Bone Cold: A Soul Shamans Novel (Volume 2) by Cady Vance Read Free Book Online Page A

dad.
    “So, what is she?” Laura propped her hands on her hips and strode toward Wanda.
    “If you’d let me play out all the cards, you would have gotten your answer.” Wanda smiled, lipstick staining her teeth and giving off the appearance of a vampire who had just fed on her latest victim. For some reason, that victim felt like it was me.
    “Turn the cards over then,” I said, reaching toward the middle card, but Wanda scooped it off the counter before I could get the edge of my fingernail on the black rectangle.
    She tsked at me. “You can’t continue a tarot card session after the customer has left.”
    “Just tell us who she is, Wanda,” Laura said. “What’s the deal?”
    “You’ll find out in your own time,” she said, shuffling the cards together so that we had no chance of finding out unless she gifted us with the answer. “Now, don’t you have something you need to scuttle of to? A banishment, perhaps?”
    My heart throbbed. Jason. He needed me right now, which was far more important than Wanda’s secrets. Squaring my shoulders, I pushed open the door and stepped out into the swirling snow. The way the wind howled around us, forming the snow into shifting patterns, reminded me of the Borderland. Where we had to go to save Jason’s life. Again.
    Laura grabbed my arm to whisper in my ear before we joined George in the truck. “Wait. Are you sure it’s a good idea to take her?”
    “I don’t think we have another choice.”
    ***
    Jason’s massive house was in a new development for the wealthier residents of Seaport, though that was about ninety-five percent of the population. His three-story blue-panelled home usually looked regal and quaint at the same time, at least during the day. At night, it hunkered on a sloping hill, rising high to blot out the moon. A dark silhouette holding something terrible inside.
    He was waiting in the driveway when we all piled out of the truck. His gaze swept across me and Laura before landing on George. Luckily, he seemed too shaken to ask why the hell this random stranger was here.
    “The spirit is inside, and it’s everywhere.” His teeth clattered together as he shoved his hands into his Shakespeare sweatshirt. “It’s just like last time, Holly. I don’t know what to do.”
    “Just stay out here in the yard. Laura and I will get rid of it like last time.”
    “How is it back?” he asked. “I thought you’d banished it and cast that bone spell.”
    Frowning, I thought back to the night in question. My memories of that whole experience were fuzzy. So much had happened in such a short timeframe, and all I could remember was the sweet and bitter sensation of someone else’s life pouring into mine. Shuddering, I banished those thoughts from my brain.
    Even though we’d taken down a spirit in Jason’s house that night, it was unlikely to be the same one. But still, we’d cast a strong protection spell around Jason’s house to keep all spirits out for good. Nothing should have been able to come back into his home. Laura and I had made sure of it.
    “What about the bones?” I asked. “Could your parents have found them?”
    Jason shook his head. “I checked earlier. They’re still under the floorboards where you put them.”
    A few days after Jason’s attack, Laura and I had come back one night when his entire family was out of the house. He’d been having nightmares, terrified a spirit would come back and kill his siblings. So, we’d cast an extra spell and hidden the bones under sections we carved into the floorboards, so that no one in his family would stumble upon them and start asking questions.
    If the bones had been moved, that would explain how the spirit got inside the house. But it didn’t sound like that was the case.
    “Let’s go in and take a look,” Laura said, giving me a quick nod. “George, you stay out here with Jason.”
    “Hell no,” George said, following us as we climbed the curving stairs. “I’m not missing