“Now you have earned what you are looking for.”
Without further explanation she shoved me, both hands on my chest. I stumbled backward and went down, expecting to land on my ass on the ground. Instead I kept falling. The trees melted away into black streaks of nothingness, and the night road vanished, Hecate along with it. I fell and kept falling until I was sure this was the shape of eternity and I would pass the remainder of my days plummeting into an inky void that was the absence of anything.
Then came the smell of spice. Sharp, brilliant chilies and sweet sugar. Beneath it was a fetid reek of piss and vomit, but far enough away it was like an insinuation instead of an insult. Then I landed hard, thumping butt first down on rough wood floor panels. The room was dark, but compared to the void, it was downright luminous.
I made out the familiar shapes of furniture: a dresser, a bed.
In the distance, voices shouted merrily and music throbbed.
I wasn’t in my motel room in Shreveport. There was no sign of Cade, or Fen, and mercifully no sign of Mormo.
My head swam, and I tried to stand, but my body reeled, and a sudden wave of nausea crashed into me.
I bolted for the thin line of light on the floor, praying it was a bathroom.
Knocking open the door, I first struck a wall of steam, then smacked into a much more solid wall of warm skin and firm muscle.
Belonging to a very naked man.
Chapter Sixteen
No time for embarrassment or modesty.
I shoved past the man and found the toilet. Knocking his neatly folded clothes onto the floor, I lifted the lid and tossed my cookies. The retching sound apparently was enough to drive my new nude friend out of the room with a deep, “Oh fuck, gross.”
Yeah, well, he should be grateful I didn’t do it on his bedroom floor.
When my entire stomach and entrails felt like they’d been exhumed into the toilet, I slumped back onto the tile floor and glanced around the little bathroom. It was old and cramped, so we were probably in an apartment. The floor was white hexagonal tiles with inte
rmittent black ones thrown in willy-nilly to make an obsessive-compulsive person nuts.
An ivy plant hung in a basket above the toilet, tendrils of leaves snaking out over the mirror and wrapping around the silver shower rod. Inside the tub were minimal toiletries and some men’s shampoo and body wash in aggressively masculine gray packaging.
The clothing on the floor next to me was a pair of jeans so well-worn there were holes underneath the back pockets, and a T-shirt in similar disrepair. Splatters of drywall mud and paint were the only things that made me think tradesman instead of pretentious hipster.
Outside the door, he cleared his throat loudly.
“Lady, are you done yakking in my john?”
I glared at the toilet like it was my sworn enemy. “For now.”
He pushed open the door, and his body filled the frame—still mostly naked, but for a pair of boxer briefs—and his presence loomed large in the room.
Really large, judging by the underwear.
“Put that thing away,” I grumbled, throwing his jeans at him.
Gods knew why, but he complied, pulling the pants on hurriedly but not bothering to do up the zipper or button. Whatever, I suppose it was his place. I took a look at him without the distraction of his mighty package being so close to escaping. He was tall, pushing six-foot-five or more, though it was hard to know for sure given that I was on the floor.
His skin was light brown, with a similar rosy glow to Sido’s. He also had her same tight curls, though his were cut a fair bit shorter. His eyes surprised me though, a light gray, the color of a passing storm.
The same color Seth’s eyes turned when he was pleased about something.
“Well I’ll be. You’re Leo Marquette, aren’t you?”
“Maybe. Depends who you are and why you broke into my apartment.” He had a wonderful New Orleans accent that was charming and inviting even when he was grilling me about my inadvertent B&E.
“I didn’t break in.”