Hunted By The Others (16 page)

Later that night, the three of us sat around a cheap, scarred table in a remarkably seedy hotel a few blocks down from Times Square. It was the only one we could find on short notice that would take cash and didn’t check ID against the names of their guests. That was primarily mine and Sara’s idea, not Arnold’s. Credit cards and everything else could be traced, and I was still pretty sure that, in addition to Royce, my ex, and the holder of the focus, the cops were probably looking for me in connection with Veronica’s death.

So we’d gotten two rooms, though so far the three of us hadn’t been interested in separating. Especially with roaches the size of Godzilla skittering around the floors and walls. Ugh.

“Remind me again why we’re doing this?” I propped my feet on the edge of my chair and wrapped my arms around my legs so I wouldn’t chance a bug running across my foot.

Arnold looked as grossed out as I felt, watching with morbid fascination as the shadowed outline of a roach sedately marched across the TV screen, right across the news anchor’s face. “I thought it would be safer than waiting around for a vamp or a Were to find you. I’m starting to think we should take our chances somewhere else.”

Sara curled her lip, staring at the TV, too. “Yeah, Roachzilla over there is big enough to be a Werebug. Screw this. Why don’t I just ask Janine if we can crash at her place for the night? She might even be out of the country so, if we’re lucky, we won’t have to deal with her face to face.”

“Who’s Janine?” Arnold asked.

“Janine’s? Are you sure?” I’m pretty sure my face showed about as much distaste for that idea as Sara and Arnold’s did for the roach.

“Uh, guys? Who’s Janine?” Arnold asked again, ignored by Sara and me.

She shrugged, not looking overly pleased. “Got any better ideas? I personally don’t want to wake up with bugs in my hair or crawling around on me while I sleep.”

Oh God. “Call her.”

She did. I heard Janine’s high, panic-frantic voice from across the room, and rubbed my temples. Guess she was in town. The belt was adding its own muted background noise somewhere in the back of my skull, twittering laughter that mocked the tinny, high-pitched tones coming out of Sara’s cell phone. Deciding to drown them both out, I finally answered Arnold’s question, talking a little louder than was strictly necessary. “Janine is Sara’s younger sister. She’s a bit of a pill. Nice enough, but very flighty and scared of everything.”

“Oh. Great. She going to have a problem with me being a spark?”

I started, and he cracked a goofy smile. Guess he thought it was funny to call himself a spark the way some minorities thought it was funny to refer to themselves in derogatory terms. “Probably. Just don’t do anything flashy, and we may not have to take her to the ER with a heart attack.”

He chuckled and nodded. “I can do that much.”

“You know,” I said, “you don’t act anything like I thought a mage would. I haven’t even really seen you
do
anything, except light those candles and make the wall disappear. You just said a word and poof, it happened. No grand gestures, no bolts of lightning from the sky or flashes of light. Is all magic like that?”

“No, not really. The only reason it was like that is because those spells were set to certain key words. The actual preparation work beforehand is where you get the sparkly lights and cracks of thunder in the background.” He grinned and I stared at him, trying to figure out if he was being serious or just pulling my leg.

“Want to see something cool?”

“Uhm,” I said, not sure I did. The belt chose that moment to interject a snide
You know you’re curious
. I wished mightily that it would just shut up. “Okay, I’m curious,” I said.

He cupped his hands together, whispering a few words so quietly I couldn’t hear them over the sound of Sara and Janine in the background. When he opened his hands, a tiny black mouse poked its head out between his fingers and I jerked back in surprise and fright.

“Oh my God, that’s a
mouse
! Get it out of here!” I might’ve jumped up on top of the bed if I wasn’t afraid there would be roaches under the covers.

He seemed disappointed at my reaction, and cradled the mouse up to his chest, lightly stroking its head with the tip of one finger as he frowned at me. “Bob’s my familiar, he won’t hurt you.”

“Stop being a baby, Shia,” Sara said across the room, covering the mouthpiece of the phone with one hand.

Reluctantly, I settled down a little more in my chair, taking a closer look—but that’s it. No
way
was I going to touch a mouse. “His name is Bob? You named your mouse Bob?” I asked, hearing the touch of a frightened whine in my voice and hating it. I hated the sound of mocking laughter from the belt even more.

“I didn’t name him, he named himself. He’s a familiar, not a normal mouse,” Arnold explained, putting his hand down on the table so the mouse could scamper down and start twitching his whiskers at me a little too close for comfort.

