⚠️Trigger Warning: Coercion. Overriding free will via magic.
If you’re new to the story, you can start with Chapter One or check out the index!
Previously on Trancing Miranda
Miranda meets Nick outside the rundown Botanica-style business where Layla Peterson works. Miranda is trying to keep her fae heritage (and her ability to track vampires) a secret. Nick has paid her $500 to help him track down her attacker, Tony Gyari. Nick assumes the money will make it possible for her to take time off work to recover from her injuries and blood loss but Miranda has no intention of doing so.
Conjure Moon
Close up, the window of Conjure Moon was dusty and crowded with at least a dozen South American and Caribbean gods and goddesses. In the center of the display, a big, vintage-looking statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe prayed over a tangled pile of Catholic rosaries and Santa Muerte beads.
The door of the shop was turquoise. It was probably a good color once. Now the paint was grimy and worn. Miranda stepped onto the cracked stoop and pushed open the door, and Nick followed her in.
The interior was dim and almost as cluttered as the front window. The floor-to-ceiling shelves overflowed with books and herbs, and Hoodoo candles.
A long, narrow table in the center of the room bowed under the weight of rows of brightly painted Day of the Dead skulls, assorted crystals, and even more statues. On the counter, next to the register, a chalkboard easel announced a half-price sale on black candles and Florida water.
Dust motes drifted in wide spiral patterns, and a heavy, vaguely floral scent filled the air.
“It’s a tourist trap,” Miranda said. “Everything is fake.”
“Not everything.” Nick took off his sunglasses. “Some of it’s legit.”
He was right, Miranda realized. It wasn’t the kind of energy most vampires would notice, but it was definitely there, stale and shadowy, more sad than scary.
Layla was behind the counter, smiling at her phone. Then she looked up and frowned. “Oh no. You can’t be here.”
“I’m not mad,” Miranda said, holding up her empty hands in way that was supposed to make her seem harmless. “I just want to talk.”
But Layla wasn’t buying it.
“Leave,” she practically squeaked. “Or I’m calling security.”
Who would notify Daniel the second they found out Miranda was involved. “So you want my cousin to know?”
“Do you?”
Miranda thought about telling Layla that Daniel already knew, then decided against it. “If he finds out about me, he finds out about you.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Layla said. “You did. Maybe someone should tell him.”
“Then go knock on his door,” Miranda said, calm but not kidding around either. “And fill him in. Make sure you tell him about how you introduced me to Tony.”
The cockiness evaporated. Layla took a step back, elbow grazing a metal carousel stand of Santa Muerte beads. The stand wobbled for a moment, beads swinging wildly, then crashed to the floor.
Before Miranda could even think about telling Layla to just take a breath, Nick stepped in between them.
“We just want to talk, Layla,” he said. “You don’t need to call anyone.”
Layla looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time, realized she was in trouble, and went for her phone.
There was a weird full feeling in Miranda’s ears—a split second warning before the magic hit, cutting through the air so fast that reality rippled. It was the kind of distortion that looked harmless. But wasn’t.
The almost but not quite invisible shock wave hit Layla hard enough to blow back her hair.
Then the hair settled. Layla’s hand dropped. The little leather gris-gris swung harmlessly back and forth.
The atmosphere went back to normal. But Layla did not.
Instead, she just stood there, smiling the wide, stupid smile of somebody who had just been blasted with hardcore vampire magic.
Miranda turned and glared at Nick. “Really? We’ve been here two minutes.”
He picked up a Day of the Dead skull and studied it. “You were scaring her.”
“That was you.”
He shrugged and took the skull up to the counter. “I’ll take this and two bottles of Florida Water.”
“Sure,” Layla said, but she didn’t move, even though the Florida Water was immediately behind her.
“So you know Tony Gyari?” Nick asked, like they’d just met up at a party.
The sappy smile widened. “I do.”
He pulled out his wallet and counted out two fifties. It would have been a decent bribe if Layla had bothered to look at it. But she had eyes only for him.
“Where is he?” Nick asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Then what do you know?”
His voice had changed. He didn’t sound like he was at a party anymore. He sounded serious. The kind of serious that scared people—and even though Miranda couldn’t see it, she could feel the darkness gathering all around him.
