Page 70 of Moody as a Minotaur

I really hoped they hadn’t invited us because they suspected Levi was a minotaur.

And I still wasn’t convinced this was anything more than a few friends investigating ghosts to gain notoriety and YouTube followers. Although that theory didn’t explain why there were listening devices in Levi’s home.

But if everyone was wrong about them and these people weren’t hunters, then the SC people wouldn’t have to waste valuable time and resources investigating them. Governments of all kinds were always worried about money, right? I was sure they’d agree with this plan.

“You don’t have to go in with me,” I said. “I can drop you off at a coffee shop by the university and pick you up after the meeting is done.”

“No way,” Levi shouted. “You aren’t going there by yourself.”

I frowned and wished I could pull over and talk to him about all this again. But driving through rush-hour in the city was no joke. We’d be lucky to get to the meeting on time, as it was.

“We’re just checking things out. It isn’t like they’re going to show us everything on our first meet-and-greet. It’ll be fine.”

Levi let out a hybrid huff-grunt. Now that I knew he was a minotaur, the sound seemed very bovine to me. A few days ago, I never would have made that connection. Then again, a few days ago, I didn’t think anything could be more magical than my morning coffee.

I pulled into the parking lot where we were supposed to meet Fin with only ten minutes to spare. After parkingand turning off the car, I turned to Levi. His hand was a tight fist. Hell, his whole body was tense. I drew his fist into my hands and waited until he looked at me.

“Seriously, I don’t know if you should come with me. I’m human. I’ll be fine, but you…” I squeezed his hand.

He pulled his hand and his gaze away from me. He dug a plastic jar from one of his pockets and flicked the lid open. He dumped a handful of antacids into his palm, then threw them into his mouth. That couldn’t be good for him, but I wasn’t going to point that out to him right now. Then he straightened his shoulders as he scanned the area. “I see your cousin. Come on, let’s do this.”

I tossed my phone into the glove box beside Levi’s as he climbed out of the car. Although I hated the idea of not having my phone on me, everyone had said that if these were hunters, they’d find a way to get our phones away from us as soon as we arrived. And, if they weren’t hunters, we wouldn’t have to worry about it.

My ankle holster was a reassuring weight on my right leg. If they patted us down, they’d find it. I wasn’t sure how I’d explain it, but hopefully they wouldn’t bother. It’d be a sure sign that this wasn’t a normal meeting, so I was banking on them not tipping their hand like that. It was a gamble.

But if they searched us and asked us to leave after finding my gun, well, I’d just take Levi on a date. We could go to a nice steakhouse—Wait, was that offensive? Levi was a minotaur. Was beef a no-go?

I was getting ahead of myself. First, we had to meet Fin’s friends.

“One thing at a time, Girard,” I said to myself as I let myself out of the car.

I really hoped I hadn’t underestimated these people. If anything happened to Levi, I didn’t know what I’d do.

I should have left him in Willow Lake.

26

HOW DO YOU PREPARE TO BE AMAZED?

LEVI

I clenched the black sack in my hand. “Why do we need to put this on?”

We were standing amid a group of young humans in an underground service corridor at the center of the campus. Twelve of the group appeared to be newcomers like us. Tammy was there too, flanked by three others who appeared to be Tammy’s underlings. Kyle wasn’t there, which surprised me.

I studied each participant, trying to remember as much as I could about them for later. They all looked naïve, and their faces were soft with lingering youth. Parker was easily ten years older than the others gathered here, which meant I was ancient compared to them. But I was ancient compared to Parker too.

I tried not to glance toward the slightly darker shadow clinging to the corner by the stairs where Nelson was hiding in his shifted form. Without his presence, I’dbe a lot more panicked about now. I fought the urge to poke at the earpiece in my right ear, to confirm it wasn’t falling out. With it wedged uncomfortably in my ear, I didn’t think it was going anywhere, despite my panicked need to check it.

“Do as they ask,”Teague whispered through the device.

Finley’s nervous laughter dragged over my nerves. “Yeah, Tam,” he said. “What’s this all about? You already took our phones and now this? Hazing is against university policies.”

Tammy rolled her eyes. “If you don’t want to wear the hood, don’t. It just means you can’t come to the meeting. We don’t want everyone to know where we’re going. It’s private. Our sponsors like to keep it that way.”

“We have sponsors?” Fin asked.

This kid was killing me. How could he be so naïve? How did he think they could afford all that equipment? Their YouTube views and audience size weren’t that high. Of course, I hadn’t known that until Edith talked about it in one of our many debriefs since Finley had asked us to go to the meeting. But Finley was a young human. They knew about shit like that, didn’t they?