For a minute or two, they compared their relative expertise on things occult. I couldn’t follow much of it, but I had the impression they were each favorably impressed by the other.
“Any ideas how to beat the Invisible College?” Midian asked. Kim hesitated.
“No,” she said.
“Well, welcome to the club,” he said. “You want anything to eat? We’re pretty much down to leftovers, but I think I can make a decent omelet with what I’ve got.”
Kim considered the vampire without speaking.
“He’s really good,” I said. “Seriously.”
“Then yes,” Kim said. “That’s kind of you.”
Midian shrugged and limped back to the kitchen. I retrieved the report from my lawyer and gave it to Kim. She looked over it with a calm, practiced eye while the sound of chopping and the scent of butter wafted into the room. I turned to the subject of Coin and the still-unformed plan to separate the parasite from its host.
“There are a couple of possibilities next week,” I said. “I mean, if the projections in the report are true. There’s the doctor’s appointment on Monday, and he’s speaking at an international aid foundation meeting on Tuesday night. I’ve got a request in for an updated schedule for him, though. There may be a better opportunity.”
“The problem being that any time we plan an attack based on his established schedule, we also face his established security,” Chogyi Jake said. “It’s safe to assume that he will be protected at any of these events.”
“And the last time we went up against him, he didn’t even need that,” I said.
“Hey,” Midian shouted, “how do you feel about onions?”
“Love them,” Kim shouted back, and then turned to me. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but the failure of the previous plan was that you thought you had the element of surprise and you didn’t?”
I sat on the couch’s armrest and shrugged.
“Yeah,” I said. “You could look at it that way.”
“He knew how we were going to attack,” Chogyi Jake said. “Not that it would be rifles, but that we would draw him out from his wards and that we’d be using the Mark of Ya’la ibn Murah and the sigil of St. Francis of the Desert. And so he was warded against those specifically. The attack by Ex and Aubrey gave him a channel back to them. Jayne was only saved because she was wise enough not to pull the trigger.”
I felt a momentary stab of guilt at my failure to attack and gratitude to Chogyi Jake for putting my inaction in that light. Kim only nodded.
“Since then, they’ve been circling,” I said. “Looking for us. Midian and Chogyi can’t leave the house. It seems like I’m okay because of some old protections Eric put on me. At least that was Ex’s theory.”
“And where is Ex?” Kim asked.
“We don’t know,” I said. “He opted out.”
Midian came into the room, two plates balanced on his arm. He presented one to Kim and the other to me. The omelet smelled of onions and garlic, and it tasted like heaven. Kim took a bite, nodded her approval, and Midian accepted it with a bow before sitting down. I’d raised my fork, preparing to speak as soon as I’d finished chewing, when Eric spoke from my backpack.
I knew I was going to have to change the ringtone. I knew that it was going to be creepy for people until I did. But Kim’s reaction was still startling. Her face went white, her eyes wide. She was halfway to her feet, food forgotten, before I could stand up. She tracked me with her eyes as I crossed to the front door, dug in my pack, checked the incoming number, and answered the call.
“Candace?” I said.
“Jayne,” Candace Dorn said. “I know it’s late. Is it too late? I’m sorry I didn’t call back sooner. Aaron was working a double shift, and I wanted to talk with him about your call.”
“I completely understand,” I said.
Kim lowered herself slowly back to her seat, her head bowed. Chogyi Jake was frowning at her, and Midian’s ruined eyebrows had lifted. I wasn’t the only one to think something interesting had just happened.
“He’s here now,” Candace said. “I’ll get him.”
I had a sudden flashback to sitting at my computer talking to not-Ex.
“Candace!” I yelled. “Hold on.”
“Yes?” she said.
“If there’s someone else there…I mean if you’re being coerced in any way, say ‘Yes, it’s okay.’”
She laughed. “It’s nothing like that. God. Were you thinking it would be?”
“I’m a little jumpy,” I said. “You don’t…I mean…I’m sorry. Could you just tell me what price we agreed on for fixing your problem? Just so I know it’s you?”
“You didn’t charge me anything,” she said. Her voice was lower now. I could imagine the furrows on her brow. “Is this serious, Jayne? Should I be nervous?”
“Maybe a little,” I said.
There was a fumbling sound on the far end. Someone new came on the line.
“Jayne? This is Aaron.”
His voice was deep and masculine and made me think of recruitment ads for the Marines. I couldn’t help smiling.
“Hi, Aaron,” I said. “I’m glad to hear from you. You’re doing okay?”
“I am. Had a long day today, but if there’s something going down, I can get a cup of coffee and be anywhere you need me in about fifteen minutes.”
“Thanks. There’s nothing going on right now, but I might need a favor pretty soon here.”
“Are you safe where you are now?”
“Yes,” I said. “Safe as I would be anywhere. There’s something going on, though. Something big. If you’re around, I’d really like to talk to you about it.”
“Is it another one of those fuckers that got to me?”
“Similar idea,” I said. “Bigger scale.”
There was a pause on the line. I heard Candace’s voice in the background. Aaron grunted in a way that sounded like assent.
“Hey,” he said. “If you really don’t need me right this minute, I’m going to get some rest. I’m dead on my feet. But I’m going to give you another number. It’s my emergency line, and if anything happens, you call it.”
He rattled off the number and I wrote it on the back of some junk mail. He made me repeat it back to him to ensure I got it right.
“Now you listen to me,” Aaron said. “You saved me. You saved Candy. You ever need anything-ever-you call me. You’re family now.”
“Um,” I said, oddly touched by the ferocity in his voice. I’d only ever known the guy as a German shepherd. “Thanks. You bet. Why don’t you call me when you wake up. Maybe you guys can come over?”
“I’m already there,” he said, and we ended the call. I programmed Aaron’s emergency number into the phone and put it back in my backpack. When I got back to the couch and my cooled and thus somewhat rubbery omelet, Kim had regained her composure.
“That the other resource?” Midian asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “We did a favor for a cop. It might be useful.”
Kim nodded. Small white dots had appeared at the corners of her mouth where her lips pressed tight. I glanced at Chogyi Jake, and he gave me the smallest possible shake of the head. Don’t push her. Not now.
“Okay,” I said. “So anyway, we’ve got a couple things going for us. Aaron’s one. We have Kim now. We know where Coin’s going to be more or less, and we can get more digging done on him if we want it.”
“It’s not enough,” Midian said with a sigh. “We had Aubrey and Ex before, and me, and tofu boy here. And you. And all the juju Eric put on you. And we got dicked over.”
“Yes, but that was the point I was making before,” Kim said. “The one thing you thought you had and didn’t was surprise. They were working under the assumption that you would all be coming at him under something similar to the original plan. You did. They won. This time will be different.”
“You think so?”
“This time you actually can surprise them,” Kim said.
