Forsaken by the Others (10 page)

The next day wasn’t much better. No one was available to drive us around town, and
no one showed up to give us orders or any hints as to what we should do next. Sara
and I met in the kitchen around noon, and we took some time to consider our next move.
Though I didn’t like the idea very much, I thought it might be best to get Analie’s
gift for her caretaker out of my hands first thing. After that, we could pay a visit
to the other vampire master, Jimmy Thrane, to see if he might have any information
on our necromancer friend or his zombie sidekicks.

Sara and I spent some time plotting out our route for the evening while Florencia
cooked for us. The kitchen smelled awesome, and we both thoroughly enjoyed the meal
of tacos and fajitas she made for us. The meat for the tacos was incredibly tender,
more so than any steak I could remember having before.

“Florencia, that was great,” I told her as Sara and I helped her clear dishes from
the table. “What was that meat you used for the tacos?” I wondered if it was a local
thing, or maybe a cut of meat I could request from the local delis at home.

“
Lengua
,” she said, smiling.

“Cow tongue,” Sara translated for me.

I did my best to keep my expression neutral and managed not to barf once it really
settled in.

Note to self: Ask about the ingredients
before
eating anything else in this town.

After we cleaned up, Sara and I hung out outside for a while, taking in some sun.
The light was nearly blinding, but I didn’t mind. The heat and fresh air were welcome.
Inside that air-conditioned house felt claustrophobic and a little too much like I
was constantly under watch. Something to do with the security cameras hidden all over
the house, no doubt.

With little else to do after I put Analie’s letter and care package near the front
door, we spent the remainder of our time until sundown watching bad daytime TV. We
had no computers to surf the Internet and no books to keep us occupied, but the old
school Godzilla movie marathon on some cable channel kept us from going completely
bonkers while we waited for Trinity to come get us for our next round of Find-the-Necromancer.

Once she arrived and we told her where we wanted to go, she started laughing at us.

She kept right on laughing until she realized I was serious.

“You’re insane,” Trinity told me. “Completely unbalanced if you think I’m going to
take you into the heart of Goliath territory.”

“Then give us the keys and let us do it ourselves,” I said, holding out my hand.

“Oh, no. Clyde would kill me if I let you two run off somewhere without someone to
keep an eye on you.

“Then take us. Your choice. You can take us, give us the keys, or we’ll call a cab.
We have a job to do, and I’m not going to let your cowardice stop us.”

That made Trinity’s eyes gleam with irritation. “If you had even the slightest idea
what you were getting into—”

“How do you know we don’t? Look, make your choice before I make it for you. I’ll be
happy to tell Clyde you’re preventing us from following up on a lead—”

She growled, a deep, threatening sound that never should have come from a human throat.
With a sharp gesture, she indicated we should follow her.

What a great way to start the night. Expelling a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been
holding, I picked up the letter and package and fell into step behind the vampire,
taking Sara’s hand when I felt her groping at my wrist.

I kept forgetting that she wasn’t used to dealing with the bluster the monsters dished
out. And I needed to remember that I no longer had the belt to give me tips and an
extra physical boost if it came down to a fight. Whatever might happen, whether Trinity
or some other monster took it into his or her head to beat the crap out of me or turn
me into dinner, I would need to be a little more careful. There was no one here to
save me if I bit off more than I could chew, and I had no superhuman strength or speed
to help me. Hell, I didn’t even have my guns or stakes or anything else to protect
myself if I ended up in a fight.

The car ride was tense and silent, no one interested in talking about where we were
going or what we would do once we got there.

Once Trinity pulled off the freeway, she took us down some side streets and beyond
a number of apartment buildings and small shops until we were in what I suppose could
be considered suburbia. The houses were a lot like the ones around my parents’ house
on Long Island, albeit with a lot more cacti and palm trees.

When we pulled onto Gavin’s street, Trinity parked the car at least four or five blocks
from the address we were looking for.

“Go do whatever the hell it is you came here to do. I’ll wait. If you’re not back
in time for me to get to shelter by sunrise, you can stay here and rot.”

I shook my head and slid out of the car, not bothering to dignify her snarky comment
with an answer. Sara followed my lead. With any luck, I’d drop off the box and be
out of this part of town within the hour.

I tucked it under my arm and stalked down the street. Though Sara was taller than
me, with much longer legs, she had to lengthen her stride to keep up with me.

