“I’m not entering into a discussion about this, Liz.” His voice was flat—determined. “He can’t attack the magic protecting this place and defend himself from physical attack at the same time. No witch can. If he does try to enter, I will stop him.”
“You can’t stay awake all night, Aiden. Not when you’re working.”
“I’m not tomorrow—it’s my day off.”
“But you’re on the following days, so the argument remains.”
“Which is why I have the bedroll. You’ll know the minute he attacks, and I’ll know the minute you wake in fear.”
I wanted to wrap my arms around him and hug him, but we were still in the street, and he tended to avoid overt displays of affection when in public.
“Okay, but I do have a queen bed, so there’s no need—”
“It’ll be entirely too distracting if we share a bed. Besides, there’s the ‘no sex with boyfriends in the building’ rule you and Belle have going.”
And with very good reason—neither of us wanted to remember past partners whenever we walked into our bedrooms. We both knew it took far longer for the heartache of a broken relationship to heal when memories echoed.
But this situation was very different to those others.
“I’ll accept no arguments on this either,” he added. “So can we please take this inside? Otherwise, those goose bumps of yours will turn into mountains.”
“Fine.” I turned and headed in. “But the sofa pulls out into a bed, so you can use that.”
“I’m not entirely sure that old sofa of yours will be more comfortable than the floor.”
“Then you’d be wrong.”
I locked the door and followed him across the room. Belle had made us all coffee and stacked a selection of brownies onto a plate. Aiden dumped his bag and sleeping roll onto the nearby table and then pulled out a chair. “So, what were you both doing over at Émigré? You’re not exactly dressed for a night out.”
I raised my eyebrows. “How did you know we were there?”
He reached for a salted caramel brownie, a grin twitching his lips. “Jaz mentioned it. She was driving past when you were going in, and wondered if our plans had changed.”
“You discuss your evening plans with Jaz?”
“Well, no, but in this reservation, it’s rather hard to keep anything secret. The gossips do like to keep up with current events.”
I snorted. The gossip brigade, as they were officially known, was a group of twenty-seven women who met at least a couple of times a week to discuss any and all local events. Some months ago they’d decided the Psychic Café would be their main meeting haunt, and while that was good for business, it wasn’t great for keeping secrets.
“We met a friend there.” The lie tasted a little bitter on my tongue, but I couldn’t admit the truth. He didn’t know Maelle was a vampire, and I’d promised I wouldn’t say anything. I’d rather Aiden be upset with me than her, when the truth did eventually come out.
He studied me, his expression suggesting he suspected the lie. But then, he’d always been able to do that—one of the many reasons he was such a good ranger. “Why there? Why not here?”
“Because that’s where she wanted to meet.” I shrugged. “Anyway, said friend is something of an expert when it comes to vampires and other nasties, and gave us some interesting information.”
Once I’d updated him, he frowned and said, “If I send a team to investigate the local cemeteries tonight, is there anything they can do to protect themselves against this ghoul, if that is what we’re dealing with?”
“Decapitation was mentioned as one method of killing them, so I think shooting their heads off would probably work.”
A smile twitched his lips. “And if ‘probably’ doesn’t?”
“Tell them to carry long knives.”
“And it might be worthwhile to carry some salt,” Belle added. “Most supernatural beasties hate the stuff. If they’re attacked, they can either throw it or—better yet—use it to form a circle barrier around themselves.”
“And that will protect them?”
“It should, as not many supernatural beings will actually cross it.”
“Good.” Aiden rose and moved to the other side of the room to make his calls.
Belle sipped her coffee and then said, “I might head over to the storage unit tomorrow and see if I can find anything in the old index books that deals with ghouls.”
Belle’s grandmother—Nellie—had been the owner of a vast collection of rare and irreplaceable books on magic and the supernatural. Unfortunately, her indexing system was handwritten and tended to be somewhat haphazard, which made it hard to find anything quickly. We were in the process of converting everything over to electronic format, and not just for ease of access or even protection against some sort of disaster. We’d rather belatedly realized that a backup was very necessary in case the High Witch Council ever discovered Belle had inherited Nell’s library—which should, for all intents and purposes, have been gifted to the National Library.
I wrinkled my nose and reached for a brownie. “I’m not entirely sure that’s a good idea.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“Because Clayton is out there, watching us. The last thing we need to do is bring his attention to the storage unit.”
She made a frustrated sound. “Good point, but damned inconvenient.”
“Better to be inconvenienced than have your gran’s books confiscated.”
“True.” She wrinkled her nose. “I wish there was some damn way to track him.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I think tracking him is the last thing we need to do.”
Especially when any sort of confrontation was something the sixteen-year-old inner me was still desperate to avoid.
“Not us, specifically. I’m thinking more along the lines of Monty, Ashworth, and Eli—”
“I suspect it’s gone well beyond the point of talking sense into him, given what Ashworth said about his fall from grace in recent years. Combine that with the impotency spell—”
“A spell I will never regret, no matter what he does to us.”
Even as she said that, trepidation stirred and my gut began to churn. Not for
