“Maybe you just need some help.”
My head jerked up at that, because that hadn’t been Rian. It took me a second to focus in the darkness, because we weren’t near a window, so almost the only light was a bloodred exit sign. It gleamed on an approaching bald spot under a wispy comb-over and off a horrible tie that even darkness couldn’t help.
Fred.
My bodyguard. Looking more like the accountant he used to be and less like a blood-covered fiend, at the moment. “You got a phone call,” he informed me.
My lips twisted. Of course I did. I knew Mircea. No way was it going to be that easy.
“I’m sure.”
But Fred was shaking his head, a weird little grin breaking out over his face. “No, trust me. You want to take this call.”
Chapter Forty-two
My suite was still mostly empty when we entered, and looked like a hurricane had hit it. The once-missing cots were jumbled up against the far wall, open packing boxes were scattered everywhere, and a lone drawing in crayon lay under the coffee table. But otherwise, it had been stripped bare of everything except the generic hotel furniture and deliberately tasteful knickknacks it had come with.
And the old pattern of bullet holes in the wall.
I glanced at them, but not for long, because my “phone call” was taking up the entire expanse of windows leading to the balcony. The glass sweep usually reflected distant neon, headlights, and the vague half darkness of the city at night. But now it was all burning roots and tumbled bricks and what looked like it had been an underground tunnel, until something happened.
Something bad.
But the man ducking under a fiery root looked to be okay, and a genuine smile of relief spread over my face when he sto
od back up.
“Caleb!”
“Still here.” He grinned back, widely. It was a little weird to see that expression on the usually stoic face, almost as much as seeing the dark eyes shining and the usually deliberate movements fast and jerky. He looked like he was high on adrenaline and ready for a fight, although the only other people I saw in the corridor were white-suited figures trying to put out magical fires.
“And everyone else?” I asked.
“We took some hits.” The smiled faded slightly. “But nothing like we might have. Thanks to you.”
“To me? I wasn’t even there.”
“But your warning was. I got here just before everything went to hell.”
“My warning about . . . ?”
“Lizzie?” He looked slightly incredulous, maybe because we’d talked less than a day ago. But to me, it felt like a week.
“And Jonas listened?”
He nodded. “I don’t know if he believed me or not, but he tripled the guards and ordered the main wards put online. You should have been here! The wards went up and bam. We were hit almost the moment after, by everything the Black Circle had! I think they assumed our guard would be down, after they took on the vamps and then Dante’s earlier. That we wouldn’t expect another attack so soon. But they found out otherwise, once the new weapons deployed—”
“What new weapons?”
“Some stuff we’ve been developing, ever since that thing with Apollo—”
He looked over his shoulder, and then had to get out of the way as what appeared to be a whole platoon marched past. I almost did the same, because they looked so real, and like they were coming straight out of the wall at me. But the heavily armed men and a few women disappeared a second later, melting into the air like 3-D images in a movie theater.
And leaving me staring at Caleb again—or, more accurately, at his back.
“Caleb!”
“I’ll tell the old man you’re here,” he said, turning around to walk backward, despite the fact that the tunnel appeared to be anything but level. But he never lost his footing. “He had to go put out some fires!”