the mess with Samuel. She blushed when she admitted the fact that she’d had a slight crush on Nick for years.
Outside the door, Nick took a deep satisfied breath hearing Gypsy's confession and glanced toward Ren to see how he was taking it. It was a little disappointing to find the other man unfazed.
“Shut up,” Ren frowned wishing Nick would stop thinking so loud at him.
Nick wanted to laugh so bad but held it in also wanting to hear what was going on inside the room.
By the time Gypsy was finished catching her up, Lacey was rubbing her temple with her free hand and her face was in a heavy frown like she had a bad headache.
“All of that and you’re still alive? And here grandpa thought that he’d given me the dangerous job. Is there anything else I should know about?” Lacey asked crossing her fingers there wasn’t more to tell.
Gypsy thought about it for a moment and then slowly shook her head, “No, I think that pretty much covers all of the important stuff.”
“It’s a wonder The Witch’s Brew is still standing,” Lacey whispered and tightened her grip on her cousin’s hand before bringing it up between them. “And you tried to shoot a demon with a wooden bullet,” she shook her head in amazement and sympathy. Brave and dumb seemed to be something they both had in common. “I’m so glad that this Michael person had the power to heal you. I’d have died if I’d come home only to find both you and Grandpa… gone.”
“I’m fine and you’re home now. You are staying… right?” Gypsy asked letting the hope shine in her eyes.
Lacey started to say no but paused, biting her bottom lip as she tried to wrap her mind around something her cousin had said. Raising her chin, she locked her gaze with Gypsy’s wondering if she’d just found the safety net she’d been searching for. If it kept the demons from finding her for a little while longer, then she wasn't going to complain.
“Wait a sec… were you serious when you said that demons can’t come into this building without your permission?” she asked knowing when something sounded too good to be true… it usually was.
“It’s true,” Gypsy confirmed with enthusiasm. “We even tested the spell just to make sure that it worked, and well… it works brilliantly.” She tried to keep herself from grinning as she remembered Nick and Ren being sucked out of the store.
“Now that is the sweetest thing I’ve heard in hmmm… about a year,” Lacey said truthfully and felt some of the tenseness drain out of her shoulders and back. Maybe if she stayed, she could buy a little more time before facing the grim reaper. “And you say this was one of the spells that has been in the safe all this time?”
She silently wondered if it had come from the same spell book that she knew held the spell to counteract the power of the demon mark she was now wearing. The way she understood it… by casting a distortion spell over top of her demon mark, it would be near impossible to track her. It wouldn’t remove the mark but it was the next best thing.
She needed to find out where they’d taken that book. Her next step would be to locate the most powerful witch’s coven in the city and convince them to help her perform the spell. Problem was… someone had moved the damn book.
Gypsy tilted her head to the side in concern when the relief in Lacey's eyes faded back to worry. “Lacey, where have you been for the last year? What happened to keep you from coming home?”
When Lacey didn’t answer right away, Gypsy lowered her gaze to where their hands were still locked together around the crystal. “You have to know that Grandpa was worried sick when you vanished. He tried to hide it from me, but you stayed away for so long that he was finally convinced you were never coming back… that something terrible had happened to you.”
Lacey made a slight face knowing Grandpa was the last person responsible for the mess she was in. This one was all on her.
They had always kept Gypsy out of the loop but now that Grandpa was gone, there didn’t seem to be anything stopping her from telling at least part of it. Besides, when her past caught up with her, then at least Gypsy would know what really happened to her and maybe even place a grave marker next to Grandpa in memory.
She felt herself calm as she made up her mind to let her cousin in on the family’s extracurricular activities.
“Grandpa always sent you to the auctions and safe places to get the artifacts he wanted for his collection or needed to appease his clientele. That was your job and you were very good at it.” She smiled fondly at her cousin before adding, “But me… I was good at something completely different.”
“What are you getting at?” Gypsy asked with a frown. She had a suspicious feeling that she wasn’t going to like whatever it was Lacey was about to tell her.
Lacey shrugged as if it wasn’t that big of a deal, “Grandpa sent you after the things that were available and easy to get a hold of… just make a few deals in secret, with the help of a highly sought after trade or huge wad of cash. He sent me after the things that were not so… easy to obtain.”
“Like what?” Gypsy asked.
“Like things people did not want to part with,” Lacey supplied and watched as her cousin’s jaw dropped.
Chapter 2
“He sent you to steal things?” Gypsy's voice rose in bewilderment. “I can’t believe Grandpa would encourage you to do something so dangerous.”
“How do you think he got into this business in the first place?” Lacey asked with a slight smile.
“I’ve only heard rumors,” Gypsy whispered more than a little amazed by the confession. Some of the highest ranking people at the underground auctions had been throwing her hints for the last couple years. She’d just nodded politely at them and smiled, then bleached the rumors from her mind not wanting to think too hard on them.
She sighed as she admitted, “I just shrugged it all off thinking they were picking on me because we often got a hold of things the others wanted very badly.”
“They had every right to be jealous. Grandpa was a notorious cat burglar in his prime and he was able to get his hands on a lot of valuable items during those years,” Lacey confirmed with pride in her voice.
“His specialty was supernatural items… old spell books, journals, paintings, and various magical items. Underground rumor mills say that he actually found the Holy Grail and hid it from the man that hired him to find it. I seriously doubt he did, but it only adds to the myth that surrounds Grandpa.”
Gypsy frowned, “How did he stay alive all these years going after such dangerous items?”
Lacey shrugged, “Who knows? Grandpa made a lot of enemies before he retired from his favorite pastime. No one could prove it was him because he had mastered the art of thievery. One of the first things he’d stolen was a cloaking device that rendered him completely undetectable. His shield against most of those enemies who did suspect him was the fact that a lot of the things they thought he might have stolen were powerful enough to be used against them if they retaliated.”
“A cloaking device,” Gypsy repeated with wide eyes. “Like Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak?”
“I
