Chapter 164 - Someone Not To Be Forgotten

They stepped out of the hiding places in the shadows, and I had to turn my back to JJ's so I could face those who came from behind. I counted about fifteen in total around us as I glanced around, men and women, but mostly men, with a tough spread of their shoulders, dressed in denim, leather and camouflage. They looked like a gang, not the sort to do outright illegal business as their main occupation, but one that could, in the right circumstances.

And they all had weapons in hand. Knives, for most of them, but one held an impressive crossbow, loaded and ready. The metal gleamed in the light of the street lamp, showing better than anything the seriousness and the direction of these people's intent.

The sheer coldness of it made me shiver. This coldness wasn't what I saw in the auras of these people, though—no, they were hot and wild. Angry and eager. Ready for violence.

At the same time, I suddenly realised that I wasn't. But that was a problem with violence. Often, it didn't give you an option to be or not to be ready. It just put you before the fact, and you had to meet it, ready or not. So I clenched my fists to keep them from shaking too hard and forced myself to meet the shifters' eyes.

"We are here for the vampire. Witches, it'd be better for you to just leave now," a person spoke from my blind zone, and the chill in my veins turned into pure ice.

I turned towards the voice fast enough for my hair to whip at my face. I just couldn't believe it! There was no denying it, though, now that I took a better look. That voice, that face, they both were still fresh in my memory.

"Andrey?!" I pointed at him with my finger, feeling both rage now, for him coming back to me again, and confusion. He had a knife in his hand, with a wicked combat blade, and the tip of it was pointed towards JJ.

It was impossible for me to forget my long ago ex-boyfriend's and my teenager's first love (or what I thought was love then, as I didn't know better) face. Rough and handsome, emanating animal magnetism, with strong jaw and the curved bow of his lips.

He turned out to be an over-controlling, territorial and prone to temper tantrums asshole (and somewhat delusional to boot, as it turned out), but it didn't make it easier for me to see him ready to attack someone with a knife. I hoped Andrey had finally accepted that I moved on, even though at the time I and JJ played that spectacle for him, we weren't actually dating yet.

I still hoped for that, at least in some part of me. Some part that, despite everything, wished for him to live well—just far away from me.

"Leave, witches," Andrey repeated, making an impatient jerk of his chin. His eyes fell on me, and I saw emotions flash in them: fury, sorrow, determination, before Andrey's face hardened into an impenetrable mask. His gaze returned to the point it was burrowing into until just now—JJ's face.

"Leave? This is Nightingale Coven's territory. If someone should leave, it's you," Ghost spoke out. His face was void of a smile or any emotion at all. In his hand, he held a phone. "I'm going to call reinforcements."

He didn't move to the car, and neither did Panda, instead shifting closer to me and JJ. It made my heart feel warmer, but also made it want to escape my ribcage from anxiety. What were they thinking? Ghost was a healer, not a combat witch, and Panda wasn't a witch at all!

"They are all too busy with the demon and its victims to come in time. This is my last warning. Leave, or I'm not responsible if you get hurt in the fight."

"Now, now, now. I see no reason to involve others into this," JJ finally broke his silence. When I turned to look in his face, despite the pleasantness of his voice, the taunting curve of his smile, I saw only cold in his eyes. "It will be, as you rightly said, done faster than anyone could come. Glad to see you learning from your mistakes and bringing friends this time, Andrey… But it was a bigger mistake to come at all."

As he spoke, JJ's hand found mine and squeezed for a moment in a silent message of support and assurance. If JJ believed he could deal with all the shifters, I would believe him, and do the smart thing of getting myself and my friends out of his way.

I squeezed JJ's hand back and began to move away, only to pause when Andrey snarled out, "Say what you want, monster, you are going to die."

I had to snarl right back at him, then. "I don't know what you, all of you," and I looked at all the other shifters, "doing this for, but, Andrey, this certainly won't win you any favours from either me or my coven. And now, I and my friends are going to step aside. But not because we are going to leave JJ on his own, but because he needs space to swing his feet so he could thoroughly kick your asses! Come, Ghost, Panda, we really shouldn't get in his way."

"That guy… What is he doing here? I remember him… I punched him earlier! Are you saying he's a shapeshifter?" Panda asked as the three of us walked away from JJ. The circle of shapeshifters let us through as we came to the car, but instead of hiding inside, we all stood there, watching the lone golden-haired figure surrounded by the armed thugs.

"A werewolf. Long story. I knew he was an ass, but what he came for… this is plain murder."

"Not for shifters it's not, Diana," Ghost said. He was smiling again, if dimly, but his fingers tapped a nervous rhythm on his thigh. "The hatred makes them see every vampire as a something less than a person. A monster."