was wearing. It was one of Vayl’s. Plain white cotton that made him look like a bodybuilder but hung to my knees. I’d bled al over the front of it. I checked the pil owcase. Soaked. Geez, how do you sleep through a gushing nosebleed like that?
I ignored Granny May, who was staring at me with uncharacteristic concern from behind her embroidery hoop.
Because I stil had to deal with the aftermath. Not as big a deal as you might expect, because I’d already done cleanup twice before, and I was starting to develop a process.
I showered and then spent another half hour in the tileriffic bathroom. With gal ons of cold water, a little soap, and some scrubbing, I got al the blood out. I hung everything but the pil ow over the shower’s curtain rod, and that I just set on the toilet lid. At the end of that time I final y admitted to myself that the race was on now. If I couldn’t carve Brude’s name on the gates of hel before he blew my circuits for good, it wouldn’t matter much what century Vayl thought we were living in. Because he’d be trudging through the rest of it without me.
I returned his cane to my trunk and motioned to Astral.
“Time for breakfast, girl. What do you eat, like, bolts and oil or something?” She looked up at me and blinked a couple of times. “No patience for stupid questions, huh? See, that’s why you’re a sucky pet. Now, Jack? He thinks everything I say is bril iant. You can tel by the way he wags his tail. Have I told you lately how much it bites that he’s gone? And so, pretty much, is Vayl?” I stopped, shoved my palm against my chest. Amazing how it literal y hurt from time to time. Maybe people real y could die of broken hearts.
hearts.
“But not in this getup, right, Astral?” I looked down at my sun-colored T-shirt and couldn’t help but feel cheered by the grinning superhero posing on the front, who was pretty much al straight white teeth, pointy-edged face mask, and flowing red cape. He had his hands on his hips as he gazed bravely off into the wild blue. The caption read IMAGINE WHAT I COULD DO IF MY TIGHTS WEREN’T STUCK UP MY
CRACK!
I’d found it in a package outside my door just before going downstairs and had immediately decided to change clothes. It had come with a note:
I also wore a pair of denim cutoffs that hit me just above the knee and black running shoes. I left my hair down and shoved the yel ow-framed sunglasses Cole had also bought me on top of my head for later. Grief needed a place to hide, which wasn’t a big deal now that the temperature hovered in the mid-sixties. I threw on my white jacket from yesterday, made exclusively for gun-toting babes like me.
Lined to hide the dark contours of my holster and gun, it was stil made of material that breathed like cotton. It might begin to look slightly awkward when the temperature rose to eighty-five or so. But that was where my country of origin saved me. People just seemed to accept weirdness from Americans.
Walking downstairs for the fourth day in a row didn’t feel any more habitual. I stil marveled at the exotic feel of Monique’s riad, a house so old that even the dirt lodged in the carved curlicues of the stair balusters had become valuable. While we stepped in and out of the rays of sunshine slanting through classical y arched windows, Astral played a song she’d overheard in the Djemaa el Fna the day before, one that a group of musicians with flutes, drums, and a couple of brass instruments had been belting out with more enthusiasm than talent. It felt like a fanfare as I reached the front door.
“So you know where you’re going?” I asked her. She looked up at me. I slapped my chest. “Jump up here.” She sprang into my arms. “I’m sending you to spend some time with my Spirit Guide, Raoul. Be a good girl.” She launched into a terrific cover of Cyndi Lauper’s hit
“Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” Which made walking her to the end of the block where a plane portal stood between a fruit sel er’s souk and a shoe repair shop somewhat awkward—because I had to pretend to be belting out the words as she sang, “Oh, Mother, dear, we’re not the fortunate ones. And girls, they wanna have fu-un.” By the time we were done with the song, we’d gathered a smal crowd, who clapped politely and gave me a handful of euros for our performance.
“Thanks,” I said, waving goodbye to them as they moved on down the street. I glared down at the cat. “You are a pain in the ass, you know that?” I held my finger under her nose as she opened her mouth. “Don’t. Sing. Don’t talk.
Just act like a damn cat for a second.”
I stood watching the portal, the flames that framed its rectangular entry flickering from blue to orange and back again as I waited for Raoul to open it from his side. A car slowed down and a grinning old man with hair sprouting from his ears leaned out the passenger door. “Hel o, pretty lady!”
“Get lost!” I yel ed.
The shadowed entryway swirled and then cleared. I looked straight into his penthouse, a tidy black- and-white-themed bachelor pad located high above the rooftops of Sin City. He stepped into view, his boots polished to a gleam, his trousers and jacket creased so sharply if you looked at them too long they’d give your eyebal s paper cuts. He held out his hands and I stepped forward just far enough to set Astral into them.
“She’s in a musical mood today.”
He nodded, his clear blue eyes busy taking in my T-shirt. When he laughed out loud I nearly fel off the curb.
Relaxed Raoul was a whole different guy. Like somebody you’d want to go bowling with, because between frames you knew he’d have you rol ing with stories about when he and his buddies had once hung a gigantic sign lined with old-lady bloomers from the high school roof that said NOW
