Precarious Possessions (Maxwell Investigations) by Dawn Ibanez Page A

eyes widened as he saw the two women he used to work with stumble out
of the room and visually lock on him and Belle.
    Belle gripped Spencer’s suit jacket and tried to pull him to
her. “Come with me.”
    Spencer removed her hands. “Dennis Wolfe,” he said clearly.
As Belle started to shake her head, he gripped her shoulder. “I need you to
find him. He’ll protect you and explain everything.”
    Belle screamed as Spencer pushed her through another set of
doors. As he slammed the door closed, Leslie jumped onto his back. She gripped
her remaining Gucci stiletto ready to wield it as a weapon and charge back into
the hallway. “Spencer!”
    “Mom!” Troy
shouted.
    Belle turned around and saw her son jumping down the stairs.
“Troy,” she gasped before running to him. As he swept her up into a tight
embrace she saw a tall man with short blonde hair carrying a sword followed by
a woman she hadn’t thought she would see in this building again. “Madison?”
    Madison painted a smile on her face. “Hey, Belle,” she
greeted. When something slammed into the door, her expression hardened.
    Belle paled as she thought of Spencer. “Oh God, they’re
killing him,” she whispered.
    The blonde man looked at Madison. “There’s a Wolf in there,”
he said. “And if they’re attacking, you’ll need something more than your dagger
and magic.”
    “Magic?” Belle
asked. First zombies and now magic? She wasn’t sure if
she would be able to handle too much more.
    Troy tightened his hold on his mother. “I’ll explain later.”
As she nodded he reached a hand out to Madison’s arm. “Be careful,” he told
her.
    This time her smile was natural. “Don’t worry.” She gripped
the ruby necklace she wore and allowed some of her more dormant magic to flare.
When the stone finished changing shape from a simple necklace to a scythe
almost as tall as she was, she winked at Troy. “I live for shit like this,” she
said before glancing at Casper. “I’ll save who I can but if they’re eating,
they have to be cut down.”
    Belle looked at her long time coworker. There was no such
thing as magic. Zombies weren’t supposed to exist outside of movies. And there
was no way a small ruby could instantly change into an instrument of death.
“What the hell?”
    Troy moved his mother over to the stairs and sat her down on
one of them. “There’s no time to explain Mom,” he said calmly. He knew why
Madison had showed off her magic. There was no other way for her to get to her
weapon before she was in danger, but if he had a choice he would have taken his
mother to a different floor. “I’m going to need you to stay here with me.”
    Madison looked at Belle for a moment. It was going to be
interesting telling her the truth. “Casper, I want you to cover this door. Make
sure nothing gets in here,” she ordered.
    Casper looked at Troy and the shell shocked woman. “On
three,” he said gripping the door handle.
    Madison blew Troy a kiss as she moved over to the door. She
would leave him with Belle. It really was for the best. After all of his pretty
words he still had no clue to what she was capable of doing. During the ride
over all she could think of was the blood and magic that she would have to
pull. It wasn’t going to be pleasant for anyone around her. “One.” She adjusted her hold on her weapon. “Two,” she continued.
    Casper silently turned the latch and nodded to Madison.
“Three,” he said before ripping open the door. He stepped aside as Madison
swung her scythe up and cut across the chest of a charging zombie. Casper
quickly saw Spencer doing his best to stay away from the teeth of the dead
women attacking him. “I have him,” he said as Madison went down the hall. With
skilled ease he lunged forward and severed the head off of the small blonde
that was currently stabbing the poor mutt with a Gucci shoe. As she fell to the
floor, Casper turned to see Madison’s scythe easily cut through a brunette