I frowned. I was in the middle of trying to piece together how that might possibly make sense when the trio turned and left.
I hesitated, then closed the door. Did he seriously think I was going to forget that? And why had the woman called me “human?” Was that some hip thing the kids these days were doing? Maybe they thought it was a fancier way to say “man.” “What’s up, hu-man!”
I tried to shrug it off as three weirdos. Except those three weirdos knew where I’d been last night. They also were asking about some mysterious group of people who appeared to be tied to the demolished wall at the Mercer House.
I couldn’t help wondering if there was a connection to the three equally strange people my roommates described dropping me off. From their descriptions, it was three different weird people.
What the hell was going on?
6
Cara
Zack was about as good at stealthily tailing me as a t-rex would’ve been in a backstroke competition. He towered over the group of tourists I was leading around the spooky sights of Savannah. He also had his eyes narrowed and kept jerking his head in random directions, as if expecting to see people peeking out from around building corners and parked cars.
Either this Leah woman decided she had better things to do than tail me, or she was much, much more discreet than Zack, because I hadn’t seen even a glimpse of her.
I was surprised to find the media frenzy around the Mercer House had apparently already fizzled out since morning. There was some police caution tape around the building, which had restricted my tour to an outdoor slow-walk where I explained some of the mysteries of the house and its past. But as far as I could tell, nobody was inside.
When the last of my tourists finally headed off, it was just me and Zack
“Well,” I said, spreading my hands. “It looks like you scared off any bad guys. Good job.”
He was really playing up the powerful male guardian thing, because his only response was to narrow his eyes and look around suspiciously. “For now.”
I grinned. “Alright, Batman. Are you ready to walk me home?”
Me and Zack had made it about halfway home when he sniffed at the air like a dog catching a whiff of bacon.
“What is it?” I asked. “Do you smell some expired eggs? Maybe a mushy banana?”
“No,” he said. He scrunched up his face, nose still twitching. “But fuck it smells good. You don’t smell that?”
I shook my head.
“Hold on.” Zack looked around, then seemed to zero in on something in the direction of a creepy, dark alleyway. He walked toward it.
“Uh,” I said. “Aren’t you supposed to be guiding me home safely? I don’t think leaving me to go explore a dark alley is a great idea.”
“No,” he said. “I just want to see what that smell is. I’ll be like ten seconds.”
I folded my arms, waiting as I watched him creep-walk toward the alley and move into the deeper shadows between the buildings. All I could make out was his tall, broad-shouldered silhouette as he ducked and looked behind a dumpster.
I had done a pretty good job of feeling like Miss Tough Guy until that moment. But the weirdness of the last two days came rushing up on me in a gut-clenching burst of paranoia.
I looked over my shoulder, then checked the other direction, sure I was about to see a beautifully terrifying, pale-skinned woman coming toward me.
All I saw was the empty streets except for a couple walking together in the far distance. The guy was laughing about something and the girl was rolling her eyes so hard I could read it in her body language.
When I looked back toward Zack, all I saw was the alleyway. No tall shadow sniffing out what was probably a bag of garbage. “Zack?”
Oh, come on.
“Zack!” I yelled, a little more insistently this time.
I spun to look behind me, which only managed to create a new “behind,” which I had to spin and look at. I thought my heart was going to explode if it beat much faster. “Zack! Get your ass out here right now! I am not going in there after you.” I was practically whispering, and not sure how I expected him to hear me.
I was also crouching and holding my hands up like I knew how to throw a punch to save my life—Let the record show, I certainly did not.
I hadn’t heard a single sound, but when I spun around to look in a new direction for the hundredth time, I saw the woman with the high bangs. I thought her name was Leah, if my adrenaline-filled memory was working properly.
“Oh,” I said. I felt my eyes go wide and my body turn completely still.
She let out a tinkling laugh as she walked toward me with a confident sway to her steps. She tilted her head sideways, as if she was watching a somewhat interesting new animal for a few seconds before deciding if she wanted to smash it under her boot or jab it with a stick. “You know we can still see you when you don’t move, darling.” She stopped just in front of me, then made me jump when she lurched forward and said, “Boo!”
I blinked a few times, inching backwards. “What do you want?” I asked. “If it’s money, I swear I’m dirt poor. But I have some gift cards back at the apartment. I could absolutely hook you up. Maybe a free ghost tour?”
The woman kept walking toward me, forcing me in an endless backward, shuffling retreat. “Maybe I just like the way you smell when you’re scared.”
I resisted the urge to give my pits a discreet sniff. Clearly, this woman was deranged. “Okay,” I said shakily. “Well, hope you enjoyed your sniffs. I’ve got to go find my friend, though.”
“I’ll take care of him. Don’t you worry about that.”
Icy tendrils of fear slid under my skin, making it rise up in goosebumps. “That guy the earlier today,” I said quickly, still backing up. “He was your boss, right? I thought he only wanted you to follow me. So you should reconsider whatever it is you’re considering. You might piss him off.”
“Boss,” she said, showing a flash of rage at the idea. Then she hesitated as a thought seemed to occur to her. “Wait. You shouldn’t remember that.”
I nodded quickly. “I know. I’ll do like he said and not tell anyone who wasn’t there. I just thought—”
She glanced over her shoulder, then took another step closer, eating up the distance between us. There was danger in her eyes, and I was one more boo away from blasting her with pepper spray and taking my chances.
The deadly playfulness seemed to creep back into her as she tapped her full lower lip in thought. “I wonder…”
She widened her eyes, then fixed them on me and kept advancing. I felt a kind of magnetic pull, then the briefest hint of… arousal?
There was a mental sensation of sliding down toward something, like a black pit I knew there’d be no climbing out of. But before the sensation took me, a vision of a startlingly handsome man I’d never seen flashed in my mind. He was wearing half a grin and showing off the vertical line of a dimple on one cheek.
Then the sensation was gone. Leah ran her tongue across her teeth, laughing in slow confirmation of something. “One of the Undergroves bonded you, didn’t they? It’s a powerful one, too. I’ve never seen a human resist our call so easily.”