The building seemed to have been a warehouse or other industrial sort, deep in a neighborhood of industrial sorts. It had no nameplate or other sign, but when your clientele is supernaturals, you don't advertise with flashing billboards.
I waved the driver on. Then I decided to check the street name before knocking on the door. As I approached the corner, a young woman in jeans and a shearling coat hurried across the empty road.
"Excuse me!" I called.
She didn't slow. In this neighborhood, that was probably wise. I trotted another few steps.
"Excuse me! Is this North Breton Road?"
She turned and lifted her sunglasses, features drawn in confusion. I'd seen that "you talkin' to me?" look often enough and my gut sank as my gaze dipped to take a closer look at her outfit-bell-bottom jeans, tie-dyed shirt, fringed purse…
"Uh, sorry," I said. "I thought you were… Sorry."
I turned and marched back toward the building, my heels clacking along the empty road.
"In a hurry, necromancer?" she called from behind me.
I cursed under my breath, plastered on a vacant grin and turned to see the young woman bearing down on me.
"No, of course not," I said. "I was looking for directions and-"
"You didn't think I could provide them? Being dead and all?"
"I didn't want to presume. So is this North Breton Road?"
She kept walking until she was well into my personal space, something ghosts can do much better than people. Her hands passed through my shoulders as she gestured.
"You aren't worried about asking something I can't answer. You're running as fast as you can before I ask you something."
"I wasn't-"
"Cut the crap. I've met your kind before. Two years after I die, I'm lucky enough to bump into a necromancer at a KISS concert, and I beg the guy to pass along a message to my kid sister. Just a phone call, no big deal. He gives me this lecture on the proper way to approach a necromancer."
"Some necros can get a little touchy, especially at social events-"
"Ten years later, I see another, I try again, and she walks away. Doesn't even have the courtesy to answer me."
"Well, I can't promise anything, but if you'd like me to get in touch with your sister-"
"She's fifty years old! Do you think she wants to hear from me now?"
"I'm sorry you had a bad experience-"
"Fuck you." She wheeled and stalked away.
As I walked back toward the building, I concentrated on the questions I'd ask Paige and Lucas, and tried to forget the young woman. Another day, another ghost. One of hundreds. Hundreds of hopeful, disappointed-
I cut off the thought and picked my way past a ripped-open garbage bag to the front doors. They were full-length dark glass- one-way glass I presumed, so they could see out and I couldn't peek in.
I pulled on the handle. Locked. To my left was a small speaker marked "Deliveries and Visitors." I buzzed.
"Hey, Jaime!" It was Savannah, Eve and Kristof's seventeen-year-old daughter. Not a ghost, thankfully, but very much alive and the ward of Paige and Lucas.
Savannah 's voice was so clear, I looked around to see where she was. When she laughed, I spotted a tiny camera lens.
"High-tech, huh?" she said. "We get all the bells and whistles. Very cool… and complicated as hell. I need a damned instruction book for this- Oh, there it is." The door buzzed. "Come on in. We're on the second floor. You'll need to take the stairs. The elevator's card-activated."
In the background, Paige yelled for Savannah -something about boxes-and a male voice cursed. Obviously not Lucas-if he used profanity, I'd never heard it.
As I entered, it was like stepping into an upscale corporate office under construction, the gleaming floors dusty with footprints, the richly painted walls awaiting artwork, cardboard boxes stacked by the gleaming elevator doors. I should have remembered that this was originally supposed to be a Cortez Cabal satellite office. I'd been in one once, and it had been just like this-a grungy exterior hiding plush offices.
As for how Benicio Cortez's anti-Cabal youngest son ended up with an office that was built for a Cabal, I wasn't clear. I only knew that Lucas's father had been building it in Portland and somehow Lucas and Paige ended up buying the unfinished offices instead. That had been over a year ago, and they were just moving in now. A big leap for a young couple, but I guess it was better than having Daddy and his mob move into town.
The stairwell was as silent as the foyer, but the moment I opened the second-floor door, it was like someone had hit "play," the air filling with noise: the whine of a drill, a woman's laugh, the bang of a dropped box, a man's shout. Top-notch soundproofing between floors-another bonus from the Cabal construction crews.
The drilling came from one direction, the voices from the other.
"Don't touch the books. I have a system."
"What system?" Savannah answered. "Dump them all in a pile?"
It took me a moment to recognize the first speaker. Adam Vasic, one of my fellow council members, who was joining his friends in their new venture.
"Just leave the books." Paige's voice, a deep contralto. "Adam, keep bringing up those boxes. Savannah, make sure all the books get into Adam's office, but don't unpack them. They'll need to be arranged in a recognizable system, so we can all find what we need when our librarian isn't here."
"Librarian?" Adam said. "The title is head of research."
"And security guard," Savannah added.
"Head of security."
"Right. In charge of all those other librarians and security guards we've hired."
"It's a growth position. Just like yours. Someday, I'm sure you'll be in charge of the entire secretarial pool."
"These boxes aren't moving on their own," Paige cut in as I approached the open door. "I need them all upstairs and sorted into the proper rooms. Then I need Adam assembling the bookcase while Savannah helps Lucas with that alarm system. And when that's done there's-"
"A shitload more," Savannah said. "You know what you really need? Zombie slaves."
"I've got you two. Close enough."
"You don't want zombies," I said as I walked in. "You'll spend a fortune on air fresheners."
Adam was digging through a box of reference texts. He didn't look much like a librarian… unless it catered to surfers. A stereotypical California boy, well built and tanned with sun-bleached hair and a quick smile. He didn't look much like a kid with a demon for a dad either, but that was typical for half-demons. They appeared and acted human, inheriting from their father only a set of abilities, usually elemental or sensory. Adam's power was fire. When he lost his temper, his touch could give third-degree burns. Fortunately, it was hard to piss him off.
Paige was busy on the computer, fingers flying and eyes on the monitor even as she spoke. A voluptuous twenty-seven-year-old with long dark curls, she was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. Practical moving-day attire. It was rare to see Paige out of a skirt. A girly girl, as Savannah always teased.
Savannah didn't follow her guardian's tastes in clothes-or much else. One look at the seventeen-year-old-almost six feet tall and slender with long dark hair and perfect bone structure-and anyone who'd known Eve could tell who Savannah 's mother was. Only her eyes, big and bright blue, came from Kristof.
Even in ripped jeans, old sneakers and a tight concert T-shirt, Savannah exuded elegance and grace… until she opened her mouth. Paige no longer commented on her ward's language. I guess parents need to pick their battles, and with Savannah, there were far more important ones. As the daughter of a sorcerer and a half-demon witch, she was a powder keg of supernatural power. At thirteen, panicked and trying to contact her dead mother, she'd leveled a house-an incident that I suspected was responsible for her father's death, though even Kristof pretended he'd died in an unrelated accident.