Chapter 22
Jena pulled the hood of her robe up as they stepped from the alley a few shops down from hers and onto the street. Felix hadn’t been kidding, the sidewalks were filled with people, and the majority of them she didn’t recognize.
“Is everyone here from Havers?” she asked Kelsey.
“No, people come in from as far away as Galleon Falls. The Samhain festival is one of Haver’s biggest tourist attractions, and this is nothing compared to how mobbed the waterfront must be. There’s a huge carnival down there, and I think they upped their game this year with a rollercoaster.”
Jena could believe it, the distant squeals from people on rides and that ubiquitous crappy carnival music plinking above the hum of the crowd on the street.
It was surreal, and as much as she hated to admit it, wearing robes had been a good idea.
No one was in regular clothes, but everything else was fair game.
Halloween costumes, ballgowns, men in suits, people dressed up as other supes, and easily a dozen variations of robes…
Chase’s hand tightened on hers. “You okay?”
“Yeah…I just, wow. I guess now I get why they have security.” She’d be pissed if all these people were tramping through her yard, too. It reminded her of the crowds during events in the city…which she’d studiously avoided. Being in the middle of this many people always made her claustrophobic.
“I’m parked over on Merritt if we get separated,” Liam called over his shoulder, someone cursing as the big were jostled them.
Jena put her free hand to her stomach, anxiety churning. Right. Okay, that was only like two blocks past town hall. Should only take them another ten, fifteen min—
A sea of people stretched out before her as they rounded the corner onto Main Street.
“Crap,” she muttered.
“Agreed, but I don’t see or smell any other weres.” Chase’s brow furrowed like something about that bothered him. “Still, you two should stay between us,” he said to Jena and Kelsey, then nodded at Liam. “You got point, and I’ll bring up the rear?”
Liam’s brow quirked, but gave a thumbs up and started wending through the crowd, people making way as he pushed through. Kelsey followed on his heels, and Jena came after, Chase reassuring her he was still there with a touch whenever they had to pause.
The tops of the tents around town hall poked up above the crowd, and the scent of mulled cider, apple fritters, and exhaust from the generators spiked the air.
Jena’s stomach rumbled despite the hydrocarbons and the breakfast they’d eaten, her eyes lingering on a line of food trucks over on the green.
“You hungry?” Chase asked, his lips close to her ear.
She jumped. Damn, she needed to put a bell on him. “No, I’m okay—”
“Because I’m starving after being in that hole, and I think I see a food truck with chili dogs.”
Jena perked up. God, if they had baked potatoes, it was game over. The node could wait while she scarfed down some broccoli, chili, and cheesy goodness. Besides, they could eat and walk, right? Right. “Okay, I am hungry.”
She tugged Kelsey’s sleeve to get her attention and pointed to the food truck. The were grinned and poked Liam. He leaned back to hear what she had to say, his eyes darting to chili and cheese paradise, and he changed his route to head in that direction.
A microphone squealed over the grinding hum of generators, and the sounds of someone fumbling it rumbled through speakers. The emcee cleared their throat, and the milling crowd slowed to a standstill, craning their necks to see who was going to speak.
Chase pushed through them and went up to the food truck’s counter. “Three chili-cheese dogs, heavy on the chili,” he said, then looked at Jena. “What do you want?”
“Ladies and gentlemen!” the mayor cried over the sound system. “Welcome to the eighth annual Havers-by-the-Sea Samhain festival!” The crowd around them clapped and hooted as he began announcements.
Three chili cheese dogs? Wow, Chase must be starving. Liam and Kelsey were hitting up the fried dough vendor. Jena’s gaze lingered on the loaded baked potato and then drifted to the Cesar salad with grilled chicken—
“You better get something just as trashy as I did,” Chase said.
Jena bit back a smile. “Baked potato with everything, please,” she said, not feeling guilty about her order for once. God, that was nice.
“That’s my girl.” Chase paid, and they stepped to the side to wait. “And for the record, this is not the first date I was envisioning.”
Jena laughed as their order came up, and he handed her a dripping white-and-red folded cardboard bowl of caloric delight. “You’re in luck. I love these stupid potatoes.”
