Death's Hand by S M Reine Page A

retinas. Her head throbbed and every blat of her alarm made it worse.
    Her hand groped blindly for the curtains at the head of her bed, and she jerked them shut. The room fell into blissful darkness. Another fumble, and the alarm silenced.
    She sat up, a mess of curls falling around her face. The poster of Black Death’s most recent tour stared down at her: The Masque of the BLACK DEATH . The lead singer, Misery, posed dramatically in a white mask with blood pouring from underneath it, and the rest of the band brooded in macabre costumes behind her.
    Her door was closed, locked. Her clothing was piled around her closet.
    There was no piano. No dark room.
    And he wasn’t there with her.
    Her face fell into her hands, and she let the stress wash out of her in one long breath that made her shoulders shudder. The release was brief, merely seconds long, and then she dried her cheeks and she got out of bed as though nothing happened.
    Elise showered, redressed the wound on her arm, and went about her day.
     
    The afternoon arrived bright and sunny despite the steel-gray clouds lingering overhead. The sun should have warmed the air, but the light only succeeded in washing the colors out of the already-barren landscape. Beads of rain quivered underneath the letters on the street sign, Westfield .
    Anthony Morales slowed his Jeep to a stop in front of Motion and Dance and glanced at the clock on his dashboard. Three-fifteen . Betty hadn’t asked him to pick her up until four (or, as the text had said “get me or die!”), but Elise handled the finances for the coven, and she always went in on the esbats.
    There was movement beyond the glass doors. It was probably Elise.
    He examined his reflection in the visor mirror, trying to order his brown curls by running his fingers through his hair. Anthony only succeeded in messing it up further. He scrubbed at an oil mark on his cheek. It was the best he could do for his appearance—he couldn’t make himself into Don Juan with a little spit and an attempt at a suave smirk.
    He tried out the smile on himself, but it quickly faded. Smirk or not, Elise was way out of his league. She usually made him feel like nothing but Betty’s kid cousin.
    A man Anthony recognized as James, the high priest of Betty’s coven, emerged from behind the building. He propped the open front door and went inside. All Anthony knew about the high priest came from his cousin, who liked to use adjectives like “dreamy” for him and said he was the most important person in the world to Elise.
    “What kind of guy is a witch , anyway?” Anthony muttered to himself, climbing out of the Jeep.
    Subsiding into half-coherent insults, he slammed the driver’s side door and headed up the sidewalk to the front doors. He heard voices and hung back to listen, easing in sideways to see who was talking.
    James and Elise were in the midst of an animated conversation. Her posture was straight, shoulders back, chin lifted, like she was ready to fight.
    “You were the one who wanted me to investigate, and I did. You see this?”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “This is serious, James, real serious, and I don’t want to be involved. I don’t want you involved.”
    “What will the Ramirezes do? Someone has to help them, and if—”
    “I’m not going over this again.”
    James shook his head. All the tension drained from his shoulders, and he leaned forward to press his lips to her forehead. She closed her eyes. He whispered something into her hair, but it was too quiet for Anthony to make out.
    A swell of jealousy rose in his chest, and he bumped the door with his foot. The entrance bell jingled.
    James’s straightened. He glanced at Anthony without expression. “We’ll talk more about this later.”
    Elise’s mouth stretched into thin line. “Fine.” James left, and she sighed, rolling her right shoulder to loosen it.
    Anthony opened his mouth to speak, but words failed him. Elise always managed to render him nonverbal.