His height and his strength should make him intimidating to me. But instead, he was so damn reassuring that I both wanted him to stay and wanted to push him on his way to find out anything he could about Henry.
Most of the time I was sure that a man would say one thing and do another. With Daniel, I believed him. Which probably made me an idiot.
At the door, he looked back at me one last time, wearing the same look he had in the grocery store, and those green eyes of his felt like they were trying to tell me something, but I didn’t understand, and then he was gone. I rubbed my face, finding more tears on my cheeks, and turned back and headed for the dining room.
I returned to the table where Deva was putting a cup of tea in front of my seat. “Drink,” she said. “It’ll calm your nerves.”
I put the glass to my lips but paused. “You’re not going to get me high like with the chocolate are you?”
She chuckled and pushed the small plate with cookies on it toward me until it was next to my cup and saucer. “No, but it will calm your nerves. You won’t feel quite so spacey though. Also eat a couple cookies. They’ll help your shoulder heal faster. Like a lot faster.”
I nodded. Calm was fine, but no more chocolate-drunk. If my shoulder could feel better as well? I was all for that since I hated wearing that damned sling.
“Where is he going?” I asked as I sipped on my tea before chowing down on a couple cookies, trying to figure out this whole strange situation, and why they’d felt comfortable telling him things we couldn’t tell the other cops.
“The clubs. The vampires won’t be at their club until nightfall, but the shifters hang out at all hours at their place.”
It was strange. I would never want to hang out at someplace with hissing vampires and growling shifters. I’d had the sense that Daniel was brave before, but it took someone with a lot of guts to go to a place like that.
And he was doing it for me. Okay, not for me, but for my brother.
Yet, as much as I appreciated what he was doing, it wasn’t enough. I’d watched enough crime shows to know the next twenty-four hours were the most important. If I didn’t find my brother by then. I didn’t want to think about that.
“Do you know what club he’s going to?” I asked. I’d told him I wouldn’t sit around and do nothing. Just because he’d given me a sweet smile and looked at me with those stupidly gorgeous eyes of his didn’t mean I was going to suddenly change my mind.
Deva and Carol exchanged yet another glance. “I do,” Deva said guardedly. “It’s not really a club, per se. More of a shifter hangout spot.”
I held her gaze. “Can you take me there?”
“I don’t know. It can be dangerous.”
“Please,” I pleaded around my mouthful of cookie.
She frowned, shaking her head. “It’s not a place we should be going to.”
I laughed darkly. “I’m Karma, remember? What could go wrong?”
Carol snorted. “Famous last words.”
Deva looked unsure, but finally gave a curt nod. “Fine, but I’m calling the others. That way they know where to find us and so we’ll have backup if we need it.”
Carol nodded. “Good idea. I could use a break from the shop.”
“And we’re stopping at my restaurant first.” Deva stood. “I need to pick up a few things.”
I didn’t know why, but this was the first time in my life that I got a feeling picking things up from a restaurant was going to end in some magical trouble. But then again, I’d never expected magical trouble before. I also had the feeling that tracking down the people who took my brother might send karma flying around, so I had no idea which of us would be more dangerous.
Or even if we would stand a chance against the shifters.
9
Emma
After a pitstop at Deva’s restaurant, which was full of delicious-looking food that practically had me drooling over the display case, she drove Carol and I to—well, the middle of nowhere. The woods led right up to a cliff face, which the road we were on ran directly along. And if I was remembering the shape of the coastline correctly, it also dropped right into the ocean, which was a terrifying thought in and of itself, never mind adding in shifters that could turn into god-knows-what on top of that, probably running around in the forest.
The paved road beneath us suddenly ended just ahead of us, giving way to a bumpy dirt road that continued into seemingly nothing. Deva slowed down before we left the pavement, but we were still instantly tossed around like bags of potatoes, and my back didn’t like that one bit.
I groaned and shifted around in my seat, clenching my teeth as one wheel caught a pothole.
“Your back?” Carol asked from the seat behind Deva.
I looked back at her, where she sat with her knitting gear clicking away in front of her, and sighed. “It bugged me when I was younger, but now there’s not enough Advil in the world to get it to calm the heck down sometimes.”
“Tell me about it. My knees ache every time I have to take the stairs to the apartment.”
“That’s nothing,” Deva said, both hands firmly on the wheel. “Did I tell you what my chiropractor said about my neck?”
Carol spoke up, in an amused voice. “It’s the worst neck he’s ever seen.”
Deva gave her a dirty look through the rearview mirror. “Hey, you guys started this whole, we’re old and we know it thing.”
“I didn’t say I was old!” I exclaimed. I wasn’t some spring chicken, but I also wasn’t the one lying on its side wheezing—most of the time.
I pushed the thought of the wheezing chicken aside as my back gave another pang. If this ride lasted much longer, I might very well end up crawling out of the car when we stopped, looking very similar to a dying chicken. And I liked to think I was above that.
“We’re not on death’s door or anything,” I mumbled.
Deva raised a brow. “No, your back just gets sore from car rides.”
