“He was with us when we ran into the hotel,” Tomas said. It was a bit hard to watch him talk, as his face hadn’t healed yet, giving me an anatomy lesson every time he spoke. But he wasn’t wrong.
“Was he with us in the last building, with the samurai?” Ev asked. “I don’t remember.”
“He didn’t come into the nursery,” I said.
Sarah nodded. “We assumed he was with you guys.”
Louis-Cesare shook his head. “He may have been. It was difficult to keep track.”
“And the weapon’s fire burned my eyes,” Jason added. “I couldn’t see much of anything through the smoke.”
“Yes, we know,” Tomas said dourly. “That would explain why you kept shooting me in the ass.”
“I did not!” It was indignant.
Tomas turned around, and sure enough, somebody had strafed him across the backside, leaving fluttering, bloody khakis and a bunch of healed skin.
Jason looked pointedly at Ev
“I did not do that,” Ev said placidly.
“How do you know?”
“I was using this,” Ev produced my pride and joy: an AA-12 automated shotgun with its huge, round magazine. “It works better than the little bullets,” he explained.
Tomas looked back at Jason.
“It must have been the ricochets,” Jason insisted. “I’m an expert shot!”
“Yes,” Tomas agreed. “I don’t think you missed my ass once.”
“Can we get back to the point?” Sarah said. “Ranbir is missing!”
“And?”
“And we have to go back for him!”
There was a sudden, uncomfortable silence.
“He’d do it for us!” she insisted.
“Would he?”
Tomas asked. “He’s a dark mage—”
“He isn’t!”
“He sort of is, though,” Ev pointed out. “He does blood magic—”
“Chickens! He kills chickens!”
“Have fun, then,” Tomas said, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms.
Sarah glared at him. I had kind of gotten the impression that they were an item, since he moved to shelter her the way that Louis-Cesare did me. But it looked like there might be trouble in paradise.
Not that it mattered. “We have to go back,” I pointed out.
Tomas cocked an eyebrow at me. “Oh, and why would that be?”