Spell Bound (Darkly Enchanted) (4 page)

“Yes, she asked for Mr. Brown. When I told her you were unavailable, she hung up.”

Well, shit. The existence of the
grigori
and the cursed
streghe
they protected was a carefully maintained secret, even among the Etruscans. The story of how the women had been cursed by Fabrizio Paganelli to unending life had become myth. How their sons were born
grigori
, the great warrior protectors thought to be extinct, a legend.

For someone to ask for him by his call name…

“Christ, Phil. Did you find out where she was calling from? Did you—”

“Do you think I don’t know my job, Gabriel Borelli?”

Fuck. Second rule of being a
grigorio
—Don’t piss off Phil.

“Of course you know your job. I’m sor—”

“Don’t bother,” she snapped. “I don’t appreciate your language or your insinuations, Gabriel. You are expected at ritual in four nights. I suggest you get some sleep before you get your ass over there. And the next time this phone rings, I expect you to answer it.”

Gabriel took another slug from the bottle as Phil hung up on him. Loudly. And not before shoving a tiny spell through the line to make his head ache. Damn, that woman was vindictive.

Still, he should have checked in. It was part of the deal.
Grigori
were to be available at all times, any time. His father, the former Mr. Brown, never would’ve missed a check-in.

No, Davis Borelli had been one of the best
grigori
ever.

Before he’d been murdered by Dario Paganelli.

No, Dario hadn’t pulled the trigger. But the bastard was responsible for his dad’s death. Just as Dario’s father Fabrizio had been responsible for the curse that had arrested the lives of the
streghe
.

Maybe Fabrizio would have been more careful if he’d known the curse would screw his son, too. The deities could be spiteful when they granted your wishes. Fabrizio had cursed the thirteen
streghe
but that curse had trapped his son Dario in eternal life, as well.

And now Dario hunted the
streghe
with a bloody vengeance. The bastard had a lot to answer for. And Gabriel would make sure he answered in blood.

Another few slugs and the bottle surrendered its last drop.

Gabriel’s gaze slid to the cabinet. No more Mezzaluna. He had a bottle of Grey Goose, but on top of the Messaluna, it might be lethal.

He sat there for a few seconds, wondering just how drunk he needed to be to take his mind off the fact that he wasn’t any closer to finding Dario and murdering him.

Pretty damn drunk.

He definitely needed a change of scenery.

Chapter Two

Gods be damned, there he was, Mr. Brown, their supposed savior, drinking himself into a stupor.

For the third night in a row.

Shea grabbed the pole in the center of the catwalk and gave the few men sitting in the Spyder Club’s front row a good view of her naked breasts as she swung around a second time. She needed the tips.

While the midnight regulars lining the catwalk ogled her, Mr. Brown never glanced toward the stage from his table in the back corner. She didn’t think he even realized there was a dancer up there.

The dark-haired man with the don’t-fuck-with-me expression probably wouldn’t recognize her if he fell over her on the street, which was a distinct possibility at the rate he was sucking down tequila.

Great. Just great. What the hell am I supposed to do now?

She barely heard the throbbing beat of the Black-Eyed Peas’ “My Humps” as she went through her bump-and-grind. She knew it well enough not to trip over her four-inch, stiletto heels. But the chill spreading through her body scared her.

Four days ago, she’d called the number in the phone book, the one she and Leo had found using the locator spell.

A female voice had said hello but when Shea had asked for Mr. Brown, she’d been told he was unavailable and would she liked to talk to Mr. Blue?

Her mother’s letter mentioned only one name. Mr. Brown. Not Mr. Blue. She’d hung up without answering.

That night after work, she and Leo had cased the street listed in the phone book. They’d scrutinized every building for ten blocks and she had known immediately which house was Mr. Brown’s. The Etruscan runes carved around the door like decoration gave it away.

They’d parked and staked out the house, her ’72 Dodge Dart blending in among the older Plymouths and Chevys on the street. Later that night, an unfamiliar dark-haired man had walked into the building.

They’d left without knocking on his door.

Tomorrow, she told herself. She’d approach him tomorrow.

But the next night, that man had taken up residence at that table and begun to drink. And drink. And he’d returned to that table every night since.

He hadn’t said a word to anyone except Harry. Of course, “Give me the bottle” wasn’t exactly conversation.

