“I’m making you a plate, Grey,” Dane said. “We actually cleaned off the table in the dining room, so we’re eating in there.”
Grey thanked him and started to walk through, but there were a lot of bodies shuffling about.
Someone wrapped a hand around his arm. “Let me help you get through all these hungry assholes,” Lucien murmured.
“Thanks,” he replied.
They walked through the kitchen and into the dining room. Grey felt for the back of a chair and pulled it out before sitting. He set his whiskey onto the table and thanked Dane again when the man put a plate in front of him. He could have gotten his own food, and it kind of irked him that the others felt they should wait on him, but part of him was thankful. He probably would have gotten red sauce everywhere and not known it. As it was, spaghetti was going to be a challenge. He ran a hand down his white shirt and grimaced. Oh, well.
The others all joined him, and soon the clink of utensils on plates filled the room. The conversation moved to the repairs going on in the house and he mostly tuned that out as he concentrated on wrapping spaghetti around a fork and getting it to his mouth without splattering it all over his shirt. He wiped his mouth after every bite, sure he had sauce on his face several times.
“It’s really good,” he told Clay. “So is the bread, Wiley. Did you put full cloves of garlic in it?”
“I did. They really cooked up well in this. We’ll have to have this again.”
“I vote yes,” Baer stated around what sounded like a mouthful of food. He was sitting to Grey’s right, his solid form brushing against Grey every now and then. He smelled faintly sweaty from when he’d been outside playing fetch with Ruby.
As if thinking about her had the power to summon her from wherever she’d been sleeping, he heard the click of her toenails on the wood floor as she entered the room. Where there was food, there was usually Ruby.
Where was Wiley’s cat, Queenie? He listened for the fainter patter of paws but didn’t hear them. She was probably avoiding everyone. The only person she seemed to like besides Wiley was Lucien. She hadn’t even warmed up to Baer much. She ignored Grey altogether.
Cats never seemed to like Grey much.
He took another bite, the tomato sauce and Italian spices exploding on his tongue. Clay was going to have to make this often—it was that good.
“Cort seems like a great guy,” Clay said. “How go the sessions?”
“You mean when he’s not confused over giraffes in the backyard?” Grey grinned.
“Sorry about that,” Baer murmured, knocking his shoulder. “I just wanted to see if I could be one.”
Grey set his fork down and reached for his bread. “You can be anything, right? Ever get around to trying to be a fish?”
“No, I still get the heebie-jeebies when I imagine bigger fish in that damn pond.”
“So be a big fish.” Grey shrugged.
“Knowing Baer, he’d try to be a shark,” Dane threw out with a chuckle.
Before Baer could answer, the doorbell rang, and all sounds of utensils stopped.
“Anyone expecting a delivery?” Clay asked.
There was a round of negatives from everyone at the table.
“I’ll get it,” Wiley said, his chair scraping along the floor.
Everyone was quiet as they returned to eating dinner. A twitchy kind of itch started in the back of Grey’s brain. He was used to screening people who came to the house. The aunts said that the pestilents could enthrall people, and he always checked everyone to make sure their intentions were good. Scowling, he inwardly cursed because he missed his powers. He hadn’t been incredibly useful to the group yet, but this had been the one thing he could do.
A man’s voice echoed the short distance from the front door to the dining room as he explained his car had broken down and he needed a number for a local garage. Apparently his phone was dead, too. Wiley led him into the dining room.
“His car died—” Wiley started, but didn’t get any further.
Gunshots filled the air. Everyone shouted at once. Ruby was growling and barking. Thoughts and emotions pummeled Grey. Fear, adrenaline, panic…a wave of feelings pounded into his brain. Pain screamed through his head and he froze.
He’s got a gun!
Wiley, get out of the way!
The guy’s possessed!
Are there more pestilents?
Before Grey could get his wits about him, someone—Lucien, judging by his size—grabbed him out of the chair and threw him to the floor. He hit hard. Lucien pressed him onto the floor, crawling on top of him.
There was another shot, and Lucien muttered something Grey didn’t catch as he held him. Fuck, he was heavy, and Grey squirmed to get out from under him.
“Let me up! What are you doing?”
Tomato-tinged breath hit his nose. “Protecting your ass, that’s what I’m doing. Damn man came in here with a gun!”
“Did anyone get hit?”
“I don’t think so. Guy’s a bad shot. Clay has him down. Wiley punched the hell out of the poor guy’s nose. Go, Wiley! Little guy’s got some gumption.”
Grey’s ears rang from the shots, and he lay under Lucien, trying to sort through what he was hearing with his ears and what was cluttering up his brain.
“Who are you? Who sent you?” Clay demanded.
Lucien got off Grey and he scrambled to his feet. That was when he noticed a funny feel to the room. A kind of extra weight to the air that smelled faintly of pestilents. He should have picked up on that earlier, and he scowled. He was going to have to pay attention to things other than his lack of sight. Anger churned in his belly, turning the food he’d eaten into a hard lump.
“I asked you, who sent you?” Clay repeated.
Rustling noises filled the room along with shoes walking across hardwood. Grey hated not being able to see what was going on. The man wasn’t answering. With his powers, he would have been able to get to the bottom of the attack in an instant.
There was another sound, like a fist hitting flesh, and the guy began to whimper before he cried out, “What the hell? Where am I? Why are you hitting me?”
Fuck. They’d get nothing from the guy. Whatever thrall he’d been under had worn off. He obviously had no idea how he’d even gotten there.
“Baer, call the cops,” Clay said. “They can deal with your sorry ass.”
Grey stood still as cops were called. The smell of gunpowder fought with the food smells, and he felt around for the chair, finding it on its back on the floor. He set it to rights, then sat down—not even sure if he was at his place at the table. Not that it mattered. They wouldn’t be eating anymore.
The cops arrived quickly, subjecting nearly all of them to questions. Grey was skipped after the first one. Seemed no one wanted to know what the blind man saw. Not that it mattered. Their attacker wasn’t talking, and they had no idea why someone would want to shoot them.
Well, that was what they told the police. It wasn’t like they could give the real reasons.
As they moved into the family room, Grey simmered with fury. The one thing he’d been good at doing—identifying people’s reasons for being here—had been taken from him. He was fucking useless to the rest of the Weavers. He answered questions and stood around as the cops got all their statements before leading the man away.