The Twenty-Sided Sorceress, Tome 5 : Heartache

chapter 1

The weather people had been forecasting a blizzard, but the sky was a smoky grey and the town utterly peaceful. Peace might have been nice if I didn’t feel like the freaking sword of Damocles was playing hide and seek over my head. Alek was scarily full of a desire to keep me in his sights, which didn’t help my anxiety levels one bit. I think he would have handcuffed himself to my side if I’d let him. My heart was forecasting doom.

Doom hadn’t come. Nothing and nobody had come. Nearly a month had gone by since Samir’s last missive to me. The dead apprentice of his, Tess, in my head was so damned sure he was coming for me, and yet…

Nobody came. The most eventful thing to happen was Brie’s bakery being shut down for health code violations. As the building owner, I’d spent all Friday on the phone begging for a re-inspection and silently plotting revenge on the witches. Alek had cautioned that I should be sure they were responsible first. Voice of reason and all. It seemed likely someone had reported the magical cockroach invasion. The roaches were gone. Getting a re-inspection was a pain in the ass though. Neither Brie nor I could even remember the first one. The county bureaucrat might well have been a ninja.

I almost wished for ninjas. It would have given me something to fight against. Instead I spent four hours on hold and then got told to call back on Monday. Awesomesauce.

I wiped a dust cloth over a shelf that didn’t have a speck of dust on it and wondered where Alek was today. He’d stuck next to me for weeks, hardly leaving my side, and then gone away an hour ago after getting a text message. When I’d asked him where the fire was, he had said only that he’d tell me later.

My door chimed and I turned toward the front of the shop, pulling on magic, almost hoping it was Alek so I could play the annoyed girlfriend. Him leaving like that, given everything going on, it made me even more nervous. I knew the chain around his neck was empty, though he tucked it beneath his shirt, but he’d only shaken his head and told me it was complicated when I asked. We’d come a long way down Trust Lane, but not all the way to Unconditional Trust-ville, I guess.