Feeding Frenzy (The Summoner Sisters Book 1)

by Allison Hurd

  For a person of science to accept that there are some things out there that just don’t respond to things like physics and biology, there would have to be a pretty large shift in their worldview. Dr. Morris is a rare person, if she can even begin to layer occult knowledge into the fabric of her understanding. It’s fairly easy for me. Having believed in faeries and the rest since I was just a kid, I’ve never had to question it; basically, I just assume everything runs on magic. Electricity and I get along because I heartily respect that it is most likely a Mesopotamian or Shinto god, and I have learned all of the rules to summon and banish it. I am its priestess—they gave me a shiny license and everything.

  We sit in silence, both lost in our thoughts.

  “It’s a shame,” Lia murmurs eventually.

  “What’s that?”

  “That good, down-to-earth people like Dr. Morris have to get mixed up in things like clurichauns and incubi.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  “Don’t you think it’s sad?”

  “What? That she’s starting to realize there are in fact things that go bump in the night?”

  “No, not that exactly.”

  “Well, then what?”

  She gives me a sad smile. “How we all seem to have to hurt first, in order to find faith.”

  CHAPTER 12

  “All right. Spill it already,” Lia says after I’ve been furiously chewing my lip for the past half hour. We’re trying to finish making our room make sense again after the cops raided it, but the fact I’m trying to fold a glove with a sock probably gives away how distracted I am.

  “I just can’t quite figure out the deal with Brittany. It sounds like maybe she’s not entirely enthralled, if she was running errands like Mike and Chelsea said.”

  “All the crappy things that happened in our day and you’re already back to thinking about that problem?”

  “Hi. I’m Summer. I am wonderfully capable of focusing nigh obsessively on things. And what’s your name?”

  Lia rolls her eyes. “Okay, I’ll play. How is it possible that Brittany isn’t a thrall?”

  “If it’s not feeding on her maybe?” That makes Lia stop her organizing for a second.

  “So, what’s she there for?”

  “Well, that’s what I’m thinking about. Maybe she’s another keeper, like Gregor. Or it could be that she’s…that the incubus and her…”

  “You think she might be its consort,” Lia half asks, half states.

  “It’s not impossible.”

  “It would explain why it needed so much food.”

  “Mm…it was eating for one and a half.” Like I said before, incubi-succubi require human juices in order to make more of their species. Sometimes, they extract the necessary pieces of the puzzle from men and women and make a new monster cocktail of it all in their own being. Other times, they produce one half of the baby-making materials on their own and find a likely human that can provide the other, creating a half-breed—a cambion. Cambions are very frustrating. Part human, part monster, the Greek pantheon sometimes refuses to take them in due to the taint of their birth. But if they stay on this planet, they remain hungry, lustful, and dangerously charming. A few of them just turn out to be very successful cheaters and players, but more often than not they end up as something more sinister. Definitely not the type of person you’d gladly welcome as an overnight guest.

  “So, you think it’s sowing a few oats. If that’s the case…she would have to be close.”

  “Right. Alive, and near enough the house that it could watch the nest and help nurture the baby booga.” I run through what that would mean for us. “Yep,” I drawl. “That would make this a lot more complicated.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Let me paint you a picture. ‘Hey Zeus! We muzzled Hades’ lapdog. Think you can talk Hera into being cool with a pretty mortal and her half-breed infant coming to vacay at the ol’ homestead’?”

  Lia winces. “Ach. I hadn’t reckoned on Hera. Why would she get involved?”

  “Because that’s how she do. If it’s pretty, not her, and about to give birth, she instantly hates it, and the baby. You know, I sort of blame her for the rap we get for jealousy? She’s supposed to be our goddess, but she’s also the most paranoid ‘b’ on the block.”

  My sister looks around us cautiously. “Careful, she may be listening.”

  “See? That fear right there is exactly what I’m talking about. How is that okay?”

  “You’re going to make me nervous, and then I’m going to jump you.”

