Another surge pulsed through me, and my nipples tightened. My tongue snaked out to lick my dry lips. I wanted to let go of his hand. To let go of this strange pleasure flowing through me. I didn’t want it to go there. To get me excited enough to snatch that damn wizard from his seat and make out with him on the side of the road. The wolf within me writhed and rolled over on its back. How long had it been since I’d been this breathless? This fluid feeling from my belly to my center? My fingers twitched—and then my body completely melted.
I barely managed to swallow the whimper that tried to escape my mouth.
Embarrassment, both hot and warm, touched my face. I immediately let go of Nick’s hand and tried to sit straighter in the seat. I’d just gotten a subscriber to my lady softness newsletter. At my side, the Muse had dozed off, while the mermaid appeared to be unaware of the mystical make-out session not far from her. She belted out the lyrics to “Afternoon Delight”—how appropriate—while I tried to pull myself together.
Off-key, she sang the chorus, which pretty much talked about two people rubbing each other’s happy places before they did the horizontal mambo.
Yeah, Nick wasn’t rubbing anything on me, but he had sure set off some fireworks. And he had the hugest grin on his face. Damn him.
I elbowed him with my right arm, but the movement bounced off his hard stomach. Damn his rock-hard abs as well.
Here I was, aroused as hell, and I barely heard his heartbeat on most days. I was so glad there weren’t any werewolves in this truck. They would’ve smelled my arousal immediately.
But then I caught it, the flare of his nostrils. The slow inhale and exhale when our gazes caught. For a second, only the two of us existed, sitting next to each other in a dump truck. I took in the contours of his face. Lips that I wondered what it would be like to kiss.
I opened my mouth to speak, but what the heck could I say? “Stop healing people and turning them on”? But then, he’d told me a few months ago that with the right person, the spellcaster felt as much pleasure as the one who received it. That made my face redden even more.
“You need to behave,” was all I managed to whisper.
He winked at me—a sly smile on his face.
Instead of more embarrassment, Why? was my first thought. When can he do it again?
Chapter 11
We had plans to drive straight through Connecticut as the night went on, but the warning light for gas told me we’d have to stop at the next gas station. We’d filled up the truck before the imps had attacked us, but I noticed with despair that the gas didn’t last anywhere near as long as it did in my car. Either something was wrong with the truck, or Roscoe had given me one with the worst fuel efficiency ever.
The flashing red light bothered the hell out of me. “Does anyone remember the number of miles until the next town with a gas station?”
Abby shook her head, while Heidi looked grim.
Nick said, “Maybe ten miles?”
I groaned softly. I asked Nick, “Is there any chance your staff squirts gas?”
“As in farts?”
I gave him a lethal look.
“You opened the door for that one,” he said with a laugh. “I simply walked through it.”
The engine sputtered, and everyone fell silent, barely breathing. It didn’t take long to sour the mood.
“Is that a bad sign?” the Muse asked quietly.
“Of course not.” But Heidi didn’t sound as confident as her words.
With each breathless minute that passed, we watched the mile markers go by. The red light continued to flash, mocking me with the threat of an ended trip.
When it seemed as if I’d start babbling about pushing the truck down the road, we spotted lights from buildings off the exit.
I grunted, “If they don’t have diesel, we’re going door-to-door until someone gives us some.”
“I know how to siphon gas out, if necessary,” Abby said.
My head whipped her way as we pulled into the only station off the exit. From the way she spoke and acted—until the cop pulled us over—Abby came off like the poster child for the Girl Scouts.
She rolled her eyes at my look of disbelief. “I learn these things from my authors.”
“Uh-huh,” Heidi said.
There weren’t any other cars when we pulled up to the gas station. The lights from inside were far too bright after we’d been traveling on the dark road for so long.
We waited a bit for the attendant to come out, but no one did. The whole place seemed—too quiet. I leaned over Nick and peered inside. No one waited behind the counter.
“Maybe we have to pump our own gas in Connecticut,” I said. “Which would be nice, since I’d like to get back on the road sometime today.”
I tapped Nick so I could get out. We strolled over to the pump, and I whipped out my purse. Time to get some gas and get the hell out of here. With my luck, the pump wouldn’t take credit cards—and it didn’t.
“Nick, I gotta go inside—”
“Nat, you need to see this.” Nick’s voice was quiet.
“Just a sec, I need to run inside real quick to pay for the gas.”
“That can wait.” He took my hand and tugged me toward the place where he’d stood before. At first I grumbled, but then my noise turned into one of horror.
Our gas tank had a few extra tiny holes in it. And this was a problem, since it shouldn’t have any at all.
“How did that happen?” I asked.
“Do you need me to explain?”
I frowned. “Can you seal the holes?”
“I’ll see what I can do, but right now I’m running low on juice.”
After rubbing the sour spot on my forehead, I nodded. I knew from past experience that Nick’s powers had a limit.
I strolled over to the building. On the way, I heard someone yell out behind me, “Make sure you get a few bottles of water, would ya?”
