Wicked Hour

by Neill, Chloe

  “Sup life is hard,” Lulu said, taking a sip. “That’s why I opted out.”

  “You could use your power for good,” Alexei said, and the look she gave him had nothing friendly in it.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You’ve got good magic. I can tell.” He lifted a shoulder. “It’s a waste for you not to use it.”

  Lulu stiffened. “You don’t know anything about me or my magic.”

  “I know enough,” he said.

  “I think you should mind your own business. Power corrupts,” she said. “It changes the person who uses it. It changes the people around. It becomes a bargaining chip, something to fear. Just look around,” she said, spinning a finger in the air to indicate the cabin. “This entire resort consists of shifters who don’t want humans to know what they are. That’s not so very different from what I’ve done.”

  “They’re still shifters in private,” Alexei said.

  “And I am who I am,” Lulu said. “I can’t change it. But I’m not the only person in the world with a skill they aren’t using. Humans who speak multiple languages don’t get chastised because they enter into careers other than being translators. And if humans are allowed to have gifts and not use them, so am I.”

  I couldn’t argue with that—and wouldn’t, even if I’d wanted to. Her magic—her genetic gift and burden—was hers to carry.

  Alexei just watched her, quiet and still, then nodded once. An acknowledgment of what she’d said.

  “So,” Theo said, breaking the awkward silence that followed, “what was it like?”

  “What was what like?”

  “The biting. And this isn’t prurient interest,” he added, hands raised in innocence as he smiled at Connor. “I’m just curious.”

  “It was . . . odd,” I said after a moment’s consideration. “Mentally, it felt like a violation—given the circumstances. But physically, it felt natural. It felt vampiric. I’ve bitten vampires before—two of them. Both in Paris, but it wasn’t like this.”

  “Who’d you bite before?” Connor asked with a heavy air of “Who do I need to beat up?”

  I shifted my gaze to him, grinned. “A single vampire in Paris is going to be a single vampire in Paris.”

  He humphed. “Have you ever tasted a shifter’s blood?”

  The heat rose to my cheeks so quickly, I might have been on fire. On one level, we were having a perfectly average conversation about our normal biological processes. But beneath it was something more—curiosity, anticipation, interest.

  “I haven’t,” I quietly said, and kept my gaze on him. “Are you offering?”

  “Things are getting warm in here,” Lulu said, rising from her seat, “and that is very much our cue to exit.”

  Connor just smiled . . . wolfishly.

  “Do we have a plan for tomorrow?” Theo asked.

  “We check if the searches have found anything,” Connor said, “and we talk to Beyo and we see where that leads.”

  We walked to the cabin door. They’d moved the RV to a larger lot about forty yards from the cabin.

  “You want me to walk you back to the RV?” I asked. “Or Connor can.”

  “Oh, I’m not going back to the RV.”

  I shifted my gaze to Connor, lifted my brows. “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not going near the cat.” He looked up, then toward the window. “She was staring at me through the window.”

  “She was looking outside,” Lulu said. “You just happened to be there.”

  “She had malice in her eyes.”

  “She always has malice in her eyes,” Lulu said. “It’s her nature.” She rose. “Come on, Lis. You can walk me back. You’re brave enough to face her.”

  “I live with her,” I said. “She knows where I sleep. Seeing her through a window’s the easy part.”

  * * *

  * * *

  The air had cooled by the time we walked outside, a nice breeze flowing off the lake. It was a hint of the winter to come, which would be even harsher here than in windblown Chicago.

  Theo stayed a few paces behind me and Lulu, giving us space to talk.

  “He’s afraid of her,” Lulu said as we walked across a field of overgrown grass. I worked to not think about what might be sliding through it.

  “He has no reason to be afraid,” I said. “He’s enormous, as a man and a wolf.”

  Lulu snickered. “Like you’d know.”

  “Context clues,” I said with a grin.

  “Look, from a psychic standpoint, when you get down to the attitude and the magnificence, she weighs a ton.”

  I glanced at her. “Why are you kissing up to the cat?”

  “I’m doing no such thing. I merely recognize her worth. And her very acute sense of hearing.”

  I looked up toward the RV. Eleanor of Aquitaine had planted herself in a windowsill, watching, waiting. “She hid something again, didn’t she?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  I laughed, low and easy. “She did. She hid something you need, and you’re trying to get it back. What was it?”

  Lulu rolled her eyes. “My screen, okay? She took my screen, and I have no idea where she put it.”

  “Of course she did.”

  * * *

  * * *

  I deposited Theo and Lulu in the RV and made my way back to the cabin and was shocked to meet Arne and Marian, the shifters we’d met on the way to Grand Bay, coming up the path. They both wore light jackets, carried to-go cups of fragrant coffee.

  Why had they driven all the way out here? I wondered, and hoped the violence hadn’t spread to their home.

  “Hey,” I said, walking toward them. “Is everything okay?”

  “I think we need to ask you that,” Marian said, giving me a hug. “How are you and Connor?”

  “Okay for now,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

  Arne held up his cup. “We’re taking a turn on shutter duty today.”

