He pulled up her number and hit the call button. She picked up on the second ring.
“Hey! Len! You’re okay?” asked the welcome voice.
He closed his eyes. “Hey, Kat. That might be a bit of an optimistic assessment, but I’m not hurt or anything. I’m back in St. Louis.”
“So am I! Gina’s getting the new club ready to open, and they said on the news that things were under control again, after the quote-unquote ‘chemical spill,’ so I came back. That’s all good news, right?”
Len rubbed a hand across his mouth, worrying at his lip ring before he answered. “Yeah... it’s really not. Under control, I mean. Look—I could use a ride from my place to the storage units over by Tower Grove to pick up my car. Are you free? We can talk more, and if nothing else, I can tell you what exactly to look out for so you’ll know when you need run like hell.”
Her voice softened. “Sure, I can do that, babe. I’m with Gabe right now, but we can come get you in a few minutes. I’ve been wanting you to meet him anyway. Will we be able to get to your place okay? I drove past the neighborhood when I got back into town yesterday, and it seemed like they’d opened it up again.”
Len looked at the bustle outside, with vehicles coming and going among the work crews. “It’s wide open, yeah. Just... keep your eyes peeled, all right? If you see anything that looks like a dense cloud of black smoke hovering in the air, pull a U-turn and drive like hell to get away from it.”
“Gotcha,” Kat replied, taking this latest round of craziness effortlessly in stride. “We can be there in... fifteen, maybe?”
“Thanks, Kat. See you then.”
He hung up and powered the phone off before plugging it into the charger in the kitchen. The familiar surroundings paradoxically made him feel on edge, and he was pacing restlessly back and forth between the kitchen to the living room by the time Albigard returned a few moments later.
“I’ve got a ride coming to take me to the storage place,” Len told him. “Any luck on your end?”
Albigard closed the front door. “I spoke with Teague. Apparently the Court has ordered their representatives in the human realm to maintain as much normalcy as possible in hopes of preventing panic.”
Len stared at him in shock. “But that’s crazy!” He hesitated. “Wait. To prevent the humans from panicking? Or to prevent the Fae from panicking?”
Albigard didn’t look pleased. “An excellent question, to which I have no answer at present. At any rate, Teague agreed to inform the warden of the Chicago overkeep about the newest incursion. He also agreed to meet with me.”
“When and where?” Len asked.
“Here. In an hour. You should make a point of being elsewhere.”
“Not happening,” Len said without stopping to think about it. “For one thing, I already told you what I think about the idea of splitting up. For another, if the Hunt shows up, I’m your only defense against it.”
Albigard’s lips thinned. “You place too much faith in your own abilities.”
“Hey, I didn’t say I was a good defense,” Len told him. “I said I was your only defense.”
The Fae drew breath as though to reply... but didn’t.
“Kat and her boyfriend will be here in a few minutes,” Len continued. “It shouldn’t take long to pick up the car. I’ll send them on their way as soon as they drop me off at the storage place, and be back here in time for Teague 2: The Sequel—because we seriously need to brainstorm a plan. Preferably one that’s a bit more in depth than city-hopping back and forth from Chicago to St. Louis while crossing our fingers and hoping for the best.”
“On that point, we agree wholeheartedly,” Albigard said.
Len couldn’t help noticing that the haunted, haggard look had returned to the Fae’s features as he spoke.
FOUR
KAT KNOCKED ON the door about ten minutes later and flung herself into Len’s arms as soon as he opened it. He caught her with a surprised oof noise, peripherally aware of a prickling sensation on the nape of his neck that made him think a certain Fae asshole was burning holes through the back of his head with the force of his glare.
“You scared me half to death!” Kat said, pulling back from the embrace in favor of smacking him on the arm. Her eyes tracked over Len’s left shoulder, and she cleared her throat as she, too, registered Albigard’s patented Look of Disapproval at the oh-so-human display of emotion.
“It wasn’t something I planned, Kat,” Len told her. “Believe me. Still, I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you in the loop better than I did.”
