Wayward Devils (Souls of the Road #4)

Chapter 20

CHAPTER TWENTY

I fell asleep on the car ride back to the honky tonk. Abbi woke me and Lula both. The witches were at the door, helping us out of the SUV and into the bar.

Rhianna, with the ratty little elephant toy clutched tightly against her chest, was already showing signs of being more human—her color better, her eyes less hollow.

Cassia carried her off to a room, singing a sweet lullaby about pretty horses.

Variance was on a stretcher in the middle of the dance floor. He’d been bathed and bandaged and was asleep. Several people gathered closer to him and picked up the stretcher, following Cassia out of the room.

If they were lucky, if they mixed the spells correctly with the vampire blood, Rhianna would be fully cured.

“We’re hopeful for Variance too,” Franny told Lu and me, as she led us back to a bedroom. “The spells from the Crossroads were very powerful. We will return them once they are both healed.”

The room was small, painted a soft green, and was very clean, smelling of gardenia. A queen-size bed, with a carved wooden headboard and patchwork quilt, filled most of the space. A door at the end of the room led to a small, private bathroom.

I wanted to fall onto that bed and sleep for a century.

“I’ll send Cassia in to look at your injuries,” Franny said. “You can shower if you want. There’s water there,” she pointed at a minifridge, “and I’ll bring you some food. Lula, do you need blood?”

The offer was so natural, so casual, you’d think she’d been cavorting with vampires all her life.

But then I remembered Variance had been here, living with them since he’d been turned vampire. They must have figured out some way to look after his nutritional needs.

“I don’t—”

“Yes,” I said. “That would be good.”

Franny nodded and let herself out of the room.

“I could have answered,” Lu said.

We hadn’t moved any farther into the room. I thought we were avoiding the bed for fear we’d get into it and never get out.

“I know.” I took her hand and looped it through my elbow so I could help her to the bathroom. “But you would have said no.”

“You think you know me so well?” she teased.

She was exhausted. We both were. And this—talking about nothing, arguing about nothing—was keeping our minds off of sleep, keeping our minds off of what we’d be doing tomorrow.

Finding the book and dealing with the troubles it brought with it.

“Oh, I do know you,” I said. “For example, I know your birthday is tomorrow.”

She stopped and tugged on my arm. “You remember that?”

“Of course I remember that. I’ve wished you a happy birthday every year of our lives.”

Not that she could hear it, all those years of me being without a body, without a voice.

“I like that,” she said. We started moving again. “I’ve wished you the same.”

“I know.” I opened the door and whistled in approval.

The bathroom had a large shower with a wide rainfall fixture, a bench in the shower space, and a large bath outside the shower space. Several soft-looking towels waited on floating shelves.

“You first?” I asked.

“There’s room for both of us.” Then she tugged me toward the shower.

I got busy getting the water to temperature, while Lula pulled off her clothes. She had regained a little more movement in her left arm, but it still wasn’t fully functional. I stepped over to help her undress.

She stilled, letting me take my time drawing off her tank top, then easing the straps of her bra and undoing the hooks.

I untangled the band from her braid next. She shivered as I drew my fingers through her hair.

Next were her boots. The small bench near the bath let her sit so I could unlace and pull. Finally, her pants.

By the time she was standing there, naked in front of me, the room had warmed, steam filling it, softening the air.

I drew my hands down her arm and ribs, one hand pausing to cup her breast.

“Lu,” I breathed, wanting her. Wanting to feel her alive in my arms, wanting to trace every inch of her, to feel the silk of her body, her thrumming heartbeat.

She held her breath, then exhaled in a soft laugh. “We reek of vampire,” she said. “Clean. We both need to get clean.”

She touched the side of my face, then limped into the shower.

She was exhausted. Injured. I was too.

I shucked out of my clothes and thought boring thoughts to calm my body’s natural reaction to her. I stepped into the shower, and she pulled me to her, inviting me into the water.

So much for keeping my body in control.

