by Jess Haines
If I could, I’d avoid thinking about the infection the entire time I was here, and maybe even after I got back to New York.
Denial. Not just a river in Egypt.
Those pleasant thoughts in mind, I trudged up the stairs after Sara, wishing I could call my mom and dad and see how they were doing. My dad might not speak to me, but my mom—maybe she wasn’t biased against me for being involved with Others. Not to mention my brothers. Mikey hadn’t seemed surprised or upset by my involvement with the Others and had even offered to represent me in court if it came down to that. It was good having a lawyer in the family.
Damien, on the other hand, had probably found out from the papers if my dad hadn’t told him first. I would have to find another disposable phone, or maybe see about borrowing one from somebody outside of Clyde’s retinue to see how they were doing. Not knowing was killing me, and even with Royce’s assurances that he’d been doing what he could to take care of them—discreetly—in my absence, it didn’t make it any easier to cope with not having heard my mother’s voice in over a month.
As I changed my clothes and crawled into bed, I had to fight the urge to cry. Someday this would all be over. I could hug my mom again. I could tease Damien about his crappy taste in movies, and Mike about never getting married.
I could tell Dad what an asshole he was for trying to disown me, and then show him that I wasn’t so different from the little girl whose bruised knees he had kissed better.
It was a long, lonely time before I finally managed to get to sleep.
Chapter 13
The next day wasn’t much better. No one was available to drive us around town, and no one showed up to give us orders or any hints as to what we should do next. Sara and I met in the kitchen around noon, and we took some time to consider our next move. Though I didn’t like the idea very much, I thought it might be best to get Analie’s gift for her caretaker out of my hands first thing. After that, we could pay a visit to the other vampire master, Jimmy Thrane, to see if he might have any information on our necromancer friend or his zombie sidekicks.
Sara and I spent some time plotting out our route for the evening while Florencia cooked for us. The kitchen smelled awesome, and we both thoroughly enjoyed the meal of tacos and fajitas she made for us. The meat for the tacos was incredibly tender, more so than any steak I could remember having before.
“Florencia, that was great,” I told her as Sara and I helped her clear dishes from the table. “What was that meat you used for the tacos?” I wondered if it was a local thing, or maybe a cut of meat I could request from the local delis at home.
“Lengua,” she said, smiling.
“Cow tongue,” Sara translated for me.
I did my best to keep my expression neutral and managed not to barf once it really settled in.
Note to self: Ask about the ingredients before eating anything else in this town.
After we cleaned up, Sara and I hung out outside for a while, taking in some sun. The light was nearly blinding, but I didn’t mind. The heat and fresh air were welcome. Inside that air-conditioned house felt claustrophobic and a little too much like I was constantly under watch. Something to do with the security cameras hidden all over the house, no doubt.
With little else to do after I put Analie’s letter and care package near the front door, we spent the remainder of our time until sundown watching bad daytime TV. We had no computers to surf the Internet and no books to keep us occupied, but the old school Godzilla movie marathon on some cable channel kept us from going completely bonkers while we waited for Trinity to come get us for our next round of Find-the-Necromancer.
Once she arrived and we told her where we wanted to go, she started laughing at us.
She kept right on laughing until she realized I was serious.
“You’re insane,” Trinity told me. “Completely unbalanced if you think I’m going to take you into the heart of Goliath territory.”
“Then give us the keys and let us do it ourselves,” I said, holding out my hand.
“Oh, no. Clyde would kill me if I let you two run off somewhere without someone to keep an eye on you.
“Then take us. Your choice. You can take us, give us the keys, or we’ll call a cab. We have a job to do, and I’m not going to let your cowardice stop us.”
That made Trinity’s eyes gleam with irritation. “If you had even the slightest idea what you were getting into—”
“How do you know we don’t? Look, make your choice before I make it for you. I’ll be happy to tell Clyde you’re preventing us from following up on a lead—”
She growled, a deep, threatening sound that never should have come from a human throat. With a sharp gesture, she indicated we should follow her.
What a great way to start the night. Expelling a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, I picked up the letter and package and fell into step behind the vampire, taking Sara’s hand when I felt her groping at my wrist.
I kept forgetting that she wasn’t used to dealing with the bluster the monsters dished out. And I needed to remember that I no longer had the belt to give me tips and an extra physical boost if it came down to a fight. Whatever might happen, whether Trinity or some other monster took it into his or her head to beat the crap out of me or turn me into dinner, I would need to be a little more careful. There was no one here to save me if I bit off more than I could chew, and I had no superhuman strength or speed to help me. Hell, I didn’t even have my guns or stakes or anything else to protect myself if I ended up in a fight.
The car ride was tense and silent, no one interested in talking about where we were going or what we would do once we got there.
Once Trinity pulled off the freeway, she took us down some side streets and beyond a number of apartment buildings and small shops until we were in what I suppose could be considered suburbia. The houses were a lot like the ones around my parents’ house on Long Island, albeit with a lot more cacti and palm trees.
When we pulled onto Gavin’s street, Trinity parked the car at least four or five blocks from the address we were looking for.
