“Out. Away. Find out if anyone else, if people, if Hounds know anything.” Wow. I was not thinking straight. Really, all I wanted to do was sit down in a quite room for maybe a century. The idea of losing Davy, when I’d promised Pike I’d take care of him, and that Tomi was probably hurt, maybe dead, made me crazy.
So I did what I usually do when I’m afraid, or worried. I got angry.
“I have people to take care of, okay?” I said.
“I understand that. One of them is in there.” He pointed at the double doors that led to the emergency room.
“And the rest are out there.” I pointed at the door, and turned to storm off.
But the door had already slid aside. And through it walked the Hounds Jack and Bea and Sid.
“We heard about Davy,” Bea said, her normally smiling face worried.
“Davy wasn’t working for you, was he, Stotts?” Sid looked like the sort of guy you’d expect to program computers, not Hound. He was dressed in his usual tan slacks, button-down shirt, sensible loafers, and wire-rimmed glasses.
He was smart too. I hadn’t even thought about Stotts using Davy. Stotts was cursed. More Hounds died working for him than for anyone else in the city.
Stotts blinked once. “Yes.”
“What the hell?” I said loud enough that half the emergency room looked over at me. “You asked me to work for you. Not him. Not Davy. Didn’t I answer you fast enough? You had to go out and find someone else to kill?”
“That,” Stotts growled, “is enough. He was already working the job before you and I talked.”
I glared at him. He glared right back at me.
Sid, next to us, just sighed. “It’s done,” he said tiredly. “Neither of you have ground to fight on. Leave it be and let’s move on.”
To my surprise, Stotts backed down. “Do you know if he has family here?” He was all business and police procedure again.
Sid rubbed at the bridge of his nose, then pushed his glasses back in place.
“I don’t know much about his personal life. He never mentioned family. I always thought he lived somewhere out southeast. Thought he went to PCC. But I’m not sure about that either.”
Bea spoke up. “So, who’s taking the first shift?” she asked.
“First shift?” I said.
“Waiting to hear if Davy’s going to be okay,” she said. “I’ll stay for a while.”
Jack motioned to one of the empty chairs. “I’ve got some time,” he said. “You and I can take first shift, all right?”
Bea nodded and sat down where I’d just been sitting. Jack exchanged a look with Sid, and I remembered they had buddied for Sid’s job tonight.
“I’ll get someone else,” Sid said.
Jack nodded and settled down next to Bea, his elbows on his knees as he started a mundane conversation about what kinds of corpses she’d been sniffing lately.
“I need to know what you saw, Allie,” Stotts said.
“I didn’t see much,” I said.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Sid interrupted, “I’m going to the coffee shop in the main lobby. Anyone want anything?”
“No,” I said. “Are you staying?”
He shook his head. “Have a job in a few hours. Just a look-see at the library for some shenanigans with the books. Someone thinks a few books have had offensive passages ‘spelled’ out of them.”
“I don’t care if you’re Hounding a newborn. You need a shadow.” I hated sounding like an overprotective mother, but right now, even the library sounded like a death trap.
“I’ll get one,” Sid said. “I have the list. I’ll see who’s available and give him or her a call.”
He headed off to the coffee shop.
I told Stotts what I’d seen. Well, not all of it. I mentioned Davy, Tomi, the knife, the burned circle of ashes, and the shadowy magic. I did not tell him about the nightmare creatures loose on the street. As far as I knew, Stotts did not know about those kinds of things. About the dead walking among us, the Veiled, the Necromorph, the nightmare creatures. As far as I knew, those were the sorts of things, Death magic things, dark magic things, that the Authority worked very hard to keep out of the notice of the rest of the citizenry.
Including the secret magical police department.
Of course, I could be wrong. No one had given me a damn spreadsheet to keep all the secrets straight.
“And that’s it?” he asked as he wrote down the last of my statement on the pad he’d pulled out of his pocket.
“That’s all I remember,” I said.
“Okay.” He put the pad and pen away. “I have some things I need to take care of. Are you going to be okay here?”
“What?”
“I’m beginning to like this buddy system you have worked out. Do you want me to call someone for you? Nola, maybe?”
Wow, and how strange was that? Mr. Police Detective had Nola’s number and was looking after me like I was trying to look after my Hounds.
“Do you know where Nola is?” I asked.
“She said she was going to do some shopping, maybe catch a movie.” He glanced at his watch. “She might be at your apartment now.”
“I’ll give her a call and let her know I’m on my way home.”
“Do you need a ride?”
“No,” I said. “I got it.”
He hesitated for a second, which made sense, since I usually didn’t have a car. But he nodded. “Call me. Anytime. For anything. Okay?”
“I will.”
, I thought.
I checked with the nurse on duty but she said they didn’t have an update on Davy yet. This was where a cell phone would really come in handy. Instead I gave her my home phone number and asked her to please call me as soon as they knew anything.
Then I gave my home number to Jack and Bea and made them both write it down. When Sid came strolling back with an energy drink and two sandwiches, I told him my number too.
“I know your home number,” he said around a bite of pastrami. “We’ll call as soon as we know. And if any of us get tired sitting down here, we’ll call someone else to take over.”
“I’ll be back soon,” I said. And I planned on that being the truth. I also planned on hunting down those nightmare creatures and sending them back to wherever they came from.
And to do that, I’d need the help of Mr. Zayvion Jones.
Chapter Fourteen
So here’s something I never thought I’d see. My apartment with three people in it, laughing without my being there.
I tried to open the door, but it was locked. And I was glad about that.
I knocked. Who should open the door (after ample time to look through the peephole to see who was on the other side) but Zayvion.
