were?”
“Maybe he’s good at it?” I said. “He does know where the house is.”
“Then he’s been out there, sticking himself out like a flag?” Kim said, her voice fast and hard. “Because if they can see him, and he’s close by, then it’s just as good as them knowing where you and Jake and that whatever-it-is that does all the cooking are.”
“Varkolak,” I said. “Midian’s a varkolak.”
Kim shooed the word away. I started to marshal my thoughts. If the Invisible College could use Ex to find me, they would have done it already. The fact that there weren’t ninja wizards breaking down the door was plenty of evidence that we were okay. Plus which, one more day wasn’t going to matter. Either we’d have succeeded in breaking the College, or we’d be so deep in trouble nothing was going to help.
Except that Kim knew Ex wasn’t a bad guy. Self-important, overbearing, and burdened by an unrealistic idea of his own responsibility, yes. Dangerous to us, no. This, I thought, was her version of waking up at four in the morning worrying about orange safety cones.
“Freaked about tomorrow?” I asked.
She shook her head, then a moment later she nodded.
“This is why I left in the first place,” she said. “Eric and his covert world. The things he would do. That he would have us do. And now here I am, back in the middle of it. And he’s not even here.”
There was a deepness in the way she said the last phrase. He’s not even here. Longing. Sorrow. Emptiness. She wasn’t talking about Eric anymore. She meant Aubrey.
“What are you going to do if we win?” I asked. “What are you going to do afterward?”
“Go back to work,” she said. “They think I’m still in Chicago. I’ve been calling the front office on my cell phone every morning, holding my nose and telling them I still don’t feel well. They think I’ve got the cold from hell. But there’s a budget meeting on Thursday, and I have to…I have to be there for it.”
Kim seemed to deflate. She stared at the television. It was an advertisement for something, but I couldn’t guess what the product was. Abstract happiness, maybe. I cleared my throat.
“I’m not in love with Aubrey,” I said. “I have a crush on him. He’s really cute, and really nice. And he can dance.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The thing is, I’m not really in the best place to be making that kind of decision right now. A couple weeks ago, I was a college dropout hoping I could land a job waiting tables at Applebee’s. And now I’m-”
I gestured at the house, the walls. Kim looked at the place as if it was a real indication of who I had become. She nodded.
“That isn’t the only question, though,” she said. “You can’t be sure what he feels for you.”
I wanted to object, to tell Kim that Aubrey clearly didn’t love me or want me or whatever it was she was afraid of, but we both knew I’d be making it up. This wasn’t the time to close my eyes and pretend the world was what I wanted it to be.
“I don’t know what he feels,” I said. “We were on kind of iffy footing when it happened.”
A tight smile flickered over Kim’s lips.
“With any luck, we’ll be able to worry about all this next week,” she said.
My cell phone rang. Kim jumped a little as I dug it out of my pack. I thought of the fear in her face the first time my cell phone rang. When she heard Eric’s voice. It was one of the functionaries at my lawyer’s office returning my call. He’d gotten my message that morning and had a couple of questions about how I wanted him to proceed. I stuck my hand flat over the other ear and walked out back, talking it over with him.
The plan this time was a lot more complex than our last one had been. We had the cars we needed for the actual assault, or would after Aaron had completed his work stealing the one he’d be driving. I had one rifle, and the second was coming with the stolen car. I’d picked out a place near the convention center that had free wireless access. Midian and Chogyi Jake were ready to act as decoys, drawing off as many parasitized victims of the Invisible College as they could.
The trick was to not let my decoys get killed over it. And that meant making sure they were moving quickly and unpredictably. The good news was that that required only money, and I had that.
“Okay,” I said as the lawyer’s functionary finished talking. “Can you e-mail me the address of the airstrip?”
“It’s on its way,” he said. “And the motorcycles will be there between noon and two o’clock tomorrow.”
“Great,” I said.
“Is there anything else I can do for you, Ms. Heller?”
A cadre of priests chanting exorcism rites. The number of a really good pizza joint. Some groceries.
“No,” I said. “I think we’re good.”
I dropped the connection and went back into the kitchen. Midian was leaning over a wide metal bowl with a whisk in one hand and a bottle of brandy in the other.
“Everything’s taken care of,” I said. “You’ll be out of here on a bike fast enough to outrun the cops, and there’s a flight chartered to get you out of the city. All you need to do is get there alive. Or. You know. As alive as you get.”
“You’re a class act, kid,” Midian said. “You want to taste this sauce? I’m not sure it’s working.”
He held out a wooden spoon dripping with something brown and sweet smelling. I tried it.
“It’s working,” I said. “That’s really good.”
The vampire grinned crookedly and took a drink of the brandy. I went back to Chogyi Jake’s room and knocked gently on the door before I opened it. He was sitting perfectly still in the middle of the floor. The drapes were lowered, casting the room in a soft twilight. It occurred to me that I’d almost never seen Chogyi Jake when he wasn’t smiling or on the verge of it. His face was soft as sleep, expressionless and peaceful. As I watched, he drew in a deep breath and let it sigh out between his teeth. His dark eyes opened.
“Hey,” I said.
“How are you?” he asked.
“Nervous,” I said. “I mean, not ten-thousand-dollar-shopping-binge nervous. Just, you know, ready. I’ve got a way out for Midian, and I’m getting a second cycle for you.”
“Just like Ex,” he said. “The three bikers of the apocalypse.”
“I’m not above stealing a good idea,” I said. I stepped into the gloom and sat on the edge of the bed. “I had a close call this morning. I don’t think I’m going out again. Until…you know. Until. How about you? You all right?”
“I’ll be fine,” Chogyi Jake said, looking up at me.
“But not fine yet,” I said.
“Frightened,” he said.
“You? I didn’t think you got scared,” I said, trying to make it sound like a joke.
“Everyone gets frightened,” he said. “And tired. It’s been a hard week. I can’t…”
He shook his head.
“It’s good that this will be over soon. The wards are going to fail. Soon.”
I nodded. Maybe I’d known that.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Do you think I’m doing the right thing? Or am I just going to get us all killed?”
Chogyi Jake leaned forward, stretched, and rose to his feet. The stubble on his scalp was getting longer. In the dim light, it looked like a black halo close against his temples.
“Interesting phrasing,” he said. “Do you really think that what makes an action right or wrong is how it turns out?”
“I think that’s got a lot to do with what makes it stupid or not, yes,” I said.
“Ah. That’s a different question. I thought you meant whether we were doing a good thing instead of an evil one. You mean good tactics rather than poor?”
I sighed.
“I’m not sure what I mean. Except I’m afraid of what happens if we fail out there.”
“It would be more pleasant to win. But even if we don’t, that doesn’t mean that the effort was wrong.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you are really freaking terrible at pep talks? You could just pat me on the
