Nate had left me with a parting gift – a book he had bought at the auction where we met – and he had paid his ritzy hotel room a week in advance, telling me to use it to recuperate, strategize, and recover from my wounds – both mental and physical. I had spent some of my recovery time reading through the book, but I had too much on my mind to really get into it. As far as I could tell, it was some ancient treatise on magic, with a whole lot of thou and thee statements.
Boring.
Roland had also been injured, but had recovered quickly. Much more quickly than anyone had thought possible. When asked, he had simply told me, “I’m a Shepherd. Health benefits are part of the job.”
And if I wanted to know more, he was going to make me ask about it, which would lead to his recruitment speech. But like I said, I didn’t want to be a Shepherd. I liked working with him off the books, so to speak – still helping him fight bad guys, but having a little bit more freedom.
The bell on the door tinkled and I looked up to see a hard-looking, bronze-skinned man walk in. He scanned the room casually, his messy brown hair contrasting with his light eyes as they marked the various exits out of habit. As I studied him, I realized he was just incredibly tanned, as if he spent all day outdoors. He wore light jeans, a pair of sneakers, and a long-sleeved tee that was pulled back to his mid-forearms. He assessed each table of patrons, lingering on a few older women sitting around a table near the door as they discussed something in soft tones, motioning to a stack of flyers before them. Each had a bible before her, and they looked to be on the same page. Bible study of some kind, which wasn’t uncommon here.
The striking man went to the counter, grabbed a black coffee, and then sat at a table by himself, unfolding a newspaper before him as he took a sip of his steaming drink. I watched all of this through the reflection in the mirror, trying to be discreet. Ex-military, perhaps, to take note of the doors. He was young, but he had an air about him, a heavy gravitas that made him appear much older. He was soon engrossed in his newspaper, chuckling lightly as he flipped to the comics.
I dismissed him, thinking back on my most pressing concern as I waited for Claire.
Johnathan hadn’t been working alone. He’d had a… sister, or so he’d called her. Amira. I had even met her. She’d been working as a grocery clerk – a young, pretty woman with an almost Asian look about her. I had since gone back to the grocery store to take her out once and for all, but the manager had informed me that she’d quit and hadn’t come to pick up her check.
Not liking the sound of that, Roland and I had gone back to the house where it had all happened, hoping to find some trace of her, but we had come up with nothing. Almost as if she had fled town immediately after her brother’s death. We had burned all evidence of that night, but had never found the feather, either. Perhaps it had disintegrated after the blood had been taken out. Or Amira had taken it before leaving. Like the Spear.
I was confident she had been there that night, hiding in the forest, because I had seen someone lurking. After killing Johnathan, though, I had woken to find her and the Spear gone.
No normal person could have seen the insanity and death that night and not called the cops, so my money was on Amira.
The Vatican had tried purchasing the home, but had been unable to verify the owner, or at least had been unable to track them down. I had also failed in that regard. All we knew was that the property was owned in trust by a group called Circle Holdings 7, LLC.
Right.
Which pissed me off, but we couldn’t legally do anything about it.
So, Amira was still out there, and I doubted she had any warm fuzzies about the wizard who had killed her brother, or whatever the two’s relationship had really been. But I had found nothing on her.
Since then, I had been stepping in for Roland while he recovered from his injuries. This morning had been his first day back in the field, so I had done all the legwork with tracking down the mutts. With that job mostly finished now, other than that third wolf, all I really wanted to do was find Amira and skin her alive. To find out why I had been so important to Johnathan.
I sighed, taking a sip of my coffee. But Kansas City had been pretty busy lately with what seemed like a spike in abductions and hate crimes. At least from my discussions with bartenders. They seemed to believe that the local news had the numbers wrong by half…
In the reflection on the glass window, I saw the church women from the table stand as one and approach the handsome man with the newspaper. I bit back a laugh as I watched the oncoming train wreck in slow motion.
I loved watching recruitment talks.
