“Of course it’s all right,” Patricia told him when he’d relayed the cat’s message.
“You’re relieved I have a Keeper?”
A polite response was lost in the gold-on-brown eyes. “Oh, yeah.”
Climbing up onto the streetcar, Diana felt her gaze pulled to the north. Something was…was…awareness trembled on the edge of consciousness.…
“Hey! Exact change!”
…and tumbled into the abyss.
Unrighteous anger kept her warm for a few blocks, but with the setting sun, the temperatures had plummeted. By the time she got to Yonge and Dundas, her teeth were chattering so loudly she almost couldn’t hear the security guard kicking her out of the Eaton’s Center. He walked away, scratching at a brand new case of head lice, but that was of little consequence when she was still out in the cold.
“You don’t look very happy. Maybe I can help.”
Byleth turned to find a middle-aged man standing very close. Under the edge of a sheepskin hat, his hair was graying at the temples, his smile was warm and charming, his eyes crinkled at the corners with sincere goodwill, his heart was blacker than hers.
“All right, let’s get this straight,” she snarled, tossing aside even a pretense of subtlety. “Thinking that I’m lost and alone in the big city, you’re about to get all fatherly and offer me a place to crash. Over the next little while you’ll addict me to heroin, then put me out on the street to quote, pay you back, unquote. You’ll take every cent I make and control me with physical violence.” He stepped back. She closed the distance between them. “Did I miss something?”
“I’m not…”
“You are so. But that’s not the point. The point is you’re trying to pull this bullshit on me.” Her eyes narrowed and went black from lid to lid. “I’ve had a really bad day. I mean, like really bad. I’m not even supposed to have genitalia!”
“I…”
“You can take a walk in traffic, asshole!”
Emergency crews were scraping him out from under the streetcar when she realized she could have handled that better. She couldn’t feel her feet, every muscle in her body had clenched tight, she couldn’t seem to get her shoulders to come down from around her ears, and her stomach felt like it was lying along her spine. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Next time wait until he’s got you inside the apartment! A quick examination of the gathered crowd suggested there wouldn’t be a next time any time soon. “Isn’t that always the way,” she muttered miserably, “never a pimp around when you need one.”
Manifesting the dark powers left her feeling wrung out and weak—it shouldn’t have, but she couldn’t manage enough energy to care.
“Hey, you look like you could use a place to stay.”
“Well, duh.” Turning, she came face-to-face with…“Oh, great. A God-pimp.”
Leslie/Deter’s lip curled. Pretty much all his understanding and patience had been used up earlier in the day when he’d gotten physical with his so-called friends. “Fine. Stay outside and freeze, then.”
Since that was beginning to seem highly likely, Byleth grabbed his arm as he started to walk away. “You’re supposed to be nicer than that. I’m not, but you’re one of the good guys.” When he continued to look annoyed, she sighed. “All right, I shouldn’t have called you that. I’m so…sorry.”
Harry Porter had been right. It did get easier. The implications made her knees buckle.
Leslie/Deter caught her, apologizing profusely in turn, and walked her toward the mission, explaining that after the meal they’d be hearing the word of God.
“Which word?”
“What?”
“Where I come from, we get a kick out of hearing the old guy try and say aluminum.…”
ELEVEN
THE PHONE WAS RINGING when Nalo got back to her apartment. The strident and slightly superior tone suggested she’d best hurry and pick up, or the next call would happen at a considerably more inconvenient time. So there. Some of the older Keepers had a theory that the entire telephone system had been touched by darkness just before the invention of call waiting and had grown increasingly corrupted ever since.
Kicking off her boots before she hit the carpet, she lifted the receiver and snarled, “I am not interested in changing my long distance service provider, but I will change you into something unpleasant unless you leave me the hell alone.”
“Nalo?”
“Oh. Claire.” Turning on the table light, she dropped onto the sofa. “Well, wasn’t that a waste of a bad mood. What’s up?”
On the other end of the line, Claire took a deep breath. “We’ve got trouble.”
“Out there in River City.”
There was cognitive pause, then: “What?”
Swinging her feet up onto the coffee table, Nalo sighed. “Never mind. And while I feel for your trouble, it can’t possibly top what I’ve got going on right here.”
“There’s a demon loose.”
“And then again…” The older Keeper stared down at the black glitter dusting her fingertips. “I closed a couple of holes it opened today.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. It seems to be starting small—a little vandalism, a little urban renewal…”
“Urban renewal?”
“It convinced a pimp to walk under a streetcar. Hard on the driver but no loss to the city. There’ll be cascading holes from the witnesses still to track down but, around here at least, it’s been a low-key embodiment of darkness.”
“That’s a relief.”
“And a bit of a surprise.”
“Yeah, well, there’s more.”
“You mean the way we can’t track it down because there’s also an angel walking around big as life and twice as shiny?”
“How did you…?”
“Know that? Well, I’d have to say that a piece of darkness walking around without any of us the wiser was the first clue, but I also ran into your sister today.…”
“Why would Diana hide the angel from another Keeper?”
“Why would Diana turn the vacuum cleaner hose into kudzu?” Austin snorted, kneading a pillow into shape. “Why does Diana do anything?”
“Because she’s a pain in the ass?”
“That would be my guess,” the cat agreed.
“Maybe she’s embarrassed about her part in his creation,” Dean offered.
“I don’t