“So,” she said, arms swinging at her sides, “when this is over, are you writing a
new and improved version of
How to Win Friends and Influence People?
”

My lips quirked. Sara always knew the right thing to say to defuse my anger. “Yeah,
yeah. Sorry, I know I haven’t been doing a good job of managing my temper.”

“It’s not me you need to apologize to. Though I can’t say that she wasn’t asking for
it. . . .”

“Okay, I’ll say something when we get back to the car. Let’s just get this over with,
shall we?”

She nodded. I kept an eye on the numbers on the houses. It didn’t take very long to
find the house; it had some plastic toys on the postage stamp-sized lawn and a light
on over the front door. Paint was chipped and peeling in places, but it was clean,
and the lights were all on. A carefully tended flower bed ran along the front of the
house. Even from the street, I could hear the sound of cartoons coming from inside.

Sara stayed a few steps behind me while I went up to the door and knocked.

Then knocked again. Louder.

After the third time, my fist was stinging, and a little kid who couldn’t have been
more than six or seven years old opened the door, blinking up at me with wide blue
eyes from under a fan of shaggy, dirty-blond tendrils.

“Hi,” I said. “Is Gavin—”

“
Gavin!
Someone for you!”

Man, that little boy had a set of lungs on him. He turned around and raced off in
bare feet, disappearing around a corner.

I stood in the open door, shuffling my weight from foot to foot. When I looked over
my shoulder at Sara, her expression betrayed just as much confusion as I felt. So
I turned my attention back to the hallway with child-height crayon scrawl all over
the walls and waited.

Then the Viking came into view.

I don’t toss out that word lightly. He was wearing nothing but a towel around his
waist—oh,
my
—and every last inch of what was visible was covered in hard, ropy muscle. His blond
hair was even more of a shaggy mess than the kid’s, wild and untamed, framing a chiseled
face that had the ghost of a beard emphasizing a sharp jawline and killer cheekbones.

Then his blue eyes flashed gold, and his mouth was full of fangs as he stalked forward.

If there is one reaction I have perfected these last few months, it’s not to freeze
when danger rears its head. Instead, I dropped the box, scrambling back to the street
and grabbing at Sara to drag her with me as he stopped in the doorway, fingernails
that had grown into talons biting into the wood.

“Vampire’s whore! What are you doing here? Get off my property!”

Sara and I both started babbling and pointing at the box. I don’t think either of
us made any sense, and to this day, I’m not even sure what came out of my mouth. Something
along the lines of “oh-my-God-please-don’t-hurt-me-the-box-the-box-the-box,” I think.

His growl was thunderously loud, and it was at that moment that I realized all other
sounds on the street had ceased.

Oh, there might have been traffic from a few blocks away, but all of the TVs had turned
off, no dishes clanked, and no murmur of voices could be heard. Even the kid’s cartoons
were off. Like the whole block was holding its breath, waiting to see what would happen.

He kept his eyes on us as he crouched down, touching the top of the box. I wasn’t
about to tell him that he was flashing us, and most likely the neighbors across the
street could see, too, considering his impressive . . . um. You get the picture.

His talon-tipped fingers found and slightly tore the letter on top. He picked it up,
raising it near eye-level, and started to read it, every once in a while his eyes
flicking back to us.

Then I think he must have realized it was from Analie. He stopped looking at us and
hunched over the paper, clutching it in both hands, his gaze devouring her scrawl.
I thought I might have detected tears at the corners of his gold-colored eyes, but
I couldn’t be sure.

Still holding the letter, he used one of those claws to slice open the tape holding
the top of the box together. The kid—I hadn’t even heard him creep up behind the guy—leaned
around Gavin’s impressively muscled arm to peer at the box. “What’s that, Gavin? Are
those cookies?”

“Yeah—yes. Analie sent them for us. Go back inside, Jo-Jo. I’ll bring them to you
in a minute.”

The kid clapped his hands and bounced back, saying Analie’s name in singsong as he
rushed back into the house, racing some invisible opponent.

The Viking lifted his head and stared at Sara and me with wet eyes, taking a moment
to focus as if he had just recalled we were there. The gold color faded into an icy,
pale blue, his fangs retracting and—you know, I can’t be sure, but I would swear that
his hair stopped bristling quite so much around his face, too.

“You brought this all the way from New York? For me?”

Sara and I both nodded. We were still clutching at each other, and I wasn’t sorry
for that at all.

“From Analie.”

It was a statement, not a question, but we nodded again.

He didn’t say anything. He just crouched there, clutching the letter, staring at us.

