Page 25 of Moody as a Minotaur

That kind of magic was scary as fuck—the guy could literally go anywhere and who would know? But I found myself trusting Nelson. My gut said he was one of the good guys.

I’d heard he’d been on a mission of some kind since the summer and that it wasn’t going well. Something about a unicorn? I didn’t know. That might have been a code name because, as far as I knew, unicorns had disappeared centuries ago. But problems with his mission might explain the darker than normal scowl the guy wore lately.

When the door to room eight opened, Tammy peeked out. She glanced left, then right.

“Now, what are you up to?” I muttered, as I noted the time on a scrap of paper.

I sat up a little straighter when she slipped out of her room and gently closed the door. She darted down the sidewalk to room seven. Of course she was all decked out in camo again. The door to seven, which was Kyle’s room, swung open without her having to knock. She ducked inside quickly. A heartbeat later, the door to room nine opened and Fin appeared.

“This is like watching a shell game.”

Fin walked down the sidewalk like he didn’t have a care in the world and rapped his knuckles on Tammy’sdoor. When no one answered, he continued down to Kyle’s. He knocked. Again, no one answered.

“Huh. What’s that all about? Why would they hide from him?” I marked that down on the paper too. Would anyone want my notes? Probably not. But I liked jotting them down anyway. It made me feel productive.

Finley pulled out his phone and tapped on the screen quickly. A moment later, he tucked it into his pocket as he meandered across the parking lot.

“Now where are you going?” I murmured.

I tracked his route all the way to Parker’s café. At the mere thought of Parker—or, rather, his café—my mouth watered.

“Lucky sod,” I grumbled.

I’d normally have grabbed coffee from him by now. I could definitely use coffee about now. I hated feeling groggy.

My kind didn’t require much sleep, four or five hours at most, which was usually easy to get each night. And that left me with a lot of time to do other things while the rest of the world slept. Sometimes, I read. Romance novels were my favorite. Not that anyone else knew, but the books I’d fallen in love with while I renovated the motel inspired some of the décor. Amethyst dragons led to purple rooms. A tattooed magical mechanic led to a room with roses and ravens. And so on.

My reading always outpaced how quickly my favorite authors could write, but there were always new authors to discover. Years ago, when e-books blasted onto the market, I’d been skeptical, but now I figured they were their own kind of magic, particularly when I could buywhatever book I wanted from the comfort of home whenever the desire struck.

But there were times when I didn’t feel like reading. So, over the years, I’d taken up other crafts and hobbies. My most recent obsession—well, if you could call seventy-five years recent—was making miniature dioramas. I didn’t buy kits or print things on a 3-D printer like some people in the online chats I frequented. I had started well before things like that were available. Everything I built was from scratch. My thick fingers made assembling all those little pieces difficult, but that was part of the challenge. I was determined to make something I would be proud to display.

Of course, I didn’tactuallydisplay anything—not where other people could see them, anyway. I tucked them away on one of my many shelves and moved on to the next scene. I never showed my creations to anyone.

Yesterday, I’d been looking forward to going home and working on the tiny set of glasses I’d started the night before. Someone in one of my online groups had created a set of tumblers with some transparent beads, a Dremel, and a bit of hot glue. I’d been itching to try it for myself, but now I just wanted to go home and sleep.

“But maybe I’ll grab a coffee first…”

And it wouldn’t hurt to check on Parker too. As a friend. Really.

As soon as Finley entered the café, his hunter friends scurried out of Kyle’s room. I didn’t see any other movement. Was Teague out there still? Shit. I was going to have to follow them. I rubbed at my tired eyes and wished again I had one of Parker’s coffees to bolster me.

Before I could move, a shadow rose in front of my office window, startling me. It flowed through the cat flap into my office.

The cat flap was a security risk, but so was making Simon shift outside when he patrolled at the motel. Anyone could see him out there.

When I’d added the cat-sized door over the summer, I’d also changed my windows to make them like one-way mirrors, providing a safe place for Simon, or any of my other employees, to shift. But I hadn’t expected everyone and their shadow to use the door.

I stepped back to give Nelson space to change into his human form if he wanted.

“Uh… Hello?”

“I’ll follow them,” he said without shifting.

“Okay,” I said evenly, trying not to show how disconcerting it was to talk to him like this. I’d been around a lot of shifters in my very long life, but he was the only one I’d ever met who didn’t have a body in his alternate form.

“Go home and get some rest,” he said. “You look like shit.”

I frowned but couldn’t think of a suitable retort before he slipped through the cat door again. I watched as his misty form hopped from shadow to shadow, following the hunters down the road.