Roman stroked his chin. “True, true…”
“Why do you ask?”
“The prophecy. Some prophecies are distinct. This one wasn’t. The witches saw a shadow falling on the city and then there was howling. Deafening, scary howling. They aren’t sure if it’s a dog or a wolf or something else. Also they saw a spiral of clay.”
“So what does it mean?”
Roman shook his head. “No way to tell. It must’ve felt terrifying, because my mother was rattled after it.”
I had met Evdokia. Anything that managed to rattle her had to be treated as a serious threat.
“Are you free tomorrow night?” Roman asked. “I’d love your perspective on things.”
“Are you asking me on a date?” Flirting or not flirting?
Roman leaned one arm against the bookcase. “Who, me? I don’t date. I only steal virgins to sacrifice.”
Flirting. Shamelessly flirting. “Hmm, then I’m not of any interest to you. I’m not a virgin.”
He grinned. “This would be a professional meeting.”
“Aha.”
“Kompletely profeshonal,” Roman said, turning the Russian accent back on.
He was charming and funny and a bit scary, which was always a draw in my book. But every nerve in me still hurt. If there was one thing I’d learned, it was that jumping from one relationship into another was a bad idea.
Still…my life didn’t have to be tied with Raphael’s. The world wasn’t limited to one bouda jerk. Here was a guy, a funny, handsome guy, who probably thought I was hot. It could be someone like him. It could be no one, for that matter. I could be perfectly fine by myself.
“I’m investigating four shapeshifter murders,” I told him. “Have you heard anything?”
“No. But I can ask.”
“Well, see, I’m no good to you, because I’m not a virgin and you are no good to me because you know nothing about the murders. Maybe some other time?”
He reached out to me. One second his hand was empty and the next a small black card with a white phone number appeared as if by magic. “Take a card?” he asked, winking. “Come on, take one.”
“Will it sprout fangs when the magic hits?”
“You won’t find out unless you take it. Or are you chicken?”
I swiped the card. “Just a warning, if it turns into something nasty, I’ll shoot it.”
Roman laughed quietly.
“You want one of mine?”
“Five-five-five, twenty-one thirteen.”
The number to the office. He must’ve gotten it from Kate.
“Well, I’ve got to go,” I said.
Roman glanced up and said in a conspiratorial voice. “If I disappear in a dramatic pillar of black smoke, do you think the sprinklers will go off?”
I leaned over to him and kept my voice low. “Probably. But I’m willing to close my eyes for a second and pretend you did anyway.”
I closed my eyes for a long moment and when I opened them, he was gone.
When I returned to the terminal, Ascanio handed me a notepad with notes. “I found some articles. Also the volhv likes you,” he said, his gaze fixed on the screen.
“Yes, he does.” I scanned his notes. He’d made a list of the art auctions Jamar had visited.
“Does this mean you’re done with Raphael?”
I gave him my sniper stare. “If you ever want to set foot out of the office again, you will stop taking an interest in my love life. It doesn’t concern you.”
He turned to me with an expression of remorse that could’ve made the angels weep. “Yes, ma’am.”
How do you go from Baby Rory to Ascanio? To think that one day I might have kids, and given that I was half-bouda they would probably turn out just like him. The mind boggled.
“It says here Jamar bought a toilet seat for fifty thousand dollars,” Ascanio said.
I looked on the screen. “It says it’s from Amarna, from the eighteenth dynasty of ancient Egypt.”
“It’s a toilet seat,” Ascanio said.
“It’s four thousand years old.”
He looked at me, incredulous. “Some ancient Egyptians sat on it and took a dump.”
“I assume so.”
“He paid fifty thousand dollars for a used toilet seat.”
“Maybe it was gold-plated,” I told him.
“No, it says here it’s made of limestone, so if you were to use it, you’d freeze your ass off when you sat on it.”
“It’s not cold in Egypt. It’s hot. Your grasp of geography is shaky, my friend.” I sat down at a terminal next to him and typed “Jamar Groves” into the search window.
“You could buy a car for fifty thousand dollars. A really nice car.” Ascanio’s eyes lit up. “A Hummer. You could buy a converted Hummer.”
“You don’t need a Hummer,” I said.
“Chicks dig the Hummer.”
“You don’t need any chicks either.”
He gave me an injured look. “I have needs.”
“I have needs too and right now I need you to concentrate on tracking down Jamar’s antique collection. Get to it.”
We’d been in the library for three hours when the magic hit, cutting our research short. We’d identified thirty-seven items. Considering that my list of the vault’s contents included only twenty-nine, that gave us at least eight artifacts for which we couldn’t account. A knife from Crete; two necklaces from the Etruscan civilization, which was apparently some sort of pre-Roman culture in Italy; a cat-headed statue from the Kingdom of Kush; a bronze head of Sargon the Great, who was some sort of king in Akkadia; a spear from the same country; and two stone tablets with ancient Hebrew writings. None of those lit up with Christmas lights and sirens when we found them. Whether I liked it or not, it was time to quit and head home.
“That mechanic said he’d found the check from the woman he towed,” Ascanio said.
“Yes?” He was going to be my next stop.
“I can pick up that check for you,” Ascanio offered.
I eyed him. “Promise not to get yourself killed.”
“I promise.”
“And if there is any threat, you will run like a scared bunny.”
He nodded.
“Okay.” I gave him the money. “Do not kill, do not get killed, do not mess up. Go, faithful apprentice!”
He flashed me a grin and took off. Well, it would keep him out of trouble for a little while. Hopefully.
I stared at the now-dead computer terminal. Tonight Raphael and I would go to Anapa’s house.
If all went well, we wouldn’t kill each other.