'Do you mean will I be shot at again by murderous villains who wish to steal my statue?' I risked a quick peek at him. His eyes were clouded and dark. I shrugged. 'No idea, but now that I'm Miss Immortality 2006, it doesn't really matter, does it?'
'Sam—'
'I'll be fine,' I said quickly, not wanting him to say anything that might set me off again. 'Go do your stuff. I'll take the statue to Jake and see what he has to say about it.'
'What would you like us to do?' Clare asked, waving her hands toward the desk. 'Shall we compile a list of historic tombs in Scotland?'
'That would be helpful, although I'd suggest starting with this area first. If Owen Race does, in fact, have the Jilin God, it would likely be somewhere near his house, wouldn't you think?'
'We'll look up the history on his house and family,' Clare said, hurrying over to her computer, snatching up a tulip as an elevenses snack.
'Great, then everyone's got a job,' I said, packing the statue up in its box and stuffing it into my oversized bag. 'We can meet back here for dinner, if you all like. Hopefully I'll have information about this statue so that we can figure out who wants it, and why.'
The soft brush of his voice in my mind almost brought me to my knees. I stiffened both them and my resolve, snatching up my coat and bag as I headed for the door. 'See you all later.'
Paen's voice was soft in my head, filled with regret.
I didn't answer him. There was nothing to say. Well, nothing he wanted to hear. On the bus to the Diviners' House, I thought of quite a few things I'd like to say to him, but my pride kept me from saying them.
'You've been dumped before,' I told myself as I got off the bus and started off the three blocks to my destination. 'It stings for a bit, then goes away.'
'Rather like the bite of an annoying insect?' a man asked from behind me. Cold seeped into my skin, leaching all heat from my body.
I spun around and found myself facing the man who had tried to murder Clare and Paen, the same man who shot me, rifled Paen's desk, and menaced me so greatly that even seeing him in broad daylight on a busy Edinburgh street left me chilled and shaken. It was Pilar, and not even the sight of Beppo in cute pinstriped overalls could dilute the sensations of power and menace that rolled off the man. 'You're Pilar, aren't you? What do you want with me?'
The man smiled. 'In general, or at this moment?'
'Let's start with what you're doing now,' I said, backing up a step.
His smile deepened. 'You will come with me now.'
'What do I look like, the world's stupidest person?' I asked, trying to bravado my way out of the situation. He reached for me, but I backed away, toward the road. 'You think I'm going to go meekly with you so you can shoot me again? Think again.'
'Mr. Green wishes to see you,' Pilar said, gesturing with one hand. He must have had a taxi waiting, because one obediently pulled up directly behind me.
Beppo watched it all from his perch on Pilar's shoulder, his tail wrapped securely around the man's throat.
'Caspar Green? You know him?' I said, instinctively reaching out my mind for Paen. I stopped just before the words formed, flinching at the pain the action caused. It felt so wrong to not share something with him, but he'd made it perfectly clear that ours was a casual relationship at best. I was completely on my own—not a hideously comforting thought.
'He wishes to see you,' Pilar said again, opening the door to the taxi, making like he was going to shove me in. I had a moment in which I could have resisted him and made an escape, but in the end, I allowed him to have his way. My curiosity got the better of me, and I figured so long as we were in a public venue, I'd be safe from any attempts he made on my life.
Public like a parking lot? my inner self asked. 'Fine, but just so you know, I'm armed,' I said, clutching my purse in a manner I hoped indicated some serious firepower.
He merely pulled back one side of his coat to reveal a smaller version of the crossbow he shot me with, and gave me a sardonic smile.
'You didn't have much luck with that earlier.' I ignored the faint pull of pain in my shoulder. 'Both Paen and I are still alive and kicking.'
'I don't know what you're talking about,' Pilar said, his eyes flat and black with denial.
I gawked at him for a moment, glancing at the cab-driver before saying in a low voice, 'You're not going to try to make me believe you didn't shoot me a few hours ago, right? Not to mention shoot a few holes into my cousin a day ago? Because there's no way I'm going to believe it wasn't you who shot Clare—not that many people walk around Edinburgh with a spider monkey on their shoulder—and I know you were on the other end of that crossbow earlier today.'
'You must have me confused with someone else,' was all he said, and sat back, refusing to answer any of the other questions I pelted him with on the ride to Cockburn Street. Beppo tried to make friends with me, but I was too upset and confused to do more than shake his hand when he offered it to me.
Pilar was all but glued to my side as we walked upstairs to apartment 12-C, the building as elegantly quiet as I remembered from my previous visit. The cold that seeped from him was so great, however, I made sure to put as much distance as possible between us.
Caspar opened the door with the same polite smile he had when I last left him. 'Good afternoon, Miss Cosse. How nice to see you again.'
'Thanks,' I said, entering the apartment when he waved me in, Pilar and Beppo hot on my heels. 'If it's not too rude of me to ask, why are you trying to have my cousin and a friend killed?'
Caspar looked genuinely astonished, I'll give him that. Either he was a hell of an actor, or he hadn't asked Pilar to shoot Clare and Paen full of holes. For a brief moment I wondered if I'd seen my attacker correctly, but one glance at Pilar reaffirmed that he was the man I'd recently stared down at the other end of a crossbow.
'Miss Cosse, I must humbly beg your indulgence. Am I to understand there has been a murder attempt on your life?' Caspar asked, taking my coat.
'Um… yeah. Something like that,' I said, deciding not to say anything about Pilar. If he was acting on Caspar's request, then I wouldn't be telling him anything new. And if Pilar wasn't working with Caspar… well, that meant he had his own purpose in wanting us dead, and I'd have to find out just what that was. 'I had no idea you and Pilar were…
Caspar ignored the slight emphasis. 'Ah, yes, Pilar and I go back many years. I've found it beneficial to employ him from time to time.'
'Do you always hire someone to bring people to see you? I'd think a simple phone call and invitation would be less of a drain on the old expense sheet.' I took the seat he indicated. The room was just as sunny as it had been earlier, but something in it was still rubbing my warning system the wrong way.
'Indeed, no. But I thought it expedient to have Pilar bring you himself. I know you are a busy woman, and what I have to say to you is of the utmost importance.'
'Shoot,' I said, then flinched. Pilar smiled a particularly unpleasant smile. The temperature in the room dropped a good ten degrees as he took a seat on a chair against the wall. Beppo jumped off onto a bookcase, and started examining a leafy spider fern. I pulled my eyes from the two of them to the pleasantly smiling man who was busy at a sideboard. 'Er… go ahead.'
'Might I offer you an aperitif first? Sherry?'
'That would be lovely,' I said, matching his polite tone despite the fact that I'd more or less been hustled there by a murderous hired thug.
He handed me a tiny glass containing a few sips of dark sherry. 'You're a plain-speaking woman, Miss Cosse. I like that. A toast to plain speaking and congenial understanding.'
I clinked my glass against his, taking a sip of the sherry. I'm not a big sherry drinker, but this stuff was downright nasty. I wondered for a moment if it could have been drugged, then put that wild thought down to having watched too many old black and white movies.
