I finally climbed into the front seat, since Claire had jumped into the back while I stared at Johnathan. “Let’s go, asshole.”
The reporter, Alyssa, was standing beside the car, watching the scene unfold. “I’ll talk to you later, Nate,” she said, smiling encouragingly at him.
“We’ll let you know when we’re finished with him, Alyssa,” I said with an overly sugary smile on my face, and then put my sunglasses on. “Drive, Temple.”
Claire coughed in the back seat, and I heard her saying goodbye to Gabriel, of all people. I had assumed it was her mother, or Roland.
Alyssa’s smile was frozen on her face, but her eyes were daggers. I waved in her direction, but turned my head to face forward, dismissing her. I saw an expensive black Ducati motorcycle speed away in the opposite direction as I stared into the side mirror. The man wore no helmet, but I recognized that white polo, and let out a sigh as Nate did as commanded and drove out of the parking lot.
A Ducati meant that Johnathan had money. Serious money. And he had hinted — for the first time to my ears — that he was an important person, no one’s employee, he had said. But he had seemed to have contempt for that flashy bastard, as he had called Nate. But Johnathan was obviously wealthy if he owned a Ducati motorcycle. I doubted I would have ever learned that in one of our talks. He had said he worked for some corporation, but he had changed topics before I could push for details, and to be honest, I hadn’t cared anyway. Especially when he didn’t seem interested in talking about it.
He was humble, but also wealthy.
My eyes tracked to Nate, watching him out of the corner of my eye. He was still twirling the coin in one hand, driving with the other. The coin would disappear as he moved to shift gears on the car, and then resume rolling across his knuckles again a moment later. His hands looked scarred from work, causing me to frown. As he moved his hand on the steering wheel, I noticed a very pronounced scar — what looked like a brand — on his palm, but it was back on the wheel before I could get a good look. That was what I had felt when we touched hands. Was it a shield tattoo like Roland wanted me to get for my fan? But why put it on his palm? And I had never seen him use a shield in our fights. I would keep an eye out for it later.
Before I could open my mouth to chastise him, the car began to ring from the Bluetooth speaker. Nate casually touched the phone tucked into one of those mounts on the dash. The screen flashed to a pretty dark-haired girl. Her eyes furrowed and she leaned closer, studying Claire and I. “Well, Nate. You are one dirty dog. Two of them? I guess your breakfast date went well?” she asked, grinning from ear to ear.
“Hey, Othello. What’s going on?” Nate replied, ignoring her question.
The woman hesitated, her eyes darting to me and Claire. I feigned not to notice, but was suddenly paying much closer attention as I stared out the window. What didn’t she want us to know?
“I got a call earlier from… Hemingway. Said you spoke with him earlier. Everything alright?”
Nate nodded casually. “Everything is fine. I should be back in St. Louis in a few days. We need to catch up.” His tone had an edge to it. A warning. For Othello to drop whatever it was she might say.
“Okay. Sounds good. Just checking on you with all the… well, you know how it is.”
Before Nate could respond, I spoke. “Don’t worry, Othello. We’ll keep him out of trouble.”
Othello let out a burst of laughter, surprising me. “You must not know Nate very well.” Then she shot a teasing grin at Nate. “Work trip, my ass. Later.”
Then she hung up. Nate let out a sigh, shaking his head. “My friends are pretty blunt.”
I didn’t press. I knew he wouldn’t be completely open about it anyway, not if he had discreetly tried to warn Othello from speaking, but also, because I didn’t care. I was still upset with his treatment of Johnathan, and him flirting with that reporter. How the hell had she just happened to show up?
“She asked for a ride. We grabbed breakfast together,” Nate said casually, as if reading my thoughts.
“You went on a date?”
Claire chuckled. “If that was a date, then I was the third wheel,” she chimed in. “We tried calling you,” she added, sensing my silence.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and saw she was right. I had slept in later than I wanted to, not checking my phone before leaving for the grocery store. She had called while I was still asleep on the couch. It was now late morning, later than I had thought, almost noon. I looked up at her, and she shrugged.