She snagged a wad of napkins and a spork, then another as she watched Chase hold one of the dogs away from himself, trying not to drop the majority of it down the front of the robe as he bit into it. Jena sighed and grabbed another handful. “Spork?”
He looked at her like she was nuts and shoved another massive bite into his mouth. Jena rolled her eyes, oddly impressed he could fit that much in his mouth. That dog had disappeared in a half-dozen bites.
“Actually…” He took Frankenstein’d piece of cutlery and scraped out the container before starting on the next dog.
Jena worked on picking the cheesy bits of broccoli out of hers, having long since perfected the proper way to eat a carnival potato to avoid wearing it.
“Oh my God, I love fried dough,” Kelsey said around a mouthful, a slick of sauce down the front of her robe. Liam’s was speckled with powdered sugar. Damn it, but it wasn’t like the steady mist of rain was doing the velvet any favors, either. They’d need to be dry-cleaned, regardless.
“Right, let’s get moving,” Chase said, licking chili from demolished dog number two off the side of his hand before the slick of grease ran into his sleeve.
He winked at Jena and took a massive bite of the third as Liam stepped back into the crowd.
Kelsey dribbled more sauce down her chest ducking past a man dressed as Friar Tuck to catch up to her brother.
Jena sighed again and followed with Chase close behind her.
The friar stopped after a few steps to join a group of merry men blocking their path, and the crowd hemmed Jena and Chase in.
Well, this was going nowhere fast. She shoved bites of cheesy chili into her mouth, catching glimpses of Mayor Chambers between the bodies in the crowd.
He thanked various sponsors as he paced the raised stage in a tuxedo.
A tiny pair of horns poked out of his salt-and-pepper hair, and a tail trailed behind him.
Her gaze caught on Felix standing in the shadows beside a bunch of hay bales and the setup for a band at the far edge of the stage. He was white-knuckling a clipboard, his face a careful blank.
Jena’s chewing slowed. Something was up. That wasn’t him in his typical blasé, municipal mode, that was him in currently-struggling-not-to-pull-power-and-disappear mode. Shit. What could’ve happened to freak him out so bad?
“What do you think is wrong with Felix?” Chase asked, wrangling a bunch of napkins from her grip and scrubbing at the chili in his beard. “He smells stressed.”
“You can smell that? From this far away?”
Chase shrugged, wiping off his hands. “Weres imprint on the scents of people they care about. Felix is important to you, so he is to me, too. I’d be able to find him or Aggie in a crowd triple this size. Come on, let’s go make sure he’s okay.”
Jena blinked back tears. “Really?”
“Yeah.” He turned to her, his brow furrowed. “Why is that so hard for you to believe?”
Maybe because no one had said anything remotely like it to her before. She scraped at her denuded potato and shoved another bite in her mouth so she wouldn’t have to answer him.
He sighed and ran a hand down her back. “Come on, Liam’s headed in that direction too, and if we cut down the side of town hall, we can probably get to where he’s parked quicker.”
It wasn’t the worst plan. Jena nodded and started forward. All of that was municipal property, and even if the town had it gated off, Felix could get them through.
They slipped through the edges of the audience around the stage as the mayor began to extoll the accomplishments of his administration, people drifting away.
Jena couldn’t help but note that more than one of them from Havers did so with a frown.
Guess Felix was right about the mayor’s reelection campaign going poorly, and it served the jerk right.
She tossed the soggy potato container into the garbage as she passed and licked the grease from her fingers, then drew a glyph, willing Felix to look at her.
His gaze snapped to hers, and his body slumped as he murmured something at the sky. He jerked his head meaningfully toward the back of the stage.
“Come on, this way,” she said, taking Chase’s hand and the lead.
They slipped past the temporary staging to the area behind it, just in front of town hall’s steps.
A band decked out as zombies was lounging on them underneath the overhang as they waited to go on.
Liam and Kelsey were just past them, and it sounded like she was trying to talk her twin off a ledge.
“No, you cannot,” she hissed at him. “Think for once in your freaking life, Liam. If you push—oh!” Kelsey’s eyes widened as she caught sight of them, and Liam jammed his hands into his pockets, scowling.
