“Granted.”
“Shake on it?”
I brought my hand up and slapped it with hers in our secret handshake, which ended with us pinky promising. “Let’s get going, detective. We have a mystery to solve.”
“I do like a good mystery!”
Decimus was sitting at a table in a coffee shop near Seattle, where he sipped an iced macchiato and flipped through pages of an old textbook. Xenobia and I entered the shop and sat down as well, ordered two iced matchas, then pulled our notebooks free and set them on the table. “Decimus: good to see you,” she said in a deep, trying to be professional but failing, voice.
“You too, squirt. Don’t be so formal,” he teased Xenobia, who blazed red.
“You look… a lot different. Not quite yourself, but not, like, not yourself, ya know?”
“This form is a little different then my original body, but it does the job.” He flexed his ring covered fingers. “It needs some tattoos and piercings to match my old self.”
“And a haircut,” she pointed out.
The two shared a soft giggle before Decimus got serious. “What’s our first step here?”
I unlatched my notebook and pushed my notes towards him. “I’ve put some feelers out with Magnus and Geneva for Ambermourn’s Shadows. They can’t hide forever, and if we find them, we find Ambermourn.”
“Don’t they have designated homes in the Shadow Realm that you can bust the door in on?” Xenobia asked as she plunged her straw into her plastic cup.
I shook my head. “They’ve all but abandoned their lives for the sake of their master. Shadows do that kind of thing. They are loyal to their master above all else, even the Grim Reaper. If Ambermourn commands them to disappear, then they do it, no matter the consequences.”
“Yikes. Remind me tonotbe a Shadow Walker.”
“You’d rather be that than a demon,” Decimus snorted.
“Touché.”
I laid out a map of Earth, which had red circles decorating the surface. The two leaned in closely to see what I had been marking, their eyes scanning the piece skillfully. “One would suspect that if we find Ambermourn, we find Pandora.”
A new voice entered the space between us. “Are we so sure about that? She could have slit his throat already and moved on to a new target?”
I whipped around in surprise to find Constantine standing in the entrance to the shop. His face and body were relaxed, though he was waiting for our backlash, and rightfully so. “What are you doing here?” I demanded sternly.
“I overhead you and big mouth in the courtyard and thought I’d stick my nose into this little plan you’re devising.” He nodded to Xenobia, who shrunk in shame when I gave her the evil eye for being too loud.
“That’s nice and all, but you’re the last person we want involved in this Pandora manhunt. I don’t want you anywhere close to her.”
“Why not?”
“Cause’ you’ll probably turn on us the second you get near her,” Decimus spat.
Constantine sighed deeply and shifted to lean on his right leg. “Look, I know I did some fucked up shit, and that I chose the wrong side, but I’m with you guys on this one. Ambermourn almost destroyed the entire world in just an hour: imagine what Pandora can do with even bigger reinforcements. She’s going to completely demolish everything we worked for, and for what? To have a big flashy castle to live in? Yeah, no thanks.”
I ground my teeth loudly, but Xenobia was the one to center me. “Maybe he can be useful. You gave him his second chance after all, so let him have it.”
“You can stick him with me!” Petra entered the shop as well, swinging her arms loosely. Her oversized cardigan was perfumed by a sweet scent that filled the space between us and soothed my nerves drastically. “I can use someone on my team, especially if I have to hunt down all your old contracts. That is gonna take a Gehenna of a lot of time, and having a second hand would help tremendously.”
“It’s a thought,” Decimus said with a shrug.
I sighed deeply and brushed a hand over my face. “Fine, fine, but you better not breathe a word of this to anyone outside of this table, and so help me Gods if you try anything slick…”
He patted my back reassuringly. “I’ll behave, I promise. I’d rather be useful then cooped up all day at Odrikius.”
“Ok, so here’s where we stand.” Constantine and Petra took their seats while Decimus spun the map around so we could all see. “Nick has circled where we have old contracts still willing to help us. We can send word to each of them about out manhunt and hopefully come back with some steady leads.”
