“We go in soon after this,” Nicole says. We let the footage roll in live time for a few minutes before skipping forward again. Nothing of interest happens until we come out of the building. Lucas carries me across the alley and the others follow.
“It’s a good thing Lucas got the footage,” Kristy says, leaning away from the computer. “Our faces are pretty clear.”
“Right.” Nicole nods. “If that body is found, it’ll be investigated by the police. Should you have Lucas, uh, bury this one for you too?”
“Probably,” I say ruefully. “He didn’t seem that old, though, and probably has friends and family looking for him.”
“I’m sure he does,” Kristy agrees. “But he’s at peace now at least.” She forces a smile and goes around the island to get more coffee. “I hate saying this, but we should watch the rest of that footage, at least the alley view and see if anything weird pops up from earlier in the week.”
“Sounds fun.” I’m about to close the computer and go back to watching literally nothing later when I stop. Something flashes across the screen again. It’s the same type of flash as before, and I know it’s him.
I hit pause and slowly drag the frame back millisecond by millisecond. There’s a human outline again, but this time, there’s something behind him. The image is fuzzy at best, and I squint my eyes, leaning closer to the screen.
Maybe I’m seeing things, but I swear it looks like the outline of wings.
Chapter 16
“Evander says he’s never heard of hellhounds being able to merge together or turn into rats.” Kristy puts her phone in her purse. I take my eyes off the road for a second to look at her. “It sounds so crazy when I say it out loud like that.”
We’re on our way to the bar but have no intention of going in. The hellhound is dead, we’re all pretty sure, but I need to double-check. I did wear sensible shoes, though, just in case. The combat boots actually look kinda cute with this romper too, or at least I think so. I’ve loaded up everything we could use as a weapon, and we’re all carrying vanquishing potions.
See? I’m prepared this time.
“Did he say anything else?” Naomi asks.
“He seemed rather perplexed by the whole thing.”
“Aren’t we all?” I mumble.
“He said hellhounds are physical beings, brought forth from hell. They can’t shapeshift like that.”
“Do you think they were really hellhounds?”
Kristy holds up her phone. “He sent me this photo from a book in the library. It’s what they look like. And Lucas has seen them before.” She bites her lip and looks out the window. “But with the way they went from rats to hellhounds…I’m going to guess no and they were just taking on the form of something terrifying. What’s more terrifying than a hellhound? I’m getting a bad feeling about this. Like a really bad feeling.”
“Me too, even though it seems like it’s over,” Nicole says quietly. “Like whatever this is, is much bigger than we expected. It’s not a demon you can rip apart and then it’s gone. I feel…I feel like it has roots.”
“Roots?” Naomi questions.
“Yes, roots. I can’t explain it.” Nicole runs her hands over Pandora’s head. “She gets it, though.”
If that thing does have roots, I’ll rip them from the ground.
We pull up to the bar and park along the street. Bright sunlight streams down on us as we get out of the car, and my familiars shadow forward. There are a few little stores along the street and people walk up and down the sidewalk, totally unaware of everything that went on last night.
“Hey.” I stop a guy walking past. “Do you know if the stores in that old building are open?” I point to the building next to the bar.
“What old—oh.” He looks across the street. “Huh. For some reason I thought it was torn down. And no…it’s been closed for years.”
“Thanks.” I lock Lucas’s Range Rover and put the key fob back in my purse. The feather is in there, and I run my finger over it before pulling it out. Keeping it down at my side, I’m soothed by the feel of it in my hand.
“So, the glamour is gone.” Naomi crosses her arms. “Maybe it was broken when you killed that thing.”
Nicole puts on her sunglasses and goes to the crosswalk. “But do you feel that?” She holds out her hands.
“The energy is all wrong.” Kristy shudders and we wait for the light to change before crossing. The bar is closed, of course, and we walk down the sidewalk in front of it. I slow when I come to the spot where the man with the bright blue eyes stood. I know I had my fair share to drink last night, but I was sobering up by the time I saw him. So why are my memories getting hazy?
