Slaying Monsters for the Feeble - Annette Marie Page 0,72
we weren’t introducing our “friend.”
“Are we interrupting something?” she asked.
“Uh, no—but, uh, actually—bathroom!” I gasped incoherently. Before Taye could sit in his chair and block us in, I snatched Zylas’s arm and dove away from the table. Dragging the demon behind me, I rushed to the front of the restaurant and ducked into the short hallway that led to the bathroom. Flinging the ladies’ room door open, I checked it was empty.
“Come on,” I hissed, pulling on Zylas’s arm. “Get in here!”
He didn’t move.
“Zylas, get in the bathroom! Once we’re inside, you can return to the infer—”
His lips pulled back from his teeth in a viciously triumphant smile. “I can smell him.”
“Smell who? The vampires?”
“No.” He inhaled deeply through his nose. “The hh’ainun. The summoner.” His head turned to me, my pale face reflected in his sunglasses. “I can smell Claude.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Zylas was out of the restaurant in an instant, leaving me to rush after him. I cast a helpless look over my shoulder, meeting Amalia’s surprised stare, then I pushed through the door.
“I have his scent,” Zylas hissed as I joined him. “Not very old. Earlier this day he walked here.”
“And you smelled him near the bathrooms?” I supposed it made sense. Fewer people walked down that hall than crossed the restaurant’s dining room. But why had Claude been there in the first place? Unless he also enjoyed cheesy calzones after a hard day of plotting against his former business partner.
Zylas rounded a corner, his purposeful gait causing other pedestrians to hurriedly clear the way, and I was right behind him when a shout pulled me up short. Amalia ran to my side, puffing from her sprint. “What the hell?”
“Zylas caught Claude’s scent.”
“Claude?” She fell into step beside me. “No shit! I told Zora and that other guy they could have our food.”
“Good. We don’t want any company for this.” I swallowed anxiously. “If we find Claude, we’ll probably have to fight his demon.”
“Unless his demon isn’t with him. Seems like he sends it off on its own, doesn’t it? You said there was no sign of Claude last night.”
“That’s true, but Claude could have been nearby.”
Zylas turned into a gap between towers. Set back from the street, a nondescript entryway led into a vestibule with a security door and a panel of suite numbers and intercom codes. Zylas tried the door. When it didn’t budge, crimson magic cascaded up his arm.
Three seconds later, he pushed the door open, the locking mechanism severed by his new burglary technique. He angled across the barren foyer and headed down the first hall. I tugged my infernus from under my sweater and settled it on my chest.
Zylas halted in front of a door. Nostrils flaring, he tilted his ear toward the wood.
“I hear nothing,” he whispered, “but the hh’ainun’s scent is strong. So is the scent of fresh blood.”
“Vampires?” I mouthed silently.
With a quick spiral of glowing runes, he destroyed the bolt and pushed the door open on soundless hinges.
The interior was dim and unlit, heavy drapes covering the windows. Zylas glided inside and I inched in after him, scanning the unit. On one side, a bathroom. On the other, a dining nook converted to an office, a kitchen with a long island and modern finishes, and at the far end, a living room with a small sectional, a coffee table, and a wall-mounted TV.
Zylas ventured through a door into what I assumed was the bedroom, then reappeared. He pulled his sunglasses off. “There is no one here, but the scent of blood is everywhere.”
“What is this place?” I asked Amalia. “Does it belong to Claude? I thought he lived in that townhouse.”
“Crooks like him and my dad usually have a few homes,” Amalia replied. “But based on this, it’s safe to say this apartment definitely belongs to Claude.”
She was standing at the kitchen island, where papers were laid out in a neat row. They were documents, all of them about or belonging to Uncle Jack. Tax records, electricity bills, a copy of his driver’s license, lists of his relatives and business associates, and—my heart jumped—the page of emergency contacts I’d seen in the vampire’s tower hideout last night. The one his demon had stolen from me.
Amalia tapped a lone page at the end of the row. Neat, masculine handwriting listed names and addresses, each one boldly crossed out.
“All places Claude has checked,” she said. “Look, this one, that’s a safe house we used three years ago. And that’s my cousin’s house.