I shifted, fitting us better together. She placed her hand on my arm to help steady herself, not being able to put weight on her left foot. Since her good hand was helping keep her steady, she was out of options for soap application.

“A little help?” she asked, nodding at the shampoo.

“Happy to oblige.”

I poured soap into my palm. It smelled like gardenia too. I worked it into a foam and pulled my fingers over her scalp, then scrubbed the soap down through her hair.

She hummed and closed her eyes, leaning her face into my chest. I washed her hair, reached for more soap, then took my time washing her body.

She winced more than once as I sluiced soap and water over her back and ribs. Among her cuts were several bruises, one spreading across the top of her foot and up her ankle and calf.

I guided her to sit on the bench while I soaped myself down, hissing as it stung multiple nicks and cuts.

The lump on the back of my head was sore and felt bigger. I washed my hair, soaping up several times until the water didn’t run as red and the cut had gone numb.

Lula watched me the whole time, her eyes like honey in water.

She liked what she saw. But exhaustion carved shadows into her, and I was fading fast.

“Bed,” I said. To her raised eyebrow, I added, “Sleep.”

She bit her bottom lip but nodded. “Tomorrow.”

I grinned. “Always.”

We dried. We’d forgotten to take our clean clothes into the bathroom, but when we opened the door to the bedroom, our duffles were waiting on the floor next to the bed.

Lorde was lying right in the middle of the bed, facing the bathroom.

She woof ed softly and whined, her bushy tail wagging.

“Hey, girl,” I said, as I reached her and scrubbed behind her silky soft ears. “Did they look after you? Give you treats?”

She panted and licked at my face, then did the same when Lula sat on the bed next to her.

I found our comfortable clothes. Lula and I put on the essentials and crawled under the covers, Lorde smooshed into the narrow space between us.

I was already half-dozing when the knock on the door startled me awake. For a moment, I couldn’t remember where I was.

Lorde stuck her big head on my chest and breathed dog breath into my face, and it all came back to me.

“Come in,” Lu said.

Franny and a woman with short yellow hair that curled around her head stepped into the room.

“Food,” Franny said, indicating the platter she carried with a couple bowls of soup and a plate piled with fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans.

“I’m Trella,” the other woman said. “I’m a nurse practitioner. I need to look you both over. No, it’s fine. Just stay there. I can get to both sides of the bed.”

Franny put the tray on the bedside table next to me, and I could see I was wrong about the bowls. They didn’t hold soup, they held a couple cups of blood, the red stark against the fine white of the china.

“Hungry?” she offered me.

My mouth watered from the delicious smell of chicken and potatoes, and my stomach cramped. “I am now.”

I sat, and she produced a lap table and set up the plate for me, then looked over at Lu. “Food?”

She nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”

She repeated the process with her.

Trella worked around us while we ate, and didn’t seem even slightly distressed that Lula was drinking blood.

“The ankle is a bad strain,” she said, her hands careful on Lu’s foot. “Let’s get some ice on it and elevate.”

She got busy doing that, and I lost myself in some of the best fried chicken I’d ever put my teeth into.

Trella narrated our injuries: bruises, stitches, rotator cuff strain, slight concussion, bruised ribs, while moving to apply the fixes as she talked.

The doctoring went a lot faster than I expected, though I might have lost track of time while cleaning off the plate.

Franny took the empty dishes and made sure we had water on both sides of the bed. Then she and Trella left.

Lu was lying on her back, her foot propped up on pillows, an icepack wrapped around her ankle. She had needed a few stitches and butterfly bandages, but there wasn’t much to do for the bruised ribs or strained rotator cuff other than to put her left arm in a soft sling.

I’d gotten my share of stitches—more than her—but Trella assured me my concussion wasn’t too severe for me to sleep.

Lorde had refused to leave the bed, and now that they’d left, she wormed her way back between us.

I’d meant to ask about Variance and Rhianna, I’d meant to ask if Abbi was okay.