“There’s the camera.” Nicole looks at it but doesn’t point. Naomi takes her hand and together they use magic to cloud the lens, preventing it from recording us walking through the alley.
Freya, in cat-form, trots back to us. There’s nothing in the building except for a bunch of dead rats and a headless body, just like we thought.
“You know it’s only a matter of time before someone goes in there, right?” Kristy covers her nose with her hand. It smells like garbage in the alley. “Now that the glamour is worn off.”
“I know.” I move over to the air vent and telekinetically yank it from the building. Stale air rushes out, smelling like piles of dead rats.
“You are not going in there.” Kristy crosses her arms. “There’s no need and it’s probably full of asbestos or something.”
“I’m not.” I crouch down, heart speeding up as I look inside. Closing my eyes, I hold out my hands and read the energy. It’s not like it was last night. Not at all. There are no vibrations from strong glamours. It doesn’t even feel haunted. It has a scar, like Nicole pointed out earlier, which happens when something dark and evil has tainted the aura of a specific place.
“Have Binx do one more sweep,” Kristy says, tipping her head as she looks at the air vent. “Just to be sure the place is really demon-free. If there’s nothing demonic, we should probably put in an anonymous call to the police so they can recover the body before it rots beyond recognition.”
“Good idea,” I tell her. “At least his family won’t be wondering and waiting for him to come home.”
“And if we can get an ID on the body, we might be able to figure out how he got mixed up in all of this in the first place.”
My lips pull up in a half-smile. “What happened to not getting involved?”
Kristy loops her arm through mine. “If this thing does have roots, we need to stop it. Because roots spread.”
Binx rubs against my legs and then shifts into shadow-form. Pandora joins in and they go in through the open air vent. We all stand around, watching and waiting. If there is anything in there, my familiars should be able to shadow away before falling to any harm, but I still feel a knot in my stomach as I wait. Freya is able to sense them both, though, and knows neither Binx nor Pandora are feeling any fear right now.
Only a few minutes later, they both return, letting me know that there are no traces of demons in the building.
“How do you anonymously call the police?” Nicole asks as we head back to the car.
“I’ll have Lucas handle it.” I open the driver’s side door and take my purse off my shoulder, slipping the feather back inside. “He’ll know what to do.”
“Because he’s dealt with a lot of dead bodies.” Naomi slides into the seat behind me and Pandora jumps up and moves into the middle spot.
“He is a vampire.” I pull my seatbelt on.
“He doesn’t regularly kill people anymore, though,” Kristy says encouragingly. “Right?”
“Not regularly.” I’m getting uncomfortable with this conversation. My friends already think Lucas is going to cross a line and I won’t be able to handle it. What scares me more than him doing something he can’t take back is me being fine with it.
“I think it’s sweet how much he looks out for you.” Nicole throws me a bone
and changes the tone of the conversation. “I can tell he really loves you.”
“He does,” I agree with a big grin on my face.
“You’re moving in together.” Naomi catches my eye in the rearview mirror. “Have you talked wedding plans?”
I shake my head and crank up the air conditioning. The SUV got hot and stuffy just from the few minutes it sat parked along the street.
“That hasn’t come up once.”
“If he proposed, what would you say?”
“Yes,” I reply with no hesitation. “I’d marry him tonight if he asked me to. But Indiana doesn’t recognize human-vampire marriages. Illinois doesn’t either.”
“Michigan does, and we live right along the state line. A nighttime beach wedding would be gorgeous.”
“It would!” Nicole agrees with her sister. “Just think of the candles in the sand and the sound of waves crashing against the shore as you say your vows.”
My smile comes back. “Yeah, that would be really nice.”
“Should we start dropping hints?” Kristy laughs. “I can slip your ring size into a conversation.”
“Right, because that wouldn’t be obvious or anything.”
“Can you image the rock he’d get her?” Nicole leans forward. “It’d weigh your hand down.”