Layla had stopped smiling. Or rather, the smile had frozen into something that was no longer a smile. “Not a lot, really. I only met him a couple of weeks ago.”
“Do you know where he is now?”
She shook her head.
“Can you call him?”
“I already did. Ten times at least. He’s not getting back.”
“I want you to write down everything you remember about him,” Nick said. “Friends, acquaintances, places he goes, whatever story he gave you. Everything.”
Layla just stood there.
“Get a piece of paper and a pen,” he said, giving her the step by step.
Layla grabbed her purse off the floor and started to rummage.
Miranda didn’t like Layla. But the puppet show was too much. “Why not just ask her?”
“She can’t handle the energy,” Nick said. “She’ll remember more if I give her some space.”
Layla held up a little skull notebook, eyes shining. “I found it.”
“That’s good,” he said. “We’re going to look around while you write it out.”
“I guess there’s something you want to buy here?” Miranda asked as they walked away. “For your occult library?”
He rolled his eyes, which would have been a normal thing if they weren’t all sparkly from the spell. It was almost pretty, in an eerie kind of way. Silver sparks in a sea of black. Tiny bursts of light against the darkness.
“There’s a Santa Muerte altar in the back,” she said. “If you want to pay your respects.”
He gave her another look, but this time his eyes were normal. “You’re thinking of drug dealers. Not vampires.”
“It’s all the same black hole, though, isn’t it?”
He gave her a long considering look, but she wasn’t afraid.
She wondered if he saw it. She wondered if he knew that she had seen worse, that what he did was nothing compared to the things she had seen.
“I need more paper.”
They turned. Layla was holding up a skull-shaped piece of paper filled with careful cursive writing.
“How cute,” Miranda said. “You said a piece of paper and she doesn’t want to get anything wrong.”
Nick waved a hand. “Use all the paper you need.”
He turned and walked to the book section, as if there was something in between palmistry and root working that might actually interest him.
Layla went back to writing with a focus she’d certainly never displayed when she and Violet used to get together to study. “Maybe you can brainwash her into going back to community college,” Miranda suggested.
Nick ignored her.
She tried to browse, but he wasn’t wrong. The vibe inside Conjure Moon was dark and chaotic. It was the kind of thing she could shut out, ordinarily, but not right now.
Because the real problem wasn’t the shop.
The real problem was Nick Markovich and his inky black energy.
He pulled a book from the hoodoo section and leafed through it. “You’re probably still tuned into my energy from the other night. If you’re sensitive, you should step out.”
He was fishing again, trying to find out what she could do, and she had no intention of showing him.
Miranda had worked long and hard to learn how to protect herself—how to build walls, how to hide her abilities, how to stay sane in a world that was bright and loud and seething with energy.
She had a feeling Nick knew some of that already. But she wasn’t about to confirm it.
“I’m not sensitive,” she said. “And I don’t need to step out.”
He put the book back on the shelf. “Suit yourself.”
“I’m done,” Layla said brightly.
Nick skirted a table full of junk and picked up the papers. There were three. Each filled up, front and back, with the same careful script.
Layla frowned. Then, her bottom lip began to quiver. “Is that okay?”
“It’s perfect.”
She smiled so wide it must have hurt.
Nick picked up the little leather pouch around Layla’s neck, then put it down again—gently. “A gris-gris only has magic if it’s real. This one’s fake. The only authentic kind of amulet you’re going to find inside the Regio is a crucifix. You should probably get one.”
“She isn’t going to remember any of that,” Miranda said. “There’s no point in telling her.”
He pulled out a wad of money and peeled off six fifties and put them down on the counter. “You’re going to be unusually sensitive to vampires for the next few days.”
Because of him and the way he’d zapped her.
“A crucifix is no guarantee,” he continued as if Layla was actually registering anything he was saying. “But it will help.”
Layla was frowning at the money. “That’s too much.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
The dazed look gave way to confusion. She was trying to figure out what had happened. “Will there be anything else?”
Miranda pointed toward the front of the shop. “The Our Lady of Guadalupe statue in the front window.”
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