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  BLOOD MAGIC

  Book 1 in the SoulTracker Series

  T.G. Ayer

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright © 2014 by T.G. Ayer

  Find out more about T.G. Ayer at

  http://www.tgayer.com/

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  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author or publisher except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual events or locales is purely coincidental.

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  Cover art by Dwell Design & Press

  Cover art © T.G. Ayer. All rights reserved.

  Edited by Tracy Riva

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  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  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

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

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  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  ***

  Dedication

  To Melissa Pearl Guyan

  Thank you for sharing this amazing writing journey with me, for coffees and brainstorming, for shoulders to cry on and kicking butts, and for generally being one of the most awesome friends I have. Heart you!

  ***

  Chapter 1

  Helplessness is hell. And I knew all about it.

  I watched him, hands on the graffitied wooden table, fingers twisted so tight the knuckles gleamed bloodless, nails bitten to the quick and jagged at the corners. He unraveled his fingers for a moment to pick up the folder in front of him, turned it around and pushed it toward me. I didn't move.

  He'd moved the file only an inch. He didn't think I'd believe him, didn't think I'd take the case. And maybe he was right.

  Still, I planned to listen at least.

  Martin Cross had made the effort to find me. That said something. His body said the rest. His haggard face and haunted eyes spoke of fear-filled, sleep-deprived nights, of days where hunger and thirst were the furthest things from his mind. His rumpled jeans and stained shirt, oily unwashed hair that stood in clumped disarray from having those stiff fingers scraped through them every so often - they all spoke of endless days and endless nights of staring off into space, replaying the fateful day over and over, wondering what he could have done different, going over all his if onlys, falling into bed, unwashed, in yesterday's clothes only to lie there all night, thinking, twisting guilt and hope, grief and anger into an almost tangible knot that lay in his gut, slowly taking him over.

  Now we sat in a truck stop a few miles outside of Chicago, far enough away from prying eyes. I'd chosen the darkest booth furthest from the window. I preferred to keep to the shadows. No sense in advertising my presence.

  When he lifted his gaze to mine I felt a tug of sympathy. I knew that look, saw it all the time. Almost every time someone comes to me it's the expression in their eyes that answers my final questions. And now his eyes were filled with terror and hope, desperation and hope. As if he didn't dare consider the possibility I could help because there was always a chance I couldn’t. He thought I would fail. I could see it in his bleak expression. The threads were beginning to unravel and very soon he'd lose all hope. I wouldn't let that happen. I hoped I wouldn't let that happen.

  Missing people can be found. Not all missing people are found.

  I was good, maybe even the best I knew of. I find people for a living. My business is dependent on people losing people. The idea didn't sit so well with me but it was what it was. Not that I needed to find people for a living. I could very well choose to find things. Finding cutting edge nuclear warheads stolen from the government, locating lists of undercover cops within drug cartels – I can do that. Do the job, find the target, no questions asked. But things held no interest for me. People did.

  I find people. And I didn't play to lose.

  I'd lost once, big time. Too big to forget, too big to close the file. I was still searching and someday I will find my sister. Until then I will find other people’s lost people.

  "Do you think you can find her?" Cross's voice rasped and he coughed behind crooked fingers.

  I pulled the file towards me and opened it. A worn photograph sat on top of a thick stack of papers. A little girl in blue jeans and blonde pigtails smiled back at me. She was missing two front teeth. I didn't answer him. Couldn't give him hope. Not yet.

  I glanced up and met his red-eyed gaze. "Do you have it?"

  He nodded, reached into his pocket and handed me a crumpled up Kleenex. I knew what it was before I unraveled the paper. A tiny little off-white incisor sat within the folds of the white tissue paper. Apparently the tooth fairy had missed her rounds.

  Or maybe the kid has missed the tooth fairy?

  I set the Kleenex beside the file and moved the photograph to one side. A copy of the police report lay on top of printouts of emailed correspondence with the detective in charge. If anything, Cross was methodical. The last stack of papers said Cross was also a doer. A plastic sleeve sat thick with Missing Persons fliers.

  Samantha Cross. 6 years old. Missing.

  I handed the fliers back to him and he nodded more to himself than to me. When he met my gaze again I swallowed imperceptibly. His hope was an almost tangible thing. And I was wearing the mantle of it on my shoulders. Would until I knew what happened to Samantha.

  He cleared his throat. "Will you do it? The police said they can't help me. That it's been too long. They implied she's probably already dead. I can't bring myself to believe that." The words barreled out of him in a downpour of hope, and fear that there was no hope. A strange combination of emotion I could relate to.

  You hope and pray, then you are afraid to hope in case the worst is true.

  "Do you have a job?" Cross looked up startled. He hadn't expected the question. I hadn't yet answered his.

