Soul to Shepherd (23 page)

“How sweet is it?” Quinn asked, attempting to downplay his enthusiasm.

“Oh,” Dylan remarked smugly. “This new place makes the Manhattan penthouse look like a run-down doublewide.”

“Seriously?” Now I was intrigued.

“Oh, yeah.” Dylan smiled proudly.

“C’mon, Evie, just one little peek.” Quinn flashed me a new, more lethal version of his secret weapon—he combined his dazzling, heart-stopping smile with puppy dog eyes.

“No fair!” I laughed. “How long have you been working on that one?”

Quinn shrugged his shoulders and acted like it was no big deal. “I realized my old smile was losing its potency on you.” He hit me with the new smile again. “So?”

“So, I think your ‘potency’ has reached an all-time high!” I exclaimed, still chuckling. “Fine,” I said, sighing. “Go. Check it out. But
don’t
tell me or anyone else about it—not where it is, not what it looks like—nothing. Got it?”

Quinn and Dylan just looked at me in surprise—like they couldn’t believe I’d caved.

“Go!” I exclaimed with a chuckle. “Before I change my mind.”

Dylan looked thoroughly impressed with Quinn. “Dude, you need to show me how to do that.”

Quinn laughed.

“No, seriously,” Dylan continued. “M’s had the upper hand for a while now, and I really need a new edge.”

“I’ll see you back at the house!” I called out as they disappeared.

“Anything?” I asked Minerva when I arrived back at the Harrisons’. She was sitting on the roof of the pool house. From her vantage point, she had an unobstructed view of the entire backyard and anything that dared to wander up the bluff from the beach.

“No.”

“You check on Doug?”

“No, not yet.”

“I’ll go. You stay here.” I teleported myself into Doug’s bedroom. The television was on, but he was fast asleep. I tiptoed across the room and turned off the TV, so there’d be no way to confuse a late-night show with his own distress calls.

“He’s fine,” I reported when I returned to Minerva’s side.

“And the other boys?”

“Checking out the new hideout,” I replied reluctantly.

“I thought you didn’t want anyone but Dylan to know about it until the last minute.”

“I didn’t.”

“So, what happened?”

“Quinn’s mastered this new puppy dog eyes-smile combo.”

“Getting soft are we?” Minerva giggled. “I’ve grown immune to Dylan’s tactics—he doesn’t get away with as much as he used to anymore.”

“Well, that may not be the case much longer. Dylan witnessed my reaction to Quinn and began pumping him for pointers.”

She chuckled softly. “Men are amusing creatures.”

“Yes, they are,” I concurred.

We sat in the same spot, occasionally taking turns to do perimeter sweeps, until shortly after the sun rose. Dylan and Quinn hadn’t shown up, and I assumed Dylan had taken Quinn back to the Falls to sleep.

Wanting to stretch my limbs, I stood up and took a deep breath, but instead of getting a nose full of the cool, dewy morning air, I got a whiff of something else.

“Do you smell that?” I whispered in alarm, sniffing the air more intently. I immediately caught the faintest hint of a putrid, rank odor, which could only mean one thing: Servants. I pulled out my hunting knife, and Minerva followed suit. I scanned the area and couldn’t see anything, but the smell was unmistakable.

“Crap! How many do you think there are?” I whispered.

“I can smell at least two,” Minerva replied quietly, completely geared up and ready to fight.

“How far away?”

“I’m not sure.” She sniffed the air again. “Not far. I think they might be in the water.”

I flashed back to just a few nights ago when Quinn was in the lake and shuddered at the thought of what could’ve happened to him had he been swimming this evening.

“You think they’re headed this way?”

“I can’t tell.”

“Well, I can.” I phased out of view.

“Evie, stop!” she whispered harshly. “They’ll sense you.”

“I’ll be fine,” I whispered in my invisible state. “It’s a hybrid thing. I’ll be back in a few.”

Knowing I was untraceable in my phantom form, I flew up over the ravine and headed towards Quinn’s beach. Sure enough, I spotted two Servants in their hideous demonic forms bobbing in the water not more than a half-mile from shore. They weren’t moving. They weren’t doing anything. Maybe they were testing us, waiting to determine what our response would be when we figured out they were there. Maybe they were waiting for Quinn to return before they pounced. Hate and rage curdled within me. I clenched the handle of the hunting knife and moved in closer, only to re-evaluate their range from my position. I was pretty sure I could nail one of them.