“Who’s looking after Roland if you two are brunching together?” I asked.
Nate glanced over at me. “The less movement at the storage units, the better. We don’t want to attract attention. He’s safe. He helped me put up some wards after you left. A second line of defense inside the storage unit. And Claire gave him a sphere that will send him to the church.”
I muttered under my breath. One, because it was smart, two, because Roland shouldn’t be using magic while injured, and three, because no one was there to guard him right now, even if he had a sphere. “He’s probably bored out of his mind. We should get him a radio or something.”
Nate was fighting a grin. “I gave him a bible before we left…”
Claire coughed again, muttering something about a bug.
“Fucking asshole, Nate. Truly.”
Nate’s smile was proud, as if I had complimented him. I realized I was grinning, even though I was upset with him, because giving Roland a bible for entertainment was hilarious. I could just imagine the look Roland gave Nate in response. And Nate’s innocent return smile.
“What are you two doing here?”
“We swung by your dad’s place, and he told us you went to the store. So we came to get you. Nate wanted to help you with the wards, or something,” Claire said, leaning over the seat as she tucked a few strands of my hair behind my ear. I reached up and grasped her hand, squeezing it.
“Thanks, Claire. Sorry. It’s been an… eventful morning.”
She squeezed back as we pulled into the street where my dad lived.
We pulled into the driveway slowly, but Nate suddenly slammed on the brakes, shifting it into reverse with a smooth motion to put us back in the street.
He jumped out of the car after pulling the emergency brake, and stared at the lawn.
I was too astonished to speak. What the hell?
Then I saw it. A piece of paper fluttered in the light breeze, hammered into the grass by an aged piece of wood. I could feel the familiar pulse of power oozing from it now, as well as the pungent stench of rotten eggs.
“The Demon,” I gasped. The door to the house opened, and my father strode out, smiling absently with a pitcher of iced tea in one hand and a book in the other. He frowned upon seeing us standing in the street and the car parked halfway in the drive, halfway in the road. I let out a sharp sigh of relief. He was safe. Not even aware of what had happened.
“Is everything okay?” he asked nervously.
Nate only grunted.
Chapter 38
I was racing up to the piece of paper before I realized it, the action taking precedence over running to greet my father.
“Callie, wait!” Nate shouted.
I flung out a hand over the paper, a light whiff of magic to check for any dangers, but the fine cloud of magic revealed only the light green color of Nate’s wards. No traps.
Nate skidded up beside me, stunned. “How the hell did you do that?”
I blinked up at him, then reached for the paper. “Check for traps?”
“Yes. With only a little wave of your hand and no effort?”
I stopped, not grabbing the paper, and turned back to him. “You can’t do that?”
“Not without a whole hell of a lot of preparation.” He sounded impressed.
I shrugged. “Not that hard. Maybe you’re just doing it wrong.” And I grabbed the paper in one hand and the spear in the other. The spear emitted a single pulse in my
hand, and then grew silent. It was authentic. One of the pieces. Just sitting in my yard. I frowned at it, then stood up to let Nate read alongside me. Claire was talking to my dad, keeping him on the porch, and his protests disappeared from my hearing as the words in the note sent a blade of fear into my heart.
He looks so comfortable in his cage. Maybe you should let the rabbit out to play once in a while. I’d love to show him a new game. Like I did with the vampire and the wolf. You looked particularly delicious at the bar. Add this to your growing collection of murder weapons. I have a few family matters to resolve outside of… town. Until we meet again...
I almost crushed the paper in my fist, but Nate deftly swiped it out of my hands, frowning down at me. “The fucking Demon bitch. She’s been following you, just like we thought.”
I let out a growl. “So it seems.”
“Do you remember seeing anyone at the bar?”
“You were there, too.”
“I was outside.”
