The Plague Doctor (The Paranormal University Files: Skylar Book 4) Read online

  “Never better, why?” I took his hand, held it, and smiled back at him.

  “You’re doing the introspective silence thing a lot. That’s all.”

  “Am not.”

  “Are too.”

  I’d had a handful of boyfriends in the past, two of those in Italy while visiting my grandfather, but I’d never had one who was so intuitive and aware of my changing emotions before. Dudes were usually blind to that shit. Compared to them, Gabriel wasn’t just exceptional, he deserved a spot in the Boyfriend Hall of Fame, a big-ass picture with his handsome face and a quote from me: “Isn’t bullshitting when he says he knows how to go down on a girl.”—Skylar Corazzi, future wife.

  “Wanna push this baby to the speed limit?” I changed the subject since clueing him in to the fact that I was fantasizing about his tongue wasn’t part of the day’s agenda.

  He blinked at me, glancing off road again. “What?”

  “Wanna see how fast this car will drive?”

  “Not in the mood for a ticket. These Texas State Troopers are dicks.”

  “Can’t ticket you for what they can’t see.”

  He paused, glanced at the seventy-five-mile readout on the speedometer, then a mischievous smile spread over his face. “Fuck it. There’s no real danger if you’re on top of your spellwork, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  I cast the cloaking glamour that rendered our vehicle invisible to human eyes and bewitched any technological devices from sensing us if we zipped past a cop with his radar gun aimed toward the highway. It was like a long-range jinx without a specific target.

  Perfect.

  We gained speed, leaving the seventies behind in a wink, cruising through the eighties, and flying into the nineties. Gabriel had taken a lot of classes in school as a sentinel related to stunt driving—I really looked forward to that one, by the way—and handled the car along the curving roads like a NASCAR driver.

  One hundred was easy. We slipped into the lane for opposing traffic to pass a slower vehicle. Thanks to Dad’s magic, the Charger purred like a kitten instead of making the godawful rumbling sound it used to make if Gabriel exceeded seventy.

  “Faster?” he asked.

  “Faster.”

  Gabriel knew the Texas roads. He’d been driving them for years. Even better than that, he had me as his fallback. Last year when a pileup happened in front of us, I yanked his entire vehicle out of the physical realm, through the Twilight, and onto the road again in one piece. Doing it once meant I could do it again. I had enough faith and confidence in myself to think it’d be easier the second time.

  He pushed 135 with ease then surpassed it. We were hurtling down the road on a long-ass straightaway and GPS said there weren’t any other intersecting roads, aside from a few uncharted driveways I’d seen, blocked off by big metal gates featuring cowboys and cattle, with names like “Welcome to the Circle C Ranch” or whatever.

  We hit 180.

  Holy shit, had my dad removed the speed limiter? I thought most cars topped out at 175.

  Gabriel’s expression must have mirrored mine. “What the fuck? Is this for real?”

  “Um, my dad is insane apparently.”

  Either he really loved my boyfriend, or he loathed Gabriel and this was Dad’s sly plan to get him out of the way, hoping he’d crash and burn in a fiery collision. Then again, Dad knew I’d be riding with Gabe, and he definitely loved me. Or had they taken a life insurance policy out on me since they had my new baby brother now?

  Right around 200, Gabriel freaked and eased off the speed. “I think I’ll save any more fucking around for when we’re back on campus. We can do laps on the training circuit there without—”

  A siren screamed and cherries flashed behind us. Amaterasu, his hateful, mean little sun conure, started screaming in imitation while I twisted around in the seat to stare through the rear window above her travel cage.

  “Sky, you said you had a glamour up!”

  “I do have a glamour up!”

  “Well, do something else! We must have still tripped something.”

  I doubled down on the magic use, but the cop didn’t fall back like whatever phantom race car he thought he saw had vanished into thin air. No. He gained on us. All the while, Ama was doing her godawful, ear-piercing shrieking while swaying back and forth. “I can’t concentrate like this!”

  “Ama, knock it off,” Gabriel growled at her, sounding like a dad at the end of his rope.

