L. BANKS - Cursed To Death

“Ooookay, that was TMI, but appreciated data. Bradley?” Clarissa folded her arms over her ample breasts, clearly becoming perturbed.

Bradley held up both hands in front of his chest. “Don’t look at me; I’m cool as a cucumber.”

“Winters?”

“I’m good. No issues here, just looking forward to the party like any good soldier would, but I’m cool.”

“Bear?” Clarissa said with less attitude in her tone as the huge enforcer’s gaze locked in on hers.

“I need to hunt.” Without further comment, Bear Shadow stood, slapped a twenty-dollar bill down on the table, and walked out of the diner.

All eyes went to Crow Shadow.

“I respect you as my half-sister’s closest female companion… as her team’s third eye,” Crow Shadow said in a low, sensual rumble. “I think you know the answer to the question. None of the wolves in this pack are settled this morning. And the longer I am in your presence, dear lady, the more unsettled I become.” He stood slowly, still holding Clarissa’s stunned gaze, dropped cash on the table and then left in a graceful, fluid, wolf move.

“Okay,” she said, releasing a shallow breath with her eyes on Crow Shadow’s retreating, athletic form. She tried to stop looking at his fantastically tight ass as he walked away, but miserably lost that battle.

“That clinches it. There’s something floating in the air that’s affecting some of the supernaturals.” She fanned her face and looked around at her teammates. “Okay, so maybe we humans are a little affected too.”

Sasha looked down at her cell phone the moment she and Hunter came out of the shadow lands. It was vibrating so insistently once a signal had been restored that it was practically making her teeth chatter. Eight missed calls from Ethan and Clarissa combined, and they’d only been gone at most forty minutes. Not wanting to waste time, she began reading text messages from her cell phone out loud to Hunter as he loped by her side.

“Ethan just said to get in touch-repeatedly said that. Fisher left our ride in the back.”

Hunter didn’t comment. His gaze was straight ahead on their parked jeep that was sitting just where Fisher said it would be.

She glimpsed Hunter from a sidelong glance as they entered the parking lot of what used to be Elf Dugan’s Bed & Breakfast. Her entire team was put up there, along with Hunter’s men. Thankfully, Doc and Silver Hawk would be coming in soon, too. It would be good to have everyone with a concentrated set of skills in close proximity, given the strange circumstances. Dugan had to be spinning in his grave. She was just glad that the little rat bastard’s estate had lost his establishment to Ethan for siding with Vampires in the double cross against the wolf packs.

Seemed a fitting punishment-Dugan had done a foul deed and would have been banished from New Orleans under Sir Rodney’s Fae martial law, had the baron not blown the greedy black heart out of his little weasel chest in open court. Vampires hated being snitched on. But since Dugan had acquired his B &B via Vampire blood money, literally, it was seized by Fae Parliament and awarded to the one who’d turned state’s evidence-Ethan.

Poor old Dugan had also lost Finnegan’s Wake, his prized bar across the street. When the sentence was levied, she could only guess that he’d probably put up a pitiful fuss from Hell. Taking material goods from Dugan was worse than having him drawn and quartered. Same held true of Baron Geoff Montague, Vampire extraordinaire. Word on the streets was that he’d paid a hefty tax for his troubles, enough to almost cost him a premier blood club.

Satisfied that justice had prevailed, Sasha jumped into the jeep, curious that Hunter had yielded the driver’s side. “So, where to first?” she said with a smile. “The diner to catch up with the team, or Ethan’s… although I seriously don’t want to talk to Ethan until he calms down and we have more answers for him.”

“Would you listen to yourself?” Hunter said, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples. “Your mood… is… odd.”

Sasha sat back in her seat, fighting not to pout. She kept her hands on the wheel and then fished under the visor for the keys. “Odd.”

“Your voice is… singsong, happy. You just heard that our allies are panicked, your squad is trying to locate you… and you act like we haven’t a care in the world. Odd.” Hunter turned and stared at her. “You almost sound like you’re high, or something… but I was with you the entire time and know you didn’t ingest anything that could have been spiked.”

“Whoa…” Sasha sat back quickly and then leaned forward so fast that she almost bumped her nose on the rearview mirror as she tried to study her own gaze in it. “You’re right. My mind has been jumping all over the place… I feel almost giddy, you’re right… like I haven’t a care in the world.”

Hunter rubbed his palms down his face and then banged his head on the dashboard. “You do not want to know what I feel.”

“Oh, shit.”

He released a long, weary breath. “Yes. Precisely.”

“Then why don’t I feel that way if you feel that way?” She looked at him squarely and shrugged.

“To make me crazy,” he said flatly.

“Are you serious?”

Hunter closed his eyes and leaned his head back on the headrest. “Sasha… believe me, it’s working.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. I just feel like I’ve gotta be on the move, gotta go hang out… do something other than be cooped up inside. It’s so nice out here, man… It’s summer!”

“You are not yourself… I am not myself. Two Phoenixes are dead from the same establishment that turned state’s evidence at the United Council of Entities trials. Sir Rodney confirmed there is dark magick afoot-it is in the sigils they cannot decipher. We are out of our depth, if we are so affected that we cannot even focus on following a warm lead.”

“Wow… yeah… you have a point,” she said, turning on the ignition. “But, hey, why didn’t you wanna drive?”

Hunter looked away, sending his gaze toward the Spanish moss-laden trees. “I can’t,” he admitted quietly.

Sasha cocked her head to the side and stared at him, her brows knit. Then slowly but surely she understood, covering her mouth with her hand. “Going from the gas to the brake would hurt that bad?” she asked in a shocked murmur.

He abruptly turned to stare at her, fury in his gaze. “Just shoot me.”

“Okay, guys, it’s on us this go-round,” Clarissa said, marshaling the team that was left around the diner table, and then setting down her cell phone very carefully, “Sasha won’t exactly tell me what’s going on with Ethan, or her, for that matter, but she admits that her mood and focus is all jacked up-Hunter is messed up, just like the two Shadows that left us to go God knows where. And, since it would be a death sentence to go busting into Vamp lairs looking for clues, despite the daylight factor… I say we start with the local scuttlebutt we can get from area covens, Voodoo practitioners, snake charmers, Tarot experts, and the like. If Fae archers are being sighted in frickin’ diners, then somebody has heard something. They always do, and if, by logical deduction, we all know that from our last trip down here, Vampires have the biggest axe to grind, we’re gonna need evidence-as well as a way to reverse whatever they’ve probably done to out the Fae.”

“I’m with you, ’Rissa,” Bradley said, folding his hands around his lukewarm cup of coffee. “But I think we need to let Sir Rodney know that his Fae community is in full view of the general human population.”

“True, but that’s really Sasha’s call, not ours. Either that, or we might have to leave that up to Ethan, because I haven’t the foggiest idea how to find Sir Rodney or the beginning of his yellow brick road, so to speak, that’s in the swamps.” Clarissa looked around the table, keeping her voice low and private. “We don’t even know how long we’ll be able to function until what’s affecting the supernaturals hits us.”