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I nodded once. “I am not a good person for him to talk to, then,” I said.
Behind me, Doc snorted, and at my feet, Taavi chuffed.
I felt heat burning the tips of my ears. “Thanks a lot, both of you,” I muttered.
* * *
Ward and Docgot busy setting up the conference table as a summoning circle, and Taavi and I—who didn’t know anything about it… well, I didn’t, anyway—watched.
“You could just engrave it or paint it or something,” I pointed out. “So you don’t have to draw it on in chalk and then worry about smudging it every time.”
Ward’s lips quirked.
“Beck may have suggested that last week,” Doc said.
“Where is Beck?” Ward was the company summoner, and Rebeckah Kwan was its very fashionable banisher.
“Florida, somewhere,” Ward answered as he drew a swirl with a piece of chalk. “Cleansing spirits out of an old hotel that somebody is renovating.”
“She and Ward have actually been pricing out oak tables,” Doc said. “The problem seems to be that they would have to get it customized, and it’s hard to find a carpenter who also has an affinity for magic—or can take really specific directions.”
I might not know how to actually make a set of summoning sigils, but I did know that fucking them up was Very Bad.
“I know a guy,” I offered. “If you don’t mind buying from out of state.”
“Does he do ritual tables?” Doc asked.
“Elliot would probably do anything you asked,” I replied. And he had one hell of an eye for detail, and—as the grandson of a medicine man—understood that you don’t embellish or fuck up sigils.
“Send me his contact info,” Ward said. “I could at least start a conversation with him.” I nodded and texted Elliot’s email to Ward.
As I slipped my phone back in my pocket, I heard Rayn’s cheerful “Hello!” slip into a squeak from the front of the office.
“That would probably be Raj,” I muttered. If Rayn was sensitive enough to pick up that Taavi wasn’t a real dog, he was probably more than sensitive enough to pick up on Raj’s power—because it was damn impressive. Elves can sense magic—not just that it’s there, but how strong it is, which is how I know that Ward is one of the most terrifying people in the city of Richmond. Don’t get me wrong, Doc is no slouch in the magical power department, either, but Ward is something else entirely. I’m regularly glad he’s on my side. Or I’m on his side.
I went out to the front to meet Raj and his medium.
Rayn’s eyes were the proverbial size of dinner plates over the top of a plain grey mask he’d put on. I wasn’t surprised that Rayn was staring at Raj. Raj is as tall as I am, at six-four, with broad shoulders, so he takes up quite a bit of space and radiates intimidation. The thing that threw me a little was that Raj was staring right back at Rayn, although I couldn’t quite tell whether his expression was fascinated or predatory.
“Raj,” I interrupted, not particularly wanting to find out the messy way if he was leaning more toward the hostile side of the scale.
He blinked rapidly, then looked at me, and I decided to ignore the faint gleam in his golden-brown eyes. “Hart.” Then he shook his head slightly, turning to the a broad-chested man of about six feet with dark hair, dark eyes, and slightly olive-toned skin beside him. “This is Ezra Getz. Ezra, this is Detective Hart.”
I held out my hand, and we shook firmly.
“Detective.”
“Mr. Getz. Mr. Campion and Dr. Manning are getting the ritual table set up in the conference room. There are donuts and coffee in the kitchen, if you’d like some before we get started.”
Ezra Getz rubbed his hands together, eyes lighting up over the top of his black mask. “Excellent. And call me Ezra, please, detective.”
I smiled politely. “Plain Hart is fine. Raj? Coffee and donuts?”
Raj turned back to me—he’d been staring at Rayn again, who was still staring right back at him. “Uh, yes, please. Lead on.”
I watched to make sure he didn’t look back over his shoulder. The last thing I needed was some weird-ass rivalry between a tiger shifter and a psychic death witch messing with this summoning.
But Raj seemed to have snapped out of whatever had caught his attention, and we headed back to the kitchen to grab donuts and coffee before heading into the conference room, where Doc and Ward were just finishing up the final chalk lines on the top of the table.