I didn’t need to look behind me to know where that request had come from. The mermaid should own stock in bottled water companies.
My hand reached for the glass door before I noticed it didn’t have any glass. What was left of the door swung outward, and I stepped inside … to a war zone. Bodies of imps—long dead—lay on the shiny tile floor. All around them were the remains of food from the shelves: smashed and ripped candy bars, broken bottles of beer, crushed boxes of cigarettes.
Something told me to leave this place, to flee and not investigate what was wrong, what had caused this. Why stick around to see what had killed those hateful things?
But still, I crept toward the counter to look for the register. Maybe if I left a few bucks, we could get some gas? The idea came and left quickly, as I knew I’d have to call the police. I couldn’t just leave the place like this.
“When did you plan to call me?”
I jumped and just about knocked out Nick for scaring me. “With all this around me, I didn’t exactly have time to plan the memo I meant to send you,” I hissed.
Nick assessed the damage, stepping over the bodies around us. He leaned over to examine where something had punctured the soda machine and the hot dog machine—as well as the coffee machine. Whoever had attacked all these imps, and there were many of them, had used a staff or spearlike weapon on everything in the place. Judging from all the black blood, whoever had done this hadn’t bled any of his. Unless it was black, too.
We checked the office and noticed the station’s back door was open. A trail through the snow showed the imprint of a small shoe. Most likely a pair of sneakers. Hopefully the gas station attendant had beat a hasty retreat, escaping down the highway.
“What were they doing here?” I asked. “Shouldn’t they be out there, planning their next attack on us?”
“Yeah. But maybe the fairies left a group of imps here to attack us, since they knew we’d be low on gas.”
My dread deepened. “So how come they were dead before we got here?”
He shrugged his shoulders
. “Somebody killed them. Do you smell anything?”
I’d scanned the store when I came in. Other than the bloody footprints of the imps, any of the tracks of their attacker were nowhere to be found. The imp assassin also hadn’t left much of a scent. What kind of creature had stealth like that?
My mind went to Thorn. He could do this kind of damage—but he never used a weapon like a staff, and he’d definitely leave a scent behind.
Nick shook his head at the carnage. “I need to call the Supernatural Municipal Group to bring in a cleanup team.”
I rarely heard them mentioned by other supernaturals, but the Supernatural Municipal Group was apparently some kind of governing body that provided services to keep us in line.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t just get a mop and bucket? I saw them in the corner.”
He offered a dry snort.
Nick flipped open his phone to make the call while I sidestepped around a heap of bodies. One of the imps had its hand locked around a Klondike bar. I guessed if it thought it was gonna die, it at least wanted to die with a smile on its face.
From my angle, I noticed something lying on the floor in the corner. Someone had scrawled something on the paper roll used for receipts. Gingerly, I picked it up and squinted at the strange symbols.
“Nick, do you know what this is?” I sniffed at the paper but didn’t detect a scent.
He’d finished his call, so he took the note from me.
“Holy shit!”
Nick and I turned to see Heidi take in the scene. Abby followed.
“What the fuck did this?” Heidi said as she carefully stepped over broken glass.
“We don’t know, but they left a calling card of some kind.” Nick’s face wrinkled as he checked the note more closely.
“I hope you’re about to say it’s written in some ancient wizard language that only you have studied for the past ten years,” I said.
“Nope.” He handed it back. “It’s gibberish to me.”
“Let me see,” Heidi asked.
We all stood there waiting for her to say something, since she studied it a lot longer than Nick had. Long enough to make me wonder if she’d read it out loud. But she didn’t. Matter of fact, she crumpled it up and tossed it over by the pile of bodies.
“I can’t tell what it says,” she said quietly.
“What the hell?” The Muse beat me this time. She headed over to the pile to pick up the crumpled note, but now it was smudged with blood. “I can read over twenty languages. Why did you throw it away?”
“I’m sure it wasn’t important.” Heidi shrugged it off and then looked at her watch. The whole time I stared her down with suspicion. What was she trying to hide?
She jumped over the counter and pushed a few buttons on the register. “Did you call a cleanup team, Nick?”
He nodded.
“Then we need to use our time efficiently. When they get here, we need to have the tank filled and be ready to go.”
“Do we have to wait for them?” I asked. We were a bit pressed for time.
“I need to give them a statement about what we saw,” Nick said.
It was rather childish when I did it, but I still kicked at a fallen candy bar in frustration. It flew across the room and landed with a disgusting plop. More delays, more problems.
I whipped around to face Heidi to question her about the note, but she’d already left to go fill up the truck. I moved to follow her, but Abby grabbed my arm.
“Leave her be.”
“Why? She knew what that note said.”
Abby nodded. “It really upset her. I can tell. Just give her some time on the road and I might be able to get it out of her.”
“Some time? Did you see the holes in the soda machine? You can practically see the brick wall on the other side. If she knows what attacked these imps, why withhold the information?”
“I don’t know,” Abby said with a shrug. “But what I do know is, she wouldn’t keep anything from us that would hurt us.”