“So was I. At the end. Maybe that’s when she saw me.” I had no idea who it could be. Had any of the women caught my eye? Or, hell, maybe Demons could shapeshift into dudes. I had no idea. I had noticed many people looking at me, but that wasn’t uncommon in a bar. I was a young, pretty, white-haired girl. I knew I attracted attention. I wasn’t conceited about it, but I wasn’t in denial, either. Plenty of women were prettier than me, but men were fickle, darting from one flower to the next without searching for anything beyond looks.
So, had I seen anyone staring at me? Yes, dozens. More than dozens. The bar had been packed. And then there had been all those reporters in the street, not counting any of the dozen pedestrians stopping to gawk at the commotion. And the people inside the bar rushing up to the window as we left. Did anyone stand out? No. I had only spoken to Johnathan and Claire.
Claire had met that Gabriel guy at the bar, I had met Johnathan, and then there had been the waitress. Nate had been talking to the reporter, Alyssa, whom he and Claire had eaten with this morning. This had happened in the last thirty minutes, because it hadn’t been there when I left for the grocery store.
“What about the reporter? Alyssa,” I asked, grasping at straws.
Nate frowned, but finally shook his head. “She doesn’t give off any trace of anything. Especially not Demonic. In fact, other than the auction, I haven’t caught a whiff of Demon anywhere. Until now,” he sniffed the air pointedly. “Besides, you saw her at the grocery store. We had been with her for hours.”
Which was true. Not Alyssa. Not Johnathan. Not Gabriel — because Claire had been talking to him for about thirty minutes. Unless…
“What about Gabriel?” I asked Nate.
He looked up at Claire thoughtfully, and then out at the street around us. “I doubt it. She said he was stuck in traffic and could barely hear him over the construction and honking horns. I even made her turn off the speaker phone because it was annoying.” He held out his hands. “No construction or honking here.”
I growled. The waitress? One of the other two dozen people from the bar? I sighed, frustrated. Nate was right, though. Until now, I hadn’t caught Demon scent anywhere. Well, I had when she threatened me in the alley outside the church. Which meant it had been someone at a distance, someone watching from the shadows.
I sighed. “It doesn’t matter. We thought this would happen. Now we have proof. It looks like your wards kept her back.”
Nate shook his head slowly, pointing at the hole in the ground. I frowned, not understanding. Nate then pointed to the spot where the ring of wards surrounded the property. I stared for a second, and then gasped.
The piece of the spear had been staked into the ground inside the perimeter of our wards.
“If she could do that, why didn’t she take my dad?” I whispered softly enough for my father to not hear, because he was leaning over Claire’s shoulder now, trying to get to me, understanding the look on my face.
“I have no idea… But I think we need to get that last piece. Even if it is some kind of trap.” He trailed off. “But why give us her piece from the auction?” He shook his head angrily. “Then she killed the vampire, leaving that piece behind for you, too. She wants you to have them.”
The unspoken question hit me again. Roland also wanted me to get all the pieces. And someone had given him wrong information from the Vatican. What the hell was going on?
“We need to get that last piece. And then hide them… somewhere,” he offered, neutrally.
I didn’t even argue, because he was right. Someone was playing us.
“She seems interested in me, specifically,” I whispered.
“I’ll say it again. I have friends—”
“No.” My voice was ice. I saw my dad trying to force his way past Claire, and I remembered our conversation. He had told me to find my I… And I made my decision. I was done running. Hiding. Asking for advice and help. All that had done was get me in deeper trouble. Too many chiefs, not enough Indians.
I was not going to have a gang of unknown killers come save me. This was my home. What did that say if I just begged for help anytime things got hard? A small part of me didn’t want to seem helpless to Nate. I needed him to respect me as an equal, not see me as yet another pawn. He got enough of that from the Regulars because of his money, and judging by Roland and what I had seen at the auction, he got plenty of respect and fear from the magical community, too. I didn’t want to be like him. But part of me realized I needed to be like him.
