Kissed by Smoke by Shéa MacLeod Read Free Book Online

bed by a meaty red hand. The strange man
opened his mouth inches away from Vega’s, as though about to kiss
him. Then he inhaled, his red-hued chest expanding.
    Shimmers danced along Vega’s body before
being swept into the large man’s maw and disappearing down his
throat. Like an incubus inhaling a person’s soul. I stared in
horror as the life in Vega’s eyes flickered, then died. Then the
strange red man turned to me, teeth bared in a frightening
sneer.
    I took an involuntary step back, forgetting
for a moment that what I was seeing was in the past. The image of
the red man dissipated in front of my eyes. The smoke and wind
stopped swirling madly around Vega’s body and began a lazy dance
toward me. It pushed its way through my chest and down into my
center to wrap itself around the Fire and the Darkness that already
lived inside me. Only then did it let me go.
    I staggered backward and nearly fell over
Inigo. “Whoa, Morgan.” He caught me and held me tightly to his
chest. “What is it? What happened? What did you see?”
    I swallowed hard. “I saw how Daniel Vega
died.”
    “You did? How?” Trevor glanced from the body
back to me, confusion written all over his face. Couldn’t say I
blamed him.
    “I don’t know. All I know is you were right.
Vega was murdered by a supernatural.”
    ***
    The first thing I did after we left the
funeral home was call Jack. I might be pissed at him, but I still
needed his help.
    “Listen, Jack, is there something I should
know about the amulet?”
    He hesitated. Telling, if you ask me.
    “I need the truth, Jack.”
    He sighed. “What is it doing?”
    “Glowing. The damn thing’s been lighting up
like a Christmas tree.”
    A pause. “How many times has it
happened?”
    “Three times. Dammit, Jack … ”
    “And what were you doing when it started
glowing?” he interrupted.
    “The first time was at my birthday party.
Kabita was doing some kind of ceremony. Cleansing my aura or
something.”
    “There was sage involved?”
    I frowned, forgetting he couldn’t see me.
“Uh, yeah. How’d you know?”
    He ignored my question. “And the second and
third times?”
    I glanced over at Inigo. I’d let him drive
the Mustang. I was still a little shaky after the weirdness. “I
don’t know, exactly.”
    “What do you mean by that? Exactly.”
    I sighed and shoved a lock of violet red
hair out of my face. I really needed a haircut. “I was trying to
figure out how someone died.”
    Jack was silent.
    I sighed again. “He died under mysterious
circumstances, okay? And the cops are saying it was suicide, so I
thought I’d check it out.”
    “You just thought you’d check out some
random stranger’s body? Come on, Morgan. Be straight with me.”
    “Fine. The person in question was possibly
connected to the supernatural, so I thought I’d see if there was
more to his death than, you know, normal dying.”
    “And was there?”
    “Oh, yeah.”
    I could almost see Jack frowning on the
other end of the line. “So, the amulet started glowing around the
dead body?”
    “Well, yeah. Once I started channelling
wind.”
    A heartbeat. “Excuse me?”
    “Um, yeah. It’s my new thing. Apparently I
can channel wind, though it looks kind of weird and smoky, or
misty, or something.”
    “I assume you discovered this by
accident.”
    “Yeah. You could definitely say that.”
Discovering a new superpower had so not been on my agenda.
    I told Jack how the wind had swirled out of
me. How the amulet had started glowing, and then seeing the red
man-thing sucking the life out of Daniel Vega.
    “Crap.”
    “I know, right? Please, Jack, what the hell
is going on?”
    “With the wind channelling, I have no idea.
That’s Eddie’s department. The amulet … ”
    “Yeah?” Damn, it was like pulling teeth.
    “The amulet has been known to glow when it
senses a certain type of magic nearby.”
    I was getting a really bad feeling about
this. “What type of magic, Jack?” I all but