Hunter counted off on his fingers. “Suits, guns, tats, and haircuts. Either they’re organized crime or extras from a Scorsese movie.”
I grinned. “Damn, but life does get interesting with you.” Hunter paid at the window, handing me the sacks of greasy heaven. We drove toward my apartment.
“How’s everyone settling in?” Hunter asked when the call to Abraham connected.
My former boss’s voice rumbled through the car speakers.
“The wolves are grumbling, but we’re unpacking cots and sleeping bags.” The background noise told us he was at the warehouse space. “They’re settling in. It’s not an entire pack, only about eight here. Thanks again for letting they guys stay in your place. They’re kind of unique and hard to place, you know?”
Hunter’s eyebrows rose as he met my gaze. He mouthed the wordlaterbefore telling Abraham what we’d discovered at the hotel.
“Necromancer? Seriously? You two can’t help it, can you? Trouble follows you wherever you go.”
“We were just— What trouble? It does not,” Hunter protested.
“You go back to an unsafe building and find ghosts and a necromancer. And organized crime? What the hell, guys?”
I grinned, remembering we’d gotten into a fair bit of trouble before when we worked together. All harmless fun, really.
“Have you experience with such beings? Necromancers, I mean?” I asked, sneaking a fry out of the bag.
“I’ve been around a while. Have only seen something like that once, a long time ago, and even now I’m not sure I could call him a necromancer. I’ll text Cobb. He can look into things. You got a description of the guys that shot at you?”
Damien Cobb was a detective with the Philly police. He was also well versed in the world of creatures and the arcane.
I answered, “White men, over six feet. The pudgy one had a blue-and-green snake tattoo on his neck. The other one was taller by a couple of inches and had a blighted eye. Left, I think.”
Hunter looked at me. “You remember all that? All I saw was the gun.”
I shrugged. “When you went out the window, I hid behind the door. I got a pretty good look at tattoo guy then. The other one when we clashed in the hall.”
“Wait. You fought them?” Hunter’s voice rose.
“I knew you would head for the balcony. In the hallway, the man with the bad eye caught up with me. He seemed unwilling to shoot. I guess he thought waving the gun around would work for him. It didn’t. I disarmed him, pushed him into the opposite room, and blocked the door. And oh, Abraham, the necromancer had a well-crafted Roman sword. Original era I think.”
Abraham whistled. “Really? I’d like to see that. Wait, Cobb’s texting me. He says he’ll check out the police blotter and get back to us. In the meantime, we will bring your necromancer and the clerk here, or not here, but somewhere safer.”
Hunter sipped his drink. “Master Anu won’t leave. Something about being close to his tablet. And Nigel can’t leave.”
“Why not?”
“Nigel is the night clerk.” I managed a fair imitation of the ghostly clerk. At Hunter’s chuckle, I beamed. “As well as the day clerk. He’s a ghost. And tethered somehow to the hotel and the necromancer.”
“God, I hate ghosts. They’re so wifty,” Abraham said.
“I think that’s because you can’t rip into them,” Hunter snarked. “You don’t trust anything you can’t kill with your bare hands.”
“I trustyou.”
Hunter chuckled. “Anything else you can tell us?”
“Necromancers are like fae. All shapes and sizes. Originally, they were spiritualists, mediums, communing with the dead, often tapped to offer a loved one a final goodbye. I think your Master Anu is one of those.”
“He’s been a resident of the hotel at least for as long as Nigel, which is a hundred years.”
“So, no zombie apocalypse. There’s never been a problem at the hotel, right? I mean, not of the walking dead kind?” Hunter asked.
“Not that I know of,” Abraham replied. “The hotel’s had a few wolf skirmishes, a pile of gremlins that got out of control. Oh, and Cobb met that fae there, with the henchman who could bend light. But no zombies that we know of. Did they mention an object? A disk or medal? That’s what I was sent to protect.”
