I clench my jaw and my fists. I guess thisiswhat happens on first dates.
But then—Lamb seems to change his mind. He walks away.
Baz looks gutted.
I reckon I should walk away, too.…
Though maybe it will be easier in the end if Baz knows I’m here, that I saw them. Then he won’t have to tell me.
46
SIMON
Baz sees me and immediately turns away.
He tries to walk past me, as if we’re strangers. “Go back,” he says under his breath. “You aren’t safe here—you’resurroundedby vampires.”
I catch his arm. “So are you.”
He still won’t look at me. “Go back.I’ll meet you later. I have to hunt.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“For Crowley’s sake, Snow.”
I squeeze his arm. I must look just as desperate as he did, when he was hanging on to that vampire. “You’re drunk, Baz.”
He shakes me off. “I’m just thirsty.”
That’s when I notice them—a man and a woman, both pale as paper, leaning against a black limousine, watching us. “We’re being watched,” I say. “Vampires.”
He rubs his forehead. “Of course we are.” Then he wraps his arm around my waist, and presses his head into my neck. “Act like I’ve just picked you up. Act like you’re enchanted byme. Literally.” (Ha—act.Someday I’ll laugh about this. Someday maybe I’ll laugh about my whole awful life.) He pulls away, taking me by the hand and leading me forward.
“Our hotel is the other way,” I say.
He swings around and pulls me in the right direction. He’s eyeing me like I’m his fifth drink. (He’s pretending.) I’m looking like I’d follow him anywhere. (I’m not.)
Penny lets us into the hotel room. “Thank Morgana!”
“We’ve got a problem,” I say.
Baz is holding his nose in his fist. “Not a problem, I just won’t breathe.”
“He’s drunk and thirsty.”
Shepard backs away from us. “I didn’t think vampires could get drunk.”
“Who died and made you queen of the vampires?” Baz honks, still holding his nose.
Penny has her tongue in her cheek, like she’s plotting. “That’s not a problem.” She turns to the door—it’s closed—and holds out her hand. The purple gem is in her palm.“Come home to roost!”
After a moment, she opens the door. There’s a cacophony in the hallway, flapping and squawking. Dozens of black birds fly into our room.
When the last one has trailed in, Penny steps into the doorway and casts one of her favourite spells—“There’s nothing to see here!”—out into the hall. She closes the door and locks it.
The birds have settled on the bed. And the lamp. And the headboard. Baz plucks a parrot from the chandelier and twists its neck like it’s a bottle of lager. He starts drinking it then and there.
“For snake’s sake, Basil.” Penny’s swatting birds off the bed. “Do it over the bath.”
