The Hex Files: Wicked Moon Rising Read online

  The Hex Files: Wicked Moon Rising

  Mysteries from the Sixth Borough, Volume 4

  Gina LaManna

  Published by LaManna Books, 2018.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  THE HEX FILES: WICKED MOON RISING

  First edition. October 26, 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 Gina LaManna.

  Written by Gina LaManna.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  The Hex Files: Wicked Moon Rising (Mysteries from the Sixth Borough, #4)

  Synopsis

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  EPILOGUE

  Author’s Note

  To my husband and best friend!! :)

  Special Thanks:

  To Alex—to the Happiest Halloween of all! (And sorry for almost burning our deck down trying to make popcorn.) я тебя люблю!

  To Stacia—my partner in crime (and llamas)!

  To my family, friends, and LaManna’s Ladies, thank you for getting lost in Wicked with me!

  Synopsis

  When Detective Dani DeMarco is attacked in the middle of the night, she’s more than a little disgruntled. However, she soon discovers that things aren’t as simple as they seem, and that everyone she loves is in great danger.

  The battle for The Hex Files has officially begun, and Wicked is under attack. Two werewolves are dead. A rogue vampire is on the loose. The love of Dani’s life is teetering on the edge of death.

  As the hunt for the files turns into a race against time, Dani and her friends will come face to face with fate... the good, the bad, and the deadly.

  Prologue

  The attack began as fingerlings of moonlight reached through the window and pried light into the darkened space. It was full tonight, a bright and magical moon backed by howls rising from The Depth. Like the pounding rolls of thunder or the patter of rain, lulling citizens of Wicked—New York’s paranormal Sixth Borough—to sleep.

  Smoke filled Detective Danielle DeMarco’s room, rising from the floor upward until it filled every nook and cranny, the empty spaces where spiders cowered and paint cracked, and blanketed the room.

  A form slipped closer toward the bed, smoky around the edges—a thick, not-quite-tangible figure. It was called a Choker Curse, and it was a spell that could be detonated from a distance, meant to steal its victim’s breath until they lay still and dead.

  The smoke figure leaned over the bed, waving, flickering in the breeze from the open window. Its arms reached out for Dani’s neck, pillars of black fog, ready to terminate her life once and for all.

  But Dani wasn’t ready to die.

  Chapter 1

  “Hi-ya!” I screeched, banging about and making as much noise as possible while lunging upward from my hiding place in the living room. “Who sent you?!”

  I blocked the bedroom door with my body, squinting through the smoke to where the monster had reached down to strangle the pile of pillows I’d slipped under the comforter at the first signs of attack. My head was encased in a Breather Bubble—a nifty little spell that was part helmet, part oxygen tank—that allowed me to move about, unaffected by the paralyzing results of the Choker Curse.

  “Who sent you?” I demanded again, holding a ball of fire in one hand, my voice echoing slightly thanks to the protective casing around my head. “Who sent you to kill me?”

  I’d conjured the fireball while the preliminary smoke filled my room and I’d slipped out, thankfully unnoticed. My Stunner would do nothing against the monster. The charm would go right through the pile of smoke, but fire—I was certain this thing was afraid of fire. I’d watched the blob of smoke suffocate the candle burning by my nightstand from my perch in the hallway, throwing the room into darkness before launching his attack.

  My heart pounded as the Choker hesitated, confused. While it wasn’t human, it moved in a distinctly familiar way. The smoky monster could be effectively sent as a deadly killer—conveniently working a good distance away from its master—but the curse wasn’t all that accurate. The smoky figure itself had no power of thought and was only programmed to do one thing. Foil the user’s plan, and voila: the monster was no more harmful than a box of big dumb rocks.

  The smoke bundle paused and turned toward me. My heart raced as it began to drift my way, floating, hovering. Its arms stretched toward me, and as smoke began to drift out of my bedroom and into the living room around my ankles, my nerves ramped up.

  It shouldn’t be able to do this, I thought. The monster had changed courses. Either someone had conjured a very, very intricate Choker, or I’d pegged this situation all wrong.

  I shouted the incantation for the fireball louder and hurled the flaming mess straight at the black, cloudy chest. The fire grew as it sailed through the air and made a hole through the monster the size of a small planet.

  However, I watched in horror as tiny bits of smoke carefully sorted themselves out, reattaching to their original form to fill in the crater I’d made with the makeshift bomb. Instead of vanishing into a cloud of nothingness, this Choker was putting itself back together.

  “What the hell are you?” I asked. “Who are you, and why are you here? If you’re going to kill me, at least tell me that.”

  “He’s not going to kill you,” a voice said. “Duck, Dani.”

  I glanced over to find Grey standing in the doorway to my apartment. Both the wolf and the vampire had a way of making themselves at home in my place despite the numerous safety charms I enacted on it.

  “Get out of here, Grey!” I said. “It’s a Choker.”