Making sure my legs were tucked very close to my chest so no part of me was near enough to the table to touch it, I shot a look at Sara, who was listening to Janine jabbering and shrugging at me helplessly. “Um. What’s a familiar?”

“Kind of like an extra helping hand. Different types of animals do different things. Bob, like most rodents, is good at collecting information for me.” When he put his hand on the table, the mouse quickly ran over to it and leaned against it. His thumb absently ran along the slick black fur as he talked, and the mouse seemed happy enough to stay where it was, so I gradually started relaxing a little more. “Some magi like using birds to carry messages for them. It’s a little old-fashioned, especially considering most everyone has e-mail or a cell phone these days, so it’s mostly the backwoods Europeans still doing it. Some magi use cats, as they’re an excellent way to focus and channel energy between the world of the living and the dead. The Egyptians were particularly fond of them.”

“Why would anyone want to deal with the dead?” I asked him, not sure if I was actually curious or just trying to keep my attention on something other than the furball at his fingertips.

He pointed with his free hand in the general direction of my waist. “Things like that are made with the use of energy from where the dead linger. Different magi specialize in different forms of magic. That’s one of the benefits to working with a coven instead of going solo. When you have magi like me who specialize in information and security, it works well when you also have magi who specialize in defensive spellcasting, offensive spellcasting, with the occasional crafter to make artifacts like the belt to augment the intangible stuff the rest of us do. Even an illusionist has a place and purpose along with the rest of us. It just depends on what our clients want, or what the coven as a whole is striving to do. Our flexibility is part of what made The Circle’s services so in demand, and such a great place to work.”

“Yeah,” I said dryly. “Sounds like a dream come true. Where do I sign up?”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “Wow, I did sound like a walking, talking advertisement for a second there. Sorry.”

“Hey, so Janine says we can stay at her place,” Sara said as she flipped the phone shut, walking back over to resume a similar crouched posture as mine on her seat. Guess she was afraid of having Roachzilla crush her foot, too. “However, she doesn’t want to have to play hostess and said we’re on our own as far as food and entertainment. I don’t know about you guys, but that’s fine with me.”

Arnold and I nodded, rising to pick up our things. I watched in fascination as Arnold closed his hands over the mouse and it once again disappeared to parts unknown. He wasn’t wearing long sleeves, so there really was no other explanation than magic for why it wasn’t there when he moved his hands off the table. While it raised his creepy factor a few points, it was admittedly kind of cool to see him do some real magic.

When he saw me watching, he grinned and gave me one word in explanation. “Conjuration.”

Whatever that means.

Janine was waiting on the wide marble steps in front of her building when we pulled up, and she did not look happy to see us. A shorter, skinnier, more nervous version of Sara, her blue-as-the-summer-sky eyes never quite managed to meet anyone else’s, and her hands never stopped fluttering over something, smoothing the bright golden strands of her hair or fussing with her clothes, fingering a piece of jewelry, that sort of thing. She was very pretty and scared of her own shadow.

If looks could kill, the one she shot to Sara when she saw Arnold with us would’ve turned her into a crispy critter. Though I hadn’t been paying much attention to their arguing on the phone, I figured out easily enough that Sara had left out the small detail that we’d be bringing someone else with us.

After we introduced Arnold, we followed Janine up the steps. Arnold was polite enough not to remark on the fact that Janine was visibly reluctant to shake his hand and carefully kept as much distance between them as possible. We passed through the automatic glass doors, which slid open with a soft hiss to grant us entrance, and into the elegant foyer of the apartment building.

Unlike Sara, Janine chose to live in one of the pieces of property her parents had left to them on their death. The apartment was very close to Central Park, and while it was far from a penthouse suite, being on the first floor, there was no doubt that it was very costly to stay here. The foyer was quiet, decorated in gold leaf and marble pillars with a few tasteful pieces of artwork. The soft burble of water trickling over the fountain in the center of the room masked the hiss and crackle of static of the security guard’s radio.

Despite the serious atmosphere of the lobby, it was reassuring having the security guy there, even if it was highly unlikely anyone would think to look for me or Sara here. The guard didn’t do much more than crack a thin, polite smile and give a short wave to Janine, passing a curious look over the rest of us filing behind her.