She shook her head and patted him on the same arm she’d just smacked. “No... don’t be ridiculous, babe. I know how it is when the level of crazy gets turned up to eleven. Come on. Let’s go get your car, and we can have a talk.” She aimed an uncertain smile at the Fae looming behind him.
Len could have told her not to bother. He shot a glance over his shoulder. “Back in a few minutes. Please don’t get killed, maimed, kidnapped, or otherwise damaged in the meantime.”
The Fae somehow managed to convey all the longsuffering irritation of an eye-roll without actually moving his eyes. It was mildly impressive. Len sighed and followed Kat out the door.
Rather than Kat’s aging sedan, an older, nicely maintained dark green Ford Expedition was parked in his driveway, with a guy he didn’t recognize behind the wheel. This, apparently, was Kat’s new man, Gabe. As she shepherded Len toward the passenger door, he consciously shoved aside the flare of nervousness that rose in his stomach. Though in his defense, once someone’s mentally unstable stalker ex-boyfriend had put a knife between your ribs, you tended to get a bit jumpy when it came to meeting their newest love interest.
Kat opened the door and stuck her head in. “Hey, pumpkin—this is my friend Len. Len... Gabe. Here—you take the front seat, since I don’t know exactly where we’re going.”
Gabe was a Black man residing near the upper end of his thirties and on the hipster side of handsome, with his hair in Bantu knots and sporting a neatly trimmed goatee. He reached a hand out, a friendly smile crinkling the corners of his eyes behind a pair of tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses.
“Hey, man. Nice to finally meet you,” he said, as Len returned the firm grip and shook hands. “Kat talks about you a lot. Hop in. We’ll get you where you need to go, and you can tell us what the hell is really going on.”
His voice was light and pleasant, and he seemed to be taking whatever Kat had already told him about the batshit insanity surrounding their lives in stride to a refreshing degree.
“Thanks,” Len said. “It may be a longer story than a trip to Tower Grove will support, but I’ll try to hit the high notes, at least.” He paused for a moment. “Er... no offense, but if I start talking about demons and faeries, are you going to drive me straight to the nearest psych ward?”
Kat scoffed from her place in the back, leaning forward in the space between the front seats. “Give me some credit, babe. I dumped the paranormal shit on him right up front, before we ever started dating.”
“Really?” Len asked. “Uh... so, how did that conversation go?”
Gabe made a rueful noise. “Well... I mean, world leaders had been dropping dead like flies every morning? And I’m currently parked in a destroyed neighborhood that was supposedly the site of a dangerous chemical spill, but a few days later there are guys out raking leaves and replanting the lawns.” He turned the key, and the Ford’s engine roared to life. “It’s pretty obvious we’re being lied to, and have been for a long time.”
Len considered that, and tilted his head in acknowledgement. “Okay, good point.”
Gabe checked over his shoulder and backed out of the driveway, heading toward Hampton Avenue.
“Go on, hon,” Kat prompted. “Break it down for us. What’s really going on?”
With a deep breath, Len launched into what he knew about the Fae archetype of death that had followed Albigard into the human realm, then finished up the story with the breach
in St. Louis being sealed and another one opening in Chicago. He didn’t mention anything about necromancy... or about Rans and Zorah.
Gabe was silent, but Kat frowned at Len’s reflection in the rearview mirror. “You were with a couple of vampires before, right? Did they stay behind in Chicago to keep an eye on the thing?”
Len felt the unpleasant sideways mental lurch that sometimes preceded a fit of mental dissociation. He swallowed hard, trying to ground himself. “No,” he said in an absolutely flat tone. “They died right before Nigellus sealed the rip. The Hunt killed them.” He gripped the edge of the passenger seat with his right hand, hard enough to feel every stitch in the aging vinyl upholstery digging into his skin.
Kat inhaled sharply, and Gabe shot Len a sideways glance before returning his eyes to the road.
“Turn left here,” Len told him, still in a monotone. “Then take a right on Arsenal, and the storage place is off of Hereford.”
“Len,” Kat said carefully. “You said one of the vampires was Leonides’ granddaughter, right?”
