How to Rattle an Undead Couple - Hailey Edwards Page 0,26
I should have let you know what I was doing and not let you figure it out on your own.”
“Would you have told me if I hadn’t?”
“I would have forgotten to be sneaky and called eventually to yell at you to be more careful, yes.”
“Then you have nothing to apologize for.”
“Linus?”
“Yes?”
“I’m glad you told me to my face.” Her smile was radiant. “I love Lethe, but she’s a worrywart.”
“I made you a promise.” He took his vows seriously. “I fully intend to keep it.”
The ping of an incoming text drew her attention, and she held up a finger to keep him there.
“Cruz says your mom’s finances are clean. He had no trouble identifying all her expenditures.”
“That takes blackmail off the table.”
Mouth tight, she reminded him, “There are other means of compensation.”
Nodding that she was right, he turned to go. “Let me know if you discover anything else.”
“Aye, aye.” She snapped out a salute. “Captain.”
Smiling, he left their bedroom and descended the stairs where Lethe and Corbin awaited him.
Belatedly, he recalled Grier’s initial request and faced Lethe. “Can you bring Keet up to our room?”
“Not this again.” Lethe rolled her eyes and went to fetch the parakeet. “She’s going to end up with a bird who corrects our grammar if she’s not careful.”
Once she disappeared into the office, Linus eyed Corbin. “I’ll get my things.”
With the cleaners excluded from this investigation, it fell to them to collect evidence for processing.
“I have everything we’ll need.” Corbin pulled out a bottle of sunscreen. “I came armed for bear.”
Most vampires suffered intense sun allergies, but Corbin was an anomaly. There had been no trustworthy accounting of what the sun would do to him until he had walked in it. Aside from burning easier, his tolerance slightly worse than Linus’s, he appeared unaffected. Another boon for the Deathless vampire.
After Linus checked his pockets to ensure he had his modified pen and extra cartridges, he and Corbin exited the house into the coming dawn.
Linus noticed the driveway was empty, and so was the street. “How did you get here?”
“Based on Lethe’s scolding just now, and the promise she extracted before I left that I would come clean before she tattled on me, I assume you already suspected I’ve been staying on the property.”
Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who believed in giving Corbin a chance to level with them. “How have you been avoiding the gwyllgi patrols?”
They might not actively hunt him if they scented him, but they would have noticed him camping.
“A hammock in the treetops. It’s near Oscar’s fort. My scent is all over that area.”
Linus made a mental note to tell Lethe to inform the guards they might want to look up on occasion.
They got in the van, strapped in, and Linus waited for directions.
“Head to Olde Savannah Chocolates,” Corbin said. “It only has street parking, so we’ll need to park in the lot at the grocery store across the intersection to remain inconspicuous at this hour.”
Moby was a bit large to loom in front of a closed shop on a sleepy street. “All right.”
This particular chocolate shop was not Grier’s favorite—that distinction belonged to Mallow—but they did offer serviceable pralines and a variety of candy-coated caramel apples. Depending on whether the shop had opened before they left, he might stop in and have a basket made up and delivered to Woolworth House.
Perhaps it would do, given Esteban’s stand was closed until dusk, and exceptional churros were rare.
After he parked, they crossed the empty intersection. The scents of fresh caramel and popcorn swirled in the air as the shop prepared its delicacies for the day, and Linus breathed it in. He lacked his wife’s sweet tooth, but he enjoyed the smells all the same. “Where is the entrance?”
“Follow me.”
Corbin ducked between buildings and walked a short distance down an alley. There he lifted a manhole cover and set it aside. He distended his fangs and bit his fingertip. A ward must have created a hard surface for him to write on, because he set to work signing what appeared to be his name in thin air.
Vampires couldn’t perform necromancy, but they could be given keys that allowed them to “open” wards. The symbol they drew contained no real magic. It was all in the blood. Often, vampires used their signatures as makeshift passkeys.
A faint pulse radiated out from the spot where he stood, and Linus pinpointed the second the ward fell.
“There’s an obfuscation sigil etched into the brick wall at the entrance, but