“Evie!” I heard Quinn call out for me. “Hey, Evie!”

The Servants faded from view immediately.

“Son of a—!” I cursed, fearing the demons were headed for the house. I immediately returned to find Minerva, Dylan, and Quinn standing on the outdoor patio.

“Come on. We’re out of here,” I grabbed Quinn and teleported us to the Falls.

“Where’s Minerva?” I asked when Dylan arrived right behind us.

“Making sure the Servants are gone and Quinn’s brother is okay.”

I breathed a sigh of relief to know she was okay, but my relief quickly turned to anger when I realized the unnecessary risk Quinn had been put in just by being there.

“Why didn’t you bring Quinn back up here the second you smelled the Servants?” I demanded crossly.

“Because I refused to go without you,” Quinn snapped back.

“It’s true,” Dylan said. “College Boy didn’t want to go, and I couldn’t make him.”

“What? Why not?” I asked Dylan.

“I don’t know,” he replied in bewilderment. “It’s not like I didn’t try. He just
resisted
me somehow.”

We both looked at Quinn curiously.

“Have you ever had trouble teleporting him before?” I asked Dylan.

“No.”

“But I’ve also never refused to go with you before,” Quinn threw in.

“That’s true,” Dylan agreed.

“That’s impossible, right?” I asked Dylan. “I mean, there must’ve been some glitch. It’s not like a mortal can
choose
whether or not to go with us, right?”

“Well, apparently,
I
can whenever you’re acting like some deranged, one-man S.W.A.T. team,” Quinn replied petulantly. “What the hell were you thinking, Evie? That could’ve been a trap specifically designed to lure you to them.”

“I was fine,” I whispered in response. Still, I’d been so focused on protecting Quinn, it hadn’t even crossed my mind that the Servants might’ve been targeting me.

“K.C., you are
absolutely
not
to go anywhere on this Earth without Minerva or me by your side—period, end of story.” I’d never heard Dylan speak with such authority. “I’m sorry, but it’s for your own good.”

“Okay,
dad
.”

“I mean it, Eve.” Dylan only used my first name when he was really upset with me.
“You do realize Quinn doesn’t have a chance in hell of surviving if something happens to you, don’t you?”
he added telepathically.

I nodded apologetically.

“You’ve got to stop trying to be a hero. If not for your sake, then for Quinn’s,” he added aloud.

“Okay, okay. Is the lecture over with now?”

Dylan stood there for a minute and looked at the sky as if running through a mental checklist of the points he wanted to cover. “Yes,” he stated smugly.

“Ugh,” I harrumphed, shooting Dylan an annoyed look before I marched off towards the cave.

“Dude, you need to teach me how you just did
that
,” I overheard Quinn say to Dylan under his breath.

A handful of hours later, Minerva arrived in the Falls.

“There haven’t been any other signs of the Servants on or anywhere near the Harrisons’ property,” she announced.

“Maybe they’re getting ready to make their move,” Quinn said.

“I don’t know,” I pondered aloud. “Ruben said if we stuck with our plan, then everything should be fine on the eighteenth.”

“He did?” Quinn asked optimistically.

“Yeah, he did,” I reassured him. “But,” I continued, shaking my head, “maybe we should reconsider staying at your parents’ house. It’s too risky—especially when your whole family is planning to get together. We could be putting them in danger. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think we should go to the new portal tonight.”

“We can’t,” Quinn replied.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because today is the ninth.”

“So?” Dylan asked.

“Damn it,” I mumbled under my breath. With everything else that had happened the last couple of days, I’d forgotten. “Tomorrow is the three-week deadline for the Moon Mercenaries to recover Quinn’s blood.”

“Have you heard from them at all, K.C.?”

“No.”
And I doubt I will
, I thought.

“And, also, I really should see my parents, if only for a night,” Quinn added. “It’s been a while, and my mom will be seriously disappointed if I bail on them—not to mention suspicious if we’re not there for dinner tomorrow night. I guarantee you Doug’s going to tell them you were staying with me while they were out of town.”

“
Going to meet the parents, are we?”
Dylan
asked telepathically, raising his eyebrows at me in amusement.

