Then again, she’d rarely allowed me to leave the house.
“Okay, Penny, think.” I bit my lip and looked back toward Darius’s house. A few more lights from surrounding houses had clicked on.
There was probably no way I could just pop back over, tiptoe around the mess, and grab my forgotten handbag…
I turned in the opposite direction, racking my brain for a way out of this mess. If any of the mages from the party the other night lived in the area, I didn’t remember. The only other species I knew that hung out here that might be friendly were…the shifters.
That guy Red had called me when I’d first come, after all. He’d said to call if I needed anything.
He hung out in the bars up near the river. That was where I needed to head.
Fifteen or so minutes later, I was hurrying through the mostly quiet streets, my cheap shoes squeaking dramatically. Before I reached the stretch of bars, the street opened up, the lane splitting around a grassy island area that housed a few groups of loiterers, still awake despite the hour and chatting on makeshift chairs or the ground.
I clutched my sweater a little tighter over my chest, looking straight ahead so as not to make eye contact with someone who might think I was open for business. Granted, ladies of the night probably wore nicer-looking, or certainly more revealing, apparel, but these guys probably fell in the “beggars can’t be choosers” camp.
“Hey, pretty lady,” someone called from across the street. A few hoarse chuckles followed.
I grimaced, looking sideways at a flare of light. A man cupped a lighter to his glass pipe. The flame was sucked through the barrel of the pipe, illuminating his unibrow and dirty forehead.
“I’m just minding my own business,” I said softly, picking up the pace. My shoes protested.
“Hey,” some guy shouted, his voice ringing across the quiet early morning. “I said hey!”
The someone’s-watching-me itch from earlier flared to life with a vengeance, so furious that I stutter-stepped to a stop and couldn’t help looking. A couple guys in the grassy island glanced over, without any real interest. Across the street, in a weed-choked area beneath a large, leafy tree, movement flickered, catching my eye. The shape stilled almost immediately, covered in heavy shadow, but I could just make out the form of a stocky character looking my way, watching me. The way his body was braced against the tree, sitting but not at rest, rose my hackles.
He wasn’t like the others in this area, lounging with a bottle or his drug of choice—he was here for a purpose.
Was that purpose me?
Butterflies of anticipation filled my stomach, and the pressure of danger pressed on my chest.
Gritting my teeth, I turned away and started to walk—no, swagger. Predators liked to chase. They liked to hunt. If I acted nonchalant, maybe the watcher would have second thoughts.
Sensitive to the sounds around me, I put distance between myself and the collection of people behind me.
Breathing got a little easier with every step, and I slowed as I approached the bar where Red usually hung out. I just hoped he was there. Based on the mostly quiet street, the odds weren’t entirely favorable. The bars were clearly closed.
I drifted close to the wall and into the shadows, hunching to make myself smaller. I peeked around the corner like a creep, listening hard. Shifters kept late hours. The bar was closed, but maybe the partygoers hadn’t all gone home. The two big guys loitering outside would support that theory. If they were shifters, they’d likely know Red and let me inside. Or they’d call him.
If not, I needed to come up with another plan. And quick. The itch between my shoulder blades had diminished, but if the Guild was in this area, they’d be roaming around. Any one of them might seize the chance to try and grab me. Given how weak I felt after the display at Darius’s house, that could be disastrous.
Straining, I pointed my ear in their direction, but it was soon apparent that they were either quiet or mute. I couldn’t hear a single word.
Blowing out a breath, I racked my brain for a fix to the problem, and almost immediately (albeit belatedly) remembered the concealment spell I’d created in the Guild compound.
I rolled my eyes at myself. My mother would slap me upside the head for that memory slip.
Chalk it up to experience, Penny.
I summoned as much energy as I could muster and closed my eyes while sorting through the elements that would make the spell. The familiar weave came naturally. I had it draped over myself in no time, and the light shimmer around me said I’d done it right.
Taking a deep breath, I slipped around the corner, continuing to hug the wall and stick to the shadows. In the event the spell faltered, it was better to be safe than sorry. Or as my mother would say, “Penny, don’t be an idiot.”
Fifteen feet from the men, I could hear their soft murmurs. A little closer and I could make out their faces in the flare of their cigarettes. One was a broad-faced guy in his mid-thirties with a big block of a body, and the other had jutting teeth and an expression like something smelled bad. Neither was Red (thank you, random selfie in the email—it turned out it hadn’t been as odd as it had seemed at the time). Still, they could be shifters.
The broad-faced guy’s shoulders stiffened, and he held up a hand to the other, his face pointed my way.
I froze, staring at him with wide eyes, wondering if my spell hadn’t worked like I’d thought.
“What is it?” Smells-a-Stink asked in a hush.
Broad Face sniffed and scanned the street. “You smell that?” he murmured.
The other guy stepped into the gutter, keeping one foot on the street. He looked upward and then away before facing my direction. “Yeah. Don’t see nothin’, though.”
Fabulous. I was the stink.
“Filthy vampires, is it?” the first asked.
“Nah, they ain’t invisible. They don’t smell as good, neither.”
“Too bad. Tearing one of them apart would get us noticed in the pack. They’re hard to kill, I hear.”
“What about one of those mages wandering around the city?” Smells-a-Stink said, taking a step in my direction.
It finally occurred to me that these were magical folk who could smell exceptionally well, hanging out near a shifter bar, and had mentioned the word pack. My mother’s voice sounded in my head: Penny, stop being slow.
Shifters.
My concealment spell fit around me like a bubble, deadening sound to some degree, but I hadn’t thought at all about smell.
Since these guys were shifters, I could just show myself to them…only they clearly weren’t so hot on vampires or mages. Given that I was a mage and my new trainer was a vampire (I had not resigned myself to the possibility he might not have made it through), I was not on their “awesome” list.
And now they knew I was here.
16
I could not remember if shifters had enhanced hearing, but it seemed like a strong possibility, given that animals did. Which meant a sound-suppressing spell wouldn’t work as well with them, especially if they were already onto me.
Careful with my footfalls, I took a step away. Then another, putting distance between us. Unfortunately, Broad Face took one step toward me with a much larger stride. Smells-a-Stink matched him.
I held my breath and picked up the pace, trying to choose each step carefully.
My overburdened shoe groaned with the effort. I froze with my other foot off the ground.
“There’s something there,” Broad Face said, pausing with me. “A female.”
How could he possibly know that? I was certainly sweating as much as any man.
“A mage, then,” the other murmured, the words almost unintelligible. He was trying to keep me from hearing. Clearly he didn’t know I was all of seven feet away.
“Rush her,” Broad Face whispered.
“I don’t know where she is,” the other murmured, this time without moving his lips.
“That way somewhere.” Broad Face jerked his chin in my direction. “If we just run at her, eventually we’ll run into her.”
“We should change, or we’ll run right into a spell.”
“Not if we surprise her.”
It wasn’t clear why these two had been given the duty of guarding the door. Or any duties at all.