Maybe I should have contacted him first. “What?” I said as I noticed Ivy and Jenks staring at me.
“You’re assuming that whoever is doing this is targeting Al?” Ivy asked.
“Why not? Everyone else is,” I said, then texted Trent to stay awake and that I’d explain later.
Ivy and Jenks exchanged an odd look. “Maybe they’re targeting you,” Jenks said, and I jerked, hitting send.
“Me?” I went cold, thinking back to being jolted awake in fear outside my church yesterday, and then again this morning. Crap on toast, it could have been me. My aura was almost identical to Al’s, thanks to Newt changing it to hide me from the mystics so they wouldn’t kill me in their quest to improve the Goddess.
“Why would anyone target me?” I said sarcastically as I put my phone away, but my gut tightened into a nauseating knot as we got into the elevator. “I want to pick up some no-doze amulets. Jenks, go with Ivy. Get a visual on who you can. It won’t hold up in a courtroom”—Jenks bristled—“but we’ll know what we’re dealing with.” I hesitated. “That is, if you can get him down there.”
Ivy smiled to show a slip of teeth, and I stifled a tingling sensation going all the way to my groin. Damn vampire pheromones. How did she stand working in it day after day? Or maybe it’s the elevator. . . .
“Sparkle Dust and I got this,” she said, and Jenks bristled again. “You want to meet somewhere? It shouldn’t take more than an hour.”
“Perfect,” I said. “You know that charm shop downtown?”
“You mean the one that you and Minias trashed?” Jenks said, and I winced.
“That’s the one.” Patricia wouldn’t still be sore about that, would she? “Meet me there.”
“Sounds good,” Ivy said when the doors opened and cold air smelling of oil and cement rolled out. “See you in sixty.”
“Sixty,” I affirmed as I strode out, my bag tight in my grip as I remembered where I’d left my MINI. How long can a person stay awake without going crazy? A week?
“Jenks, if you touch the scars on my neck, I’m going to pull off your wings” came from behind me as I heard the staccato clicking of Ivy tapping the down key.
“Awww, I love you, too, you putrid blood bag. Relax. She’ll be okay for an hour. It’s not like she’s going to fall asleep in a charm shop.”
And then the doors shut, and I was alone.
CHAPTER
12
“Out! Out of my store!” Patricia yelled, and my chi tingled as she tapped a line.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I exclaimed, my bag held tight to my middle as the woman came around the counter, her eyes narrowed. “I just need a few no-doze amulets,” I added, then gasped, ducking when she threw a package of stink spells at me.
“You want amulets?” the woman shrieked. “Here you go. Something to make you smell better. Get out, you demon lover. Out of my store!”
They weren’t invoked, and the charms still in their cellophane wrappers hit the floor with a crinkle. I backed to the door, eyes wide. “Out!” she shrieked, pointing, and I fled, pulse fast as I slipped past the door and to the sidewalk.
It shut behind me with a bang, and I spun. “Patricia, please,” I pleaded as she stood with the closed door between us, her hands on her hips.
“You’re a demon. Make a curse,” she said, voice muffled.
Crap on toast. I hadn’t even gotten two feet inside the store. The passing people gave me a nervous wide berth, and I turned away, worried when I remembered telling Francis to do nearly the same thing before I quit the I.S. He died because he was less than up for the task.
Hoping it wasn’t an omen, I made a sarcastic bunny-ear kiss-kiss to Patricia and walked away, head down and purse held tight to my middle. It had been Minias and Al who’d trashed her store. But did they get blamed for it? No. It had been me, and now I’d have to go all the way to the university bookstore to get my no-doze.
Embarrassed, I checked to see what time it was before heading to my car, parked two streets over. I had maybe forty minutes before Jenks and Ivy would come looking for me. Not exactly enough time to buzz across town and back, but close.
“Small-minded moss wipe,” I whispered, hands in my pockets as I hustled down the sidewalk. The wind coming from the river was chill,