Pure Blood_ A Nocturne City Novel - Caitlin Kittredge [27]
“She,” I said. “Shelby O’Halloran, the little witch that couldn’t.”
“O’Halloran?” Sunny’s eyes lit up. “Of the O’Hallorans? Luna, that’s amazing!”
“Not the adjective I would have chosen, but yeah. She’s something.”
“Can I meet her?” Sunny demanded. “I’d like that so much. The O’Hallorans are the Kennedys of magick.”
“Complete with booze and whores?” I asked. She rolled her eyes at me.
“You just don’t like her because you have that thing about magick.”
“It’s not a ‘thing,’” I said. “It’s a well-honed instinct to avoid something that tries to kill me every time I get close to it.” And the fact that magick was like gods-damned Kryptonite when it came to me. I couldn’t use it, didn’t like it, and it made me nauseous. This was the first in a long line of disappointments for my mother and grandmother, right up there with the time I’d done that admittedly ill-advised home nose piercing.
“What’s an O’Halloran doing as a cop?” Sunny wondered. “Does she use magick on the job?”
“She’s a dud, magickally speaking,” I said. “Didn’t get the blood. Doesn’t have much of a gift for police work either.”
“I’d still like to meet her,” said Sunny. “It would be nice to hear her insights on workings.”
“Come by the Twenty-fourth some night and follow the screaming,” I said. “She’s pretty obnoxious.”
“Well, you can be too,” said Sunny with her damned logic, “so you two must be very alike.” She checked her watch. “I have to go. Grandma needs my help with a sun ceremony.”
“Wouldn’t do to keep Grandma waiting,” I said with a saccharine smile.
“Before I leave…” Sunny hesitated and then offered, “If you’re going into a rough place tonight at work, I could give you a protection rune. I’m still learning but my technique on basics is good.”
I started to brush her off and then realized that once she was gone, I’d be alone in the silent house again. I got a marker from the junk drawer and offered her my right wrist. “Scribble away.” Never mind that I didn’t believe anything, including cold hard bullets, protected you from something really evil.
“I noticed a new toothbrush and shampoo in the bathroom,” Sunny said casually as she started to draw something that looked like either a Celtic knot or snakes in a mosh pit. “Has Trevor been staying here?”
“Sometimes,” I said, fighting not to jerk my wrist. The marker tickled the thin skin and I felt it spread as the magick came to bear on the rune Sunny was working.
“I said it when you hooked up with him—you can do better.” Sunny finished the design and began to trace over it again, adding flourishes around the perimeter. My entire arm felt like it had fallen asleep, rife with pinpricks.
“Well, I don’t care, because right now I like him,” I growled. “And since when are you my social director?”
Sunny jabbed me with the marker and I flinched. “He’s a broke musician who calls you ‘babe’ constantly, wears clothes that make him look like a reject from a Nine Inch Nails video, and his songs are ridiculous,” she said.
“Gee, Sunny, tell the audience how you really feel.”
She finished and I whipped my arm back to my side, glaring. “I’m not ditching Trevor just because you’ve got some sort of artistic snobbery going on. You hate all of my boyfriends. You didn’t like Dmitri either.”
“I liked Dmitri very much,” said Sunny, picking up her bag and finding her car keys. “At least he was honest.”
The pain from Ghosttown magnified until it threatened to break my chest. “So honest that he ran off and never spoke to me again,” I whispered. “A real winner.”
“I’m sorry,” said Sunny. “It’s not my business anymore. Be careful tonight, Luna.”
She opened the back door and stepped out. A moment later I heard the convertible crunch out of the driveway. I stayed at the kitchen table for a long time, watching the sun come up to start another bleak day.
CHAPTER 10
Bete Noire occupied a basement level beneath a used-clothing store in downtown Nocturne City, one of those little pockets of grunge on an otherwise spotless façade. A small pink neon sign was the only indication there was anything going on behind