I cleared my throat. “I guess we’ll—ah—we’ll just be going—”

“No.”

Ha, that was funny. For a second there, I thought he said no.

“Come inside. I want to talk to you.”

Oh. I hadn’t imagined it.

The Viking stood up, towering in the doorway, his towel slipping lower on his hips.
Feeling a tad ill, I lifted my hands, not quite sure if it was meant to be a negative
gesture or a please-don’t-hurt-me supplication. Sara and I stumbled back, fetching
up against a big oak tree shading the yard and some of the street. He moved toward
us, and the bark cracked under my fingertips as I clutched at the tree.

He stopped when he was close enough to touch, both of us gaping up at him like we
were staring down Death come to claim us.

Then he engulfed us in a hug. I’m pretty sure I left a chunk of skin behind on that
tree when he pulled us away. I didn’t start screaming and flailing because, much like
Analie, he didn’t seem to have any concept of his own strength when he crushed us
against him.

The only reason I knew I wasn’t about to die was because the six-foot-plus terrifying
werewolf warrior wearing nothing but a towel was crying all over us.

God
damn
, my life was getting weirder by the day.

Sara and I awkwardly patted him on the back, staring at each other with wide eyes
across the expanse of his—I’m not going to lie—
very
impressive shoulders. His bare skin was hot and prickly with the crisp golden hairs
covering his arms and chest. A few minutes later, his crying tapered off, and he straightened
up, still clutching us against him.

“You’ll have to—have to excuse me,” he said, sniffling. “I haven’t seen Analie in
so long. Come inside, please.”

It wasn’t a request. He probably could have picked us up and carried us, but he just
half-pulled, half-dragged us along, marching us toward the house.

He finally let us go once we reached the door, giving us a not-so-gentle shove that
sent us both stumbling inside as he bent at the waist to scoop up the box. We both
turned our backs as soon as we saw the towel was slipping. I gave Sara the side-eye,
and she was blushing just as furiously as I was sure I must have been.

“‘Scuse me a minute, you caught me just out of the shower. Go have a seat in the kitchen”—he
gestured vaguely deeper inside the house—“and I’ll be right with you. Oh, would you
mind taking this?”

I took the box as he handed it to me, making a heroic effort to keep my eyes above
the level of his chest and not on where the towel had been a second ago but wasn’t
anymore.

Wow.

Oh, wow.

Sara and I fled in the general direction he had indicated, and he disappeared around
a corner. The house wasn’t terribly big. We passed an open archway that led into a
living room. Jo-Jo was parked in front of the TV, but he was watching us over his
shoulder with bright golden eyes. Just past where the kid was sitting was a big kitchen
table, surrounded by enough chairs to seat a small army of hungry kids.

I set the box on the table, and Sara followed my lead and sat next to me. Jo-Jo crept
in after us, peering from around the divider between the kitchen and the living room.
Sara chewed her bottom lip and stared at the ceiling.

Gavin appeared a few minutes later, this time clad in a pair of jeans, padding into
the room so quietly that his presence startled me. The guy was big, but he moved like
a ghost. Sara and I mutely watched as he pulled out some mismatched glasses and small
plates, setting them before us, with a setting for himself and another for Jo-Jo,
who hadn’t yet decided to join us.

He then poured us each a glass of milk, and then pulled out one of the containers
with some of Analie’s cookies inside, popping the lid and holding it out to me.

“Oh, no thank you, I—”

That earned me a capital “L” Look.

“—I would be delighted, thank you, um, yes.”

Yeah. I took the cookies. And so did Sara, though we both put them on our plates and
didn’t start eating them until Gavin sat back and shoved one in his own mouth, watching
us as he washed it down with half his glass of milk. We quickly followed suit, though
I wonder if Sara, like me, didn’t so much as taste the confection thanks to the flood
of fear swamping my body with adrenalin.

Gavin placed the glass down on the table with a heavy
thump
and leaned forward. “Tell me about Analie. How is she doing? Is the leech taking
care of her?”

I swallowed. Hard. Then again to get the remaining crumbs out of my throat. My voice
still came out in a croak. “She’s doing great. She’s taking cooking lessons from the
guy who runs Royce’s fancy French restaurant,
La Petite Boisson,
and she’s getting tutored through her school lessons by one of the local Weres. She
talked about you a lot.” At least, while I was listening. Don’t even think it—I already
felt awful for not paying more attention to the kid and her troubles. “She misses
you.”

