Incubus of Bourbon Street (13 page)

“Ready?” Bea asked.

I stood. “Do we need the rest of the coven? Or do you think the five of us can handle it?” Technically, Kane wouldn’t be of much use. He had magic because of his incubus status, but without his dagger, his power was only good for seducing unsuspecting females. It wasn’t the flashiest of powers, but it had its uses. Especially when we needed information out of someone.

“We’ve got this,” Lucien said.

Bea nodded to confirm.

“Okay then. Let’s go.”

We left the small house and made our way to the two parked cars, Lucien’s Jeep and Bea’s Prius. Just as I was about to slide into Bea’s Prius, my phone went off. The number wasn’t one I recognized. Normally I wouldn’t even answer, but too many strange things were happening. Anyone could be calling.

Jade?” Lailah said, her voice strained after I answered.

“Yeah. What’s up? You okay?” I asked.

“No.” There was crackling over the connection, followed by a sniffle.

Lailah crying? The world was ending.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“At home. Look, Jade, I got a new printout of whose souls are in danger.”

That ominous feeling in my gut came flooding back. “And?”

“There are three new names on the list.”

“Three! Ones you know?”

“Ones we both know.” Lailah sucked in a breath. “And I’ve been ordered to stand down because of the shadows. I can’t do anything. Do you understand? Nothing. I need you to keep them safe.”

“Of course, Lailah. Anything. Who are the three in danger?”

She paused and sniffled again. Then she shot the names off in rapid fire. “Pyper, Kat, and Charlie.”

Chapter 13

After Lailah’s phone call, we headed back in the house to regroup. We were brainstorming a plan of action when Lailah showed up on Bea’s doorstep. Her long blond hair was tied up in a messy haphazard bun, stray strands fallen around her blotchy face. She wiped at her red swollen eyes as she flopped down on the sunflower couch. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t just not go looking for them. This is my job. What I was trained for. And they’re all my friends.” She clutched her hands into a ball in her lap and fought back another onslaught of tears.

Ever since her phone call, I’d been alternating my time from calling each of them, to writing down a plan of action. I sat next to her, pen poised over a piece of paper. “We’ll work on this together.”

She nodded but didn’t look up at me.

I locked eyes with Kane. Fear coiled around him tightly. Besides me, Pyper was his only real family. They weren’t related, but were as close as brother and sister. His parents were off somewhere in Europe, pretending to be socialites. His grandmother, who’d raised him, had passed away a couple of years ago. I sent him a reassuring smile, but I was pretty sure it came off as more of a grimace.

Lucien was outside pacing. He’d been ready to leave to look for Kat the moment I’d relayed the news, but he had no idea where she was. She’d just said she was meeting up with a new acquaintance.

Kat had been my best friend since forever, and I loved both Charlie and Pyper, too. My heart ached, knowing they were in danger. I’d gladly trade places if I could. “I’ll do everything in my power to keep them safe,” I said to Lailah. “Just tell me what I need to do.”

“What
we
need to do,” Kane corrected.

This time when I looked up at him, my smile was genuine.

Lailah took a deep breath. “You need to make them aware they are vulnerable. But that means you have to find them first. The fact that none of them are reachable tells me they’ve already been compromised.”

A sharp pain darted through my heart.
No.
The word reverberated through my mind.
This isn’t happening.

“Okay, so we summon them first.” I wrote the directive down, as if I’d forget.
Right
.

“If you do that, you risk pulling in whatever it is that went after their souls.”

A stone-cold determination settled over me. “Good.” The word came out hoarse, full of emotion. I felt Lailah turn to stare at me. Without looking up from my paper, I said, “If anyone has harmed or is planning harm to our friends, nothing is going to stop me from ending them.” I glanced up then and met Bea’s hardened eyes. “Nothing.”

She gave me a short nod.

It was all I needed. I stood and faced Lailah. “We’re heading to the coven circle now. We’ll call you as soon as we know anything.”

Bea grabbed a supply bag full of candles and herbs. She paused as she walked past Lailah. “Stay here. It’s the safest place for you.”

Lailah nodded mutely. She was so utterly gutted it startled me. The angel I’d come to know was strong and proud. She wasn’t willing to walk away from anything. Not when a soul was on the line.

