“So do I.” I was still looking at Darius.
“Well…now…I’ve never seen a vampire hanging around his house,” Margaret said, tapping her fingers on the counter. “He did disappear for a few days at a time, though. Spread out all my feelers in the city, and I still couldn’t find him. But I’ve only heard about the blood, not any vampires helping him.” Margaret made a duck bill with her mouth.
“How often did he disappear?” Darius asked.
“Oh…” The duck bill turned into lip gymnastics. “Every two to three weeks.”
“How long has this been going on?” I asked.
“John was approached four months ago or more, but he only started getting really bad in the last couple. That’s about when he started disappearing as well.”
“That could be a girl, though.” I leaned against the wall, my mind trying to fit everything together. “You’d think a vampire would visit his house when he or she needed blood.”
“What girl would have him?” Margaret scoffed. “The high mage hasn’t approached any female witches or mages, as far as I’ve heard. And no girl went to John’s house. No, that can’t be it.”
“Do you know where the self-proclaimed high mage is located?” I asked.
“He moves around all the time.” A troubled expression came over her face. “I’ve heard of a couple places, but he knows people are after him. Or will be, if they aren’t now.” If he was killing vampires and dabbling in unicorn blood, that made sense. “The one thing he does constantly, though, is meet with his disciples—that’s what he calls his followers. They go to the same place every week. John used to sneer when he mentioned the meetings, like the high mage was all-powerful. Like no one in their right mind would challenge them when they were all together.”
“It sounds to me like a bunch of grade schoolers in a pillow fort praising an older boy wearing a paper crown,” I said, feeling the familiar fire of a challenge. “They don’t have anything I haven’t seen before, I guarantee it.” I made a sign like I was writing in the air. “I need that address, please.”
Darius started out of his reverie. He looked at me with a straight face. “I need to go to the lair. There is some information I must acquire.”
“What are you thinking?”
“Don’t go after them alone,” he said, ignoring my question. “Wait for my return.”
I stared at him incredulously. “You’re going to keep me in the dark about what you’re doing?”
“Here.” He handed me the book, ignoring me again. “Keep that. Go to my residence. They will protect you. Don’t go by your house—he is surely waiting for you. Find out when and where they meet, and I’ll—”
“I have that right here, plus a couple of the old addresses I have for him.” Margaret held up the notepad. “The meeting is every Tuesday. A lot of witches know about it, even though they weren’t invited. But I really don’t think that is a great time to go after him. He’s got a couple dozen people firmly under his control.”
“Two dozen barely trained yet volatile mages who have probably forgotten a bullet will kill them more handily than a spell,” I said to Margaret while still staring at Darius’s blank face. “They’ll be so certain they’re the kings of the world, and protected by numbers, they won’t realize that very thinking makes them extremely vulnerable and unprepared. Tuesday is the perfect time to go. And I will be going.”
He stared at me for a moment, reading me as I was trying to do him. I kept my face just as blank.
“I will return at sundown tomorrow,” he said curtly. “Stay away from this until then, or I will consider it a breach of contract.”
“Are you seriously not going to tell me what—” He was gone before I could finish my sentence.
I blinked at the empty spot where he’d just stood, taken aback by the sudden shift in power. One moment I had been leading the charge. The next, I’d been ordered to seek protection in Darius’s home, where I would surely be monitored by his people, and keep my nose out of the investigation. All this while the big man left to take care of secretive business.
What the hell was that about a breach of contract, anyway? That was not how these things worked.
Anger heated my cheeks and tightened my grip on the leather-bound book. “That’s a load of bullshit, right there.”
Margaret’s lips thinned and her eyebrows rose—silent judgment. She tilted her head down in a half nod, as if to say, Yes, that is some bullshit, you are right.
“What day is today?” I asked.
“The third.”
“No, like, the day of the week.”
She shook her head—another silent judgment. “This is why you shouldn’t hang out with vampires,” she said. “I know he is incredibly handsome, and it’s hard to think around him, but as a rule, they run out when they are needed the most.”
“I can think around him perfectly fine, Margaret. I’m only working with the vampires because I’m poor and they offered me a job, which has nothing to do with what day of the week it is…”
She sniffed. “Desperation. That’s how it always starts…”
“No, it starts with biting and canoodling. What do you think I am, a novice? What day is today?”
“Sunday.”
I tapped each of my weapons, a check to make sure they were there while I mentally got ready to go out on my own again. Damned if I would check into a hidey-hole with a bunch of curious vampires I couldn’t trust while Darius went off to do some secret handshakes, or whatever he was doing.
“I know he said he’d come back, Reagan,” Margaret said, analyzing me. “But vampires are only your best friends when they need something. As soon as they get what they’re after, you’re expendable. You should never trust a vampire.”
I sighed. She was like a broken record.