We got back to the hotel with the late winter sun just beginning to lighten the sky. Ex’s foot was wrapped with pads and gauze until it looked almost like a cast. He’d been given the option of a crutch but turned it down. The doctor hadn’t offered pain medication, and Ex hadn’t pushed for it. When we went in through the lobby, I had my arm around him on one side, Chogyi Jake had his arm around him on the other. The woman at the counter looked a little alarmed but didn’t say anything.
When we got to their room, Chogyi Jake used the key card. The electronic lock wheezed open. The first thing that struck me was the smell of shit and rank urine. Both beds had been stripped, the coverlets pulled to the floor. A pillow had been ripped apart, the stuffing strewn on the carpet.
I knew what I’d forgotten.
“Ozzie! Oh my God,” I said. “What did you do?”
Her claws tapped against the bathroom tile, and she came trotting out, tail wagging so hard it swung in a circle, tugging her hips along after it. She looked from me to Ex and back, her canine expression caught between worry and delight.
“In her defense,” Chogyi Jake said, “we were gone much longer than we expected.”
“I know, but she trashed the place!”
“She was worried,” Ex said, scratching her behind the ears. “Weren’t you? Weren’t you a worried dog?”
I flapped my hands in wordless distress. The truth was I felt guilty. How was I going to save innocent people from the overwhelming power of riders when I couldn’t get it together enough to look after a Labrador?
“Any chance we could bunk in your room?” Ex asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Of course. Take her too. We didn’t feed her either.”
“Where are you going?” Ex asked.
“To give housekeeping a lot of money.”
By the time I got back to my room, Ex was already stretched out on the second bed and snoring softly. Chogyi Jake lay beside him, eyes closed in what could have been meditation or sleep. Ozzie was curled up on the foot of my bed, chewing contentedly on her right front paw in a way that meant all was forgiven—on her end, anyway. I put the Do Not Disturb thing on the door, changed into some sweats, and crawled into bed.
I hoped that sleep would come quickly, but I was disappointed. My mind kept looping back on itself: Where was Jay, was Carla all right, what if the Invisible College went after Mom and Dad and Curt, didn’t people get blood clots in their feet and die from it and what if that happened to Ex, why didn’t the binding spell Rhodes put on me work, was I a bad pet owner . . . The waterfall of fears and anxieties promised to run on forever. I stared up at the ceiling, watching tiny web works of light that snuck in at the edges of the curtain shift and brighten and fade as the sun rose. I tried to meditate the way Chogyi Jake had taught me, but I’d fallen out of practice and I couldn’t seem to maintain my focus for more than a few seconds at a time.
What had they called me? Puer Mórtuus? Abraxis something or other? Graveyard Child was the only one I remembered for sure. I felt like I’d heard the term before. Like it had something to do with the constant fighting that went on between riders in their own environment. I couldn’t place it.
When my phone rang, I was the only one awake, and I answered almost immediately.
“Jayné?” Jay said as I crawled out of bed and slipped into the bathroom, closing the door behind me so I wouldn’t wake anybody up by talking.
“Where are you?” I said.
“I’m okay. We’re okay. I did what you said. I got Carla on a plane. It took a while, but she’s going to Memphis. I gave her enough money to get a hotel for a few days. They won’t be able to find her there, will they?”
“They might,” I said, “but I don’t think they’ll have reason to. Their plan failed, and bait’s not much use without a trap.”
“What . . . what happened?”
“You mean after you shot Ex?” I asked, more sharply than I’d mean to.
The line was quiet for a moment.
“After that. I’m . . . I’m really sorry about that. I should have been more careful. And . . . I shouldn’t have left him behind like that.”
“Well, yeah, they’re going to take away your gun safety merit badge,” I said. “But getting out was the right thing to do. The whole point of being there was to get Carla out safely. Ex knew it wasn’t safe. We all knew.”
“Thank you,” he said.
“Don’t mention it,” I said. “Turns out this is what I do these days. I’ll need to talk to Carla, though.”
“Why?” Jay asked.
“See what she heard. What she saw. She was with the bad guys for hours, and they might have been in touch with her before she went.”
“They were,” Jay said. “They told her that you were possessed by a demon and that it was going to leave your body and take over the baby. That whole thing at the house? They did it to force you into doing magic in front of her, so that she’d believe them. She said she texted them when you showed up at the house. She’s sorry about it now, though. Really.”
“It’s a big world,” I said. “Everyone screws up. It’s all right. Still, when she’s somewhere she can use the phone, I’d like to ask her a few questions.”
“She’s not going to want to do that. She’s scared of you, sis. And no offense? You’re kind of scary.”
I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. I hadn’t turned on the overhead fixture, since it would have meant cranking up the exhaust fan with it. The only light coming off my phone. Between my bruised face, hair that spoke of a night at the ER, and the pale glow spilling across my cheek, I did look like a poster for the sort of movie that parents don’t let their kids see.
“We’ll work something out,” I said. “Where are you?”
“I’m at a friend’s house. He’s out of town for the holiday, and I had a spare key so I could water his plants. I figure they wouldn’t know to look for me here. Also . . . I hope this is okay. I called Dad. I told him that the guys who broke into the house were still around, and that he should be careful. I hope that’s all right?”
“It is. I’d have done it myself, if he was taking my calls,” I said. And then, a second later, “You didn’t go with her.”
“I didn’t, did I?” Jay said ruefully. “I thought about it. They’re still here, though. Those people. I told her I was staying until I had everything with them resolved.”
“Yeah, that’s going to be tricky.”
“I’m not sure it was true when I said it. I don’t know if we’re going to get married after all.”
“What about the baby?”
“I don’t know.” The words were so simple, and the way he said them was so rich, so complicated.
“You know what you’re hoping for?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t even have that.”
I wished he were with me instead of talking across the phone. I wanted to see his face, take his hand. Offer some kind of comfort. He was trapped. If he stayed with Carla and the baby, he would be living a life he didn’t want in a loveless marriage. If he didn’t, he was going to spend the rest of his life hauling along the knowledge that he was the kind of guy who’d get a girl pregnant and leave her.
“Sorry,” I said. It sounded powerfully inadequate, even to me.
“What about you guys?”
“Holed up. Licking wounds, figuratively speaking. I’ve got some things I need to follow up on.”