“He wouldn’t go that overboard,” I protest.
Kristy cocks an eyebrow. “He bought you a freaking house, Callie. And is having it restored for you.”
“He…he just likes to see me be happy.”
“Exactly,” she giggles. “And in his mind, getting you the biggest, flashiest ring would make you happy.”
“Then I do need you to start dropping hints. Don’t get me wrong, I’d never say no to a big diamond, but let’s cap the center stone at five carats.”
“That’s still huge.”
“That’s what she said,” Nicole says, and we all laugh. I turn onto a busy road and smile once more. I really do have the best friends in the whole damn world.
* * *
Ice clinks against the side of my glass, and I wave my hand in front of my face, shooing away gnats. Kristy, Naomi, and Nicole left about an hour ago, and Lucas is still sleeping. He left to get the footage for me once I was asleep, and didn’t return to the house until right before sunrise. After losing blood and then not taking any more in, he’s going to sleep probably twice as long as usual, and once he’s up he really should feed. There’s no telling if I’ll need him to come save my ass again.
I’m outside on the rooftop patio, playing catch-up on my tan, and take a big drink of ice water. My familiars have been up here with me, lounging in the sun like regular house cats. Setting my water down, I roll over onto my stomach so I can tan my back. Remembering what Lucas said about tanning topless, I lift my head and look at the houses next to me. I’m up a little higher, but there’s still a good chance the neighbors could look out and see me, which I kinda don’t care if they do.
It’s just boobs.
I met one of the neighbors for the first time yesterday morning. I was heading out for a run the same time Mrs. Clemmot was. She’s probably in her late forties and as uppity as you’d expect for someone living on this street. The only reason she stopped and introduced herself to me was because she’d only seen Lucas a handful of times and was curious about him.
Like I told Abby’s friends when they asked, I said he worked in finance and was at his office a lot, which is why she only saw him coming and going at night. She seemed to buy my answer with no hesitation, though it surprises me with how nosey she was that she hadn’t noticed the light-tight blinds that are always drawn during the day. Though whoever Lucas hired to put them in did a good job making them not obvious in the least.
There are trees and decorative shrubs in the front, obscuring the windows from view, and the glass on the upstairs windows is rather reflective, which makes it hard to look through to see the blinds. And I suppose it’s not unusual to keep your curtains drawn when you live on a busy street like this.
Reaching behind me, I untie the strings of my top and put my head back down, soaking up every bit of sunlight. It feels so good to be outside in the heat even though I started sweating not even five minutes after stepping foot outside.
“The pool will be so nice,” I mumble to my familiars. “I’ll get you guys little cat rafts. You know, if you actually went in them and I got pictures it would probably go viral.” Pandora scoffs, and if I looked up, I’m sure I’d see Freya rolling her eyes.
“Suit yourself. But on a hot day like this the pool will feel amazing. I wonder how hard those saltwater pools are to keep. If it’s anything like a saltwater fish tank, it’ll be a bitch. Though nothing would be living in it, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Lucas hired someone to take care of the pool for us.” I laugh at my own thoughts, imagining Kristy and I sipping sparkling rosé while watching a tall and tanned pool boy scoop leaves out of the water.
I stay outside for nearly another hour. My skin is a bit red when I go inside, and the cool air gives me an instant chill. I walk down the hall, remembering the first time I was in this house and almost got lost trying to find the door to the rooftop.
The master bedroom is on the second floor, and I pass by Eliza’s room on my way there.
“You stink.” She’s sitting on the bed, legs stretched out in front of her, and is watching Lifetime movies. That’s not what I expected from her.
“I do,” I agree. “I was sweating like a hog out there in the sun.”
“Humans are disgusting.” She turns her eyes away from the TV and looks me up and down. “It’s strange how you want to be tan now. I used to cover up every inch of my skin.”
“Oh, right. Being tan back then meant you worked outside.”
“And being rail thin meant you didn’t have enough money for food. My sister was what you’d call pleasantly plump and I couldn’t gain weight no matter how hard I tried.”
