss the Monster Treaty.
New York City was home, after all. Maybe it was time to return.
Part III
The Stone
Chapter Twenty
The return to New York was less exciting than the way to Vegas. They’d all thought the answers were one step away, but instead, they were met with defeat once more. No closer to the stone. No closer to the Fae Killer. Two dead warlocks in their wake.
Kierse yawned as she reached for the tea that Isolde poured for her. “You are a literal life saver.”
Isolde smiled. “Having people who enjoy my food in the house is its own reward.”
“I like your tea, too,” Walter mused, glancing up at her over the top of the kitchen counter and his computer screen.
“Yes, you do, darling. And I love you for it.”
Kierse stretched out like she’d seen Anne Boleyn do a hundred times. “Do you ever want to go back to London?”
She shrugged, setting the pot down. “Sometimes. New York is home now, though.”
“I get that.”
“What would we do without you?” Graves asked, appearing out of the stacks.
“Starve,” Isolde said pointedly. “You haven’t been eating enough as it is. Nor have you rested.”