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‟That’s why I find it unusual.” Her gaze goes to the back of the room, where Cor disappeared. ‟If he hadn’t been there, you’d be dead.”

And nobody else would bother digging into the connection to the harbor vampire kiss. How convenient for Arzel. But how would he even know where I am, or what I’m doing? My stomach falls when I realize. The amulet. Looke even warned me that I might get tracked.

I am a damned rookie.

‟Looks like you had an epiphany,” Maggie comments, grinning toothily. ‟Does that mean you don’t need my help anymore? Because I’d like to be gone before your vampire liaison comes back and finds out Todd is helping as well.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

COR COMES BACK after Mags leaves. He sees me curled up on the bed, that frown still etched deeply onto his features. He actually takes off his shoes and the borrowed hoodie and moves to climb onto the bench beside me, but then he hesitates. I am too surprised and shocked—or maybe too out of it—to protest, resist, or do anything but let him lean forward to manhandle me. Gently pushing me over so that I’m lying on my back, he pulls the covers up to my chin and tucks it around me like a cocoon.

I can’t—… “Uhm, Cor?”

He crawls in close, spooning his muscular body behind me and pressing his chest to my side. His arm drapes protectively over my waist as he rests one hand on my hip, just above where my hips taper into the V pointing towards my crotch. If there wasn’t a blanket between us, I would accuse him of groping. Like this, I am blushing hard and unsure what to do. He feels shockingly good against my body, warmer than expected, safe, like a shield against the outside world. We barely fit onto the bench, but he makes it work.

His body heat soothes some of the ever-lurking chill that still has a hold on my bones. I want to sink into it and fall asleep until the world is a better place. The notion scares the sleepiness away for now, but who knows how long I will be able to resist?

But then reality hits me like a ton of bricks. Asha is gone, and with her my Clan resources, and I’m here in a stranger's embrace, in a strange city, a strange house, with no backup plan or protection, and a whole cult of demon worshippers trying to get rid of me in the most painful and convoluted ways they can find. Panic sets in, but I try to push it away. I take deep breaths, focusing on the rise and fall of Cor’s chest against my side. It helps ground me and calm my racing thoughts. I am not even sure he needs to breathe at his age, but if he is doing it for my benefit, I won’t complain.

“Cor?” I whisper into the darkness.

“Yes?” he responds quietly, his voice rough with relaxation. Or worry. I am horrible at interpreting his moods just going on his voice.

“I don’t know what to do,” I admit, feeling vulnerable and lost. My legs are killing me, as is my chest, as if some metal band is getting tightened around it ever so slightly. I almost died. I almost died.

He squeezes me tighter in response before relaxing again. “Sleep,” he murmurs, as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. “I will guard.”

I let out a shaky breath and close my eyes. This is crazy. I must be crazy. And still I can’t help falling into a deep, dreamless sleep, faintly aware of the warmth behind me.

HOURS LATER, I wake up to sunlight streaming through the window. For a moment, I’m disoriented until memory comes flooding back. I panic instantly.

The blanket wraps around my legs as I try to use muscles that were inflamed and spurting pus a very short time ago, and definitely not ready to balance me or carry my weight. My arm screams in pain as I crash into the couch table and scrape my skin open along most of the outside, sending my gun spinning onto the floor. My gun, which someone had to have placed there at some point. I scramble for it, prioritizing being armed over being mobile, and only snake my way out of the blanket when I have a safe hold on the grip. I don’t even know if it’s loaded, but I don’t care right now.

Legs throbbing, I push myself up, careful to keep the gun lowered as I look around. Cor is not here. My gut says he won’t be anywhere in the house, although I don’t know how I know. Just to be sure, I search the house from top to bottom, grunting with pain when I hobble the stairs back down. What I need is pain meds and a first aid box, not this hide-and-seek game again.

The déjà vu feeling makes me look into the kitchen to see if there are new bones lying around, but no luck with that either. There is a set of car keys on the table, which lets me know Stanley came by and managed to drop them off without getting eaten. It doesn’t mean that Cor was around then, though.

After what feels like half an hour of searching, I relent. He is gone again, and that is that. I hobble into the bathroom to look at the claw wounds on my leg, and the demonic acid burns on the rest of my body, and I have to sit down at the edge of the tub at what I see. The claw wound is crusty and angry, just as I expected an untreated wound to look. But it looks miles better than the spots on my body where the demon blood and spittle hit me. Those areas are still blueish-green, with skin peeling like after a bad sunburn and some open sores. They look like they aren’t getting worse and might actually be healing, but just seeing them makes me feel faint again. And it makes them throb.

Cor wouldn’t just leave me while I’m in this weakened state, so what did I do? Did I even do anything to make him leave?

I grab a shower cloth and wet it down under the tub faucet, then carefully dab at the crusts and gashes on my body. A little pus dribbles out here and there, but it feels like left-over pockets, not new inflammations.

Everything seemed fine yesterday until Loreley name-dropped Cor’s… sire? Master? Lord? Whatever this Egil dude is supposed to be. After that, Cor’s mood went to shit, and we got attacked by a demon dog thing. It feels like Cor made sure I survived and was safe and then just… left. But to what end? Did he want to go after his sire on his own, like, seek revenge or something? Or is he just afraid they will come after us again if he stays with me? Or maybe he went after the cultists who sent the hellhound. I can’t fathom which option is the most probable, and my head is spinning from the possibilities.

But Cor being gone doesn’t really change my plans, if I am honest with myself. The rotting vampires are leading me straight to the demon-hunting harbor vampires and the cultists. The cultists were after Cor and his amulet, and that is another connection to Egil’s kiss of vampires. And Cor seems to be very intent not to run into either cultists or Ove Egil. Which is probably why he is gone. He knows where I’ll be going next and wants to be as far away from me as possible when I do it. Probably smart.

I hobble into the bedroom and pick through my meager first aid supplies to cover my wounds. I should go to a doctor and get myself stitched up, the gashes will leave big scars otherwise, but I don’t feel like I have time to do that. Instead, I wrap them tight enough to hurt and put on some clothes; black, loose-fit workman’s jeans, steel-toed boots, a short-sleeved button-down shirt in dark gray, and a vintage football jacket in red and dark blue. It’s the most toned down I can be with my current wardrobe, which is something I’ll have to fix for future jobs. If I survive.

I swallow some Ibuprofen and hobble my way downstairs, careful not to trip myself. It’ll be extremely uncomfortable to walk around like this, but I don’t have a choice, so I might as well tough it out.

There is one other thing I wanted to do, and even without Cor around, I decide I’ll check it off my list.

Looke picks up after the third ring. She doesn’t sound surprised that I am calling her, and assures me she’ll be more than happy to smash the connection between the amulets. “Least risk for me to just break it,” she drawls in her Scotsman-brogue. “Come by whenever.”

Whenever for me is right now. I grab the car keys from the kitchen table and shuffle my way through the living room to pick up my gun, checking it for bullets. And yes, Cor was nice enough to load it for me, however he did that. It goes straight into the inner-pants holster that comes with the jeans, hidden at the small of my back where it won’t pull or rub against my newest battle wounds. I also grab some magazines with fresh ammo from my duffel bag and give the tablet on the couch a brief check.

The mission tablet is lying on the coffee table, the standby button pulsing lazily, letting me know I have a new message. I stare at the tablet like it might jump up and bite me at any moment. It could be from headquarters, from Colton, or from Asha, but none of the options bode well for me. If headquarters sent me an update on the case, I really need to know. If it’s Colton telling me to come home, I can’t act like I didn’t see it. If it’s Asha, who knows what she might try to get me away from Babylon.