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“He can hear you, why don’t you ask him?” I said.
“I tried that, and he said it was Tribunal business and he’d only speak to you directly.”
I gave a faux-helpless shrug. “Guess that’s your answer then, isn’t it?”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “What did our Tribunal have to say about your visit?” I was glad he wasn’t going to make a big deal out of Holden. Perhaps Tyler and I were making progress when it came to mutual respect.
“They told me they’ll launch an internal investigation, and they’re going to send us some wardens to help. As far as the Tribunal goes, it’s better than I was expecting.”
“I guess we can’t ask for much more. I was hoping they might give you some insight on the vampires who did this.”
“From what I gathered, they honestly didn’t know. If that’s the case, we might be in serious trouble, because it takes quite the effort to keep that level of duplicity under wraps when Big Vampire Brother is watching.” I glanced into my office then back to Tyler. “You’re not going to be happy with me in a second.”
“Oh goody.”
“I need to go back to New York a bit earlier than expected.”
If looks could kill, Tyler would have murdered me about six times before he finally asked, “And why is that?”
“He’s not just here for a friendly visit.” I pointed at Holden. “I think shit may have hit the fan in New York, and the Tribunal needs my help.”
“You haven’t even spoken to him yet, how do you know that?”
“One day, when I have time, I’ll explain cell phones to you.”
“Ha.”
“Seriously though, he wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important.”
Come to think of it, how was he here already? He would have had to have be in L.A. when he left the message in order to be in my office now.
“Secret, in case you haven’t noticed, we have something kind of important to deal with here at the moment. Shit. Fan. The whole ordeal. There is a very bad demon on the loose, and that’s sort of on us to stop.”
“I know. We’ll have the wardens to help while I’m gone, and you can use Harold too. He seems pretty keen to assist.”
“You want me to use a demon to catch a demon?”
“Sure.”
Tyler rolled his eyes. “I’m not giving him a badge.”
I broke into a wide grin and patted him on the shoulder. “You’re softening on him, aren’t you? Soon you’re going to be getting lunch together and calling each other bro and shit.”
“Get away from me before I change my mind about you going.” He swatted my hand off and headed down the hall, muttering something about demons, and I heard my name at least once.
Holden got to his feet as I entered the room and moved towards me in a gesture of embrace. I accepted the invitation, letting him fold me into a familiar hug. Holden never changed. Even though it had been five years since he had killed me and I was starting to look like the almost-thirty-year-old I was, he was still as timeless as ever.
For the first time it occurred to me that if I managed not to die a second time, there would come a day not far from now where I was going to look a lot older than Holden’s late-twenties exterior, and I would never stop getting older than him after that. Yeesh, what a downer.
I pulled back to look up at him, his unbelievably beautiful face staring down at me. He had dark-brown hair just long enough to brush his nape, and his chocolate-brown eyes showed signs of both exhaustion and amusement.
“I only got your message now,” I confessed.
“I called last night, and when I didn’t hear from you, I decided it would be smartest to come get you myself.” I wasn’t surprised he’d been able to make it to L.A. during the day. The Tribunal had special airline arrangements that let vampires travel at night and then wait on the plane in special sun-safe pods until sunset. It was incredibly expensive to move around that way, but for the first time in centuries it was giving vampires an opportunity to see the world.
In this case, it meant Holden had been able to leave New York last night and be here waiting at my office not long after dark.
I went to sit in my desk chair, and he took his own seat across from me. For a moment we just watched each other.