“Yes.” The word emerged sounding hoarse, and he cleared his throat.
“Does he know yet?” she asked, softly enough that it stabbed at Len’s gut.
“I don’t think so,” he told her. “At least, I haven’t been able to get hold of him or Vonnie, and... it’s not the kind of thing you put in a text or an email.”
The idea that he might have to be the one to break the news to the pair wasn’t something he was really equipped to handle right now. In the cowardly depths of his heart, he’d been half-hoping that Nigellus would perform his soul-retrieval miracle before Guthrie or Vonnie ever had to learn that Zorah and Rans were dead.
A slender hand closed around his upper arm. He narrowly avoided jerking away from Kat’s offer of comfort, not feeling as though he deserved it.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” Kat said.
Len looked out of the side window as he tried to pack everything away, knowing there wasn’t time for any of it right now. After a few moments, the hand slid away, and he knew he’d been silent too long.
He cleared his throat again. “Anyway,” he said, “from what we can tell, Albigard’s the one drawing the Hunt to new places and motivating it to rip through the veil to get to him. But once it succeeds in opening a new hole, it gets distracted and starts eating whatever it can reach. So... as far as I know, there aren’t any open rifts in St. Louis right now, but if he stays here too long, there will probably be a new one. Unless the thing’s too busy chowing down on Chicago to notice that he’s not there anymore, which is also a possibility.”
They passed a Schnuck’s supermarket, and Gabe looked thoughtful as he made the left turn onto Hereford. “If this thing can follow him anywhere, where’s he going to go next?”
“That’s still a point of debate,” Len said, thinking of Albigard’s earlier insistence on going to Dhuinne to commit the Fae version of seppuku. “But I would definitely make a point of steering clear of all things Fae, if I were you two. Especially Albigard.”
Kat gave a dramatic shiver. “Ugh. No argument from me. The way he glared at me earlier...”
“Yeah... no,” Len told her, feeling on firmer ground here. “Don’t take it personally—that’s actually just his face. You get used to it.” An endless maze of ugly metal buildings surrounded by six-foot fence appeared on the left side of the road. “Here—I’m pretty sure that’s the place.”
Gabe pulled into the parking area.
Kat wasn’t done with him, though. “And what about you? You don’t look like someone who’s getting ready to take their own advice about steering clear.”
He hesitated with his hand on the door handle, remembering the way the Hunt had flinched away from him, retreating. “I can’t. Not yet.” He opened the door and stepped out.
“Len—” Kat began.
He stuck his head back in. “Hey, I almost forgot. Where’s the new club going to be located?”
Kat blinked, derailed. “Uh... Gina found a place on the east end of the Delmar Loop, down by Rosedale. You know that high-rise with the new student apartments? It’s in the basement of the building. We’re supposed to have the grand opening tomorrow night.”
Len nodded. “Great. That’s a terrific location. Not bad for the commute, either.” He glanced between them, his brows drawing together. “Look after each other, okay? We’ll try to get out of St. Louis before we end up drawing the Hunt back here, but... I’m not sure how bad this mess is going to get. At the moment there’s no strategy, and frankly that’s scaring the shit out of me.”
Kat’s expression drew into worried lines, but it was the way Gabe’s eyes fell on her—drinking her in like she was the most important thing in his world—that made Len’s throat close up. His gaze caught the other man’s in a moment of mutual understanding, before Len tore himself away.
“I’ll be in touch,” he said, and closed the door with a firm shove.
* * *
In typical fashion, rather than leave Len’s name with the owner of the self-storage units, Rans had apparently identified him only as ‘a bloke with blue hair and facial hardware—don’t worry, you can’t miss him.’ Even given this less than stellar method of identification, retrieving his car only took a few minutes.
“How many bullet holes does it have?” the man at the counter asked him, sounding bored.
“Five,” Len said without hesitation. “Aftermarket exhaust, pearlescent red custom paint where it’s not rusted, purple fuzzy dice on the keychain.”
The guy shrugged and tossed him the keys—fuzzy dice included. “Good enough for me.”
