ROGUE BLOOD
The bell over the door rings and the smell of coffee hits me, and the barista smiles like this is just another afternoon.
“Hey, what can I get you?”
“Coffee,” I say. “Black.”
She nods and turns around, and I watch reflections in the glass instead of faces.
Two wolves I do not recognize. A hunter pretending to scroll. And something else that feels wrong, like rot mixed with metal.
Gus is moving pieces.
I take the coffee and leave without sitting, and the second I step back outside my phone buzzes again.
A call this time.
“Arachne,” I say when I answer.