“I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“There’s a lot about me you don’t know.”
“Maybe I can get to know you,” I say apprehensively. “You’re rather interesting.”
“Yes, I am.” She looks back at the TV and I take it as my cue to keep walking. “Tonight,” she starts, and I stop. “If you can pull yourself off my maker for an hour or so, we can hang out and…talk,” she spits out her words like she can’t believe what she’s saying.
“Really? I’d love that! And statistically speaking, the chances of getting attacked by another demon are pretty low. I’ll bring vanquishing potions just in case.”
She doesn’t take her eyes off the TV, but I can tell she’s trying not to smile. “Given what I saw last night, I don’t think you need any potions.” A commercial for adult diapers comes on and she flicks her eyes to me. “As much as I hate to admit it, you were pretty fucking badass last night.”
“Thank you.” I smile. “Maybe me, you, Lucas, and Dom—”
“No.”
“You don’t know what I was going to ask.”
She crosses her arms. “No double date.”
“It could be fun.”
“Would you go on a date with your father?”
I make a face. “No, but my father is an arrogant asshole.”
Eliza purses her lips. “You’ve met Lucas. He can be an arrogant asshole as well as the best of them.”
“He is a tad protective.”
“A tad?”
I can’t help but laugh. “I see your point. It’s still a little confusing to me when I think about your relationship with him. When we first met, I thought you two were a couple.”
“I can see how you’d think that. But we never have been.”
“I know. Lucas told me.”
She just nods and goes back to watching TV. Peeling a strand of sweaty hair from my neck, I continue down the hall and quietly open the master bedroom door. Lucas is still in bed, and his naked body is gloriously sprawled out on the mattress. I close the door be
hind me, and the room goes dark again.
I tiptoe into the bathroom and take a quick shower. Wrapped only in a towel, I leave the bathroom and climb into bed. Lucas stirs, reaching for me in the dark.
“I can still smell the sunshine on your skin,” he whispers and pulls me to him.
“Is that a nice way of saying I still smell like sweat?”
“No.” With vampire speed, he moves on top of me, parting my bare thighs and pressing himself in between. I bend my legs up and run my nails over his back. “You smell delicious.”
“You need to eat.”
“I do.”
The room is pitch black and I can’t see a thing in front of me. The sensory deprivation would be freaky if I were with anyone but Lucas. Arching my back, I press my core against his. He puts his lips to my neck. His fangs are already drawn and scrape against my skin. Kissing his way down, he puts one leg over his shoulder and dives back in between my legs, tongue lashing out against my clit.
Moaning, I reach down and tangle my fingers through his hair. He slides his hands under my butt, lifting me off the mattress. My other leg goes over his shoulders and I can feel an orgasm coming on already. He’s not teasing me, not drawing it out like usual. He wants to feed but won’t until he makes me come. Vampires are all about doing what feels good, and while Lucas definitely does what feels good for him, he always prioritizes my pleasure.
My body shudders, getting closer and closer. Lucas sets me back on the mattress and pushes his fingers inside me, going right to that sweet spot that makes me come almost instantly. I cry out with pleasure, writhing against him. He keeps his mouth on me, licking and sucking, until I come for the second time. My pussy spasms wildly and my ears ring as stars dot my vision. Lucas moves on top of me, pushing his large cock inside and fucking me hard and fast.
Wrapping one arm around me, he brings his head down and sinks his fangs into my neck, lapping up the blood that pours out. He groans as he drinks my blood, and I curl my legs around him, rocking my hips along with his.
He clamps his mouth around the bite and sucks hard. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the sensation of blood being pulled out of my vein like this. Most of the time, I’m overcome with pleasure which more or less blocks out the pain. Though every once in a while, a little voice in the back of my mind wants to scream that something is wrong. That I’m losing blood at a scary fast rate and if Lucas doesn’t stop, I won’t have enough left.
Call of Night: The Thorne Hill Series Book Three Page 14