Revealed in Fire (Demon Days & Vampire Nights #9)(21)

“You’re back,” he said without preamble. “Been a long time.”

“A couple months. What’s…” I put my hands on my hips, facing my house. “What’s new?”

“Around here? A lot and nothing.”

“Yeah. Regarding a lot…”

“I take it the rich dude did it behind your back?”

“Like usual, yeah.” I rubbed my eyes, shook my head, and turned away. “That fucking vampire.”

Mikey stood. “I got used to not hearing shit like that while you were gone.”

Mikey was human, knew the supernatural existed because of me, and hated anything to do with it. He’d prefer no one mentioned it. He was uncomfortable often. It was hard to be in even the periphery of my life without getting splashed with any of the weird seeping out.

He fell in beside me, topping my height by half a foot. “Been anywhere I’d be jealous of?” he asked.

“It’s not like you to make small talk.”

“Yeah. It’s boring as shit around here lately. I don’t gotta police nothing. It’s like some sort of ritzy neighborhood at this point.”

I looked around at the weed-choked yards, the peeling paint, the broken-down rocking chairs that wouldn’t hold a cat, and the old, dented cars that lined the streets. “Yeah. I see what you mean,” I said sarcastically.

“You’ll see.”

“Super.”

Smokey crossed the street as we approached my house, and I veered off the curb to get a better view of it.

My…much larger…house.

My…much taller…house.

“What the fuck?” I breathed, looking up at the two-story structure with brick columns supporting the redone front porch, equipped with four new rocking chairs. The planter boxes at the base of the house, in front of the plush green grass, had been replanted with different colored flowers to match the new paint, a bluish gray with white trim. “Why?”

A figure shambled out of the shadows on the right side, the leaves of the bushes getting caught in her tangled fire-engine-red hair. The reaching branches pulled taut, but she kept walking, ripping the leaves free, now stuck in her huge mop of hair. She paused in the center of my lawn, crouching and stooping and leaning to one side with her head cocked like a crow, staring at me.

“Red Prophet,” I said dryly. “How nice to see you again.”

“I’d say you picked up some manners off that rich boyfriend of yours,” Mikey said, stepping off the curb to join me in the street, away from the Red Prophet, “but it’s pretty clear you don’t mean it.”

“Caught that, did you? I was laying it on pretty thick.”

“She’s been here for the last week, solid,” Mikey said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Hi, Reagan. Nice to have you back,” Smokey said, stopping beside me and nodding.

“Hey, Smokey.” I crossed my arms to match Mikey. “I think I know the answer, but you didn’t think to remove her?”

“At first, yeah. Pointed a gun at her and everything.” Mikey spat to the side. “She started spouting off all this shit that she no way coulda known. No way coulda known. Personal shit, about my past ’n’ shit.”

“It occurs to me how much I missed punctuating sentences with swearing,” I murmured, and this time it wasn’t sarcasm. I liked the color Mikey could bring to any conversation. The menace.

“Then she started talking about my future, and I got the fuck outta there.” Mikey shook his head and spat again. He clearly had not handled the situation well. “I know I was supposed to look after your place, but fuck, there are limits. She is over that limit.”

“She’s harmless if you leave her alone,” Smokey said, and a certain gravity rang in his voice.

“What happened?” I asked, back to looking over the completely redone house. It looked like they’d torn down the old one, which had already been completely remodeled, and started over. How the hell had they gotten it done so fast? I’d only been away for two months this time.

“She looks like she escaped an old folks’ home and is suffering from dementia,” Mikey said. “Add to that the gold she was wearing around her neck, and the bright orange clutch she was carrying, which looked stuffed full, and she was a target to be mugged. Easy pickin’s.”

“First of all, you know what a clutch is?”

“Yeah. What am I, stupid?”

“I took you for a man who doesn’t carry purses, actually, but sure. Stupid works,” I said. He huffed out a laugh. “Also, let’s rewind. You tried to mug her?”

“Are you out of your fucking mind did I try to mug her?” Mikey stepped back and gave me an incredulous look. “No, I did not try to fucking mug her. I tried to scare her off your property, realized she was one of your type, and made myself scarce. But I saw her ambling down the street like her back was broken or some shit—it’s not, by the way. That question has been answered. Then I saw three guys approach her. I put a little gas in my step, heading down to sort it out—she’s a whack job, but that doesn’t mean she needs to be harassed in my neighborhood. Those dudes should’ve known better than that. Easy pickin’s or not, this is my spot.”

I nodded to show I was following along. Mikey was a sort of self-appointed neighborhood watch, although he relied on vigilantism rather than engaging with the cops.