“You can stay, if you like,” she said. “My shop is open to you and you wouldn’t be the first witch to find distraction here.”
I don’t need distraction, I wanted to howl. I need a kitsune! But I only nodded. “I’ll be back, if that’s okay. I should go home before it gets too late.” Aveline would be ticked if I stayed out late, after the last time.
“Be safe,” Marin warned, hand stroking over Zahir’s ears. “And actually go home this time, maybe?”
Again I nodded, this time more fervently. “I learned my lesson last time.”
My phone rang and I put a hand over my bag. “Sorry. I have to take this.” She looked at me, eyebrows knit and drawn downward. It was Indra’s ringtone. “Goodnight, Marin.”
She called her own goodbye as I walked quickly out of the shop, pulling my phone out and looking at the screen. Sure enough, Indra was calling me.
I rolled my eyes, marveling at his imperfect timing, and brought the phone up to my ear. “Hey, Indra. Sorry, but I-“
“George?” His voice was panicked and I stopped walking. “George. You have to come. It’s Cian–“
“What happened?” I demanded, chest tightening. Would I need to call Merric since I still had no other options?
“He’s–he’s hurt. Akiva too. Please, George. I don’t know how much longer I can run from them…“
“Hurt?” I whispered, feeling numb. I looked back at Marin’s shop. Would she help me now? “How bad? Indra-“
“Please!” he begged. “I need your help to get out of here.” He sounded terrified, and his breathing was heavy in my ear.
“Where are you?” I was already close to my car, and didn’t register the woman leaning against the side, handles of a bag hooked over her fingers.
“There’s a warehouse. It’s-“ he rattled off an address. “I’ll try to text it to you. Please, please hurry!”
“Okay! Okay I just need a second-“ the phone went dead.
Now I looked up, and slid to a stop when I saw the stranger at my car.
Only, it wasn’t exactly a stranger.
The woman from the other night was leaning against the silver paint job, A paper bag swinging from her fingers.
“You…” I trailed off. “You’re–“
“George!” A voice behind cut me cut me off, sounding happy, carefree, and familiar.
The woman didn’t look towards the voice, even as Merric slowed beside me, a smile on his face.
I didn’t have time for either of them.
“Hey! I’ve been calling you for like–“
“I don’t have time for this!” I half shifted from fear, seeing surprise flit across the kitsune’s face. “Sorry. I’m sorry, both of you. My friends are in danger. I don’t know–“
“Well I can come. I said I would, remember?” Merric’s smile had only fallen slightly in the face of potential mortal peril.
I was shaking my head. “It’s too dangerous. We’ll be alone. There are vampires–“
The door to my SUV opened, making both of us look towards the woman.
“What are you doing?” I asked, blood racing.
“Opening the door for you to be polite. Give me your keys.” She reached a hand out to me.
“What?”
“I thought you were in a hurry.” She didn’t seem to be, but she was right.
I hesitated, but finally fumbled with my keys until she took them from me and gestured to the front seat. “Foxes sit in the back,” she told the kitsune, but I was shaking my head.
“No. It’s really dangerous-“
“It’s an adventure,” Merric argued, opening the back door and sliding past me to get in.
The engine turned over and I jumped into the passenger seat.
“Where are we going?” the water shifter asked, bright teal gaze cutting to mine.
“What?”
She didn’t answer.
Oh–oh. I waved my phone wildly, turning it on to read the text Indra had just sent. “It says Seventy-two Winfield Avenue. Do you need….“She threw my car into drive and sped out in front of another car.
“I know where that is,” the woman said, shaking long hair back from her heart shaped face.
We were quiet, then, my heart trying to pound its way out of my ribs as my hands shook.
Merric fiddled with his tails, the fur occasionally sliding against my arm.
“You can’t be like that,” the water shifter said simply, eyes on the road as she broke every traffic law in the state. “You’ll be no help to anyone if you let yourself fall apart before we even get there.”
I glared at her, but she wasn’t done, and added. “Though, I’m not sure what you think you’ll accomplish if that night in the cemetery was you at your best.”
“She’s kind of mean,” Merric leaned forward, attitude light in the face of my panic. “You know each other?”
He asked me, but the panic in my chest wouldn’t let me answer. All I could do was try to keep breathing.
The woman glanced at me, then answered. “I saved her from being a wendigo’s midnight snack. What about you?”
“Oh, I’m Merric. She asked me for some help breaking through illusions.” He looked proud as he said it.
The woman’s eyes narrowed and she looked to me accusingly. “Him?” she asked. “Don’t you know a kitsune can’t work illusions until they have three tails? The best he’s going to do is chomp on their ankles.”
Merric made an indignant sound, but sat back.
Great. I hadn’t even done that right. Now I had a useless kitsune in the back who was probably going to get killed when we got there.
I felt like crying.
Pain made me gasp and I opened my eyes to find the woman’s fingers twined with mine, nails digging lightly into my hand. “I said calm down,” she reminded me, loosening her grip but not letting go. “We’ll be there in a minute.”
“What’s your name?” I whispered, figuring it would be polite to know who she was before we both got killed.
“Yuna.”
“I’m George.”
“Tell me then, George. Why are we about to pull up to an abandoned warehouse-in vampire territory, in the dark?”
Merric made a surprised sound in the back seat.
“My friends,” I whispered. “I think…I think they’re dead. Or about to
