“Yeah, so?” he asked, seeing where this was going, not liking her direction at al .
“So.” She took a deep breath, released it slowly. “Al we have to do to lose them is not have sex again.”
*
*
*
The room stank of demon. Demon and sex.
Jude Zayin stood on the landing outside the open door of Room 230, his face impassive, his neck muscles tight.
Corner room, second floor, hard to access. He’d bet Mil er had chosen it for that reason.
Slippery son of a bitch.
Automatical y, Zayin scanned the room for unpleasant surprises.
Nothing. No threats. And no quarry.
He stepped inside.
“We can clean the room for you,” said the maid—dark, F o r g o t t e n s e a 169
wide-hipped, hard-eyed—who had shown him upstairs.
“Five minutes.”
“I won’t be here that long.”
“But you paid for the room.”
So he could search it. Two beds, one barely disturbed.
The other . . . He laid his hand on the cold sheets. The other bed had been wel used.
Simon would not be pleased.
“You here alone?” the maid asked.
He glanced at her, registering the invitation in her posture and her eyes. Did she expect him to pay for more than the room? “I prefer it,” he said.
She shrugged. “Takes al kinds. Let me know if you change your mind.”
He shut her out of the room, taking note of the rune, a taw, scratched in the paint above the door. Lara’s work, he guessed. He found another written in the dirt of the window.
The wards had not been tampered with. But the demons had gained entrance anyway.
The tension in his neck spread to his shoulders.
Demons and angels were forbidden from directly interfering in earthly affairs or violating human freewil . But that wouldn’t stop the Hel spawn if the perceived payoff outweighed the risk of Heaven’s wrath. The demons were expending an unusual amount of energy on this hunt.
Which meant they already had a stake in the game.
Or a player.
He moved swiftly through the room. The demon taint was strongest in the bathroom. He touched a finger to the faucet. Stil hot.
His cel phone played two quick measures of the “Hal elujah Chorus.” Simon’s ring tone. It amused Zayin to associate Handel’s lush music with the ascetic headmaster.
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V i r g i n i a K a n t r a
He picked up the cal . “Zayin.”
Simon didn’t waste time on preliminaries. “Have you found them?”
“I found the nest. The birds have flown.”
“How long ago?”
“The clerk said they checked out before seven. Say, four hours.”
“So you failed to catch them.”
He’d been slowed by the disabled motor fleet and the burned bridge. But he would not make excuses to Simon.
“I’l find them,” he said instead.
“You must. Before he hurts her.”
Zayin surveyed the rumpled bed, the discarded condom wrappers, and resisted the urge to snort. “I doubt she’s suffering. He may even believe he is protecting her.”
“I don’t give a fuck what he believes.” The obscenity from the usual y calm and col ected headmaster made Zayin narrow his eyes. “As long as she’s with him, she’s in danger,”
Simon continued. “Is Mil er stil wearing the heth?”
“Whatever good that does.” The failure of his charm rankled. “Obviously it hasn’t stopped him.”
“But it might stil bind. Enough to save her.”
Zayin wasn’t normal y slow on the uptake, but he didn’t understand why Simon was fixating on the damn