Gavin finally looked down, breaking that fierce eye contact, and toyed with one of
the cookies with now blunt, human fingernails. “I wish I could have been there for
her. Could have taken her place so she wasn’t in the clutches of that . . . that monster.”

Though I had often thought as much of Royce, I didn’t think now was the time to contradict
Gavin. He was clearly high-strung where vampires were concerned, so debating their
merits when he had first addressed me as a vamp’s whore probably wasn’t going to get
us anywhere.

And I’ll bet you thought I couldn’t be tactful when necessity dictated.

“She might be stuck for the time being, but she’s not suffering. He’s given her clothes,
food, shelter, and schooling. I think she’ll be okay for now. Look, she even made
these cookies we’re eating.”

I took another bite, this time dimly recognizing the taste of chocolate on my tongue.
Gavin mechanically followed my lead, then shook his head and looked down at the confection
in his hand. “Really? She made these?”

Nodding, I gestured for him to finish it off. He did so in silence, his brows moving
around like he couldn’t decide whether he should have an expression of shock or scowl
at the cookie. Most likely the idea that Royce might put Analie to work doing something
productive had never occurred to him. Had I been in his place even a month or two
ago, I might have thought the same.

The confusion eventually gave way to a scowl, but his eyes were misting up again.
His manly-man persona was shattering under the weight of all that grief, I guess.
“She was like a daughter to me. If I ever see Christoph or Ashi again, I’m going to
kill them. When you go back to New York, you tell them that.”

Sara and I both nodded rapidly, leaning back in our chairs.

“Yeah. Tell them that. I’ll rip their throats out and eat their fucking soulless hearts.”

Cripes. His eyes were going gold, and his nails were starting to look distinctly talon-like
again. Had to remember that I was here to redeem myself and not because I had a death
wish.

“Gavin,” Sara said, her words coming out in a rush—anything to distract the werewolf
who was barely holding control over his shapeshifting—“we’re really sorry about what
happened to Analie but we’ll make sure she knows how much you miss her. Do you want
us to bring anything back for her? A letter or something?”

That got him out of it. The hair bristling around his neck and jaw settled with an
audible rustle, though his eyes remained a bright golden color. He muttered something
I didn’t quite catch and pushed back from the table, then dug around in one of the
kitchen drawers. Once he found a pen and notepad, he hunched over the counter, his
back to us as he scribbled away.

It felt like it took forever. My stomach was doing uneasy flip-flops as I watched
him. He didn’t do anything overtly ominous, but the words of wisdom that had been
imparted to me by Arnold made me leery of trusting that he was going to let us out
of here without doing something to make us pay for our freedom. Reminding myself that
I was doing this on Analie’s behalf and to be less of a shit-stain of a human being
wasn’t helping much. That thought seemed so very farfetched and out of place now that
I was in the presence of a Goliath. His shirtless back was like a map to nowhere,
traced out in a pattern of scars from battles long past.

Being around other werewolves hadn’t prepared me for this. He had no qualms with making
a show of his Other nature. He’d very nearly shifted right on his front lawn. Maybe
because he had mistaken me for something other than human.

Unless he thought by my scent that I wasn’t human anymore. Which was an unhappy thought
I was going to stick with all that other crap in the back of my mind that I was not
going to think about right then, like what my bills and credit must look like, and
what my landlord might have done with the stuff in my apartment.

Analie damned well better appreciate this.

He turned back to us a few minutes later with a small stack of notepad paper, each
page filled margin to margin with his scrawl. Shoving the papers at Sara, he looked
back and forth between us.

“You’ll make sure she gets this?”

“Absolutely. We’ll put it in her hands as soon as we get back,” Sara promised.

“Good,” he replied. “If you don’t, and I find out about it later, I will hunt you
both down. You understand?”

Sara’s eyes went wide and round, so you could see the whites all the way around.

A touch to my arm made me jump, and I banged my knees on the underside of the table.
Grimacing and rubbing what would no doubt be a bruise later, I twisted around to face
Jo-Jo, who was holding a grubby piece of thick, crayon-covered paper and looking up
at me with wide golden eyes. There was something strange about these werewolves, even
beyond the obvious. I had never heard of any type of Were pack where the children
could show signs of their Other nature before hitting puberty.

Even so, his expression betrayed a fear and nervousness that tugged at my heartstrings.
What must he have heard about vampires and the people who worked for them to look
at me that way?

“Can you give this to Analie?” He held out the paper to me.

