He laughed. “I do. But alas. The joy of parting is nothing to the pain of meeting again.”
It was my turn to laugh. I think it was the first time he and I had ever agreed with each other.
He waved and was out the door that locked with a third-act swish behind him.
“Totally unnecessary,” I said into the silence. “All of this. Even the popcorn.”
“Don’t hate on my salty love,” Jean said.
Myra stood and stretched, then walked into the kitchen. “I made soup. Let’s eat before we have to go see Old Rossi and make a plan to kill an ancient evil.”
I would have argued for a nap instead, but I knew better than to pass up Myra’s homemade soup or to head into today’s meeting with an empty stomach.
Chapter 3
Standing in my little kitchen with my hands in sudsy water while my sisters talked quietly in the living room gave me time to take stock of myself.
I’d put up a pretty good face for both my sisters. They knew I was tired, they knew I was angry that we still hadn’t found Ben, they knew I was irritated by the new lock and camera system on my house.
What they didn’t know, what I was very careful not to show them, was my terror.
Lavius had bound me to him. Drank my blood. Claimed me. He hadn’t turned me into a vampire. That took more than one bite, and honestly, I wasn’t sure if my Reed blood would actually take to being undead. It was more likely I’d die before transitioning to vampirism.
I wasn’t frightened, exactly, about the possibility of being turned.
I also wasn’t frightened, exactly, about dying.
But belonging to Lavius, the ancient horror? Yeah, that was pretty much on the teetery top of my nightmare shelf.
And I knew, because I’d seen it before, that being claimed by a vampire meant being used against the people you loved.
Our ability to keep the people, gods, and creatures safe in Ordinary was not looking very strong right now.
“What would you do if you were here, Dad?” I asked too quietly to be heard over the sounds of the conversation in the other room.
I waited, hoping maybe I’d hear him, or feel him, warm and solid moving beside me. I could picture him drying the dishes in the drainer and placing them in the wrong cupboards like he used to when I was little. For a man who had run the police station with one hand behind his back, he had never been good at kitchen organization.
But he was not here. Not anymore. We were on our own with this mess. And just because we’d taken a couple hits didn’t mean we were out of the fight.
I let the water out of the sink and squared my shoulders. With all of the creatures, the gods, and the humans in this town, there had to be a way to save Ben.
There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to bring him back safe.
“Ready?” Jean called from the couch.
I dried my hands and walked into the living room. Myra and Jean waited by the open door, sunglasses propped on their heads.
“Where is the meeting?”
“We thought about having it here, but not enough room.” Myra nodded at the door, and I grabbed my keys, let the lock do its thing, and walked out.
We headed down the stairs, Jean already almost at the bottom. “Any reason you and Jean have decided not to keep me in the loop on what’s going on? Locks, cameras, and now this meeting relocation?”
“You can’t blame us for wanting to protect you.”
I could, actually, but I got her point.
“All right. Yes. You’re worried, and you should be. Withholding information will backfire. It always does. I might be compromised, but I’m not sidelined. So from now on, you get information, I hear it. And I’ll do the same with you. Right?”