  He nodded, the movement a handful of jerks. "I'm a mechanic."

  "Go back to work," I said sharply. He seemed about to protest, eyes wide, mouth half open. "If – and that's an honest if – I bring her home you don't want her to see you falling apart. You need to be strong for her. And I can't promise how long this will take. It may be a week, it may be
a few months. If she's alive I'll find her. You need to be prepared for either result."

  For a moment confusion darkened his face, twisted his brow. He didn't want to entertain the possibility his daughter may never come home. And he didn't want to hear me say it. I was supposed to tell him everything would be all fine, that he shouldn't worry and I'll bring her home healthy and happy. But I wasn't in the business of leading people on. I tracked and the results weren't always to my satisfaction. Understandably, people didn't like it when their loved ones weren't found or when they turned up dead.

  But even dead was something. Dead was closure. Something I never got.

  I rose and Cross got to his feet too. Manners, even in a mechanic, were a good sign. "I'll call you if I find anything," I said, before walking out the door. From the corner of my eye, I saw the nod he gave me. I meant it. I had his number. I wouldn't answer if he called me. What did they expect me to say when they called? The same thing over and over? I didn't do play-by-plays.

  I climbed into my truck, satisfied. He'd go back to work and he wouldn't call. I hadn't mentioned payment. Cross didn't exactly look like a trust fund baby. I sighed. This one's going to be pro-bono.

  Now all I needed to do was find Samantha Cross.

  ***

  Chapter 2

  Saleem shifted in his seat. It felt like he was sitting on a rock rather than the pleather passenger seat of Detective Fulbright's unmarked sedan. He didn't like the guy he'd been assigned to. Didn't appreciate his attitude toward his job or toward his investigations. But Saleem was going to give Pete Fulbright the benefit of the doubt. And he supposed his own presence would do some good in allaying suspicions that the Chicago PD wasn't taking full responsibility for Peter Fulbright's vendetta against a paranormal operative.

  Fulbright's aggressive attitude toward Melisande Morgan had caught the attention of the High Council, and because of their already comfortable working relationship with the CPD they asked Omega, instead of their own investigative unit Sentinel, to look into it.

  He didn't care much for stakeouts. But it was really Fulbright he was babysitting, not the tracker.

  So far nothing about Melisande Morgan had set off his alarm bells. Saleem watched the tracker jump into her truck and put the vehicle in gear. The expression on her face was dour, as if the man she'd just met had summoned the dark cloud over her head.

  "She always looks like that when she leaves a new client. As if she hates tracking." Saleem glanced at the cop. It was almost as if Fulbright had read his mind. "As if she hates her job. Why the fuck does she do it if it gets all up in her ass like that?" Fulbright did not expect Saleem to answer. In fact, he'd made it clear enough he didn't have much respect for Saleem or his presence. He'd barely glanced at the djinn since he'd arrived.

  He knew what that meant. Race always played a big part in heightening emotions. But Saleem didn't care. It was bad enough his Persian descent was clear in his deep olive skin, dark hair and black eyes. As far as his appearance went, Fulbright had him pegged. But imagine if this normal human realized he had a bloody Djinn sitting next to him. A real, honest to goodness genie. He'd be off searching for a lamp so fast Saleem would probably choke on his dust.

  Silencing a snort, Saleem sneaked a glance at his partner. Fulbright's stomach rose from mid-chest and hung low on his hips, so low over his waistband the man needed suspenders to hold his pants up. Not that body image bothered the detective at all. He was way too focused on following the tracker everywhere she went.

  Focused? Or obsessed?

  Saleem wriggled in his seat, and said, "You have the GPS locater on her truck, why can't we just go back to base and watch her movements from there?" To Saleem that seemed the most logical step instead of wasting all this time on a stakeout doing nothing, but Fulbright was a hands on kinda guy. He loved being right on Morgan's tail every minute of every day. Time to find out a little more of what made the whole Fulbright-Morgan relationship tick. "So what's the deal with you two anyway?" Saleem asked, pasting on the innocent rookie face he'd practiced with his team leader, Logan Westin, yesterday.

  Fulbright gave him an impatient glare as he shoved the gear into drive and followed Morgan out of the truck stop parking lot. She didn't look back. It didn't seem she cared about being followed. Fulbright took a deep breath, grunted, then rolled down his window before hacking a wad of phlegm outside. "Nine years now I've been on this bitch’s tail. She's been one step ahead of me every second of those nine years and it pisses me off."

  Saleem stared out the window at the truck. At the back of Morgan's dark head of hair. She raised her eyes to the rear view mirror and met his gaze. And for that one moment he couldn't look away. Neither did she. Then she lifted her hand up high enough for him to see it and flipped him off. Saleem grinned.

