“Is there any way to track them later?”
“His cell is off. I can try to ping it. Or try to turn it back on. But if Peregrinus is in our systems, he’ll get the data and location, and know that we’re interested in it. In George.”
I glanced at the fan, sipped my tea, and thought. Eli wasn’t talking much. He was too quiet. “I called his cell earlier,” I confessed. Neither guy said anything, but I knew they were thinking that it was a stupid move. “Do we know where Peregrinus is?”
“No,” Alex said. “But we’re all in agreement that he’ll be back tonight.”
“Without his backup, since they’re all dead.”
“Except for the arcenciel,” Eli said, his tone mild.
No one answered. I sipped some more tea. Worried about Bruiser. Then I sighed. “I need to try something. Practice something.” I shrugged. “I need to enter the gray place of the change and see if I can see Soul or the hatchling. And maybe get a fix on Bruiser.”
“You can do that?” Eli asked, his voice calm, sedate, nearly toneless, the tenor that told me he was preparing for battle. I should have picked up on it already.
“I have no idea. But I think I need to try.”
“You could just text her,” he suggested, sounding quietly rational.
“This is about more than just information. If we have to fight the hatchling, and Soul shows up and takes the hatchling’s side, we might be toast. You know, since we have no idea what her powers are.”
“And if she tries to eat you while you’re in the gray place?”
“Hope she gets heartburn?”
“Not overly funny,” Eli said. “Don’t quit your day job for the comedic stage.”
“I’d need better writers. Better sidekicks too. Guys with wicked T-shirts, tights, capes, and way-cool masks.” They ignored me. I set the mug/bowl on the table and stood. “I’ll be outside for a bit.”
“I’ll keep watch,” Eli said, still not looking up from the weapons. Hands moving as fast as Beast might, he began reassembling the nine-mil. I watched as it practically flew back together with fine, delicate little clicks. He slammed the magazine home and racked the slide to load a round, removed the mag, added a final round, and slammed it home again. He stood and gestured to the windows at the side of the house.
I went through one, Eli behind me. I climbed up on the rocks at the back of the house in the rock garden that had been part of the requirements for me to come to New Orleans in the first place. I still didn’t know where Katie had gotten boulders or how much it had cost her to have them shipped in, but they were much the worse for wear, several chipped and ground down to a medium rock sand from the times I had needed mass to shift into an animal bigger than I was. Beast had stopped asking to be big so much recently, since I gained a few pounds.
I settled on the largest boulder and crossed my knees, leaning back against a smaller rock. I no longer needed to get into a lotus to enter the gray place of the change, but sitting on the rocks in that position was habit. I just closed my eyes and thought about the place I needed to be. It was inside me. I sighed and smiled. All along it had been inside me. And outside me. And probably everywhere.
I felt the energies rise and spread through and around me like a faintly tingling mist. It was cooler than the air, the darker motes of energies sharp and pinging where they touched my skin. I didn’t know if I’d need to say her name aloud or just think it. I was flying by the seat of my pants, after all, just like usual. Be sad if I really did get eaten this time.
I opened my eyes to see Eli on the side porch, his handgun in one hand and a vamp-killer-sized short sword in the other, except that the blade was all steel, no silver plating. Not for vamps. Steel for Soul. Like steel for Gee DiMercy. Who, last time I saw him, was being mesmerized by the bigger arcenciel. Interesting. Both species with an aversion to steel, both tied to the creation myth of the Cursed of Artemis. Had Artemis been an arcenciel? They had left my house together as if they’d recognized each other’s species, if not each other personally.