“Let’s grab something to eat, then think more on this,” I suggested, a plan already taking root.
Leanne bit back a smile, and I suppressed mine. She already knew exactly how this was going down.
“I want chocolate and a pi?a colada,” Oliver announced.
“What do think this is, a resort?” I asked as we headed out of the room, the four guards at our heels.
“Hell yeah it is,” he replied. “Have you seen Andre’s bar? For a guy with a limited appetite, he comes well stocked.”
“Very well stocked,” I agreed. The innuendo just sort of slipped out. So sue me, I was damned. Hell had rubbed off on me.
“You little hussy!” Oliver squealed giving me a push. “I knew it! Hung like a horse!”
Okay, this was quickly getting out of hand.
“You can have chocolate,” I said. “We’ll see about the fruity drink.” Giving Oliver sugar was bad enough. Throwing alcohol into the mix was just asking for trouble.
I led my friends beyond the kitchen to Bishopcourt’s large pantry, the guards still trailing us. My skin brightened as I swiveled to face them. I noticed Leanne discreetly plug her ears. Oh, the perks of having a seer for a best friend. Oliver didn’t have to do anything; he could withstand my glamour since he was not of this world.
“Make yourselves discreet for the next several hours,” I commanded my guards. “If anyone asks where Leanne, Oliver and I are, tell them that Leanne’s giving Oliver a private reading, and I decided to take a shower.” It wouldn’t keep Andre away—not for long anyway—but it might allow our absence to go unnoticed.
Once I finished giving orders, my guards retreated through the kitchen. I closed the door after them, trapping us inside the pantry. I headed to the square door set into the floor.
“Illegal glamouring is awesome and all that jazz,” Oliver said as I set to work opening the hatch, “but what exactly are you doing?”
“Getting us out of here.” My skin dimmed as I spoke.
Once I’d opened the door, the three of us entered Andre’s cellar. Since I’d last been down here, someone had installed new shelves and restocked the wines. I made my way to the rack that hid the persecution tunnel. When I got to it, I—carefully—pushed it aside, revealing the dark passage beyond.
Praise Jesus for these shady passageways.
It took us about fifteen minutes to sneak off the property to the taxi waiting for us just outside the edge of Andre’s property, courtesy of Leanne’s earlier planning. It took us another fifteen minutes to make it to the nearest ley line entrance, and then an instant for us to find ourselves in an entirely new land.
I stared out at the ruins. Arid plants grew between stone slabs and craggy rocks. A chilly wind blew over us, carrying with it the distant smell of the sea.
“Where are we?” I asked Oliver.
“Ancient Troy,” a soft voice responded. I turned in time to see Jericho making his way to us, his aged body curved inwards.
As soon as I caught a whiff of his divinity, the need for violence assaulted me. I fisted my hands and fought the urge off.
“Why here?” I asked as he approached me.
“Ah, I see you assumed I called for this meeting.”
I furrowed my brows. “You mean you didn’t?”
“No, I did in fact arrange this.”
I tilted my head, thoroughly confused.
His eyes met Leanne’s, and he nodded to her. Without a word, she melted away from us, dragging a reticent Oliver along with her.
Jericho took my hand and patted it. “Assumptions, my dear, are dangerous, as you well know.”
He could say that again. The good guys wanted me dead, the bad guys wanted me safe, and the devil wasn’t nearly as ferocious as I’d always imagined him.
We began to walk, the shrubs thrusting themselves as far away from me as they could. Small plants withered beneath my feet. I locked my hands together and squeezed them to tightly leash in the urge to attack him.
“You’ll have to excuse me,” Jericho said. When I glanced over at him, he appeared chagrinned. “Now is not the time for lessons in perspective. This mind is, at times, a maze I wander through. Often I lead myself down wrong avenues.”
A shiver raced up my spine at his words. Not his mind, this mind. The form he’d taken.
“Do you have the quill with you?” I asked.
“I don’t,” he admitted.
“Then we have to get back to your store.”
“It’s not there, either, I’m afraid.”
It took me a second to process his words, and even once I did, they didn’t compute. Not really. “Then where is it?” I asked.
“Gone.”
“Gone?” I raise my eyebrows, disbelieving. I squeezed my hands harder. “Where did it go?”
He shrugged, and I didn’t know it was possible to be this angry at a divine thing.
“Jericho, I need that quill.” I was desperate, so, so desperate. I was going to lose the last of myself soon. I could feel it in my bones. Already it took most of my energy to just appear normal when a maelstrom of negative emotions swept through me.
“Another whom you trust holds it for you, but I will not tell you who.”