“I feel dirty,” Beezle said as Nathaniel came back inside.
“Yeah, it doesn’t exactly feel like a victory, does it?” I said tiredly.
The back of my neck tingled, and again I had the sensation of being watched.
“Let’s get the windows closed,” I said. “And, Nathaniel—is there some way to put a veil over us so no one can eavesdrop from outside?”
“Paranoid much?” Beezle asked.
“I don’t think it’s that outrageous. We just had a rat-demon in our house trying to spy on us for Antares,” I said. “I’d rather our plans were not generally known.”
“It can be done, yes,” Nathaniel said. “But we would all have to stay in the same area, under a bubble, so to speak.”
“Let’s all sit around the dining room table,” I said.
“If we’re sitting at the table, then we should bring snacks,” Beezle said. “It only makes sense.”
“How much popcorn did you eat while I was out?” I asked.
Samiel held up three fingers. He snuck the last bowl when I wasn’t looking.
“You don’t need any snacks,” I said.
We all collected around the table, and Nathaniel cast the spell. I had the uncomfortable sensation of my ears popping as the veil surrounded us, and I cracked my jaw so I could hear properly.
They already knew about Azazel and the vampire attack, so I filled everyone in on Sokolov’s threats at the Agency. J.B. seemed shocked.
“I can’t believe they sent him personally to threaten you,” he said. “They must really think you’re high-risk.”
“I don’t intend the Agency any harm,” I said. “I don’t know why they won’t leave me alone.”
“You’re a danger to their order,” J.B. said. “If they let you run wild, then other Agents might start getting ideas about defying their authority.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t really care about the Agency and their control issues except to the extent that they get in my way. I think somebody followed us home,” I said.
It makes sense that they would have you under surveillance, Samiel said.
“It’s a waste of resources. Why follow me and wait for me to screw up? Why not use every available Agent to find their missing coworkers?” I said.
“Because…” J.B. began.
“I know—they don’t want to get involved. We don’t need to go over it again. It pisses me off. There are two things we need to focus on now. The first is finding the Agents. The second is finding Azazel.”
“With any luck they’ll be in the same place,” Jude said.
“Have you tried asking Lucifer for help?” Beezle asked. “Because you’re his Hound of the Hunt.”
“Yeah? So?”
“If he ordered you to find Azazel, you would be compelled to hunt him until you found him, and you would have the knowledge to help you do so,” Beezle said.
I stared at him. “You couldn’t have mentioned this earlier? I would have asked Lucifer to help me when he was here last instead of taking me to Titania and Oberon. And I wouldn’t have bothered with that debacle at Azazel’s mansion.”
Beezle shrugged. “You went to the mansion without telling me you were going, and anyway, I thought you knew that would happen if you were the Hound of the Hunt. Everyone was so depressed when Lucifer bestowed that office upon you. Besides, I figured you wouldn’t want to use that skill except as a last resort. I didn’t think you’d like being under Lucifer’s compulsion.”
“Well, no, I wouldn’t. But I would put up with it if that meant I could find Azazel. And now my useless grandfather isn’t picking up his phone. Again,” I said. “You’d think he would have told me that he could do that.”
“Which means that he has some reason of his own for not wanting you to find Azazel easily,” Jude said.
“I don’t even want to think about what that reason might be,” I said grimly. “Either this rebellion is a farce, or he’s looking to profit from Azazel’s actions in some way that I haven’t yet figured out.”
“Lord Lucifer’s ways are mysterious,” Nathaniel said. “But the rebellion was not a farce; that, I can tell you. Azazel despises Lucifer.”
“So he’s hoping to profit from Azazel’s insanity,” I said. “And in the meantime it suits him to have me running in circles trying to find Azazel.”
“Does that mean we shouldn’t try to find the Agents?” J.B. said.
“No. I won’t leave them to Azazel’s tender care,” I said, thinking of the humans that had been caged in his labs.
“So the best lead we have is Antares in the Forbidden Lands,” J.B. said. “If we can find him, maybe he’ll lead us to Azazel.”
“Have you ever been in the Forbidden Lands?” I asked. “Because I have. It’s a giant wasteland, and in between deserts there are mountain ranges with a thousand nooks and crannies to hide in.”
Samiel rapped the table so that we would look at him. I grew up there, remember? I know some places that he might hide.
“We’ve got to try,” J.B. said.
I rubbed my eyes tiredly. I was getting a headache again. “Did Chloe tell you if she’d found anything in the notebook?”
“She said she thought she’d cracked it, but she wasn’t able to tell me what she’d found. We were in the office and there were a ton of other people around,” J.B. said.