But Lula was already breathing deeply and evenly, the soft sounds of music and voices in the main bar a pleasant ocean of white noise. She reached for me, resting her hand on Lorde’s back. I lifted my hand and threaded my fingers through hers.

Lorde sighed and made a happy grumbling sound.

We slept.

Someone was staring at me.

I opened my eyes.

“Hi,” Abbi whispered. “Are you awake now?”

It took me a second. “Uh.”

She leaned back in the chair she’d pulled next to the bed.

“I think you’re awake now. It’s morning. But morning is almost over. Do you want breakfast or lunch? Oh! Or breakfast and lunch?”

I rubbed a hand over my face, trying to scrub thought back into my brain. “What time is it?”

“Almost lunch,” she said. “I’ve had cookies, and cake, and a donut. No, two. Two donuts.”

I rolled my head to look for Lu. She sat on the other side of the bed, the pillow propped behind her back.

She’d re-braided her hair and was wearing a clean, soft yellow tank top and a pair of shorts.

She looked like sunlight and sweet water.

“Morning,” I said.

“Afternoon,” she replied. “I’d go for lunch. They’re making up more of that chicken you fell in love with last night.”

I gave her a look. “I was hungry, not proposing to it.”

She flashed me a smile. “Well, there’s still a chance, since it’s for lunch. Plus fries.”

It sounded delicious, but I wasn’t about to let her know that. “Maybe I want breakfast.”

“Do you?”

“That’s not the point.”

She smiled. “Cassia wants to see us. For lunch.”

“I think there’s more cake!” Abbi bounced in the chair. “Or maybe a pie. I like pie.”

I wanted to tell her she needed to maybe eat a vegetable this year, but she wasn’t human and could probably eat anything she wanted.

“I need to get dressed,” I said.

“Oh, good! I’ll tell Cassia we’re staying for lunch.” Abbi hopped off the chair and flew to the door, throwing it wide. “He says yes! We get to stay for lunch! Can I have pie?”

The door swung shut behind her and closed with a solid click.

“It’s like living with a hurricane,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

Lu tossed her braid behind her shoulder and leaned down to kiss me. I didn’t know what she was expecting, but I held her there, my hand coming up to cradle her head. She melted into the kiss, and I never wanted it to end.

When we came up for air, her pupils were dilated, and her mouth was pink, a blush of color warming the freckles across her cheek.

“We have witches to talk to,” she said softly.

“Mmmm.” I reached for her again.

She evaded my touch. “And a book to recover.”

“Mmmm.”

“And,” she said, getting off the bed and walking with a much smoother gait than last night—one good thing about her being a thrawan was that she healed quickly—“a ghoul to meet.”

I put my arm behind my head, showing off the bulge of my bicep. “Bed’s comfortable. Maybe the witches can wait.”

She took in the show and waggled her eyebrows. “Sooner we’re on the road, sooner we’ll have a new place to stay for the night. Who knows what will happen then? It is my birthday, after all.”

With that, she slipped out the door.

Birthday. I had wanted to throw her a party. I had wanted to give her gifts and her favorite dessert. I had wanted her to feel spoiled and special and treasured.

None of that had happened, and I’d run out of time.

I sighed, pushed off the blankets, and grabbed clean clothes. By the time I was pulling on my shirt, I had an idea.

It took me several minutes to find where I’d stashed it, and I kept glancing at the door hoping Lula wouldn’t walk in.

The demon stone was wedged in a pocket of my duffle. I hadn’t put it there.

Abbi might have, but I had the feeling demonic items put themselves wherever they wanted to be found.

It was a huge risk to do this here among the witches, but the only way out of the room would mean passing the bar. From the sounds drifting in through the door, there were plenty of people out there, which meant I couldn’t sneak away.

I held the stone in my palm, took a few deep breaths, then quietly spoke.

“Bathin, if you’re listening, this is Brogan Gauge. You gave us this stone to use if we needed it. If we needed you. I didn’t want to use it. I don’t want to make a deal with a demon. But I have a proposition for you.”