“
Don’t even go there,”
I warned.
“This was not my idea.”

“
So,”
he continued, ignoring my comment.
“Are you going as his girlfriend or his
fiancée
?”

“
Oh, shut up,”
I snapped. Dylan coughed, trying to hide his laughter. Even M cracked a smile.

“
Minerva, please help me convince Quinn this is a really bad idea,”
I begged.

“You know,” Dylan piped in before Minerva could offer her two cents worth. “With M and me hanging around the house, there should be more than enough protection for Quinn’s entire family while you two are there.” Dylan smiled devilishly.

“
I’m going to find a way to torture you slowly for this, Dylan
,
”
I threatened.

“
Sorry, K.C., but this is just too good of an opportunity to pass up. Besides, there’ll be three of us to keep watch. How can you argue with that level of security?”

“In fact,” Dylan continued, twisting the knife in deeper, “when you really think about it, this all actually works out perfectly. K.C. can wait around for the Bloodhounds to call, and Quinn, you’ll be able to spend some quality time with your family before dropping the bomb that you’re leaving for another week or so. No one will be left hanging, no one will be suspicious, no one will be disappointed—and no one will get hurt.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Quinn agreed.

I didn’t like this one bit. “Quinn, think about this. What about Brady? The Servants already got to him.”

“That was different. Brady let that happen to himself,” Quinn said bitterly.

“And Mary? Quinn,” I continued, “Dylan, Minerva, and I might not be enough manpower depending on how many Servants show up.”

“Who’s to say the Servants will stay away from my family if we leave?” Quinn countered. “They found Brady, and he was halfway across the country. At least this way there are three of you around at all times. Those bastards would be stupid not to take those odds into consideration.”

I couldn’t believe Quinn was so quick to ignore the danger his family might be in by us staying. And for what? So his family could meet me?

“Just try it,” Quinn pleaded. “Give it one night with them, and if things get too heated, I promise we’ll leave—
immediately
.”

“It’s just one night. What’s one night?” Dylan chimed in, championing Quinn’s cause, smiling wickedly.

“You’re forgetting about tonight,” I said. “We can’t exactly leave Doug all alone in the house.”

“Fine—two nights. K.C., I can assure you, M and I will be patrolling the area like highly-trained canines working the narcotics division,” Dylan stated. “We’ll have the house on lockdown in a second if we smell one trace of the demons’ nasty B.O. Trust me.”

I looked at Minerva, who just shrugged her shoulders. “I think it’s worth trying.”

I looked at Quinn’s hopeful face.
Three against one—crap.

“You really want me to be there with you tomorrow night?” I asked him. “To meet your parents?”

“Yes.”

“As who?”

“As my girlfriend, Evie—Evie Har—.” He stopped short when he saw me narrow my eyes and raise my eyebrows at him. “Evie
Harper
,” he said slowly. The words sounded so awkward and forced it made me wonder whether that was how he really planned to introduce me tomorrow night.

“Quinn—”

“I’ll lie about your name,” he interjected. “But not about what you mean to me.”

“I’m not asking you to
lie
about your feelings. I was just hoping you’d downplay the status of our relationship when you described it to your family.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” He grinned.

“Yeah, right.” I rolled my eyes.

“Okay, so now that we have that settled,” Dylan stated. “Let’s go over the revised game plan. Instead of Quinn and K.C. going to the new portal on the twelfth, they’ll go on the eleventh.”

“Yup,” I confirmed. “And if I haven’t heard from Jaegar or Chase by then, I’ll leave my cell phone with you, Dylan. If they call, let me know, and we’ll go from there.”

“So in an ideal world,” Dylan recapped, “we’ll all hunker down for the next two days, meet the folks, have a family dinner, get Quinn’s blood from the Bloodhounds, and then get the hell out of town—all while preventing the Servants from kidnapping Quinn, hurting any of his family, or eliminating you. That about sum it up?”

“In a nutshell.” I nodded.
“So nice of you to offer to meet Quinn’s parents too,”
I teased Dylan telepathically.

“
You’re going to have to settle with us being there with you in spirit.”
Dylan winked.

“
Yeah, watching me make an ass out of myself in front of Quinn’s parents,”
I shot back, disgruntled.