Gavin “ahem”-ed, and Jo-Jo tilted his head the other way, looking up at his caretaker.
Gavin’s tone was all patience, even and steady, nothing like how he had addressed
Sara or me. “What do we say?”

Jo-Jo had to think about it. “Please and thank you?”

“Not to me.”

Jo-Jo turned back to me and held up the paper, earnest and clearly worried that he’d
offended us. “Please and thank you?” he repeated.

I had to suppress a laugh. Other or not, he was adorable. I took the paper and set
it aside, then nudged my plate of cookies closer to him. “You’re welcome. Don’t worry;
I’ll make sure she gets it. You want one, kid?”

His whole face lit up, and the gold flooded out of his eyes in a weird spiraling motion,
like it was sinking down the drain of his pupils, to be replaced with a more natural
pale blue color. He grabbed a handful and shoved a full one in his mouth.

“Manners, Jo-Jo.”

The kid choked a bit on the cookie and offered me another mumbled “thank you” before
rushing off with the rest somewhere deeper into the house, a door slamming behind
him.

Gavin smiled after the kid, the expression betraying a softness I was barely able
to reconcile with the fearsome warrior who had very nearly given me a heart attack
less than half an hour ago.

Then he reminded me why I should be scared when his heavy gaze slid back to meet mine
again. The humorless grin, showing a row of pearly, pointy teeth, wasn’t needed for
emphasis, but that didn’t stop him from showcasing growing fangs for our benefit.
“You’ve done me a great favor by bringing me this. You’ll do me a bigger one by leaving
now and staying out of Goliath territory for the rest of your stay. Yes?”

I gave him a jerky nod, pushing my chair back. Sara was far braver than I was, holding
out a pleading hand.

“Please, before we go, have you heard anything about a necromancer in town?”

Gavin’s grin faded, replaced by a scowl. “Yes. We had to destroy quite a few of his
creations before he realized we weren’t going to let him hide in our part of town.
The stink of those abominations is still in the air just a few blocks from here. Why
do you ask?”

Sara looked to me expectantly. Gavin soon did the same. He didn’t appear ready to
tear my throat out just yet, but telling this werewolf we were working for vampires
might get us eaten. Then again, we were bringing Analie his letter, so maybe he wouldn’t.
Without a doubt, lying to him would be worse. From what I had gleaned from Chaz and
Royce, most Others could smell a lie at ten paces. Also, he was the closest thing
we had to a lead right now, and risking pissing him off was a bit better than upsetting
the guy who was giving us a place to hide.

“Well,” I hedged, choosing my words carefully, “we have a client who is trying to
find him. The guy’s been doing some bad stuff around town, and the person who hired
us wants it to stop. If you can point us in the right direction, you won’t ever have
to deal with him again.”

“Let me guess. Your client is Clyde Seabreeze.”

There wasn’t any way around it. I nodded, bracing myself for his reaction.

He considered us, rubbing the stubble on his chin. The mixture of irritation and disgust
was apparent, but he wasn’t as peeved as I had expected.

“I suppose it’s a little late to warn you ladies about putting your trust in, or working
for, the Shadow Men. I want you to stay alive long enough to get my message to Analie.
If you mess with a necromancer, that probably won’t happen.”

“Oh,” Sara said, “we’re not planning on tangling with him directly. We’re just supposed
to find his hideout and let Clyde take care of the rest.”

Gavin growled, the sound a thick rumble that rattled the dishes on the table. “Don’t
believe that for a minute. He’ll find a way to make you do his dirty work. They always
do. You really think a leech is going to willingly put himself into spelling distance
of a mage who controls the dead?”

I hadn’t thought of that. Now that Gavin mentioned it, I wasn’t going to be able to
stop thinking about it, either.

Shit.

“Normally I would say to hell with the Shadow Men, but I have the feeling this mage
is even worse. This probably won’t help much, but check the towns along the 210 freeway
between Sylmar and Sunland. Pay attention to the more rural, back-road homes up in
the hills. There’s a stench that follows him, and he might be trying to hide it. If
you have a Shadow Man with you, he or she will probably be able to scent it out once
you’re in the right area.”

This was far more than I had been expecting. “Thank you so much, Gavin. For everything.”
I held out my hand, offering a parting shake, but he looked at it like I was trying
to give him a dead rat. My cheeks burned with embarrassment, but I was determined
not to let his rudeness get to me. Much. “We’ll make sure Analie gets your letters.”