Chapter Ten – Luke

 

Deadlines. Rendezvous times. Extraction times. Insert times.

A commando’s life was based around time. If you lost time, you lost assets, you lost reinforcements, you lost your ride out of a hot zone. Time was everything.

I’d had my timeline established before Tabitha called with this new meeting. I knew I had till nightfall to figure out how to find Heidi. At least, if I’d been able to find a present from this zmeu creature, I would have known there was a chance that Roxy could shave that time down with a tracking spell. Could even present me with a helpful shortcut.

But, with no presents or tokens of its affection, all that the quickly approaching meeting with the succubus managed to do was cut into my time. Sure, I’d get the weapon I needed to kill it, but I was losing precious time to actually find the woman I needed to save.

Now, Molly, the woman I was supposed to keep clear of all this and whom I’d told myself to stay away from, was offering for me to change here.

I clenched my jaw as I looked away from her, my teeth grinding.

Because I wanted to take her up on the offer. I wanted to stay here. Even though I knew that it was the last thing I should do. That getting tangled up with her any further was the worst idea possible. That it would bring her closer to danger. That it would only bring her closer to my world, the last place she needed to visit.

“Just change here,” Molly repeated, pushing off the frame with her shoulder, an almost languid movement that drew my eyes to it. “You cut all that travel time out, and you’re closer to your meeting from here anyways.”

“I don’t know,” I said, having to turn away to keep from staring at her. “That feels a little strange.”

“Strange? Strange is you having to cut your investigation short so you can spend nearly an hour on the road. Come on, we can find something here. I just know it.”

I hesitated. I knew I shouldn’t take her up on the offer.

“How much time do you have left?” she asked, short-circuiting my self-admonishment.

“Less than two hours. I meet our contact at three sharp.”

A look came over her face, and I could tell she’d just made a decision. She turned without saying a word and left me alone in the closet, a stranger’s dress hanging inches from my face, fragrant remnants of perfume and makeup filling my nose.

Sighing, I looked back to the clothes in front of me. To the mess at my feet.

Maybe he hadn’t given her a token, after all? Maybe he’d broken his pattern this time, and all this time I’d already spent had been wasted.

Distantly, off in the house, the shower started running.

Confused, I walked out of the closet, going back over to the bedroom door. “Molly?” I called. “What’re you doing?”

“Getting your shower started,” she called back from deeper in the house. “Like you said, you don’t have much time.”

Dammit. I followed the sound of running water to a door leading off from the main hallway, poking my head in. Molly was bent over a little, her hand outstretched behind the already drawn shower curtain as she tested the water. Steam was already curling up to the ceiling like the air of a smoker’s lounge, and the sudden humidity felt like the slap of a wet rag across my face.

“Get your luggage,” she said as she straightened up.

“Molly, I really shouldn’t—”

“You’re just wasting water, you know,” she said, cutting me off.

“But, I need to press my clothes, and—”

“And my iron’s finicky, so I’ll have to do it for you.”

I sighed, not knowing how to respond. If she’d been an enemy soldier, or a vampire or a ghost or even another shifter, I’d have had a perfect response. Meet antagonism with antagonistic force. But this?

“But that just saves you some time while you’re showering. When you’re finished, you can just change in Heidi’s room. You won’t be the first strange naked man in there.”

“Molly—”

“Don’t Molly me,” she said, her tone calm but firm. “You said this meeting is important, right? That you need to make this meeting?”

“Right.”

“So it’s important, then? And this person can help you find my friend?”

I gritted my teeth again, flared my nostrils.

“Now tell me why I should let you race around town and fight the clock?”

Shit. I didn’t have a response to that. She was right. She was completely right.

“Exactly,” she said, nodding a little. “Now get moving before the hot water runs out.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I growled, finally defeated.

Minutes later, I was back inside already, and Molly and I were shoulder to shoulder as we rummaged through my bag.

“Polish those?” she asked as I pulled out a pair of leather dress shoes.

