Half out of the car, she reached back and grabbed the envelope without slowing her forward momentum.
“I wrote down our phone number. Call us if you need help!” Eva called after her.
That would be a cold day in Hell, Byleth decided shoving the envelope in her jeans—Twelfth Circle excepted, of course.
“That’s certainly a generous offer, sweetheart, but I’m afraid you’re making it to the wrong guy.” He winked and patted her shoulder as he moved away. “Sorry.”
Byleth made a mental note not to offer that particular temptation to men wearing eyeliner. Beginning to get cold, she moved into the nearest store and sidled through narrow aisles to a young man examining a portable CD player. “You should steal that, Steven,” she murmured.
“Lifted one this morning,” he told her absently, responding unconsciously to the dark aura. “Besides, right at this mo, I got so many disks down my pants I can hardly walk.”
“That explains why your pants look like they’re about to slide right off your skinny ass,” she muttered.
“What’s your damage?” Projecting tough guy, he shot her a look from under pale brows and folded his arms. “Santa not bring you any prezzies?”
Santa had never brought her any presents—her part of reality never having exactly welcomed the spirit of giving. And frankly, that sucked. In her whole entire life, Santa had never given her anything! Okay, her whole entire life was just under forty-eight hours long and the Porters had given her plenty, but that was so not the point.
The tough guy look vanished. “Oh, man, I’m sorry. I never…I mean…it’s just…” Rifling his pockets, he pulled out a Santa Pez dispenser and held it out. “Here.”
“What is it?”
Steven folded the head back, forcing out a tiny pink tile. “It’s candy,” he said when she hesitated.
Break Santa’s neck, get a hit of sugar. Byleth crunched reflectively. I can deal.
“Take it.”
“What’s the catch?” Taking the Pez, she shifted her weight to one hip and looked him in the eye. “Did you want to have sex with me or something?”
His face flushed crimson, his ears scarlet. It wasn’t a particularly attractive combination. Muttering something inarticulate, he scuttled away as fast as the CDs down his pants and the crowded store allowed.
Byleth was confused. A total stranger had just give her a gift and refused something he wanted in return. Crunching candy, she went looking for store security. Ratting Steven out would realign her world.
“Hey, there’s a…”
“I’m dealing with a customer.” The harassed looking young women pushed past without really seeing her. “You’ll have to talk to someone else.”
“…particular model has a greater range, you’ll find…”
“That guy over there is shoplifting.”
“…that the battery may need to be recharged more often.”
Byleth pushed between the two men. “Did you hear me?”
“In a moment, Miss. Of course our spare batteries are also on sale, so that could easily solve the problem,” the salesman continued, passing the cell phone over her head.
“What about those chargers that fit into your cigarette lighter?”
“Hey? Hello?”
“We carry them. I’m not sure whether we have any left.”
“Why won’t anyone listen to ME!” They were ignoring her. It was like she didn’t exist—almost like, like she was actually a teenager! “This is MAKING ME ANGRY!”
“Hey! That’s enough of that!” The burly security guard folded her arms over her imitation police blazer and glared down at the demon. “You’re going to have to leave now, Miss.”
Byleth folded her own arms. “Make me.”
It shouldn’t have been possible.
“Fine!” she screamed from the sidewalk. “Like I care!”
Reaching into the dark possibilities and activating the store’s sprinkler system made her feel a little better.
“Summons?” Diana asked as Nalo paused, head cocked, listening to nothing.
After a moment, the older Keeper nodded. “Close, too,” she said, climbing the last few steps and emerging back out onto the corner of Yonge and Dundas. “Probably no farther than Bloor. Did you want to come with me?”
“Love to, but…” The sudden realization that it was almost dark cut off a fine sarcastic response. “Holy sh…” Nalo’s lifted brow cut off the expletive. “I’ve got to get home!”
And I do have to get home, she reminded herself a few moments later, racing back down the stairs to the bank of pay phones in the subway station. But first she had to find an angel.
A little confused, Patricia held out the phone. “It’s for you.”
Samuel mimicked the motion he’d just seen Patricia make. “Hello? At the Oak Street Co-op at just up from the corner of River and Dundas Streets, town house four.”
“How does it know that?” Pixel wondered.
“It has Higher Knowledge,” Ilea informed the younger cat without opening her eyes. “It knows things.”
“It didn’t know us.”
“So? Even Higher Knowledge has an upper limit.”
Distracted by the cats’ conversation, Samuel had to ask Diana to repeat herself, twice. Finally he nodded and handed back the phone. “My Keeper is going to meet me here.”
“If it’s all right with you,” Ilea prodded.
“What?”
“Ask my soft, smiley can-opener if it’s all right with her, you moron.”
“Of course it’s all right,” Patricia told him when he’d relayed the cat’s message.
“You’re relieved I have a Keeper?”
A polite response was lost in the gold-on-brown eyes. “Oh, yeah.”
Climbing up onto the streetcar, Diana felt her gaze pulled to the north. Something was…was…awareness trembled on the edge of consciousness.…
“Hey! Exact change!”
…and tumbled into the abyss.
Unrighteous anger kept her warm for a few blocks, but with the setting sun, the temperatures had plummeted. By the time she got to Yonge and Dundas, her teeth were chattering so loudly she almost couldn’t hear the security guard kicking her out of the Eaton’s Center. He walked away, scratching at a brand new case of head lice, but that was of little consequence when she was still out in the cold.
“You don’t look very happy. Maybe I can help.”
Byleth turned to find a middle-aged man standing very close. Under the edge of a sheepskin hat, his hair was graying at the temples, his smile was warm and charming, his eyes crinkled at the corners with sincere goodwill, his heart was blacker than hers.
“All right, let’s get this straight,” she snarled, tossing aside even a pretense of subtlety. “Thinking that I’m lost and alone in the big city, you’re about to get all fatherly and offer me a place to crash. Over the next little while you’ll addict me to heroin, then put me out on the street to quote, pay you back, unquote. You’ll take every cent I make and control me with physical violence.” He stepped back. She closed the distance between them. “Did I miss something?”
“I’m not…”
“You are so. But that’s not the point. The point is you’re trying to pull this bullshit on me.” Her eyes narrowed and went black from lid to lid. “I’ve had a really bad day. I mean, like really bad. I’m not even supposed to have genitalia!”
“I…”
“You can take a walk in traffic, asshole!”
Emergency crews were scraping him out from under the streetcar when she realized she could have handled that better. She couldn’t feel her feet, every muscle in her body had clenched tight, she couldn’t seem to get her shoulders to come down from around her ears, and her stomach felt like it was lying along her spine. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Next time wait until he’s got you inside the apartment! A quick examination of the gathered crowd suggested there wouldn’t be a next time any time soon. “Isn’t that always the way,” she muttered miserably, “never a pimp around when you need one.”