Len wanted to ask why he’d owed Rans a favor, but didn’t.
Somehow, being back in his car was more comforting than being back in his house had been. Possibly, this was because the pimpmobile wasn’t surrounded by the ghosts of his dead neighbors, and didn’t have shriveled houseplants in the windows or deflated vegetables rotting in the fridge. Maybe it was also because his car represented freedom, whereas the house was another manifestation of the degree to which he’d fucked up his life. The two-bedroom bungalow had been Zorah’s act of charity toward him, when Len was once again off the wagon and flirting with homelessness.
By contrast, the pimpmobile had been the first thing of any real consequence that he’d earned for himself after his epic, drug-fueled meltdown in Detroit. He’d scraped together the eight hundred dollar purchase price shortly after Tristan—the boyfriend he’d been leeching off of—had thrown him out of their loft. The Lincoln was a piece of crap, but it ran as well as most cars a quarter of its age. It also appealed to the same broken part of him that used tattoos and piercings and hair dye as armor against the inevitability of life’s slow slide into invisibility.
Len had lived on the street, and it was amazing how quickly people stopped seeing you when they could tell you had no place to go. He’d become a part of the scenery—the lump on a bench; the figure slumped in a doorway. In his heart of hearts, he’d known how easy it would be for him to disappear completely... to be erased from the world without a single soul noticing his absence.
He adjusted the rearview mirror, and his gaze caught on a translucent figure in the back seat. Yussef watched him with blank eyes, his head lolling on its broken neck.
“Don’t worry, buddy,” Len told the ghost-who-wasn’t. “I remember. I’ll remember all of you until the day I die, even without the creepy visitations.”
He blinked, and Yussef was gone. The radio crackled as he turned it on and twisted the tuning dial to the first indie station he could find. Hozier’s ‘Take Me To Church’ emerged from the static, and he cranked the volume until the dark lyrics squeezed out some of the thoughts circling endlessly in his head.
Unsurprisingly, the drive back to his house didn’t yield any grand strategic epiphanies. Not beyond the reluctant acceptance that punching Teague in the throat for being a backstabbing dick abscess probably wouldn’t advance their cause of tryin
g to save the world, anyway. He only hoped the smug little Fae fucker would actually be of some use to them, because he was fresh out of ideas if this one turned out to be a waste of time.
His car garnered a few odd looks from the work crews as he turned onto his street. He wondered distantly if anyone else had been away from the neighborhood when the Hunt had showed up and sucked the life out of it. Surely there must have been a few other survivors? Third shift employees, or people on vacation, maybe. He had no clue how to find out—and besides, he couldn’t really spare the time right now.
Len pulled into the driveway and turned off the car’s engine. It was still about fifteen minutes until Teague was due to arrive, but when he swept a quick look up and down the street, he saw a very familiar copper-haired figure approaching on foot along the sidewalk. The Fae was wearing his ‘don’t mind me, I’m a normal human’ disguise, looking like some thoroughly beige and boring middle management grunt except for the shoulder-length ponytail.
With a huff of irritation, Len let himself into the house and tossed his car keys into the bowl sitting on the table next to the door. “Your own personal Judas is here,” he said.
Albigard turned from the window. “Yes. I’m aware. It really would be more prudent for you to leave.”
“That’s still not happening,” Len said tiredly.
Albigard shot him a look of irritation and brushed past him, heading outside to meet Teague on Len’s front walk. Len followed, staking out a spot beneath the covered porch and settling in to watch with his arms crossed.
“Teague,” Albigard acknowledged as the other Fae approached.
His former protégé ran a wary eye over Len before focusing his full attention on Albigard. “You wished to discuss the current situation with me, I believe?”
“Yes. The current situation is untenable, as you must surely be aware,” Albigard replied without preamble. “The Wild Hunt did not return to Dhuinne after we forced it out of the human realm. It’s clear that the veil between the worlds is far more damaged than we originally assumed.”
Forsaken Fae: The Complete Series, Books 1-3 (Last Vampire World) Page 20