"Oh yeah."
Wulf smiled, wishing he could find pleasure in something as simple as a cup of coffee. But no sooner had that thought crossed his mind than he heard Talon snarl, "Ah, man."
"What?"
"Friggin' Fabio alert."Talon spat the words out contemptuously.
Wulf arched a brow as he thought about Talon's own blond hair. "Hey, you're not too far from the mark either, blondie."
"Bite me, Viking. You know if I were a negative person, I would be seriously annoyed right now."
"You sound annoyed to me."
"No, this isn't annoyed. This is mild perturbance. Besides, you should see these guys." Talon dropped his Celtic accent as he invented a conversation for the Daimons. He raised his voice to an unnaturally high level. "Hey, Gorgeous George, I think I smell a Dark-Hunter."
"Oh no, Dick," he said, dropping his voice two octaves, "don't be a dick. There's no Dark-Hunter here." Talon returned to his falsetto. "I dunno…"
"Wait," Talon said, again in the deep voice, "I smell tourist. Tourist with big… strong soul."
"Would you stop?" Wulf said, laughing.
"Talk about inkblots," Talon said, using the derogatory term Dark-Hunters had for Daimons. It stemmed from the strange black mark that all Daimons developed on their chests when they crossed over from being simple Apollites to human slayers. "Damn, all I wanted was a drink of coffee and one little beignet."
He heard Talon tsk-tsking. Then his friend started debating out loud. "Coffee… Daimons… Coffee… Daimons…"
"I think in this case the Daimons better win."
"Yeah, but it's chicory coffee."
Wulf clicked his tongue. "Talon wanting to be toasted by Acheron for failure to protect humans."
"I know," he said with a disgusted sigh. "Let me go expire them. Talk to you later."
"Later." Wulf hung up the phone and switched off the computer. He looked at the clock. It wasn't even midnight yet. Damn.
It was just after midnight when Cassandra, Kat, and Brenda returned to their college apartment complex. They let Brenda out in front of her unit, then drove around back to where they shared an apartment. They got out of the car and made their way inside their two-bedroom flat.
Ever since she'd left the Inferno, Cassandra had had a terrible niggling in the back of her mind, like something wasn't right.
She went through the entire evening again in her mind as she got ready for bed. She'd driven down to the club with her friends after Michelle's class, and they had spent the night listening to Twisted Hearts and then the Barleys play.
Nothing unusual had happened other than Michelle meeting Tom. So, why did she feel so… so…strange.
Uneasy.
It didn't make sense.
Rubbing her brow, she picked up her Medieval Lit book and did her best to struggle through the Old English version of Beowulf.
Dr. Mitchell loved embarrassing graduate students who hadn't prepared for his class, so Cassandra wasn't about to show up tomorrow without having read the assignment.
No matter how boring it might prove. Grendrel, chomp, chomp, Grendrel, chomp, chomp, See the Vikings in their boats, Someone hand me the Cliff's Notes…
Not even her little singsong ditty could revive her interest.
Yet as she read the Old English words, she kept imagining a tall, dark-haired warrior with black eyes and full, warm lips. A man of incredible speed and agility. Closing her eyes, she saw him standing out in the cold, wearing a long black leather coat and a look on his face that said…Decadence.
She tried to make the image clearer, but it evaporated and left her aching for want of him. "What in the world is wrong with me?"
She widened her eyes and forced herself to read.
Wulf locked his bedroom door and went to bed early— just after four. Chris had been asleep for hours. There was nothing on TV, and he was bored with playing online computer games against the other Dark-Hunters.
He'd already taken out the "pressing" Daimon menace tonight. He sighed at the thought. During the winter months, they tended to take a hiatus south, since Daimons weren't real big on the whole cold thing. They hated to have to "unwrap" their food and found it extremely cumbersome to attack humans wrapped in layers of coats and sweaters. Things would pick up in the spring, after the thaw, but in the meantime, the nights were long and the battles few and far between.
Maybe if he got a good day's sleep, he might feel better tomorrow evening. It was worth a try. But as soon as Wulf fell asleep, his dreams started drifting. He saw the club again and felt the lips of the unknown woman against his. Felt her hands on him as she clutched him…