  “That’s late stage oppression, Lia. Fight your bonds! Reclaim your voice.”

  “Really? You’re going to try to ‘power politics’ me out of fearing one of my various gods? How’s that workin’ out for you?”

  “It appears that my judgment has had very little effect on your beliefs.”

  “Darn tootin’. Glory be to the lady Hera, and her many blessings.”

  “So mote it be,” I say solemnly, properly pairing socks this time.

  The next day, we work at the bar. I limp through the door, very conscious of the amount of makeup I’m wearing to cover my injuries and my very unsexy sling. Steve’s face drops when he sees the state I’m in.

  “Jesus! What happened? Lia said you had an accident.”

  “Yeah…took a tumble. Fractured my arm—I’m such a klutz!”

  “Huh,” he grunts noncommittally. “Can you work like this?”

  “Oh, for sure. No problem, Steve.” I grab a tray and balance it first on the hand in the sling, then my head.

  “I can get creative, if I need to,” I try to sound innocently seductive. The hint of disgust on Steve’s face says that this act probably works better when I’m not caked with makeup to hide bruises and sporting a blue canvas sling across my chest.

  “Umm, that’s okay. Well, you don’t look that clumsy to me! We’ll…figure it out. We’re short staffed as is, not like I could send you home anyways.” He waves an awkward farewell and leaves for the back office.

  “So smooth! Wanna ask him to scratch your scabs, maybe? Or something even kinkier, like slather some vapor rub on your feet?” Lia teases.

  “Your face is flappin’, might wanna tape it up,” I mutter. “Besides, it worked. I’m here still, yeah? We’ll make a little extra cash and head out gallivanting at closing time.”

  “You got it, oh Helen of Troy.”

  We try to make the night go quickly. Around midnight, we recognize a familiar face.

  “El Duche!” I exclaim with a smile and a Jell-O shot upon seeing Dan the fraternity man. He takes the little cup of sugary booze and forks over some cash.

  “Yeah, uh…Shane’s cousin, right? Summer?”

  “Aw, you remember me.”

  “Ha! Yeah. How’s…how’s Shane doing?”

  “Oh, pretty good. Way better than he was a couple days ago.”

  “You were the one who found him, right?”

  “We…we both did.” My smile fades. I’m not sure where this is going. Has our cover been blown?

  “How?”

  “Just…right place, right time I guess. My little and I are photo bugs. We like abandoned houses.” It’s a lame lie. Luckily, he doesn’t seem very inquisitive, knocking back the shot and nodding disinterestedly at me.

  “Right. Well, glad they’re all safe. I should get back to my friends. It was nice running into you again.”

  “Oh, yeah, same.”

  He pays for a few beers and melts back into the sea of people.

  “What the hell,” Lia says, coming up to me. “Did you just get flirted up? You like a package of raw meat!”

  “Don’t be jealous, darling. It isn’t flattering.”

  She sticks her tongue out and circles back to the bar to drop off the empty glasses she’s accumulated. She’s been thawing more. I hope the worst is behind us.

  Our shift ends. It’s almost three in the morning, but I’m wired. I’ve got
ten more sleep in the past three days than I have in the past three weeks, and I’m itching to get back out there.

  “So, where do we start?” Lia asks as we leave the bar.

  “Well, cops checked the houses near the incubus’ nest, but what about a little further afield?”

  “You wanna break into houses at three a.m. in the neighborhood of a crime scene?”

  “I sure do. Why, got a better idea?”

  “Yeah, several. For starters, I vote we go back to the motel first and pack up. I’ve got a feeling we’re gonna want to leave in a hurry after your so-called ‘plan.’”

  Strangely, we see a new vehicle sitting out front of the motel in the spot we’ve become accustomed to using. It looks uncomfortably like the souped up car I saw at the hospital parking lot—tinted windows, fancy rims, and something is happening with its exhaust, but Lord help me if I know what car people call that particular upgrade. We park a little further away from the staircase and try to look nonchalant, though we’re very much on red alert. I fidget with the knife I’ve tucked in my sling, and Lia checks the placement of the gun strapped to the small of her back. We do a quick check for any signs of cops, but there aren’t any. I’m getting really sick of surprises.

