Shadow Marked: an Urban Fantasy Novel (Shadows of Salem Book 2) Read online

  Shadow Marked

  Shadows of Salem Book 2

  Jasmine Walt

  Rebecca Hamilton

  Shadows of Salem

  Contents

  Copyright

  Shadow Marked

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  About the Authors

  Shadow Marked © 2016 Jasmine Walt & Rebecca Hamilton

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Shadow Marked

  In the Shadows of Salem, there are no good guys.

  For years, Detective Brooke Chandler has been deliberately shielded from the supernatural world. But now that the supernaturals know about her, there's no line they won't cross to harness her powers for their own wicked needs.

  To stay alive, Brooke needs to learn what it means to be a Shadow. Unfortunately, the one person willing to help her may be just as guilty of using her unique skills for his own gain as the people she is trying to escape.

  Her training comes at a price: helping a fae lord find several dangerous artifacts and shadowing them from his enemies. But the more she uses her abilities, the deeper she becomes embroiled in the cutthroat societies closing in on her. Soon, Brooke finds herself hemmed into a corner, condemned to make an impossible choice that might destroy the human world as she knows it.

  Chapter 1

  The first day of October brought with it overcast skies, chilly winds, and a robbery at the CVS on Essex Street. Just another routine day here at the Salem Police Department. A small town of less than forty-thousand people, Salem, Massachusetts didn’t see much crime. Drugs, robbery, and the occasional small-time racket were about all you could expect if you worked here as a cop.

  That is, unless you knew about the dark, supernatural underbelly that lurked just beneath these quaint little streets.

  My boots clunked against the cobblestones of Essex Street as I followed my partner, Guy Baxter, up the square and into the CVS. He was a stocky guy in his forties with wavy brown hair and a weathered face, but his legs were longer than mine and he struck a mean pace. Downtown was the tourist hotspot in Salem, so most store robberies tended to occur around here. Add to the fact that it was October, the hottest time of the year for tourism, and the number of calls were ramping up.

  “Hurry up, would you?” Baxter called over his shoulder as he opened the glass door. “We’re on duty, not here to stare up at the clouds.”

  “Coming,” I said, doing my best to hold in the sigh that was building in my chest. Baxter was right—sort of. We were on duty, and I should be acting professional. Even if I wasn’t really a Salem PD cop, I was still here on loan from the Chicago PD, and that meant helping out while I simultaneously worked the homicide case of Tom Garrison, my fiancé.

  The trouble was, I’d already closed that case. I’d found out what had really happened to Tom—lo and behold, it turned out he hadn’t burned in a fire after all. No, he’d been alive and well, and all along, he’d been sent to spy on me from a witch coven spearheaded by a madman who wanted my powers for himself. Powers that I hadn’t known existed and was still struggling to learn. I was a shadow: half-witch, half-fae. And whichever group or coven had control over me could potentially be the most powerful one in their sector.

  Tom ended up dying in the aftermath of this big reveal. And no, I hadn’t killed him. Father James—or rather, Vincent Van Lucia, the leader of the Onyx Order witch coven—had done the honors after deciding he had no more use for Tom. So really, my reason for being on loan to the Salem PD was kaput. There would be no more looking for Tom, because he was well and truly gone now. I could pack up and leave. Head back to Chicago and resume my normal vampire-staking cop lifestyle.

  Unfortunately for me, things were hardly that simple. Because then I would have to explain why I suddenly lost interest in my fiancé’s case. I would have to explain that Tom hadn’t been dead before, but that he was dead now, and that his killer had been murdered, too.

  And all that involved telling Guy that I’d killed his brother.

  Nausea rolled through my gut as I entered the store after Baxter, and my temples tightened underneath the onslaught of a sudden pressure. Not again, I groaned to myself, resisting the urge to press my hand against my stomach or my head. These weird headaches had started flaring up in the last two weeks or so, and I’d meant to go see a doctor. But when would I have time for that? Certainly not now, while I was on the job. Why did this have to happen right as I was walking into a crime scene?

  “About time you got here!” Marsha, the store manager, huffed. She was standing by the front counter, a stocky blonde fortyish woman dressed in her uniform red polo and khaki pants. Her arms crossed over her chest, and her round, washed-out face drew tight into a scowl. “Bitch tried to clear half my liquor section!”

  “Sorry for the hold up, ma’am,” Baxter said, drawing his notebook from his pocket. This wasn’t the first time we’d responded to a call for this store, and Marsha was fast becoming a familiar face. “We came as soon as we could.”

  I sighed, my gaze wandering about the CVS. It was a third of the size of the one near my Chicago apartment, where I’d stop every week to replenish my first aid kit. A necessary errand, since I’d ended up in so many vampire scuffles in the past. Of course, these days my enemies tended to come in a larger variety—fae, witches, and ghosts had all tried to rough me up or kill me at some point since I’d arrived in Salem.

