Blood of an Ancient by Rinda Elliott Page B

remembered there’s a portal at Nikolos’s shop that has no guardian. Dooby will have to either tie himself to it or find someone else to watch it. I gotta go.”
    I shut off the phone and pretended not to see the handful of teens standing in the parking lot again. One of them was snapping a picture with her phone. Shivering, I stuck mine in my pocket, grabbed a scrunchie and swept my hair into a sloppy bun for the hat. There was a gift shop in the strip mall, so I loaded up the still-wet mats and other things, then drove to it, glad to see the teens disappear back into the end unit. I drove past, glancing inside to see tables with computers and a long counter. The place was called Perk and Work.
    I chuckled at the awful name and went into the gift shop to see if the kids would follow me inside. They didn’t. But I did find a cute giraffe figurine for Elsa and a small thing that would solve the vamp problem. I stared hard at a display of cigars, remembering something Blythe had said when we were in another motel room in Alligator Flag. I bought one of those too.
    Blythe looked a lot better when I got back to the motel room, which now smelled of burnt sage. She sat against the headboard with the remote control in her hand. The television blared some cooking show. “I’m hungry,” she said.
    “The concert site is less than an hour from here. I’ll change into dry clothes and we’ll pick up lunch on the way.”
    “Do I need to pack?”
    “Nah, we’ll come back here, do more computer research.”
    “There’s no Wi-Fi here.”
    “Seriously? What kind of motel doesn’t have Wi-Fi? And one right off the highway too.” I grabbed a pair of dry jeans out of the satchel on my bed. They still had the stickers on them, so I peeled those off and picked up the black, floppy sweater I’d filched from Nikolos’s drawer. It would fall over my hands and cover my butt, but it was warm and we were going to be tromping through a forest in winter. Plus, I’d caught a faint whiff of Nikolos’s scent when I’d opened the drawer. All the tops in my bag were his. “There’s a coffee place that looks like an Internet cafe in walking distance. We’ll go there when we get back. We should still have an hour until dark if we don’t dawdle.”
    “Internet cafes usually stay open after dark.”
    “Yeah, but we have to figure out how to feed the vamp and he’s going to be pissed.” I set the giraffe on the top of the table and held up one of the other items I’d purchased. “But check this out. I found a tiny, retractable leash!”
     
     
    Blythe started shivering again when I parked the Jeep. Between the ruts from tire tracks and the bits of trash on either side of the dirt road, this looked like the right spot. The front passenger side of the vehicle was still too wet, so I glanced in the rearview mirror to see Blythe’s hair bouncing with the force of her shaking. Phro hovered up front.
    “If you’re still feeling sick, you can just stay here and nap. I’d appreciate if you’d refrain from throwing up all over everything.”
    “It’s not my stomach. I told you, I’m fine on short trips.”
    “Cold?” I pointed over my shoulder. “There’s a thicker coat in the back. I brought along a couple of Nikolos’s. The jacket would work better because you’d probably trip over the long coat.”
    “It’s not too cold. I just hate forests.”
    I turned in my seat so I could see her better. “You’re an earth witch. How can you hate forests? Think of all the cool herbs you find in them.”
    “When Sophie took over as my mentor, she told me something bad happened to me in a forest. She never let me near them when I was growing up. When we went into Big Cypress Swamp, I was so scared.”
    “We all were. Demons and fire elementals and stolen souls are all scary things. If it makes you feel any better, I’m afraid of fire elementals and I’m getting ready to face another.”
    She frowned, stared out the window.