Page 71 of Just Dare Me
“Is expendable, as long as Sorcerer X is still out there somewhere,” she says. “One necromancer is all they need.”
“If that’s true, then Tabitha won’t be far from Sorcerer X. We find her, we find them both.” I turn back to the bloodsucker. “Guess we’re negotiating. Jump in my car; let’s go.”
He bristles with disdain. “Inthat?Never. I’ll walk and you’ll follow.”
“Oh, so the negotiations have already begun? In that case, let me show you how we do it. Go on, Elle, melt his face off.”
When she rubs her hands together with a greedy smile, the vamp quickly lowers his head and marches to the back door of my Crap-pile. As he passes Elle, she says, “Take the middle seat, next tome.” He shudders, then climbs inside.
Elle winks at Ilren, who throws his hands up in exasperation. “How?”
Climbing onto her bike, Nora says, “Oh, stop whining and get on.”
“But he knows who I am! I single-handedly took out half of Henry Stadther’s council. He was there!” Nora jams a helmet down over his head, muffling his voice.
We drive in silence, eyes peeled for movement, checking our mirrors, expecting an ambush any moment. Despite Jay’s bruised and bloody face, I can’t help feeling that this surrender has come cheap—too easily. Then again, my team is made up of Detroit’s best-of-the-best. Maybe we’re just that good.
“Take a right through that archway,” the vamp directs from the back. He’s squished in the middle seat, favoring Oliver’s side, so as to avoid as much contact with Elle as possible.
I see pale green light ahead. We enter a massive chamber flickering with magic torches set into the walls thirty feet above our heads. The glittering walls of salt are lined end-to-end with leather couches—must be thirty or forty of them, all empty.
Except for one, placed in the very center of the room on a thick, velvety white rug. The couch is enormous, a full half-circle of leather recliners, plush pillows, and built-in drink holders filled with bottles of wine.
At the center of the couch, Theo Coltrane reclines in a white silk robe, with a half-naked woman under each arm. Tilting his chin down, he shadows his eyes from my headlights under the brim of a fedora that sits low and crooked on his head.
To be polite, I switch off my headlights. To be rude, I don’t stop the car until my dirty, salty front tires have rolled onto the white rug. Theo’s women cover their ears against the blaring roar of the motorcycles echoing in the huge chamber.
When we all turn our engines off in unison, the silence in the room feels otherworldly. The sounds of opening and closing doors of my Crap-pile might as well be gunshots. As my team lines up in front of the couch, Theo lifts his arms from the shoulders of the women, a silent cue for them to get lost. They promptly scurry away, disappearing through a narrow opening at the back of the chamber.
“Aw, where they going?” I ask, making a sad face.
Theo is not amused. It’s the first time I’ve seen him without his beautiful, debonair smile. “Maybe they’re frightened.”
“They don’t seem frightened. They seem…jiggly. Is that what this room’s for?” I sweep a look across all the empty couches against the walls. “For jiggling?”
Our vampire escort tries to tiptoe away. “If you’ve no more need of me, Master, I’ll take your leave.”
Theo opens his mouth to reply, but I beat him to it. “You won’t take anything but a seat, Alfred. And don’t call meMaster; that’s worse thanma’am.”
Theo gives him a grim nod. Dejected, the thin vampire perches awkwardly on the edge of the couch, his shoulders slumped like a little kid in time out.
Theo peers curiously at Jay. “Is he all right?”
I do yet another double take. Jay is still smiling with bloody lips and teeth. “Oh, that. You’d have to understand. Do you have a bucket list, Theo?”
“I’m undead, so…”
“Right, right. What about Christmas morning as a kid? Remember that?”
“Can’t say I do.”
“Okay, let’s see…oh, how about Tabitha Durran? You know where she’s at?”
He gives me a flat look.
“Hey man, I’m trying to give you something you can actually answer.”
“If that’s what you think, I’m afraid you came a long way down here for nothing.”