“Every morning,” I said, catching her reflection in them as I blew a little mote of lint from where it had settled on the toe like a dust-bunny interloper.

Under most circumstances, I’d never have let her look through my duffel. Not in a million years. I’d never have been able to explain the salt, sawed off shotgun, knives, stakes, Bible, or EMF reader. But, this wasn’t most circumstances.

After all, I couldn’t exactly transport much more than my sidearm and silver bullets in my carry-on. If I’d even tried, TSA would have had some serious questions for me when I landed.

I pulled out my dress shirt and linen slacks, went to hand them off to her.

Her fingers closed on my clothes before mine had even let go.

It was strange to think that I hadn’t had anyone press my clothes for me since before basic. That no one had touched my wardrobe in this way in over a decade.

“Luke,” Molly whispered.

“Yeah?”

“Clothes?”

I looked down, realizing I was still holding my shirt and slacks tightly. Shame-faced, I let Molly take them.

“It’ll be okay,” she said as I scratched the back of my head. “I’m just going to iron them. They’ll be in here when you’re done.”

A mumbled “thank you” later, and she was out the door with me right behind her, heading for the bathroom with the fresh towel she’d given me over a shoulder and my toiletry kit hanging in one hand. She’d actually turned the shower off when I finally agreed to just get ready here, and now I pulled back the curtain and turned the water on till it was coming down like cool rain on a spring day.

For some people, showering in new places is almost nerve-wracking. For me, I’m always just happy that I can get a shower that’s private. Doesn’t matter if it’s in a hotel room, in a strange home, or even if it’s just a bottle of water somewhere. Privacy. That’s all I need.

Towel tossed over the curtain rod, I stripped down and hopped in the shower. Racing like I was still back in the service, I put a good squeeze of body wash in my hand and lathered myself up from head to toe, getting even my short-cropped hair with the suds. I scrubbed roughly beneath the slightly cold water with the tips of my fingers, rinsed, killed the deluge, and climbed out.

Less than a minute later, and I was toweled and back in front of the mirror, safety razor in hand. The razor was an old one with a heavy haft, one of the few things my dad had left me. Something about the weight in my hand felt right. Made me think of how he’d traveled halfway around the world with it to fight a war he didn’t understand, in a jungle that was far from his Washington home.

Soon after his arrival, chatter on the Vietcong radio had been filled with whispers that the king had arrived to take back its land. That it was striking and disrupting their supply lines. That it thought like a man, but fought like a merciless beast. Teams were dispatched to hunt the beast down, but normal bullets didn’t seem to stop it, just slowed it down for a moment or two.

Col. Harrington had shown me the files on my father just before I joined the PRB. Gave them to me. “As a gift,” he’d said, laying them down on the table in front of me, in the shitty little motel room I’d been renting. “You wanna hear me out after, there’s my card.”

I could still remember the smell of that place, the dank and the mildew that had seeped into the drywall itself and seemed to leach into the bedding, even as I lathered my five o’clock shadow and began to shave.

How far I’d come, since then. Completely lost, without any bearings as I’d let my beard grow long and allowed my hair to almost hit my collar for the first time in years. Drinking every night. Then finishing the bottle the next day. And always moving, always a nomad.

I finished shaving, wiped the last of the foam from my face, and slapped on some aftershave. Towel wrapped around my waist, I padded barefoot back down to Heidi’s room, the tile cool on my feet. I stripped off the towel and dropped it on the floor, grabbed a fresh pair of briefs from my bag, and looked around the room again. At the bras hanging, the haphazardly stored jewelry, the makeup scattered across her vanity.

There had to be something here that I was missing.

A clue. Some giant red flag right in front of my face, waving itself under my nose. Something that would lead me right to this zmeu.

But what?

I turned around, eyes unfocused. Just thinking, trying to process everything, all as the timer continued to tick-tock away.

Behind me, a knock sounded on the door, startling me from my thoughts. “Luke? You decent?”

I grunted, not even thinking. “Uh-huh, yeah.”

Behind me, the knob turned, and the bedroom door creaked open.

Fuck.