TWENTY-ONE
Evalle came ready to deal. But it had to be fast.
“What kind of trouble are you in to show up with that and to come out this early?” Grady’s pale form hovered at eye level.
“Plenty.” She sat six feet off the ground on the top of the concrete wall that backed up to the interstate embankment behind Grady Hospital.
Grady’s gaze was stuck on the bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 clutched in her hand. She held a McDonald’s bag in the other. She hated to give him alcohol when she’d rather just feed him, but it was hard to deny the old guy one small moment of happiness.
Rain drizzled off the bill of her Braves baseball cap. The storm that had rolled in at twilight to completely blacken the skies had given her a faster head start tonight, but she only had forty-five minutes until nine o’clock, when she had to meet Storm at the park.
“I’m waiting.” Grady’s eyebrows crawled up his forehead.
She tapped her little finger against the bottle. Monday night rush hour squealed, honked and banged a hundred yards behind her while it sounded as though the god of thunder, Taranis, played a solo backup overhead. “Okay, here’s my offer, and I’ll warn you right now I want quick answers.”
“Then make a quick deal.”
“I am not breaking down specifics. If you want a handshake and this bottle, I want any question I ask answered.” She didn’t demand, just laid out her cards face up.
Grady lifted his chin in his way of thinking and floated sideways into the embankment, then flickered back in front of her. “Things must be really bad.”
Evalle didn’t reply. The less she said, the better her chances were of getting a carte blanche deal, since Grady was one big mass of curiosity.
“All right,” he said. “But only this one time.”
Not a problem, because if she didn’t figure out what to do soon, she wouldn’t have a reason to make future deals. “Understood.”
Evalle jumped down from the wall and landed on the sidewalk as Grady floated down to face her. After giving the area a fast once-over to ensure no one was paying attention to a woman in rain gear and soaked jeans standing in the dark, she extended her hand and connected with his.
“Damn, I hate the rain,” Grady said as soon as he was a solid form. Water shed off him like it did off her GORE-TEX riding gear. “Hand it over.”
“Have you found out who was controlling the Cresyl and Birrn demons?” She gave him the bottle and he twisted the top off and guzzled a three-finger slug of the cheap wine.
Lowering the bottle, satisfaction softened his face. “Not exactly, but I think it’s someone who’s in the city now.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because there was another demon here, a Hindu one.”
Evalle nodded. “A Rakshasas. I heard.”
“I think the same person is controlling all the demons.”
“What or who could be doing that when all the demons should be originating from different power sources? I’ve never heard of such a thing before.”
“Might not be specifically one power behind all of them but a partnership of some sort between two dark powers,” Grady suggested.
She tilted her head to one side. “What would have caused two groups to join forces?”
Grady barked out a sarcastic laugh. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe the bad guys decided to do their own recruiting when VIPER opened an ark for every weirdo with an extrasensory ability.”
“Guess you’ve got a point.” She hooked her thumbs into the corners of her rain slicker pockets. “We had someone tracking the Rak and his master, but the master got away and the Rak ended up repackaged in a suitcase. What do you think the chances are of finding his master?”
“Not good. Not if he’s sending in demons to do his dirty work, and I’m betting those demons aren’t the original forms but some kind of copies. Especially with that Birrn having Celtic markings. You need to find the source of the power for the demons to determine who the master is, but that’s going to be hard to do when you’ve had a Nigerian demon with Celtic markings, a Cresyl demon that is German and now a Hindu Rak. No common denominator. If I am right and they’re all being controlled by the same power, then they’re being sent out with a glamour disguise to hide their true origin.”
“A Fae glamour?”
“No. Some kind of witch spell that disguises the demon.”
Witch, as in Noirre majik? She was back to her conspiracy-against-Evalle theories. “Crud. Can this get any more difficult?”
“In a word, yes.”
That got her attention, because Grady hadn’t been kidding. “Why? What else have you got?”
“An ancient synergy has entered the city.”
She immediately thought of Vyan, the Kujoo she’d seen last night near the Iron Casket, which she’d forgotten to tell Tzader and Quinn about. Crap! That wouldn’t have happened if Tzader hadn’t gotten an urgent cell call from headquarters and taken Quinn with him when he’d left—and if she hadn’t needed to catch up on two days of lost sleep so she could work tonight.
She’d have to start issuing hourly bulletins at this rate to keep the boys in the loop.
Evalle pushed her soaked ponytail off her neck. “You know the origin of this synergy?”
“Got an idea who.” He paused for another libation break then said, “Remember that time a couple years back when you and those other two Belador hoodlums had a smackdown in Piedmont Park with a Kujoo?”
“Yes.” She didn’t even bust him for calling Tzader and Quinn hoodlums. Grady was confirming her worst fears.
“Same synergy this time, but much stronger.”
The only reason the synergy would be stronger was if Vyan had found a way to bring more of his kinsmen forward in time. “I think you’re right. Probably the Kujoo and they’ve come for a reason.”
“I doubt VIPER’ll be happy with the Beladors or the Kujoo if they have a showdown in the city again for no reason.”
She wanted to tell Grady about the Ngak Stone, but there was a limit to how much she could share even if he had held her confidences in the past. She hedged, “I don’t think the Kujoo are looking for the Beladors since that didn’t go well with Shiva last time. But they’re here for something. If you find out what, I need to know.”
That was as close as she could get to telling Grady about the stone.
“I’m giving you something important about this synergy,” Grady said in a quiet voice underpinned with need. “Maybe something worth more like an hour of solid time?”
She growled under her breath. “What has gotten into you? You know I can’t give you an hour.”
“Just one time, that’s all.”
“Why?”
Grady snapped his lips into a firm line.
She wasn’t the only one with trust issues. “If you’ve got word on anything else going on, you have to give it up. We’ve got a deal.”
“Let’s see.” He twisted his face into an exaggerated look of seriousness. “There’s a Chattahoochee Faerie lifting trinkets from street vendors, the twin heathens are trying to make pigeons steal tip money off outdoor café tables, heard a troll and a ghost were squabbling over a stretch of dirt up under Spaghetti Junction …”
“Never. Mind.” She didn’t have time for squabbles about living under Atlanta’s notorious interstate interchange. “I gotta go.”
When she stepped away, Grady pressed, “I want that hour on Wednesday evening, Evalle.”
That made her take another look at him. Getting one hour of human form was important to Grady, so she didn’t blow him off with a wisecrack.
“If I could do it, you know I would, Grady. I’m the last person who can do something like that right now. And even if I could, I have no idea what it would do to you.” She couldn’t look in his sad eyes without her heart aching for him, but neither could she give him what he wanted without putting him at risk with VIPER. Or turning him into some kind of monster.
If she did try and Sen found out, his reaction was unpredictable at best.
She put her hand on Grady’s forearm to stall him from lifting the bottle again. “I won’t do something I think might harm you further and I won’t pull you into my mess, which is what would happen if I got caught giving you an hour. I’ll help you figure out whatever it is you’re trying to do once this is over, okay?”
He stared at her for the longest time, then patted her hand in an understanding way. “That’s okay. It’ll wait.”
She released his arm reluctantly and walked away.
Grady had just lied to her.
Whatever reason he had to want human form for an hour would not wait. But she’d help him the minute she got herself out of trouble, which wouldn’t happen unless she found Isak. First she had to do her rounds with Storm in Piedmont Park.
Waste of time. Did VIPER really think the Ngak Stone was just going to be sitting there waiting on them?
And what would Grady give up for an hour of time in human form?