  “Can you describe the suspect for me, ma’am?” Baxter asked Marsha as I turned my attention back to the interview.

  “Sure can. I’ll get you the video footage, too, so you can nail the bitch. Big Hispanic lady wearing a blue t-shirt and jeans and a baggy grey winter jacket she was stuffing full of liquor bottles. Bet she thought she was being real clever, as if no one has ever pulled that trick before.” Marsha let out a very unladylike snort. “She managed to make it out the door with a couple bottles and smashed a few more.”

  “Why don’t you take us to the aisle you caught her in?” I suggested. “That way we can verify what was broken and what was stolen and double check to see if she left anything behind we can use to track her down. We’ll watch the footage afterward.”

  “Sure,” Marsha said with a shrug. Sh
e led us over to the far left aisle, then down toward the rear of the store. To the left was a bank of glass-doored refrigerators and freezers that held drinks and ice cream and such, and to the right were shelves filled with a variety of booze. I watched my footing as we approached, careful not to step on any of the broken glass or sticky liquor that coated the scuffed white tile.

  “Looks like she had a hankering for Patrón,” Baxter noted with an arched eyebrow.

  “Yeah, and Bacardí, too,” I muttered, snapping on a pair of blue latex gloves and pulling out a plastic evidence bag from my field kit.

  Mindful of the sharp edges, I bent down and picked up a large chunk of broken glass with the brand logo still on it, then placed it in the bag. We’d have to spend some time bagging all the evidence. Sure, it was a small crime, and between the video footage and the eyewitness statements it probably wasn’t necessary, but we had to be thorough. That was the job.

  As I straightened, I caught a motion from the corner of my eye. I turned toward it, and a chill shot down my spine as I saw words being painted in the condensation of one of the glass doors. Only, there was no one there painting them.

  I KNOW WHA

  “Shit!” I cursed under my breath, swiping my hand across the glass to wipe the condensation away before Baxter or the store manager could see it. The headache, which had been fading away, came back in full force, and I clenched my teeth against the pain.

  Baxter jerked his head up, scowling at me. “What the hell, Chandler?”

  “Sorry.” I wiped my damp hand against my slacks, my heart pounding hard beneath my blazer. The guns hidden beneath my jacket did absolutely nothing to comfort me. “I thought I saw a bug on the refrigerator door.”

  “Jesus.” Baxter rolled his eyes, but a smirk tugged at his lips, telling me that he was more amused than annoyed. “Quit being such a girl, Chandler, and help me bag the rest of this garbage. The sooner we catch the suspect, the sooner we can go home.”

  “Right.” I crouched back down to finish helping Baxter. As I bagged another piece of evidence, I glanced back up at the fridge door one more time. There was no trace of the message that had been wiped away.

  That didn’t make me feel any better, though. I already knew what the message was going to say. The words were emblazoned like tattoos on the insides of my eyelids; I saw them every time I closed my eyes to go to sleep.

  I KNOW WHAT YOU’VE DONE.

  Chapter 2

  “I think this is her,” Baxter said, stabbing at the picture that came up on his monitor. I sat next to him on a rolling desk chair that had seen better days, scrolling through the database for perps that matched the description and the video Marsha had given us.

  “Uh, sure.” I glanced down at the still from the video footage that we’d printed out, then back at the picture on the monitor. The file he’d pulled up was for one Juanita Vasquez, thirty-eight years old, who lived in a condo off Park Street in The Point. Big surprise. The Point was considered Salem’s “bad neighborhood,” where most of the poorer residents lived.

  “‘Uh, sure?’” Baxter echoed, lifting an eyebrow at me. “That doesn’t sound very convincing.”

  “Sorry,” I muttered, rubbing two fingers against my left temple. “I feel like crap. Nausea and headaches. Been happening on and off for a little while now.”

  Baxter’s weathered face briefly softened in sympathy. “You wanna head home early? I can handle this one by myself.”

  I was tempted to say yes. After what had happened earlier at the CVS, I was edgy as hell. And I had good reason to be. The message that invisible hand had written this afternoon wasn’t new. I’d seen it before. In my fogged up bathroom mirror after I got out of the shower in the morning. On my windshield before I had a chance to wipe away the thin layer of frost that hinted at the coming winter. Sometimes I thought I heard a whisper in my ear on the bitter night wind as I walked up the steps to my apartment.

  And every time it had happened, I felt the distinct sensation that magic was at work.

  But I didn’t want to draw undue attention to myself by leaving early, so I shook my head. “It’s a headache, not a broken bone. I can handle it.”

  “Good, then buck up.” He patted me on the shoulder, then glanced at the still photograph in my hand. “Yeah, that looks like our perp. Let’s go pick her up.”