This was the man her mother wanted her to entrust with Leo’s life?

Uh, no. She didn’t think so. Not until she’d learned a lot more about him.

* * *

“Leo? Hey, hon, I’m back.”

Shea shut the door to the dressing room behind her, walking through the cluttered space to throw the few scraps of material she’d stripped off on stage in her cubby.

“Shit, you done already?” Vibia groaned at the makeup mirror, outlining pale blue eyes with black liner, dark hair already teased and sprayed into carefully tousled waves. “Guess I better get a move on. You know how Marci gets when I’m late. What a bitch.”

Shea just shrugged her shoulder. No way was she getting between the two
lucani
versipelli
. Skin-shifter tempers were infamously short, particularly the Etruscan wolves, who had the whole Latin temperament going against them, too.

The fur would fly, literally, if the women shifted into their wolves and went after each other.

“Hey, Vi, is Leo in the bathroom?”

“No.” The woman waved her hand toward the door. “Dilby came to take him DownBelow. Said the band wanted him to sit in on percussion. He’s got a gift for music, your boy.”

Cold fear swamped her before she could prepare, stealing her breath and crushing her stomach in its grip. She nearly ran for the door before she stopped and took a deep breath.

“Hey, sweetie,” Vibia said, frowning at her. “He’s fine. You know Dilby won’t let anything happen to him.”

“Yeah.” She forced a smile. “Yeah, I’m sure he’s fine.”

Dilby had been the first person to befriend them after Shea had gotten the job here.  Shea hadn’t wanted to make friends, but Dilby had been relentless. In a good way. Always chatty but never nosy. The lead singer of DownBelow’s house band, Dilby had been the first person to put a musical instrument in Leo’s hands. She’d make sure nothing happened to him.

Still, these past few weeks, Shea had become terrified to let him out of her sight.

She refused to leave him alone in their apartment when she went to work. The kid was only six. But dragging him to a strip club nearly every night, even if he only sat in the dressing room, was no life for a kid. Hell, being on the run was no life for a kid.

He deserved more. He deserved to grow up in his own home with his parents, free from harm. Safe. Cocooned.

Suffocated.

Like she’d felt.

Oh, not at first. At first, it’d been heaven. Just her and her parents. A forest to play in. Books to read. Weapons to train with. Spells to learn. Not that she’d had much luck with that, but still…

Until she was twelve, she hadn’t known there were living beings in the world other than her parents and the animals who roamed a forest so thick it blotted out the sky in spots.

Then a lost hiker had stumbled through her parents’ strong perimeter wards and asked her to show him the way back to the road. Fear had frozen her vocal cords and she’d run home, barely able to for words to tell her dad about the hiker.

Until that moment, she’d never once questioned her parents about why they never left the forest surrounding their cozy log home.

 “There are people out there who would hurt you if they knew about you,” her mother had said. “It’s for your own good, Shea.”

As a stupid teenager, she’d believed her mom had wanted to control her life.

“You’re special, Shea,” her dad had claimed. “We can’t trust anyone else. This was the only way.”

Yeah, she was really special. A special kind of screw-up.

Well…shit. She shook those thoughts out of her head.

She hadn’t planned on going DownBelow tonight but no way would she make Leo leave. If he was going to sit in with the band, she didn’t want to miss it. The kid was a musical prodigy. Put an instrument in his hands and he could play it. And not just play it, but make it sing. Percussion, guitar, bass, violin. Anything he could hit or had a string. He had some trouble with wind instruments but she was pretty sure that had to do more with lung capacity than talent. Give him a few years and he’d master those, too.

If he had a few years.

No, none of that now.

If she was going DownBelow, she needed to change. The jeans and t-shirts she’d worn to work weren’t gonna cut it. Not if she didn’t want to stand out.

And she really didn’t want to stand out.

“Hey, Vi. You got anything I can wear? I wasn’t exactly planning to go tonight.”

Vi gestured with the bright red lipstick she was applying. “Not really. Look in the closet, babe. Something’ll jump out at you.”

Hell, why hadn’t she thought of that? Probably because she had too damn much on her mind.

The club had been built as headquarters for a beneficial society in the early 1800s, but in later life had been home to the Reading Communist Party, the Daughters of the American Revolution and, for a time in the 1920s, a burlesque theater.