Chapter 4
The man sighed, leaning back into his chair as he looked up at them, smiling politely. I couldn’t hear what they said, but he nodded amicably and accepted a flyer.
“You don’t say,” I heard him say in a low tone, sarcasm clear to me, but it didn’t look like they noticed. They beamed, nodding back at him as they spoke louder, clear enough for me to hear this time.
“It’s just not right. All this talk of monsters and demons taking over the night. Even if it’s all a hoax, we can’t just sit by and condone such talk. The Lord will protect us from this hateful speech. He always has. And our church hopes to take a stand against this idolatry.”
“I do hate idols,” the man agreed, straight-faced.
Then his eyes flicked to mine in the glass reflection as he brushed his fingers through his messy hair in a familiar gesture. His gaze was piercing. I hid my blush by sipping my coffee and pretending I had actually been staring out the window. When I turned to casually look back, he was nodding to the women, who seemed to be closer to the table now, assessing him more intently as if they were realizing he might not be as young as they had initially thought, as if his voice had awoken their libidos. I didn’t get the vampire sense from him, so wasn’t concerned.
Having nothing better to do, I turned back to the glass, straining to hear them.
“All we want is to stop the violence,” the lead woman continued, looking like the type to spend a lot of money on her upkeep, because I could tell that the skin on her face didn’t match the age depicted by the back of her hands. She also didn’t have a ring on her finger. Mr. Light Eyes needed to be careful here. “The murders, the kidnappings, the abuse – even though it has nothing to do with,” she used air quotes, “monsters, of course. Merely the suggestion of them seems to have encouraged honest, hard-working people to embrace their sinful natures…”
As fun as it was, I suddenly lost interest as I spotted Claire shuffling down the street. She was shooting wary glances up at the sky as if expecting a storm at any moment, and not wanting to get her hair wet. She wore dark jeans, black flats, a jacket, and a colorful scarf – because she adored them, no matter the weather. I grinned, waving at her through the glass. She noticed, smiled, and crossed the street. I turned to face the door, excited to finally see her again.
Mr. Light Eyes suddenly tensed, turning to face the door as well.
Before Claire even touched the handle.
She pushed open the door, and they locked eyes. Claire stopped, frowned at him, and then shook her head as she broke contact and walked up to the counter.
The women roped him back into conversation, but he didn’t seem to be paying as much attention as before, and I saw two of them shoot dark glances at Claire for ruining their chances.
Had he seen me wave and turned to look, expecting to see a man at the door? But… he hadn’t looked upset or relieved to find out my date was a girl, just… aware. Maybe he knew Claire.
Claire strolled up to my table, clutching a steaming cup of coffee. I smiled at her, forgetting about everything else, simply glad to see my friend again as she set her coffee down and took the purse off her shoulder to set on the table.
“Claire—” I began.
She interrupted me by wordlessly wrapping me up in a bestie squeeze, enveloping me with the fragrance of strawberries and a wave of physical lov
e. Her grip said I’m sorry better than words could have, and my heart swelled. My shoulders relaxed, and I squeezed back, feeling my eyes moisten.
She finally stepped back, still holding my shoulders. “You look beautiful,” she said. Then her features slowly transformed into a scowl. “But you’re in deep shit.”
My smile faltered. “Um…”
“I know you put that hipster octopus up to flirting with me,” she accused, tapping her foot. “All I caught were nervous stammers and random sentence fragments, but I know you, Callie.”
I grinned guiltily. “You got me. Ramsey is harmless.”
“Poor boy didn’t know what to say first. Just jumped from topic to topic as if trying to hit every highlight that might catch my attention.” She smiled regretfully. “I need someone with a bit more spunk than that.” She glanced back at the counter to see Ramsey staring at us. Caught red-handed, he immediately began fumbling with items on the counter, rearranging them unnecessarily. “And a bit more meat,” Claire added before turning back to me.