  We parked Baxter’s car a block away from the address on file, then walked up the cramped street. The sky above was a dull grey, which only served to make the neighborhood we walked through, with its cracked sidewalks and dingy houses, even more depressed looking.

  Still, there was a nice view of the water from here, and the streets were safe enough to walk. A far cry from the slums of Chicago, that’s for sure.

  I caught sight of my reflection in one of the car’s side mirrors as the chilly wind tugged at my hair—which I’d pulled up into a pony tail—and slapped color into my usually pale cheeks. I hardly looked like myself, and I wondered if anyone else noticed. The circles under my eyes were darker than usual, my face drawn in from lack of sleep and lack of appetite.

  I glanced away and focused on the address we were striding toward. Finding answers about Tom’s death was supposed to bring me peace; instead, I was having more sleepless nights than ever, stress eating an even bigger hole in my gut over the secret I’d been keeping for the last two weeks.

  “Would you look at that,” Baxter murmured as we approached the house. “Caught red handed.”

  I bit back a smirk as I followed his gaze. Juanita Vasquez was sitting right there on her front porch of the condo, dressed in a pair of oversized sweatpants and a t-shirt that had seen better days, drinking straight from a nearly empty bottle of Bacardi. And from the glazed look in her eyes as she stared off into the distance, it looked like she’d probably started when the bottle was full.

  “Hi, ma’am,” I called as we walked up the path to the condo. Like most condos around Salem, it really just looked like a big, New England-style house with three stories and many windows that happened to house a bunch of tenants instead of a big family. I flashed my badge. “Mind telling us where you got that liquor?”

  Juanita jumped to her feet, her muddy brown eyes widening beneath some seriously painted-on eyebrows. “Ain’t none of your business!” she shouted, brandishing the liquor bottle at us. “I can do what I like on my own property!”

  “Not with stolen—”

  The perp flung her bottle of liquor straight at me, and I jumped to the side to avoid the incoming missile.

  “Fuck!” I swore as the glass shattered, splashing liquor all over my shoes and slacks. Juanita whirled around and fled into the house, surprisingly nimble for someone who was drunk off her ass.

  Then again, maybe not, I thought as I heard a thud and clatter. She must have crashed into something.

  “I’ll go around the back!” Baxter shouted. I flew up the front steps, then kicked the door open and charged into the condo after her. Stepping farther into the living room, I caught a flash of Juanita’s hair as she disappeared off the main hall and into a side room. Great, I thought, drawing my gun and following her around the corner and into a kitchen.

  “Váyase, puta!” Juanita shrieked, swinging wildly at me with a cast iron pan. I sidestepped the blow, which wasn’t too hard since her aim was way off. She stumbled forward, then careened to face me and charge again.

  “Hey!” I shouted, ducking once more. This time, I slid my leg under her feet, tripping her. She face-planted into the dirty floor, and the pan flew from her hand and skidded across the floor.

  Baxter burst into the kitchen, face flushed. “You got her?”

  “Yep,” I said, my foot already on her back as I kneeled down to restrain her. The woman wailed as I read her her rights and fastened cuffs to her beefy wrists. As I yanked her to her feet, she puked all over the floor.

  “Just another day at the office,” Baxter joked, stepping around the pile of disgustingness on the linoleum. As footsteps rus
hed down the hall, he turned back to me. “That’ll be the other tenants. You know how nosy people get.”

  “I do. You can deal with them while I get this lovely lady out to the car.”

  I curled my lip as I dragged the woman back outside—the stench of her vomit mixed with her unwashed body was not appealing in the least and only made my headache worse.

  After I crammed her into the back of the car, I waited outside, wishing the cold would help ease the sick feeling in my stomach. But it was hard to focus on feeling better with a woman wailing and banging her shoulder into the car window.

  Baxter met me outside and hopped into the driver’s seat. I paused before getting in. I didn’t feel right, damn it. I was so done with today. But I couldn’t let anyone see that, so I climbed into the passenger side and pretended I felt fine as Baxter pulled onto the road, Juanita still having a meltdown in the seat behind me.

  She’d really made us work for this arrest, I thought. But even as we hauled her ass away, I couldn’t help thinking it was a hell of a lot easier to catch dumbass alcoholics than it was to fight evil warlocks intent on stealing your powers.

  Back at the station, I booked the perp, then popped an Aspirin and settled down at my desk to do some paperwork. Unfortunately, the pain pill did little to help my headache. Maybe it was stress-related. Despite the excitement of the morning, I still hadn’t been able to get my mind off the sinister message someone had tried to leave for me.

  When the messages first started coming a few days ago, I’d thought my imagination had gone wild as a result of dealing with the loss of my fiancé. And not just that he was dead, but that he had never really been mine to begin with. It was a different kind of loss—one that made his death both harder and easier to deal with at the same time.