I rinse and spit several times while Oliver sits down on the curb next to me. “Are you okay now? Feeling better yet?”
I nod and wipe at the sheen of sweat on my forehead with the sleeve of my shirt. “I’m good now. I don’t normally puke, but that was a particularly strong vision. The stronger the vision, the worse the backlash.”
“You just had a vision?” Nick asks.
Oliver smirks when I sigh, as if Nick is hopeless. “I’m not here looking to buy a car,” I say.
Nick glances back down the street at the yellow monstrosity he found me sitting in and shudders. “Wise decision.”
I snort. It really is a hideous car. “I’m here trying to find Shandra, like I promised Terrance I would do. And, hey!” I wave my hand at the pale yellow cult house. “I found our guys!”
Nick glances warily at the house. “The missing underworlders are in there?”
I wish it were that easy. I shake my head. “No. They’re keeping them somewhere else. A place they call the sanctuary. I think it’s where they perform their rituals. This is just where they sleep and party. But these are definitely our guys, and I think I know how to find our missing underworlders.”
“I could just go in there and make them tell me,” Nick suggests, pulling a gigantic knife from inside his boot. Awesome. The boots are both sexy and functional. Man, Nick is such a badass.
Badass or not, I shake my head at him. “You don’t know who and how many of them are involved. You couldn’t possibly grab them all. It would only take one to get away or make a call to whoever’s guarding the sanctuary, and then Shandra and all the others are either gone or dead to hide evidence. We need to find the sanctuary before we go busting in anywhere like a couple of cowboys in the Old West.”
The cowboy reference was totally for Nick’s sake, and he knows it. He can’t hold his frown and starts to chuckle. “Ruin all my fun, Spitfire,” he jokes. His smile turns proud. “Still. Way to think like a detective. You’re not so bad, for a human.”
I roll my eyes at the backhanded compliment.
“So what’s this plan you have, and what makes you think there are others besides Shandra?” Nick asks.
“And Nadine,” Oliver adds. “Henry’s missing vampire.”
I can’t help wrinkling my nose at the mention of vampires—especially Henry. First impressions are a bitch to overcome, and, well, Henry screwed the pooch with that one.
A car drives slowly down the street with a couple of frat looking guys in it. They shoot us suspicious frowns as they pass us by, but luckily they park at the real frat house instead of the evil cult one. “Let’s go somewhere else to hash out the details,” I say.
“Let’s get you back to Terrance’s place,” Oliver says. When I question his choice, he points at my shirt and the small dots of puke that ended up there. “Figured you’d want to change and brush your teeth.”
“You are a wise and thoughtful man, my dear badass sorcerer BFF.”
Oliver shakes his head and laughs. He climbs into the passenger seat of T-Man’s awesome loaner without word, and as I open the driver’s side door, I glance back at Nick. “Come on, cowboy. Follow us to the troll’s den.” I start to climb in the car and then pause, glancing quickly at Oliver and then back at Nick. “Wait. Terrance isn’t going to, like, eat you guys if I bring you inside or anything, is he?”
I expect both of them to laugh; however, they both do the opposite. Oliver’s face pales and Nick freezes, whatever quip he’d been forming dying on his tongue. He thinks about it for much too long and then says, “Maybe you should call him first and ask if it’s okay.”
Terrance gives me permission to bring the rodeo back to his place. Our place, I guess. He’d called it my home when I asked if I could bring Nick and Oliver over, and told me that as long as I felt someone was welcome, the magic around the place wouldn’t kill them. That had given me pause, and I’d mumbled a sort of mantra that Nick and Oliver were welcome from the time we neared the wards to the time we hit the bottom of the stairs.
Oliver gawks, standing so close to me that our arms brush. I don’t begrudge him his lack of space because he looks equal parts fascinated and terrified to be here. Nick seems much more casual. He lets out a low whistle. “Nice digs.”
“I know, right?” I laugh. “And to think all of this is under the bridge.”
“Well, I’m a troll, Nora,” Terrance says, entering the main living room. “We live under bridges.”
Oliver stiffens and gulps while I laugh. “Sorry. Nursery rhymes are real. It’s going to take me some getting used to.”
Terrance shakes his head, but he can’t stop the small smile from creeping across his lips. I amuse him. “So, T-Man, I’ve got some news about Shandra.” His eyes bulge, and I quickly hold up a hand before he can spout a bunch of questions. “First of all, I’m sure she’s still alive.”
He breathes out a huge breath of relief, and his entire body seems to sag as the air leaves him. “What happened? Where is she? Is she okay?”
I hold my hand up again. “I’ll tell you everything I know, but first, let me go change. I puked big time after a nasty vision. I could use some new clothes and a toothbrush. I’ll hurry, and then we can hash out my plan to get Shandra back. Why don’t you make us all some coffee while I go clean myself up?”
Oliver gasps, and Nick makes a choking sound. I’m not sure what that’s about, but whatever. I look at Terrance, and his hint of a grin becomes a wide smile. “You got it, Trouble,” he says, holding up his fist to me.
I bump his knuckles before heading toward my room. “You’re the best, T-man. Be right back.”
As I leave, I hear Oliver mutter, “The woman just fist-bumped a troll.”
“After she ordered him around like a damn maid and lived,” Nick whispers. “Unbelievable.”
Terrance’s laughter shakes the whole place.
The coffee is in mugs when I come out of my bedroom. I follow the smell to the kitchen, where Terrance is at the counter and Nick and Oliver sit at the table. Terrance looks over his shoulder when I enter the room. “How do you like your coffee?”
“Straight black, thanks.”
“Is that how you like your men, too?” Nick asks, grinning roguishly at me. “Straight and black?”
I can’t help it; I laugh. I laugh because I can tell he’s teasing me more than hitting on me. Oh, I have no doubt he’d have a good romp in the sheets with me if I were down, but I’m not, and I can tell he knows that. He’s teasing but not pressing. “Oh, Gorgeous.” I sigh. “You do live up to your name, I’ll give you that. But the only way I like my men is as friends. I don’t date. Ever. Too much past drama for me.”
I pretend not to see the crestfallen look on Oliver’s face and sit down at the table next to Terrance. “Okay.” I blow on my coffee and take a sip. It’s not sludge. Terrance really knows his way around the kitchen. “So…here’s what I got from the vision. I think—this is an educated guess, mind you—but I believe they’re going to attempt to acquire the power from all the underworlders they’ve collected. Like they’re going to siphon out the underworlders’ life forces and keep it for themselves in some sort of sacrificial ritual.” This earns me a round of gasps and growls. “Can that be done?”
After the outraged shouting and swearing from Nick and Terrance ends, Oliver answers my question. “It would be very difficult, and could only be done through dark magic. Regular magic—good magic—comes from within. That’s why only sorcerers can do magic. We are born with it inside us. We don’t have to steal it to use it. Dark magic is power stolen by killing magical beings. It’s extremely powerful, but also highly unstable, and becomes evil. It’s hard to use. In order to perform the kind of thing you’re talking about, you’d need…”
“Twelve guys?” I guess. “They said they needed twelve.”