  Grey gave a shake of his head, and for the first time ever, he transformed before my eyes. I watched as the impressive man—dressed in faded blue jeans and a black T-shirt that roped around his healthy muscles in a very aesthetically pleasing way—folded to all fours, his tanned skin fading to a coat of snowy white fur. His hands became huge, powerful paws that could take my head off with one blow, and he stood nearly as tall as me on four legs. The beast was huge.

  And unique.

  I wondered exactly what Grey was—and not for the first time. The full moon glowed brighter and brighter still, but Grey didn’t seem to be affected by its call. He was not a werewolf like the rest of the shifters in The Depth, but a man who could come and go in his second form whenever he liked. More interestingly, his personality still existed when he transformed, unlike the rest of the werewolves who lost almost all sense of humanity as their animal instincts took over.

  “You’re ridiculous,” I said to the gigantic wolf. “I was handling this just fine myself.”

  Even as I spoke, however, the Choker Curse grew and expanded, shifting into my living
room. The black smoke slithered over my couch, Carl, and over to Marla, my flapper-esque coatrack who’d gone suspiciously quiet in her beloved corner. Even my curse-like-a-sailor refrigerator, Fred, had no snarky comment. I barely had time to wonder if the curse had somehow paralyzed even my furniture when the bubble burst.

  I collapsed, choking as the pressure from the room, the smoke, the fog, caused my Breather Bubble to combust from outside forces which sent me collapsing to my knees as I desperately tried to breathe in the oxygen-deprived space.

  I wheezed, gasped, stars filtering around the edges of my vision as I crab-walked away from the black arms reaching for me. I didn’t have enough breath to mutter Grey’s name, let alone a spell. My Stunner was across the room. If I wanted to survive, I had to get to fresh air—the window, the door, the...

  Blackness was fuzzy around the edge of my line of sight as the smoke darkened, thickened. It smelled burnt, like used charcoal and overcooked food, and sent my stomach roiling as I hurled all over my hardwood floors.

  I shouldn’t have eaten an entire pepperoni pizza, I thought wryly, as I sunk deeper and deeper against the rug, dragging myself toward the couch. My furniture had saved me once before, maybe if I could just...

  One hand reached for Carl as the burst of fire shot over my head. I stole one glance up, wondering if my brain had gone foggy, or if I was imagining things. Because it appeared Grey had just breathed fire all over the Choker Curse.

  But that was impossible. He was some sort of wolf, and wolves didn’t have spellcasting powers...

  I was fading into unconsciousness when finally, miraculously, my labored breathing turned easier, and I caught a lungful of oxygen. I didn’t care how it’d happened. I was just happy to be breathing again—a small action I’d never underappreciate again.

  When a few minutes passed, I finally pulled myself to my feet and collapsed on the couch. I was still wobbly and weak, and as much as my slow recovery annoyed the crap out of me, I also didn’t want to fall flat on my face or vomit a second time. So, I remained sprawled across Carl and glanced around my apartment for something to snarl at.

  I found the object of my frustration walking out of the bathroom a moment later. Grey appeared entirely naked, save for the towel wrapped around his waist. He looked up, grinned broadly at the sight of me, and appeared completely unaffected by both the fact that I’d just ralphed in front of him. And the fact that he was... you know. Naked.

  “Why are you standing around my apartment in the buff?” I coughed, trying to sound authoritative and offended instead of wheezy and uncomfortable. I quickly added, “Perv.”

  Grey barked a laugh. “You didn’t leave me enough time to change before I had to transform. You know, to save your life.”

  “I was doing just fine until you showed up and distracted me!” I stood, fueled by my argument with Grey. “Seriously. Where are your clothes?”

  Grey shrugged, the towel dipping dangerously low over his waist.

  I forced my feet to move, pulling me in the direction of the entryway where Grey had been when he’d shifted. There on the floor were his clothes.

  In tatters.

  “I’d put them on,” Grey said, humor flickering across his face, “but I’m afraid they won’t cover half as much as this towel, and your vampire wouldn’t like that.”

  “What’s your problem?” I whirled to face him. “My vampire?”

  “I just saved your life. That doesn’t buy me a bit of goodwill?”

  “I didn’t need you to save my life,” I growled. “I needed you to let me banish the Choker on my own.”

  “Because you were doing a fine job of it, judging by the evidence all over your floor.”

  “I wouldn’t have been so distracted if it weren’t for you showing up and breathing fire out of your mouth,” I said, realizing I sounded like an idiot. “What the hell are you, half dragon?”

  Grey went very still, and I realized maybe my vision hadn’t been so wrong. Maybe I truly had seen what I thought I’d seen—and I wasn’t supposed to have remembered it.

  “I should go,” Grey said finally. “It’s going to be a long night.”

  “That would probably be best.” At the very last second, I added, “Thank you.”

  “For?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Don’t push it.”

  Grey laughed, and we were finally back on track. Friendly, joking, lighthearted. I couldn’t ask for more from Grey, nor did I want to. That would complicate matters far too much, especially now that Matthew and I were officially an item.

