Ivan stared at the snarling werewolf and tried to calm his racing heart. Did werewolf sense fear as dogs did?
“Get in.” Zev—Zen?—pulled him inside, and looked around before closing the door.
“They’re surrounding the building.” Ivan looked at them one at a time.
Zev nodded.
Ivan frowned at Malik. “You fed.”
He nodded, and Ivan didn’t know why, but it annoyed him Malik had fed from someone when he’d refused him. He shook his head. “Wenior. Remi said Wenior was willing to pay good money for me.”
Zev snorted. “He’s crazy.”
“You know him?”
He shook his head. “No, but there was a thing a few years ago. He sacrificed several people in some rite or other. To gain immortality is what I heard.”
Ivan’s blood chilled. Did Remi know what he was? He never left his home without his lens in, but he knew what kind of rites wizards believed they could use his blood in.
“Phantasm, the bridge between the living and the dead.” Malik sounded spooked.
“I’m not dead!” Yet. He whirled around and gestured at Malik. “I don’t know what they’ve told you, but it’s a fairytale. There is nothing wrong with me, and I’m not dead in any way.”
Malik gave him an impassive look.
“Stop being stupid. You could’ve bled out up there, and you refused to drink my blood because of the color of my eyes.”
“You have brown eyes.” Zev looked between them.
“No, I’m wearing a lens. I have one brown and one blue—same color as Raina.” He gestured at Raina.
Zev rubbed the stubble on his chin. “You’re in trouble.”
“I told you so.” Raina got up from the couch. “Do you have any clothes Malik could borrow?”
Zev lingered by the table and frowned at Ivan. “If I were you, I’d stay away from Wenior. He’s…not reasonable.”
Ivan nodded. He didn’t plan on letting himself get caught. “We still need to get the diamond.”
“Why?” Raina curled her fingers in frustration. “It won’t matter, we’ll be hunted either way.”
“Yes, but with the diamond, we can buy Malik.”
Malik grew stock still, so Ivan turned to him. “No matter where we go, you’ll be hunted unless we can prove you’re free.”
“Dammit!” Raina grabbed the bag and pulled out the file Remi had given them. “How do we get there when they’re guarding the building? How do we get into the hotel with people on the lookout? How will you steal the diamond when we don’t know where it is? How will you give it to Remi without getting us all killed? How will we be able to leave town without getting stopped?”
Ivan didn’t know. “One thing at a time. First, we need Malik to clean off the blood and get dressed. Then we need to leave.”
“We need to leave soon. I hear footsteps on the stairs again.”
Ivan stared at Zev. “You don’t have to…We never meant to get you in trouble.”
Zev grinned. “I’m not letting Remington Redwood anywhere near my girl here.” He gestured at Raina who, to Ivan’s astonishment, blushed.
“Bathroom is over there.” Zev gestured at a door across from what Ivan guessed was the kitchen. “I’ll find you some clothes.”
“Black if you have.” Ivan didn’t want to be a bother, but black was best to blend in.
“You want a suit? It might not be a perfect fit, but close enough.”
A suit? A vampire in a suit. People would assume he belonged to the hotel. “Yes, a suit would be great. Question is if we can keep him clean on our way out of here.”
Zev nodded, gestured for Malik to go to the bathroom, and picked up his phone. “Jim, it’s Zev. I need a favor.” Zev paced the apartment, glanced out between the blinds while he talked to Jim. If Ivan understood it correctly, Jim would come and pick them up.
When Zev hung up, Ivan spoke. “They’ll notice a car coming.”
Zev nodded. “I figured we’d split up.”
“And meet where?”
“I have a cabin. Living in the city all the time is killing me, I have to get away now and then.”
Ivan nodded. You didn’t normally run into shifters in a city.
“You and Raine go with Jim. He’ll drive you there. Malik and I will get there on foot.”
“On foot?”
Zev shrugged. “We’re not human.”
“Malik is gonna run in a suit?” People would notice a man running in a suit.
“No, you bring the suit. We’ll put on jogging gear. We’ll put a cap on Malik to hide that he’s shaved. Hopefully, they’re looking for the two of you together.” He glanced at his clock. “You should leave.”
Leave? Malik was in the shower, if they left now, he wouldn’t get to say goodbye. “Where will he pick us up?”
“There’s a basement. You go down the stairs and in through the white metal door. First, you’ll pass a utility room, then you’ll come into a room where all the residents park their bikes. There’s a door leading out into the parking lot. He’ll park there, a blue Chevy truck.”
