Eli brushed my hair, smiled as he watched it spring back into ringlets. He pinned it back from my face with two barrettes. Mine was way shorter than his—but then he hadn’t cut his hair since he’d become an invested grigori.
We could hear the buzz of the hotel become concentrated in the dining room.
When it was gloaming, Eli cast his spell. He seemed as eager to use his magic as I was to use my guns.
Eli muttered, his hand on my shoulder and his eyes closed, and then he vanished. “Can you see me?” he whispered from just above my head.
“I can’t,” I whispered back. It had just been me all by myself when Klementina had worked magic on me before. I’d never been lonelier in my life than when I’d been invisible. On the other hand, I’d been safe.
“Can you see me?” I asked. Sounded like a kid’s game.
“I can’t,” Eli said, pleased. “I don’t know how long this will last. How long do you think it was, in Mexico?”
“About three hours. Maybe longer. Let’s go.” I opened our door, and since no one was coming—we didn’t want anyone to see our door open and close with no human being visible—we moved quick.
We went down the back stairs John Edward had used, since the landing of the front stairs was blocked by two couples talking in a leisurely way.
We startled a waiter and a cook, who glanced around them when they felt someone pass. Though we were taking care, maybe they heard our footsteps, too. I don’t know how they explained it to themselves, and I didn’t care. As long as they made no outcry or tried to grab us.
After we’d gone by them, we were glad to find that the back door of the kitchen was propped open. One less odd thing that might be observed.
I was relieved to be free of the building.
The locusts were making an ungodly amount of noise, but the people noise had abated. Sally foot traffic was down to almost nothing. There weren’t many cars on the streets. We had a long walk ahead of us.
Eli and I had agreed to keep talking to a minimum. After all, voices coming out of nowhere were both scary and suspicious. As we made our way to the street where the old church stood, I reminded myself to visit Maddy the next day, so she wouldn’t think I’d forgotten about her. I wondered what the Iron Hand people were doing. I hoped Travis and Harriet had decided to back us up, though it was a real faint hope. Mostly I felt excited. We were finally about to see some action, maybe make some progress.
We’d driven by the site earlier in the day. It was in a straggly part of town, where the houses had thinned out, and there was the occasional little store. The church itself hadn’t seen use in years. It was a small wooden structure with a caved-in roof, like a giant had sat on it. The white paint had mostly peeled off, and the hand-lettered sign above the door was hanging by one nail.
We hadn’t been able to explore behind it. There had been too many people around. Now we discovered that the yard to the rear of the lot was an overgrown tangle, very like it had been at the abandoned house where we’d questioned Rogelio.
There was just enough light to keep us from falling over the remains of a cemetery, buried in the waist-high weeds and vines. Most of the headstones had been knocked over or defaced in some way. The vines and weeds camouflaged them, so we had to pick our way through with care lest we break our necks. The surrounding trees had rained down leaves and sweetgum balls and pine needles for many seasons. It was treacherous footing.
Luckily the trees were still green and bushy, because we aimed to climb them.
Eli turned out to be good at scrambling up a tree, which kind of surprised me. I listened to his quick progress and I could just see the leaves moving. “I’m reaching down,” he whispered. I flailed around and finally connected with his hand. One boost up was all I needed. Soon we were perched against the trunk of an old live oak, Eli on one side, me on the other. I could feel his shoulder if I leaned to my right.
It wasn’t especially comfortable, but all I felt was good. I was so glad to be doing something I understood.
The familiar weight of the guns in my belt, the welcome comfort of my jeans… though a skirt would have been cooler, I was delighted to be back in my own gear. I would have said that to Eli, but it wasn’t any time for idle chatter. It was time to listen.
We heard ’em coming a couple of minutes before they arrived under us. It was full dark by then.
I couldn’t see ’em any more than they could see me. One of ’em was a pipe smoker.
After five minutes or so, three more men made their way to stand underneath us. One of them lit a cigarette. By the light of the match I could tell, sure enough, they were all white men. They looked well fed. Naturally they weren’t wearing their nice clothes. One of them was the man who owned the shoe repair shop. Kempton. The smoker was Norman Moultry. I smiled, all to myself.
After a long silence, one of the men spoke. “They coming, you reckon?”
“Don’t know.” That was Kempton. “They got the message, Elijah said. He saw ’em reading it.”
Eyes were everywhere here.
“That magician, he’s from the HRE.” That was Mr. Mercer from the hotel. Well, crap. John Edward had been right to be so careful.
“All magicians are.” Did not know the speaker, but that was not the truth anyway. Magicians could come from anywhere, but they could be trained only by the grigoris of the Holy Russian Empire. That’s why so many had come over from England, where magic was not permitted.
“Yeah? How you explain that Calhoun boy, then?” Didn’t know this speaker.
“He’s just crazy, is all.” That was Kempton. He sounded worried, like he had connections to the Calhouns and didn’t want anything to happen to them.
“Jimmy may be crazy,” said Mercer. “But he can also make some things happen. I’m surprised his daddy hasn’t taken him out and drowned him. You better warn ’em, Kempton, or the Society will pay them a visit some night.”
Eli exhaled real heavy. I don’t know how Mercer heard him, but the hotel owner glanced at Kempton to see if the sound had come from him.
“They ain’t coming,” an unknown man said, after a little silence. “If they been looking around town for something and they ain’t found it, they’re gonna be here on time.”
“ ’Less they’re back in their room fucking like nutrias,” Mercer said, as though the fact that we had sex was disgusting.
“Well, she’s a pretty little thing,” Kempton said. “When she came in to get her boot fixed, she was all dressed up and cool as a cucumber.”
That’s me.
One of the men I didn’t recognize said, “Don’t know what she sees in a spooky guy like Savarov. He might turn her into a dog or something, she don’t mind him.”
I felt a little shiver in the tree, and I knew Eli was laughing silently.
After some more fidgeting and grunting, maybe ten minutes’ worth, the men dispersed. “Here, I’ll put that rope back,” Kempton said to the unknown man.
I felt a cold ball in the pit of my stomach. Would they have tied us up? Or would they have hung us? They would have tried. Did they not know we could protect ourselves?
“Wish we had got to use it,” the man said. “I coulda knocked out that Russian with this sap, he wouldn’t have had time to work any hocus-pocus. Maybe had a little fun with her.”