by Jackie May
He returns my nod, then looks at both our new friends, sighing. “That’s them, all right. Do you know where their house is?”
“Do we ever,” the first guy says. “Those mutha truckers moved into a house down the street from us and then stole our design. They steal half our crowds whenever we throw parties, and they’ve scared off a lot of people from wanting to join us.” His face turns grave, and he lowers his voice as he pins both Oliver and me with a sincere gaze. “Seriously, you guys should stay away from them. You seem like good people. I’m sure you can take care of yourselves, but those freaks are dangerous. Everybody hates them, but nobody messes with them for a reason.”
“We’re having a party this weekend, though,” the other guy says. “You should both come.” He hands us flyers advertising their frat house and the party hours. The house address is conveniently written along the bottom of the paper. “And hey, bro…” He holds his hand out to Oliver. “If you’re interested in pledging, let us know. We’ll introduce you to the other guys and let them know you’re cool.”
I can see the smile Oliver is trying to hide as he shakes the guy’s hand. “I’ll think about it. Thanks for the info on those other guys. We’ll make sure to steer clear.”
“Steer yourselves to our place. Friday night. It’s gonna be awesome.”
“We will, man, thanks.”
With a casual nod, Oliver leads me away toward the next booth. “Huh,” he says once we’re out of earshot. “So this is what it feels like to be one of the cool kids.”
A laugh bursts from me that makes Oliver chuckle. I nudge his shoulder with mine as we walk. “Don’t let it go to your head, Ollie. I happen to like you just how you are.”
Oliver shrugs his shoulders and smiles at the ground as we walk. “Thanks,” he mutters, nudging me back the way I’d bumped him. Then he clears his throat and changes the subject. “So I take it we’re on our way to the punk-ass poser bitches’ house?”
I grin. “Oh, yeah. I’m gonna go all Nora Jacobs psycho psychic chick on those mutha truckers.”
. . . . .
The GPS in Terrance’s fancy car takes us right to the frat house. From there, our guys aren’t hard to find. For one thing, a very familiar yellow hooptie of a car is parked on the street out front. And for another, the entire house has been painted a pale yellow exactly like the frat house. No wonder our new friends at the booth were so bitter. They say copycatting is a form of flattery, but it’s still annoying. “Bingo. That’s our car.”
Oliver follows my gaze and snorts. “Nice ride.”
“You should see the tool who drives it. Come on. Be my lookout while I do my thing. When I get sucked into visions, I can’t pull myself out.”
Oliver gets twitchy as we near the car. He’s looking at the large pale yellow house. “Are you sure we should—”
“It’s the only way to find Shandra.” I glance at the house. “Look at the place. All’s quiet. Either the majority of them are in class, or sleeping, or out kidnapping more underworlders. I doubt we’ll have a better opportunity. Just keep an eye out, and if someone comes…drag me away. If I let go, it will break the vision. Then we can run.”
Oliver doesn’t reply to this other than to take a deep breath and stare at the house again. When we reach the car, and the edge of the property, my skin prickles and all the hair on my arms stands up. Oliver gasps, and I let out a long, low whistle. “That’s a lot of magic,” I say. The tingling sensation is stronger than I felt at Terrance’s house. “It feels different, though. It’s not normal, is it?”
When I get no reply, I glance at Oliver. He’s white as a ghost, and his eyes look like softballs. His jaw is hanging open.
“What is it?”
Oliver snaps out of his shock with a shiver and swallows hard. “It’s dark magic,” he whispers. “It’s banned in the underworld because it’s gained through sacrifice and it’s really dangerous. It doesn’t always do what you want it to. It sort of has a will of its own and will twist the mind of the person using it.”
“Let me guess. It turns people evil?”
Oliver frowns at my sarcasm. “Yes, it does.” He tugs on my arm. “We need to get out of here.”
“What?” I pull away from Oliver’s grip. “We can’t leave yet.”
I reach out for the handle on the driver’s side door of the car, but I get nothing. There is no imprint on the handle. Lucky for me, the old, obnoxious car is unlocked. Guess the owner thinks his reputation will keep people from breaking in. Or maybe he just forgot to lock it. I mean, why would he need to? This is only Detroit. It’s only one of the top ten crime capitals of the country. Mr. Muscles did seem rather stupid, though.
