Page 91 of Hounded
He lied to me. Kept things from me. MaybeIwas the one owed an apology.
For thirty minutes, I roamed, and stewed, and sulked. It was stupid, I knew, to wander aimlessly like I expected to see Loren sitting in a folding chair outside some trailer, waiting for me. He could have lived anywhere or nowhere. I didn’t know.
My slippers were getting dirty, and it was too hot out for the onesie, so I let the hood down and unzipped the top half, then tied the arms around my waist. I stopped in the middle of the winding path and raked my hands through my curls, feeling the sweat beading on my temples.
I surveyed the mobile units, all dark except for the strings of lights that swayed in the breeze. Gazing across the flat land, I could see the parking lot. The vehicles there had become familiar, always in their designated spots, but one was notably empty. Loren’s beat-up old truck was gone.
With a groan, I slouched, then kicked a clod of dirt and sent it skittering. Why hadn’t I checked the lot in the first place?
Loren would be back. He was always around, and he’d be looking for his phone.
After a slow journey back to the Airstream, I locked myself inside and paced the length of it three times. Ishould have been tired, but my brain was busy. It felt like a pinball was bouncing around inside my skull, hitting nothing but dead ends and bumpers again and again.
I sighed loud and long, then dropped onto the sofa, where I sprawled as dramatically as a swooning Southern belle. I wasn’t good at waiting. Those eight weeks in rehab, it felt like that was all I did. I waited for a call or a visit. For my memories to come back. For someone to tell me what was missing because I was so terribly incomplete.
The drugs made me feel whole. It was a strange sort of high, euphoric but maddeningly fleeting. I needed more.
Wasn’t that the nature of addiction?
But I was managing it. Pacing myself. I only got three pills from Chaz, and I had one left. It was hardly a relapse.
After a moment spent lying and staring at the stark white ceiling, I pushed onto my feet and headed toward the bathroom. Despite living alone, I felt the need to hide the drugs. Internalized shame, maybe? Sounded like some shit my therapist would say.
In the bathroom, I grabbed a quarter off the sink counter, then stepped onto the closed toilet lid. The plastic vent cover in the ceiling had felt like a logical storage place. Clever, even. While I used the coin to twist the screws loose, I felt increasingly resolute.
Loren had the information I needed and, if I couldn’t find him sober, I would look for him high. In moments and memories, I would get the answers he wouldn’t give me.
32
Loren
Joss Foster was adead man the moment I got in the cab. The car ride spent searching for solitude, the conversation that became more about me than I intended, and the way I forced him out of the vehicle with my glaive aimed at his throat, then had him kneel in the dark corner of the airfield before I removed his head… all of it was inevitable.
His body wisped away, and his soul was sucked into the depths of Hell. I needed to follow him. With no assignments outstanding, Moira would be expecting me and, without Whitney to distract her, I would be missed sooner rather than later.
I preferred to draw my portals on walls, making my entries into the underworld as painless as walking through a door, but I could make them anywhere. The car door worked as well as anything. I dragged my finger along the curve of the window frame, then down each side until the opening was large enough to squeeze through.
When I emerged into Moira’s bedroom, my chest tightened. Tension worked its way up my neck, restrictingmy breath as I peered around. The demoness’s quarters were sprawling. Not as large as Nero’s boundless domain, but this single room could house the Airstream four times over. It boasted a pair of fainting couches, a grand piano I was occasionally called upon to play, a dining table set for twelve despite there being no kitchen in sight and, of course, the bed.
I found my mistress there, swathed in red satin sheets and cast in candlelight. It was as if she’d known I was coming and made ready for me. As prepared as she may have been, I was far from it.
“Lorenzo,” she cooed and sat up. When the sheets fell away from her bare breasts, my gaze dropped to the floor.
Fabric swished as Moira worked her way to standing, then padded over to me. She came close, pushing her nude body against me and crowding into my line of sight.
“Such a good boy coming home so quickly.” She smiled. Her lips were deep burgundy and damp, making her look like a freshly fed vampire. Hooking a finger around the links of my collar, she pulled me toward her.
I fought the urge to buck as my face was drawn mere inches from hers. “Joss Foster is dead,” I blurted. “Do I have another assignment?”
Moira paused, so close I felt her breath on my skin. “Lorenzo, darling, you know how I feel about idle chatter.” She tittered a laugh. “Especially when there are so many better things you could be doing with your mouth.”
She kept pulling, dragging me down past her exposed breasts until I was on my knees before her, my eyes level with her navel. I had the feeling she wanted me lower thanthat.
“The phoenix,” I said.
I couldn’t look down with her grip tight on the chain cinching around my throat. So, I stared at her visage instead, seeing the nurse from the sanatorium and feeling as vulnerable now as I had the day she bargained for my soul.
“Whitney’s hunting it,” I said. “Shouldn’t I join him?”
