“What do you make of those?” the younger woman asked, pointing at the Blood-B-Gone charms Thayne had been checking out the day before. Before her “mother”—whom Thayne believed wasn’t a willing part of whatever scheme was going on—could say something, the blue-eyed girl continued. “God, vampires must be terrible slobs if they need stuff like this.”
Well, welcome to my shit list, young lady, Thayne thought, despite the fact she wasn’t wrong. Some vampires could be terrible slobs.
“Well, they’re vampires.” Still with that clipped, too-polite smile on her face, the older woman sauntered back to where the cauldrons were and grabbed one of them. She carried it all the way to the counter and then pushed it toward Thayne. While he used the register, ensuring he played his part, he kept his eye on the girl. She remained near the Blood-B-Gone charms, looking at the shelves as she waited for her “mother.”
“Thank you and come again,” Thayne said after giving the woman her change.
She grabbed the Witch Way branded bag he had given her and turned on her heels to leave. Knowing he had to act, he decided to try something before the two women left the shop. He needed to confirm his suspicions, and he knew exactly how to do it.
“I hope you and your daughter have a good day, ma’am.”
“Oh, she’s not my daughter.” The woman smiled as she looked back at Thayne over one shoulder.
The moment she said the words, the blue-eyed girl straightened, and her attention darted to Thayne. It lasted for less than a second, but he saw anxiety flash across her face, and it was exactly the kind of anxiety someone whose cover had been blown would have.
He finally found his thief.
“Stop right there,” he cried out as the girl spun on her heel, making toward the door. Moving fast, his muscles working like coiled springs, he vaulted over the counter and chased after her. He had barely taken two steps down the aisle when the girl looked back at him. She knitted her eyebrows together, as if she was focusing, and one of the shelves fell over Thayne.
“What the hell!”
He held one arm up to avoid being buried alive under an ocean of trinkets. He felt a certain energy in the air, the kind he always felt whenever magic was being used, but something was different about it this time. Usually, magic felt like a burst of compressed power, much like an arrow flying straight toward its target, but what he had experienced just now was more like a raw explosion. Whoever the girl was, she packed some serious power.
Luckily for him, it didn’t seem like she knew how to use it.
“You stop right there,” Thayne said right before he tripped on a pot overflowing with a powdered concoction.
The girl merely grinned at him, looking completely unafraid, and darted toward the door. She was already gripping the handle when the other woman, the witch she had been using as a cover, pointed one hand at the door.
“What the…?” The girl kept on pushing the handle, but the door refused to move. She knitted her eyebrows together, trying to magically unlock it, but nothing happened. Powerful as she was, she was no match against someone who knew how to wield magic instead of simply hurling it at people.
“Thanks for that,” Thayne muttered as he ran past the witch.
He closed the distance between him and the girl as fast as he could and laid one hand on her shoulder. She spun around fast, her eyes locked on his, and then it felt as if his fingers were boiling. He let go and clutched his hand. When he looked down at his fingers, he half-expected to find them in flames.
“Don’t touch me,” the girl cried out, yanking on the handle once more.
When she realized she wasn’t getting out this mess easily, she flattened herself against the door and gritted her teeth, her eyes set on Thayne. Her fists were clenched, her fingernails digging into the palms of her hands, and she looked like she meant business. She was ready to put up a fight and, judging by her expression, she wasn’t going to make it easy for him.
“All right, listen,” Thayne said, massaging his hand. “I’m not going to hurt you, okay? I just want to have a conversation.”
“Fine,” she hissed past gritted teeth, slowly unclenching her fists. Still, her tone remained defiant, and Thayne knew he wasn’t going to get far with her. He could try and bare his fangs at the girl—that would surely scare her—but he figured someone with better tact should handle the situation.
Sighing, he reached for his phone.
As much as he hated it—or pretended he did—Kiki needed to be here.
Chapter Five
“I don’t see why I have to tell you anything.”
The blue-eyed delinquent leaned back in the folding chair with her arms crossed over her chest defiantly. She was the picture of the basilisk herself, and Kiki could tell that the harder Thayne leaned on her, the less success he was going to have.
“Well, you do,” he said.
“You can’t keep me here forever.”
“Watch me.”
Since Kiki had arrived, the girl hadn’t done anything to demonstrate the powers Thayne had described. Thief or not, she just seemed like some girl who got caught. Not that Kiki doubted his story—something had clearly made a wreck of the shop—but she wasn’t in any mood to give him much credit.
“I seriously doubt threatening her is going to get you very far,” Kiki drawled.
“Thank you,” the thief sneered at her captor.
“But,” Kiki continued, “she is going to need to start talking if any of us wants to go home.” They had closed the shop when Kiki arrived, but even so, it was now well past the time she would typically lock up.
“Fucking right.” He continued to glower at the girl in the chair, and everything about his demeanor got right under Kiki’s skin.
“Could you not, actually?”
“What?” He jolted. She had caught him off guard.
“Swear all the time? It’s not an attractive quality.” She raised her chin in defiance.
He looked at her in pure amazement. “Maybe I’m not trying to be attractive at the moment.”
“Well, in that case,” Kiki sniped back, “you’re doing one hell of a job.”
“Are you guys done?” The two adults froze in place and looked at the girl in the chair, who regarded them with a raised eyebrow. “Some people,” she muttered under her breath, “damn.”
“Look,” Kiki was ready to level with their pseudo prisoner. “Whatever you say, this guy was hired to keep an eye on the shop. He found a fistful of lucky rabbit feet in your pocket, and a witch is willing to act as a witness. We don’t want to call the judiciary, but—”
“The hell we don’t,” Thayne snarled. Kiki gritted her teeth and went on.
“Okay, I don’t want to call the judiciary, but you have to tell me what’s going on.”
The girl in the chair heaved a sigh far too advanced for someone of her years. “I have to have something to take back to Jasper.”
“Who the fuck is Jasper?” At Kiki’s glare, Thayne rolled his eyes and rephrased. “Excuse me. Who exactly is Jasper?”
“He runs the ring. And if anyone comes back empty-handed, he’ll put them back out on the street.”