Under Attack

Alex put his hand on mine. “We need the distraction. As much as it’s bothering you, it’s worse on her end. We can’t let her know what you’re thinking. So, focus.”

A slim waitress with an apron double-tied around her waist deposited a plate of cannoli in front of us. I took one and chewed absently.

Vlad tapped his finger on the table, the sound adding to the roar. I glared at him and he stopped. “This really isn’t doing us any good,” he said.

Alex’s eyes were intense as he stared me down. “Where would she take Nina that would get to you?”

I polished off the first cannoli and was reaching for my second. “I don’t know.”

“Come on, think. What place means a lot to you? Where do you go a lot?”

“Target. But I doubt she’d hold Nina there. Or Philz Coffee.”

Alex blew out an exasperated sigh. “Someplace that means something to you.”

“Cheap clothing and great coffee do mean something to me.”

Alex glared at me.

I thunked my forehead on the table. “This isn’t working. Look, Alex, I appreciate you bringing me here, but besides the sugar shock and ooginess of walking down Broadway, nothing has changed. Ophelia can’t read my mind because there is nothing in it. I have no idea where she could take Nina that would really get under my skin.”

“Home,” Vlad said simply.

Alex and I both swung our heads to look at him. “What?”

“She got you out of the house, right? And she kidnapped your best friend. She’s aiming at things that are close to you.”

Alex picked a lone chocolate chip off the plate. “Doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.”

“She takes up space in your head and it drives you crazy. Doesn’t it make sense that she’d try to invade your home, too?”

Alex and I shared eyebrow shrugs. “He makes a good point,” I said. I felt a mild flush of panic. “She could have been there the whole time, but just made us think that she wasn’t.”

“All right.” Alex pulled his keys out of his pocket and we stood up. Just before we left the table I snagged the remaining cannoli and mashed it in my mouth.

What? It’s not like it was a donut.

We were waiting to pull out into the slow traffic on Broadway. Alex had one hand loosely draped on the steering wheel, was using the other to stroke the soft stubble on his chin. “Does your building have security cameras?”

“Yeah, and they work, too. But Nina won’t show up on film.”

Alex bit his lip. “That’s right. Neither would Ophelia.”

“Really? I didn’t know that about fallen angels,” Vlad said from the backseat.

“Yeah.” Alex looked at his arm, made a fist, and then let it go. “Technically, we’re not corporeal.”

And yet I had felt his corporeal.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Alex, Vlad, and I were silent, sitting rigid as Alex took the hills of San Francisco with dizzying speed. My heart was thumping painfully by the time we neared my apartment. I thought about Ophelia’s last visit, the tornado of destruction she inflicted in the few minutes she was there. My heart started to beat faster and I gripped the car door, ready to run out the second the wheels stopped spinning.

“Do we have a plan?” Vlad asked.

“A plan?”

“You know, what are we going to do?”

I frowned. “I hadn’t thought much further than blast through the doors with a fallen angel, a human Tupperware, and an ascot-wearing vampire.”

Vlad straightened his ascot and raised an eyebrow. “Who’s the Tupperware?”

Alex jerked his thumb toward me and I met Vlad’s questioning eyes. “It’s a long story.”

“So, your sister kidnapped my aunt, your dad is Satan—”

“Might be,” I interjected.

“And now you’re Tupperware? Man, you’ve got problems.”

I sniffed. If it weren’t for me, Nina wouldn’t be hurting. She wouldn’t be wincing, struggling, her arms and chest singed with holy water.

I caused problems.

My mouth dropped open and I clamped my eyes shut, pressing my palms against my ears. “She’s doing it again!”

Vlad reached over the front seat and cranked up the radio. Alex pushed the gas pedal to the floor and we were all flung back against our seats. By the time I opened my eyes, we were double parked outside of my building.

My stomach was playing the accordion as we lumbered up the stairs. I hoped that the last image I had of Nina was just another one of Ophelia’s throw-offs and that Nina was stretched out on our couch painting her toenails, unscathed; that she had whooped Ophelia into a simpering mess somewhere far, far away. Then we could all go out for a pizza.

No such luck.

The apartment was just as we left it: white grease-stained bakery bag and coffee cups still on the counter, Alex’s backpack full of books on the kitchen table, and Nina, nowhere. We filed into the living room and ChaCha ran out to greet us, yapping spastically until Alex and I gave her the obligatory head scratches. She went to Vlad next, flicked her whiskers as she smelled his pant leg, blinked her big brown eyes at him, and then ran off, wriggling under the couch.

“And there goes the infallible security system.”

“I have a gun, remember?” I groaned, yanking it out of my jacket pocket as Vlad and Alex dove to the ground.

Vlad looked at Alex, panicked. “Does she know how to use that?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Alex said.

I slammed my gun—with the safety on, thank you very much—onto the coffee table. “Let’s find something out.”

We had all fanned out across the apartment—Vlad checking Nina’s room, Alex checking the windows. There was a knock on the door. I froze.

“Ophelia?” I asked Alex in a low voice.

Alex shook his head. “Not a knocker.”

I rolled up onto my toes and looked out the peephole, seeing the chunky cut of Will’s sandy blond hair in my fisheye view. “It’s Will.”

I yanked open the door. “What are you doing here?”

“And it’s a pleasure to see you, too, love,” Will said, sauntering into the apartment, all smugness and British accent.

I crossed my arms in front of my chest and jutted out one hip. “Look, Will, I’m not in the mood. Ophelia has kidnapped my best friend.” My voice cracked and my vision blurred, the hot tears rushing over my cheeks. “And it’s all my fault.”

Will stepped closer to me, tried to put his arms around me, but I pushed him away, using the back of my hand to wipe my eyes. “And you’re a horrible guardian!”

“Isn’t she a bit old for a guardian?” I heard Vlad mutter to Alex.

“Vessel thing,” he returned.

Then, “Oooh. She’s got the Vessel?”

“She is the Vessel.”

I pushed my palms flat against Will’s chest. “Get out.”