  “Shutter duty—” I began, and it took me a moment to figure out what he’d meant. “You drove up here to stand guard?”

  “We did,” Marian said. “Connor is important to us, and you’re important to him. Alexei put in a call, so we came.”

  Probably hearing voices, or because he was making sure I’d made it back from the RV lot, Connor walked out of the cabin and looked as surprised as I probably had. “Everything okay?”

  “They’re guarding us today,” I said, saving them the second explanation. “Alexei asked them to.”

  “You didn’t have to drive up,” Connor said, giving them both hugs. “But I appreciate that you did.” He gestured to their cups. “You’ve got enough caffeine?”

  “We’re fine,” Marian said.

  “We’ve got pizza if you’re hungry,” I said. “Someone ordered too much.”

  “We’re good, but thank you.”

  “How were the girls’ recitals?” I asked.

  “A few tears,” Arne said, “a few blank stares, and a whole lot of cute. I might have gotten a little teary-eyed.”

  “Same,” Marian said. “Misty Copeland they were not, but they had a lot of fun. And we took a lot of pictures. We’ll send you some.”

  “I’d love to see them,” I said, for some reason imagining the girls dressed as dancing fruits and vegetables.

  And speaking of food . . . “I think you’ve got more provisions on the way,” Connor said, gesturing to the mulch path.

  Ruth, Rose, and Traeger walked toward us, Traeger carrying a plastic cooler. Rose limped a little, her right leg in a sturdy brace, but she was upright and moving.

  “How’s the pin?” Connor asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  “I won’t be bowling for a while,” she said with obvious frustration. “But I got
to kick some monster ass, so that helped.”

  “What’s all this?” I asked as Traeger put the cooler on the patio.

  “Beverages,” Ruth said with a smile. There was a bruise on her forehead, a healing cut on her face, but she looked much better than she had the last time I’d seen her. “Saw you in the lodge,” she said. “You looked good with the sword.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We figured,” Rose said, “if we’re going to guard this place, we might as well do a little recreational day drinking.” She opened the cooler, pulled out a can of beer. “Let’s get to work.”

  * * *

  * * *

  We repeated our cold pizza offer, which Ruth and the others declined. But they accepted hugs and heaping thanks before settling themselves in.

  “It’s going to put them at risk,” I said when we’d gone inside. “I don’t like that.”

  “I don’t, either,” Connor said. “But you need sleep, and I can’t stay awake twenty-fours at a time. So we’ll let them help us and be grateful for it.”

  “I wish I baked.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “What?” he asked, a smile lifting one corner of his mouth.

  “I wish I baked so I’d have something useful to give them. Muffins or something to say thank you.” I frowned. I didn’t really have any hobbies other than yoga and dealing with supernatural drama, which was practically a job, anyway. “I need a hobby.”

  “Two separate conversations,” Connor said. “They don’t need a gift. They’re being generous because they want to and because that’s the type of people they are. They don’t need us to validate that. And hobbies, yes. Everyone should have a hobby. I have Thelma.”

  “I’ll think on it,” I said.

  “Perhaps you could . . . play the vampire.”

  “What?” I looked up at him, found his lips parted, his eyes hot and intense. I cocked an eyebrow. “Enjoyed that, did you?”

  Before I could respond, his body was pressed against mine, and it was abundantly clear just how much he’d enjoyed it.

  I wrapped my arms around his neck, kissed him well and thoroughly. And I would have raked fangs against his neck if there hadn’t been five keen-eared shifters outside.

  “Vampire and wolf,” I said when the kiss cooled, and I rested my head against his chest, was calmed by the beating of his heart. “Who’d have thought?”

  “Nature,” he said simply.

  TWENTY-THREE

  It was early when I rose, the world just going dark. The sun had already slipped below the horizon, which was marked in brilliant shades of yellow and orange. I walked outside and stretched, considered going for a run. Last night’s breeze had apparently been a harbinger of fall-like weather, as the temperature had dropped again during the day. A low fog had descended in the chill, rolling across the lake like smoke.

  And I saw Lulu beside the lake, a small shadow against the marked sky.

  I walked her way as birds shuffled in the trees and fires began to crackle on the other side of the resort.

  She sat on a low stool, knees together and ankles spread, a wooden box on an easel in front of her. She dabbed orange paint on a canvas the size of a postcard. Half a dozen more canvases—the sunset in various stages of production—littered the ground around her.

  “I’m trying to grab the light before it’s completely gone,” she said without looking up. “It’s hard to capture the sky when it keeps changing.”

  “Looks like you’re doing a good job of getting each stage.” Careful with the edges, I picked one canvas up. It had been finished just before dusk, the sun a globe of light at the edge of the world, the sky just beginning to blush.

  “This is gorgeous,” I said, and wondered—not for the first time—what it would have been like to see a sunrise or sunset from beginning to end.

  “Thank you,” she said, frowning as she switched to a buttery yellow, began to place highlights among the clouds. “I’m only going to have a couple more minutes before it’s gone.”