I hold my breath as I open the car door. I’m pretty sure all the magic I feel is coming from the house, but there’s a slight possibility the car is warded, too, and I just can’t tell. When I pull the door open and nothing happens, I let all the air out of my lungs. So Muscle Guy is just stupid after all. Awesome for me.
As I slide in behind the wheel, I glance over my shoulder at my lookout. Oliver has called someone and is murmuring anxiously into the phone, glancing at the house over and over. Whatever. He can have his freak-out. I need to scope out this car.
As soon as I place my hands on the wheel, I’m pulled into an intense vision. It’s night, and the guy from the bar is gone, but the driver of the car who picked him up sits gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles. I’m sitting in the backseat of the car—Shandra is gone. It’s nighttime, and the house in front of us is hosting a raging kegger.
Muscle Head sees a guy in the crowd and nods for him to come get in the car. The new guy is a redhead. He’s tall and lean, but his shoulders bulge under his T-shirt and his arms show definition. Unlike Muscle Head, the new guy looks intelligent. He slips into the passenger seat with an irritated look on his face. “You were supposed to check in an hour ago. Why didn’t you call?”
Muscle Head twists his hands over the steering wheel again, shooting his companion a dark look. “I didn’t think we should have this conversation over the phone. You’re not going to believe what went down tonight.”
Red only cocks an eyebrow and waits for an explanation. Muscle Head sighs. “We have to take Noah.”
“Noah?” Red whines. “I hate that idiot. Why would you want him?”
“That idiot bagged us a troll tonight.”
Red flinches, his mouth falling wide open. “No shit. A troll? Is he crazy?”
“YES!” Muscle Head shouts. “He snagged her right from under the noses of two other trolls. I had to use up all the last of my powder to cover our tracks.”
Red breathes out a small sigh of relief. “You spelled the cameras, then?”
“The cameras, the alley. I cloaked the car. I drove around randomly for over an hour before I helped him take the ugly bitch to the sanctuary. Been looking over my shoulder for angry trolls ever since. I think the bastard got lucky. I think we got away with it.”
Red’s eyes gleam with excitement. “A troll. We’ve never had that kind of strength before.”
“Yeah, because trying to harness that kind of power is suicide.”
Red glares at Muscle Head. “Have I ever lost control? Ever?”
Muscle Head’s glare turns to a pout. “No, but it’s getting close, and you’re starting to lose your power.”
“You don’t think I’ve planned for that? The culling will take place before our life forces run out, and hell, I’m a damn mid-level sorcerer. We’ll be fine. We’ll have to let Noah in. He’s the only other option, and he scored a damn troll. Now if Xavier would just hurry his ass up, we’ll be all set.”
“Xavier! Didn’t you hear? That pussy didn’t pan out.”
“What?” Red yells. “What happened? He was my favorite initiate! He didn’t get his vamp? He said the guy was over four hundred years old. Do you know how powerful a vamp that age would be? He didn’t get himself killed, did he?”
“Almost. But not from
any vamp attack. The idiot went to Underworld the other night, got his ass beat, and OD’d on something no one can identify. He ended up in the hospital, almost dead. He’s claiming he was drugged, but the cops are still on his ass about it. We can’t have him bringing that kind of shit to us.”
“DAMN IT!” Red smashes his fist into the dash in front of him. He rakes a hand through his hair and blows a puff of air out. “Who else is there?”
“No one, Elijah. Only Xavier.”
Red—Elijah—shakes his head. “We need Xavier, then. Tell him he has one last chance to bring us an underworlder, or he’s out. Let’s see if he can really get his 400-year-old vamp like he said he could.”
“And if he can’t? It doesn’t work without twelve,” Muscle Head says. “The Blood Moon is on Tuesday. We’re cutting it kind of close.”
Elijah glares at Muscle Head. “Tell Xavier he’s got new competition. That’ll motivate him. Tell him to bring his underworlder to the… I don’t know. We don’t want him to come to our place, just in case he does have problems with cops. Who’s having a party tomorrow night?”
