Page 101 of Hounded

The storage unit waslike a shrine. I wanted out of it, but I didn’t leave. Indy had gone almost an hour ago, headed back to the trailer, or the club, or to rub elbows with Evander; I didn’t know.

I cared, though. It would have been easier if I didn’t. Then, perhaps I could have gone on with my day instead of returning to my seat on the coarse cement floor with my cellphone in hand, scrolling the hundreds of photos stored on it.

They said what I couldn’t and remembered what Indy didn’t. They told our story.

My perusal was interrupted when the phone buzzed with an incoming call. The sight of the single letter M as the ID chilled my blood. After a moment’s debate, I sent it to voicemail.

I swiped further down the gallery to older images, several taken after Indy had braided his feathers into my hair. It was one of his favorite pastimes, and I enjoyed it more than I would admit. It was an excuse to be near him, softly touching and talking, and he never failed to slipkisses onto my neck or nibble on my ears until I was burning up with blush.

The cell hummed again, and I grit my teeth.

M.

When I’d gotten the phone back from Indy, there had been no missed calls or messages. I couldn’t decide if the delay had given her fury time to fester, or if she was less bothered by my escape than I thought.

On the fourth buzz, I selected Ignore, and the phone fell quiet in my grasp.

It was foolish. Cowardly. A delay of what I knew to be inevitable.

When the phone rang a third time, I was prepared to refuse it again when I noticed a different name scrolling across the screen: S. Sullivan.

I answered it on the speaker, and Sully’s voice came across the line.

“Loren? Where are you?”

The alarm in her voice stirred the same in me. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

Whitney was my first thought. He’d found the gallery. Sniffed Sully out as a person of interest in the phoenix hunt.

Would he torture her? Kill her?

I wasn’t sure what the witch had as means of self-defense, but I would pick Whitney over any other combatant seven days out of seven. He was swift, efficient, and successful, which gave me temporary relief. If Whitney had, indeed, come for Sully, she wouldn’t have survived long enough to call me.

“Lore, I’m sorry.” Sully sucked a breath. “Indy’s here,and I… He needs your help. Now.”

I pounded my fist against the gallery’s door hard enough to rattle the windows all the way down the storefront. It was dark inside, strange for midday and that, combined with the scant details I’d been given over the phone, tied a knot in my gut.

I was ready to punch through the glass and twist the deadbolt myself when Sully scurried into view. She looked pale, shaken, and she fumbled with the lock before letting me inside.

“Where is he?” I asked while scanning the shadowy gallery. I didn’t see Indy, but I smelled him. My hound snapped to attention, snorting at the bitter stink. The scent was wrong. Indy’s honeyed aroma had gone dark, like syrup scorching. Burning.

Bile surged into my throat.

Not again.

Not so soon.

Shouldering past Sully, I raced into the gallery. I called Indy’s name, choked with fear as bitter as the acid that coated my tongue.

Art displays blocked my view, and I ducked and wove around them. When thin wisps of smoke became visible in the air, I almost stopped in my tracks.

I couldn’t face this.

If Indy was dead or dying, burning up and starting this goddamned cycle all over again, it would ruin me. I wasneck-deep in the hole he left me in last time. One more heap of dirt piled on my head would bury me.

But I forced myself to move until my ears pricked to the sounds of quiet crying. I rushed ahead, dodging partition walls I would have rather knocked down in my haste. When I sidestepped the final barrier, I saw Indy at last.

He was intact. Unharmed. Kneeling on the floor in a ring of singed carpet. His petite frame looked even more so, tucked in tight with his head hung low.

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