“Make yourselves at home, guys,” Janine said as she unlocked her front door. Rather than stick around to give the guided tour, she tossed her keys on a delicate end table next to the door and promptly headed toward her bedroom, not looking back. “I’ve still got some work to do, so if you want to watch a movie and order in pizza or Chinese or something, there are menus in the drawer next to the fridge.”

“Thanks, spaz,” Sara said, not without a touch of affection. “I owe you one.”

Janine flashed a quick half-smile before disappearing into the back. Arnold folded his arms and checked out the living room, one brow arching in surprise at the size of the place and the obviously expensive furnishings.

Sara and I tossed our duffels and purses on one of the oversized couches. I settled into one and flipped on the big screen, channel surfing while Sara went to the kitchen to order some food. Arnold went to the bookcases and started examining the titles, brushing his fingertips along the spines as he read them.

“So,” Arnold asked me, keeping his voice fairly low, “what’s with Janine? She doesn’t seem so bad.”

I smirked, turning up the volume on the tube just a little to make sure she wouldn’t overhear. “She’s not. Yet. Once you’re around her a little, you’ll see. She ran out of here like her ass was on fire because we brought you with us.”

“Why? Am I that scary?” He turned with a grin, looking about as dangerous as a kitten.

I smiled back and shook my head. “She has trouble dealing with new people and new situations. She’s never talked about it to me, and Sara’s never told me anything, but I suspect it may have to do with her parents’ sudden death or maybe something else bad happened to her in her past. She’s been that way as long as I’ve known her, almost five years. It’s nothing personal, don’t worry about it.”

He frowned, looking speculatively off in the direction Janine had gone. Hmm. Was he interested, or just covering his bases?

Sara came in a moment later with a grab bag of menus, and every one blessedly delivered, even at that late hour. We all threw some cash on the table and decided on Italian, ordering far too much food for the three of us.

We fell on the food when it arrived, a marathon of old Japanese monster movies playing in the background. Then, in a blissful, carbohydrate-induced stupor, we spent the rest of the evening watching downtown Tokyo get destroyed over and over again.

Janine must have turned the TV off, cleared the food off the coffee table, and thrown blankets on us sometime during the night. We’d fallen asleep on the couch, all sprawled against each other. When I woke up, Sara had her legs in Arnold’s lap, and my head was on her shoulder. One of my legs dangled over the arm of the couch, the other tucked up until my knee was almost against my chest.

My back screamed a protest when I got up, and I groaned when one or two of the stakes jabbed me in the ribs as I twisted up to a sitting position. Arnold was already awake, but unmoving, blinking blearily at me as I sat up.

“G’mornin’,” he managed to say, sounding like he needed coffee almost as badly as I did. “Sleep well?”

“Sort of. A bit cramped up, though. We must have been exhausted to crash out here.”

I stood with a stretch and a yawn. The belt didn’t feel quite so snug this morning despite the heavy meal, and I tentatively pulled at the buckle. It worked! I yanked it off, immeasurably relieved now that it was daylight and I could remove the silly thing.

“I’m going to shower and get dressed, I’ll be out in a little bit,” I said, grabbing my duffel and heading toward a bathroom.

He nodded, closing his eyes and tilting his head back against the couch. He looked pretty wiped out. I figured I’d do the nice thing and make breakfast for everyone, including our absent hostess, once I was ready to face the day.

Peeling off the body armor I’d slept in was no easy feat. It felt like a contortionist act just to get the shirt off. Once I did, I almost wished I’d just left it on.

Beneath the shirt I was a mass of bruises. None of them really hurt too badly, but overall it looked like I’d had a ton of bricks dropped on me. The ones at my neck were the only ones that were painful, sending little sparks of agony through my shoulder when I gingerly pressed a fingertip to them. Wincing, I cut that out soon enough, and with a sigh started up the shower, not having to wait long for the water to be almost hotter than I could stand.

As I washed my hair and scrubbed myself off, I reflected on what had come of having a full-out physical fight with a vamp. On the bright side, I was alive. On the brighter side, I still had all my bodily fluids. I could deal with some bruises if it meant survival. Still, I could see little indentations inside the bruises around my collarbone where Royce must have come pretty close to actually breaking the skin even through the body armor. There were impressions of fingerprints in black and blue on my arm, and sickly greenish-yellow spots around my legs and butt from when I’d fallen and, no doubt, from when I’d flipped the vampire onto his back.

All in all, not too shabby. I’d come out on top, if a bit worse for wear.

Oh, well. So no bikinis for a few weeks. It was spring anyway—I’d live.