Page 67 of Deadly Reckoning
“That’s because they don’t,” Griff replies. “At least to my knowledge, they don’t. There’s also nothing about it in gargoyle lore that I remember. Although, like I said, I would have to ask my family to be certain.”
“They don’t do phones, do they?” I ask, my eyebrows furrowing slightly as I try to remember the very limited information that he has shared about his family.
He shakes his head with a slight smile, “No, they don’t really do many modern conveniences. They don’t really have anything against them, they just prefer not to.”
“Fair enough,” I reply.
“We’ll figure it out,” Raiden replies as we pull into town, and Van tries to look for a parking spot.
“Thanks, man,” Griff replies. “As I said earlier though, it’s not too high up on the list. There are a lot of other things that we need to look into with more urgency than that.”
“I know, but I wanted to try to find you some answers,” Raiden explains. This is clearly bothering him, since he’s picked up the conversation again.
“How many things are you looking into at the same time, man?” Coen asks, his eyebrow raised as he looks at Raiden knowingly.
Raiden winces slightly and glances away, which makes Coen smile.
“About six or seven,” Raiden replies eventually when everyone just stares at him, waiting for an answer.
“Thought so,” Coen says. “Don’t do too much, you’ll overwhelm yourself and end up in burnout.”
Raiden chuckles, “I don’t know whether to be happy that you remember that I do that, or mad because you remember and I know you’re right, and that means that I’m going to have to slow down and I don’t want to.”
Coen shrugs, “I’m good with either, so long as you slow down.”
“I’ve missed you, dude,” Raiden replies with a grin.
“Come on, let’s go and find whatever it is that Ransom needs,” Evander says as he jumps out of the van, and we all tumble out after him.
“Have you messaged Neera to see if she’s working today?” River asks as he swings an arm around my shoulders.
I shake my head following Ransom as he leads us all toward the Apothecary.
“No, she’s like me, she’s always working,” I reply with a smile.
“I think maybe we should stay out here while you go in,” Doc suggests to Ransom. “There’s rather a lot of us and it’s only a small store.”
“Good point,” Ransom says and then holds a hand out to me, “come on, I know how much you love these places.”
I grin, “Raiden told you. I mean, I was coming in whether you wanted me to or not, but it’s nice to be invited.”
The guys chuckle at my response and start talking about something else as Ransom and I head up the steps, but a prickle on the back of my neck has my instincts stirring. The Voices don’t seem to react in any way, their quiet murmur is the same as it usually is, which tends to be a good sign.
I glance back over my shoulder, and pretending that I’m looking at the guys, I quickly study our surroundings, making sure to keep a relaxed smile on my face.
There are a couple of people who are glancing in our direction, but their gazes don’t linger for very long, and they’re most likely just looking because we’re quite a big group, and I wouldn’t describe any of the guys as unassuming.
None of those gazes is what triggered my instincts though. I didn’t feel it for long enough to know whether whoever was watching me meant any harm, but it triggered my instincts in some way, and I need to remain alert.
Not that I wasn’t anyway, but I need to remain more alert.
Alerter?
For fuck sake, that is definitely not a word.
For the moment, the feeling has dissipated. As I begin to turn back around to follow Ransom inside the store, my gaze catches Coen’s.
He raises his eyebrow at me in question, showing how used to working with me he is, and how well he knows me in general. I don’t particularly want to say it out loud since I don’t know if anyone is listening. So I use the hand signals that Dimitri, Coen, and I developed to talk to each other when we couldn’t speak out loud.
