wind. I smoked a doobie before you called, and maybe I had another drink for the road. If you get me worked up, I’m gonna get paranoid and have a panic attack. Nobody wants to see that.”
Gem played with the quartz pendant around her neck. “I haven’t heard the word doobie in an awfully long time. Did you know that they’re starting to make it legal?”
Wyatt reached for his chocolate pastry. “If only I cared about human laws.”
Christian tipped his head to the side. “You’re not concerned about brain function?”
Wyatt furrowed his brow. “It’s only temporary. It’s not like it affects my hippopotamus.”
Gem giggled. “You mean hippocampus.”
“You see? Who needs the internet when you have a word nerd?”
Christian turned around as Claude approached the van.
Winded, Claude took a breath and swayed before tossing a bag at Christian. “Found the boots. Raven’s scent is barely on them anymore. There’s no scent trail, so it’s probably been out here all day. I didn’t see any footprints immediately around it, so I think she must have thrown it from the road. Maybe they carried too many bad memories of the club.” Claude widened his eyes all of a sudden as if waking himself up. “What was in that bottle Viktor gave us?”
Wyatt licked his fingers. “I don’t know, but some things aren’t meant to ferment for that long.” He pulled another cake from the box and used his teeth to open the plastic. “I still remember when they used to wrap these in foil. Why do you think they call them Ding Dongs?”
Christian pounded the top of the van and made everyone jump. “What’s nearby? Where the feck are we? This isn’t the way home, so where was she going?”
Gem gazed through the front windshield. “I bet she got lost. That happened to me once while flashing. I got turned around and wandered outside city limits.”
Wyatt nonchalantly wedged half the cake in his mouth and then took out his phone. After a few finger swipes, he set the half-eaten cake on his closed laptop. “Ten-mile radius shows a few farmhouses, a place that sells yard art—”
“Oh, I’ve always wanted to go to one of those places!” Gem chimed in before giving Christian a solemn look. “After we find Raven, that is.”
Wyatt kept swiping, his upper lip coated with brown crumbs and white cream. “Nothing, nothing, a cemetery, a garden center, a gas station—”
“Go back to the cemetery,” Christian said, fearing that Houdini had done the unthinkable. “How far?”
“Five minutes that way.” Wyatt pointed straight ahead. “Please tell me we’re not going to a cemetery. I can handle an old one, but this is a human cemetery. That means they’ve got freshies all over the place.”
“Not my problem. Let’s go.”
Christian and Claude circled to the back and got in. While Gem took directions from Wyatt, Christian buried his face in his hands. Where could she be? After pulling himself together, he reached down and rifled through her bag. Raven must have switched out her shoes, because her sneakers were missing. Maybe she really did toss out the boots. Raven wasn’t sentimental about such things, and would she be able to wear them again without associating them with a sex club? Aside from her boots, all he found in the bag were toiletries and clothes.
“Do you think someone took her?” Claude asked. “Maybe it was the man who recruited all the women.”
That hadn’t occurred to Christian. He’d never met this other fella, and he might want Raven out of the picture since she could identify him.
Claude leaned back. “I wager she’s made a lot of enemies. It would be difficult to narrow them down. Do you think her Creator’s behind it? That repugnant Mage is still out there somewhere.”
“It’s not him.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“It’s not his style.”
Claude rubbed his nose. “All the same, I think it would be prudent to narrow down suspects.”
Hearing Claude talk about suspects was making this frighteningly real. It was too convenient for there to be a cemetery on this road, and Christian had a gut feeling that Raven was there.
“We’re here,” Wyatt sang. “Human cemeteries: the thing nightmares are made of. Look, there’s a freshy right there.”
Gem slapped his arm. “Well, don’t look at him!”
“I can’t help it! I’m seeing double, so I don’t know which way not to look.”
The van came to an abrupt stop. “The gates are locked.” Gem turned in her seat and gave Christian a pointed look.