Simon, perhaps picking up on my thoughts, took another, more awkward step away from me. “How is Quinn?”
“He’s good,” I said. “He says you owe him a call about playing . . . um . . . Border . . . Redemption? Something like that.” Simon and Quinn had been friends for years, though for appearances’ sake they often pretended they couldn’t stand each other. Until I started sleeping over at Quinn’s, I hadn’t known that they played video games in secret, like a weird online bromance affair. A vampire and a witch being friends wasn’t forbidden or anything, but it was a little weird. Then again, I was a witch sleeping with a vampire, so I was even weirder.
“Right. Yeah, I’ll do that soon,” Simon promised. “And you guys are good?”
Were we? Well, probably as good as a witch-vampire relationship could be. “Yeah. But, Simon—”
“Listen, I should probably get back to it,” he broke in. “Some of these tests are time-sensitive.”
I studied his face for a long moment. He wasn’t ready to talk. I wished I could cheer him up somehow, and then with a mental head-slap I remembered that I could.
“Hey, do you want to meet my father?”
He raised his eyebrows in confusion. “Like, to get a discount on shoes?”
“No. Well, yeah, I can set that up, but I don’t mean my actual dad. My biological father came by this morning and introduced himself. He says he has boundary blood, and I bet I could talk him into a blood test.”
Simon’s face lit up.
Of course, introducing Simon to Emil meant that I’d actually need to call Emil. I hadn’t really thought that part through, but I decided it could wait until the next morning. By then it was time for me to meet Quinn at Magic Beans. He would need to check in with Maven for the night before we could go out.
I expected the coffee shop to be crowded with students cramming for finals, but to my surprise, the “Closed for Private Party” sign was hanging on the door when I pulled up, and there were no cars parked in front. I frowned. Maven doesn’t actually rent out the space for private parties; that sign only goes up when there’s an Old World crisis—but no one had called me. I turned off the ignition and pulled out my cell phone. Nope. No calls. I tried the coffee shop line. When no one answered, I dialed Quinn’s cell, but he didn’t pick up either.
Not good. I drew the shredder out of the bands on my arm, climbed out of the car as quietly as possible, and stalked around the side of the building, keeping my steps soft. I was going to feel really silly if Maven and Quinn were just running late to work, but no, that couldn’t be right. Magic Beans was open twenty-four hours a day. If it was dark like this, someone had cleared out the customers and sent home the daytime staff. Only Maven, and maybe Quinn, had the authority to do that.
When I reached the end of the brick building, I paused and peeked around the corner to look at the tiny lot behind the building. The lighting was bad back there—just a single dim bulb that buzzed and occasionally flickered. But as far as I could tell, it looked the same as ever. One of those exit doors with no exterior handle, a Dumpster, and a few bits of trash that had blown in from the alley. You could fit a couple of cars back there, and sure enough I saw Maven’s Jeep, washed and looking as good as new. As far as I could tell, no one was inside it.
I was about to go knock on the back door of the building when I heard a muted metallic “thump” from behind the Dumpster, like someone was hiding back there and had bumped into the side. Shit. I held the shredder at shoulder height and crept forward as quietly as possible. When I reached the Dumpster, I carefully circled the first corner and then stopped again, intending to peek around it to see the trespasser.
Before I could do more than shift my weight, though, something unnaturally fast came up behind me and clutched at my upper right arm, grabbing me hard enough to knock me into the Dumpster. For a moment my face pressed against the metal, and I felt warm liquid spatter my hand. I looked down, trying to regain my balance, and realized that the hand clutching me was covered in blood.
Chapter 11
This was probably the moment when most people would scream. Instead, I pushed off the Dumpster, got my balance, and swung my left hand with the shredder in a fantastic roundhouse that would definitely have done catastrophic damage if Quinn hadn’t ducked just in time.
“Shit!” I yelled as the stake hit the Dumpster and splintered, the impact shooting up my arm. I dropped the ruined stake and shook out my hand. “Quinn, what the hell—”
“Sorry.” He was bending over, clutching one bloody wrist. More blood had run down his clothes and all over both hands. I didn’t see any wound other than the wrist, but he was alabaster-pale, and his eyes burned like he had a fever. “Help her,” he said weakly. “Maven.”
“Where?”
“Keep going,” he said, and I stepped around the Dumpster and looked down, my heart thudding in my chest.
Maven, the cardinal vampire of all of Colorado, was lying still on her back with her hair fanned out around her, like a princess in a fairy tale. Except usually the princess’s hair isn’t orange, and she’s not wearing bag-lady clothes, with blood splashed all over her mouth, neck and face. Her eyes were closed, and she wasn’t breathing, although vampires didn’t technically need to.
I looked back at Quinn. “What—”
“Belladonna.”
I cursed and darted forward, ignoring the blood that was pooled on either side of her head as I crouched down. Behind me, Quinn stumbled forward and dropped gracelessly to his knees on the other side of her. “How could this happen?” I asked.