  “I know you’re with him,” Grey said eerily, as if he could read my mind. “I hope that doesn’t prevent us from being friends.”

  “Don’t be stupid,” I said, but internally, I breathed a sigh of relief. “Really, though, I could have handled the monster on my own.”

  “I know you could have,” Grey said. “But I was bored and strolling through the area, and I figured I’d give Marla a show. I’m disappointed she doesn’t seem more impressed.”

  I stepped over Grey’s tattered clothing remains and moved toward my infamous coatrack. “Speaking of Marla, she should be ogling you as we stand here. She’s not one to let a handsome naked man walk through my apartment without a good tongue lashing.”

  I realized my error before I could correct it, so instead of staring down Grey’s smug smile as he basked in the inadvertent compliment, I kicked his ripped jeans out of the way and closed my fist around Marla.

  “Are you alive in there?” I asked, giving her a good shake. My leather jacket swung precariously from one of her arms, my purse from another. “Yo, Marla! There’s a set of abs here just waiting for you. Cat got your tongue?”

  “Most people would have you committed,” Grey said easily, “if they walked in and found you insulting a coatrack with such vigor.”

  I ignored Grey and moved over toward Carl, who had also been notably silent. I sized him up, gave his cushions a nudge, but when he didn’t respond in the slightest, I lined up a huge body slam, leapt into the air, and came down hard.

  “Carl!” I called. “What’s wrong with you guys? You don’t have to be shy because Grey’s here.”

  “Maybe they’re dead,” Grey suggested.

  “Maybe you traumatized them with your nudity,” I said. “I think I have some of Matthew’s clothes in my closet. Why don’t you go find them and get dressed? You’re probably about the same size.”

  “Won’t he love that.”

  “More than he’d love the image of you standing here like that,” I said. “You’re scaring the furniture. Get a move on.”

  As Grey disappeared into my bedroom, I worked the rounds on my furniture, jamming down Tammy’s buttons, smacking Hector (my clock) lightly on the face, and opening and closing Fred’s doors until he should have been dizzy. But I got nothing from any of them.

  “I think you killed my furniture,” I said to Grey. “They’re not saying a peep!”

  “That’s quite normal,” he called. “In fact, you sound significantly less crazy admitting it.”

  “Unless it was the smoke?” I mused. “Is my furniture paralyzed?”

  The Choker Curse was a complex little spell that sent in a foggy cloud first, a thin layer seeping through the targeted room where it paralyzed everything inside. Then, once its prey was good and frozen, the rest of the curse worked its magic to steal the breath from everything in its path.

  “Shouldn’t the spell have reversed itself when we got rid of the curse?” Grey asked. “Why don’t you just revert it? There must be a counter curse.”

  “Not that I know of,” I said. “It should have gone back to normal. But maybe since my furniture wasn’t technically alive, the curse interacted differently with the charm on them.”

  “You don’t sound happy.” Grey poked his head out from the bedroom and grinned at me. “I don’t think I’d mind if my couch didn’t comment on my ass.”

  “You have a point,” I said, but for some reason, I
wasn’t exactly feeling grateful to the smoke monster.

  While I made a point to mope and moan (quite loudly) about my furniture when they were rowdy or lewd, I’d grown used to having constant chatter in my apartment. It was like a gang of built in friends who I didn’t have to impress. The very best kind of friends because I didn’t have to go anywhere to see them. They didn’t steal my food, and they sometimes lent a helping hand when murderers broke into my apartment. So, I concluded, they weren’t all bad.

  “You’ve developed a soft spot for the couch, hm?” Grey said. “I am sure if you let Felix know what happened, he can help you out. Or maybe Sienna can work some of her necromancer powers to revive the corpses of your furniture. Which sounds more morbid than I wanted it to.”

  I sighed, moved toward Carl, and sat on his lifeless arm. The whirlwind of the evening’s events was catching up to me. As I glanced outside, I realized it was later than I’d thought. The moon had already begun its descent, and the sun was quickly chasing behind it. A subtle red glow bloomed on the horizon in a pretty, threatening sort of way.

  I thought to the Choker Curse, and for the first time gave some serious thought to who might have sicced it on me. I kept coming up empty. Sure, a few weeks back I’d rejoined the Sixth Precinct as the department’s resident Reserve, but I hadn’t had any particularly gnarly cases.

  There’d been one double homicide as of late, but it had been a simple open and close case of a jealous ex-lover. She’d left behind a slew of Residuals, and the second we’d approached her for questioning, she broke down and confessed. She was currently behind bars.

  Then, there’d been a string of carjackings that I’d helped chase down, one case of stolen identity, and a false alarm from my old friend Renee in the Golden District, but other than that, it’d been pretty quiet on the Wicked front.

  DeMarco’s Pizza, my pizza parlor downstairs, had been cooking along thanks to Willa and Jack, and I’d even been able to show my face and put in some hours behind the counter over the last couple of weeks as well.