Viktor cursed under his breath in Russian and continued talking in his native tongue. Gem wasn’t around to translate, but we could sometimes guess what he was saying based on the tone of his voice.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Blue assured him. “Your wolf got out when the hotel worker busted in. You’re still groggy. Let’s talk about it upstairs.”
Everyone exited the vehicle except for Shepherd, who took off to find parking.
A prostitute slinked up to Christian and gave him her best line. Ignoring her, he held open the door for us.
“Let’s take the stairs,” Blue suggested. “Better to get the blood moving.”
Christian fell back a step and gave me a quizzical stare as Blue and Viktor went up.
I gripped my dress and lifted it when we reached the stairs. “There’s a dead guy in the elevator.”
“And there’s none in the stairwell?” he asked.
“Just one or two, but at least they have faces. Well, one guy is missing his jaw, but he mostly just lies there.”
On the third-floor landing, a scrawny drunk man in an oversized grey coat stood up, back pressed to the wall. Patchy white whiskers covered his face, and his ears were disproportionately large. He pointed at Viktor and Blue. “You don’t belong here! You don’t belong here!” Then his eyes darted to Christian before settling on me. “I see you. Iseeyou! You don’t belong here.”
“Feck off,” Christian spat out.
The man narrowed his eyes. “I know what you are too, demon. Incubus. Parasite. Buttheydon’t belong here!”
Christian threatened the man with a lethal glare, and I gripped his wrist. “Leave him. He’s an old man.”
After a pregnant pause, Christian leaned close as if to strike him but turned away instead.
“I see you!” the drunk shouted as we hiked up the stairs. “The devil’s going to find you. He always, always, always knows how to find the ones who escaped. Little minions, little minions, where you gonna go? Hell! That’s where. Hell is coming for the monsters!”
I got chills. I didn’t sense the man was Breed. Did he know us?
When we finally reached our floor, Viktor went straight to his room. “Give me a minute,” he said.
“We’ll be in the next room.” Blue waited until he closed the door before turning away. “He was out a long time. It’s disorienting when our animal takes over for more than a day.”
We entered the room next door where everyone was waiting.
“Do you think he’ll sleep?” I asked.
She closed the door behind us. “Knowing Viktor, I doubt it.”
Gem bounced off the bed. “Did you find him? What happened?”
“He’s fine. He’s washing up.” Blue plopped down on the left-hand bed. “Is Claude still watching Lenore?”
“Yes. It’s just been the three of us in here.” Gem did a twirl before jumping onto the dresser and taking a seat. “Spooky and I got impatient and went outside to wait. Niko eventually dragged us inside, insisting it’s safer. But I feel so cooped up, like a bird in a cage. I don’t like being shut up in a room. Not one tiny bit.”
Wyatt was sitting on the floor to the right of the windows, knees drawn up as he made a paper airplane from one of the many restaurant flyers placed in the room. “Did you take the stairs?”
Christian sat in the corner chair. “Aye.”
“Then I guess you saw the old kook with the googly eyes.”
“He was shouting all kinds of nasty things at us,” Gem said, clearly appalled by the man’s remarks. “He called me a dark angel and a succubus. I’m no succubus!”
Wyatt tossed the airplane, and it made a nosedive, landing in a graveyard of paper airplanes. “He’s one of thosesensitives. Scared the ghost out of me. I thought he was a specter at first until I caught a whiff of his breath.”
“He’s just a harmless old man,” Blue said dismissively.
