the likes of which his mother had not heard for number of years. In any other circumstance, she would have paid a great deal of money for a chance to hear it again.
Her son was laughing.
Eve could smell the prominent stink of fear upon the commuters milling around the main terminal of New York's Grand Central Station. The city was freaked, but given the circumstances, could she blame them?
The toad rain ended around thirty minutes after it had begun, followed by random incidents of bizarreness that they had heard about on the radio in the limousine on their way to the station: spontaneous human combustion, stigmata, spectral rape, and myriad other claims that were coming in seemingly by the minute. And if what Doyle was hinting about was even remotely true, this was just the tip of a really nasty iceberg.
Now, perhaps ninety minutes after sunup, she followed the mage as they wound their way through the early morning commuters that seemed paralyzed by the turn of events. Eve was careful to avoid any patches of daylight coming in through Grand Central's high, ornate windows. Fortunately, though the rain of toads had stopped, the more conventional showers continued and the clouds outside meant she didn't have work on it that hard. She had slipped her suede jacket back on, but been careful not to let it get wet.
Announcements were made over the stations PA system, departures and arrivals, but nobody seemed to be going anywhere. The crowd teemed with people unsure of what they ought to be doing. Should they go on with their day-to-day lives? Go to work and ignore the fact that toads had rained down from the sky? Exposure to the preternatural had that effect on some people. When they had gone to bed the night before their perceptions of the world had been solid and clear, but now all that had changed. They had been shown just a hint of the truth that she, Doyle and certain other unsavory types in the paranormal circles had known for most of their lives.
The world was anything but 'normal.'
Some tried to laugh it off. She could hear them among the crowds that milled about. But beneath their levity she could sense the tension, smell the fear as it took root and prepared to blossom.
Eve sympathized. They were in Manhattan, and thanks to all the nasty shit going down she just knew she was not going to be able to stop at Barney's for a little shopping expedition. It pissed her off. A visit to New York always meant a Barney's trip for her. The last time she had picked up a spectacular silk top and Prada boots that were totally out of fashion now. Doyle dressed well, for a man, but this was because he was a product of his era and not because he had any real appreciation for clothes.
It was a weakness for Eve. She might even have gone so far as to call it an obsession. There was no sin in wanting to dress well, she always said. So few people caught the irony. After all, without her own sins, clothes might never have been invented.
Doyle stopped at the top of the marble staircase that would take them underground, into the subway system.
'We're going down?' she asked, still fascinated by the weird vibe she was picking up from most people within the station.
'Yes,' he said, taking hold of the brass railing and beginning to descend. She followed. 'Despite Sweetblood's best intentions, a link had been established between the medium, her psychics, and the mage.'
Doyle went around a random commuter who stood frozen on the stairs, clutching the handrail as if for dear life. He had been very brief in the car, giving to Squire only their destination, as if he had needed time to process the information that he had obtained at the brownstone. Eve found it particularly nasty that Doyle had to stick his fingers into somebody's brain to find what he was looking for. Better him then her.
Not that she hadn't rooted through her share of viscera in her time. It was only that brains were so grotesquely unpleasant to the touch.
'So you got Sweetblood's location out of the medium's brain?' Eve asked.
'With some minor difficulty, yes,' Doyle confirmed.
'Don't you think that was kind of sloppy on your old pal Lorenzo's part?' she asked him curiously. 'Leaving that kind of information lying around in somebody's head when he's supposedly all hot and bothered about not being found?'
They reached the bottom of the stairs and proceeded through a pair of double doors into the underground system.
'That is where Sanguedolce's arrogance worked against him,' Doyle said.
Eve thought he sounded more than a little arrogant himself. She didn't know what it was with mages, all of them so full of themselves that she was surprised they could fit their swollen heads through their front doors.
'He never believed that another mage would demonstrate the skill necessary to actually track him,' Doyle said, grim satisfaction etched upon his face. 'And, Heaven forbid that they did, he left a warning that should have successfully ended the trail.'
She looked about the platform. There were people waiting, but not half as many as there should have been at this time of the morning. 'But Sweetblood wasn't counting on you being the one doing the looking, was he?' she asked, playing with the man's cockiness.
Doyle's smile was fleeting. 'He never recognized my talents,' the sorcerer said, walking to the end of the platform. A homeless man surrounded with shopping bags full of empty cans snoozed against a wall and Doyle was careful not to wake him as he peered down the tunnel into the inky darkness beyond. 'He thought me incapable of mastering the weirdling ways.'
'I guess you showed him,' Eve muttered, standing by his side. She noticed that some of the commuters had begun watch then with interest. 'If you're thinking of continuing this little expedition down into the tunnel you might want to use some of that mojo you're so good at so nobody calls the transit police in to arrest our asses.'
Doyle looked away from the tunnel and toward the small crowd waiting for the next train. 'Ah yes, prying eyes,' he said, his own eyes sparking with mystical blue energies. 'Perhaps I'll make them see us as workers from one of the utility companies,' he said, a strange, lilting spell upon his lips as he raised a hand, barely visible wisps of supernatural manipulation streaming from his fingertips to work their magick upon nosey commuters.
Eve heard the rustling of plastic bags and turned to see that the homeless man had awakened from his slumber and was staring at them.
'You don't want to go down there,' the man said, his voice gravely and rough, as if not used to speaking. He hooked a dirty thumb toward the tunnel entrance behind where he sat. 'Some nasty shit goin' on down there.' The poor soul was covered in grime and was dressed in multiple layers of clothing, the shoes upon his feet held together with wrappings of electrical tape. A foul odor of misery wafted up from him, an aroma he seemed perfectly content to wallow in.
Doyle had turned from the subway crowd. 'A friend of yours, Eve?'
'Just a concerned citizen,' she told the mage.
The man brought his legs up to his chest. 'Stuff not meant to be seen by the likes of us,' he said, beginning to rock from side to side. 'Somethin' bad's comin', I know,' he said, his pale, green eyes glazing over as he rocked. 'And it ain't ridin' the train, oh no. It's comin' in real style. That's it. Real style.'
Doyle stared at the rambling man, then reached into the pocket of his coat and drew out a small billfold. She wasn't exactly sure how much money it was, but Doyle didn't even glance down to count it as he leaned forward to present it to the homeless man. 'Thank you so much for your assessment,' he said. 'We'll keep it in mind.'
The homeless man took the money from Doyle and looked at it briefly, before stashing it amongst the layers of his clothing.
'Coming, Eve?' Doyle asked as he stepped down off the platform into space. There was a good seven feet to the tracks below, but that didn't seem to hinder the mage's progress. It was if the air beneath him had thickened and he drifted unharmed to the tunnel floor.
'Don't spend that all in one place,' she told the man as she followed the mage off the platform. Eve leaped down into the darkness and landed in a graceful crouch, careful to avoid the electrical bite of the third rail. Electrocution wouldn't kill her, but she doubted it would be a very pleasant experience.
Able to see as well in the darkness as in the light, she spotted Doyle waiting against the tunnel wall. He gestured for her to follow.
'Quickly now,' he urged.
The subway was filthy and she made a conscious effort to keep from making any contact with the walls. 'Damn. This is not a place for suede. I should have left my jacket back in the car.' She had purchased the coat only
