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Jem had lost the paracord and the antenna in the fall. He glanced around, settled on the clock radio and yanked its plug from the wall.
Pretty Boy pressed North back until the bigger man was cornered. The pillow sagged between his hands, most of the stuffing gone—feathers drifting on invisible currents as they settled on the dresser, the desk, the bed.
Raising the clock radio, Jem slid across the corner of the mattress, picking up a few feathers of his own along the way. He landed easily on his feet, came up behind Pretty Boy, and slammed the clock radio into the side of his head.
Pretty Boy stumbled back with a shout, and Jem caught his arm. He slammed it against the desk twice before Pretty Boy’s fingers sprang open and the gravity knife fell. When Pretty Boy thrashed, Jem let him go.
The four men clustered at the doorway—Goatee, whose nose was a swollen bloody traffic light, was supporting Dad Haircut, who was hopping on his good leg and moaning; Slick-Back cradled his broken hand; and finally Pretty Boy, who probed his puffy ear, his shoulders hunched.
Jem waited for some classic bad guy stuff, but the four men shuffled out of the room, and then it was over.
North threw the pillow aside and turned to Shaw, asking questions in a low voice. Jem barely noticed; he was moving toward Tean, already hearing himself forming their private versions of the same inquiries.
“I’m fine,” Tean said, catching his hand. “Are you—”
Jem rubbed his chest. “Surprised me is all.”
“Oh my gosh,” Tean said, pulling Jem into an embrace. “You could have been killed.”
“It wasn’t a magic spell,” North said. “It was a fucking pillow, and would it have killed you to do something besides stand there and watch?”
“I was being a bodyguard,” Shaw said. “Like Whitney Houston.”
“No, she wasn’t the bodyguard—” Jem began.
“Don’t,” North snapped at him. “For fuck’s sake, is everyone in the universe determined to give him exactly what he wants?”
Shaw beamed and opened his mouth.
Before he could say whatever he had planned, though, voices came from the hall.
“We need to go back to the lobby and call the police,” a man said.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” another man said.
“I don’t care if you think it’s necessary, Emery. Somebody beat the shit out of those guys, and I don’t want Auggie wandering around up here—Auggie, come on.”
A third man said, “Ree, maybe he’s right.”
“No. If I have to hear one more time about this disappearing vet, I’m going to shove a pencil in my ear.”
“You have got to be fucking kidding me,” North said in an underbreath, and he pulled out the desk chair and dropped into it.
Shaw was actually quivering with excitement, touching his hair, checking himself in the mirror.
A fourth voice said, “The lady told me he was up here to check on Yesenia. If he’s not with her, I promise we’ll call it a night—”
That was when four men reached the doorway to the hotel room. One of them big and muscular, with dark hair and eyes the color of straw. One of them built like a swimmer, with a golden tan and perfectly mussed blond hair. One of them with a bro flow pushed back behind his ears and a seriously good beard. One of them shorter than the others and clearly younger, with a crew cut and the first hint of a disbelieving smile.
“What the fuck took you so long?” North asked.
The big man in the doorway glowered at them: the expression was automatic, like the snap of a shutter. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Oh, Emery,” Shaw said. He tried to get to the door, but North caught him by the waistband of the tights—and, in the process, left him three-quarters of the way to bare-assed. Shaw fumbled with the tights, but his gaze stayed fixed on the doorway. “I knew you’d come. See, I magically summoned you with my magic—”
“No,” North said, “he didn’t, because there’s no such thing as magic.”
At the same time, Emery was saying, “There’s no such thing—” But he cut himself off and gave North, of all people, a furious look.