I lifted a brow. Everyone held their breath. And then I grinned, and we all started laughing. If we couldn’t joke around about our failing bodies with each other, well, we weren’t that good of friends after all.
“Can you imagine what we’ll be like when we’re in our seventies?” Carol asked with a smile.
“I just hope I live that long,” Deva muttered, her gaze focused on the bumpy road in front of us.
I frowned. “Do witches live shorter lives than humans?”
Deva glanced at me in surprise, then back at the road. “Actually, the opposite, but I swear my ex is aging me.”
“Yeah? He being a jerk?”
She shook her head. “No, actually, the opposite. I can’t exactly complain about it around Beth, since her cheating ex is such a jerk, but Harry has been going out of his way to try to win me back. He’s sending flowers, writing poems. He even stops by the house on trash day and puts the bins out before I wake up.” She sighs. “I asked him to do those things for years. I begged him to turn off the sports, or take a break from the guys for a date night, or put out the trash without me asking until one day I just stopped asking. For too long he enjoyed doing everything he wanted without the nagging. He acted like his life was just awesome because I didn’t need anything, and he could do whatever he wanted. But I just fell out of love with him. Every time I was alone. Every time I took the trash out by myself. Every time a birthday or holiday would pass without a gift...”
I smiled, but it was a sad smile. Most people could never understand what it felt like to be alone with someone else, but I did. “I understand.”
“Do you?” she asked. “Because his family and my family are acting like I should just forgive him. That he understands what he did was wrong, and he’s trying. The thing is, I didn’t suddenly stop loving him when I asked for the divorce. I hadn’t loved him in so long, and I’m honestly happier without him. I keep asking him to stop trying to win me back, but he, and our families, seem to think with enough time and effort I’ll cave.”
“You didn’t need to say anything more than that you’re happier without him. You don’t need to justify yourself. Not to me, and not to anyone else.”
She took one hand off the steering wheel and squeezed mine for a second before returning it. “I forgot how much I missed you. Seriously. The phone calls were nice, but it wasn’t like this.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” I said, and I meant it.
Deva was always so strong, even on the phone. She talked about her divorce like it was no big deal. And even before that, I knew Harry frustrated her at times, but I had no idea she was as lonely as I was. It seemed like such a terrible thing that we’d been suffering alone when we could’ve had each other.
“Did you tell her about Marquis?” Carol called from the back.
To my shock, Deva’s cheeks turned a little red. “There’s nothing to tell.”
I looked back at Carol, and there was a glow to her face.
“What?” I asked, looking between them.
“We’re here,” Deva said, not-so-smoothly changing the subject.
“We’re coming back to that later,” I said, shaking my finger at her.
Carol gave that awesome loud laugh of hers that always warmed my heart. That’s right. They knew I was damned stubborn. If there was some new guy in Deva’s life, I wanted to hear all about it.
The rough path suddenly opened out into a clearing scattered with cars, chaos, and guys in every direction. My jaw dropped open as my gaze ran over everything, then landed on the buildings. Small cottages with thatched roofs were spread out around what looked like one larger central building. It could have been a cute little area, very homey.
Could being the operative word there.
“Where are we?” I whispered.
And was this how shifters lived?
Deva put her finger to her lips and looked around as she tapped her ears, reminding me that these shifters had excellent hearing and I shouldn’t say anything negative about our surroundings. The reminder was a good one though. The last thing I wanted was to piss off a bunch of shifters.
Except that the place looked more than a little run down. Paint, on what was probably cedar siding on the houses, was peeling or gone completely. The thatches on the roof of each cottage looked like they were about to leap from their perch to their deaths by choice just to get away from the rundown state of the cottages. One was even missing a front door. A bead curtain that looked like it was from the seventies hung there instead, like this was some sort of hippie commune, except hippies would have taken better care of their things.
My gaze traveled over the smaller buildings, eventually landing on the larger one that sat in the middle. It looked like it could have been a meeting house of some kind with all the windows, or what would be windows if they weren't broken and boarded over. The place was long and could have fit a good-sized cafeteria inside. On the side closest to us, I noticed a large stone chimney that had been built. With the way the mortar was missing from between the large, naturally-shaped rocks, though? I wouldn't go anywhere near that thing.
In the central clearing between the cottages and the meeting house, there was a large fire pit and multiple charcoal grills around, along with lawn chairs that had clearly seen better days. My guess would be that they were left out come rain or shine and mother nature had taken her toll on them. There was also a trash barrel, one of the huge fifty-gallon ones, sitting over by a tree that was overflowing with beer cans and amber bottles of various shapes and sizes. And when I say overflowing, I mean there were piles on the ground next to it, along with what could almost be described as a carpet of cans leading up to it.
Someone had either thrown a massive party and not cleaned up yet, or, my better guess, was that there were raucous parties every night and no one ever cleaned up. At least that was my hope, since it would explain the disrepair of the houses as well.
As I looked past the trashcan tree, I realized that it looked like they’d been playing paintball all over as well, with the trees serving as their targets, or maybe they were just all shitty shots and the trees caught all the badly aimed paintballs. When Deva killed the engine of the car, music blared in my ears, only getting louder as we stepped out of the car.
