“It’s a good thing Lucas got the footage,” Kristy says, leaning away from the computer. “Our faces are pretty clear.”
“Right.” Nicole nods. “If that body is found, it’ll be investigated by the police. Should you have Lucas, uh, bury this one for you too?”
“Probably,” I say ruefully. “He didn’t seem that old, though, and probably has friends and family looking for him.”
“I’m sure he does,” Kristy agrees. “But he’s at peace now at least.” She forces a smile and goes around the island to get more coffee. “I hate saying this, but we should watch the rest of that footage, at least the alley view and see if anything weird pops up from earlier in the week.”
“Sounds fun.” I’m about to close the computer and go back to watching literally nothing later when I stop. Something flashes across the screen again. It’s the same type of flash as before, and I know it’s him.
I hit pause and slowly drag the frame back millisecond by millisecond. There’s a human outline again, but this time, there’s something behind him. The image is fuzzy at best, and I squint my eyes, leaning closer to the screen.
Maybe I’m seeing things, but I swear it looks like the outline of wings.
Chapter 16
“Evander says he’s never heard of hellhounds being able to merge together or turn into rats.” Kristy puts her phone in her purse. I take my eyes off the road for a second to look at her. “It sounds so crazy when I say it out loud like that.”
We’re on our way to the bar but have no intention of going in. The hellhound is dead, we’re all pretty sure, but I need to double-check. I did wear sensible shoes, though, just in case. The combat boots actually look kinda cute with this romper too, or at least I think so. I’ve loaded up everything we could use as a weapon, and we’re all carrying vanquishing potions.
See? I’m prepared this time.
“Did he say anything else?” Naomi asks.
“He seemed rather perplexed by the whole thing.”
“Aren’t we all?” I mumble.
“He said hellhounds are physical beings, brought forth from hell. They can’t shapeshift like that.”
“Do you think they were really hellhounds?”
Kristy holds up her phone. “He sent me this photo from a book in the library. It’s what they look like. And Lucas has seen them before.” She bites her lip and looks out the window. “But with the way they went from rats to hellhounds…I’m going to guess no and they were just taking on the form of something terrifying. What’s more terrifying than a hellhound? I’m getting a bad feeling about this. Like a really bad feeling.”
“Me too, even though it seems like it’s over,” Nicole says quietly. “Like whatever this is, is much bigger than we expected. It’s not a demon you can rip apart and then it’s gone. I feel…I feel like it has roots.”
“Roots?” Naomi questions.
“Yes, roots. I can’t explain it.” Nicole runs her hands over Pandora’s head. “She gets it, though.”
If that thing does have roots, I’ll rip them from the ground.
We pull up to the bar and park along the street. Bright sunlight streams down on us as we get out of the car, and my familiars shadow forward. There are a few little stores along the street and people walk up and down the sidewalk, totally unaware of everything that went on last night.
“Hey.” I stop a guy walking past. “Do you know if the stores in that old building are open?” I point to the building next to the bar.
“What old—oh.” He looks across the street. “Huh. For some reason I thought it was torn down. And no…it’s been closed for years.”
“Thanks.” I lock Lucas’s Range Rover and put the key fob back in my purse. The feather is in there, and I run my finger over it before pulling it out. Keeping it down at my side, I’m soothed by the feel of it in my hand.
“So, the glamour is gone.” Naomi crosses her arms. “Maybe it was broken when you killed that thing.”
Nicole puts on her sunglasses and goes to the crosswalk. “But do you feel that?” She holds out her hands.
“The energy is all wrong.” Kristy shudders and we wait for the light to change before crossing. The bar is closed, of course, and we walk down the sidewalk in front of it. I slow when I come to the spot where the man with the bright blue eyes stood. I know I had my fair share to drink last night, but I was sobering up by the time I saw him. So why are my memories getting hazy?
“There’s the camera.” Nicole looks at it but doesn’t point. Naomi takes her hand and together they use magic to cloud the lens, preventing it from recording us walking through the alley.
Freya, in cat-form, trots back to us. There’s nothing in the building except for a bunch of dead rats and a headless body, just like we thought.
“You know it’s only a matter of time before someone goes in there, right?” Kristy covers her nose with her hand. It smells like garbage in the alley. “Now that the glamour is worn off.”
“I know.” I move over to the air vent and telekinetically yank it from the building. Stale air rushes out, smelling like piles of dead rats.
“You are not going in there.” Kristy crosses her arms. “There’s no need and it’s probably full of asbestos or something.”
“I’m not.” I crouch down, heart speeding up as I look inside. Closing my eyes, I hold out my hands and read the energy. It’s not like it was last night. Not at all. There are no vibrations from strong glamours. It doesn’t even feel haunted. It has a scar, like Nicole pointed out earlier, which happens when something dark and evil has tainted the aura of a specific place.
“Have Binx do one more sweep,” Kristy says, tipping her head as she looks at the air vent. “Just to be sure the place is really demon-free. If there’s nothing demonic, we should probably put in an anonymous call to the police so they can recover the body before it rots beyond recognition.”
“Good idea,” I tell her. “At least his family won’t be wondering and waiting for him to come home.”
“And if we can get an ID on the body, we might be able to figure out how he got mixed up in all of this in the first place.”
My lips pull up in a half-smile. “What happened to not getting involved?”
Kristy loops her arm through mine. “If this thing does have roots, we need to stop it. Because roots spread.”
Binx rubs against my legs and then shifts into shadow-form. Pandora joins in and they go in through the open air vent. We all stand around, watching and waiting. If there is anything in there, my familiars should be able to shadow away before falling to any harm, but I still feel a knot in my stomach as I wait. Freya is able to sense them both, though, and knows neither Binx nor Pandora are feeling any fear right now.
Only a few minutes later, they both return, letting me know that there are no traces of demons in the building.
“How do you anonymously call the police?” Nicole asks as we head back to the car.
“I’ll have Lucas handle it.” I open the driver’s side door and take my purse off my shoulder, slipping the feather back inside. “He’ll know what to do.”
“Because he’s dealt with a lot of dead bodies.” Naomi slides into the seat behind me and Pandora jumps up and moves into the middle spot.
“He is a vampire.” I pull my seatbelt on.
“He doesn’t regularly kill people anymore, though,” Kristy says encouragingly. “Right?”
“Not regularly.” I’m getting uncomfortable with this conversation. My friends already think Lucas is going to cross a line and I won’t be able to handle it. What scares me more than him doing something he can’t take back is me being fine with it.
“I think it’s sweet how much he looks out for you.” Nicole throws me a bone and changes the tone of the conversation. “I can tell he really loves you.”
“He does,” I agree with a big grin on my face.
“You’re moving in together.” Naomi catches my eye in the rearview mirror. “Have you talked we
dding plans?”
I shake my head and crank up the air conditioning. The SUV got hot and stuffy just from the few minutes it sat parked along the street.
“That hasn’t come up once.”
“If he proposed, what would you say?”
“Yes,” I reply with no hesitation. “I’d marry him tonight if he asked me to. But Indiana doesn’t recognize human-vampire marriages. Illinois doesn’t either.”
“Michigan does, and we live right along the state line. A nighttime beach wedding would be gorgeous.”
“It would!” Nicole agrees with her sister. “Just think of the candles in the sand and the sound of waves crashing against the shore as you say your vows.”
My smile comes back. “Yeah, that would be really nice.”