Ivan nodded and grabbed the bag. Zev hurried into the bedroom and came out with a black suit and a white shirt that he handed over to Raine right as the water turned off in the bathroom.
“Go.” Zev more or less pushed them toward the door.
Raine grabbed the bag. “So you can melt if we run into someone.”
Ivan nodded, and together they jogged down the flight of stairs. When they came to the ground floor, Ivan spotted a vampire standing outside. Luckily, he chose that moment to turn to look down the street. They hurried past the door and down the next flight of stairs toward the basement door.
“He must’ve heard us,” Raine whispered.
Ivan nodded. He should have heard their footsteps. No need to dwell on it. He opened the white metal door, and as Zev had told them, the first thing they saw was a utility room. “Okay, there’s the door.” Ivan jogged past the bikes and up to the door. “Wait in here, I’ll knock when the blue Chevy arrives.”
He slipped out and melted into the concrete wall. He shivered as the cold wrapped around him, his body becoming one with the surroundings. One minute slowly turned into two. What if he wasn’t coming? What if Zev had set them up and was handing Malik over to Remi right this minute? But then, wouldn’t he have handed them over, too?
As he was about to go back in, a blue Chevy truck turned into the parking lot. The driver, possibly Jim, put it in reverse, drove forth, reversed, and turned. Was he parking? He didn’t look like he was, and yet he was messing around.
Ivan was about to knock on the door when two vampires came running into the parking lot. Jim never stopped his turning and reversing, driving forward, turning, reversing. The truck was aiming at the exit, and his backing and going didn’t change the angle more than an inch to the side only to change it back the next time he turned the wheel.
Ivan held his breath as the vampires aimed their guns and shouted for Jim to get out of the truck. He pretended not to have noticed them before now, though Ivan suspected he knew exactly what he was doing.
Jim was tall and broad-shouldered. Ivan couldn’t see his face clearly where he stood inside the concrete wall, but he’d bet his right foot he was a shifter. One of the vampires pushed him against the truck and searched him. It went on for a while until Jim snarled at them.
Ivan almost chuckled—definitely a shifter.
The vamps gave him some space but were still talking to him. Jim flashed teeth and was gesturing at Raine’s building. As he did, Ivan spotted Zev running across the lawn outside the apartment building dressed in running gear. Malik was nowhere to be seen, and Ivan’s heart beat uncomfortably fast. Where was Malik?
Two vampires approached Zev, who was moving away from them. Ivan held his breath as Zev turned and snarled—snarled in a way Ivan had never seen. He hadn’t spent much time with shifters. Most shifters were homophobic bastards, relying on their size and strength to intimidate people around them.
Watching Zev now made him realize he’d only encountered a mild version of shifter-growling. His eyes glowed, teeth grew out of his mouth, and hair slowly crept over his skin. It wasn’t pretty, and more and more vampires came running toward them.
It took a few more seconds, then the vampires interrogating Jim focused on what was happening across the yard, too. They exchanged looks, and one of them said something more to Jim while waving his gun.
As they hurried over the lawn toward Zev, Jim opened the truck door closest to Ivan, only to round the truck and get in on the driver’s side.
Ivan stepped out of the wall, the cold clinging to him like sticky syrup, and he shivered. The growl coming from the car had the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end, but he knocked on the door, and Raina came out. He motioned for her to go first, that way she’d sit closest to Jim.
“Hi.” She grinned, and Jim gave her a confused look.
“What are you?” The question was directed to Ivan, but it was Raina who answered.
“I’m Zev’s neighbor, or you know, there’s a floor between us, but he climbed the balconies to get to me.” She chuckled, and Ivan shook his head.
“I asked what you are.” Jim got them rolling, but his now yellow eyes were more focused on Ivan than on the road.
Ivan sighed. “We’re of the Charna bloodline.”
Raina glared at him. “Not even Zev knows.”
“I think he does.”
She frowned at him. “How would he?”
Ivan shrugged, but the last hour or so must’ve been an eye-opener for him.
Jim hummed, but his muscles relaxed a fraction. He turned down the street, and Ivan held his breath as he saw the crowd surrounding Zev, only to spot Malik, or who he suspected was Malik, slip out through the door and hurry in the opposite direction.
“What are they doing to Zev?” Raina leaned over Jim to better see out the window. “Stop! We have to help him.”
Jim ignored her.
“I think it’s all part of the plan, Raina.” Ivan spotted the figure he believed was Malik move farther and farther away.
“You don’t know that!”
“No, hence the think in there.” A building blocked their view now, and Jim sped up.