The Guardian remained silent on the trip back to the brownstone, but this time the quiet felt different. On the way over, it had felt as if he were trying to conserve his strength to deal with her; now it just felt like brooding.
Kylie didn’t know what he had to stew about. Not only had she totally behaved herself on their little field trip, but she thought the thumb drive currently burning a hole in her pocket had real potential to at least point them in the right direction. Once they got home, they could take a look and move forward from there. She just wished she could offer him some reassurance more convincing than, “I’ve got a feeling.” So far, he didn’t seem to find those words all that persuasive.
Maybe if she sang him the song from the Buffy musical … But no, she wasn’t that cruel, and she couldn’t carry a tune in a waterproof bucket.
In the end, she decided the only way to deal with Mr. Grumpy Pants was to just forget about it. Don’t think about him or his moods and just go on with life the way she would on any other day. Or, you know, any other day when she was hunting for the leader of an evil cult bent on bringing about the end of the world. And who hadn’t had one of those, right?
Because Kylie had a generous soul, she didn’t ignore Dag completely. In fact, when she swung by her favorite deli to pick up lunch, she even got something for him, too. Pastrami, no less. If that wasn’t the act of a selfless woman, she didn’t know what was.
She also avoided chattering at him, since he seemed to have no discernible appreciation for the art of conversation. No, he appeared more inclined to take the strong and silent thing to a new level of macho. Honestly, sometimes she wondered about the toxic effects of testosterone in the bloodstream.
When they returned to the house, she headed straight for the office, where she settled behind her desk with a fresh bottle of soda, a crisp dill pickle, and a monument to rye bread and the kosher deli tradition. Dag hovered in the doorway and scowled. It made for a change of pace from the glower.
“Do you never consume a proper meal?”
Kylie paused with half of her sandwich halfway to her mouth. “Do you never take the stick out of your butt?”
He reared back, his expression going from cloudy to tornado warning. “What are you suggesting, human?”
“It means relax, which is some advice I highly suggest you take. You look like a fault line about to crack.” She took a huge bite of meat and bread, and stared at him while she chewed.
“And you appear not to be taking our mission seriously,” he accused, dropping his own lunch beside hers. Presumably to add greater emphasis to his looming and scowling. “Do you fail to comprehend what is at stake here? Do I need to explain what will happen to you, your family, your friends, your world if the nocturnis succeed in freeing the Seven from the prisons in which they have been bound?”
Kylie washed down the pastrami with a hit of cola, her own expression turning grumpy. Not only was the Guardian a bad influence, but now he was talking down to her. She hated being talked down to. It went on the list right next to being ignored and losing.
Okay, fine, she had a pretty extensive List. Capital L.
“Look, brick boy, I comprehend everything just fine,” she snarled, leaning back in her chair, her jiggling foot going still in a sure sign of irritation. “But I also comprehend that pacing around every second of the day grumbling about what might happen isn’t a very effective strategy for stopping those things from happening. We have a plan, we have the first clue we were looking for, and we know what our end goal is. To my mind, that means the best strategy is not to get all pissy with each other, but to concentrate on the task at hand until we decide what the next task is. You think you have a better idea?”
“Yes. I will rip the heads of the nocturnis from their bodies and throw them into the fires of hell.”
“Okay, first of all, ew. And second of all, go for it, stud.” She opened her eyes wide and pressed her fingertips to her open mouth. “Oh, wait, that’s right. You can’t. Because you don’t even know where they are. Which brings us back to my point; that the best thing we can do is follow the clues that lead us in their direction. Once we find them, you can get to ripping. I’ll avert my eyes.”
Kylie watched as the gargoyle struggled with his anger, his hands balling into fists and the muscle in his jaw twitching like a Mexican jumping bean. She continued plowing through her sandwich, and her foot resumed bouncing. What could she say? She had a weakness for good pastrami.
Abruptly, Dag let out a muffled roar, flashed a bit of fang, then relaxed. “I do not like waiting,” he admitted, grabbing the white takeout bag and dropping into King David’s chair like a pouting toddler. “And inaction annoys me. To have been denied more than paltry resistance by the nocturni scum who attacked you yesterday, and then to be faced with no real target to pursue today has put me out of sorts. Without a battle before me, I am rendered useless.”