“But . . . if she already has children of her own . . .”
I thought back to the brood Tami had when I first met her, which had numbered almost this many. Yet she’d still been out, scouring the bus stops and the soup kitchens, the parks and the homeless shelters, looking for magical runaways to take in.
She’d taken me in and calmed me down when I hadn’t trusted anybody. When I’d been skittish and afraid and prone to jumping at my own shadow, she’d somehow made me part of her not-so-little family. You want to talk about magical? Tami was freaking magical.
“Call her. You’ll be surprised.”
Rhea nodded, looking hopeful.
“And if Jonas won’t give us the Tears, tell him to lock them up. Somewhere secure. Somewhere even the acolytes can’t get to them!”
“Yes, Lady!” Rhea scribbled fiercely.
“And arrange for Elias’ body to be sent back to the Circle. Tell them he deserves a hero’s funeral. He died in the line of duty, helping me.”
“Yes, Lady.”
“And call a guy named Augustine—he has a shop downstairs—and tell him I want clothes for the kids. He can pony up or stop calling himself couturier to the Pythia!”
“Yes, Lady. And—and what are you going to do?” she asked, looking worried, as I stood up and shoved the Tears back into my pocket.
“Get some insurance.”
• • •
The great seat of the demon lords still looked like a municipal building, and a run-down one at that. There were boring benches framing a utilitarian lobby, ugly beige carpet fraying in spots, and a ficus-in-a-tub struggling not to die. Or at least, that’s how it appeared to me. What it really looked like was anyone’s guess, since the lords had their meeting place in the Shadowland, the demon realm closest to earth. It was near enough that my power worked, if only intermittently, but far enough away that nothing about it would have made sense to a human’s mind. Or to anyone else’s, apparently, which was why the beings who controlled this place had glamouried the city to make it appear blandly familiar.
A little too familiar.
I didn’t look at the spot on the carpet where Pritkin had fallen. I could see it in my mind, like the whole thing had just happened, could see him hitting down and then lying there, so motionless. As pale and frozen as a statue.
Or a corpse.
But I didn’t look, because it didn’t matter. Any more than any of the other places he’d been injured did. He was coming back and this would all be over soon and it didn’t matter.
I also didn’t try to see behind the glamourie. It was boring, but considering the alternative, I was okay with boring. And it was my fault anyway. The spell pulled images from the viewer’s own mind, because thousands of people came here from all over the demon realms, making “normal” subjective. Supposedly this was what I found nonthreatening.
Like the disguise worn by one of the two demons who entered a moment later, through the swinging doors in the back.
“What are you doing here?” Rosier demanded, striding over and looking annoyed. Whether that was because I’d showed up where humans weren’t supposed to be, or because I hadn’t waited for him at the hotel like a good little girl, I didn’t know. I also didn’t care.
“I didn’t come to see you,” I told him, my eyes on his companion.
Adra, short for Adramelech, was a being so old that he figured in earth’s earliest mythology. And he didn’t figure well. It was hard to know which of the horror stories told of him were true, since I hadn’t had time for more than a quick Google search. But I’d read enough to doubt that he actually looked like an elementary school teacher.
The current head of the demonic council was blond and round-faced, with the deceptively bland features of someone using a glamourie as a courtesy, to keep people like me from having nightmares, and not because he was actually trying to fool anyone. His only concession to credibility, or possibly vanity, was a cleft in his chin. It was deep and round and made him look like somebody had poked the Pillsbury Doughboy in the face instead of the tummy. And it didn’t even help, since it only highlighted how fake the rest of the face was.
He smiled, and it was bland and unassuming, too. “Pythia.”
“I have a problem,” I told him abruptly.
“One that you have solved, it would seem.” He was looking at the pocket with the Tears, although there was no way he could have known what was in there.
“I’m talking about my acolytes.” I pulled out the bottle. “I took this away from them while they were searching for more.”
“For what purpose?”
“What is that?” Rosier interrupted, eyes narrowing on the little vial in my hand.