“This way.”
The inside of the Amber Badger resembled a medieval tavern, with stone walls, scrubbed wooden floors, pendants on the walls, and sturdy wooden tables. It was half-empty, and I had no trouble spotting Nick and three knights at a table near the far wall. Nick’s face had that detached cold look he got just before his sword came out of its sheath. The other three, two men, one dark-skinned in his forties, one white and slightly younger, and a Hispanic woman about my age, held themselves with the ease of seasoned fighters. Not relaxed but not tense either. A half-full platter of pretzels with cheese and beer sauce rested on the table. Oh good, they were still on appetizers. They wouldn’t fire him until the main course.
I marched straight to the table.
Nick raised his head and saw me. His eyes widened.
I came to a stop by the table. “Knight-protector.”
“Yes?”
The three other knights stared at me.
“Can I steal a moment of your time?”
Nick appeared to waver.
Say yes. Say yes, you moron. I am trying to demonstrate rapport here.
“Sure,” he said.
“Oh good. Let me grab a chair.” I handed Conlan to Nick.
He took the baby and held him very carefully. Perhaps he was worried Conlan would explode.
“Can this wait?” the female knight asked.
“No,” Nick told her.
“Baddaa!” Conlan told him.
Nick picked up a pretzel and offered it to my son. Conlan grabbed it and stuck it in his mouth. I pulled up a chair and sat down.
“What is it?” Nick asked.
“Am I interrupting something important?”
“Yes.”
“Good. If you returned my phone calls, I wouldn’t have to hunt you down all over the city. A bit of professionalism, Nick. That’s all I’m asking.”
He leaned forward. “Oh, professionalism.”
“Mm-hm.”
“I’m supposed to offer a professional response to ‘Call me, you stubborn dickhead.’”
“Nick! Earmuffs.”
Nick clamped his hands over Conlan’s ears. “Sorry.”
“You are a dickhead. You know I wouldn’t call unless it was urgent.” At least I knew he checked his messages.
Conlan squirmed.
“What is this about?” Nick growled.
“Someone cleared out Serenbe. They went through, shot all of the dogs with sniper precision, rounded up approximately two hundred people, boiled them to extract the bones, and dumped the remains by the old Walmart distribution center.”
The table suddenly went quiet. Nick dropped his hands from Conlan’s ears.
“When?”
“The disappearance was discovered last Sunday. I found out yesterday, when we found the mass grave.”
“Who’s on it?”
“Biohazard and Teddy Jo. One of his faithful died and is now in that sludge.”
“Is it Roland?”
I shook my head. “It didn’t feel like him.”
Conlan must’ve decided that Nick needed cheering up, because he took his soggy pretzel out of his mouth and tried to feed it to the knight-protector. Nick gently guided the pretzel away from his lips.
“It was done with skill and precision. No survivors. Almost no evidence.”
“You think there will be a repeat performance.”
“It’s a safe bet.”
“Okay,” he said. “Who’s got it at Biohazard?”
“Luther. I called it in.”
“Something of this magnitude, he’ll bring in the GBI. He’ll probably go to Garcia. She owes me a favor. I’ll call her, see if they’ll bring us in on it.”
“It would help.” I took Conlan from him. “Say bye to Uncle Stupidhead.”
Conlan waved his hand. “Bye-bye.”
“Bye-bye!” Nick waved back.
I got up to leave. “Thank you for letting me interrupt your important lunch. You’re not planning on taking off somewhere with your friends, are you?”
“No,” Nick said, his face made of stone.
“Good, because the city needs you, and you don’t have a costume, so sending bat signals with floodlights is right out.”
I offered everyone a big smile. There. All professional.
“Mrs. Lennart,” the dark-skinned knight said. “I’m Knight-abettor Norwood. I would like to visit you at a later date.”
I glanced at Nick. “Who are the Holy Trinity?”
“They’re from out of town,” he said.
I shrugged. “You’re welcome to come by. Nick knows where to find me.”
“You seem ordinary,” the female knight said.
“Good.”
“I could kill you right now,” she stated.
I rolled my eyes, turned, and walked out.
* * *
? ? ?
I DROVE BY Cutting Edge to check my messages. When I pulled into the parking lot, a courier was sitting on my doorstep. She was about twelve, short, Latina, and armed with a shotgun. She stuffed a big yellow envelope with a Biohazard stamp in the corner into my hands, had me sign the receipt, and took off on her bicycle without a word. The envelope contained several typed pages with the analysis and brief write-up of the scene at Serenbe and a twelve-page list of names, one per line. The dead.
I glanced through the report. They m-scanned the houses in Serenbe. Blue across the board.
I brought Conlan in, checked my messages, which were nonexistent, grabbed the case file Derek and I had put together yesterday, loaded Conlan back into the car seat, took my paperwork with me, and drove home. I could just as well work from the house, and at least at home I had toys and a familiar environment to back me up.
Two point five seconds after being put into the car seat, my son started screaming. We didn’t even make it out of the parking lot. I got out and checked the car seat for hidden dangers. The seat was fine. Conlan was also fine, despite all of the squirming and pulling on the car seat belt. I offered him a sippy cup with juice, and he threw it on the floor.
“Oh no, is it tantrum time?”
It was definitely tantrum time, complete with wailing and real tears. I kissed him on the forehead. “I love you. We have to go home. I can’t hold you right now, but you’re safe.”
Conlan shrieked. I got back into the driver’s seat and headed home. I couldn’t really complain. Conlan rarely cried, but once in a while he pitched a fit, usually because he was tired and didn’t want to fall asleep. He was a baby and babies threw tantrums, because life was hard and not fair and their wishes were rarely taken into account.
The real question was, how long would it take him to figure out how to unbuckle himself? That day was coming, and then we would be in real trouble.
I missed Curran. I wanted him to come home. This whole thing was deeply disturbing, and it felt like a part of me had gone missing. I wanted him back, and I wanted us to all be together.
About fifteen minutes into the drive, Conlan gave up singing the sad song of his people and fell asleep.
The Serenbe nightmare bothered me. Two hundred people, families, children . . . That wasn’t just murder; it was an atrocity. I would’ve liked to think only something inhuman was capable of it, but the entire history of humanity proved me otherwise. All of the magic scans pointed to human magic. Was it some sort of massive human sacrifice? If it was, what the hell were they summoning with it?
Whatever it was, I would find it and kill it. And then I would find the ones responsible and make them regret not dying with it.