Monster (A Cassidy Edwards Novel - Book 1) by Carmen Caine Page A

so much.
    Stepping into a garden that hadn’t seen a human hand in at least half a century, I glanced around quickly, all senses on high alert.
    The place was old. Intriguing. I wanted to peek inside the stone house. Instinct told me that there was something in there. I felt it like a beckoning finger. Animal? Human? I wasn’t sure. But then sounds of hammering on the other side of the garden wall distracted my attention.
    I hurried to join Lucian as he disappeared around the side of the house. Rounding the corner, I pushed my way through overgrown thickets to where the warlock stood by the back wall. And as I approached, I saw that he was peering through a hole in the wall, half-covered with vines.
    “Hand me that crowbar,” a man’s gruff voice drifted through from the other side. “And give me a hand.”
    “Did you find another?” a woman asked excitedly, in a thick Italian accent.
    “Maybe,” the man grunted in reply.
    Again, a sixth sense informed me that something was in the house, listening. Curious, I actually took a step back, but this time, I was interrupted by a dark blur of fur bursting out of the thicket.
    Heath.
    Shifting quickly into his human form, he shrugged at Lucian. “Gone,” he murmured, hunching his shoulders. “He’s not in there.”
    Lucian tensed, every inch of him taut. “And?” he prompted.
    Heath squirmed a little. “They might have moved him somewhere else…”
    A whirlwind of smoke suddenly appeared and Tabitha stepped out of it, still wearing her red cloak. “We must assume he is free, Lucian,” she announced in dire warning.
    Lucian’s jaw tightened so much so that I thought it would snap. He looked at Heath through half-closed eyes. “And the scent? Whoever freed him must have left a trail. Where did they take him?”
    Heath shook his head, and the shell necklace around his neck rattled bit. “No trace. Dead, man. Can’t pick anything up.”
    Lucian closed the distance between them, and Heath ducked.
    I wondered if the warlock was going to hit him, but he only asked another question, his voice barely above a whisper. “Have the humans unleashed others?”
    “If he’s indeed loose, we should assume that he’s set traps around the place,” interrupted Tabitha.
    I looked at Lucian and waited for his response, but then all three of them suddenly shifted their gaze to stare at  me .
    Great, what was I supposed to do? Find the traps? Find the vampire? Both?
    “I’ve got to get closer,” I said, stalling for time. “Can’t tell from here.”
    It worked. And it was true, anyway. I couldn’t smell a thing.
    Lucian turned on Tabitha and ordered curtly, “Help her inside, please.”
    As Tabitha changed back into a red lizard, I took a moment to step aside and yank the spice bottle out of my pocket. Giving it a frantic shake, I gritted through my teeth, “Wake up, Ricky!”
    Of course, he didn’t. He just slid up and down inside the bottle like a jellyfish—a burping jellyfish. I was half-tempted to toss him into the nearest canal. Jamming him back into my pocket, I strode to where Lucian and Heath crouched near the hole.
    Cautiously, I squinted over their shoulders to see a small, terraced dirt plot. It was a bona-fide archeological dig. Brushes. Pickaxes. Small orange flags fluttered at various locations. Piles of broken red clay bricks littered the entire place. A couple of white tents protecting a few cardboard boxes perched on each side of the plot.
    Two men and a woman dug in the dirt a short distance away. They were grimy. T-shirts and khakis covered in mud. They looked hot. Tired. Excited. A gust of wind swept over the dig, ruffling the female archeologist’s hair. She seemed younger than the others. A student, most likely.
    Suddenly, Tabitha’s whirlwind spun into existence in the very center of the plot. For some bewitching reason, no one noticed the slim Asian in a bright red cloak standing in their midst with hands stretched towards the sky and eyes