Lincoln arches his brows. “The clubhouse?”
“It’s where Dad hangs in Heaven with his archangel buddies.”
“And it’s a little clubhouse.” Lincoln seems unconvinced.
“In the way that Hell is a little nasty. The formal name for the place is the Dominion Line. It makes the humans’ Hoover Dam look like a shithole.” I toss the message onto the pile. Tomorrow night feels like ages away. I’m curious about the Wheeler Institute now.
“Where’s do you store the stuff on Earth again?” I ask.
“By the right wall.”
“Cool. I’ll look for the Wheeler Institute and that area where the demon patrol disappeared in, uh…” I snap my fingers.
“Nova Scotia.”
“That’s it.”
“Sounds perfect.” Lincoln scans the pile of documents. “I’ll find the latest patrol reports.”
I speed over to the right wall while Lincoln sifts through the pile of parchment. He quickly drags off a document from near the top of the stack. “Ah, here it is.” He scans the sheet. “The patrol disappeared in Boulders Beach, Nova Scotia. Ring any bells?”
“No, but I’ll check for it.” I step over to the correct section and drag out the glass wall. All the rolled parchments are marked with hanging tags. I find the area where the tags list all the human cities and institutions in Nova Scotia. “There’s nothing here on the Wheeler Institute or Boulders Beach.”
“Maybe they were misfiled.” Lincoln pulls out wall after wall and scans the tags. Minutes tick by before he’s through. “Nothing. Not a single scroll on the Wheeler Institute or Boulders Beach.”
“Could you have missed those places?”
“No, the Earl of Striga comes in once a month. He casts spells to find any missing cities or reports. Unless Boulders Beach and the Wheeler Institute were founded in the last four weeks, then they should have been in here.”
“Oh. That sucks.” Not much else to say other than that. Someone must have gotten in here. But how? I know for a fact that Lincoln asked the Earl of Striga to cast about a dozen protection spells on this chamber. My guy doesn’t trust Acca not to snoop around. As extra security, Lincoln has a twenty-four-hour guard outside. I rub my neck, trying to think of any other reason why the documents would be gone. “You have servants who file stuff for you. Could one of them have taken things?”
“Unlikely. There are a number of serious spells here to ward against that.” Lincoln marches over to the main door and pulls it open. “Felix, how long have you been on patrol?”
I can’t see Felix. Even so, I can hear his voice echo in from the outer hallway. “All day, Your Highness.”
“And has anyone come or gone from my study?”
“Only the messengers. They came twice to deliver new parchment. I watched them each time, just as you ordered. They set the sheets on your table and left. Is there something wrong?”
“Perhaps. Send word that I want the Earl of Striga here immediately.” Lincoln starts to close the door, thinks better of it, and reopens it wide. “And Felix?”
“Yes.”
“Have the kitchens rush up something for the great scala to eat.”
Yes! I cup my hand by my mouth. “I want demon bars. Cook has promised to stock them.”
“She means pizza,” says Lincoln.
“What’s a pizza?” asks Felix.
“It’s bread, cheese, and tomato pie. And remember. Get the Earl of Striga here within two minutes.” With that, my guy closes the door, turns to me, and gives me his most winning smile. “Now, what were we discussing?”
Right.
I know what Lincoln’s trying to do here. Mister Smoothie wants to avoid the fallout from derailing my demon bar order. I level him with what I hope is a serious look. “For the record, demon bars and pizza are not equal on the snack food value pyramid.”
Lincoln tries to keep a straight face. “And who made this pyramid?”
“Me. It’s my personal pyramid of value. And by the way, who doesn’t know what a pizza is?”
“Almost everyone here. Most thrax don’t leave Antrum. They aren’t trained to be warriors, so they’ve no business going to the surface where demons are. Besides, it’s a lot of work keeping a million people cleaned, housed, and fed down here. They have other things on their minds than human food.”
“Okay, I get that. That said, we should still bring some decent snack foods and DVD players down here. Enchant them or something. Believe me, the average thrax wants television, phones, and videogames. They just don’t know it yet.”
“The average thrax…Or you?”
He has me there. “Um, yeah. It’s totally me.” Lincoln and I have agreed to split our time between realms. Right now, I’m looking at six months every year with nothing to do but read books and act royal. That sucks.
A knock sounds on the door. “Your Highness? It’s Lucas.”