Sinfully Spellbound Page 17

  Chapter Sixteen

  Allie

  The rest of my night was surprisingly uneventful, which was a relief since I was more than a little distracted after my encounter with Dylan. In my personal opinion, I should have been free for the remainder of the three hours Dylan had paid for, but Marcos didn’t see it that way and had me clean up one of the messier rooms. Marcos might run a sleazy sex club, but it was a clean, sleazy sex club.

  When Marcos insisted I get right back to work, I hadn’t been surprised, but I was surprised when he didn’t give me a hard time about Dylan. He didn’t mention him at all, which was just plain weird. At the very least, I’d expected him to ask questions, since I’d noticed the security cameras in the room were off while Dylan was in there with me—a major security breech on Marcos’ part but no real surprise. That meant Marcos had no idea if Dylan had gotten what he wanted and left, or if I’d refused. Dylan didn’t seem like the type to share that information with Marcos. Based on the pissed off looks my boss had shot me all night, I was assuming he thought I’d turned Dylan down. It was hard to say since I’d thoroughly cleaned up after us, including replacing the bedding and releasing the special air fresheners Marcos had to mask the smell of sex in the rooms.

  My closing chores were also a big clue that Marcos believed I hadn’t followed through with Dylan. I was the last person at SpellBinders, and was pretty sure I’d need to burn this dress after handling some of the worst clean-ups I’d ever seen. Seriously, I did not want to know all the fluids I had on my shoes—which were going in the trash as soon as I got home. It was nearly three in the morning when I was walking to my car, and the streets were practically deserted. I was exhausted after my lack of sleep the previous night, and regretted my decision to send Dylan home. While I knew he would have distracted me at work, my nerves were on edge after hearing about Marissa’s murder, and it would have been nice to have someone walk me to my car. According to Marcos, the police were convinced the murder had nothing to do with her job at SpellBinders, so I probably shouldn’t be freaking out, but I couldn’t help but wonder how they’d know if it was related to the club or not. Marissa’s customers from that night all had alibis, but there is no way the police had questioned everyone who’d been at SpellBinders, or every customer she’d had in the month she’d worked there.

  As I continued along the quiet street, I couldn’t shake the unnerving feeling that someone was following me. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, and I was jumping at every little sound.

  “Stop!” I told myself quietly. “There is no one following you. You are just being paranoid, probably because you’re overtired.”

  Except, then I heard footsteps approaching from behind and picked up my pace. Paranoia or not, I was getting to my car as fast as possible. As my feet moved quickly across the sidewalk, the footsteps behind me seemed to be moving faster, too, which made me suspect I wasn’t being paranoid.

  Someone was following me! Oh, Goddess, it might even be Marissa’s killer, and here I was alone. There weren’t even any drunken humans trying to make it home from a night of partying. Okay, there was still a chance it wasn’t the killer, but someone was definitely following me, and I’d pissed off at least one customer tonight. My phone buzzed in my hand, and I was tempted to ignore it, but I figured if I was being chased, it might be nice to have someone on the phone with me to call the police if anything happened.

  “Hello,” I said without looking at the Caller ID.

  “Hey, it’s Dylan. I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said. “I kind of expected you to be home by now.”

  “Someone is following me,” I blurted, not at all worried about sounding paranoid.

  “Where are you?” Dylan asked urgently, not even questioning my sanity for a minute.

  “On my way to my car,” I said. My car was only about a block away, but I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. Whoever was following me seemed to be toying with me for some reason.

  “Why aren’t you at home?” Dylan asked.

  “I got off work a little late,” I explained quietly and gave in to the temptation to look over my shoulder quickly. A man in a black hoodie was following me.

  “Where are you exactly?” Dylan repeated a little impatiently.

  “I’m turning the corner at 11th and Howard, heading toward 10th,” I said.

  “Which side of the street?” he asked, and I could hear his fingers working on the keyboard of a computer. I had no idea what he was doing, but I decided now wasn’t the time to ask.

  “Right side,” I said. “He’s moving faster, Dylan. I need to call the police.” Fear nearly made it impossible to move my feet forward. I was suddenly terrified that I was going to meet the same fate Marissa had.

