AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Cripes. “I’ll try to be more sensitive. I noticed the look on Roz’s face when he smelled that scarf.”
“Good.” Menolly gave me a little push. “Let’s go find Chase.”
As I stepped into the kitchen, all conversation stopped. Camille dropped the cookie she was eating and it splashed into her teacup. Iris stopped whatever she was saying midsentence. Smoky coughed and quickly tried to cover a smile, while both Morio and Zach looked horrified. A slow grin spread across Rozurial’s face, and Vanzir just shook his head.
The only one to speak was Maggie, from her playpen, where she called out, delighted, “De-ya-ya!!!”
I scooped her up and nuzzled her, then handed her to a still-silent Iris. “Well, don’t all speak at once. Do I look ready for the Fangtabula?”
Camille sputtered. “Where the hell did you find that getup? You certainly didn’t nab it from my closet.”
“I certainly hope not,” Smoky said.
“Bite me.” I rolled my eyes at the dragon. “I never thought anybody would ever see this. I should have thrown it away.”
“It’s perfect,” Menolly said. “And now, we’d better get moving. The club should start hopping in about ninety minutes, and I want to be there before it gets too crowded. Hopefully, we’ll pick up some information.”
As Zach and Roz grabbed their jackets, I glanced back at the others. “I have my cell phone. Menolly has hers. You guys do what you can here. We’ve got to find Chase, before Karvanak . . .”
The thought of what he’d done to Vanzir, what humiliation he’d put the dream chaser through, kept running through my mind. Chase couldn’t survive that treatment. He wasn’t a demon. And given what had already gone down, if he did survive, would he manage to recover?
“Let’s move,” I said. “We don’t have any time to waste.”
CHAPTER 24
The Fangtabula was down in the Industrial District of south Seattle, not too far from where we’d fought the venidemons. It occurred to me that if the demons did have a foothold with some of the local vamps, then trouble was brewing big-time. And if the demons were taking over houses and setting up nests of their grotesque blowflies, what else were they doing, and where else had they infiltrated?
The fact that there was a portal to the Netherworld in the venidemon house worried me. Had the demons also forged contracts with creatures from the spirit realm? Were they attempting to gather armies on all sides? I mentioned my fears to the others.
“You might be on to something. The demons usually give the Netherworld a wide berth, but with all that’s going on, old grudges and alliances aren’t necessarily holding true. And if Vanzir is right, and Shadow Wing has gone over the edge, then we better be prepared for anything. But why would anybody in the Netherworld want to help him? What could they gain?” Menolly frowned as she maneuvered the streets in Camille’s Lexus. Her Jag would be a tight squeeze, and my Jeep didn’t fit her style. She’d changed into full leathers and was looking quite the mistress indeed.
“There are creatures in the Netherworld that hate the living,” Roz said. “If they’ve taken corporeal form at any time, some of them resent having to give it up and fade back into the shadowed worlds. The demons might have promised them easier access to the physical world if they help.”
“I don’t know about any of that,” Zach said, frowning, “but we’ve had some odd goings-on out at the compound. There’s an unsettled air on the outskirts of our land, and we’ve doubled guard duty at night. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the werespiders were back.”
Shivering, I stared out the window. The werespiders had been a field day, all right. Kyoka and Karvanak might be evenly matched, now that I thought about it. Except Kyoka had been nursing a grudge against the werepumas, where Karvanak had his sights aimed directly on us.
“I doubt it. At least, I hope not,” I mumbled. “We’ve got enough to worry about, but Kyoka isn’t one of them. Maybe some werespider has taken his place, but I destroyed Kyoka and consigned his soul to oblivion.” Flashing back to that night, I shivered. Hi’ran—the Autumn Lord—had given me direct orders, and I’d carried them out. I’d obliterated Kyoka and sent his soul spiraling back into the vast expanse that makes up the energy pool feeding the universe. Whatever essence he’d had was long gone, destroyed in the white fires of creation. There was no way he could still be in existence, but that didn’t mean that the Hunters Moon Clan hadn’t decided to re-form and cause havoc again.
As we sped through the rain-soaked streets, I opened the window a crack to get some fresh air. Spring in the northwest was cool, but the damp chill refreshed me, and I sucked in a deep breath, holding it tight in my lungs then letting it spiral out again. I might not like getting wet, but that didn’t mean I lacked appreciation for the blessings the rains brought with them.>She gave me a smile. “Brace yourself, but yes. If you’re going in as my pet, you have to dress the part, and trust me, blood whores wear shit like this.” The look on her face told me there was no wiggle room. “Change.”
“I do not want to wear this.” On my way to a whine fest, I pulled my best sad-kitty-eyes act, but even that didn’t sway her.
“Tough. What about boots? Do you have any high-heeled black boots? Stilettos, not mud thumpers.” Menolly looked ready to paw through my closet, so I motioned her aside and pulled a box down from the upper shelf and shoved it into her hands.
“Camille talked me into buying these. They’re cute, but they’ll put me at six five. You sure you want a pet that tall? You’re barely five one, you know.”
“So what? You’re tall, and I’m a vampire. Yes, these are good,” she said, examining them. “These are really pretty. We want you to stand out, Kitten, and we want you to fit a certain mold. The Fangtabula caters to vampires who keep pets and blood whores. If I go in there with you dressed in jeans and a wife-beater, people are going to question us right from the start, because they cater to clientele who look a little . . . sleazy. I just hope nobody recognizes me. My work with Wade could put me at a disadvantage.”
“I don’t wear wife-beaters,” I said, sliding out of my clothes. “I wear muscle shirts, okay? Tank tops.”
“Whatever the hell you want to call them.” She motioned to my panties and bra. “Those, too. You don’t have Camille’s boobs, so you can do without a bra. And you don’t want a visible panty line. Doesn’t matter if they’re tight and anything else shows. Just nothing that even hints of normalcy.”
“Trust me, I won’t have even a nodding acquaintance with normal when you get done with me.”
I worked my way into the skintight pants, holding my breath as they stretched over my hips and hugged my crotch. The material was scratchy and made me itch, and one look in the mirror told me that people were getting a free peep show under the flesh-hugging spandex. You could see my lips, and they weren’t the ones I used liner and gloss on.
I tried to tug the crotch down a little, but the material was molded to my body. Finally, I gave up, slipped the halter top over my head, and tied it around my neck. The halter ended about six inches above my belly button, draping my midsection with long, tasseled fringe that tickled. Actually, it made me want to turn into my tabby form and have a field day batting at it, but I squelched that thought.
