Wolves at the Door - Lidiya Foxglove Page 0,40

wall while she adjusted his blanket. “No one’s here.”

“The ghost was here again, damnit.”

“I don’t see any ghosts!” She rustled the curtains and peered in the closets to indulge him.

“He’s hiding. You can’t sense him because you’re a human!”

“I’ll try to learn witchcraft next time, Mr. Levin.” She laughed. “I need to finish your grilled cheese, okay? It’s probably burning.”

“I like it burned. Don’t leave me alone with the ghost.”

“I’ll be right back.”

Ironically, if Sam could have hired a witch nursemaid she’d find me in a second, but he hired Hannah because the struggling actress worked for cheap and was also hot. At this point he was too old to realize his mistake and I think his eyes were too bad to appreciate how hot she was either.

It didn’t hit me very often that if I’d lived, I’d be ninety years old, but trying to stay corporeal long enough to wrestle with Sam and his cane while he told me to get out of his house and I mixed the medicine with gin, club soda and bitters, I kept thinking, Fuck, I’m old. All my friends are almost dead.

“We used to be best friends,” I told him.

“I don’t think so. I never saw you before in my life.”

“Sam…I know this means nothing to you anymore, but it’s working out. The box is safe. Graham has friends and they’re protecting it.”

For a minute, I saw a spark of his old self. He actually finished the glass. “Good.”

I felt like a monster. Sam should have died ten years ago, but the Sons of Pandora had told me years ago to keep them alive until Graham was old enough to handle the responsibility of their treasures. They knew they were too old and were sitting on land mines, but they also had no one to pass the potent treasure to. Even Graham was a terrible choice, having been raised a human, and they all worried over what would come of him.

The depressing thing was that Graham was actually rising to the occasion after all and none of them would live to see it.

The things I do for destiny…

“Hey, Byron.”

When I returned to Greenwood Manor, strolling the grounds for some fresh evening air, Gaston was trimming the flowers between the house and the outdoor kitchen. He beckoned me with a finger. The life of a vampire and living for three hundred years had a potent lack of appeal to me just now.

“Good evening,” I said. I knew the vampire worked on the grounds and Deveraux had a good relationship with all his household staff, but that was about it.

“Who the hell are you, really?” Gaston asked, as if I hadn’t known Deveraux forever. He was dressed in a very vampire sort of way, wearing a brown brimmed hat and brown corduroy pants tucked into boots with a long-sleeved thermal shirt. They were work clothes that were not exactly Victorian but not exactly modern either.

“I’m Deveraux’s friend,” I said. “And an incubus.”

“A dead incubus?”

“Pretty much.”

“A pretty much dead incubus. Well. He was my friend too.”

“I’m sorry for our loss,” I said, unsure why he seemed confrontational.

Unless…

“Did Deveraux say something about me?” I asked. Deveraux always had this soft spot for vampires. I guess I should be glad more of them weren’t prowling around, but vampires usually tended to leave once their mortal friends got uncomfortably old. Come to think of it, Gaston seemed to be the only one left. “You’re looking at me like you don’t trust me.”

“I knew you were friends,” Gaston said. “Back in the day. He didn’t really tell me what you were up to. But…you have some new toadies to enact your plan with now, eh?” He fired up a weed whacker and started working the weeds right at my feet, blowing stuff right through my body.

I waited. “As much as I can appreciate a good passive-aggressive weed whacking—”

“It’s purely aggressive,” Gaston said. “I’m going to tell these girls who you really are.”

“Who do you think I really am?”

“I think you’re insane and you’re putting all these people in danger. I know Deveraux tried to stop you and instead you haunted him.”

“He didn’t tell you that.” I moved close to the vampire, walking right through his weed whacker. “You read his diaries, I’ll bet. And if you did, you know how he felt as he got older.”

“I don’t care what he thought at the end of his life when he was a senile old man who had been haunted by a