  We walk quickly but confidently past the car, and see a man in the shadow of the stairs.

  “Waiting for something in particular, buddy?” I ask, turning on the flashlight feature of my phone.

  “Sorry, I…I didn’t know how to.…”

  “Dan?” I say as Dan creeps out of the shadows.

  “Yeah, I…”

  “Skulking one-oh-one, dude. Be open about it or be covert. The half-and-half crap is gonna get you in trouble,” Lia threatens darkly.

  “Be nice,” I whisper to her. “What are you doing here?” I ask, returning to him.

  “I…think I have some of that info you asked for. But…Shane’s back, so I’m not sure that you…”

  “Yes. Yeah, we’d love to hear it,” I say, too eagerly. “Uh. Come on up.”

  We awkwardly ascend to our room. At the door, I stop to think about what’s on the other side. Even I don’t want to be in there in its current state—I don’t feel right subjecting someone else to it.

  “Umm actually, I forgot, I just did laundry; it’s really messy. Can we…is there somewhere else we can go?”

  “Well, it’s three a.m. I think the only thing open right now is a twenty-four hour supermarket.”

  I look at Lia. It sounds good to me. Her expression tells me that she thinks I should get over it, and invite the guy in.

  “We’re just gonna need a minute to clean up,” I say to Dan after too long of a pause.

  “Oh—okay.”

  My sister and I enter the room, only opening the door as much as necessary to slide inside.

  “This is why I did not want him here,” I whisper to her heatedly. Even with our arsenal removed, it looks like a covert military operation has set up shop in a Victoria’s Secret on Black Friday. Piles of dirty clothing surround the two duffels we haven’t taken yet to the laundromat and piles of clean clothing litter almost every other surface. Pieces of my sweaty armor are resting in the chair—I’ve been trying to get the blood out.

  We quickly go around clearing bras, old take-out containers and cleaning supplies from the surfaces and shove them out of sight. Checking on the state of the bathroom, we hastily close the door to it and let Dan enter.

  He takes a sharp breath as he encounters the pungent aroma of our temporary home. The manager was not wrong; it does smell a bit like a barn. I mostly blame Clyde.

  “We uh…live on a farm in Idaho,” I explain.

  “Right.”

  “So,” Lia perches on the table, inviting him to The Only Chair. “First things first. How did you know where we were?”

  “I…saw you leave the hospital when I was there to see Shane and Mike. Thought I’d see if I could learn something about you.”

  That earns him a matched pair of danger faces. Jaws set, we start sizing up his weaknesses. He must feel the trap closing around him, because he puts out calming hands.

  “I told Shane his cousin was worried for him. He said he didn’t have any cousins. There’s been a lot of weird things going on and I…just wanted to follow up, all right?”

  “So, you followed two girls back to their hotel. Definitely not creepy,” Lia comments sarcastically.

  “It wasn’t like that. I saw you pull in and I drove off. Figured, if I needed to call the cops on you, at least I knew where you were staying.”

  “Not really making us feel better about this, Dan,” I warn him.

  “Hey, I’m here ‘cause I think I trust you and…and I saw something I think you should know about.”

  Lia and I agree silently to hear him out, with the caveat that if we don’t like what we hear we’ll have to find a new arrangement with Mr. La Roche.

  “And what’s that?” I ask him as Lia moves to a position from which she can better cover the door, in case he should decide to bolt.

  Dan nervously watches Lia move past him. “Uh, well…I think I saw Brittany.” The mood in the room changes again as my sister and I focus all of our attention on the human between us.

  “Where?” Lia demands.

  “You two…aren’t Chi Kappa Kappa from Idaho, are you?” he states more than asks.

  “What makes you say that, Danny boy?” I move towards him a couple of steps.

  “Because either the criminal detective thing is an act, or the innocent sorority girl is an act, and Shane already told me that you lied about the second one.”