  Birds could be awesome creatures. In the case of Gabe’s spoiled baby, they could also be vile little gremlins.

  “What do I do?” Gabriel asked.

  “There’s no way he can see us. We are invisible to the world. I swear.”

  Gabriel’s mouth flattened into a grim expression. The car speed dropped under 150, slid to 110. We coasted down to seventy-five again, but the cop chasing us persisted and also slowed as necessary.

  This dude definitely saw us. What I didn’t understand was how.

  “Gonna pull over. Don’t let up on the glamour.” We were almost shouting to be heard over the parrot.

  “Could be a coincidence. Maybe he’s heading toward a call.”

  Gabriel nodded tersely. As he slowed enough to pull over, so did our pursuer, abolishing any hopes of him passing us harmlessly by. I sighed.

  “I’ll glamour him and order him back to the patrol car.”

  “I don’t want you to waste any of your light.”

  “It won’t touch my light. We didn’t harm anyone, and I won’t cause him any pain. Just tell him to quietly return to his vehicle and forget us.”

  Gabriel clenched his jaw. “I—”

  “Dude, you were going a little over 200 when he clocked us. That’s not a ticket. That’s jail.”

  And a suspended license, which my sentinel boyfriend did not need. Even if making a little mischief would cost me an itty-bitty fraction of my light, it was a sacrifice I was willing to make.

  The trooper eased behind us and lingered in the patrol car. Gabriel reached past me to fetch the insurance from the glovebox. He already had his wallet on his lap, and before we’d left his house, he’d locked his handgun in the console box between us.

  After the longest wait in the world, the driver door opened and the trooper ambled out. He couldn’t have been more than his late thirties with sandy blond hair that glittered like tinsel in what remained of the dwindling summer sun, and the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen.

  And therein lay the answer to why my glamour didn’t fool him. I cursed myself. I didn’t key the spell toward fae too. Only humans.

  As I groaned, Gabriel did a double take. “A fae state trooper. I’ll be damned.”

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think about that.”

  “No, it’s fine. I went along with your scheme,” he muttered. “Could have said no.”

  Normally, Gabriel considered it his job to piss all over any of my bright ideas, but he was a wereraven, and his kind liked fun and games of their own to a point.

  The moment the trooper reached the window, I looked up at him and blurted out, “I’m sorry, it was my idea!”

  Gabriel slid me a dark look that said shut up. But I didn’t, because I was determined to own my mistake.

  “Well, good evening to both of you. I’m not going to bother with asking if you know what speed you were going. I see this vehicle is registered to a sentinel, so I honestly hope y’all both got a magical fire you’re getting to.”

  “We don’t,” Gabriel admitted, looking more bummed by the second.

  “License and insurance, son.”

  Gabriel passed both over. The trooper returned to his vehicle, sat there for a while, verifying all the stuff that had to be confirmed before he slapped Gabriel with a ticket.

  I mean, if he was going to arrest one or both of us, he probably would have hauled Gabe out the car right away. I hoped.

  “I’m sorry,” I squeaked out again.

&n
bsp; “Equal blame,” he reminded me, though he looked ready to puke. Poor guy. Gabriel did not handle anxiety well.

  The trooper returned with Gabriel’s license laying on top of a citation pad. I winced, wondering how much it’d set my boyfriend back. There was no way the radar caught our speed, because I’d thoroughly jinxed it.

  He wrote the speed in by hand. 201.

  Goddamn, he was good.

  Sweat beaded on my temple. I had one chance to salvage this. I twisted over the console and propped an elbow against it, making sure my arms were pushing my boobs together for maximum cleavage. It was an act of contortionism that only male comic book artists used, but it did the trick of luring Trooper Montgomery’s gaze where I wanted it when I cleared my throat.

  “It really is my fault.”

  “Yeah? How’s that?”

  I wet my lips with my tongue, more because I was nervous than to distract him. “Um, my dad kind of did this work on the car. Gabriel is the sentinel partner assigned to me. I’m actually still a student at PNRU.”

  “Uh-huh,” Montgomery said. His cobalt gaze drifted over Gabriel, then flashed back to me.

