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“You’re saying that they didn’t change their rituals because they left the museum, they left the museum because they changed their rituals?”
Doc shrugged. “Or they didn’t change their rituals, they just decided to get a bigger building.”
“But they might have done both of those things at the same time, and that would make sense?”
“They might have, yes.”
“Which means that the dog could very well have been one of their victims.”
Doc sighed. “Yes, it could. But—”
“Yeah, yeah, it also could not. I got that part.” I tapped my fingers on his desk. “But it also fuckingcould, and the timing makes sense, since they’re notinthat house anymore. But that also means that there are probably some other victimssomewherethat we aren’t going to find because I doubt they took off an entire year-plus, since your little spreadsheet suggests they didn’t let more than about a year elapse before.”
Doc sighed again. “Sadly, you’re probably right about that part. I’m not completely convinced that this most recent dog is one of them—but I also wouldn’t discount the possibility.”
“I’ve got another thing, though,” I said.
Doc raised his eyebrows.
“We know they’re going to start again. That stupid fucking email essentially says as much. And I’m betting that we didn’t get through the end of that cycle thing without someone or something or both getting killed, either.”
Doc leaned back in his chair, crossing his hands behind his head. “And the timing on that…?”
“Totally checks out with the dog in the river,” I confirmed. Raj had made me email Xipe Totec back using cryptic fed-speak, trying to get more information, but whoever they were hadn’t replied. Probably because they weren’t stupid enough to fall for that shit.
“That is not good,” Doc said, his brow furrowing in a way that would have been rather alarming if I hadn’t known him.
“Damn right,” I agreed.
He leaned forward and started typing again. “Fine. I’ll put that dog in here in a different color. What day?”
“They found it on the twenty-fourth, and it was about twenty-four hours dead.”
He typed that in. “Most rituals revolve around a calendar, but all these are just a littleoff.”
“Is the Aztec calendar the same as ours?” I asked, pretty sure the answer was ‘no,’ but my brain was working on a theory.
“No?” He frowned. “I have a sense of how magic works, which crosses cultures in terms of themagicparts, but I’m not as familiar with the rituals of Mesoamerica. The Caribbean I’ve got, but I get a bit lost on the mainland.”
“I might be able to help with that,” a familiar voice said softly from behind me, sending my pulse shooting through the ceiling.
Doc’s eyebrows rose, and then he looked over my shoulder. “Hello, Taavi. It’s nice to see you again. How are you feeling?”
I had to take a deep breath before turning around, just to steady the pounding of my heart against my ribs.
Which was really kind of stupid, because he was myboyfriend, for fuck’s sake.
When I turned, I found him standing in the doorway, his broken arm held in a sling across his chest. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a bright teal t-shirt under an open plain grey flannel shirt, and it looked way too good on him.
Taavi’s mismatched eyes flickered over me, his lips curving up in a smile before he turned his attention to Doc. “I’m okay, thanks, Mason.”
I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. Was I supposed to go over to him? Hug him? Kiss him? Or… just stand here staring like a complete doofus, which is what I ended up doing because I couldn’t decide.
“What—Why are you here?” I finally managed, then winced, because that was a deeply awkward thing to say and sounded completely assholish. The tips of my ears flushed. “Not that I’m not happy to see you,” I muttered.
The rest of my ears and part of my face caught fire when Doc let out a strangled laugh that turned into a cough.
“Fuck you, Doc.”
