Cinda Chima - The Enchanter Heir

Suddenly, as if they’d heard a signal, the shades abandoned the attack and swarmed back up the stairs. Jonah walked among the bodies, looking for survivors, while the other two slayers kept the civilians penned up and out of the way. One of the downed civilians—an elderly lady in a Tower Sof London sweatshirt—was moving, struggling to sit up. Jonah crossed to her and knelt beside her. “Are you all right?” he asked.

She looked up, and that’s when he smelled the free magic and noticed that the back of her head was entirely gone. Right before she tried to take his head off with a knife. He gripped both her hands to keep her from having another go. There ensued a deadly wrestling match. Hosted shades were uncannily strong, and not even Jonah Kinlock could kill a cadaver. He couldn’t get at the shade as long as it was hosted.

Happily, Thérèse rode in on her white horse and sliced the shade in two, the tip of her blade slicing through Jonah’s sweatshirt. The free shade emerged from the corpse, trying to escape, but Jonah pinned it to the floor. It shrank, dwindling under his bare hands until it disappeared.

“Thanks, Thérèse,” Jonah said, looking up at her.

“I didn’t know you were in London, Jonah,” Thérèse said shyly, wiping blood from her face.

That brought it all crashing in on him again—Jeanette and the rest.

You need to grow a thicker skin, Jonah. That’s what Gabriel always said.

Jonah shoved to his feet. “Charlie said somebody was down?”

Thérèse pointed to a crumpled body against the wall. “Summer.”

Jonah hurried over, but he could see already that he was too late. “She’s gone,” he said. “She must have split in the confusion.”

“Damn it!” Charlie kicked the wall in frustration. They both knew that, by now, the undead Summer had joined the army of free shades, relentlessly searching for a new body.

“What about them?” Thérèse asked, pointing her sword at the huddled survivors, who shifted nervously under their scrutiny.

Gabriel’s rule was—slayers don’t leave witnesses. Secrecy was their best protection. But it was one thing to slay one shade in a back alley and keep it quiet. It was another to fight off an army in broad daylight.“Leave them alone,” Jonah said. “It makes no sense to stop a bloodbath and then riff the survivors.”

Lies and Secrets

Mickey didn’t ask any questions when Emma showed up at the club teary-eyed and told him she needed a place to stay. He agreed to let her bus tables and wash dishes in trade for a meal and a bed to sleep in. He knew that squabbles between Emma and Sonny Lee never lasted very long.

She’d decided to keep the news of Sonny Lee’s death to herself for as long as possible. There was too much chance she’d get tangled in the county welfare web. But word would get out quick. She needed to move fast and have a plan before it did.

Late that night, after the final table of poker players had left, Emma locked the door to the spare room over Mickey’s bar. She slumped down onto the bed and pulled the envelope out of her jeans pocket.

She traced the words on the outside. Memphis Slim. That had become her grandfather’s nickname for Emma during those wary, standoffish days when she’d first come to stay with him. When he didn’t really want to admit he was a grandfather at all.

You’re all eyes and hair , he’d say. You have to stand twice to cast a shadow.

A lump formed in her throat, and she blinked back tears. She tore open the envelope and unfolded the notebook paper inside. A wad of crumpled bills dropped onto the bed. She spread the creased paper over her knees.

Dear Memphis,

If you’re reading this, then likely I’m dead. I want you to have my guitars, my tools, and all my wood and supplies. I filed papers down at my lawyer’s office saying that. Anything you want to sell off, go ahead. It won’t hurt my feelings, since I’m dead. I just wish I had more cash money to leave you. I’ll be straight with you: I wasn’t happy when you first came to me. Now I don’t know what I would’ve done without you. You’re the best (only) apprentice I ever had. I should have kept a better eye on you, should have made sure you spent more time in school, but you turned out pretty good anyway. So far. If I was murdered, or might of been, you’re in danger, too, because of some of the bad things that went down when you were a child. None of it was your fault, but if I was murdered, you need to get out of Memphis.

So call this number and ask for Tyler Boykin. He’ll look out for you—he’s got to, now.

Love, Your Grandfather, Sonny Lee Greenwood

A phone number was scribbled underneath. It had been erased and rewritten, crossed off and changed, so often the paper was worn thin.

She flattened out the money and put it in a little stack.

Two fifties, four twenties, two tens. Two hundred dollars. With what she’d saved from the sale of the guitars, that made . . . $3,200. Walking-around money for a while.

Tyler Boykin. Who was he, and why would he look out for Emma? And why would she want him to? Maybe she could stay in Memphis. She had a little money, and a roof over her head, and all the music she needed within a city block. If she stayed, she could pretend like Sonny Lee was still around. He’d might be just around the corner, or down the block, his whiskey voice and slide guitar leaking out of some after-hours club.It wouldn’t seem so much like she’d lost everything.

The question was—would Mickey let her stay? Could she stay out of the way of the police and the county?

As if called by her troubled mind, Emma heard footsteps on the stairs. She hurriedly stuffed the money under the mattress.

Someone pounded on the door. “Emma!” It was Mickey.

“Come on in,” she said, sitting cross-legged on the edge of the bed.

Mickey pushed open the door and closed it carefully behind him. When he turned back toward Emma, his face was taut with worry. “Emma,” he said. “The police was just here, looking for you.”

Emma’s heart sank. “Looking for me?”

Mickey nodded. He crossed the room and gripped Emma’s hands. “They said Sonny Lee’s dead. Did you know that, honey?”

Emma looked up into Mickey’s kind face, and her control crumbled. “I—I f-found him in the shop, on the floor. I guess he fell, and hit his head.” Then she let go and cried, big, heaving sobs that shook her whole body.

“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry,” Mickey said, enfolding her in his meaty arms. “What a world this is. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I just—I was afraid I’d have to talk to the cops, and be sent to foster care,” she said. “I just—I felt like if I didn’t talk about it, it wouldn’t really be true.”

“They said you called it in, but you left before they got there.”

Emma nodded against Mickey’s broad chest. “Sonny Lee—he was still alive when I got there. But . . . then he died.”

“That’s all right,” Mickey said, stroking her hair. “That’s all right, honey. At least you got to see him before he went. The thing is—you can’t hide in Memphis. It ain’t that big a town. Everybody knows Sonny Lee, and most everybody knows you. You should go to the police. Otherwise, they’ll keep looking until they find you.”

Emma stiffened and pulled away, panic rising within her. “Me? They think I had something to do with Sonny Lee’s death?” She searched Mickey’s face.

“No, of course not,” Mickey said. “It’s just . . . you have been a handful. Plus they have to try to keep you safe. It’s the law.”