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“Shut yer mouth, Horace.”
“He opened our club to them, for fuck’s sake. Our sacred feeding ground.”
“Sebastian opened the club to wolves, aye, that’s true, but not to the Algiers pack. They are our enemy. They are the banished wolves—not the locals.”
He grunts. “You can’t tell me you enjoy having them at Sanguine. It’s blasphemous.”
I exhale heavily and face the fucker. “Ye know what’s blasphemous? Disrespecting yer king and the orders of yer superiors. Now, shut yer mouth, lock yer shit down, and focus so we’re ready for Rune’s signal.”
He looks at me like he didn’t catch my meaning. Did I mention the guy is thick in the head?
Fuming, I turn to Leo. “Are ye ready to go?”
“Apparently not as ready as Horace.” Leo tilts his head, and I turn in time to see Horace racing off in a blur. He’s like a fucking juggernaut and there’s nothing I can do to stop him.
“Fucking hell.” I rush after him and towards the ever-present tug, pulling me to the witch.
For both our sakes, Horace better not have just screwed this up.
* * *
JOSIE
As I walk back toward the hotel, I can’t stop thinking about my old home. I’m tempted to take a detour and have a peek for myself. It’s my house… I don’t need permission from Callius Crane to be there.
There might not be more than a few scattered memories within those walls, but they’re my only tie to my life before. I need to walk the halls, feel the thick carpet under my toes, hear the floorboards creak as I step off the last stair.
The images in my mind are fuzzy. I want to refresh them, to have something more from my past to hold on to.
But not tonight. Aside from it being after sundown, I don’t remember exactly where the house is.
I pause at the corner of an intersection when I realize I’ve been walking for a good while without paying attention to where I’ve been walking. Looking around, I realize with some surprise that I know exactly where I am.
I’ve never walked down these streets, yet somehow I know that Jackson Square is directly behind me. The cemetery is about a ten-minute walk to my right. The hotel is another three blocks from the next intersection.
Weird.
Is this what it feels like for a witch to be in tune with her surroundings? Maybe New Orleans is where I’m meant to be.
A witch’s magic is strongest on ancestral lands, sure, but does that extend to the connection to her surroundings? I’m not sure if it’s being here or shaking off the last bits of my grandmother’s spell, but now that I’m outside, I feel the full effect of that veil being removed…
And something else too.
It takes a moment to place the strange feeling, but as the tingle on the back of my neck increases, I recognize the itch of being watched. There are eyes on me.
More than one pair.
I pan my gaze from one side of the street to the other, sweeping every darkened corner, but see nothing. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a monster with sharp fangs waiting to dig its teeth into me and drain me of my blood.
All the hair on my body suddenly stands on end. This isn’t magic-powered anxiety—this is a full-blown fight-or-flight survival response kicking in.
And I choose flight.
I pick up my pace, speed-walking down the empty sidewalk. The houses quickly give way to long buildings split into multiple businesses—most of them boarded up and covered in graffiti.
The hotel is only a block over now, but something tells me not to pass through the walkway I came from earlier. Instead, I cross the street, hoping some distance will erase the feeling of being tracked.
It doesn’t, and I decide to make it a rule that from now on, when someone offers a ride, I accept it.
