‘‘Great. Well, how about—’’ Lucius broke off. ‘‘Wait. Could you draw it from memory?’’
She looked offended. ‘‘Of course. I remember this one time my brother Max—’’
‘‘Not now. Don’t care.’’ He rummaged through his horizontal filing system—aka the pile beside his desk— and came up with a piece of sketch paper and a pencil with some lead left. ‘‘Draw.’’
She hesitated and looked at him as though considering another negotiation, but whatever she saw in his face must’ve convinced her otherwise, because she took the pencil and began to sketch.
Lucius watched, his heart actually racing as the images emerged: the curve of a skull with its mouth gaping wide; three blobs stacked one atop the next with dots beside them, spelling out a date; a highly stylized jaguar with its jaws clamped around the neck of a human figure, with spurting blood that formed a waterfall leading to a round circle wreathed in flames.
No, Lucius realized. Not a circle. A planet. Earth. Or, more specifically, the end of planet Earth.
And the transition of a god to the plane of mankind.
‘‘Fuck me,’’ he said, loud enough to make Neenie jump and drop her pencil. ‘‘Don’t stop now,’’ he said, excitement riding his tone. ‘‘Keep going!’’
‘‘I can’t. That’s all I saw.’’ She looked up at him. ‘‘What does it say?’’
He shook his head. ‘‘I don’t know.’’
‘‘You’re lying.’’
‘‘Prove it.’’ He snagged the paper before she could and stuck it in his top desk drawer. ‘‘And before you make a stink about it, don’t forget you’re the one who broke your promise.’’
She lifted her chin. ‘‘I sold out. There’s a difference.’’ Unable to argue that point—and not sure why he’d want to—Lucius crossed the room and opened the door. ‘‘Whatever. Go away.’’
She paused in the doorway and turned back to stare him in the eye, and the semiteasing look fell away from her expression. ‘‘You’re defending soon. Now is
He dipped his chin. ‘‘I know.’’
But once she was gone, heading down the hall in the same direction the Dick had taken maybe ten minutes earlier, Lucius sucked in a deep breath, told himself there was nothing gained from venturing nothing, and headed for Anna’s office.
He knocked and waited for her to call, ‘‘Come on in.’’
Her eyes widened slightly when he entered—not something he would’ve picked up on if he hadn’t been looking, but did because he was. ‘‘Expecting someone else?’’
‘‘Only because you knocked,’’ she teased, but the humor didn’t reach her eyes. She started neatening up her desk, pushing the papers to one side and reshelving a couple of books in the cases to the left of the desk. ‘‘What’s up? And make it quick, because I was just headed home.’’
Which meant either she’d decided to give in to her jerk husband, or she was lying. Lucius wasn’t sure which option pissed him off more, but he throttled it down. ‘‘Never mind, then. I thought you were staying late, so I was checking to see if you wanted anything from Dirty Martin’s,’’ he said, knowing she could occasionally be bribed with a Sissy Burger and a chocolate shake.
Her expression eased. ‘‘No, thanks. I’m good.’’ She shoved a couple of folders into her soft-sided leather briefcase and stood, slinging the strap over her shoulder. ‘‘See you tomorrow, Lucius. And . . . thanks.’’
‘‘For what?’’
She squeezed his hand briefly in passing, then tugged him out into the hallway so she could shut and lock her office door. ‘‘For being you.’’
Which left him completely baffled as she marched off, her heels clicking and her long, red-highlighted dark hair swinging opposite the motion of her walk, which he was pretty sure had an added wiggle in it as she turned the corner.
Damn it, she was going home to make nice with her husband, he realized, which led to a second realization: He really would’ve preferred if she’d been lying to him. He hated thinking of her with the Dick, hated knowing she was trying to save something that everyone around her could see was fatally flawed.
‘‘Or maybe you’re the one who’s fatally flawed,’’ he said aloud when he realized he was standing in the middle of the damn hallway, staring after her with his tongue hanging out.
He turned his attention to her office door, and after a quick check up and down the hallway, gave the knob an experimental rattle.
The lock held, which was no big surprise. It was also a no-brainer that he didn’t know how to pick the damn thing. That was the sort of thing the people he read about knew how to do—it wasn’t the sort of skill that’d been easy to pick up in the ruthlessly middle-class neighborhood where he’d been raised. However, he and his sisters had been awfully good at sneaking in and out after curfew. And, if he remembered correctly, Anna had been in such a hurry to get home to the Dick that she hadn’t latched the window.
‘‘Here goes nothing.’’ He headed outside and around the building, took a quick look around to make sure nobody was watching, slid the casing up, and climbed through.
At least being a skinny, too-tall beanpole was good for something.
He landed hard in a disorganized heap, but there was nobody there to laugh, so he didn’t worry about how he looked, only that he didn’t knock anything over and break it. Then, after he’d managed to right himself, he got to work, trying to figure out where she would put something she didn’t want the casual observer to see.
No doubt she normally carried the codex fragment with her for safekeeping, but he was pretty sure she hadn’t grabbed it in the rush of hustling him out of her office. She hadn’t dared, because she’d known he would’ve asked about it.
