“What the hell are you doing out there?”
I bristled at his tone. “We were just shopping.”
“Shopping?”
“Patti spent a ton of money. It was awesome.” I giggled and Patti popped my leg.
Dad growled something incoherent, then said, “Well, hurry up. I’m at your place.”
Yes! News! I smiled, part smug that he’d have to wait on me for once.
“Tell him to hold his horses,” Patti said. “We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
When we got to the apartment, I stopped in the doorway, surprised to see someone standing at Dad’s side.
“Kope!” I hadn’t meant to sprint across the small room to hug him around the neck, but I did. Had he always been this tall? I felt his frame rumble with light laughter. He pulled away from the embrace first, giving me a shy grin that showed off the single dimple in his cheek. The black badge of Wrath rested at his sternum.
Kope had never seemed very young to begin with. Too much wisdom lived in those hazel eyes. But he looked even more mature these days with a bit of facial hair on his chin. His black hair was trimmed really short, and his coffee skin was as smooth as ever. He met my gaze full-on and I couldn’t stop smiling. Seeing one of my Neph friends after all this time was empowering.
“You are looking well, Anna,” he said. He didn’t often use contractions, but the end sounds of some words were clipped off and smoothed together in a languid, slippery sort of way, like verbal cursive.
“Thanks, Kope,” I told him. “So are you.”
I turned my attention to Dad.
“So? What are we doing? Where are we going?”
His chuckle was dry, and he reached up to scratch his cheek.
“I’m sorry,” I said, remembering my manners. “You guys sit down and then we can talk.”
I went into the kitchen, where Patti was already filling four tall glasses with iced tea. The guys took seats around our small dining table.
Dad pulled a large manila envelope from his jacket and opened it, setting a few pictures facedown, as Patti and I sat across from them.
“It’s still important to keep a low profile after that bout of interest in you, but I think it’s safe to move forward. It’ll be best not to give you all the details about my intel, but I have several trusted humans and spirits who have been gathering information about Neph worldwide. This is the first one I can say for certain does not have a heart for her father’s work and may be willing to help us.”
I smiled and bit my lip, excited and anxious. He flipped over a picture, showing an Arab girl in full garb with a head covering. Only an oval of her olive-toned face showed. In the next picture she was crouching in front of a child with a skinned knee who had fallen. It was obvious she was going to help him, but the picture had been taken at the perfect moment to capture her eyes giving the area a stealthy scan, as if making certain her act of kindness would not be witnessed.
“Her name is Zania,” Dad explained. “She lives in Damascus, Syria, with her father, Sonellion, the Duke of Hatred.” A chill shot up my spine at the name of her father. “They moved to Syria two years ago from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Syria’s had some civil unrest, but the area she lives in is still safe for the most part.”
“How long has Duke Sonellion been in the Middle East?” I asked.
Dad paused. “Going on thirty years, so his term’s about up. Being the epicenter of three major religions means tensions are already running high. Makes easy work for Dukes.”
“Have you worked out there?” Patti asked him.
“Not permanently. Only odd jobs here and there. They call me the traveling Duke.”
“Sounds like a bad country song,” I said.
He frowned when Patti giggled, and the corner of Kope’s mouth twitched.
“Just teasing,” I said, biting my lip.
He glared at me, but his eyes held way too much affection to pull it off.
“All right. Enough chitchat,” he said. “Back to business.”
We leaned in as he laid out a small map of the Middle East and pointed to the country of Syria on the Mediterranean Sea. “She recently turned twenty-five, and I believe they left Saudi Arabia when her identity was leaked as one of the girls in an illegal photo shoot. I have two of the less racy pictures here. Apparently they sparked a national outrage.” He flipped over a picture, which at first glance seemed innocent enough. And then I really looked and thought about them in context of the culture. In the first photo, taken in a nondescript room, she was completely draped in the traditional black burka, head and face covered with a thin slat for her eyes. But in one hand she pulled up the garment to reveal her knees, slim brown calves, and slender feet in black high heels. Her eyes glittered with rebellion.