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“Where did that come from?” I say, nodding at the laptop.
She doesn’t look up from whatever she’s playing. It pings and pops. Plays a silly little tune.
“I don’t think she’s speaking to you at the moment,” says Vidocq in his smooth French accent.
I look at her. She doesn’t take her eyes off the screen.
“I guess not.”
I’m blistered from the explosion. I lean down and sniff the stain on the sheet. It’s a strange mild acid reek with something sweet. Maybe even a little Spiritus Dei. A complicated potion. I look at Vidocq.
“One of yours?”
He smiles and inclines his head in a little bow.
“Thanks,” I say.
“De rien.”
Vidocq is an alchemist and a thief. He’s also a hundred and fifty years old. You’d think after living in this country for a hundred years, he would have lost the accent. I don’t think he wants to. It’s all he has left of France. It’s not like he can ever go back. Where does a hundred-and-fifty-year-old thief and murderer—he killed a couple of guys way back when. Don’t worry. They deserved it—get a birth certificate? A driver’s license? A passport? Yeah, he could get fake documents like Garrett had in his room, but Vidocq is too proud for that. Unless he can go back as himself, I don’t think he’ll ever set foot in the old country again.
I glance back at Candy. She still won’t look at me. I put a finger on the top of her laptop and start to close it.
“Don’t,” she says. “I just got to this level and I’ll lose it.”
“Your computer is dead. Whose is this?”
“Mine. Samael said he’d get me a new one and he did. It’s a newer model too. Lots more memory and a faster processor. Good for games.”
I lie down on my back.
“So all in all a good day for you.”
“Shut up,” she says.
I move closer to her. Put my hand on her leg.
“This is going to happen sometimes. It’s how my life works. You can’t always come with me and I can’t dodge every bullet. Just remember that bastards tried to kill me for eleven years in Hell and almost a year up here and no one’s done it.”
She says, “That’s not true. You’ve died a couple of times.”
“Not like lying-there-getting-smelly kind of dead. Just technically dead.”
She hits the keyboard harder. She still won’t look at me. I really want one of Vidocq’s cigarettes.
“You’ve got to understand that if this is going to work between us.”
“I don’t want to,” she says.
“I don’t always either. But it’s how things are. ‘Death smiles at us all and all a man can do is smile back.’ ”
“Where did you hear that crap?”
“I read it in a book Downtown. It’s Marcus Aurelius.”
She nods.
“Quote a dead guy. Real smooth.”
