said, “You’re heading into the badlands. It’ll be easy to get lost.”
I watched him in stunned silence as he finished his drink. He grimaced, as though it hurt his throat on the way down. Maybe he’d strained his voice, using it so much.
I stared down at my hands for a moment. Then I said, “Steak sandwich. And something for the pooch.”
He grunted in the affirmative and started cooking. He took his time about it, divining my intentions with a bartender’s instincts. I didn’t feel like eating, but I had a little time to kill while the buzz faded.
He put my sandwich down in front of me. Then he took a bowl with some bones and some meat out to Mouse, along with a bowl of water. I ate my sandwich and idly noted that Mac never carried food out to anyone. Guess he was a dog person.
I ate my sandwich slowly and paid Mac.
“Thanks,” I said.
He nodded. “Luck.”
I got up and headed back for the car. Mouse followed beside me, his eyes lifted, watching me to see what I would do.
I marshaled my thoughts. I had to be careful. I had to be wary. I had to keep my eyes open. I had to keep the storm inside me from exploding, because the only thing I knew for certain was that someone—maybe Susan, maybe my enemies—was trying to manipulate me.
Either way, Mac was right.
I was heading into the badlands.
2
Susan arrived at around one in the morning.
I had gone back home from the pub and straight to my lab in the subbasement, and made with the wizardry, which demanded an intense focus on my tasks. Over the next several hours, I prepared a couple of things that might come in handy in the immediate future. Then I went back up the stepladder to my apartment and put on my force rings. Each of them is a braid of three individual rings, and I had enchanted them to store up a little kinetic energy every time I moved my arm. They were pretty efficient, but it wouldn’t hurt to top them off, so I spent half an hour beating the tar out of the heavy bag hanging in one corner of my apartment’s living area.
I showered, cleaned up, made some dinner, and generally never stopped moving. If I did that, thoughts might start to creep in, and I wasn’t sure how I would deal with them.
I didn’t even consider trying to sleep. It just wasn’t going to happen.
So I stayed in motion. I cleaned the kitchen. I bathed Mouse and brushed out his coat. I picked up my living room, my room, my bathroom. I changed out my cat Mister’s litter box. I tidied up the fireplace, and set out fresh candles to illuminate the room.
It took me a couple of hours of that to realize that I was trying to make my apartment look nice because Susan was coming over. Old habits die hard, I suppose.
I was debating with myself whether or not I might need to clean Mister up (and having a narrow-eyed glare bestowed upon me from his perch atop my highest bookshelf) when there was a polite knock at the door.
My heart started being faster.
I opened the door and found Susan facing me.
She was a woman of medium height, which meant she was about a foot shorter than me. Her features were leanly angular, except for her mouth. She had dark, straight hair and even darker eyes, and her skin had a sun-bronzed tone to it far deeper than I had ever seen on her before. She looked thinner. I could see the tendons and muscles beneath the skin of her neck, and her cheekbones seemed starker than they had before. She wore black leather pants, a black T-shirt, and a leather jacket to complement the pants.
And she had not aged a day.
It had been most of a decade since I had beheld her. In that time, you expect people’s appearances to change a little. Oh, nothing major. A few more pounds, maybe, a few more lines, a few silver hairs. People change. But Susan hadn’t changed. At all.
I guess that’s a nifty perk of being a half-turned vampire of the Red Court.
“Hi,” she said quietly.
“Hi,” I said back. I could meet her eyes without worrying about triggering a soulgaze. She and I had looked upon each other already.
She lowered her eyes and slipped her hands into her jacket pockets. “Harry . . . can I come in?”