“It’s so good to see you,” I said, still feeling emotional. It wasn’t that it had been so long since I had seen her, but that I’d had nightmares about what she must have been going through, and even though she had obviously wanted space, I had jealously hated giving it to her, for fear of that night breaking her. People had died, and I had almost been one of them.
“Oh, stop it, Callie. I’m fine.” She avoided looking at me as she sipped her coffee. Her face was devoid of makeup, and although she was still beautiful, she looked very tired. As if she hadn’t slept or eaten much lately. I arched an eyebrow at her and waited. “Fine. I’m not fine,” she admitted with a sigh, squeezing my thigh with her palm. “It… was just a lot to process.”
I nodded compassionately. “I know.” Then I faltered, silence stretching as I struggled with what to say next. Now that I had her in front of me, I didn’t know how to make her feel better. “Everything I want to say sounds so cliché,” I finally said. She shrugged. “But I’m going to say it anyway. That night was… terrifying. And I’m sorry I got you involved with it—”
“Callie, stop. You went through way worse.”
I shook my head. “That’s my world. I’ve trained for it. You haven’t.”
She sipped her coffee for a few seconds. “I’m fine. I just needed some space. I wasn’t going to waste your time with my pity party.”
I squeezed her thigh this time, turning to face her directly. “It’s not a pity party, Claire. That was a fucked-up night. Demons, Death, Nate…”
A wisp of a smile tugged at her gaunt cheeks. “Yes, Nate. Let’s talk about that one,” she said with a hungry purr.
I squeezed her thigh harder and she laughed. “Let’s not. I didn’t come here to talk about boys.”
Her face grew somber as if I had flicked a switch, and I winced. “Yeah, you did. Gabriel. You’re wondering if I’m okay. Because… he was killed. But I hardly knew him… I don’t have a right to feel anything like that.”
“Sure you do,” I argued. “Just because you only knew him briefly doesn’t mean you can’t mourn. But I can tell you that he went into that night knowing full well what was going on, even though I sure as hell didn’t,” I admitted sadly. He had seemed like a cool guy, but I felt doubly guilty to learn that he had initially appeared to keep an eye out on me – a Nephilim guardian of some kind – but I never got the chance to talk to him about it.
“Are you okay, Callie? Any luck with…” she trailed off, not wanting to say the name.
I shook my head. “Nothing useful. I haven’t found Amira. But I’ve been looking…” I decided to change topics. “You know those missing girls that have been in the news?” She leaned closer, interested. “We got the bastards. Well, two of them. A third asshole is still free, unfortunately. But that’s not the best part.” I felt a small twinge at my choice of words, but kept it from my face. Sure, we had saved the girls, but they had glimpsed Hell first. “We found two of the girls.”
Claire smiled weakly, likely reading between the lines. “Were they… okay?” she asked guardedly. I idly glanced up to see the church women had left the man with the newspaper in peace, and he was back to reading, not looking our way at all. Weirdo.
I shrugged back at Claire. “They’ll live. But we put two of the wolves on ice,” I said, emphasizing the word. She frowned, so I dropped my voice and told her everything. She nodded mercilessly at hearing the gritty details of the wolves, but I could see her empathy for the girls.
She was silent for a few moments. “Were the girls… changed?”
I sighed sadly, staring down as I swirled my cup absently. I was surprised to see more than half of it was gone. The caffeine had no effect on me. I think my tolerance was too high. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “They were bitten, but we’ll just have to wait and see. It takes time…”
Her eyes were distant as she leaned back over her coffee. “How long until you know?” she asked softly, swirling her coffee in a jerky motion. The still-steaming liquid splashed over onto her wrist, but she didn’t flinch back in pain. She just frowned down at herself, making sure she hadn’t gotten any on her clothes. She sucked it away with a quick motion, proving that it wasn’t hot enough to burn her, because she was a baby about things like that, and definitely would have had a meltdown.