By the time I had carefully—very carefully—laid out my idea, about fifteen minutes had passed. Nothing had changed in the room. I had no idea if the demon had even heard me.

If he had, I wasn’t sure he would agree to the terms I had laid out.

But I was out of time. If I lingered any longer, Lu or Abbi would get suspicious and come looking for me.

I tucked the stone into my pocket and walked to the bar.

Sunlight filtered through the windows, but the honky tonk was cool, the ceiling once again covered by solid wood, the air- conditioned breeze good enough it could make one think Texas heat wasn’t all that bad.

There were a lot of people from the coven here, the neon open sign switched off.

Lu sat with Abbi and Cassia at a table to the right, so I headed that way.

“Have a seat,” Cassia said. “Hope you don’t mind we ordered you up a lunch.”

Since the lunch was fried chicken, ribs, a good helping of beans, and fresh steaming corn bread, I plunked down into the chair.

“It looks amazing, thank you.”

Lula lifted her iced tea and took a drink. The bowl of fresh fruit in front of her was half empty, strawberry stems and little strips of melon rind left in a pile on her napkin.

Abbi, to my surprise, was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “This is my second one,” she said.

Cassia didn’t have food in front of her, but she did have a large earthenware mug steaming with a fragrant tea.

“I’d leave you all to your meal,” she said, “but first I’d like you to fill me in on where things stand. Franny and Variance have already told me what they know. Abbi explained what happened on her side of things.”

“I stole the token and killed the vampires. Because I’m really bright.” That last was a challenge to me.

“Meh,” I said, “you’re bright enough.”

“Like the sun!”

“Sure, bright like the sun.” I pinched my fingers to indicate she was a little bit short. “Almost.”

Her eyes went wide in outrage, but it was spoiled by the dab of jam stuck on the corner of her mouth.

“Who wants to be the stupid sun anyway?” she muttered, taking another bite. “The moon is so much better.”

“If you can,” Cassia went on, “please tell me what happened when you got to the vampire stronghold. There are a few pieces missing from the story.”

Lula took the lead, which gave me some time to mow through half the food on the plate.

I was hungry, but I’d eaten a big meal last night and found myself slowing down to listen to Lula recount the fight with Dominick.

“And then there were crows,” she was saying. “I think…Brogan? You were a part of that?”

I took over, explaining why I’d given Rhianna to the ghoul, and how I had guaranteed her safety.

“I like the part when you tell him I can smoosh him like a bug,” Abbi said.

“Then I went back for Lula. To fight Dominick. The vines…” I shook my head. “I had to hack through them to even get into the room. I had the vampire-killing knife Ricky gave us.” My hand drifted to it at my hip. “But I was too far away, and too slow.”

“Like I told you,” Abbi pointed out.

“Like you told me. I dropped the bracelet, threw the knife, and yelled to get his attention.”

Cassia and Lula wore matching frowns. Yeah, I didn’t need either of them to tell me how stupid that had been.

“It struck true,” I said a little more defensively than I liked. “His heart, or near enough. But it didn’t kill him. Lu was hurt, I was weaponless. I found Raven’s feather in my pocket, and I asked for his help.”

“The crows,” Cassia said. “He must have sent them.”

I drank coffee. The witches really knew how to make a mean cup. It was rich and delicious.

“It was enough,” I said, “the crows hurt him enough, distracted him enough, blinded him—that Lula was able to cut off his head.”

That was simplifying it a bit and leaving out the part where he’d tried to choke her to death, but those weren’t details I needed to share.

“He died,” I said. “I filled the vial with blood from his still twitching body—does that make a difference for your spells?”

She shook her head.

“I filled the vial, and we left as quickly as we could. We were about halfway across the field when the vampires surrounded us.”

“At this point,” she said, “you only had your daggers?”

“That’s right.”

“I wasn’t at my best,” Lu admitted. “My injuries slowed me down. Slowed us down.”

“I slowed us down.” I pointed at my face. “Human.” I pointed at her. “More than human.”

“But you fought them?” Cassia pressed.

