I blinked. This was the first I’d heard of it, and I groaned internally. Just what I needed—more trouble. One of the elevators was still at floor twenty, but the other one was making its way down steadily. Fifteen, fourteen, twelve—because this was an old building and had no thirteenth floor—eleven, ten. . And then the damned thing stopped, and I almost howled in frustration.
“Is there anything you’d do differently if you had a chance to do it all over again?” Barbie continued, as if I’d been answering her questions all along.
The elevator stayed on floor ten, and I decided enough was enough. I walked back into the lobby and caught the doorman’s attention. He was a big black guy built like a linebacker, but he was one of those gentle giants who wouldn’t hurt a fly. I’d talked to him just enough to know he was a starving artist who worked the door to keep food on the table while he pursued a career as a painter. Still, Barbie didn’t know any of that.
“Hey, Mike,” I said with a big smile, “is there any chance you can help me get rid of an unwanted visitor?” I jerked my thumb at Barbie.
He returned my smile. “Sure thing,” he said, then looked at Barbie. The smile gave way to a politely blank expression. “Ma’am, this is a private building. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Reminding myself to slip Mike a generous tip later, I pivoted back toward the bank of elevators. Barbie started to protest, but Mike was firm. I breathed a sigh of relief when the elevator doors closed behind me. I felt a little less relieved when I remembered the death threat on my answering machine last night. Great to know everyone and their brother was gunning for me!
I half-expected there to be another death threat when I finally let myself into my apartment, since the universe seemed to be piling it on right now. The fact that there were no messages made me practically cheerful. Yeah, welcome to my life.
I scrounged up a dinner, if you could call it that, of a toasted frozen bagel and dry cereal. I hadn’t had much chance to hit the grocery store lately. Then I spent the rest of the evening alternating between trying Adam’s cell phone number and checking in with Dom. I decided not to call Brian. He thought I was safely locked up in Adam’s house, and he’d probably feel it his duty as my knight-in-shining-armor to come “protect” me if he knew I was alone. I’m not very good at accepting help even when I need it, but I seriously didn’t think the bad guys were going to storm my building. I’m sure they could get past security if they wanted to—obviously, they’d done it once already—but they’d still have to get through my door. I kept my Taser in my pocket just the same.
I was really starting to get pissed off at Adam. If he was in trouble, I’d feel guilty about it later, but right now I figured he was probably just sulking over his little spat with Dom. I didn’t think members of Lugh’s council should be allowed to sulk. Except me, of course. I could sulk all I wanted.
When I still hadn’t heard anything from Adam by nine o’clock, I decided it was time for me to put in yet another appearance at The Seven Deadlies. Unless he was in trouble, he was bound to be there, staking the place out, looking for Tommy. We had never really discussed what would happen if he found him, but I felt pretty sure Tommy wouldn’t enjoy the encounter.
This time, I didn’t particularly care if I fit in with the crowd, so I dressed in jeans and a plain white button-down. The only nod I made to the Seven Deadlies crowd was to wear a single skull and crossbones earring with bright, genuine rubies in the eyeholes. Brian had bought it for me as a semi-joke, though it looked too expensive to be relegated to the junk drawer. I put an assortment of gold and silver studs in the remaining holes, then stared myself in the eye in the bathroom mirror and tried to convince myself I was ready.
I wasn’t ready, and I knew it. But other than washing my hands of the whole situation, I had no other choice, so I guessed that meant I was going.
I still hadn’t bothered to deal with the flat tire, so I called a cab to take me to South Street. It was well past ten when I headed for the club. Still pretty early for the Friday night club scene, but then I’d rather get there before the place was completely packed with demons and their groupies. Making sure the cabbie couldn’t see me past the partition, I opened my purse and rearranged everything so that the Taser was in a compartment by itself. Easier to grab that way. All the other pockets were full to bursting, making for unsightly lumps, but oh well.
As soon as I closed the purse, it rang. Great. My cell phone was buried at the bottom by now. I dug through all my junk and reminded myself I had to clean out my purse someday. I finally got my fingers wrapped around the phone, and I knew it was seconds before the call would go to voice mail. I answered just in time, but I hadn’t had the chance to check caller ID yet.
“Hello?”
“Dominic tells me you’re not where I left you,” Adam said, and though my hackles immediately rose, I couldn’t deny the relief that surged through me. I was glad Adam couldn’t see me. I had the feeling I’d never hear the end of it if he thought I’d been worried about him.
When uncomfortable, get angry, that’s my motto. With Adam, it was never a hard one to live by. “Where the fuck are you?” I asked, too loudly. I saw the cabbie glance at me in the rearview mirror. Like about ninety percent of the cabbies in Philadelphia, he wasn’t born in the good old U.S. of A. By the looks of him, he’d been born in a place where they cut out a woman’s tongue if she let such a filthy word leave her mouth. I lowered my voice, and vowed to edit my language.
“Dom and I have both been trying to reach you for hours!”
“So I heard. Let’s just say I needed a little me-time.”
“When those children—” I stopped myself before I finished the sentence. The driver was obviously listening, so it seemed prudent for me to be a tad more discreet.
“I was explaining why I had the phone turned off,” Adam growled. “I don’t mean I’ve been gazing at my navel. I’ve presently got a good friend of ours passed out in the backseat.”
“Oh.” The good news was, I wouldn’t have to go back to The Seven Deadlies. The bad news was. . Well, I wasn’t sure what the bad news was yet. All I was sure of was that there would be some seriously bad news soon. “How did that happen?” I asked, because demons don’t just have attacks of the vapors.
“He had a little too much to drink.”
“Oh,” I said again. A brilliant conversationalist, that’s me. Demons are as capable of getting drunk as humans, although they usually metabolize the alcohol faster so their drunkenness doesn’t last long. Still, it seemed awfully careless of Tommy, especially if he had any inkling that Adam was investigating him.
“I helped him along a bit,” Adam explained. “We’re on the way back to the house now. I thought you might want to meet us there.”
No, I wanted to tell the driver to turn around and take me home. But I supposed that would be irresponsible. I sternly ordered myself not to think about what would happen to Tommy when whatever knockout drops Adam had given him wore off. I didn’t think it was going to be pretty.
“I guess I have to,” I said. I didn’t actually mean to say it out loud.
“Yes. We might need Lugh.”
I closed my eyes for a second, wondering just what Adam thought we might need Lugh for. To exorcize Tommy’s demon? I supposed it was in the realm of possibility that whatever demon had taken Tommy was beyond my ability or Adam’s ability to exorcize. But I suspected that wasn’t what Adam meant. We would need to know Saul’s True Name if we wanted to summon him, and the only people who would know it were his close family members. . and his king.
“I’ll be there soon,” was all I said. I hung up abruptly, because I didn’t want Adam to hear anything suspicious in my voice. Then I gave the driver Raphael’s address and braced myself for one very nerve-wracking phone call.