“Umm, I think Alpha Gamma Delta’s holding a mixer tomorrow night.”
“Perfect.” Elijah opens his door to exit the car but turns back to Muscle Head with a grimace. “He’d better come through. You’re right that we need twelve. I was counting on Xavier.”
Muscle Head sighs. “Me too. I’m not crazy about the guy, but at least he has a brain, unlike Noah. I’m not sure how he got so messed up.”
“Let’s hope he’s telling the truth and he really just got drugged or something.” Elijah sighs and nods his head toward the lively house. “You coming?”
Muscle Head nods. “Hell yeah. I need a drink after tonight. Something strong.”
“How about a little elixir in your whiskey? I’ve got a little left saved for a rainy day, and I’d say you earned it tonight.”
The vision fades before I get Muscle Head’s reply, but I’m fairly certain he wasn’t going to turn down whatever that elixir was.
I slump back in the seat, groaning. My head is freaking pounding. Those long visions kill me. But at least this vision was informative and not just some quickie Mr. Muscles had in the car.
When I come to enough to take in my surroundings, I hear two voices calling my name. Nick Gorgeous is standing right behind Oliver, a worried expression on his face. “What are you doing here?” I mumble.
His face turns annoyed. “It’s my case.”
Oliver takes my hand as I turn to the side and set my feet on the ground. His look is rueful. “We can’t deal with dark magic by ourselves, Nora.”
“You shouldn’t be dealing with this at all.” Nick harrumphs from over Oliver’s shoulder.
I ignore him and hold out my hands to Oliver. “Help me out of here. I think I’m gonna hurl.”
Oliver jumps to action, helping me to my feet. Nick shuts the car door behind us, then steals me up into his arms. Damn, it’s like I’m weightless. If I didn’t feel so shitty, I’d enjoy the ride in the hot guy’s arms. I’d even enjoy the fact that Mr. Just Call Me Gorgeous is wearing an old school AC/DC shirt and a cowboy hat. But…like I said, I feel too awful to care. Without warning, my breakfast comes back up.
Cursing, Nick holds me out away from him as far as he can so that the splatter of my puke barely misses his nice, shiny cowboy boots. “Easy, woman. Watch the snakeskin!”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I’ll just defy the laws of na—” I’m cut off when my stomach heaves again, and I hurl round two. There’s a hiss behind me, and then Nick sets me down on the curb behind Terrance’s nice loaner. “I’ll just defy the laws of nature,” I say again once I can breathe, “in order to spare your obnoxious shoes.”
“Obnoxious?”
“Yeah. I mean, look at them.” I’ll never admit how badass I think they are.
“Please. These are sexy.”
They totally are. “If you say so.”
“I do. Now what the hell are you doing here? And why are you throwing up everywhere?”
While I’m rolling my eyes at Nick, Oliver digs up a water bottle from the bottom of his backpack and hands it to me. I moan with pleasure as I take it from him. “Oh, Ollie, you are my new best friend.”
I rinse and spit several times while Oliver sits down on the curb next to me. “Are you okay now? Feeling better yet?”
I nod and wipe at the sheen of sweat on my forehead with the sleeve of my shirt. “I’m good now. I don’t normally puke, but that was a particularly strong vision. The stronger the vision, the worse the backlash.”
“You just had a vision?” Nick asks.
Oliver smirks when I sigh, as if Nick is hopeless. “I’m not here looking to buy a car,” I say.
Nick glances back down the street at the yellow monstrosity he found me sitting in and shudders. “Wise decision.”
I snort. It really is a hideous car. “I’m here trying to find Shandra, like I promised Terrance I would do. And, hey!” I wave my hand at the pale yellow cult house. “I found our guys!”
Nick glances warily at the house. “The missing underworlders are in there?”
I wish it were that easy. I shake my head. “No. They’re keeping them somewhere else. A place they call the sanctuary. I think it’s where they perform their rituals. This is just where they sleep and party. But these are definitely our guys, and I think I know how to find our missing underworlders.”
“I could just go in there and make them tell me,” Nick suggests, pulling a gigantic knife from inside his boot. Awesome. The boots are both sexy and functional. Man, Nick is such a badass.
