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Camille whipped around, glaring, but when she saw the grin on his face, she swatted him. “You’re lucky you’re my sister’s fiancé, or I’d—”
“You’d what? I don’t think you have room in your harem for another dragon.” Again, the laugh, and a long wink. Shade had it going on, but he was totally devoted to Delilah and we knew it.
Camille shook her head, a disgruntled look on her face, but then she laughed. “Twit.”
“Don’t be so sure about that.” I skipped ahead, dancing over the cracks in the sidewalk. “Camille’s got a heart that keeps growing with every addition. But you’re probably right. Smoky would put his foot down at another dragon, and I don’t think it would be a pretty sight.”
The easy banter felt a welcome respite after all the shit that had gone down, and by the time we reached the club, we were in a better frame of mind. Camille glanced at the few FBHs who were hanging outside and said nothing, but she gave me a look that read something was definitely wrong.
We entered the club and an instant wave of technopop hit us, loud and pounding the walls. But nobody was really doing much of anything. The people on the dance floor were lethargic, moving back and forth in a slow shuffle. Nerissa and I loved to go clubbing, but the feel of this club was one of quiet desperation.
The décor was olive green, purple, and silver. It wasn’t the most coordinated set of colors, and the large room was scattered with tables and booths that took up valuable space. Whoever had laid it out sure didn’t have an eye for interior decorating or for proper utilization of a floor plan. If I took control of this club, it would seat twice as many and have a bigger dance floor. All it required was some organization.
Camille leaned close. “The energy is fucked up here. Really fucked up.”
“How so?”
“This is supposed to be a club for those who use magic? I’m not feeling so much magic…and what there is, feels tainted. Not as if they dabble in dark spells like sorcery…just…off.”
We threaded through the crowd, heading toward the bar. Even at the tables and booths, people didn’t appear to be having fun. They sat, drinks in hand, just staring around laconically.
“She’s right. This is fucking creepy,” Shade mumbled, glaring at a couple who were hanging off each other. “I feel like I’m in a zombie bar rather than one that should be alive with magic.” He glanced around. “Even the few Fae I see seem…lackluster.”
Camille slipped up to the bar, and we joined her. She climbed onto one of the stools and motioned to the bartender. He was lean and tall, and he set me on alert.
“What’ll it be?” He slapped the bar towel over his shoulder and gave us a gaunt, hungry look.
“Coke, please.” She tossed a ten-dollar bill on the counter. “Shade, what do you want?”
“Coffee, if you have it.” He slid onto the stool next to her and I took the other side, waving off the bartender when he turned to me. As he moved away to get the drinks, Shade glanced around again, then leaned close. “Bhouts…I can sense them. They’re thick in here.”
The barkeep came back with their drinks, and Camille waved away the change. “Keep it. Listen, this is my first time in. You usually have such a low-key clientele?” She turned on the glamour and the barkeep’s eyes lit up.
He tilted his head, leaning across the counter. “Nah, not until lately. Usually it’s jumping in here but the past week or so, things have been pretty quiet. Maybe everybody’s studying for their second-degree tests or something.” He stared at her, then over at me. “You’re from Otherworld, aren’t you? What are your names?”>Delilah let out a sigh. “They didn’t like me because I was squeamish about roughing anybody up. I guess I’ve gotten over that little problem.”
I laughed. “That you have, Kitten. That you have. And they wanted to get me off their hands. Having a vampire in the YIA was an embarrassment, but they couldn’t just fire me, because it was their fault in the first place that Dredge caught me. Sending me into that nest with no backup—that would have been a nasty scandal, and I could have made things very messy for them.”
“Sorry to interrupt, but we’re here.” Morio edged into the parking lot. “Be careful. We have no way of knowing what the fuck is lurking around. I don’t even know what happened to the portal.”
Camille opened her door and stepped out into the chill night air. “Aeval told me that she can’t seal it permanently. The damn thing is growing stronger.”
“Delightful.” I glanced around the parking lot.
There was a black sedan parked nearby—presumably belonging to Roman’s guard. No other cars in sight. The paths were no longer covered with snow, but the rain had started up again, a light drizzle that was more annoying than anything else. The trees were stark against the sky, black silhouettes rising up, towering fir and cedars overlooking the deciduous trees whose leaves were mere buds on the branches at this point.
I motioned to one of the paths. I could sense the vampire nearby. As we headed in that direction, I called out, “Stan-ders? It’s Menolly—”
I’d no more than said my name when he slipped out from behind a bush. He was average height, had been an FBH, but was now dressed in Roman’s requisite uniform—black turtleneck and jeans. He wore the crest from Roman’s house on his shirt pocket.
“Miss Menolly, thank you for arriving so promptly. The Master said you were on the way.” He paused, looking at all of us. “Follow me, please. I’ve made sure nothing touched the body since I found it.” And with that, he led us back along the path to where two firs stood side by side. We weren’t far from the portal, and I noticed both Camille and Chase nervously glancing down the path.
“Back here, behind these bushes.” Standers led us through the trees, onto the grass. It was spongy from the rain, and the scent of moss floated up, mixed with mildew and mushrooms and the sour tang of the earth. The woodlands were pungent in the Northwest, but they were also crisp. The smell of rain on cedars was one that I willingly forced myself to notice. It had a wake-up feeling to it.
The drip-drip-drip of rain splashing off the needles trickled down our cheeks and hair. I shook away a droplet that threatened to fall into my eyes and veered around the huckleberry bush. There, on the ground, a body splayed out, covered in dried blood and very, very dead. Andrees.
Camille and Delilah caught up with me, and then Morio, Shade, and Chase. Camille bowed her head as Delilah let out a little cry and covered her mouth with her fingers.
“Yeah, it’s Andrees,” I said, after a moment. I knelt beside the body on one side, while Chase knelt on the other. It was obvious by the state of his corpse that Andrees had been murdered. But the single gunshot wound in his head couldn’t have caused the body to be so ravaged, nor did the cuts and marks on him look like an animal.
