Invisible College.”
“Cheerful thought,” Kim said, and the pilot waved us over.
They strapped me in first, wide canvas bands with industrial steel buckles cinching me in against the aluminum frame. A fiberglass pod closed over me like a coffin; a small clear space let me look out and up at the swimming stars overhead. The pilot climbed into the cockpit and started up the engines. I could feel it through the frame of the helicopter when his companion closed the pod on Kim’s side. The engine whined, and the rotors began to turn. The noise was so overwhelming it was like silence.
Like a balloon with its string cut, we rose into the sky.
Nineteen
Where’s the minivan?” Midian said.
“We lost it,” I said.
“You
The taxi was pulling away from the curb. I closed the door and put my backpack on the coat hanger. The house smelled like old laundry and popcorn. Kim stared at Midian and then, shaking her head, excused herself and headed down the hall toward the bathroom.
“How do you lose a minivan?” Midian said as I walked into the living room.
“There we were running down the highway, and I said ‘Holy shit, Kim, I think I know why we’re getting so tired.’ Look, if it’s important, I’ll buy us another one.”
Chogyi Jake emerged from the back. It might only have been that I’d been out in the world or that I was still coming off the adrenaline overload of my time in the hospital, but I thought he looked worse than when I’d left. The strain of holding up Eric’s protections was showing in his face. I remembered a news program I’d seen when I was a kid with men in yellow rain slickers piling sandbags against a flood. They’d had the same exhausted eyes.
“I was starting to get worried,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said. “So was I. It’s okay, though. We’re here.”
“What happened?”
It was easier for me to retell the story to Chogyi Jake than to Midian. He listened intently and without comment. I left out how Kim had insisted on going and that I’d caved, making it sound instead like it had been a mutual lousy decision. I also skipped the part where she told me she was still in love with Aubrey. Kim came back into the room about the time I got to the part where the helicopter landed at the airport and the two of us went to look for a taxi. I saw her glance at Midian, her face perfect for the poker table.
“You don’t get to go out without a chaperone anymore,” Midian said.
“Bite me,” I said, and he grinned as if it was a joke. I only figured out what was funny about it after the fact.
“Kim,” Chogyi Jake said. “I’m glad to meet you. I think we all owe you a debt.”
“Kind of you to say so,” Kim said.
“You know about riders?” Midian asked.
“I’m not an expert, but yes,” she said. “I worked with Eric and Aubrey when I was still living in Denver.”
For a minute or two, they compared their relative expertise on things occult. I couldn’t follow much of it, but I had the impression they were each favorably impressed by the other.
“Any ideas how to beat the Invisible College?” Midian asked. Kim hesitated.
“No,” she said.
“Well, welcome to the club,” he said. “You want anything to eat? We’re pretty much down to leftovers, but I think I can make a decent omelet with what I’ve got.”
Kim considered the vampire without speaking.
“He’s really good,” I said. “Seriously.”
“Then yes,” Kim said. “That’s kind of you.”
Midian shrugged and limped back to the kitchen. I retrieved the report from my lawyer and gave it to Kim. She looked over it with a calm, practiced eye while the sound of chopping and the scent of butter wafted into the room. I turned to the subject of Coin and the still-unformed plan to separate the parasite from its host.
“There are a couple of possibilities next week,” I said. “I mean, if the projections in the report are true. There’s the doctor’s appointment on Monday, and he’s speaking at an international aid foundation meeting on Tuesday night. I’ve got a request in for an updated schedule for him, though. There may be a better opportunity.”
“The problem being that any time we plan an attack based on his established schedule, we also face his established security,” Chogyi Jake said. “It’s safe to assume that he will be protected at any of these events.”
“And the last time we went up against him, he didn’t even need that,” I said.
“Hey,” Midian shouted, “how do you feel about onions?”
“Love them,” Kim shouted back, and then turned to me. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but the failure of the previous plan was that you thought you had the element of surprise and you didn’t?”
I sat on the couch’s armrest and shrugged.
“Yeah,” I said. “You could look at it that way.”
“He knew how we were going to attack,” Chogyi Jake said. “Not that it would be rifles, but that we would draw him out from his wards and that we’d be using the Mark of Ya’la ibn Murah and the sigil of St. Francis of the Desert. And so he was warded against those specifically. The attack by Ex and Aubrey gave him a channel back to them. Jayne was only saved because she was wise enough not to pull the trigger.”
I felt a momentary stab of guilt at my failure to attack and gratitude to Chogyi Jake for putting my inaction in that light. Kim only nodded.
“Since then, they’ve been circling,” I said. “Looking for us. Midian and Chogyi can’t leave the house. It seems like I’m okay because of some old protections Eric put on me. At least that was Ex’s theory.”
“And where is Ex?” Kim asked.
“We don’t know,” I said. “He opted out.”
Midian came into the room, two plates balanced on his arm. He presented one to Kim and the other to me. The omelet smelled of onions and garlic, and it tasted like heaven. Kim took a bite, nodded her approval, and Midian accepted it with a bow before sitting down. I’d raised my fork, preparing to speak as soon as I’d finished chewing, when Eric spoke from my backpack.
I knew I was going to have to change the ringtone. I knew that it was going to be creepy for people until I did. But Kim’s reaction was still startling. Her face went white, her eyes wide. She was halfway to her feet, food forgotten, before I could stand up. She tracked me with her eyes as I crossed to the front door, dug in my pack, checked the incoming number, and answered the call.
“Candace?” I said.
“Jayne,” Candace Dorn said. “I know it’s late. Is it too late? I’m sorry I didn’t call back sooner. Aaron was working a double shift, and I wanted to talk with him about your call.”
“I completely understand,” I said.
Kim lowered herself slowly back to her seat, her head bowed. Chogyi Jake was frowning at her, and Midian’s ruined eyebrows had lifted. I wasn’t the only one to think something interesting had just happened.
“He’s here now,” Candace said. “I’ll get him.”
I had a sudden flashback to sitting at my computer talking to not-Ex.
“Candace!” I yelled. “Hold on.”
“Yes?” she said.
“If there’s someone else there…I mean if you’re being coerced in any way, say ‘Yes, it’s okay.’”
She laughed. “It’s nothing like that. God. Were you thinking it would be?”
“I’m a little jumpy,” I said. “You don’t…I mean…I’m sorry. Could you just tell me what price we agreed on for fixing your problem? Just so I know it’s you?”
“You didn’t charge me anything,” she said. Her voice was lower now. I could imagine the furrows on her brow.
