“It’s not nice to criticize your elders,” I said. “Do you want to stick around and meet her or do you have to head out?”
Connor’s dark hair was so luxurious it seemed to shine under the bookstore’s fluorescent lighting. “As much as it pains me to admit it, I should be going. There are boring people to meet and greet, when I wish they’d just skip off. Have fun at work.” He chuckled, amused at some private joke I didn’t get—he’d been doing that a lot lately, which did make me wonder if the typical vampire bewilderment of social niceties was starting to set in.
I gave the white cat one last appreciative pet, her white fur silky soft on my fingertips, then followed Connor as he made his way through the maze of bookshelves heading toward the front of the store.
“Have a good night,” I said. “I hope you enjoyed the boardwalk?”
“Every moment.” Connor’s smile was extra big as he tossed his empty blood pack into a garbage can.
Earlier in the afternoon I’d dragged Connor onto the wooden walkway that cradled a good portion of the two lakes that squashed against Main Street.
As he was a vampire, it had been asking quite a bit of him since that meant we were out and about while the sun shone—the sun drastically weakened vampires, which was why they were nocturnal creatures.
“Goodbye, Snack.” Another smirk and Connor leaned in, briefly wrapping an arm around my shoulders.
My slayer senses sounded the alarm that a vampire was so close but Connor was my friend, so I brushed the concern off. Besides, by the time I raised a hand to pat his back, Connor was already slipping away sauntering out the door and disappearing into the cool, gusty afternoon.
Yeah, he definitely still has the vampire propensity for dramatics.
I took another swig of my smoothie, finishing it off, then wandered toward one of the high-top tables to wait for Sunshine.
When I sat down at the table, easing into the tall, wooden seat, I picked up the day-old newspaper a previous customer had left behind.
It was the Magiford daily newspaper—which was human run and focused, though they occasionally published articles about supernatural events that affected the city.
I’d never been interviewed—something that pleased me to no end because I’d probably choke and die on my own spit under the pressure. But Sarge, the leader of my squad, had been interviewed for an article the newspaper had written about Orrin, the fae who was responsible for releasing a number of fae creatures on Goldstein Street—a business district that mostly housed human office buildings and banks with the biggest supernatural business being Tutu’s Crypta & Custodia.
The newspaper’s front-page spread was mostly about the progress of the construction of the new clocktower that had broken ground in late summer. It looked like they were going to finish earlier than estimated—whoever was funding the project had to be pouring money into it at the pace they were going.
I was about to flip to a new page, when I spotted an article at the bottom of the paper about the damage from the thunderstorm we’d had two days ago. The headline boasted: Wizards Aid in Storm Damage Control.
I frowned—I’d heard nothing at work about supernaturals helping during the windstorm. I hadn’t thought the storm was bad enough to do more than strip some leaves off trees—and rotated my grasp on the paper so I could read the article.
It detailed the damage—all of it had been centered on one human neighborhood, apparently the rest of the city hadn’t been nearly as bad—before going into the wizard part of the story.
—storm hit six trees in the neighborhood and started a fire before six wizards from the venerated wizard House Tellier arrived on the scene and used their elemental powers to quell the lightning and growing flames.
Venerated? “House Tellier is anything but venerated,” I grumbled.
House Tellier had been involved in a big scandal about two years ago when it tried to meddle in the succession of another wizard House.
Since the rightful heir of the House had regained control, the Telliers were socially shunned and had gotten smacked on the wrist by the Cloisters for their actions. （Since I wasn’t a wizard I didn’t typically keep up on wizard politics, but I did try to keep aware of all incidences over the past couple years that the Cloisters had gotten involved in as the information could be useful to know for the sake of future cases.）
I studied the color printed picture, which showed wizards wearing jackets designed with the House Tellier colors of orange and yellow. “And I thought they didn’t like humans…”