“Let’s go.” Bea strode out the front door, her shoulders stiff. A cloud of determination clung to her and brushed against my skin. But there was also a hint of frustration mixed with fear that surrounded her, and that unsettled me. It was rare for me to feel her emotions. It meant she was just as unnerved as Lailah, but she did a good job of hiding it from everyone else. Her head was held high and she had a false air of confidence about her.

I straightened my own shoulders and willed myself to calm down.

Three people had come up on Lailah’s list of endangered souls, and all of them had gone missing within a few hours. The implications were unnerving. That meant the being responsible for the abduction was powerful. We’d need to bring our A game.

I took Kane’s hand and just because I could, I forced some of my energy into him. He shivered from the intrusion but said nothing. He squeezed my fingers in acknowledgment.

The five of us piled into Lucien’s Jeep. In just five short minutes, we were parked and headed through the thicket of trees to our coven circle.

Bea took the lead, and I was all too happy to let her. Summoning spells were tricky at best. The stakes were too high for me to mess it up. There were two ways to do this as far as I knew. We could summon them using a specific distance, like within a two-hundred-mile radius. That was easier and more accurate. The other way was a general summoning, although the only time I’d done that was when I’d been calling my father. DNA had been used from my blood as a connection. I didn’t think blood would work for people we weren’t related to.

“What type of summoning are we going to do?” I asked, placing votives along the edge of the coven circle.

“A general one.” Bea stood back and eyed the moon. “If Pyper, Charlie, and Kat have really been abducted, they could be anywhere by now. What we really need is to talk to them. So we’ll summon their spirits. The connection Kane has with Pyper and the one Lucien has with Kat are deep enough that we should be able to reach at least one of them. But hopefully we’ll find Charlie as well, and see if any one of the three has a clue where they are. Then we’ll go from there.”

I’d actually summoned a couple of angels straight into the circle before. Transported them through space. I wished with all my heart I could do that now, but I wasn’t even sure how I did it. It had been an accident. “Blood sacrifice?” I asked.

“Yes.” Bea pulled a couple of ceremonial knives from her stash and handed them to me and Kane.

Lucien and Rosalee already had theirs. Damn. That made me feel like a neglectful witch. Mine was at home in my witch stash.

“That will work?” I asked.

“To summon their spirit, yes. But we won’t be able to transport them.”

That was what I was afraid of.

“Take your spots on the circle,” Bea ordered.

I hesitated, not knowing if I should take the northern most point, the leader’s spot. Bea was the better choice, but she handed me a bag of herbs and gestured for me to take over.

“Here you go, dear.”

With the small pouch in one hand and the knife in the other, I waited for Lucien to take his spot opposite me and for Bea and Rosalee to fill in the east and west spots.

“Kane,” Bea said, “stand next to Jade. You’re needed for this.”

He did as he was told, his elbow brushing up against me. His solid presence fortified me in a way I couldn’t explain. Magic pulsed through me, and my head cleared. There was only one thing on my mind—finding Kat, Pyper, and Charlie.

Bea stretched her arms out to both sides. “This is going to be a little different than the summoning in the past. I have a hunch that whatever is happening, is happening to all three of them at once. Which means their energy will be connected. So actually summoning them at the same time will be more useful than summoning each one individually.”

“Okay,” I said. “Do we each need to think of a different person so that they’re all captured in the spell?”

“Yes,” Bea said. “Kane should concentrate on Pyper. Lucien on Kat. And both Rosalee and I will focus on Charlie, since neither of us have a strong personal connection to her.”

“I have a connection with Charlie,” I said. We’d worked together quite a bit in the last year and were good friends.

“But you’ll be leading the spell. You need to focus on each of them at different times, but we’ll do the heavy lifting.” She glanced around at us. “When Jade says the word ‘sacrifice’, each of you needs to slice your hand or finger and feed the earth with a drop of your blood. Make sure to concentrate on your person.”

Everyone voiced their agreement and when Bea stared at me pointedly, I raised my hands high in the air. “From north to south to east to west, heed my call. We, the New Orleans coven, seek the presence of our loved ones.”

