Page 36 of Hellhounds Never Lie

“Hey,” Ash shouted at the cat. “Watch your claws. This is cashmere.” Then he looked at me. “It’s okay. He just surprised me.”

“Now, show me what’s over there,” Paws commanded, waving his paw toward another nearby cabinet.

Ash rolled his eyes. “Couldn’t you have just asked to be picked up?”

“I am not a baby to be cradled in someone’s arms.”

“And I’m not your personal transport either.”

Paws huffed but wrapped himself around Ash’s neck. When he was settled, he flicked his tail. “Well, go on. What are you waiting for?”

Ash shook his head but ferried the cat around to look inside each of the cabinets. I followed behind. No doubt about it, the objects on display all had magical properties, but nothing felt overly menacing or dark. Maybe the old man who’d owned and displayed these artifacts wasn’t as irresponsible as it’d first appeared.

“Well?” Van asked.

“Nothing’s missing.” Paws sounded as confused as I felt.

“Is there another room like this?”

Paws shook his head and twitched his tail. “Ulric’s suite has stuff too, but the ward is still secure on that room. I check it every day. Nothing’s changed.”

“Well, maybe they stole non-magical things, like silverware from the kitchen, when they broke in. It’s possible the amulet came from somewhere else,” Ash suggested.

“Maybe…” I said, but I didn’t believe it. By the looks on everyone else’s faces, they didn’t believe it either. Rob wouldn’t have wanted his people to miss the opportunity to grab something magically valuable.

“So what’s the plan?” Ash asked.

I suspected if Van didn’t have a plan, Ash would come up with something on his own. He was still shooting sparks from his fingers whenever he thought too long on the wolves who’d broken into his apartment last night.

“The new moon is tomorrow night,” Van said. “We’ll set up a patrol starting tonight and keep it up for the next couple of nights. If nothing happens, we’ll reevaluate.”

ChapterFourteen

ASH

After lunch, we returned to my apartment to rest. In my mind, I put quotation marks aroundrest, because sleep really wasn’t on my mind, if you know what I mean.

We could nap later—much, much later—and still be in good shape for tonight. Van had warned it’d likely be a late night, so I didn’t want to be tired going into it. I wouldn’t be much help if I had to trundle off to a corner for a snooze.

If nothing happened tonight, I was going to have to talk to my boss about my shifts at the restaurant over the next few days. Parker liked having me in charge of pizza on the weekends, often saying no one else could maintain the fire in the pizza oven like I could. But with the wolf pack circling, making pizza wasn’t my highest priority.

Unfortunately, Parker was one of the humans in town and didn’t know about magic, which meant he wouldn’t know about the wolf threat. I’d have to come up with a different excuse, something he’d buy that wouldn’t mess up my relationship with him because I liked Parker, and I liked my job.

As soon as the door shut behind us, I pulled on Dillon’s hand, determined to get us to the bedroom as quickly as possible. Dillon didn’t budge.

“Hold on, firecracker,” he said. I glanced to the bedroom, then back at him. It was right there. Just a few steps away.

“Why?” I whined.

“We need to get these locks installed first.” He lifted the shopping bag he was carrying. The contents clanged together.

“Fine.” I huffed. “But we only need to do one, right?”

“We’re doing all three.”

“I still think three is a crazy number of locks to install on one door.” Although I could see his point. The one lock on my doorknob had done nothing to keep the wolves out last night. But now I’d have my original deadbolt and three new locks. It seemed like overkill.

“Where is your toolkit?”