Cat Devon - The Entity Within

“I don’t want any trouble,” Zoe Adams said as she eyed the two vampires staring at her from across the table at the All Nighter Bar and Grill.

One of the vampires, Damon Thornheart, had an extremely threatening aura about him. Everything about him was dark, from his inky black hair to his deep blue eyes. He was glaring at her as if he wanted to consume her for lunch.

Zoe tugged her red cashmere shrug more tightly around her as if it could protect her. This was her first interaction with vampires, and at the moment it wasn’t going very well.

“ We don’t want any trouble,” Zoe amended her earlier statement with a tilt of her head toward her grandmother Irma Adams, sitting beside her in a knockoff vintage Chanel suit. With her white hair and twinkling blue eyes, Irma was the epitome of elegant and classy grannies everywhere.

“We don’t want any trouble, either,” the non-glaring vampire said. His name was Nick St. George, and he was the one who’d invited Zoe and her grandmother to this meeting today. Zoe had been nervous about the get-together, unsure of its purpose and uneasy about its possible outcome.

Looking at Damon now only increased Zoe’s misgivings. He did not want her there, and he made no attempt to hide that fact. The sardonic gleam in his eyes conveyed the message that he planned on making her life very difficult—if he let her live at all.

“That problem back in Boston was not my fault,” her grandmother piped up to say.

“We don’t want any problems here,” Damon growled. “No trouble. No problems. We like to stay under the radar.”

“I understand,” Zoe’s grandmother said with a nod. “But all I did back in Boston was attend a motivational seminar given by Dr. Martin Powers.”

“And what did you do?” Damon directed his question to Zoe.

“Nothing,” she said.

“I find that hard to believe, witch,” he growled.

Zoe held her head high. She’d been called worse. And the fact was that he was speaking the truth. She was indeed a witch. Actually, she came from a very long line of witches. The Adams women had more than a few blessings and more than one curse.

“Yes, I’m a witch,” Zoe said, even though she wasn’t very proud of that fact at the moment. There had been a time when she’d gloried in her powers and felt empowered by her magical abilities.

Her mother’s death two years ago had changed all that. Now she just wanted to lead a quiet life.

But enjoying a peaceful existence was difficult to do with her grandmother around, because Irma was also a witch and not a very quiet one. Not that Zoe intended on sharing that bit of information at the moment. Oh, the two vampires knew Gram was a witch. They just weren’t completely aware of all her escapades, and Zoe planned on keeping it that way.

“I’m a witch and you’re a vampire,” Zoe told Damon. “That’s old news. Very old in your case.”

Damon’s glare intensified. He looked scary even to a witch.

Reminding herself that she’d said she didn’t want trouble, Zoe dialed it back a notch. “As my grandmother said, what happened in Boston wasn’t her fault.” Gram had already told Zoe that she’d seen the motivational speaker in a TV interview on the local Boston TV station. He’d talked about his seminar, but what had caught her grandmother’s attention was the fact that there was something strange and devious about his aura. Gram felt she had to attend to learn more. Once in the audience, she’d tried to keep an open mind, but when Dr. Powers started talking about how he had the secret to happiness and would only share it if paid a large sum of money, Gram hadn’t been able to keep quiet. She hadn’t cast any spells. Instead she’d spoken out, which was her constitutional right as an American, albeit an American witch.

“That’s right. It wasn’t my fault,” Gram said in that über-cheerful voice of hers. “All I did was ask how anyone could be stupid enough to think that simply giving Dr. Powers money would give you absolute happiness. How was I to know my comment would cause a stampede?”

“As Vamptown’s new head of security it’s my job to make sure there aren’t any stampedes here,” Damon said.

“And I’m sure you’re very good at your job.” Gram patted his hand.

Looking like he wanted to rip her head off, Damon snatched his hand away.

Zoe downgraded this face-to-face meeting from bad to train wreck. Nothing in her experience had prepared her for this. She’d heard about vampires, of course. It was hard not to given all the movies and press they got. She could understand their need to keep things quiet. Most humans didn’t believe vampires really existed, and that was the way they liked it.

The same was true for witches. That witch-burning disaster in Salem may have occurred over four hundred years ago, but the memory remained. Sure, there were plenty of websites and books about covens of Wiccans who practiced white magic instead of the darker magical elements, but no human was eager to have a witch move in next door.

Apparently few vampires were eager to have a witch move in nearby, either. Zoe had seen enough episodes of The Vampire Diaries to know that witches and vampires had issues. But then vampires didn’t seem to get along with anyone other than vampires.

Damon appeared to be proof of that fact, although Nick had been extremely welcoming in Gram’s time of need. And Gram’s time of need was also Zoe’s time of need. Her grandmother had always been there for her, so Zoe couldn’t let Irma come to Chicago by herself.

Besides, Zoe had her own reasons for leaving the East Coast that had nothing to do with stampedes or motivational speakers. Her reasons were very personal and had to do with matters of the heart.

They’d had to leave their hometown of Boston in somewhat of a hurry. Zoe didn’t know where they’d go, but Gram said she had a friend named Nick St. George whom she’d met at a local occult bookstore years ago and formed a bond with because of their similar interests. Nick had moved to Chicago, but he and Gram had kept in touch. He’d told her that if she ever needed help, he’d be there for her.

Gram hadn’t told Zoe much about Nick—just that she trusted him. The bottom line was that their options had been limited so they’d had to accept Nick’s invitation to stay rent-free in a house he was managing.

Zoe had only found out about the vampire element in the story this afternoon when they’d arrived in Chicago and were on their way to Vamptown. Not that the neighborhood’s name was known outside of the vampire community. Zoe doubted it was known within the witch community, either.

Yet here she was, a witch in the middle of a vampire enclave. So much for living a quiet life.

They’d barely had time to drop their belongings at the brick house a few blocks away that was to be their new home when they’d been summoned to this meeting.

“If we can get back to the matter at hand,” she said.

“I’ve informed Nick that I do not approve of witches moving into our community,” Damon said. “It’s too much of a security risk.”

“What are you afraid we’ll do?” Zoe said.

“Make trouble,” Damon replied.

“I’ve already said—”

“I don’t believe you,” he said.