Enthralled: Tainted Book Four

7. Bennie, Bennie, Bennie

Kerry

"This is it."

I stopped walking three houses down and nodded at a two-story, red brick house with black metal gates over the front double doors, dark curtains covering all the windows.

And an acid-green fume rolling out from under it like a Halloween fog machine. It was so strong, I was always surprised the humans in the neighborhood never picked up on it.

Then again, if they had, they weren't alive to talk about it anymore.

"Kerry, should we wait on the sidewalk while you knock?" Kon asked. "Or just follow you straight to the door?"

"Follow me. She has traps laid on the sidewalk, and I don't wanna risk setting one off before we're inside."

"Are the traps sentient enough to know we're here?"

"Don't know what that word means, but Bennie already knows I'm here, so come on."

"Stinks," Gigi whispered, waving her hand under her nose.

"Shh!" Jax hissed at her, startling Poppy in her fox form, who he was holding in his arms. "Sorry, but if she knows Kerry's here, she might be able to hear us, too."

Leading my little ducklings to the house, I strode up the concrete walk and didn't bother to look around. Nothing ever changed at Bennie's, but even if it did, Hank and Angelo were in their shooting nests on nearby rooftops, Hank with his bow and Angelo with a high-powered rifle he'd rigged with spell-proof sights and magicked-up ammo.

Jax and Gigi prodded the others after me to keep up the act as I knocked on the front door, which opened right away.

"What are you doing here?" Bennie jibed as she stuck her bandana-wrapped head out and ran her greedy brown eyes over the others.

"You ordered some weres. I'm bringing you some weres," I told her.

"I put in that order months ago."

"Well, Bennie, I guess I can take 'em to the Market if you don't want 'em." I even shrugged and half-turned. "Kasparian will give me a good deal for the lot."

"Oh, you know better! Come in!" She opened the door and waved me in. "And what is that thing you have wrapped in chains?"

"Druk. Little something special to make up for my ... tardiness."

"A druk? It is not!"

"Is, too, and," I pointed to Poppy's fox, "that is a fox shifter. Don't see many of them around anymore."

"Ooo! You spoil me!" She whirled around, and her excitement sickened me. I followed her down the hall, the shuffling of the others' feet letting me know they were still there.

For some reason, Bennie wanted to make conversation and not get right down to business.

"Where have you been, anyway? No one's seen you around for weeks and weeks."

"Never mind that," I waved one hand. Ah. She was just being nosy. Time to locate the other one. "Where's Runa?"

"Right here."

She came out of the living room, her short blonde hair in perfect waves and her blue eyes as innocent as a baby's. In her stylish pink suit, she looked like she should be in a Manhattan office brokering stocks.

The thought made me snort.

Dark rooms were more her haunt, and the only brokering she did was with a leather whip.

"You're asking to see her?" Bennie asked me with raised eyebrows. "That's a surprise, seeing as it took you days to recover last time. Got a taste for her kind of pain, did you, Harker?"