All the candles on the circle lit with a surge of power. Lucien’s eyes met mine, and magic filtered from me to Bea and Rosalee and on to Lucien. The current ebbed and flowed, mixing our magic and strength until the light illuminated the circle with our combined energy.

I tilted my head back and called, “From north to south to east to west, we offer a blood sacrifice in exchange for knowledge. To speak to those we seek.”

From the corner of my eye I saw Kane slice open his palm. The surge of energy in the coven’s collective told me the others had done the same. I raised my arms higher and focused on Kane and Pyper. Then Bea and Charlie. Lucien and Kat. And finally Rosalee and Charlie again. With determination and will, I imagined the three of them standing in our circle.

The wind picked up, and the ominous sound of magic crackling through the air made my hair stand on end. One glance told me everyone else was affected the same way. If someone were to plug us in, we could’ve probably powered the entire city.

“Now, Jade,” Bea demanded over the rushing of air.

“Come forth. Show yourselves. Reveal the ones we seek.”

The air stilled suddenly, and all I heard was the pop of magic sparking in the air. I glanced around, seeing nothing but the illuminated circle and my fellow witches. Then the wind picked up once more, and all the candles blew out. The magic died, and the five of us stood there in the pale glow of the moonlight.

“What happened?” Rosalee asked, confusion clear in her tone.

“Nothing. It doesn’t appear—” Another loud snap of magic cut Lucien off, followed by a thundering boom.

I kept my arms raised in the air, magic pulsing at my fingertips. But then I saw it. The vague outline of a person, followed by another shadow.

“There she is,” Lucien said, his voice full of emotion.

I followed his gaze and made out the outline of Kat. She was standing upright, her hands clutching a railing. Her face was full of exuberance as she talked and talked and talked. Only we couldn’t hear her, and I had the impression she was giving some sort of monologue.

To her left was Pyper. She was sitting at a desk, typing faster than a demon on speed. Her fingers were flying so fast, I could barely see movement.

“Where’s Charlie?” I whispered to Kane.

He pointed toward Rosalee. Right at her feet was an outline of someone huddled into herself. She was rocking back and forth as if in a tragic trance.

I glanced at Bea. “Why can’t we talk to them?”

Her face morphed from confusion to utter rage as her lips turned down and her eyes clouded with hatred. “Show yourself!” she demanded.

A tinkle of laughter reverberated through the circle.

Someone else was there. The magic pulsing in my chest intensified as I focused on the laughter. Another high-pitched giggle sounded from near Bea. I narrowed my eyes, palmed a ball of power, and said, “The leader of this coven respectfully requests the honor of your presence. Please show us who lies behind the veil. Reveal yourself.”

The tall, blond Goddess from the club solidified in front of Bea. She had her hand held out, her fingers crooked as if she was trying to coax something from Bea.

“Step away,” Bea demanded.

And to my surprise, the Goddess did as she was told. “I was only studying your impressive magic.” Her tone was light and airy, her smile pleasant. A shimmer coated her body, and it was then I realized she hadn’t solidified at all. We had trapped her essence in the circle but not her physical body. That meant there was nothing we could do to fight her, but we could keep her there.

“You’re not fooling anyone, you…spirit stealer,” I shouted. I wasn’t sure how she’d done it, but the only way she could’ve ended up in our circle was if she had control of our friends’ spirits.

“Oh, you’ve figured it out then.” She tossed her hair to the side. “They aren’t really who I was after, but they’ll do in a pinch.” The Goddess sauntered over toward Kane and me. She stopped right in front of him and reached a finger out as if to run it down his chest. Only, the circle’s barrier stopped her and a bolt of magic shocked her. She yanked her hand back and scowled at me. “I was going to offer to make a trade, but now I think I won’t.”

“Trade for what?” I asked, ignoring her blatant taunt.

“Your incubus, of course. He’s so…” She smacked her lips together. “Delicious. Too bad you showed up in his dream last night. I had plans.”

That bitch. She’d been impersonating Pyper to get to Kane.

“Release them,” Kane ordered. “They don’t have anything you want.”

Her eyes danced with amusement as she regarded him. “Now that’s where you’re wrong, handsome. They might not be you and they won’t help me with my ultimate goal, but they do have value.”