“Hey, guys. Um, we were thinking cutting around the back of town hall might be faster than going all the way down the block.”
“Yeah, us too, as soon as we make sure Felix is okay,” Jena said. Was it her imagination, or did Liam’s shoulders relax at that? Damn, if he was still hung up on Felix, he was gonna be in for a world of hurt—
The curtains rustled at the back of the stage as weak applause came from the front.
Felix pushed through and gestured for the band.
They filed up the short flight of metal steps past him, and Felix dropped the curtain as soon as they cleared, hurrying over.
“Where’s the Jeep?” he asked without preamble.
“Parked on Merritt,” Kelsey said before Liam could answer, “but—”
“Walk now, questions later,” Felix said, grabbing Jena’s hand and pulling her after him at a jog.
Chase hurried after Jena and Felix. Whatever had spooked the spry warlock couldn’t be good. They ducked down the side of the building, and Felix broke into a run, dragging her after him. Damn.
“What the hell?” Liam growled, glancing back over his shoulder as he and Kelsey sprinted to catch up.
Chase couldn’t help but do the same, but there wasn’t anything there as far as he could tell.
Regardless, Felix kept running like something was hot on his heels—well, kind of running.
After that initial burst of speed, Jena was definitely lagging.
He slowed down when they turned the corner onto Helm Street.
It was considerably less crowded, everyone milling about occupied with grabbing early seats for the parade.
“Why were we running?” Jena panted, struggling match Felix’s pace.
“Because you need to finish that rite, and the sooner the better,” he said, glancing back at them.
“The Westside weres are imploding. I heard the mayor talking to one of them. No one’s seen Malcom, Ms. Montgomery, or Crystal since the pack went after the Eastside last night.
The mayor and his wife are freaking out, and someone beat the shit out of Patrick when he tried to claim alpha.
You’re lucky the sheriff hasn’t already hauled you all in for questioning. ”
“Are they blaming us for that, too?” Kelsey spat, stepping around a group of kids drawing on the sidewalk outside of the municipal playground. They squealed, holding up gummy chunks of chalk slowly dissolving in the crappy weather.
“Let’s just say they’re not not blaming you.”
“Yeah, but the Eastside grabbing them isn’t fricking likely.” Chase’s brow furrowed as they skirted the chain-link fence, his hand on Jena’s back. Malcom had probably been out there, but there was no way his mother or Sue had been involved in the raid.
Chase swallowed the lump of dread rising to choke him as they wove through a gaggle staking out the next corner with lawn chairs. They rounded onto Merritt and the lights on a gray jeep flashed as with a soft beep as it unlocked. Chase headed toward it on autopilot.
With Wallace dead and Malcom missing, alpha was up for grabs, and it was gonna be chaos until someone claimed it.
No wonder Patrick had gotten his ass beat.
Hopefully their mom, Sue, and Luke had made it to the sailboat and were riding things out on the bay.
Otherwise, best case they were hostages, and worst case, they were dead.
Crystal would be on that list, too, with the bullshit engagement.
Chase chewed his lip, pinging through the handful of weres that would be gunning for the position. None of them were an ideal candidate. Christ, far from it, and if the Fayet pack had heard the territory in Havers was no longer affiliated under an alpha—Shit.
Felix was right, Jena needed to do what she needed to do up at the ruins, and then they had to find someplace to hunker down.
Things were about to get ugly, if they hadn’t already.
Chase ran a hand across his brow, glancing at Kelsey and Liam.
“You think your dad’s gonna throw his hat into the ring?
” Chase asked. If Phil had been waiting for an opportunity to reclaim the rest of the Montgomery pack, this was it.
The two exchanged a glance. “I don’t know,” Kelsey said, tipping the seat forward for Jena and Felix to climb in, then joined them in the back, stripping out of her robe. “He might. Either way, he needs to know what’s happening.”
“I’ll drop you at the tracks.” Liam frowned. “I’m not getting involved.”
Fucking hell. Liam started the engine as Chase got in with a bad feeling he wasn’t going to be able to do the same.