“When we were on our way here, I got a text saying they’d made contact with the inexperienced mage. Her mother apparently chased them away, so they were headed back to the hotel. I can send them out again, but they were up earlier than us and they aren’t spring chickens. They’re probably spent.”
“Each moment is precious. You’ll want to hurry.”
I paused with my fork nearly to my mouth. “This is a change from wanting to stall. What update did you get?”
He shook his head and looked away. “I have my assistant looking into a few matters. Vlad is on the move, though. He is leaving that Northern California town.”
“And heading where?”
“North.”
Which was our direction. That probably wasn’t good.
“There hasn’t been demon activity of the same caliber up here, though,” I said after I finished a bite. “Maybe he just wants to check up on you.”
“His physical presence isn’t required to monitor me, just as the opposite is true.” He clasped his hands on the table and looked at me steadily. “I will know more in a few hours.”
“Hopefully I’ll have a lead by them. So far this isn’t so good.” We fell into silence as I shoveled food into my mouth. I really should’ve cut the meal short, but I couldn’t tear myself away from it. It was just too good.
I could’ve done without Darius’s staring, though.
After I’d cleaned the plate, shocking the hell out of the mermaid—which I called a win, because mer-people were hard to shock—I grabbed our check and told Darius to make himself scarce so I could pay while talking to the hostess. It was a last-ditch effort before calling this place a loss and moving on.
“Hey,” I said as I stopped at the front counter where she was folding napkins. I laid the tab down and pulled out my wallet.
She glanced up. “Oh, you can pay at your table.”
“Oh shoot. That’s okay, it’s just cash. I wanted to talk to you anyway.”
There came that confusion again. You’d think I had suddenly started speaking a different language to these people.
I peeled off some bills. “You clearly know that I am magical in nature.” I said the last out of the side of my mouth. Her eyes darted deeper into the restaurant, then to the door Darius had used to make his exit. “I’m not here on vampire business. Not even remotely. He just doesn’t take a hint, like I told you earlier. But I am in town on business. You haven’t heard of anything weird going on in this town, have you? Anything that doesn’t seem right?”
Her eyes hardened and her jaw set. That was the first sign that she didn’t want to get a narc sign hung around her neck.
Which meant she knew something, just like the mermaid.
I half lifted my hands and took a step back, quickly turning the gesture into playing with my ponytail so the patrons in the restaurant didn’t read anything into it. “I totally get you not wanting to stick your neck out, but I’m not here to bring trouble to anyone who doesn’t deserve it. I’m just helping your town out, that’s all. I have no affiliations here.”
“The Magical Law Enforcement office has been asking about mages for months. They haven’t found squat.”
“Clearly they are idiots.”
“You an idiot, too?”
“So far, yes, I am. Here’s the thing—”
“No, let me give you the thing. The Mages’ Guild has a big presence here, and despite the MLE office trying to keep their investigation quiet, the guild has caught wind of it. They like to deal with problems concerning mages themselves. They don’t like outsiders in their affairs. So their response was to lean on the MLE office so the office would clam up.” She met and held my eyes. “There’s a reason it worked.”
“And has the guild sent someone to check into it?”
“Not as far as I know. But it doesn’t matter when, or if, they ever get to it. When the guild says something is off-limits, it’s off-limits or people get hurt. Do you get what I’m saying? Something about whatever is happening stinks, and it’s not a stench I want coming near me.”
“I know exactly what you’re saying, but here’s the thing. Scare tactics don’t work on me. So you just waft that stench in my direction. If those mages want to see who really sits at the top of the power pyramid, they are free to get in my way. My friends and I have been through types like them before, and we don’t mind charging through them again.”
Adrenaline pumped fire through my veins. I tried to calm down, but an issued challenge, even an indirect one, always fired me up. I continued, “In the meantime, I need to find the moron who’s skinning people and harnessing their energy to call demons. Calling demons is a no-no where I’m from. I mean, so is the skinning, but—” I shook my head at my slip-up and charged on. “I need to bring him in, and by bring him in, I really mean battle him and accidentally kill him, because that’s how it always seems to go down. So can you help me if I promise your name will never come up? Which is an assurance I can make, because I don’t even know your name—”
“Lily.”
“Oh. As in, the owner of Lily’s, which serves the best breakfast ever?” She nodded. “That’s okay, I’ll forget your name as soon as I leave. Names never stick. But I need your help. Please. I usually wouldn’t resort to begging, but if I don’t wrap this up and get out of town quickly, I’ll have to fulfill a promise to a shifter—one that concerns a vampire—and I don’t want to deal with either of those magical species any more than need be. Which up until two months ago was not at all. You can see my predicament.”
She looked at me for a moment, clearly indecisive. “Satisfy my curiosity on the deal and I’ll tell you what I know.”
Chapter Sixteen
Agnon once again forced the lesser demon back down below, taking the magical summons for itself. It materialized in the same place as before, within a blood-spattered chalk circle. The same black-robed humans encircled it, trusting their magic to contain Agnon.
“What news?” the being asked, hearing the echoes of their thoughts and picking up nothing of note.
“She is in town,” the human leader said. “A vampire shadows her. A powerful elder.”
“The vampire is nothing. Has the girl shown her power?”
“No. She’s had no reason to. She met with the human detective and checked out one of our dumping sites. They found nothing, of course. She is asking around, trying to find something to point her in our direction. I have advised my associates at the guild to allow her to continue investigating until you say otherwise.”
Anger simmered within the being, but it held its impatience in check. It still needed these ridiculous humans. They needed to run interference until the being had the answer it sought about the heir. It couldn’t risk being banished from this world until then. A knowledgeable mage could make it nearly impossible for Agnon to come back on its own, which would result in its superiors stripping away its boons. If that came to pass, it would never rise in ranking. That was unacceptable.