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So it was takeout or delivery again. That was probably best; I didn’t want to dig into my stockpile of guaranteed dates yet. Not until all this was over.
Before too long, Eva’s car rolled into my driveway, and she stepped into the house. The first thing I smelled was rotten ghoul. I hurried over to make sure she was okay.
“I’m fine. Prax shoved the thing back into the fridge.”
“Hi, you going to let me in?” Prax waved from the entryway.
I closed the door on him instead. “Fridge?—never mind.” I took her by the arm and led her to the stairs. “You can tell me all about it after a shower. We’re going to get you cleaned up.”
“You could let Prax in, you know. He saved me.”
I pressed my lips in a thin line. It should have been me that saved her, but I kept my mouth shut.
“I’ll let him in after you are all clean and smell like me.”
She furrowed her brows, but didn’t say anything.
I walked into the bathroom to see Prax hovering right outside the window. He waved at us, pointed to the shower, then made that same lewd finger gesture, implying that I planned on fucking Eva in the shower. He wasn’t wrong. I wanted to get my scent back on her as strongly as possible, and that was the most effective way. I hated that she didn’t smell like me anymore.
I’d never bothered to put curtains up over this window because normally no one could see through it.
“Stay right here. Whatever you do, do not invite him into the house. Unless you want him to watch me put my scent back in and all over you.”
An occupant of the house had to invite him in, and technically, Eva was now an occupant.
I returned with a spare sheet and a roll of duct tape. Soon, I had the window covered and my female naked and standing in my extra-large shower. I stripped quickly and joined her under the steady rain of warm water.
Eva was able to narrow the wizards down to the ones with blonde hair and a deep side part.
“I’m not sure how useful that is. I only caught a quick glimpse. I was too busy watching those genie things.”
“Ifrits. Djinns of fire. Yes, I had my eyes on them too. You did better than me with the wizard, and I’m the one who’s supposed to be trained for this.”
“Your attention was on the other guys since they looked the most dangerous. It’s not your fault.”
“Nah, he just sucks at his job.”
I refrained from picking Prax up and tossing him out of my house. But I had to admit that the demon was proving to be quite useful. Seth and I had sent him over to the location where the decoy locket had stopped broadcasting. He couldn’t carry anything like a camera with him, but he did come back with a very thorough description of the area, thus saving us a trip.
It was indeed over the lake. But it wasn’t in the middle of it, it was close to a marina. If the wizard was based there, it would make sense for the tracking to cut off before it could give his location away. We then had him check inside the various marina buildings, but he found nothing definitive. Whoever had been there was long gone.
“Who owns the marina?” Eva asked.
I wasn’t sure, but that was the next place I was going to look.
Chapter 19
Eva
We made it to the marina by mid-morning. Sure enough, it was open, even busy, despite the lake being mostly frozen. It was definitely not boating weather, but even in the dead of winter, a ritzy venue like this did well with special events like weddings, quinceañeras, and balls. They probably charged an arm and a leg for them.
There’d been an afternoon event there yesterday, despite it being in the middle of the week, and the place had been fully booked with guests from out of town. There had been tons of wizards here at that time yesterday, and that made narrowing down the culprit a lot harder.
The marina operator was not cooperative, citing privacy concerns for the yacht club members, and refused to answer any more questions. She kept repeatedly asking if she was under arrest, despite clearly knowing that Mateo hadn’t been sent by the police or the EA.
I tightened my coat around me against the cold as we stepped out of the main building, which housed the marina offices, a fancy banquet hall, several meeting rooms, and two floors of luxury guest suites. A cold gust of wind blew across the lake and buffeted the docks with a flurry of chunky snowflakes.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to get the police or the EA involved?” I asked as we hurried to the back of the parking lot where Mateo had parked.
