She pushed up to sitting against the ache in her joints and the throbbing of her head. A dingy sort of room crowded in around her. She lay on a bed with a mustard-yellow bedspread and sharp corners that advertised, correctly, how old and hard the mattress was. A dingy white sliding door had been shoved to one side of the empty closet, revealing an open safe at the bottom corner. The inlet to the bathroom ended in a slightly ajar door she couldn’t see past, and there were two sets of drapes for the small window on the other side—a heavy gray one to keep out the sun, and a faded and ripped yellow one to cheer up the room. Only one was working. The glowing red numbers on the nightstand clock read 8:43.
It was clearly a hotel room, and judging by the murmuring behind the slightly cracked open door in front of her, it was a suite.
She hastened off the bed despite her protesting body. A room this small in a suite this dingy was very cheap and probably filthy. She wondered if someone had checked for bedbugs.
Devon looked up as she opened the suite door, and a look of such supreme relief crossed his face that she felt guilty all over again. Insecurity and guilt, two pastimes she wished she could quit. While Devon stood at the door leading to the hotel hallway, the rest of the pack, old and new, sat or stood around the equally cramped space, their expressions leaving little doubt that something had gone badly wrong. Well, something else.
Her magic felt like a leaf on the forest floor, stirred by the breeze. Even now, it was ready to go again. There had to be something she could do differently to make these surges feel normal. Or at least less painful.
“What happened?” she asked.
For a wonder, Dale glanced at Devon before lowering his gaze to the floor. The dynamic between them had shifted.
“We have a small arsenal of demons blocking the portal,” Devon said. “Roger has someone to help us break through them, but there’s an elf on the other side. Even if we got through, we’d be nabbed almost immediately.”
Charity smoothed the hair away from her aching skull and leaned against the doorframe. Rod jumped up out of his seat.
“Here, Charity, sit,” Rod said, ushering her over to his spot on the dingy love seat against flowery wallpaper.
“No, it’s fine—”
“Emery has checked out the backup location,” Devon said over her protests. She relented with an eye roll. “That one is guarded, as well. But he’s lined up three other options for us.”
“Who did he tell about the portals?” Charity asked, the note from Vlad suddenly surfacing in her mind.
In a sudden panic, she patted her chest and then dug her hands into her jeans pockets.
“Wait… Where’s…” She stiffly stood and checked her back pockets.
Devon slipped his hand into his sweats pocket and pulled out the gold-rimmed note. “Dillon noticed you’d dropped this and grabbed it off the street.”
Heart pounding, Charity clutched it close to her chest before sitting down.
“That’s what we’ve been asking ourselves. Who else could’ve known about the portals?” Devon said, his eyes on the note. “I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned your nickname for Vlad around a vampire. Yet he knows it. But I’m sure he’s got spies, and you’ve said that nickname often enough among mixed company, so fine. And logic would’ve told him that you’d eventually check in with your dad. If he kept someone close by, and that person could hastily summon a lackluster demon, then I could see all that making sense. But the portals? He must have heard about our plan from someone on the inside.”
“I mean…if I had to guess…” Charity pointed at Dale.
He glowered, and Andy and Rod both smirked.
“I still don’t understand why Vlad would try to keep Charity out of the Realm,” Cole said, and Charity palmed her pounding head. She wished he came with volume control.
“I agree,” Macy said, sitting in a wooden chair in front of a desk with a very suspicious hack mark on the side, like someone had lost control of their axe. “Vlad’s note said she should check in after her training. Whether he actually knows Charity’s mother’s location or not, it is a strong lure to bring her back out of the Flush. It’s intended to be a strong lure. When she returns, she’ll be an even more enticing target, and his game of cat and mouse can recommence. But none of that is possible if she dies before she gets her magic sorted out.”
Charity’s hand shook around the note, the ache of hope burning in her chest. “Vlad has a lot of resources at his disposal, right? And it isn’t like my mom disappeared into thin air. He could know.”