“The whosie-whatsie?” Kylie asked, tilting her head as if trying to hear more clearly.
“The Hierophant is the head of the Order of Eternal Darkness,” Dag said, his voice a low rumbling of distaste and anger. “He serves close at the hands of the Seven and is privy to all their schemes and strategies.”
Wynn nodded. “Not to mention being a first-rate schemer himself. He’s basically the brains behind the operation, the head of the snake. If we can find him and take him out, we might send the nocturnis scrambling long enough to gain the upper hand.”
“The Hierophant will also be close—physically close—to the place where the Demons are resting and trying to regain their strength,” Knox added. “Finding him could lead us right to the Seven.”
“So, do you think you can do that, Wile E. Koyote?” The look Wynn sent her through the camera was teasing, but earnest. “Can you do a little cybermagic and hunt down the Hierophant for us?”
Kylie lifted an eyebrow. “Are you giving me a choice here?”
“Sure. You always have a choice. This time, it’s save the world, or go down as Demon chow.” Wynn said it lightly, but her eyes weren’t laughing. She meant every word.
Kylie threw up her hands and made a sound of disgust. “Well, since you put it that way…”
Chapter Four
A yid hot ahkt un tsvantsik protsent pakhed, tsvey protsent tsuker, un zibetsik protsent khutzpe.
A Jew is twenty-eight percent fear, two percent sugar, and seventy percent chutzpah.
By the time Wynn was satisfied that Kylie had a firm grasp on the fundamentals of the situation, the night was pretty much over. Literally. The sky had begun to lighten to the dark blue-gray color that presaged the coming dawn. Luckily, Kylie knew this time of day well. In the long and dishonorable tradition of hackers and geeks everywhere, Kylie operated on a night owl’s schedule. She often slept until noon and worked until dawn. Still, this had been an unusually long night, no matter what the clock said.
She stifled a yawn as she eyed Dag, trying to decide what the heck to do with him. Wynn and Knox had made it very clear that they expected her to keep him close, but there was close and then there was in her pocket. Frankly, Kylie didn’t own pockets that big.
She did, however, own a guest room. Well, four of them, technically, but only one of them sported an actual bed. She had no idea how Dag was going to squeeze his ginormous frame onto the queen-sized mattress, but he’d have to figure that one out on his own. No way was she giving up her own bed for the gargoyle, even if it had been bigger. Luckily, she had the same size in the master bedroom.
“Come on,” she said, leading the way out of the office and up the stairs to the second floor. She opened the door to the appropriate room and gestured him inside. “Sorry about the pile of boxes, but I haven’t finished unpacking. At least there are sheets on the bed and towels in the bathroom. It’s that door in the corner. You share with the room next door, but it’s empty, so no worries. Sleep well.”
“Where will you be?”
His words caught her before she could make it back to the staircase. She turned her head just enough to toss her reply over her shoulder. “Upstairs. Also sleeping. Good night.”
Once again his footsteps were silent, at least until he hit the second step behind her. That thing squeaked when you so much as breathed on it. As soon as she heard it, she froze, then slowly spun to face him.
“Where exactly do you think you’re going, Goliath?”
Dag scowled at her, although he did it so often she was starting to think that might be his resting face. “My name is Dag, impertinent human. I am concerned that if you should cry out, you would be too far away from me to hear. How would I come to your aid should you need me?”
She pressed a hand to his chest when he made as if to step forward, then cursed at the tingle of electricity that shot through her palm. “Trust me,” she insisted, “I can be plenty loud when I need to, and if anyone shows up in my bedroom while I’m trying to get some sleep, you’re definitely getting a demonstration of that. Now, once again, good night.”
Punctuating her farewell with a gentle shove—which didn’t even rock him on his heels—Kylie turned and started back up the final flight of stairs. Every couple of steps, she glanced backward to make certain he wasn’t following, no matter what her stupid hormones had to say. To her surprise, he let her go, but he watched her until she disappeared around the newel post.
Her skin continued to tingle for much longer than that.
*