  “Give me a second,” Dylan said, concentrating hard. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  There was a flash of light followed by guttural cursing behind me. Then I heard someone running in the opposite direction. It sounded like my pursuer was leaving, but I wasn’t taking any chances, I kept walking toward my car as fast as I could. If it weren’t for my shoes, I’d be running, but I was certain I’d fall if I tried to run in them. New rule: I was wearing running shoes to and from my car every night.

  “Are you okay?” Dylan asked.

  “Yes,” I said with a tremor in my voice. I didn’t stop moving until I was safely locked in with my key in the ignition, and then I put Dylan’s call on speaker and started driving toward the Bay Bridge. Getting out of this area was my top priority.

  “Talk to me, sweetheart,” Dylan coaxed gently. “I need to hear your voice. Tell me you’re still there.”

  “What did you do?” I asked, because I was pretty sure Dylan had been responsible for the flash of light behind me.

  “I hacked into the security cameras outside one of the clubs you passed so I could see the asshole following you,” he said.

  “No one could hack into the feed that fast,” I said because I’d met a hacker or two and knew it took longer than that.

  “Fine, another witch created a spell to give me access to the feeds for every security camera in San Francisco. Before you ask, it was for a very ugly case, and no, it’s not legal. I used the images on my computer screen to set a small fire,” he explained as calmly as if he were describing what he was wearing, rather than remotely setting a fire.

  “A small fire?” I screeched, more from hysteria than anything else. This whole thing had me freaked out—the person chasing me, the fire, and even my time with Dylan earlier. My ability to act rationally was gone. Now, all I had was a serious case of the crazies. “Whoever was following me took off because you set a small fire?”

  Dylan chuckled. “He was the one who was on fire.”

  “Oh,” was all I could say. “Thank you. I’m not really sure how you got my number, but I’m glad you did.” I’d planned to give Dylan my number when I called him later, but for some reason, I’d wanted to be the one to call him. My reason was kind of stupid, but so far, I’d felt out of control with Dylan, and I needed to have control over one thing. Apparently, I’d have to find something else to control. “So, how did you get my number?” I asked, assuming Trevor had given it to him.

  “Marcos sold it to me for five-hundred dollars,” he explained.

  “That slimy little toad,” I muttered, wondering if I could find another job if I punched my current boss in the junk.

  “He may be a slimy little toad, but he also inadvertently saved your life,” he added. “If I had to guess, I’d say you just had a near run-in with the creature who’s killing succubi.”

  Succubi? Did he just say succubi, as in more than one?

  “Wait!” I said. “I thought it was just one of us. Marcos told me about Marissa, but he didn’t say anything about other killings.”

  “You don’t keep up on the news, do you?” he asked.

  “Not really,” I admitted, somewhat embarrassed by how little I kept up on cur
rent events.

  “It should take you about twenty minutes to get to my house,” Dylan said. “Should I call the police? Or, would you prefer to call them yourself after you get here?”

  Just when I was getting the warm fuzzies for him, Dylan had to get all bossy again.

  “I’m not going to your house,” I practically snapped. The stress was making me a little bitchy already, and I wasn’t in any mood for his bossiness. “I can also call the police in the morning.”

  “Fine,” Dylan said with a resigned sigh. “I’ll meet you at your place in thirty minutes, and I’ll contact the police before I head over there to arrange for them to meet us.”

  “I’m not giving you my address just because you said you’re coming over,” I insisted before letting out a frustrated sigh. “This whole thing with you buying my phone number and then calling right when I was in danger is freaking me out some.”

  “I can see why it would freak you out,” Dylan admitted. “Would it help if I told you Marcos offered to sell me your address for a thousand dollars, but I refused?”

  “It helps with my decision to punch him in the nuts when I see him again,” I muttered. “I’m probably going to regret giving you my address because we both know you’re going to show up acting all bossy and piss me off.”

  “Probably,” Dylan admitted. “I’m bossy and arrogant on a good day, and if you don’t give me your address, I might wake Trevor up to tell him what happened so we can both go to your house.”

  I hesitated before making a decision. “I’ll pull over for a minute and text you my address.”

  “I’ll see you in thirty minutes,” Dylan said before hanging up on me.

  “Stupid, annoying, overbearing warlock,” I muttered as I pulled to the side of the road to give the bossy warlock who was seriously complicating my life the address to my apartment.