A little.
“We take care of this ourselves. If you can’t live with that, I’ll do it myself.”
Nate grunted. “You want to pick a fight, fine. I’ll be right there to watch your back. But I’m not talking about a fight.” He pointed a finger at my dad. “I’m talking about him. A Regular. Being targeted. He can’t stand up to a Demon.” He folded his arms, waiting. “You’re letting your emotions call the shots.”
I let out a breath. “He has the sphere. That’s good enough for now. I don’t want to terrify him by unleashing an army into his house to watch over him. And I don’t want any of your friends hurt because of my problems.”
He began to argue, but I held up a hand.
“I’m serious, Nate. I need to do this my way. I’ll gladly take your help, but not your demands. Leave if you can’t accept that.”
“You won’t last the night without me. I’m not even being condescending. I’m being honest.”
I gave him my coldest stare. “You’d be surprised what I can do. What I can survive.”
Nate shook his head in exasperation. “Just don’t be so proud that you get your dad killed.” He said it in a haunted tone, as if we were having two conversations.
“For now, we do it my way. But I won’t axe your offer yet.”
“Let’s hope your foolishness doesn’t kill your dad.” And then he was walking towards the house.
Part of me agreed with him, but a very steady persistent voice inside me encouraged me, murmuring approval. This was my city. I couldn’t let anyone bully me. Because as soon as Nate left, I would be all alone again, and would be considered weak. Needing to be taught a lesson. If I won only because of Nate’s gang, the monsters of my city would pounce the moment they left.
It was time to drop my fear. Devote myself to the years of practice Roland had given me. Be hard. Unyielding. Deadly. Confident, and bold. Re-forge my fears and uncertainty into a blade.
Surprisingly, I realized that my daymare hadn’t bothered me recently. Was I getting past it? Or had I just jinxed myself?
I trudged up the stairs, shoving the spear into my back pocket. It was time to talk to my dad.
Chapter 39
We sat around the porch, Nate perched on the railing, leaning back against a post, looking like a lazy, reckless teenager, but his eyes were distant, calculating, and he was twirling that coin of his again. Not lazy at all. Scheming. I let him scheme.
Claire had given Roland one of the teleportation spheres befo
re leaving for breakfast, one that would send him to the church training room if he needed it, so I wasn’t concerned with him. It was now early afternoon, because we had sat here for a few hours, eating, debating, and discussing options, all while trying to keep specific details from my dad’s ears. The Demon, for example. I turned to my dad.
“Do you agree with Nate or me?” I asked him.
Nate slowed his coin, listening, but not looking.
My father studied Nate with a look of wonder on his face. It was one thing to mutter about someone behind their backs without knowing him, but meeting him, and learning that he was much more than the tabloids depicted, and that he had been helping his daughter had shed Nate in a new light. And Nate had spent a considerable amount of time talking to my dad about his school, the slimy bastard. My dad had eaten it up.
Then he had showed him a video on his phone on YouTube called Missouri is Awesome from a guy in Springfield. I stubbornly remained where I was sitting, but the other two laughed their asses off over it, especially when it made fun, saying that Terry was the most common male name in Missouri. Rather than offending my dad…
They now had a mild man crush or bromance that made me growl deep in my soul.
“I don’t like to run, but the way you make it sound, Master Temple, I might not be quick enough to use the glass ball to escape.”
Nate nodded, not looking.
“We changed the wards. Once we activate them, they will keep out anyone but a Regular. And I think you can handle one of them,” I smiled, motioning towards the shotgun propped against the rocking chair where he sat. “Nate and I can also pass through them, but that’s all.”
He smiled, nodding to himself, but still looked unsure. “Callie, I don’t even want you involved in this.” I began to protest, but he held up a hand. “It has nothing to do with you being my daughter, or even me doubting you. It’s just… this sounds like some heavy hitter is after you, and you’ve told me enough times that you—”
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