  “I’ll wait,” I said, and stared quietly across the lake. Watched the waves move hypnotically toward the shore, and let myself relax. It might have been the first time on this not-vacation that I’d done that. But my mind didn’t slow. Not just because of everything that was going on here, but because of the decisions I knew I had to make when I went back.

  I’d grown up with martial arts classes, piano lessons, tutors. In Paris, I’d started school again, had lessons. My life had been scheduled, regimented, and I’d liked it that way. Graduation, then service to the House of vampires; my nights had still been ordered around my obligations.

  Now I was the guest of a friend, a temporary Ombud, and a woman—for the first time in her life—who didn’t really have a mission.

  “I need a hobby.”

  “Well aware,” she said as the sky darkened, orange flaming against purple.

  “Maybe I could learn to paint.”

  “No.”

  Her answer was just fast enough to be insulting. “Why not?”

  “Because you’re literal. You like rules. Art—even realistic art—is about pushing past boundaries, perception, concepts.”

  I didn’t like the answer, even if I found no basis to disagree with it.

  “I also need a new mission,” I said.

  “There we go,” she said. She dabbed the brush in liquid I knew was mineral spirits, then wiped it on a towel. “I knew this trip was going to help you start asking questions.” She glanced up at me. “Before now, you were waiting.”

  “For what?”

  “To make peace with the life you thought you’d have so you can move on to the next one. We’ve already discussed that you shouldn’t be a bureaucrat. Speaking of the OMB, did you know Theo can juggle?”

  “I did not. He gave you a demonstration?”

  “Accidentally. It’s a long and cat-vomit-filled story.” She waved that away. “But that’s a road trip tale for another time. We’re discussing your ennui.”

  “I don’t—,” I began to argue, then realized she was right. She’d been right when we talked in Chicago, even though I hadn’t liked hearing it. “I still don’t know what comes next. How do I figure that out?”

  “If it was me, I’d start with what doesn’t come next. You don’t like working for the OMB. Why?”

  “I don’t not like it. But I wouldn’t call it fulfilling.”

  She smiled, as if pleased by the admission. “Good. You seem to enjoy supernatural drama, as much as I detest it.”

  “I’m not sure if that’s a compliment.”

  “It’s neutral. But the OMB, from what you’ve told me and approximately two hundred complaints from my father, is about ten percent drama and ninety percent paperwork. So you need a job that tips that scale.” She looked at me. “Have you had fun on this trip?”

  My instinctive reaction was to say no, to protest that there’d been too much violence, too many people hurt, too much frustration. But that wasn’t the full truth.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s been . . . thrilling. Even with the bad parts, I’ve liked being out here with him, digging into this crisis.” Watching people, I thought silently. And deciphering what I saw there. “But there’s no alternate career path for fixing magical drama. That’s just the OMB.”

  “You could be a supernatural special agent.”

  “I think I need a covert government agency for that.”

  “You could create one.”

  “I’m confident, but not ‘I am my own country’ confident.”

  “You know what I mean,” she said. “Look, you care about Supernaturals. You care about what happens to them. And apparently you’re pretty good at figuring out why something is wrong and fixing it.” She shrugged. “You just need a title and a client willing to pay your rate structure. Which will be very, very generou
s.”

  “So your solution is I should invent a job for myself and find people to pay me a lot of money.”

  “I mean, in a few words, yes.”

  There were footsteps behind us. We both glanced back, found Connor on the path.

  “Did they find the hideout?” I asked.

  “No, but Beyo’s awake,” he said, eyes narrowed in purpose. “Let’s go see what he has to say.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Another cabin, another round of shabby decor. We found Alexei standing in front of the open fridge, back to us as we came in.

  “Suspect security,” Connor said. “You can’t even be bothered to lock the door?”

  “I’m the one who told you to come,” he said, closing the door and turning while he unsealed a soda bottle. “And I knew you’d opened the door, because her magic’s different.”

  Connor just humphed, because he couldn’t really argue with that. “How is he?”

  “Looks like shit. Had a sports drink, some aspirin.”

  “Any flashbacks?”

  “Not so far. But we haven’t let him shift.”

  “You can do that?” I asked, brows raised.

  Alexei took a drink, nodded. “Shifting takes magic. We have a method to block that.”

  “The Apex can do it alone,” Connor said. “But without the Apex, it takes a few.”

  “And there are at least a few of us on the side of right and justice these days.”

  “Anyone else come by?” Connor asked.

  “Everett and a couple of others came by earlier, looked like they were in a fighting mood.” He gestured to the shotgun on the table. “I told them they were welcome to come in if they wanted.”

  “Did they want to talk to him?” I wondered. “Or did Cash tell them to come?”

  “That’s the question,” Alexei agreed. “Cash hasn’t been here yet.”

  “We are,” Connor said.

  Alexei gestured toward the hallway. “He’s in the bedroom. I’ll stay here.”

  Connor squeezed his shoulder, and we walked down the hallway. A bookshelf had been moved in front of the back door, presumably so Alexei only had one door to guard. A door to the left was open, and we looked inside.