“Go do whatever the hell it is you came here to do. I’ll wait. If you’re not back in time for me to get to shelter by sunrise, you can stay here and rot.”
I shook my head and slid out of the car, not bothering to dignify her snarky comment with an answer. Sara followed my lead. With any luck, I’d drop off the box and be out of this part of town within the hour.
I tucked it under my arm and stalked down the street. Though Sara was taller than me, with much longer legs, she had to lengthen her stride to keep up with me.
“So,” she said, arms swinging at her sides, “when this is over, are you writing a new and improved version of How to Win Friends and Influence People?”
My lips quirked. Sara always knew the right thing to say to defuse my anger. “Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I know I haven’t been doing a good job of managing my temper.”
“It’s not me you need to apologize to. Though I can’t say that she wasn’t asking for it. . . .”
“Okay, I’ll say something when we get back to the car. Let’s just get this over with, shall we?”
She nodded. I kept an eye on the numbers on the houses. It didn’t take very long to find the house; it had some plastic toys on the postage stamp-sized lawn and a light on over the front door. Paint was chipped and peeling in places, but it was clean, and the lights were all on. A carefully tended flower bed ran along the front of the house. Even from the street, I could hear the sound of cartoons coming from inside.
Sara stayed a few steps behind me while I went up to the door and knocked.
Then knocked again. Louder.
After the third time, my fist was stinging, and a little kid who couldn’t have been more than six or seven years old opened the door, blinking up at me with wide blue eyes from under a fan of shaggy, dirty-blond tendrils.
“Hi,” I said. “Is Gavin—”
“Gavin! Someone for you
!”
Man, that little boy had a set of lungs on him. He turned around and raced off in bare feet, disappearing around a corner.
I stood in the open door, shuffling my weight from foot to foot. When I looked over my shoulder at Sara, her expression betrayed just as much confusion as I felt. So I turned my attention back to the hallway with child-height crayon scrawl all over the walls and waited.
Then the Viking came into view.
I don’t toss out that word lightly. He was wearing nothing but a towel around his waist—oh, my—and every last inch of what was visible was covered in hard, ropy muscle. His blond hair was even more of a shaggy mess than the kid’s, wild and untamed, framing a chiseled face that had the ghost of a beard emphasizing a sharp jawline and killer cheekbones.
Then his blue eyes flashed gold, and his mouth was full of fangs as he stalked forward.
If there is one reaction I have perfected these last few months, it’s not to freeze when danger rears its head. Instead, I dropped the box, scrambling back to the street and grabbing at Sara to drag her with me as he stopped in the doorway, fingernails that had grown into talons biting into the wood.
“Vampire’s whore! What are you doing here? Get off my property!”
Sara and I both started babbling and pointing at the box. I don’t think either of us made any sense, and to this day, I’m not even sure what came out of my mouth. Something along the lines of “oh-my-God-please-don’t-hurt-me-the-box-the-box-the-box,” I think.
His growl was thunderously loud, and it was at that moment that I realized all other sounds on the street had ceased.
Oh, there might have been traffic from a few blocks away, but all of the TVs had turned off, no dishes clanked, and no murmur of voices could be heard. Even the kid’s cartoons were off. Like the whole block was holding its breath, waiting to see what would happen.
He kept his eyes on us as he crouched down, touching the top of the box. I wasn’t about to tell him that he was flashing us, and most likely the neighbors across the street could see, too, considering his impressive . . . um. You get the picture.
His talon-tipped fingers found and slightly tore the letter on top. He picked it up, raising it near eye-level, and started to read it, every once in a while his eyes flicking back to us.
Then I think he must have realized it was from Analie. He stopped looking at us and hunched over the paper, clutching it in both hands, his gaze devouring her scrawl. I thought I might have detected tears at the corners of his gold-colored eyes, but I couldn’t be sure.
Still holding the letter, he used one of those claws to slice open the tape holding the top of the box together. The kid—I hadn’t even heard him creep up behind the guy—leaned around Gavin’s impressively muscled arm to peer at the box. “What’s that, Gavin? Are those cookies?”
“Yeah—yes. Analie sent them for us. Go back inside, Jo-Jo. I’ll bring them to you in a minute.”
The kid clapped his hands and bounced back, saying Analie’s name in singsong as he rushed back into the house, racing some invisible opponent.
The Viking lifted his head and stared at Sara and me with wet eyes, taking a moment to focus as if he had just recalled we were there. The gold color faded into an icy, pale blue, his fangs retracting and—you know, I can’t be sure, but I would swear that his hair stopped bristling quite so much around his face, too.
“You brought this all the way from New York? For me?”
Sara and I both nodded. We were still clutching at each other, and I wasn’t sorry for that at all.
“From Analie.”
It was a statement, not a question, but we nodded again.
He didn’t say anything. He just crouched there, clutching the letter, staring at us.
I cleared my throat. “I guess we’ll—ah—we’ll just be going—”
“No.”
Ha, that was funny. For a second there, I thought he said no.
“Come inside. I want to talk to you.”