  “Anyway, he was nice about driving me home to Virginia for the summer—’cause some really bad dudes have been trying to kill me—and in return, I tagged along to his family reunion in Texas. Oh, but we were in New Orleans for a while too because there was a big vampire infestation going on.”

  At that point, I broke through the cop’s ambivalence enough for his fair brows to raise. “I heard something about that. You’re the fae?”

  “Nice to meet you, sir. I’m Skylar.” I stuck out a hand, and he looked so wowed as he shook my hand that I felt like a movie star. I was not at all above using both my boobs and my accomplishments if it meant Gabriel wouldn’t get a ticket.

  “Adam Montgomery,” he introduced himself, like we’d crossed paths at a shopping strip or a bar. “Real inspiring to meet another fae who’s gone into law enforcement. Damn. Too bad they weren’t bending those rules when I went to PNRU.”

  “You can always go back to school,” I chirped. “Maybe you can call the provost. Ask about catching those sentinel courses.”

  “Nah. It’s a little too late for a change in career. Besides”—his expression softened—“I love my job. I may meet a load of mortals with problems, but sometimes the right nudge is all they need.”

  “I’m sorry we blew past you like that. My dad really did beef up his car. You should have seen what it looked like before.”

  Gabriel finally snapped out of whatever daze he’d fallen into while watching us talk. “Mr. Corazzi really did me a solid. It was irresponsible of me to push the speed on a public road, sir. I’ve learned my lesson, and I apologize for my poor judgment.”

  “Corazzi…I knew that name seemed familiar for another reason. Marco Corazzi?”

  My grin widened even more. A state trooper in Texas knew my dad? “Yes!”

  “He was two years ahead of me in PNRU. Brilliant guy. He tutored me in Divine Intervention.”

  Scoooooooore! Though if he knew my dad, he was definitely older than thirty. Maybe forty-two? We fae halfbreeds aged well, often appearing decades younger.

  I was doing mental victory laps before Montgomery even shoved his citations back into his pocket.

  “I’m going to let you two kids off with a warning. Just keep it safe, all right?” He leaned back and glanced at the car, whistled, too. “Nice piece of work. You tell Marco he’s raised a great kid.”

  We drove off a few minutes later. Gabriel’s shoulders finally eased and the tension in his back loosened.

  “First, I’m going to say I love you.”

  I grinned. That still made me tingle with glee. “Second?”

  “Second, I can’t believe you used your tits to get me out of a ticket.” A beat elapsed before he added, “And I can’t believe he came just short of asking for your autograph.”

  I mimed popping my collar. “You’re dating a celebrity, baby.”

  Gabriel chuckled. “Yeah.” His smile returned. “I guess I am.”

  3

  The Boyfriend Lottery

  Sticking to the posted speed limits meant we arrived on campus before dawn. Good boyfriend that he was, Gabe helped carry my luggage into the townhouse I shared with my closest girlfriends. Rather than the quiet, empty living room I expected, given the early hour, Holly and Liadan occupied the couch.

  “Oh, hey. I thought you’d be asleep.”

  Holly jumped up first and rushed over in a blink. Damned vampire speed. She hugged me tight. “We didn’t expect you until later today, girl.”

  “Um, yeah. We made good time. Besides, not many people drive at night.”

  Gabriel grunted and opened Ama’s cage. Much to my surprise, the bird bolted from her shelter and glided straight for the potted plants growing in our living room. The Avalon flowers had done well over the summer while we were gone. The conure disappeared behind some ferns and proceeded to do what she did best—ignore us.

  “Well, I’m glad I got to see you before I head to bed,” Holly said, pulling back.

  “At this hour? The sun isn’t even up yet.”

  “Gotta get back on a schedule, you know?” Holly shrugged. She looked paler than normal, with dark circles under her eyes. Lia didn’t look much better.

  “Welcome back,” Lia said.

  Holly took a few steps back, moving toward her bedroom under the staircase, “Anyway, it’s good to see you. You too, Gabe. Night.”

  “Sleep well, Holly,” Gabriel replied as he dropped down on the couch. My poor raven looked exhausted.

