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Nova smiles back. “He’s adorable, isn’t he?”
“Dog?” I mutter. But she shakes her head at me.
“I’ll explain in a minute.”
We move quickly, passing through room after room until we arrive at the occult exhibit. From here, we take a set of stairs and arrive at a large oak door, which Nova taps once with her knuckles before pushing open.
Inside, my eyes adjust to the darkness.
A cloying sense of trepidation settles on my skin like tension building before a storm. At the desk in front of us, a pale dark-haired man in a tailored suit is speaking into a phone. Not in a language I recognize.
He looks up, smiles at Nova in a way that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, then barks what sounds like a goodbye at whoever he’s speaking to and hangs up.
It’s only then that I notice Nova crossing the room and tucking herself into the arms of a silver-haired dude who – quite frankly – looks old enough to be my dad. At his feet, a large white dog is giving me the world’s grumpiest stare.
Weird looking dog.
I squint at it and tilt my head.
It looks more like a…
“Polar bear.” Nova catches me staring. “He’s a polar bear. Just travel sized.”
“Who is this?” The suave guy behind the desk stands up and moves, lightning fast, to stand in front of me.
Immediately, catching a flash of the ring he’s wearing, everything drops into place. “Lucien Thornfield.” I look him up and down, and fold my arms in front of my chest. “I thought you were an urban legend.”
“My name is on the museum website,” Thornfield quips, cool as ice. “Clearly, you didn’t investigate very hard.”
“Let me rephrase.” I square up to him. I might be shorter and more human, but I’m not scared of him. Fangs or no fangs. “I thought your role in this city’s shady dealings was exaggerated. Seems like I was wrong.”
“I don’t know what you mean, boy.” Thornfield narrows his eyes.
I point to the ring. “Only the head of the family that runs the city’s supernatural activity can wear that ring. I’ve read tales of—”
“Once again,” Thornfield snaps, turning away from me and cutting me off mid-sentence. “I’ll ask you all nicely… who is this mundane and why is he standing in my office?”
“He said he’s good at tracking things. People. Demons.” Nova steps in, leaving papa bear frowning. “I found him last night in an alleyway about to get eaten by a demon. But he does seem to have a lot of knowledge. He said he could help us find Queen Zephyra.”
“Zephyra isn’t easy to find, and I’m not sure why we…” Thornfield’s face drops when Tanner, the floppy-haired one, interrupts him.
“We located Miranda,” he says. While I listen intently, trying to put the pieces together, wondering who the fuck Miranda is and how she has got caught up with Cambridge’s queen vamp, he continues, “I jumped, but she must be one hell of a powerful witch because she sensed me there. That’s never happened before.”
“Yes,” Thornfield replies. “She is powerful.”
“She told me she’s being kept somewhere a train passes every fifty minutes. She thinks it’s on the line between Cambridge and London, and that there’s a dog nearby that barks a lot.”
“That’s all you gleaned?” Thornfield’s cool demeanor slips and a look of pure anger flits across his face.
“That and the fact it was Zephyra who took her.”
Thornfield turns around and braces his hands on the desk. He reaches for a glass of what looks like either port or whiskey and sighs heavily.
“And you?” he turns to me and jerks his finger up and down. “What do you offer? And why? How did you get caught up in this?”
“I was tracking a Lethurian demon last night and ran into Nova. She kindly extracted me from his claws and…” I pause, glancing at her and almost getting lost in those hypnotic eyes. “She despatched him for me.”
“It was a team effort,” she says, which isn’t true. But I appreciate the show of solidarity.