  Fulbright sputtered with anger. His chest expanded so much that his buttons strained against the holes, threatening to pop open. "You see what I have to deal with. Total disregard for the law. And the woman isn't even twenty-one yet." He snorted and stared at Morgan's truck, the vein at his temple throbbing, his balding scalp bathed in stress-induced perspiration.

  "What happened?" asked Saleem, hoping he'd get an answer this time. What he really wanted was to right hook his new partner. He's been following the girl around since she was eleven years old. What kind of a sicko was he dealing with?

  Fulbright threw him an annoyed glare then turned back to staring out the window at Morgan's vehicle. He wasn't hiding the fact he was tailing her, that much was clear. "So nine years ago we get a call. We walk into the apartment." Fulbright paused, shaking his head. "Man, you should have seen the place. Blood everywhere, parents’ throats slit. And this kid standing there, covered in blood not saying a word. Later we find there's another kid missing, a younger sister. But when we questioned the girl, I knew. I knew it right then and there. The look on her face when I asked what happened to her sister. It was like she wanted to tell but she knew she'd be in deep shit if she did." Fulbright shook his head.

  "So you've been on her tail for nine years ‘cause an eleven year old kid looked at you with guilt in her eyes the day her sister disappeared?" Saleem couldn't keep the criticism from his voice but Fulbright was so wrapped up in his own thoughts that he didn't even seem aware.

  "Not just the look on her face, man." He waved a fat finger around. "She said it. She said it was her fault. She said she was going to bring her sister home no matter what it took. That told me she was involved somehow. She's protecting them. The killers. I knew it then and I know it now. She'll lead us to them. You watch."

  "An eleven year old kid conspired to kill her parents and make her sister disappear into thin air? You really believe that?" Saleem asked.

  Fulbright took his gaze off the road for a moment to glare at Saleem. "What other possible answer was there?"

  "Abduction, drugs, human trafficking? Fear for her life?" Saleem's voice rose as he ticked off the possibilities. He didn't mention demons, vampires, walkers or any of the other paranormal possibilities - options he found more favorable given Morgan's ability as a tracker. Human mage trackers were rare. Which is why almost every available paranormal tracker was on both Omega's and Sentinel's contractor lists. Including Melisande Morgan.

  Fulbright snorted beside him, reminding Saleem of the unpleasant presence of the other man. Saleem didn't want to talk to him anymore so he stared straight ahead at the vehicle they were tailing. Morgan better be ready for a bad case of Fulbright rash and Saleem had to admit to feeling a bit sorry for her.

  ***

  Chapter 3

  My phone buzzed and I grabbed it from the seat behind while keeping my eyes on the road. I already had Fulbright on my ass, no need to be pulled over for reckless driving. I flipped the phone open, giving it a quick glance and I raised my eyebrows in surprise. Martin Cross. Confirming my down payment had been deposited and I should see it reflect in the account tomorrow. For once I was happy to have pegged someone so wrong.

>   I threw the phone back on the seat and peeked at the rearview mirror. Fulbright was still on my tail as always. I gritted my teeth. I just couldn't shake him no matter how many ways I tried. He'd probably bugged my car the moment I bought it because every time I turned around there was Fulbright. I made a mental note to check with Drake if he'd managed to find me a signal jammer. But I knew I probably wouldn't bother. I had my ways of slipping away from Fulbright. And that frustrated him even more.

  Today, the cop was there as usual but he'd brought along a decidedly unusual partner. Dark olive skin, long silky shoulder-length hair, deep dark eyes. Didn't look like he belonged riding shotgun with Fulbright. But what did I know. I was the one on the run from the detective from hell. He couldn't stick me with a legitimate charge so he followed me around, waiting for me to slip up. But so far he'd come up with nada. Probably because he had nada.

  And that's what he'd get tomorrow and next week and next month. No matter how hard he tried to uncover proof that I'd killed my sister he'd fail.

  Because she was still alive.

  That much I knew. And yet I still had no idea where she was. I ground my jaw, my neck muscles already tightening at the direction of my thoughts. No matter how hard I searched I couldn't see her. But I had been able to track her far enough and I trusted my senses. They told me she was still alive and I had to believe someday I would find her.

  For now, I needed to keep an eye on a certain cop.

  I pulled onto my street and parked in front of my house. By the time I got out of the car Fulbright was already halfway to me. Moved fast for an overweight asshole.

  "So what do you want, Detective?" I asked, staring him in the face as he approached, pulling his red tie tight at his collar. His eye twitched. He hated when I did that. He had hated my straightforwardness nine years ago and he hated it now. Back then, I was a bratty kid, grieving, alone and acting out; now a woman stood before him and yet he still expected subservience? Give me a break.