I had no idea what he was talking about, but I didn't see the advantage in admitting that. "I know all I need to know."
"Yeah," Fang said, a little too loudly. "And Riggs will fuck you up if you don't get out of our way. Any friends you brought, too. He'll fuck them up. Then he'll piss on their corpses!"
"Fang," I muttered.
Gravy Boat took a step in front of me and hissed at Lazarus, arching his ugly, wrinkled ass up in the air. Maybe the little bastard wasn't all bad, after all.
"Last chance," Lazarus said. "Hand them over, or this gets ugly."
"It got ugly the moment you decided to show that thing you call a face in front of us," Fang said.
"Fang," I growled. "Would you please shut the fuck up?"
Lazarus was motionless. I braced myself for him to attack or try to grab the girls. I had Sylvie clutched tight. In that moment, I realized I cared about keeping her safe in a different way than I cared about keeping her sister, Maisey, safe.
I didn't have time to unpack that. I also didn't plan to let anything happen to either of them. I felt my wolf stirring inside, readying himself to shift into action if needed. It seemed my wolf shared in my protectiveness towards Sylvie. Or maybe that’s where it was coming from in the first place.
But Lazarus finally tilted his head to the side, then smiled. "Another time, perhaps."
I sensed a new presence beside me and saw that Felix had come from somewhere and was now looming behind us. I had to give him credit, the big bastard did strike an imposing image, and I couldn't entirely blame Lazarus for losing his nerve at the sight of him.
The vampire took a step back into a darker section of the street and appeared to melt into shadow. I caught the shadow bulging in one area, then sliding along the street until it blended into darkness and was gone.
"Fucking vamps," I muttered under my breath.
"Did he just..." Maisey whispered.
"We need to keep moving," I said. "Come on."
Felix came up beside me in the last leg of our walk to The Wet Flea. He gave my shoulder a punch but said nothing at first.
"I'm not going to thank you, if that's what you're waiting for," I said.
"I'm not waiting for anything. I'm just glad you're back in the game, Riggs. I am wondering what made you decide to partner up with Fang.”
"Common sense," Fang blurted.
"Ever walk through a bush, look down, and realize you've got a few leeches stuck to your body?" I asked. "It was something like that."
Felix looked at the small form of Sylvie in my arms. "What's wrong with her?"
"Just caught a bug," I said.
I looked down at Sylvie, who had her eyes closed and her forehead scrunched up like she was in pain. I felt my grip go a little tighter on her and had to force myself to relax. She was going to be fine.
"You sure that was a good idea, by the way?" Felix asked.
I pulled open the door to The Wet Flea and we all headed inside, making our way toward the private rooms upstairs. As always, the music was loud and there were dozens of howlers crowded around the stage.
"No," I said. "But I don't make deals with vamps."
Felix sighed. "That shit is going to get you killed, Riggs. They aren't all the same, there's-"
"Spare me," I said, anger rising quickly enough that my heart was pounding. I yanked open the door to one of the private rooms and set Sylvie down on the bed as gently as I could. Maisey went to sit beside her and held her hand, but I noticed Maisey wasn't looking too healthy, either. She was pale and sweating and her eyes were going bloodshot. Maybe the immune thing was genetic, but I thought they would've mentioned that.
I tossed the meds from my pockets onto the bed and Maisey wordlessly went about finding the right ones and getting Sylvie sat up so she could swallow them.
Fang, Felix, and Gravy Boat filed into the room and I shut the door.
The private rooms at The Wet Flea were meant for exactly this purpose. Temporary refuge in a place where vamps didn't dare come. There were treaties, even between vamps and werewolves. One of those agreements was that certain places were sacred ground. We didn't go into their crypts and they didn't come into our dens. Simple as that.
Of course there had been a few incidents, but they were rare, and never without harsh consequences for anyone involved. The catch was that we weren't allowed to keep non werewolves here indefinitely. One week was all we got, and that meant I had a week to try to get Sylvie back in good enough health to move. A week to figure out how to get Lazarus off our asses.