I shrugged. “A few weeks. A month to be sure. Lot of factors that could affect it,” I answered honestly. Even though fledgling wolves typically changed at the first full moon, there had been cases where it had taken up to two months. Roland told me it depended when they were bitten. But if nothing happened after a few months, you could consider yourself lucky… as you sat in a padded room, telling your therapist that werewolves were real.
Claire nodded, staring out the window with a sad look for the victims.
“Did you know that guy over there?” I asked. “Don’t look, but the one who stared you down.”
Claire’s face changed in an instant, an angry look slamming into place with the speed of a guillotine. She tried to take a sip of her drink to hide it, but she had been a heartbeat too slow. When she lowered her cup, the anger was gone as if I had only imagined it. “No,” she said flatly.
I waited for more, obviously realizing that something had just happened, but not knowing what it could be. If it was an ex – even a casual one-night stand kind of thing – Claire would have told me, even laughed about it. But… she didn’t. Just that angry look, and then a flat denial.
“Okay. Just… kind of a weird thing for him to do.”
“Yeah,” she said, eyes distracted as she glanced outside through the glass again – which was now slightly foggy, making me think another of the recent cold fronts had dropped the temperature outside. Or the humidity. Whatever. Something science-y had happened.
I opened my mouth to press her, but she interrupted me.
“What’s that smell?” she asked, scrunching her nose.
I scowled at her, thinking she was subtly telling me to shower. But the look on her face was playful, as if she had smelled something delicious. She was staring at my jacket. I lifted the sleeve to reveal the sandwich, smiling as her eyes lit up eagerly.
She licked her lips and took off her jacket, folding it over the chair next to her. I slid the sandwich over, rolling my eyes, and she attacked the container with mock ferocity like it was a dessert dish she had been eyeing for some time. She did look like she hadn’t eaten in a while. She moaned as she took her first bite. My eyes took in the mark on her arm and I froze, keeping my face studiously neutral as I suddenly connected a few dots.
“I’m going to make a call really quick. I kind of ditched Roland for girl time, and he wasn’t happy about it,” I explained in a rush.
She waved me off, not even looking up from her sandwich.
I plucked out my phone and took a few steps away to a quiet corner of the room, calling Roland. “Where in blazes are you?” he demanded as a way of greeting. Roland was all
heart.
“We have a problem,” I whispered, studying Claire from behind.
“We have two of them,” he snapped. “They’re currently in a cell where they can’t hurt themselv—”
“No, Roland. I’m talking about Claire,” I urged in a louder whisper, trying to get him to listen. I saw Claire stiffen, and then slowly turn to look at me, face pale as she met my eyes. My voice was shaking with both fear and fury as I continued. “I… think she was turned.”
Claire’s shoulders sagged ever so slowly, as if I had just confirmed her biggest fear.
Roland muttered a prayer, and then asked where I was. I told him. “Hurry. Because I’ve got somewhere to go,” I said in a low growl, my throat dry. My hands were actually shaking.
“Where are you going?” he asked anxiously.
“I think it’s time for Goldilocks to go meet the neighbors…” I said. Because the mark I had seen on her arm was exactly where she had been hurt that night a few weeks ago, when she had been jumped outside her house. Or so she had said.
And I suddenly remembered that the bears had promised to make me pay. They weren’t going to be happy about my response. I was panting as I imagined it, and Roland knew me very well.
“I’ll be right there,” he said urgently, and then hung up.
Chapter 5
I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself. Then I moved. Claire was silent as I carefully walked back up to the table. She stared down at the unfinished sandwich, avoiding my eyes. “I wasn’t sure…” she said in a very soft tone. “Can you tell what kind?”
My anger surged at seeing my best friend in pain. Not physical pain, but soul-deep pain. A look of guilt, as if she had done something wrong. I placed a palm on her shoulder – very gently, so as not to startle her. “Oh, Claire,” I said sadly. “It’s okay. You didn’t need to hide anything from me. You big idiot,” I added to ease the tension. “And I’m guessing it was a bear.”
Feathers and Fire Series Box Set 1 Page 28