“We fought them,” I said. “We weren’t going to win that fight.”

“Then what happened?” Abbi asked with a big grin. “Did something amazing happen? Did someone amazing happen?”

“Then,” I said, “Abbi shone her magic. And she was bright as the sun.”

“Yes!” She threw her hands in the air and tipped her face to the ceiling. “Bright as the sun! So bright I melted the vampires!”

Hado, in kitten form, on her lap meow ed.

She looked down at him. “Okay, also I used a lot of magic, which probably did most of the melting.”

“After that, we made the deal with Hatcher to return the token in exchange for the book,” Lu said. “Franny was there.”

Cassia sipped tea then nodded and set the cup down.

“The blood of the vampire, combined with our magic and portions of the spells in the book from the Crossroads, has been very powerful,” she said. “We were able to use it to return Rhianna to her human self.

“She’s sleeping, but we expect a full recovery. We’re still doing what we can to reverse Variance’s vampirism.”

“Can you do it?” I asked, keen to know if they had some way to help him. Keen to know if they could help other people who were bitten.

I glanced at Lula who stared at me, knowing what I was thinking. Could her bite be reversed? Could she become human again?

“Because Variance’s bite is so recent, because it is the blood of the vampire who turned him, and that vampire is now dead, yes,” Cassia said, “I think we can. But it will take more time, more magic. A lot of patience.”

“If he’d been bitten a longer time ago?” I asked. “Say several years ago?”

“No, I don’t think we’d be able to change that, to change him.” Her gaze shifted to Lula. “I’m sorry.”

Lula relaxed. It had been a long shot, thinking the witches would know a way to return her to her human self.

“I’m glad for him,” Lu said. “For both of them.”

“Please stay with us awhile,” Cassia said. “You’ve done so much for us. We will help you keep the book safe and hidden, and if it comes to it, we will stand with you against the gods.”

I was stunned. It was an incredibly generous offer. And an incredibly dangerous thing to offer. I didn’t have to look at Lu to know we were of the same mind, but I did anyway.

“Thank you,” Lula said. “That’s very kind of you. But we will not bring more trouble and pain upon you and yours. We can’t.”

Cassia looked like she was going to dig in for a long argument.

“I’ll look after them,” Abbi said. “They’ll look after the book. We’re going to be okay. I promise.”

Cassia sat back and tapped her finger on the tabletop. “The offer still remains. If you need sanctuary, we will give it.”

“Thank you,” I said. “If we need your help, we’ll reach out.”

“Good,” she said. “Let us pack you food and any other supplies you might need. We have a box you might be interested in taking with you. It can hide even the most powerful magic.”

“Is it big enough to hold a book?” I asked.

She nodded. “Plenty. Moon Rabbit?” she asked. “Would you sit with us one more

time for Rhianna and Variance?”

Abbi slid off the chair, and rubbed her sleeve over her mouth, wiping off jam. “Sure.”

Cassia stood, and Lula and I rose with her. “Thank you,” she said, taking first my hand, then Lu’s. “Blessed be.”

I felt the strength of her words and the magic, both carrying the silken song of light and moonlight and leaf.

She and Abbi crossed the dance floor.

“Thank you,” Lula said, coming around the table to me.

“For?”

“Asking.”

“About?”

“Variance. His bite, his cure.”

“We’ll find the answer,” I said.

She shook her head. “It’s been a long time. I don’t know…don’t know if we can find that answer. Or if I’d want to change.” She tipped her chin up, her eyes a challenge.

Huh. I hadn’t ever thought that she wouldn’t want to be human again. That she might like being what she was now, that she was comfortable in who she was after all these years.

“If that’s what you want,” I said, “then we won’t look for the answer. I love you, Lula Gauge. As you are, as you were, as you will be.”

She placed her hand over my heart. “I might want to have the answer. To know the answer—even if I don’t do anything with it.”

“That’s good too.”

“Thank you,” she said, her eyes sparkling with sunlight.

This time, I answered with a kiss.