I made the move to go outside, but her grip tightened—and then disappeared. Her hand passed right through me. My mouth gaped at the sight, but she kept her gaze focused on me. We both knew what her disappearing act meant, but Abby’s mind was on Heidi.
She asked, “Can you trust me, please?”
“As long as you don’t disappear on us, I won’t bug her about it.”
“Agreed.”
A half hour stretched painfully along. I hated to admit it, but I pondered how it would look to my friends if I took the truck and left them behind.
Apparently it wouldn’t turn out well, since Heidi had a death grip on the keys.
“Do you have any patience at all?” Nick asked me.
I ignored him and continued to pace.
Finally, the Supernatural Municipal Group’s cleanup team arrived. Just as when the Supernatural Drunk Bus had picked up the drunken shape-shifter I’d encountered a few months ago, this van had the same Linda Leeks Bread Company logo on the side. I expected several people to show up, but only one man did—Mike, the very same warlock who had picked up the drunken shape-shifter.
He frowned when he spotted us. “I didn’t expect to see you two again so soon.”
“We didn’t plan on being here.”
“I suggest you watch yourself, Ms. Stravinsky. I hope not to see you a third time. Especially since there’s been rumors of trouble brewing in this area with the fairies. They’ve been getting mischievous and restless.” He took in the room again. “And if this is an indicator of what’s to come, hopefully you’ll remember my warning.”
I kept a straight face, but naturally my first thought was: Does any of this trouble have to do with what’s in the truck?
Somehow, I found a civil response. “Thanks for the tip, but I think that spiel should be saved for the drunken shape-shifter who always gives you trouble.”
I didn’t say just how civil I’d be.
Chapter 12
Night deepened as we left Connecticut. Thanks to Heidi’s faster driving, we’d made good time. After the incident at the gas station, no one asked to stop, and we refrained from eating. Nick had offered a few snacks from his coat, but no one seemed interested in wizard candy. (Although it did smell rather good.)
I’d never had a chance to travel through this area before. The shadows along the roads looked no different from those along the Garden State Parkway at night, but something about this place made me uncomfortable. The fairies hadn’t attacked us yet, and with so many hours on the road, it seemed logical that they would’ve come for us by now. Not too many cars passed us either. It was late at night and most travelers were safe at home. A place I’d prefer to be.
“I don’t like it here,” Abby said.
“You and me both,” I replied.
Heidi’s voice sounded wary when she said, “We’re deep in fairy country now.”
I muttered, “Perfect.” Why not just show up at their back door with some freshly baked cookies?
“We’ll be in Maine before dawn. Not long at all. You should make your appointment on time.” Heidi turned off the radio.
The silence wasn’t welcome. “I liked it better with the radio on,” the Muse said quietly.
“I’d prefer to hear some warning if we’re about to get run off the road by imps—”
The truck jolted to the side as if something dragged us. Our bodies slammed to the right. We crushed poor Nick, but he only grunted. The truck twisted and then came to a rest on the grass, slightly off the road.
From my position with the Muse’s arm under my head, I continued to gaze outside. Maybe an attack would come soon. But nothing stirred outside.
“What the hell was that?” I asked quietly.
Nick peered at our surroundings. “We need to get out of here. Right now.”
I shifted my gaze to look in the same direction. In the darkness, I spotted lights. The lights of many eyes staring at us. Some of them bright red.
Heidi
twisted the steering wheel and pressed against the gas, but after a few feet, the truck rammed against an invisible barrier.
“This is not good,” she groaned.
Nick slowly opened his door—his eyes on the forest, where the red eyes continued to stare us down. From his coat, he pulled out a worn black staff. He pointed toward the barrier. When he approached the front of the vehicle, the staff encountered something, and a brilliant white light bounced off it.
“Nick?” I asked.
“A fairy roadblock,” he said. “You can come out now.”
“Are you crazy?” I hissed from the truck. “With them out there?”
“They could come for us anytime they want. But they won’t, because of the wards I put on the truck.”
Slowly I got out and joined him. “When did you do that?”
“When I took that little joyride to hide the truck behind the iron gate, I infused some of the iron in the truck—to be safe.”
I nodded. “Good thing you did.”
The others joined us.
Abby said, “I see so many of them.”
A faint sound—but grating, like fingernails against metal—came from the back of the truck. Curious, and slightly alarmed, I left the others to check. I sensed Nick not far behind me.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Something’s going on back here.”
Nick aimed his staff at the door. We were both silenced when we noticed the lock was beginning to corrode. Bits of metal flaked off and fell on the ground. Also, the seam between the door and truck bed had begun to warp. Whatever was in there wanted to get out.
“Oh, shit,” I mumbled.
Nick approached the door, but I grabbed his arm. “Are you nuts?”
“I’m pretty sure I can tell what’s inside now.”
“And you want to investigate?” I gestured to the crumbling lock. “When whatever it is can do that?”
“Trust me.”
I trusted him, but not what was inside the truck.
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