“I have something to do before I hitch a ride on Charity’s journey.” I finished the second glass of whiskey, thought about a third, and then pushed the bottle away. “I need to answer a summons.”
“Ah. Yes, I heard about that. You will answer a summons, all right, though probably not in the way you intended.”
“Ugh!” I held up my hand. “Don’t say any more. I don’t want to know. I’m not real keen on your line of work.”
“I know. That’s what makes you so fun.”
“A real hoot, yeah.” I put my hands on the table and pushed up to standing. Maybe it would be smart to poke her for details, but if I knew answering the summons, or attempting to, would end with me getting kidnapped by a bunch of demons, I didn’t think I’d have the courage to keep trucking. I wasn’t interested in the future—I’d deal with it when it became the present. “Tell the natural dual-mages, if they come over, that I am not to be woken up or it will result in some sort of catastrophe.”
“Will do.”
“See you later.”
“Okay.”
A good host would’ve asked her to stay and shown her to an empty room, but that would require an equally good and respectful guest. It was clear this woman beat a drum to her own tune, often interrupting a currently in-progress jam session to do so. She’d figure things out.
I let myself into the master bedroom, which was in the same position it had been, only now on the second floor. The furniture hadn’t changed much either, although the space was larger and there was more of it. I breathed a sigh and headed to the shower. That finished, I slipped into something slinky and slid between the covers. Before I closed my eyes, I hesitated, and then reached for the throw-away phone I’d put on the nightstand. A phone Vlad didn’t know about and couldn’t trace.
He answered on the first ring.
“Reagan.” I smiled at the sound of Darius’s deep voice.
“Hey. I called to say sweet dreams.”
His silence matched the frustration rolling through our bond. He was pissed that I’d left without him. That I was spending the following day on my own. That I had been able to so easily slip out, unnoticed (I was so glad that druid was on my side).
For all that, I heard his deep breath as he pushed it aside. “I will miss you today, mon ange. Sweet dreams and stay safe. I will see you come the evening.”
“Love you.”
“I love you. Stay safe.”
“Yes. I heard you. I’m inside one of the best wards in the world. I’m good.”
“Yes. Stay there.”
I rolled my eyes and snuggled in a little more. “I’m going to get back at you for what you did to my house.”
“We are even on that score.”
“How do you figure?”
“That very expensive desert island you bought with my money, without telling me, has very few benefits.”
I grinned. “Touché. Well, if anyone can figure out a way to make it profitable, or useable, it is you.”
“Your confidence in me is inspiring,” he said dryly.
I laughed and signed off with him. Before sleep pulled me under, I wondered how long it would take for demons to start invading my town again. I hoped not long. I felt like kicking a little ass.
Seven
“Hey, Red.” I dug my thumb into the soft spot at the edge of his jaw and just under his ear. The hard clang of a metal band spilled out of the doorway to my back, and people ambled by in the failing evening light with smiles and staggers, holding clear plastic cups with straws and lids, taking in the musical scene. Late summer in the French Quarter, my kinda jam. “Miss me?”
I’d gone against Darius’s wishes and left the ward without him, but at least I had waited until he was nearly able to travel outside. I called that quite responsible.
Red, a dog shifter who acted as an informant for Roger’s pack, let out a high-pitched squeal before clamping his mouth shut to save a little face.
I marshaled him up to standing and against the wall for no other reason than I was pretty sure he expected it.
“Re-Reagan,” he stammered, his lithe frame shaking. “I didn’t know you were back.”
“And now you do.” I let him go. “Fancy a drink?”
“You know I don’t drink.”
“True. Let me revise. Fancy watching me have a drink?”
“Not really,” he said miserably, hunching as I grabbed his upper arm and pulled him down the sidewalk.
“What’s new? What’s the scuttlebutt around here?”
I stopped in front of the doorway to the shifter bar, smooth jazz flowing out of it, the opening blocked by a large guy with a unibrow and an entrancing mystery he just would not help me solve.
“Hey, Jimmy,” I said, glancing at his package. “Knock up any mermaids lately? Or even just bumped uglies with them?” He went out into the gulf every year for a “knock ’em up” situation, along with all the other merfolk in the area, and it drove me mad wondering how they procreated with big fins getting in the way. They were annoyingly mute on the subject.