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“Who-who are you talking to?” the vet asked.
“My poltergeist. And she wants to take your soul.”
A bottle of something flew across the room and crashed against the wall. A very nice effect.
“Go! Now!” Damien roared.
The vet winced, raising his hands. “Going!” He sprinted from the room.
“Damien?” Pet sniffled from the exam table. “I still can’t feel my wings.”
Her tiny wings sagged against her back, the threads of the sutures pulled free.
His shoulders dropped as he looked at the stupid idiot he hadnotgrown fond of. Fondness would be a death sentence. However, he could not leave her like this.
“Your wings fell off,” he said tenderly, not wanting to alarm her. “Let me sew them back on.” He took out his travel sewing kit from his bag and chose the purple thread. “I am sorry the stitches won’t match, but this is the best I can do.” Damien sewed as carefully as he would if making a black silk bowtie. Every stitch a precise and equal distance. Only the smallest of stitches. No bunching. No snags.
After he was done, he wrapped her up with gauze. “Now do not remove the bandages until you are healed. Do you understand, Petra? And no attempting to flex the wings in any way. Rest them. Allow the tissues to reconnect.”
“Thank you, Damien.”
“My pleasure.” He dipped his head.
“Forget about me?” MF appeared in the doorway.
He had not. “Rescuing Pet from this butcher seemed more urgent. Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Apparently, ex-vampires are low value. They were probably going to use me for their next fundraiser.”
“MF, there is something I must tell you. I believe the gods are behind this.”
“Why would you say that?” MF jerked her head back.
He told her about the parts being harvested getting sent to the same office building Cimil used in downtown LA.
“That doesn’t make sense. Cimil said if I helped you out, I’d get to be a vampire again. She’s on our side.”
“But how else can we explain the address? Another coincidence?” Damien’s mind returned to the last conversation with Cimil. He recalled thinking something was off. She hadn’t been herself, and then she’d told him the gods had switched powers. After that, no one had showed up for their meeting, and the note left behind had mentioned the gods retiring.
Something wasn’t right about this entire situation, and he knew it.
“It is time to return to LA. After we shut down this festival,” he said.
“What about them?” MF’s eyes drifted to a small cage in the corner. Damien hadn’t even noticed them. Goblins with no eyes, were-rabbits with no ears, and three fairies without wings.
Damien wanted to open his heart to them. But he could not. Instead, he focused on duty. “They will come with us. We will make sure they find their way home.”
What more could he do?
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Some questions were better left unanswered. After almost two hundred years, Damien knew this to be true.
However, as much as he wanted to ignore certain facts, the coincidences were piling up. And, as he’d said many times before, when multiple random events happened to people, they weren’t so random. He had the distinct impression that he was a rat in a maze, being forced to chase the cheese.
He and his “crew” arrived late to his home in LA, including his bag of injured immortals, which MF took to her place for nursing. His Chihuahuas had joined the glum, silent flight back, feeling insecure about staying in Miami alone. An immortal body-part-harvesting ring was disturbing. No one had said much of anything during the trip, including Pet, who’d demanded aspirin instead of peanuts.
If he had a heart to give, it would go out to these creatures. How could anyone hurt such helpless things, let alone the gods who were supposed to protect them?
