Page 10 of Cuddling Sucks in Coffins
Eddie cradled my face between his palms, several emotions blazing across his expression too quickly to name. “What did he do to you? Are you hurt?”
Jacek propped me up with his muscular arm around my waist, and I sagged into him.
“I’m okay,” I assured them. “What happened to you?”
“He threw us back into the house,” Jacek growled.
“He separated you from me and...” I shook my head, still cradled in Eddie’s hands as he scanned me up and down for injuries, I supposed. “He said he was going to take that stroll.”
Were those two things related? The separating and the strolling? Or were those just the words and the actions of a deranged psycho?
Sawyer came to my other side and put his hand on my hip, still scanning the entire street. “His magic is strong. Did you feel it?”
“He’s getting stronger,” I said. “The last time I saw him, which was what, four days ago? He wasn’t anywhere near that strength.”
Unless he’d been holding out on me, but that didn’t really feel like his bowling-shirted style. He’d only been testing me before now. Now, it appeared he’d declared war, one I had zero clue how to win since no mortal slayer ever had.
I locked eyes with all of my vamps in turn. “Which means I need to figure out a way to crush him fast. Before he keeps gaining strength.”
* * *
“BIOLOGY IS SUPER. BIOLOGYis my pal. Biology is super. Biology is my pal.” I repeated it like a mantra as I sat down to take my biology test online in the hopes that it would please the biology gods. I’d studied, or at least tried to, but the charts and molecular structures I’d had to memorize kept bleeding with images of Paul and what he might’ve meant byI think I’ll take that stroll now. He’d gotten inside my head, and I’d let him.
Bad slayer.
But biologically speaking, some things had stuck. Some single-celled organisms were beasts at survival, even as small and seemingly inconsequential as they were often thought to be. I wanted to be a single-celled organism when I grew up.
I hemmed and hawed over some questions and BS’d my way through the essay portion, then sent another few mantras up to the biology gods and hit submit. Hopefully it was enough.
As I dashed out the door of my apartment for another shift at The Bean Dream, I glanced once again at the hallway walls in my building. Any other day, they were highly uninteresting, just regular, boring walls. Today, though, next to each and every door including my apartment’s, a hole the size of a doorknob hollowed out the paint, plaster, and wood. From what I’d seen and the sound of Podunk City’s buzzing residents, everyone’s doors had slammed open last night.
Everyone’s.
I wished I knew what it meant, but I seriously doubted it had to do with puppies and rainbows. More like dark unknowns intent on slaying the slayer.
Between a rush of bored customers at The Bean Dream, Sylvia, my boss, wandered from the supply room, struggling with a large bag of coffee beans. She didn’t look happy.
“Murder, murder, murder,” she muttered.
I bit back a laugh, taking the bag from her and easily tossing it underneath the counter with the rest. She was usually the epitome of poised. “Bad day?”
“First the thing with the doors last night”—she waved absently to the shop’s shattered glass door now taped with cardboard—“then the rude delivery man. Little murders are legal, right? Just a tiny bit of murder?”
“Technically, no.” Said the woman who staked vampires to death. Except three of them who staked her with their— Ahem. “But my lips are sealed should any unfortunate delivery men disappear.”
She frowned and rubbed at her ears. “Maybe I’ll just go do some paperwork instead.”
“Want me to bring you a gingerbread latte with extra whipped cream and a voodoo doll?”
“It’s like you’re a saint or something. Yes, please.” She smiled, though it looked pained, and started toward her office.
The overhead bell rang as the card-boarded door pushed open, and two customers came in discussing whether last night’s door hijinks was caused by a pressurized windstorm.
If they only knew.
* * *
WITH MY HAND ON THEnew cemetery lock, I closed my eyes briefly and willed myself to be calm. This would be like any other night. Not like last night. Not at all.
