“You stinker. I told you not to eat the wrapper.”
“Stop playing with your pet and let’s go,” I said.
Tess frowned at me again, but set the wyvern back on her shoulder as Maia’s motor roared to life.
In a few minutes, we were at Alex’s home. The house sat between the Guadalupe River and River Road and was dark. I activated my enhanced senses tat and listened. There were no sounds coming from the house, unless you counted the field mice that had made a home in the attic.
“Do you think anyone is home?” Tess asked.
“Don’t you have your sense tat active?” I asked in return.
She frowned, but then I felt the snap of energy as she activated it. Tess listened for a few moments and shook her head. “No, Alex isn’t here. Maybe he’s back at the motel.”
“Could be, but if Verðandi was right about when he was reaped, he may still be in Mexico.”
“Then you think he’s injured badly enough that he can’t travel?”
I shrugged. “There’s no telling. You and I both were and that’s about all the experience I have on the matter. Wanderers have never been a loquacious group of people. The few times I got together with others, it was to do a mission and then we separated again. Looking back, maybe we should have been a bit more social; it might have kept Rowle from becoming the problem he was.”
“If Alex is injured, we should go get him.”
I nodded, but then reconsidered. “If he was conscious, then he’d have used that healing spell we taught him. He’s not in any danger.”
“Maybe not, but you didn’t leave me in the hospital until I recovered. I want to make sure he’s safe,” Tess argued.
I shrugged. “All right, that’s fair. We’ll check the motel and see if they’ve heard from him. If they haven’t then we’ll fly down to Cancun.”
“Is it far?” Tess asked.
Nodding, I said, “A damn sight farther than we’ve already flown tonight. I don’t remember the flying distance, but I went through there back in the nineties. It was about three days by road from the border. I wasn’t in a hurry then and I could have been sightseeing as much as traveling.”
“Then we can’t make it there tonight.”
I looked to the south. “No, not tonight. We’ll check out Alex’s motel and then get some rest before heading out.”
“We’re staying at the motel?”
I winced and Tess noticed. “We can go somewhere else. We don’t have to stay there.”
“Yes, it’s probably best that we don’t stay where people know us,” I acknowledged.
We pulled back out onto the pavement, heading south again. It was only a couple more miles to the motel. It was a bright spot of light along the otherwise dark road. The restaurant and bar had closed for the night. A fair number of vehicles occupied the parking lot, most of them in front of various rooms.
I was uncomfortable returning to the place where I’d been so happy with Laura. It brought back memories of her death and of my sword entering her flesh. The memory had troubled my sleep for weeks. In all of my years, she was the only death by my own hands that I regretted. If only I’d thought of using the magic in Walt’s sword sooner.
Stopping outside the office, I shut off Beast’s engine and dismounted. When Tess swung a leg off Maia’s to follow me, I held up a hand. “You haven’t learned to do a glamour, yet. Wait here until I find out whether they’ve heard from him.”
“Why? You’ve been able to keep both of us glamoured before,” she protested.
“I know, but we were here recently and it’s a lot harder to maintain a glamour that alters your appearance than it is my own. Besides, your voice is distinctive enough for someone to recognize it.”
“I can change the pitch of my voice. You just don’t want me coming inside.”
I rolled my eyes and sighed wearily. “Okay, Tess, have it your way. Come on.”
She trotted over to me, a damn grin on her beautiful face.
“Don’t think I didn’t see you rolling your eyes, Rafe.”
“That’s a mentor’s prerogative,” I said.
Her fingers wove into my hair and she pulled my lips down to hers for a quick peck. Pulling back a second later, she said, “Admit it, you can’t bear to be away from me.”
I rolled my eyes again, but then put an equally quick peck on her lips. “You can’t prove anything.”
She giggled and looped her left arm through my right.
Sheesh.
We entered the motel’s office together.
The night man wasn’t behind the desk so I rang the bell. After a minute, I rang it again.
The door behind the desk opened slowly and a young woman, yawning mightily, emerged.
“Good evening, can I help you?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “We’re looking for Alex. I wondered if he’d called to say when he’d be back from Cancun.”
“Alex? Ah, no. I haven’t heard from him, but the manager might have. He’ll be back in at eight tomorrow morning. Would you like to leave him a message?”
“Sure, tell him Raphael Semmes–”
That was as far as I got before the front of the desk exploded.
Chapter 13
Raphael
An inky, jet-black, cloud burst out of the motel office’s counter and splattered my front with a tarry substance before I could even trigger my shield. Where the goo struck my exposed flesh, it burned like acid. I belatedly got my