Ugh.
When we got out I noticed that my shoulder didn’t hurt, like, at all, which was crazy. I paused and slipped the sling over my head, stretching my arm out, which felt amazing. I caught Deva watching and smiled before pointing to my shoulder and giving her a thumbs up. I had no idea what she did to those cookies, but if they could fix my shoulder that well then maybe I could get a constant supply for my back as well?
As we walked around the various trucks and cars that were parked haphazardly and moved closer to the group of men hanging out, I noticed that Deva had a box in her hand with her restaurant logo on it.
I froze when one of them took a running start and jumped off the cliff. He screamed as he fell, then his yells cut off with a distant splash. Without waiting nearly long enough for the first jumper to swim out of the way, another one sprinted toward the edge of the cliff, launching himself in the air and posing for a split second before falling out of my line of sight. Honestly, this place felt more like a frat house than anything else. It almost smelled like one as well, the faint tang of stale beer and blood on the breeze, along with old, sweaty socks.
Where were the parents? Where were the responsible adults? Did shifters even have any?
Suddenly, I wished I’d asked Deva more about them. Heck, I wished I’d asked her more questions in general. With everything that had happened with my ex, I’d been feeling low in general. But with my brother going missing, it felt like the cloud that had shadowed me for weeks was suddenly all around me. And if I didn’t fight through it, I was just going to handle this search for my brother in a daze.
I couldn’t do that. I needed to do better and keep my wits about me.
Silently, I promised myself I would.
The three of us moved forward with most of the guys ignoring us. Standing off to the side, I glanced at Deva then at Carol, waiting to see what the protocol was for something like this, or for anyone to acknowledge our presence.
Eventually, I got tired of waiting. I'm not the most patient person at the best of times, and this was most definitely not the best of times. “Hello?” I called. “Could I please speak to the person in charge?”
One young man stood up from a lawn chair, large, imposing, and mean-looking. His hair was dark and left a little long, and he had a scruff of beard on his almost-attractive face. He seemed to be maybe in his early twenties, but his massive build made him appear deceptively older. There was also something unsettling about the way his pale gray eyes seemed to narrow in on me before a snarl twisted his lips and he began walking toward us.
My stomach flipped, and I tried to remind myself my son was probably nearly the same age. I still saw twenty-something-year-olds as children. And yet, I’d never been unsettled and a little frightened by a child before.
I reminded myself it was probably because he was a shifter, even if he didn’t appear to have long claws and fur sprouting from every inch of him. My gaze slid around to the other young men. Some of them drank, eyes glazed over. A couple tossed a ball back and forth, but there was no heart in the game. And many studied us, but with an almost complete lack of interest. I looked back at the man heading toward me. What was this place? Some kind of Neverland where kids grew to become young men without any goals or guidance?
“The alpha died. This is his son and the new alpha,” Deva whispered, as if reading my thoughts.
“That’s right,” he said in a growly voice, even though he should’ve been too far away to hear her quiet words. “So show some respect.” He bared his teeth like a dog about to attack.
Show him some respect, because he inherited a position? Unlikely. I arched one eyebrow. Sure, he was big and scary, but he was also like twenty. He should’ve been showing me some respect. He had nothing on
me when it came to life experience. Hell, most of these guys were still dressed like they were in college or high school. All hoodies, baseball caps, and torn jeans.
Evidently raising an eyebrow wasn't showing respect, though. He noticed my facial expression and snapped one finger. The rest of the guys, mostly his age or younger, jumped to their feet and the next thing I knew, we were surrounded, with the boys—totally not men, boys—slowly closing the circle.
Fear bloomed in my gut. Damn my resting bitch face! It wasn't bad enough that even when I wasn't particularly upset I looked pissed but why did my every single damn emotion have to show on my face? I could never play poker.
The thought reminded me why we were there in the first place. Henry. The group he'd sicced after us moved ever closer, and the alpha’s expression was purely murderous, even though he was still standing well back.
Oh man, we’d made a huge mistake coming here.
If Deva or Carol got hurt because of me and my bullheadedness or my resting bitch face, I'd never forgive myself. They had only just come back into my life. I wasn't ready for them to be gone, or for me to bite it at the jaws of some punkass shifter kids. I could feel my heart galloping in my chest as though it was trying to break through my ribs and take the shifters on itself, or run away. Actually, probably the latter. It was the urge to turn and run that I was having trouble ignoring at that moment. But if running from a shifter was anything like running from a wild animal, especially a wolf or something like that, then my actions would only increase the danger we were in. It was that fact that kept my feet firmly planted where they were.
“Enough of this,” Deva snapped as she stepped forward. “Have you lost your damn mind?”
The alpha stopped and I realized that he'd been emitting a low growl the entire time. It was only as he stopped and stared at Deva in shock that I noticed the lack of it. When he hesitated, so did the rest of his pack.
Karma's Spell (Magical Midlife in Mystic Hollow Book 1) Page 6