It’s a dark, overcast day. Maybe this is why I can see that there are more lights on in the buildings downtown than I’ve seen in years. Things are changing around here, and it’s not the sporadic gentrification projects that I remember coming in fits and starts while I was growing up. For one thing, I doubt very much that this is human driven.
I’m not human, however. I might miss the ones I befriended in New York and quite like the one I know here who also happens to be the new oracle and maybe not entirely human any longer, but I also like the idea of us monsters taking back the cities we had to hide in for centuries.
I peer into the lit-up windows as we pass. The little old houses that still stand. The apartment buildings that were built closer to the center. There are far fewer bars and steel plates over the windows here than in Jacksonville. Even more proof that it’s not humans venturing out of their few safe zones.
I’m pretty sure the slimy dens, dark caves, swamp mud, and other traditional monster-type dwellings have lost their appeal all around. I might be a revolutionary in the werewolf pack, but I’m certainly not the only one in this valley to ask an ancient Kind clan why it is that the whole world got to change except us.
If I didn’t have fate and responsibilities and the big man in front of me to consider, I’d probably think it sounded like fun to go live up at the Manor and rave my face off. Or move into one of the abandoned buildings down here, where the streets aren’t likely to scare me. I’m not the kind of prey that’s hunted here. Quite the opposite.
Besides, I sawLes Misérableson Broadway while I was in New York. There’s a part of me that wants nothing more than to build a barricade, wave a flag, and sing a song. Preferably without the second act to make it all less fun.
I choose not to tell Ty any of that as we make our way around a few songless barrier piles set up on Main Street. Somehow I know that no matter how indulgent he might be feeling about me right now, musicals are not likely to be his thing.
Still, I can hear the people sing as Ty rolls his bike up to the front door of Archangel MMA and leaves it there as we walk inside.
Everybody knows who rides big, kick-ass Harleys like that around here. Not to mention who controls the gas to run them. Even the most blood-addled, gutter-dwelling addict wouldn’t dare touch a werewolf’s bike. And all the other, less addled but more full of themselves monsters who hunt down here know exactly which werewolf’s bike that is.
Ty could leave it running. It won’t move an inch.
Inside, I’m disappointed to find that vampire headquarters are still, for all intents and purposes, a big old martial arts studio. I don’t know why I thought Ariel would have switched it all over to dark velvet and capes.
Wishful thinking.
No one sits down in the rows of bleachers against one wall. Ariel and Savi are already there, and Ty rolls right up to them in the center of the polished wood floor. I trail after him, smiling at Winter when I come to stand next to her. She looks better than last night. I hope that means the death goddess headache is gone.
“What I don’t understand,” Savi says, her voice less serene than usual, “is why the patrols that were already supposed to be occurring at Crater Lake were stopped.”
By the time she gets to the end of that sentence, it’s clear that she’s notsereneat all. I’ve never heard her anything but calm before. She evenlooksa little less perfect than usual. Like she might actually have been up all night doing whatever it is sorcerers do when they’re looking for spells. Usually she looks like she’s spent a month in a spa.
“Then you’re not very observant, sorceress,” Ty is replying, but he often sounds this grouchy. That he’s probably also tired has nothing todo with it. “I made it perfectly clear that the wolves had shit to do last week. That did not include babysitting a body of water.”
“There were patrols,” Ariel interjects coolly. “There have been vampires up there every night and every day, as always. Suggesting that whatever occurred was meant to occur outside of our notice. Planned, even.”
Savi shakes her head. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this close to what I would call upset—and it doesn’t make my stomach feel great. That or my sense of impending doom.
“They took out the tunnels,” she says, and she sounds almost ... shrill? Scared? Neither one is good. “The lava tunnels. Tubes. They’ve been blocked for centuries, but they blew them up and the water is draining out of the lake. I can’t think of any good reason for that to be happening. I knew I felt something just before dawn on the night of the solstice. I couldn’t figure out what it was.”
I remember that uneasiness as the sun rose. Thatshake. I feel my whole body tense.
“What did you feel?” Winter asks Savi.
The sorceress looks around our little circle. “What I don’t understand is why none of you felt anything.”
“We had some stuff going on,” I say, and I don’t know why I don’t tell her the truth. That I felt something all right but was more concerned with all the other things that happened before and since.
“What can possibly be as important as a death goddess on the rise?” Savi demands, and she has definitely lost her trademark chill. It’s disturbing.
I accept that I don’t want to say I felt a thing because I’m already not in love with the fact that the ice queen sorceress is losing her shit.
“The solstice, as I believe you are aware,” Ariel says coolly, either unaware that Savi is unraveling or choosing not to care, “is when my community holds a blood ball.”
“Blood balls are archaic,” she snaps at him.
“That is not how you have always felt,” Ariel replies, and I watch, possibly holding my breath, as Savi’s expression ... shifts.
For a moment, she looks something like ... young. Vulnerable.
This is both more and less disturbing.
