He nods in satisfaction and takes his place behind the mirror, delighted when he doesn’t have to wait long.
He has the most satisfying energy source. It was too easy. Too perfect, really.
As the man stands before the mirror, washing his hands, Horace grins gleefully. And when he raises his head, Horace begins the spell and pulls energy from the host in a steady stream that makes him feel energized and full of adrenaline.
He’s careful not to take too much—not to take it all. He doesn’t want to kill this one, not yet. The time isn’t right.
The man slumps forward, and Horace flies up, refreshed and ready for his next toy.
He has the perfect one in mind.
The trip north doesn’t take long, and when he moves behind the mirror, he smiles. Yes, everything’s working out just right.
“There you are. Did you have a bad day?”
The woman on the other side of the glass scowls at her phone, muttering under her breath. She’s only wearing a bra and underwear. She’s fat, much too big for his tastes, and he’s grateful that he doesn’t have to touch her. He’d give her more pain, punish her for her gluttony.
It is a sin.
Maybe he wishes he could touch her, after all. Show her how stupid she is.
But perhaps there’s a way.
She glances up into the mirror, and her brown eyes cloud over when he begins speaking to her.
“You forgot your knife,” he croons, feeling much calmer now that he’s focused on his work. “You’d best go fetch it.”
Without a word, the toy leaves the bathroom and returns with a big kitchen blade—a chef’s knife.
“Is it sharp?” he asks. He misses the weight of a knife in his hands. The way it feels when it slices through flesh. “You’d best test it.”
Horace’s breath catches when the toy glides the blade up her arm, cutting from wrist to elbow.
She cries out.
He sighs in delight.
“Oh, yes. Yes, this is perfect. Now, let’s trim some of that fat off you, shall we?”
Chapter Eight
Daphne
I shove my feet into my slippers and rush back into the bathroom. I’ll be damned if Jack will clean up the glass by himself.
“Jack, things don’t just randomly fall off walls,” I insist when I hurry in and see that he’s already sweeping up pieces of glass. Damn it. I really loved this mirror. “There’s always a reason. A ghost. A poltergeist.”
“Faulty nails,” he adds and points to the little nail sticking out of the wall. “That thing wasn’t sturdy enough to hold this.”
“It’s been hanging there for years,” I inform him. “I’ve never had a problem before. Oh, Goddess, what if it’s Hor—him?”
“There’s a damn strong protection spell on your place,” he reminds me. “There’s no way he got in here and broke this thing.”
I lean over, touch the frame, and gasp.
Hate.
Fury.
Fire.
“Daph?”
“Jesus.” I jump back and scowl at the frame. “That thing is full of awful feelings. And let me just say, it wasn’t like that before. It belonged to a woman in Shreveport who loved cats. She was sweet and harmless.”
“When did she die?”
I feel my lips twitch. “1988. And that doesn’t have anything to do with it. I’m telling you, there was nothing bad in that mirror before.”
“I got this,” he says and carries the frame, along with a bag of broken glass, out the door to the trash.
When he returns, he frowns.
“What are you doing?”
“I don’t feel like going out now.” I unfasten my earrings, but before I can take off the necklace, Jack crosses to me and frames my face.
“Hey, it’s just a mirror. It fell. We’re still going out for dinner. You deserve it. Besides, we have reservations.”
“Where?” I ask and play with one of the buttons on his shirt, enjoying the way he feels when he stands so close to me.
“Café Amelie.”
I narrow my eyes. “How did you know that’s my favorite restaurant?”
“I’m never going to give up my sources,” he says with a confident grin.
“On the way back, can we swing by the shop so we can pick up another mirror? I have just the one I want in mind.”
“Sure. I’ll even hang it for you. With a better nail. I promise it won’t fall.”
I change into my heels and refasten my earrings. I won’t tell him again that I don’t think that mirror just fell. I don’t know what it could have been, but things don’t just randomly fall.
Maybe Millie would know, if she came over. I don’t like the idea of asking her to drop her shields, though. Her psychic gifts are so strong, so powerful, they could hurt her. Keeping those shields in place is the best protection for her.
No one was hurt. The mirror is gone. End of story.
Jackson leads me to his car.
“Oh, and by the way, I don’t kiss on the first date.” Which is a silly thing to say because he’s already kissed me.
But still. It’s the principle.
Jack laughs and swings out into traffic. “I remember.”
“The mirrors are over here,” I say as we walk into the shop. I flip on some lights, and my heels clip on the old hardwood floor. “I have the perfect one in mind. I wanted to buy it as soon as it arrived, but I didn’t have anywhere to put it.”
“But now you do,” Jack adds with a smile.
“Now, I do.”
Dinner was easy. That’s the best way to describe it. There was no weirdness—nothing uncomfortable at all. We had plenty of delicious food and a little wine. Our conversation was light. I didn’t want to dig into the past or ask a bunch of questions when we were sitting in the middle of a restaurant full of people.
“Have I mentioned that you look amazing?” he asks as he slips up behind me and rubs my shoulders.
I’m shocked that I don’t purr like a kitten.
“You said something a time or two. Now, focus. Mirror.”
“Which one do you want?” he asks but doesn’t stop kneading my shoulders.
“That one.” I point to an oval mirror with a gold frame.
“Are you sure you don’t want that black one?” he asks and points to a mirror below the one I have my heart set on.
“I definitely don’t want the black one.”
“Why not?”
“A man in New York owned it,” I explain and turn to watch his face as I tell him the story. “He was in the mob.”
Jack’s eyebrow lifts. “Really? Like, the real mob?”
“Yeah.”
I think back to the first time I touched that mirror and the little jolt it gave me. I didn’t expect that.
“I thought you said you send bad juju things back.”
“Oh, I do. It’s not that this one has bad juju, as you put it. In fact, the guy was a lover, not a fighter. And let me tell you, when I say lover, I mean lover. The man had more sex than that basketball guy who slept with like twenty thousand women.”