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"You want my professional opinion?"

"You’re obviously a better judge of character than I am"

A smile lit her face "I think we can trust him to an extent But Shelton looks out for Shelton Don’t expect hi us?"

"I have a feeling we’ll find out"

My stoht

After a twenty-h a warren of narrow service roads, alleyways, and pot-holed streets in a bad part of the city, Shelton stopped in a narrow alley and examined an iron door set into the side of an old red-brick building It ht have been a storehouse at some point A dozen or more identical doors lined this alley and the next one over, but I didn’t see whatfaced a cracked and rutted one-way street across froraffiti-covered convenience store with more bars on the s than the state penitentiary A buroaned and rolled onto the filthy alley floor An eutter In front of the convenience store I saw a group offros I almost wished I could hear the people in prison

"Nice neighborhood," I said

He smirked "Quaint, ain’t it?"

The inside didn’t look much better Dust covered a bare concrete floor A filthy mattress with stains I didn’t care to identify occupied a corner of the roo Dad here?" I asked, horrified at the prospect of anyone sleeping on thathis arrandly around the room He pulled out a fa, and pointed at the floor A section of the floor dropped down, the concrete turning to stairs as it did

"That’s so cool," Katie said, eyes onder

"Not bad, eh, green eyes?"

"Does this mean Harry Potter really exists?" she asked

"You’re looking at hi toward Shelton "He wears contacts now"

"Ha, ha, real funny," Shelton said as he went down the stairs

"Why are you so mean to hirunted "He deserves it"

"You see"

"You don’t know Shelton"

"And you do?"

I tossed a glance over my shoulder at her "Better than you"

"You can be really obtuse" She rolled her eyes

"Did you miss the entire conversation I had with him in the park?"

Her brow furrowed "You uy and then suddenly changed your mind?"

"Oh, whatever"

Katie’s eyes narrowed "If Shelton is a ician and Elyssa is a vampire--"

"Dhampyr, actually," Elyssa said "I’m half human and half vale it" Elyssa bared her fangs with a cold smile

"I’ll take your word for it, thank you very much" Katie turned her eyes back to me "What I really want to know is, what are you, Justin?"

"Oh, she’s gonna love this," Elyssa said, an alint in her eyes

I looked away froh for this girl HowI felt for her was a lit match in a tornado co her what I was even if ithalf de I’d sooner nobody knew Being a va how many teeny-boppers loved what they saw on TV and in the movies Demon spawn, on the other hand, had a pretty bad reputation

Katie tuggedto tell me?"

Elyssa’s concerned eyes ure out as bothering me I tried to smile but it faltered

We stepped out of the narrow confines of a gray concrete tunnel and into what looked like a perfectly nor-screen TV, a kitchen, and all the a upon this place savedto respond to Katie’s question

"Back here," Shelton said, leading Dad into a fair-sized roo circle set in the floor

"I don’t like the look of that," I said, unslingingit on the floor "Why would you put a bed in the center of a circle?"

Dad stepped inside it anyway and took a seat on the bed Shelton pressed his thu movement with it, and the air snapped and crackled<ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>