  “You two must be famished. I’ll whip up something to eat.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Lia,” I protested, while my traitorous stomach growled in anticipation. Lia made the best food, and she always cooked in abundance. There was no such thing as a meager meal when it came to my Irish friend. We all benefited from a fridge stocked with tasty leftovers. Even Gabe. As a solution to Pilar’s stinginess, we’d created a communal grocery jar that everyone, including Gabriel, paid into weekly. And for the fifty bucks a week we each put into it, whoever fetched groceries had the cash to buy triple the ingredients for triple the culinary output, more than enough to feed Gabriel and even Victor.

  Not that I expected to see Victor around now that he and Holly had broken up.

  While the temptation to sit and chill next to my dozing boyfriend lured me to the couch, something about Lia’s manner led me to follow her into the kitchen instead. And since she, the queen of hugs, hadn’t embraced me, I took it upon myself to throw my arms around her instead.

  “You are up way too early, even for you,” I said. “But I’m glad to see you, and not just because you’re gonna cook for me.”

  Lia leaned into the hug and squeezed me in return. “I couldn’t sleep is all. Must be the excitement of a new school year. French toast or pancakes?”

  “French toast.” To be helpful, I grabbed the bread from our pantry. One thing I’d learned about Lia over the past two years was that she would talk when she was ready.

  “How was your summer?” Lia asked.

  “Good. Busy.”

  “So you said in your texts. You really worked?”

  “Yup, which puts me ahead in my required practical hours for the year. That, and Gabe got paid for it.”

  “You skimped on the details. Care to share now?”

  “Whew. Where to start?” I let out a heavy breath and leaned against the counter. “In a nutshell, we had to deal with a bunch of vamps and track down some missing people. And…”

  “And?”

  How much to tell? The last thing I wanted was to bring dark news to an otherwise peaceful morning, but lying wasn’t an option. My friends had been with me through everything.

  “We ran into a valravn named Annalise.”

  Lia fumbled an egg. She turned the floor bouncy with a thought, and the egg rebounded into her hand. “Seriously?”

/>   “Yeah, and she was terrifying. I mean, truly terrifying.” It took a few minutes to recount our entire summer adventure, but I spared no detail. Vampires, kidnappings, and an assault on the New Orleans Field Office were the worst of it.

  “Honestly, Skylar, I’m not sure whether you have the worst luck or karma just likes to put you where you’re needed.”

  “Karma must hate me, then.”

  “Everything happens for a reason.” My friend slid two thick slices of sweetened toast on to my plate. “Syrup?”

  “I’ll grab it.”

  The sound of flapping wings should have been a warning. I turned from the fridge, syrup in hand, and stared at the miniature devil perched on my plate. Ama stared back.

  “Wanna share, Ama? I’ll let you try a piece.” A little bread should be safe, right?

  She pecked at my food. Maybe it was a sign. Maybe she was ready to accept me and play nice, because she’d never shown interest in my plate before.

  The little hopeful bubble forming in my chest popped the instant she twisted around and crapped on my food. To add insult to injury, she chirped in a surprisingly clear voice. “No, Ama. No.”

  Liadan gasped, freezing with one hand raised to her mouth. Then she quickly ducked away, shoulders quaking.

  For a minute I wondered how much Gabe would hate me if I jinxed his bird. Just a small hex, like taking away her wings for a day, or vanishing all her feathers. But I was too scared to go after her, and she knew it.

  “No, no, no,” she repeated as she walked across my ruined French toast.

  Lia finally regained her composure and plucked the bird up with an ease I envied. The last time I’d touched Gabriel’s sun conure, her beak sent me to the campus medical center. She carried Ama back to her cage and secured her inside. Then she came back and dumped my serving into the trash. “I’ll make you a fresh batch.”

  “Nah, I’m not hungry anymore,” I mumbled. “We should take Gabe’s cue and sleep.”

  Hugs from Lia were magic, as always. She squeezed me tight and kissed my cheek, then nudged me toward the couch. “Go on then. I’ll just clean this all up.”