Page 31 of Insidious Monsters
With him this close and the warm leather of his gloves pressed to my skin, it was suddenly harder to breathe. “I’ll try.” My words were an intimate whisper.
His pupils dilated, and for a moment I thought, hoped, prayed he would kiss me. But he released me abruptly and moved away.
“I’ll see you at dawn, August.” He drifted through the wall and into the night.
I plonked my ass on my bed and tugged on my boots. My phone vibrated on the mattress beside me.
Devyn was calling.
“Hello?”
“August, I got some news.”
“Hit me.”
“The faceless guy is definitely not Toby Keller. We located Toby at the Memorial Hospital in Angel Town. His mother is in the ICU there and he’s been living at the hospital.”
“Shit. Do we know who our faceless guy is?”
“Yes. Derek Mobry. Used to work for a bank but was let go five years ago and there are no electronic records on him since. Not even an ATM use.”
“So he’s human?”
“Yes, except there’s a strong mystical residue in his blood. We’re still running tests but it’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen.”
My mind was swirling with information and drawing chilling conclusions. “Devyn, this guy, Derek, chose to take Toby’s face to lure Nandi into a trap. Which means he must have been watching her, stalking her for a while.”
“Yeah, I know,” Devyn said. “Someone went to a lot of trouble to find the rightinwith her. They made sure Toby would be out of town before making a move. And I’m sure you know what that means.”
It meant that the attack on Nandi was carefully planned. Premeditated. It meant Nandi was a valuable target.
It meant she was still in danger.
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Iwaited while Nandi absorbed the news about her faceless attacker.
We were in the kitchen, our go-to place for communing over any kind of news, shitty or otherwise. A fresh pot of tea had been steeped and poured and Uncle Fred had busted out the choccy biscuits and the jammy dodgers. Yep, this was important news that required deep consideration.
“I was hoping Toby was a one-off,” Nandi said. “That maybe I was an opportunity grab? But this…”
“It means you’re a target,” Uncle Fred said.
“And this guy wasn’t Toby,” Archie reminded us. “He was some rando who’s probably mixed up with some psycho cult.”
“We have to stop them,” Nandi said. “We have to find the missing mystics.”
“And we will.” Archie squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll be with you when we’re not at home.”
“And me.” I squeezed her hand. “If these fuckers come for you again, they’ll have to go through us.”
Uncle Fred cleared his throat.
I smiled at him. “All of us.”
“And if it comes down to it, we can get Telarion to eat them,” Archie added.
Nandi finally cracked a smile. “Thanks, guys.” Her phone beeped and she growled at it. “Bloody useless thing, I charged you an hour ago.”
