Free All Hallows Night (Night Series) by Marie Hall

just reflex. He fell.”
    His eyes scrunched up. “Get to the point here.”
    This was where the story got a little tricky, but I gave it my best shot. “He didn’t look right. And then there was another couple that kind of had the same look. But the dude who knocked into me was on the ground and he was pretty much contained. The other two ran off and I chased after them.”
    “Why?”
    I could read him trying to connect the dots in my story and finding the pieces lacking. Giving half a story was so much harder than just telling the truth.
    “Because the way they were acting, I was afraid whatever was going on might spread if they got in contact with anyone else.”
    I waited with bated breath for him to call me out on this— Luc knew me like no one else in the world. Not to mention the fact that his nose is a lie detector, but I wasn’t lying. Just keeping certain parts of the story under wraps.
    He scratched his jaw, icy blue eyes shrewd with intelligence. “Okay.” He nodded and I almost breathed a sigh of relief when he accepted the story. “What happened then?”
    “I caught the couple, made sure they weren’t as sick as the guy in the marketplace had been, and once I was satisfied that they were good, I ran back to the stalls. Guy was gone.” I shrugged helplessly. “I thought I was losing my mind because nobody”—I waved my hands—“remembered him or me. Not even the girl I bought my dinner from.”
    “Gone?” He shook his head just slightly, toying with a loose thread on Kemen’s fluffy red thermal blanket. “Just like that?”
    I nodded, pressing my lips together. “Just like Juanita. There one second, gone the next. What do you think’s going on here?”
    Exhaling, shoulders slumping, he said, “I don’t have a damn clue. What does Grace want you to do?”
    “Go in search of some zombies in the Sierra Madres.”
    Squeezing his eyes shut, he ran his fingers across his brow bone. “Of course she does. Let me guess, by yourself? Because that’ll never happen again.”
    Was he implying he was wanted in on the action? Did I even want that anymore? Honestly, I wasn’t sure.
    “No.” I shook my head. “She said I can bring whoever I want.”
    “What?” His forehead scrunched. “That doesn’t sound like her.”
    “Yeah, well if you don’t think that sounds like her, then you should have seen how she was acting.” Dragging one of Kemen’s sweaters toward me with my foot, I slipped it over my head and inhaled the faint spiciness of his scent, which still lingered on it. I wasn’t cold. But it felt sort of like a hug when I did it, and right now I needed my Sandman’s arms around me.
    “How?” Tentatively he reached out, as if unsure whether to do it or not, before eventually tugging on the edge of the sweater.
    I could feel us falling into this push and pull all over again. Knowing you needed to cut something out of your life didn’t make it any easier. I wanted the friendship without the drama. But with Luc it was all or nothing. That’s how it’s always been with him.
    “I don’t know, not something I can really pinpoint and say this and that, but she was distracted and just... weird.” I gave a helpless shrug.
    “Last time we were crawling in vampires, this time people are disappearing.” He frowned, seeing but not seeing, obviously lost deep in thought. I chewed on my thumbnail, waiting on him to work through it. “That woman’s fears were real. I smelled her panic. But...” He rubbed his hands on his jeans, then stood and began to slowly pace back and forth.
    “What’s up?” I asked softly, because it wasn’t often that Luc got this worked up over one of my cases. Generally, unless it involved a Neph, he was totally hands-off. Until recently, anyway.
    “I dunno.” He twirled on his heel, pinning me with a hard blue stare. Unless we were gripped by Lust, our eye color wasn’t a glowing lavender but rather a cerulean blue. “I don’t know.” He grimaced.