Entwined - Cherie Colyer Page 0,1
taint my soul, and I’m sure bringing the dead back to life is a form of dark magic.”
“Our deal included subclause twenty-three A—to paraphrase, I wouldn’t ask you to kill on my behalf. Nothing was said about tainting your soul. Do you want to read the contract?”
My forearms burned as if someone had sprinkled hot ashes over my skin. I yanked the sleeve of my jacket up as far as it would go. Glowing red letters covered my arm.
I screamed, rubbing at the writing. Halfway down my wrist, I saw the words Subclause 23a: Client shall not be asked to take the life of another human being. “Okay, okay! Get it off me!”
The writing faded along with the pain.
“You can relax.” Caden pierced the ground in front of the tombstone with the shovel. “Besides being gross and a hassle to deal with, zombies are too hard to shove back into the grave.” His dark gaze met mine. “You’d be surprised how hard it is to kill something that is already dead. Therefore, we aren’t raising anyone.”
I yanked my sleeve back down. “You could have just said that.”
“And you could stop acting as if you don’t like our little getaways. Unfortunately, we don’t always get what we want.” He rested the sole of his boot on the top of the shovel and paused. “Do you think you can summon the tin box that’s buried about two feet down? You’d save us time.”
“I have to be able to see the item I want to teleport.” Being under pressure helped too.
“Have you ever tried?” Caden leaned on the spade, an eyebrow raised in challenge.
“Yes.” I kicked the shovel out from under him.
He didn’t even stumble. “Maybe you just need practice.”
I frowned. I wasn’t in the mood to have a creature from hell give me magic lessons.
To show him that I knew my limitations when it came to the powers, I held my hand in front of me, palm up. “Tin box.”
Nothing.
“Caden’s tin box.” I jerked my hand for emphasis. Caden rolled his eyes. “Caden’s stupid tin box!”
If there really was a box buried there, it remained under the soil. “Told you, I have to be able to see what I’m summoning.”
He snatched the shovel from the grass. “It didn’t work because you didn’t believe it would.”
The six-foot shade came back, this time stopping a few feet to Caden’s right. It watched him dig. I glared at it, silently telling it to keep its distance, as if that would really work. I adjusted my knit hat to cover my ears better. “Will you hurry up so that you can get me back to the game before it’s over?”
“You don’t even like basketball.” Caden tossed a shovelful of dirt aside.
He only knew that because of the faraway, lost expression I got whenever he talked sports while we drove to our different destinations. “I like the company.”
He glanced up from his work. “Want to know what I think?”
“No.”
The sound of metal hitting tin spared me his reply. He knelt and pulled a rusty container the size of a small clutch from inside the hole he’d dug. He lifted the lid and removed a five-inch length of chain. The beam from my flashlight reflected off the intricate silver links.
“You dragged me out here to retrieve a bracelet?” It looked expensive, like something you’d get at Tiffany’s.
His mouth tugged upward into a devilish smile. “This isn’t a bracelet, nor is it an ordinary piece of jewelry.”
It appeared ordinary enough to me. “What’s it do?”
He dropped the chain back into the box, slipped it inside his jacket pocket, and stood. “You’re on a need-to-know basis, and you don’t need to know.”
“Seriously?” When he nodded, I asked, “How did you know where to find it?”
“Because I was the one who buried it.” He picked up the spade and began to fill the hole. “Are you done with your questions?”
“No.” I tried to grab the box out of his pocket and missed.
“Need I remind you our contract states no questions asked?”
“That only applies when you ask me to use my powers.” So far, all I’d been tasked with was holding the flashlight. Had I not been so annoyed with him, I would have used my powers to create better light to work by. “Why dig it up now in the middle of the night like thieves? Unless it’s not yours.”
“It’s mine.” A shovelful of dirt went into the hole.
“Then why the cloak and dagger?”
“Because I’m not the only one interested in