Chapter Two
JONAH PULLED INTOthe drive at his house and let the engine idle as he slouched down in the driver’s seat and watched the road behind him in the rearview mirror. After a moment, the black motorbike growled past. It didn’t stop. Jonah tapped his finger on the wheel to count down the seconds as he waited.
One.
Two.
He got to thirty before the bike came back into view. It stopped on the other side of the road—in front of Mr. Cameron’s dead roses. The old man blamed Jonah for the dead flowers. He wasn’t wrong. Jonah hadn’t done anything to them, but Ram was like a badly-trained guard dog. Sometimes he slipped his leash and pissed on the neighbor’s lawns.
The biker used his heel to flick the kickstand down and dismounted. He pulled his helmet off, his hair sweaty and matted down to his skull, and slung it over the handlebars. After a quick case of the street, the biker swaggered over the road, lean and dangerous in black leather and denim.
Apparently he wanted more than just Jonah’s address. That was fine. Jonah could accommodate that.
He put his shoulder to the door to pop the stubborn latch open and climbed out. There were spells that would scramble the biker’s brain like an egg or close up his throat and fill his lungs with fluid. Or Jonah could just yank Ram’s leash and let him loose to do his messy worst.
Jonah had always preferred a more direct approach, even before he’d gone teetotal.
Magic was all coincidence and bad luck. No one exploded in a fireball or had their skin peeled off by invisible knives. They had a heart attack or choked to death on an unexpectedly resilient grape. There was no evidence. That was why most of the world didn’t believe in it. That was useful enough if you didn’t want to get arrested, but it didn’t really help teach some asshole a lesson.
His granny had always said that if you wanted to change hearts, use magic. To change minds, break a baseball bat across their back.
Jonah leaned down and grabbed the handle of the old ash bat he kept behind the seat. He pulled it out as he turned to face the biker. The man faltered briefly midstep as he registered the weapon, a flash of surprise on his lean face. Jonah gripped the bat at both ends and used it like a battering ram to catch the biker across the chest and shove him around into the side of the pickup.
Their thighs were pressed together—hard, lean muscle hot through thin denim—and they were close enough Jonah could feel the man’s breath on his face. His eyes were brown, but distinctly different shades. One was dark, near black, and the other faded down to a weak tea sepia.
“I’ve about had it with people sneaking around after me,” Jonah said flatly. “What do you want?”
The biker leaned against the dented, primer-red side of the truck as if it was his idea to be there. He had one of those faces that just about scraped its way out of pretty, with a stubborn jaw and a nose that hadn’t healed entirely right from the last time someone broke it. He looked like being threatened with a bat was probably not the worst thing to happen to him this week.
Maybe even tonight.
“I want to know what fucking business Deborah Slater had with you,” the biker said in a low, rough voice that he didn’t bother to raise.
That was easy. Jonah tightened his grip on the bat, old scars white and raised over his knuckles, and put his weight against it. He still felt less in control than he’d expected.
“She thought she knew me,” he said. “I guess I’ve got one of those faces.”
The biker raised a scarred eyebrow and gave Jonah a slow once-over.
“No,” he said after a pause. “You don’t. Did she give you something?”
“Not unless she had a cold sore,” Jonah lied placidly. “What’s it to you anyhow? Who the fuck are you?”
“Nobody you need to worry about,” the biker said. He gave up on his study of Jonah’s face and looked over his shoulder at the house. “Not if you answer my questions. Why did Slater follow you to your shit-heap of a truck?”
Jonah snorted and pushed the bat up until it rested against the biker’s throat.
“Just to make sure we’re on the same page here, you know I’ve got the bat, right?” Jonah said. “That usually means I get to ask the questions.”
A smile ghosted over the biker’s mouth. He leaned forward, the wood pressed against his windpipe, and rasped into Jonah’s ear.
“The bat’s not all you’ve got, is it?” he said. “Did you know there’s a ghost on your lawn?”
As a matter of fact, Jonah did. It hadn’t come with the house. Ram had followed him here from Babylon, although it had taken him a while. He couldn’t drive, and most people knew better than to pick up hitchhikers on that stretch of road.
That had been a good month. It was just a shame it hadn’t taken Ram longer.
However, the fact that Jonah’s new stalker could see Ram meant that he knew more than his prayers.
