Page 44 of Junk Magic

“I’d like a shower.”

It was abrupt, enough to be rude, but I needed to get out of there. I needed to get out now. And Cyrus seemed to realize that, dropping my hands with that same concerned look on his face. But he didn’t say anything else.

I turned and went into the bedroom.

Chapter Twelve

Cyrus’s place was the stereotypical bachelor pad. The building dated to the seventies, and as far as I could tell, so did the decor. There was brown shag carpeting on the floor, breaking down with every step because it was so old, and sending clouds of tiny filaments into the air. There was “wood” paneling on one wall that had never seen a tree, and some geometric wallpaper on another, peeling a little along the seams, in gold and beige. There were even what might be original, avocado-colored appliances in the kitchen, paired with an accent wall in eye-searing orange.

Add a few beanbag chairs and a lava lamp, and the place would be totally groovy.

It was also tiny, which along with helping me with my remodel, explained why Cyrus slept over a lot these days. There was a welcome mat sized foyer, a tiny galley kitchen, and a living room/dining room combo so small that I had no idea how it was supposed to serve both purposes. Which was likely why he ate on the sofa while watching T.V.

The bedroom wasn’t much bigger, being mainly a walkway around the queen-sized bed that he’d had to get, because nothing larger would have fit. Fortunately, he didn’t have a lot of belongings to take up space, since he hadn’t taken much with him from Arnou. Having to run for your life in the middle of the night before your old clan guts you will do that to a person.

He also hadn’t acquired much since moving to Vegas, unless you counted a framed poster of the Rat Pack and a lamp designed to look like a woman’s fishnet-covered leg. He’d found both at an old junk shop outside of town and thought they went with the retro vibe of the place. It was an “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” sort of thing, I guessed.

But there were some differences from the last time I was here. Like the neat rolls of sleeping bags stacked against the wall opposite the bed, what looked like a dozen or so. And the clothes bulging out of the room’s lone, sliding door closet, which had once closed easily. And the change in scent . . .

I stopped with my hand on the dresser and just breathed for a moment. My eyes had closed without me telling them to, and since it was approximately noon, the usual nighttime noise of the surrounding streets was far into the future. My senses should have been registering pretty much nothing.

But tell them that.

There was a tangle of unfamiliar scents snarling the room, which I finally recognized as belonging to some of the lost boys Cyrus had befriended. I doubted he was housing them all here—there simply wasn’t room. But he was definitely feeding them, and providing a safe place for their belongings.

I couldn’t be sure of the number because some were mere traces, barely a whisper in my nostrils, their scents old and decayed. But others were fresh, vibrant and vivid, as if they’d been here very recently, painting the darkness in leaping wolf shadows behind my eyelids. One of the latter was Jace, his quick, mercurial nature mimicked by his scent. It was elusive, like being caught in a scattering of leaves blown by the wind, teasing me from all sides. And then gone again, just as quickly. And immediately behind it—

Jayden.

The boy’s scent was so tangible that I actually reached out a hand to touch it. But like quicksilver, it slipped through my fingers, as fast as he’d been on that terrible night. Yet so vivid that I could almost see him, bright as a flame in the darkness.

I wondered, could Cyrus see him, too? He must be able to; he’d had these gifts far longer than me. But if so, how could he stand it?

Even worse, how hard would it be, when the scent began to fade in another day or two, slipping away like a second death? When even the last trace of the boy he knew was gone? It felt vaguely like the place was being haunted now, but I thought that the echoing stillness, the absence of any sensory memory at all, might be worse.

We have to keep Jace out of here, I thought blankly. We have to—

A head lifted abruptly from my neck, almost in a jerk, but it wasn’t mine. At least, it wasn’t normally mine. But I could see it as I had the boys, without the need for eyes. It was sleek and dark, like a shadow on a wall, and not in a human shape.

And, suddenly, I could see something else, too.

A woman was coming down the hall outside, her scent painting a trail in the air behind her. It was yellow; I had no idea why, but I could see it streaming out like a pale scarf caught in the wind.

She’d taken the stairs because the elevator was acting up again. She was panting, her heavy breaths and heavier footfalls coming closer, and she was carrying something. I could hear it crinkle in her arms.

Groceries? Shopping? I didn’t know, but she was laden down and distracted. It made her vulnerable. Prey.

Now she was struggling to open a door down the hall with keys that jangled on my nerves, loud and clanging, despite the fact that I shouldn’t have been able to hear them at all. Like her low cursing when she missed the keyhole—soft muscles, and now bad reflexes. Prey, something said louder, my nose twitching.

A scent cloud surrounded her, painting me a picture as clear as sight: the salty tang of her sweat under a dash of cheap perfume; the smack of her hairspray, too much for a young woman, but perfect for someone older who was trying to preserve an expensive hairstyle in the Vegas heat; a hint of lavender body powder covering a trace of Ben Gay.

The sounds confirmed the scents, with the soft swish, swish, swish of hosiery rubbing together on her legs when she moved, which no young woman would bother with in this temperature. The clip clop of sensible shoes. Her breath, still labored after some minutes—all of it said older, out of shape, or injured. PREY.

“Lia?”

The voice jolted me back into myself somewhat, and I opened eyes that I couldn’t remember closing. And saw a man standing in the doorway. The bedroom was darker than the living room, as the wall of the next building blocked most of the light through the lone window. Some sunlight muscled its way in anyway, but was confined to dim, dust filled stripes across the darkness, which didn’t help with visibility. It left the man barely a shape against the gloom, and for a moment, I didn’t know him.

My hackles rose, ruffling the hair at the base of my neck. I made no sound, but I could feel him tense nonetheless, as if some of the air had been sucked out of the room. “Lia?” he said again, more carefully this time, and it confused me. I knew that voice.

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