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“Generations? Was her mother and grandmother doing it too?”

“No, just my mother.”

“Do you know what the word ‘generations’ means?”

“Yes, smartass. In this case, it means that no one knows how old my mother is, just that she’s been walking this Earth for quite some time.”

“Do you know how old she is?”

“I’m included in that ‘no one’.”

I’m learning that I just need to accept the weird people and things in New Orleans. So I don’t ask any further questions.

“Like I was saying,” he continues. “In the book, we can find a witch who can track other witches.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” I swing my legs over the edge of the table and jump off. Let’s go!”

He runs his eyes over me. “But first…maybe some clothes?”

I look down and realize that I am still only wearing the white sheet.

I nod. “Smart idea.”

We hit the streets of New Orleans. It’s even busier than when I came here last year with Mariah and Val. Music spilled out of every open doorway on Bourbon Street. Crowds of people in costumes shoved past us in a blur of sequins and fake blood, plastic fangs and feathered masks and wait is that Michael Jackson?

Damn, that’s a good costume. He could be his twin.

Rowan ended up giving me a pair of scrubs since I didn’t arrive with any clothes on when I arrived to him. So now we look like boring doctors for Halloween.

We could really use some gore and a scalpel to really enhance the look.

When we arrive at the shop, he unlocks the door and walks in. I try to follow after him, but I slam into an invisible wall and fall backwards onto my ass.

“Shit,” he says, spinning back around, his hand still on the doorframe. “Are you okay?”

He helps me up, his grip warm and steady against my palm, and I dust myself off, wincing at the throb already blooming across my tailbone. “Yes, but what the hell was that?”

“I forgot that my mom puts a ward on the shop when she’s traveling to make it so that only people of her blood line can enter.”

“Well, it freaking hurts.”

“Wait for me.” He grabs my hand and places a kiss on it. “I will be right back.”

“Okiedokie.” What else am I going to say when my heart is fluttering from that kiss?

Thirty minutes later, he walks out with a small piece of paper.

“That took a while,” I say. “You do realize I’m on a clock, right?”

“Yes, beautiful.” The word slips out so casually I almost miss it. “But my mother is old school and keeps everything on paper.”

“So where to?”

He grabs my hand and interlocks our fingers, his thumb brushing once over my knuckles before settling. “A witch named Serene.”

4

GOAT BLOOD AND COVENS