❝Your secret is a painting?❞ I took a few cautious steps; the hairs on my arms stood on end.
❝Not just any painting.❞ Dorian approached the easel, shadows on his face as he touched the cloth protecting it. ❝It's a dark object, the manifestation of m...
Opal stepped from her car, adjusting her large Gucci shades as she scanned the trailer park. "Remind me again why you come to me for aid and not your snobby shifter friend. I thought he wanted the evil genie put back in his bottle."
"After what happened to Vanida he wants Dark Dorian dead. But right now Danny's not too happy with me either. So I figured, between the both of you, you probably hate me less."
She shrugged. "It's a tie."
"I saved your life, remember?"
Opal yawned, patting her mouth in reply.
"Next time, I'm leaving you in the painting." Turning on my ankle boots, I strode towards the teeny blue and white trailer ahead, Opal falling into step beside me.
The narrow walkway was lined with the same ugly purple flowers that were posted in pots along the trailer's window sills. Opal plucked a small one from the soil and stuck it behind her ear.
"Verbena--keeps the vampires away."
"Vampires?" Now I'd heard everything.
"The world isn't butterflies and roses, it's bats and thorns." Opal lifted her shades. "I track things for a living, chérie, and then I destroy them. Now that you have found your big bad, are you sure you can kill your darling?"
"He's not my..." I cleared my throat. My cheeks were warm as we climbed the steps to the trailer. "I'll do what it takes. That's why we're here, remember?"
Opal smirked and shrugged, letting her shades fall back in place as I knocked on the trailer's front door.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Leo Akachi had short, bleached curls and glowing mahogany skin, his striking features accented by makeup skills I could never hope to achieve. He answered the door in baggy jeans and a v-neck, a black choker peeking beneath his plaid shawl.
"Ma'am, you are late," he drawled in Southern tones, giving Opal air kisses anyway.
Opal's voice was a condescending purr. "I thought you were clairvoyant, sir."
"Bitch, I read cards and have visions. That don't mean I see everything." He waved us inside the trailer.
Candles of different shapes and sizes flickered throughout the small space, which was mostly occupied by mismatched, shabby-chic furniture. The air was warm, heavy with the scent of incense and spices. Opal and I followed Leo to the couch where he shewed away a black cat with large emerald eyes. We took a seat as Leo pulled up a rocking chair, watching us from across a glass coffee table littered with books about the occult.
"After last time's visit, I assume you found what you were looking for?" Smug as his cat, Leo produced a joint, placing it an aesthetic holder he wore like a ring.
Opal cleared her throat, a guilty hand at the back of her neck. "Obviously."
"And?"
"And she bit off more than she could chew," I finished, answering Leo's question for her. "Opal told me how you used a spell, with my hair, to find a painting. Now the painting's destroyed and we have even bigger problems."