Badass or not, I shake my head at him. “You don’t know who and how many of them are involved. You couldn’t possibly grab them all. It would only take one to get away or make a call to whoever’s guarding the sanctuary, and then Shandra and all the others are either gone or dead to hide evidence. We need to find the sanctuary before we go busting in anywhere like a couple of cowboys in the Old West.”
The cowboy reference was totally for Nick’s sake, and he knows it. He can’t hold his frown and starts to chuckle. “Ruin all my fun, Spitfire,” he jokes. His smile turns proud. “Still. Way to think like a detective. You’re not so bad, for a human.”
I roll my eyes at the backhanded compliment.
“So what’s this plan you have, and what makes you think there are others besides Shandra?” Nick asks.
“And Nadine,” Oliver adds. “Henry’s missing vampire.”
I can’t help wrinkling my nose at the mention of vampires—especially Henry. First impressions are a bitch to overcome, and, well, Henry screwed the pooch with that one.
A car drives slowly down the street with a couple of frat looking guys in it. They shoot us suspicious frowns as they pass us by, but luckily they park at the real frat house instead of the evil cult one. “Let’s go somewhere else to hash out the details,” I say.
“Let’s get you back to Terrance’s place,” Oliver says. When I question his choice, he points at my shirt and the small dots of puke that ended up there. “Figured you’d want to change and brush your teeth.”
“You are a wise and thoughtful man, my dear badass sorcerer BFF.”
Oliver shakes his head and laughs. He climbs into the passenger seat of T-Man’s awesome loaner without word, and as I open the driver’s side door, I glance back at Nick. “Come on, cowboy. Follow us to the troll’s den.” I start to climb in the car and then pause, glancing quickly at Oliver and then back at Nick. “Wait. Terrance isn’t going to, like, eat you guys if I bring you inside or anything, is he?”
I expect both of them to laugh; however, they both do the opposite. Oliver’s face pales and Nick freezes, whatever quip he’d been forming dying on his tongue. He thinks about it for much too long and then says, “Maybe you should call him first and ask if it’s okay.”
Terrance gives me permission to bring the rodeo back to his place. Our place, I guess. He’d called it my home
when I asked if I could bring Nick and Oliver over, and told me that as long as I felt someone was welcome, the magic around the place wouldn’t kill them. That had given me pause, and I’d mumbled a sort of mantra that Nick and Oliver were welcome from the time we neared the wards to the time we hit the bottom of the stairs.
Oliver gawks, standing so close to me that our arms brush. I don’t begrudge him his lack of space because he looks equal parts fascinated and terrified to be here. Nick seems much more casual. He lets out a low whistle. “Nice digs.”
“I know, right?” I laugh. “And to think all of this is under the bridge.”
“Well, I’m a troll, Nora,” Terrance says, entering the main living room. “We live under bridges.”
Oliver stiffens and gulps while I laugh. “Sorry. Nursery rhymes are real. It’s going to take me some getting used to.”
Terrance shakes his head, but he can’t stop the small smile from creeping across his lips. I amuse him. “So, T-Man, I’ve got some news about Shandra.” His eyes bulge, and I quickly hold up a hand before he can spout a bunch of questions. “First of all, I’m sure she’s still alive.”
He breathes out a huge breath of relief, and his entire body seems to sag as the air leaves him. “What happened? Where is she? Is she okay?”
I hold my hand up again. “I’ll tell you everything I know, but first, let me go change. I puked big time after a nasty vision. I could use some new clothes and a toothbrush. I’ll hurry, and then we can hash out my plan to get Shandra back. Why don’t you make us all some coffee while I go clean myself up?”
Oliver gasps, and Nick makes a choking sound. I’m not sure what that’s about, but whatever. I look at Terrance, and his hint of a grin becomes a wide smile. “You got it, Trouble,” he says, holding up his fist to me.
I bump his knuckles before heading toward my room. “You’re the best, T-man. Be right back.”
As I leave, I hear Oliver mutter, “The woman just fist-bumped a troll.”
“After she ordered him around like a damn maid and lived,” Nick whispers. “Unbelievable.”
Terrance’s laughter shakes the whole place.