I shrugged. “How about a really rough bar? I could go for a good fight.”
Her expression turned quizzical, but the fear didn’t melt away. “Is something wrong with you?” she asked.
I pointed at Darius. “I’m traveling with a vampire. That should’ve been your first clue.”
Her huff turned into a laugh and she shook her head. “You won’t be fighting anyone after you eat that breakfast.” She walked away without another word.
I blew out a breath. “She knows something and it’s got her nervous. Do you think that mage is skinning magical people?”
“You would’ve heard if the victims were magical,” Darius said. “I agree, though. She seems frightened of something. The question is whether it is the same reason we were called here.”
“I was called here. You just gave me a lift and paid for my room.”
He studied me for a moment. “You should know that the couple who got up from this seat were shifters.”
I jerked around, unable to stop myself from looking in the direction they’d gone. Unfortunately, someone was walking up the aisle at that exact moment. My sudden shift spooked the man, who flinched and took a step back, right into our waitress holding two waters. The liquid splashed up between them. When he stepped away again, the glass his back had kept pinned in place was freed. It dumped water down on the waitress’s legs.
“What the hell, Henry?” our waitress shrieked.
He flinched again. The guy was awfully jumpy.
“S-sorry. The girl scared me.” Henry gestured, probably at me, but I hardly noticed. I was watching her jeans to see if her legs would suddenly morph into a big fish tail. It didn’t seem plausible, and I’d never heard of it happening, but that Tom Hanks movie from the eighties had been pretty specific. I’d figured the writers might know something I didn’t.
The waitress jammed a half-full glass on the table in front of me. “What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.” I jerked my eyes up.
She scoffed and smacked Darius’s empty cup down in front of him. “Better me than you, I guess. At least I don’t smell when I get wet.”
“You smell all the time, actually. Like seaweed. It is horrible.” Darius clasped his fingers on the table and looked up at her placidly.
Shaking her head, she stomped off.
This was going well.
“You should get lost,” I mumbled to Darius. “Those shifters are going to call their friends. Why else do you think they gave up their table? They don’t want to battle right now, and probably assumed you would.”
“I am outside of their jurisdiction. I have broken no rules.”
“It’s not about trying to kill you. They can make your life hell. They hang around all the time and stick their noses in your business. Trust me, that is my life in New Orleans. The shifters there are like tape stuck to my ass.”
He ignored me and looked down at his phone screen again.
It was just as well. If the shifters here were anything like in NOLA, it wouldn’t matter if he left now. They’d track him down and stalk him like he’d been stalking me. It might just serve him right.
“Hey,” I said to the table on the other side of the aisle.
A woman with jet-black hair glanced over, confused.
“How’s it going?” I asked with a smile.
The man with her glanced at Darius, and a knot instantly formed between his eyebrows.
“I’m not with him.” I waved Darius away. “Say, listen, do you guys know of a good bar where people like me can get a little libation?”
I saw Darius shaking his head out of the corner of my eye.
“I’m just in town for a while,” I went on, studying them for clues as to what magical creatures they might be. “Yeah, I’m here to rid the place of some skin-stealing vermin, if you know what I mean.”
“They don’t. You are wasting your time,” Darius said.
The couple continued to stare at me like I was a strange art exhibit they’d found themselves at, but weren’t quite sure how or why.
I pressed on. “The locals can’t seem to get things squared away, so I’ve been called in to do it my way.” I was so used to my sword making me uncomfortable when I sat that I hadn’t thought to remove it. The woman’s eyes widened and the man scowled. “So do you guys know where I can go? Hell, maybe even where I can find the skin stealer. I can take care of it—”
“They are not magical,” Darius said softly.
I froze with my mouth open.
“As I said,” he said in an undertone, “you are wasting your time. This is a well-known spot for the whole town, not just our sort of people. I would think you could tell the magical from the mundane a little better than that.” Darius didn’t bother looking up from his phone. “Very few humans are here this late, but they do tend to come in. As you see.”
My smile didn’t smooth over the situation, so I apologized and turned back. Zero for two.
“Unless their scent is obvious, like the waitress, I can’t smell most magical species like you can,” I muttered to Darius. “I usually rely on knowing people.”
“Try the people sitting behind you,” he said, still not looking up.
“What has you so entertained on that phone?” I asked him loudly, twisting in my seat to look over the back of the booth. I saw a head with spiky hair the color of rust. I shifted to see around him and caught the brown eyes of his female companion. Her expression crumpled into one of annoyance and—what I was getting used to in this town—confusion. It seemed that people of Seattle didn’t take crazy in stride. That would greatly work against me.
“Updates,” Darius said.
I smiled at the woman, who was obscured by the seat, and gave her a thumbs-up. I’d have to rise up on my knees to chat with them, and that would look ridiculous.
I sighed and turned back around. I’d have to work harder on the waitress. If she ever came back.
“Usually you have to plug the phone in for—” I finally caught on to what Darius had meant. “Updates on our situation. Got it. Anything interesting?”
“Very.”
I waited for him to elaborate. When he didn’t, I leaned toward him to ask, but at that moment the largest breakfast I’d ever seen arrived in front of me. The waitress set down the side of fries next to it, and had to make a second trip for the milkshake.
“You’re a glutton,” she said.
“And you are super observant. Well done. Hey, about that bar—”
She walked away, leaving my words hanging.
“Okay then,” I mumbled. “I definitely need to try somewhere else. Somewhere I can get more physical.”
“Maybe Callie and Dizzy will have better luck, since they are mages. Other mages might be more inclined to talk with them.” Darius put his phone on the table and looked over my plate of food. He didn’t comment.