Blood Magic

Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

I leaned against the wall, bracing myself as if I had been slapped.

Today just got weird. Real weird. Talking to the girl on the phone was like standing in front of a train, and you knew the train was coming, but you didn’t want to move because you wanted to know what it would be like to get hit by a train. Jesus.

The last time I met a girl at a casino, it didn’t go so well: I ended up running for my life, fighting a blood-thirsty demon, and outsmarting a mysterious g**g of jinn—not my idea of fun on a Friday night. Oh, what untold wonders were waiting for me now...

My phone receiver beeped again, pulling me from my confusion. Someone was still on the other line. I clicked over to street static.

“Yo, Les, you gonna come get me?” a voice asked. It was my neighbor, Ant’ny.

Bo grabbed the receiver.

“Where you at?” he asked. He nudged me and motioned to a cradle of pens on the wall. I gave it to him and he wrote something down on the notepad next to the phone feverishly. “We’re on the way.”

“Well?” Bo asked, replacing the receiver. “Sounds like some shizzle is afoot.”

I chugged the last of my cinnamon tea and put my mug in the sink. I grabbed my keys off the hook next to the phone and headed for the porch.

“I don’t make choices with a g*n held to my head,” I said.

“What are you gonna do?” Bo asked.

“Haven’t gotten that far yet,” I said. “Let’s go get Ant’ny.”

“If it was me, I’d talk to the cops,” Bo said.

I stopped and stared at Bo for several seconds, putting my hands on my hips.

“You were just lecturing me on the virtues of non-cooperation,” I said. “Now, all of a sudden, you want me to talk to the police?”

“I’ll take jail time any day over whatever that girl’s peddling.”

“What did she say to you?” I asked.

Bo swatted at me.

“Chick called me a man shrimp, Lester,” Bo said.

He made a mocking face as he imitated her voice. “If you think you’re going to shield your boss from me, then you’re just a little man shrimp. Get Lester on the phone because you’re irrelevant, Bo Holloway.”

He puffed, standing tall, inflating his chest.

“I was about to say, first, I ain’t no man shrimp. Second, you’re the one that sounds shrimpy. Third—”

My phone rang again.

“No no,” I said, opening the porch door. “No more phone calls.”

The good Lord himself could have been on that telephone, but I didn’t care. I’d had enough ominous phone calls for one day.

My back porch was an add-on sun porch with a thick back door that led into my kitchen. The kitchen door was the original exterior door. It got very cold and very hot out here, but at least it had windows. My pops and I built it with our own hands fifteen years ago. Actually, I built it, and Pops sat in a chair giving orders. This damn porch almost severely damaged our relationship, but it turned out okay and so did we.

Today was a cool afternoon.

I unhooked my beige gabardine from the wall and slid it on like a man ready for war. Why did I always get dragged into supernatural crap?

I knelt and nuzzled Hazel.

“What was all that barking about, sweet pea?” I asked.

She whined, then offered me a paw, showing the whites of her eyes. I had probably spoken too harshly to her before and I knew better. Hazel was a sensitive one.

I’m a German Shepherd nut. They’re the only dog I’ve ever owned. Years ago, my pops had a heart attack. Pops was on the third floor, and I was in the basement. Our family dog at the time, Rocky, ran all the way downstairs to tell me, and he dragged me by the shirt until I followed him upstairs. Had it not been for his bravery, I would have lost my dad in the prime of his life. I never forgot that. Sure, Hazel chews up my shoes, pees on the floor whenever she meets a friendly stranger, and she sheds enough fur to make a hay farmer blush, but I don’t ever doubt her.

I adopted Hazel from the rescue shelter when she was a puppy a few years ago. She’s part Labrador and German Shepherd. She’s got that Labrador moodiness, but her actions are all German Shepherd, which is what I value in a dog.

“Did you see another squirrel, sweet pea?” I asked.

I spent a minute with her, comforting her and caressing the fur underneath her chin.

Then, her tail shot up. She barked again and crashed into me on her way to the porch windows.

“Hazel!” I said.

She put her front legs on the window sill and woofed, followed by a long growl.

“I don’t see anything,” Bo said, pulling down a blind.

Pain like lightning surged in my skull, jolting my eyes shut. I staggered backward as a monochrome image whirled across my mind’s eye.

I had a g**g of undead spiders positioned all over my house to help me spot intruders. I affectionately called them The Cluster. They warned me any time their fight or flight instinct kicked in, beaming me images of what they saw. It’s an advanced necromancer’s trick.

My porch spider nested under the eave on the back door freaked out.

The image sharpened, and a black shadow hurtled from the sky. My spider skittered as far into the eave as it could.

Still, the shadow loomed closer, eclipsing the rest of the yard. Two angled lines sprouted from the sides of the shadow, moving up and down—furiously.

The shadow zagged to one side, revealing a roll of rippling fur and a horn. A mouth full of sharp teeth opened.

The bat flexed its head forward as it swooped in for the kill.