Angie picked up her staff and her cloak. Her right hand looked nearly healed, and her left hand looked less dead, though EJ noticed she didn’t grip the staff or hold the cloak with it.
EJ reached for the castanets and headsets.
“What are you doing with those?” LaFleur demanded. It was the cop asking now, not their Uncle Rick.
“Palillos,” EJ said. “Battle castanets. Headsets. Mine.”
“I know what they are,” LaFleur said. “Why are they here?”
“They slow down a demon until the demon can be collected. Sir.”
Uncle Ricky-Bo looked peeved. “Yes. Collected. As in collected in a containment vessel. Where is the vessel?” His last words were clipped and annoyed.
“We don’t have one,sir.”
Villetti said, “Angie collected the demon into an interdimensional space in her staff.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Uncle Rick said, shaking his head. “Y’all are going to be the death of me.”
For some reason, Villetti found that amusing. Maybe because that was the same phrase he used when he saw them too.
“Villetti, photograph and catalog all the items. When he’s done, take your toys and get outta here,” Rick said, “before I change my mind and haul you and your gear to PsyLED.”
Angie
I climbed into the car, turning my head to the lights across the street as EJ initiated aobfuscationworking. Hidden in magic, he took off his bloody clothes and redressed, standing in the freezing cold as if unbothered by the temperature. He had extra clothing in a vacuum-packed baggie in the glove box. Who kept vacuum-packed clothes in their car? Apparently, my baby brother.
Walter drove. The seats were heated. I debated saying what was on my mind, staring at the nighttime city, massaging my left hand.
Casually Walter asked, “Where am I driving?”
EJ moved uneasily in the passenger seat, as if he’d been caught doing something wrong. I smiled into Walter’s rearview mirror, totally unrepentant. “We’re that obvious?”
Walter said, “LaFleur knew it too, and must have approved. The wording he used was not a law enforcement command. He said, ‘You may go home.’ Not ‘You will go home and stay there.’ I assume he knew you had another stop to make, and I assumed you would take the opportunity to do ‘a little digging,’ as you often say. Since the queen has not called to order you home and back into Pecan Protocol, your bodyguard will be driving you,and keeping you out of trouble. Should that be possible.” His last words were acerbic.
EJ said. “Cennet A. Campbell-Baines, aka Chancy Bigelow, gave us a false name and involved us with internal vampire politics. We have a legal responsibility to seek her out.”
“Address,” Walter requested.
EJ touched the activation button on the system and spoke the address. The route appeared on the screen, a home on Lookout Mountain, on West Watkins Street, in a high-priced neighborhood that was part of the city’s auto-grid. Walter took a right, heading into the hills, and initiated auto-drive. Chattanooga had varying elevations, from six hundred feet above sea level to around two thousand feet. We would be climbing and, while Walter would never consider auto-drive during rush hour, it was fine in the middle of the night.
Settling deeper into the heated back seat, I asked, “What did you find at Londyn’s house? That thing you took when you got us Cokes.”
Walter swiveled his seat around, locked it in the new position, and held out his hand. On his palm was a small vial of glowing purple liquid. “It was in the refrigerator. An empty one was in the garbage can.Ican see the magic in it, so it’s…a great deal of magic.”
EJ said softly, “Handle that very gingerly, Walter. I saw things like that in the war.” He tilted his head, listening to the liquid’s magic. “If it’s what I think it is, it’s a potent working created by the Rus witches. Intel said it allowed a drinker to be temporarily possessed by a demon and yet control it for a short period of time. Averyshort period of time. Long enough to use the EEB’s power, if you’re willing to pay the price of possession. In the war, the time limit was said to be about ten minutes before the demon took over and the possessed had to be shot sothe demon could be re-collected. Our side got the working. The testing was suspended.”
“Interesting,” Walter said.
I had never heard of an elixir to control EEBs. Everharts didn’t make workings contained in fluids—elixirs. Not that we couldn’t. We just didn’t. The empty bottle in the garbage can suggested that someone had used the elixir, like the possessed muscle-bound guy in the hallway.
Moving gingerly, Walter wrapped the empty bottle and the full one in a padded cloth and tucked them into a pocket.
“Do you believe that Chancy/Cennet was involved with Londyn?” I asked.
“Unknown,” Walter said. “It’s best not to speculate, which is why the captive vampires will be sent to the queen’s people for ableed and read.”
EJ rearranged his seat and stretched out his legs as far as he could. He paused in the motion. Softly he said to Walter, “Londyn tried to kill…one of us. We’ve assumed it was me. What if it was you?”
