“You haven’t lived as long as I have,” she said, “in flesh. I can’t speak for your experience as a spirit, but this way,” she spread her hands, opening her body language to indicate herself, her flesh, her bones, the life she’d been forced to live, alone, lonely, “isn’t easy.”
Her eyes were the gold of summer, of riches. The gold of dreams. They held a distance I’d never seen before.
“That isn’t.” I inhaled and shivered, pushing emotion away. “Okay. Let me try again. Ever since we agreed to Cupid’s deal, we’ve been pulled deeper into conflicts with gods. We’ve been hurt—both of us have been hurt. I don’t like that. I don’t want that.”
Her nod was short, almost imperceptible.
“I’m just asking, are we still okay doing what we’re doing—making deals with the gods and demons. I am just asking if hunting the monsters who attacked us and took away a hundred years of us being together, is how we want to live the life we have, the days and years we have left.
“If it is,” I said, “then that’s what we’ll do. I will be beside you, love, every step of the way. But if you want to solve this on your own—meet Hatcher who wants you dead—without me at your side, and if I’m going to be attacked by vampires without you at my side,” her fury at the mention of vampires was stark, but I bullishly continued, “then we need to reassess how we’re going forward, how we’re living.”
“Vampire?” she asked.
“Yes. Earlier today.”
“After ice cream,” Abbi added, proving she’d been paying attention. “Before the luck, though,” she said, “because a vampire attack isn’t lucky. Oh. But maybe it is. The witches said they can help us, and they like me, so maybe it is lucky.”
Lu was staring at me, but I knew she didn’t see me. Whatever was going on in her mind was deep, closed off. I was good at reading her, had spent a lifetime reading her moods, but the woman in front of me could have been a stranger.
I worked on my breathing. Keeping it easy. Steady.
“Witches,” she said, gaze snapping into focus as she came back from that distant place.
“Two,” I said. “One brought a flyer for a local bar and ice cream coupons. The other was waiting in our room to patch me up.”
“What do they want?”
“To make friends with me!” Abbi said.
I hummed. “Maybe that. And, you’ll be surprised to hear this, they want to give us what we’re looking for if we give them something.”
Lu pressed her thumb to her temple as if a headache were building there. “The book?”
“The book. They said they don’t know what we’re looking for, but they can still find it. They want something from us in return.”
“What do they want?” she asked.
“Would it be so impossible to walk away from this?” I asked. “Drive somewhere. Anywhere but here?”
“Brogan,” she said softly. “Just tell me. What do the witches want from us?”
Running away from our past wouldn’t change our past, and it wouldn’t change who we had become. I knew that. It had been a foolish hope.
“They want our help with a vampire.” I cleared my throat. “Who they think is the vampire who attacked us all those years ago.”
Lula’s pupils went wide, a hunter scenting prey. Nothing else about her changed, but I could feel it, her hunger for blood, her hunger for violence. For revenge.
She stood. “Let’s go make a deal with the witches.”
CHAPTER TEN
Abbi insisted we all take a nap, even Lula, since the bar wouldn’t be open for a few hours.
I hadn’t thought anyone could make Lula sleep, but Lu agreed to lie down beside me on the lumpy bed. She’d fallen asleep almost immediately. I suspected Moon Rabbit magic was involved, but didn’t ask.
Lu hadn’t been sleeping much or well. Neither had I.
I pushed at the pillow under my head, then dropped it beside me so I could prop my injured arm on it.
