I flicked my wrist and used my witch magic to levitate the dampening armor Fluffikins had bestowed upon me. When it reached me, I grabbed it from the air and handed it over to Connie.
The elder vampire’s eyes widened even more. Her mouth dropped open, too.
“How?” she demanded. “You were supposed to have vampire magic.”
I darted around her in quick circles, creating a wind that blew her coiffed hair out of place.“I still do.”
“But you can’t have both at the same time. That would be impossible, unless you were a—” She clamped her mouth shut, refusing to say more.
“Unless I were a what? Tell me!” I yelled.
“It’s not my place,” she said, turning away from me.
I sent Parker a pleading glance.
“I don’t know,” he mumbled. “I mean, I’m mortal like you. I haven’t lived long enough to amass all the knowledge she has.”
“And Fluffikins?” I suddenly needed to know. Who was he really? How had he figured out my true nature before anyone else, and why did he think he had the right to keep it from me?
“He definitely knows,” Parker answered.
“But he’s not immortal, either. Is he?”
“He’s on his seventh life, which makes him well over one hundred. Plus he’s privy to more information than I am as a diplomat.”
I considered this for a moment.“Will he tell me?”
“We’ve defeated the encroaching coven,” Connie spoke up. “I believe that means it’s time for him to fulfill his end of the deal.”
I needed to know, but somehow I dreaded to find out.“What if finding this big secret out changes everything?”
“Everything’s already changed,” Parker pointed out, wrapping an arm around my waist. I leaned into him, willing to take the comfort wherever it came from. Now that my witch magic was no longer suppressed, I enjoyed his touch again.
“What about the people who ate the poisoned food?” I asked, realizing that almost nothing had been resolved even though we had somehow managed to emerge victorious.
Something was holding me back. I didn’t want to leave this place, even though I had no reason to stay.
Connie seemed unconcerned as she sauntered over to the cooler and scowled at the prisoners trapped inside.“We have IDs on all the diners who came in and out tonight. As our head of Agriculture, I’m sure Buckley can figure out what the poison was meant to do and find a way to counteract it.”
“I’ll get the others in here,” Parker said, pulling his phone out of his pocket and beginning to text even as he spoke. “They can help us escort our guys in the cooler to HQ.”
“What about the customers who are still in the restaurant?” No, we couldn’t leave yet. I didn’t know why, only that it was important.
“Easy,” Melony said as she pushed through the swinging doors. She must have been standing right there, waiting to be called in.
Rather than explaining herself, she sent a plume of fire into the air. Everyone watched as it hovered near the ceiling.
And then the sprinklers went off, and shocked cries rose up from the dining room.
“That should send everyone outside,” Melony said with a huge grin. She clearly loved causing mischief.
“Let’s move fast,” Connie said, “before the front-of-house staff comes back in and starts searching for the owner.”
“Melony, help me guide the hostages out of here,” Parker called over to the only person who had less seniority than me. “They’re already magically bound. We just need to make sure no normies see until we can stuff them into our cars and out of sight.”
Melony nodded and moved toward the cooler to join him.
Those two set to work while Connie hoisted Vanessa’s prone body into her arms. “I’ll dispose of this one.”
“And I’ll grab some food to go so I can reverse engineer the poison and create the antidote,” Buckley added. I hadn’t even noticed him come in, yet there he was.
That left me as the only one without a job. I stood in place and watched as the others got to work.
I didn’t want to leave, even though I had no reason to stay.
21
I paced the empty kitchen, wondering why I couldn’t bring myself to leave. My thorough investigation of every cabinet, cupboard, and drawer came up empty. Nothing appeared out of sorts. But it sure felt that way.
Before Connie had killed her, Vanessa promised we hadn’t seen the last of our enemies, of those who adhered to some unnamed cause.
And I believed her.
I just wished I knew more. That I could have compelled her to say more in her final moments.
A flash of black caught my eye as Fluffikins slipped in through the swinging doors.
“Come, Tawny,” he urged. “There’s nothing more to be done here.”
“Something’s going to happen,” I told him without any hesitation. I felt so sure we weren’t done here yet even though I had no obvious reason to feel that way. Still, my intuition gnawed at me.
Fluffikins turned toward the door and motioned for me to follow.“Barnes just delivered them to HQ for questioning. They’re safely secured. It’s over.”
I shook my head, refusing to budge.“I don’t think it is.”
“If there is to be a round two, we’ll be ready,” he promised while waiting for me at the door. “But for now we rest.”
I shook my head and took a step back. Why was I so resistant?
The black cat sighed.“Don’t you want to know why you’re different? You’ve completed your end of our bargain. It’s time for me to finish mine. Come. There is much we need to discuss.”
I glanced toward the cooler where Parker had temporarily kept the captured coven members. Already I knew they wouldn’t talk, no matter what tactics the PTA tried to use against them. Like Vanessa, they would gladly die for their cause without revealing a single hint as to its purpose.
“This job is over, but you’re still my temp.” The boss’s patience had worn very thin, and his words came out rough. “Come with me. That’s a direct order,” the cat said with a flick of his tail.
At last I gave in to his wishes. Whatever business I still had in this place, it hadn’t revealed itself to me yet. Maybe I was just being silly.
“Pick me up,” the boss cat ordered when I joined him at the door.
I did, and a moment later, a sparkling pink fog wrapped around our bodies and teleported us back to the conference room at HQ. After delivering us to our seats, the swirling magic began to recede toward the ceiling.
“Stay,” Fluffikins commanded, and the magic rearranged itself into a tight sphere, hovering above the table as if it, too, had a seat in this meeting.
I knew very little of the special magic that tied our region to the others in the world. Only that they all drew from the same source and helped maintain balance, keeping any one region or person from growing too powerful.
“Will the others be coming?” I asked, wishing I had Parker at my side for whatever came next. He had my best wishes at heart, but I still didn’t know whether the black cat or any of the others did.
“This is a private matter. The fewer who know what I am about to tell you, the safer we will all be.” Fluffikins’s eyes appeared dull, whereas usually they shone bright and inquisitive. Whatever he had to tell me, he clearly didn’t look forward to saying it.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, sucking in a nervous breath and holding it inside.
“You, Tawny. You’re what’s wrong.”
I scoffed at this. Hadn’t he agreed to play it straight now that I’d finished my latest assignment? He’d seemed so eager to get me here, and now this.
“That’s a terrible thing to say,” I grumbled, exhaustion finally sinking in. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me.” Was he only going to speak in riddles and half-truths rather than directly revealing what I needed to know?
“You misunderstand me. What I’m saying is you shouldn’t exist.”
I swallowed hard as my heart sped up in my chest. When had it even started beating again? So much had happened since Parker removed my dampening armor. I hadn’t paid attention to these physical sensations, just assuming they were still absent. But now I felt my heart thrumming, the swell of oxygen in my lungs, the pain of Mr. Fluffikins’s words.