  “And why does that change anything?” Lia asks gruffly.

  “Because…I wouldn’t want this to get out to our friends, if I’m wrong. Or…God, maybe especially if I’m right.”

  I quirk a smile. “No. We’re not actually Chi Kappa Kappa. We’re not visiting anyone. We are sisters in real life, and we came here because we heard girls were getting taken. We help people in weird situations, like Shane and Brittany. And you, Mr. La Roche, have some pretty strong detective skills yourself, don’t you? You knew something was going on the second Cody disappeared.”

  He swallows nervously. “It just didn’t feel right. The girls they ran off with were too similar. And then with the Chi Kappa Kappa girls who went missing…it was just too much coincidence. But no one wanted to listen, and when I pushed it, they looked at me like…like I was some sort of—”

  “Weirdo,” I supply.

  “Pariah,” my sister suggests.

  “Yeah.”

  Lia and I nod knowingly. “We get that a lot, Dan,” I tell him, laying a compassionate hand on his shoulder. “Just tell us what you saw. We’re with the good guys, we won’t think you’re crazy, and hopefully we can save her. And then you’ll never have to solve anything weirder than the case of the missing beer.”

  “Ha. Won’t that be nice? Okay. Well. Sometimes, I go to less savory parts of town,” he starts uncomfortably, trying not to blush. “I uh, frequent a couple of the establishments there.”

  “Like…drugs? Brothels?” Lia asks.

  “No! No, just…some strip clubs.” He’s beet red but Lia bursts out laughing.

  “Adorable. All of this going on and you’re shy about some skin?”

  “Lia, don’t patronize,” I hiss at her. I’m afraid that our witness is about to explode, he’s blushing so hard.

  “Sorry. Go on, Dan.”

  “Well, I was at one sort of in the area you found Shane and all them, and I could have sworn I saw her.”

  “When was this?” I ask.

  “Couple nights ago? Monday, I guess.”

  “Do you remember which club?”

  He shakes his head, eyes cast downward. “I was pretty tanked. Been to a couple places that night. It’s sort of blurred together.”

  “Do you have credit card statements? Drink receipts? Anything we might use to figure out which one you went to?”

  “I paid cash.”


  “Of course you did,” Lia mutters bitterly.

  “Was she a dancer or a patron?” I ask him, with another nonverbal chastisement at Lia to be a little more sensitive.

  “I don’t know. Like I said, I was pretty loaded. I don’t think she was on stage. I remember her kind of in the back, like she worked there or something.”

  “Can you tell us anything else you remember? Why you thought it was her? Anything at all you remember about the place? People, fixtures, routines, anything.”

  “At first I didn’t think it was her,” Dan says. “I mean, what are the odds a missing friend of mine is working at a…gentleman’s club,” he says, blushing again. “But then she wasn’t found with the others. She’s got a tattoo on her arm. The Marine motto ‘Semper fi.’ Her high school boyfriend died in Afghanistan,” he explains. “The girl I remember had it, too. It stuck out to me. Not many people running around in the area with the same hair, build, and ink as Britt.” He names the first couple clubs he can recall visiting and shrugs. “That’s about all I remember.”

  “That’s a lot to work with. We really appreciate it, Dan.” I give him a smile, which I hope thaws the atmosphere a little. This backfires though, when Lia opens her mouth.

  “But if we ever see you or that car near this motel or anywhere else we’re working in the future, this appreciation won’t mean much. It’s rude to stalk people, kid.”

  “Hey, whoa. I wasn’t stalking you!”

  “I know,” I tell him. “Just, be careful. And call if you think anything is weird next time, yeah?”

  “Yeah, right,” he snorts. “I’ll be sure to do that. Can I go now?”

  “Be my guest.” Lia stands aside and opens the door.

  “Rude!” I say accusingly to Lia after he leaves.

  “Randy!” she accuses me back.

  “What?” I ask, taken aback. That isn’t the line of attack I was prepared to defend.