Blind Warrior (The Weavers Circle 3)

“Until then, you’re going to use that vision rehabilitation therapist, right? The VRT the doc recommended?”

“You guys really think it’s a good idea to have some stranger wandering around the place with all we have going on?” Grey shifted in his seat, unable to imagine how they’d come off normal—not with the spells and the three goddesses showing up at odd times.

“We’ll be good,” Baer replied, his voice tinged with humor. “We did manage to hide it from Dane for a little while, and he was living there.”

Grey snorted, feeling sure Dane had caught on that shit wasn’t right far sooner than they’d come clean. The broken coffee table and ostrich feathers in the living room had to be dead giveaways.

But his amusement was short-lived. The doctor had recommended someone who could come out and teach him how to beat the day-to-day challenges of being blind. Apparently, there were all kinds of tricks—ones he didn’t know. Part of him wanted to learn, but the other part just wanted to try another spell and get it taken care of. He knew in his heart, this was temporary. It had to be temporary. Because if it wasn’t temporary, then what was he…

He couldn’t let his mind wander down that dark path. The few times it had tried, he’d been left curled up and shaking as he gasped for air. He would get his sight back. He knew it.

But he’d developed a new appreciation for people who lived with this.

“Take the next right,” Baer told Lucien. “We need to make a booze run.”

When the Jeep came to a stop, he thought about staying in the vehicle. The front doors opened, but they didn’t close. Grey sighed. The guys were waiting for him. With minimal fumbling for the handle, he opened his door.

“I’m driving us home,” Baer growled. “You drive like my grandpa, and it’s my damn Jeep.”

Lucien laughed.

Grey reluctantly got out of the vehicle and felt his way to the warm hood. “Gotta be a lot of glass bottles in there for me to knock over,” he warned as Lucien placed a hand on his biceps.

“We’ll steer you in the right direction.” Lucien pressed on his arm as they started walking. “You need the exercise.”

“Makes more sense for me to wait in the—” he broke off when a horrid smell hit his nose. It was like rotting meat left out on a hot summer day. “Shit, pestilents,” he hissed. Fear gripped his heart, his lungs freezing in his chest. How the hell was he supposed to protect himself?

Pestilents were these…humanoid creatures…from another realm who were trying to kill him and his brother Weavers. Their world was dying, and they wanted to leech energy off this one to save their own. Grey and the other Weavers had been tasked to stop them, using magic they’d gained from three goddesses. Insane. All of it sounded absolutely insane, but it was now his life.

One positive was that they were easy to spot, thanks to their awful stink. They rotted slowly in this world because they didn’t belong.

“I just smelled them, too,” Lucien grumbled under his breath.

“Can you see them?” Grey asked.

“They have to be in the store. Do pestilents drink alcohol?” Baer’s voice was moving away from Grey, possibly toward the Jeep.

“How the hell would we know?” Lucien led Grey back, too. Doors opened around him and he reached out with his left hand, coming into contact with the familiar durable fabric covering the rear bench seat in Baer’s Jeep.

“That’s it? We’re going to run?” Grey slid inside the vehicle, inwardly fuming. They were running to protect him.

“You expect us to just attack them in broad daylight in a wine shop?” Baer’s voice came from the driver’s side this time. “I can’t believe they’re rallying forces this fast. We had a three-month break last time.”

“There is obviously more than one set out there, or they wouldn’t have been chasing us all over the United States.” Grey grabbed the front seats and pulled himself forward to lean between them as Lucien got into the passenger side. “I don’t think we should just leave them.”

Lucien cleared his throat. “I see only one at the counter now.”

“Doesn’t mean there aren’t more in the back,” Baer countered.

“Why don’t you go in there and lure him out?” Lucien suggested. “See that field behind those trees? We could fight it there.”

Grey saw nothing, but he didn’t bother to point that out. All he knew was, he felt wrong running and leaving any pestilents free to attack them later. Or even an innocent human who just happened to get in their way. If there were only a few, Baer and Lucien would be able to easily take care of them on their own. “I think that’s a good idea. But you should both go inside, just in case there are more than one.”