Oh. I hadn’t imagined it.
The Viking stood up, towering in the doorway, his towel slipping lower on his hips. Feeling a tad ill, I lifted my hands, not quite sure if it was meant to be a negative gesture or a please-don’t-hurt-me supplication. Sara and I stumbled back, fetching up against a big oak tree shading the yard and some of the street. He moved toward us, and the bark cracked under my fingertips as I clutched at the tree.
He stopped when he was close enough to touch, both of us gaping up at him like we were staring down Death come to claim us.
Then he engulfed us in a hug. I’m pretty sure I left a chunk of skin behind on that tree when he pulled us away. I didn’t start screaming and flailing because, much like Analie, he didn’t seem to have any concept of his own strength when he crushed us against him.
The only reason I knew I wasn’t about to die was because the six-foot-plus terrifying werewolf warrior wearing nothing but a towel was crying all over us.
Goddamn, my life was getting weirder by the day.
Chapter 14
Sara and I awkwardly patted him on the back, staring at each other with wide eyes across the expanse of his—I’m not going to lie—very impressive shoulders. His bare skin was hot and prickly with the crisp golden hairs covering his arms and chest. A few minutes later, his crying tapered off, and he straightened up, still clutching us against him.
“You’ll have to—have to excuse me,” he said, sniffling. “I haven’t seen Analie in so long. Come inside, please.”
It wasn’t a request. He probably could have picked us up and carried us, but he just half-pulled, half-dragged us along, marching us toward the house.
He finally let us go once we reached the door, giving us a not-so-gentle shove that sent us both stumbling inside as he bent at the waist to scoop up the box. We both turned our backs as soon as we saw the towel was slipping. I gave Sara the side-eye, and she was blushing just as furiously as I was sure I must have been.
“‘Scuse me a minute, you caught me just out of the shower. Go have a seat in the kitchen”—he gestured vaguely deeper inside the house—“and I’ll be right with you. Oh, would you mind taking this?”
I took the box as he handed it to me, making a heroic effort to keep my eyes above the level of his chest and not on where the towel had been a second ago but wasn’t anymore.
Wow.
Oh, wow.
Sara and I fled in the general direction he had indicated, and he disappeared around a corner. The house wasn’t terribly big. We passed an open archway that led into a living room. Jo-Jo was parked in front of the TV, but he was watching us over his shoulder with bright golden eyes. Just past where the kid was sitting was a big kitchen table, surrounded by enough chairs to seat a small army of hungry kids.
I set the box on the table, and Sara followed my lead and sat next to me. Jo-Jo crept in after us, peering from around the divider between the kitchen and the living room. Sara chewed her bottom lip and stared at the ceiling.
Gavin appeared a few minutes later, this time clad in a pair of jeans, padding into the room so quietly that his presence startled me. The guy was big, but he moved like a ghost. Sara and I mutely watched as he pulled out some mismatched glasses and small plates, setting them before us, with a setting for himself and another for Jo-Jo, who hadn’t yet decided to join us.
He then poured us each a glass of milk, and then pulled out one of the containers with some of Analie’s cookies inside, popping the lid and holding it out to me.
“Oh, no thank you, I—”
That earned me a capital “L” Look.
“—I would be delighted, thank you, um, yes.”
Yeah. I took the cookies. And so did Sara, though we both put them on our plates and didn’t start eating them until Gavin sat back and shoved one in his own mouth, watching us as he washed it down with half his glass of milk. We quickly followed suit, though I wonder if Sara, like me, didn’t so much as taste the confection thanks to the flood of fear swamping my bo
dy with adrenalin.
Gavin placed the glass down on the table with a heavy thump and leaned forward. “Tell me about Analie. How is she doing? Is the leech taking care of her?”
I swallowed. Hard. Then again to get the remaining crumbs out of my throat. My voice still came out in a croak. “She’s doing great. She’s taking cooking lessons from the guy who runs Royce’s fancy French restaurant, La Petite Boisson, and she’s getting tutored through her school lessons by one of the local Weres. She talked about you a lot.” At least, while I was listening. Don’t even think it—I already felt awful for not paying more attention to the kid and her troubles. “She misses you.”
Gavin finally looked down, breaking that fierce eye contact, and toyed with one of the cookies with now blunt, human fingernails. “I wish I could have been there for her. Could have taken her place so she wasn’t in the clutches of that . . . that monster.”
Though I had often thought as much of Royce, I didn’t think now was the time to contradict Gavin. He was clearly high-strung where vampires were concerned, so debating their merits when he had first addressed me as a vamp’s whore probably wasn’t going to get us anywhere.
And I’ll bet you thought I couldn’t be tactful when necessity dictated.
“She might be stuck for the time being, but she’s not suffering. He’s given her clothes, food, shelter, and schooling. I think she’ll be okay for now. Look, she even made these cookies we’re eating.”
I took another bite, this time dimly recognizing the taste of chocolate on my tongue. Gavin mechanically followed my lead, then shook his head and looked down at the confection in his hand. “Really? She made these?”