"Is thesomething not rightyour thrall-scrambled memory?" I check.
He ignores me, moving forward into the woods to search through the trees for a moment before ending up beside me again with a deep frown.
"This doesn't make sense. Heidi loved her place. Even if it was destroyed during the Upheaval, she would've rebuilt it—and how would the entire road be gone without a trace?" the thrall mutters to himself. Then he squints at me. "Earlier, you healed yourself with some kind of demonic dark magic. Any chance you can use that to figure out what's actually going on here?"
"Would if I could, but my magic's weak as shit," I admit.
Ian's attention slides to my neck before he looks away, rubbing his own throat as his voice gets raspy and dry. "Damn it."
"Need another fix?"
"No, what Ineedis to find Heidi."
He paces angrily for a moment as thunder rumbles in the distance, the evening sky dark with the promise of rain. Ian finally stops, covering his face and taking a deep breath.
"Any chance you can make your pulse shut up? I can't fucking think with it taunting me."
I snort, holding out my arm. "Just slurpy-slurp already."
"Don't call it that."
"Fine, it's chompy chomp time."
"No,"he snaps.
"Why not?"
"Because I'm so fuckingsickof feeding. I fed earlier," Ian mutters, tearing at his hair as he glares at the trees around us.
"Yeah, on me, I remember."
"And then on a wild coyote, and then on some old asshole checking out a preteen in the motel lobby, and then on a motel worker who admitted to sexually harassing his manager," he lists off-handedly, starting to pace.
I size this fucker up, impressed. He's built kinda like me, so where's he stashing all that blood?
"Are there bloodsucking competitions, like what humans do with hot dog eating contests? Because holy shitballs, I bet you'd have it in the bag."
“Ha, ha,” Ian deadpans.
"What'd you do with the bodies?"
"I don't kill every time I feed," he grumbles before sighing, looking longingly out at the trees again. "We should go back to Koasville. I can hypnotize some people, ask around to see if they know anything about where Heidi is now, if she's not here. With her being all over the news like this, I really don't like?—"
He cuts off as we both hear a car approaching. The thrall blurs into hiding in an instant. I already parked my bike down the road a bit, where we first started looking for our girl's missing residence, so I slink back into the trees nearby, crouching slightly behind a half-fallen one.
Soon, a light blue car rolls into view from around the corner of the back road. It slows before turning into the exact spot where Ian was just bitching about the missing road, disappearing in an instant.
"No fucking kidding," I grin, walking back out to examine the impressive magic concealment.
Ian darts back out of hiding and moves toward the place where the car just disappeared.
"Go ahead," I tell him. "I wanna see if the wards lop off your foot as soon as it crosses through."
He stares at me. "I thought you said earlier that you happen to like me."
"I do, so it's lucky for both of us you're a siphon—anything that gets lopped off will regenerate," I shrug.
Ian rolls his eyes at me and approaches the concealment spell. I follow watching closely, hoping for these wards to beviolent, since I never mind a good, bloody surprise. He sticks a hand through to test it first.
