Page 76 of A Shade Too Far
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Even the knowledgethat Zev was coming over to ward up our house didn’t dim our upbeat mood. Team Feldman-Chu was standing strong and ready for any games the vampire attempted to pull on us.
Eli had gone inside his place, promising to return at sunset.
Laurent wasn’t responding to my texts, so I called Emmett and Tatiana, who put me on speaker.
“She sent the details of the handover,” Tatiana said. “We’re meeting at the Bear’s Den on Thursday morning at eleven.” The speakeasy was a known neutral meeting place. This woman was familiar with our city.
Frowning, I stripped the sheets off my bed to throw in the wash. It was already late afternoon on Tuesday. “Then that’s our deadline to find her.”
Was it still “our” or was it now “my” deadline if Laurent didn’t resurface? Hoping for the best, I told my employer everything that we’d learned at the Wise Brothers’, minus the revelation about the alpha abandoning his pack. This likely wasn’t news to Tatiana and I wasn’t giving Emmett any ammunition to throw in Laurent’s face.
My update was accompanied by an irritating popping noise. “What’s that?”
“He’s supposed to be unpacking art supplies, not playing with bubble wrap.” Tatiana tsked. “They sent the wrong color. We’ll have to go to the art supply store.”
“Field trip!” Emmett crowed.
“You should stick close to home.” I shook the pillows free from their cases.
“Why?” Tatiana said. “You just said the wards won’t protect me.”
“It’s a known environment and easier to protect you.”
“This woman won’t come after me before our meeting, meaning I can finish this one piece with the precious little time I have left.” Tatiana sighed dramatically. “There was still so much I wanted to accomplish before my untimely end.”
I rolled the sheets into a ball for easier carrying. “No one is going to kill you. You’ll live to a hundred.”
“Fun dayn moyl in gots oyern.” From your mouth to God’s ears.
“Look, if we can neutralize her familiar, she has no way to attack. I’m looking into some things.” I didn’t add anything about Laurent. No point in worrying her that her beloved nephew was loose somewhere in the world and might not have any ability to shift.
“Keep me posted,” she said and hung up as usual, without saying goodbye.
I’d lied to Tatiana. I had only one idea to stop our foe. Dybbuks were considered demons where the gloves were concerned so why not ask a demon directly if there was a way to kill the woman’s familiar?
I fired off a text to Naveen asking him to call me, then I sat on my stripped mattress, my finger hovering over Laurent’s number, debating whether I should text or call.
He’d ignored my previous texts, so I phoned him, but it went straight to voice mail. “Laurent…” I licked my lips nervously. “Where are you? Please let me know you’re okay. If you don’t want to speak to me, well, I get that. You could call Naveen or Tatiana. Just check in. And if you are back home and want to come over tonight, Zev is setting up the ward. You wanted to know so…” I sighed. “I never meant to hurt you. Call me.”
Shoving the phone in my pocket, I gathered up the sheets and carried them downstairs.
“Here.” Sadie added her sheets to mine in the washing machine. “Do you know where my wooden stake is?”
“Hmmm.” I poured detergent in and hit the correct settings. “Right. It got damaged in a vampire attack.”
“You killed a vamp with my stake? I had to special order that thing.”
I shut the closet doors hiding the machine in the kitchen. “I’ll get you another one. Also, they don’t work as advertised. Do not try and stake an undead with one.” I grimaced, recalling how it had stuck in Lindsey’s ribs. “They don’t like it.”
She planted her hands on her hips. “That’s it. My cosplay stuff is off-limits. Get your own weapons.”
“Baby girl.” I ruffled her hair, then opened the fridge to figure out dinner. “I am a weapon.”
So was the woman with the familiar. How thin was the line between her dybbuk and Delilah? Could my shadow ever gain enough sentience to act independently of me? Would I become the hunted one day? That thought led me back to Laurent and our dividing lines.
“God, you’re going to be so annoying now, aren’t you?” Sadie said.
