Nathaniel entered the room, wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, his wet hair pushed back from his face. Like Jude, he looked tired and hungry. The only one at the table who didn’t appear wiped out from the day’s events was Beezle, but he had probably spent a good portion of his time out napping on Samiel’s shoulder instead of scanning for the shapeshifter like a good gargoyle.
“You are going to have to put added protection on the house to guard against hostile magic,” Jude said.
“Yeah, and we still have to search the house for any potential infestations,” I said, and explained about the back door being left open.
“Let us hope there are no more rat-demons in the house,” Jude said.
I remembered cooking one of the horrid little things in a pan, torturing it so I could find out who had sent it to spy on me. That had been a real low point in my recent history.
“I hope so, too.”
“One point is certain,” Nathaniel said. “There is no need to exhaust ourselves chasing down the shapeshifter. His master is clearly interested in you, and thus the creature will find some way to approach you, either in the house or on the street. Perhaps the gargoyle should escort you whenever you leave the house.”
Beezle paused in the act of shoveling half a sandwich in his mouth, his expression horrified.
“You do realize that you’re proposing he sacrifice both his daytime television habit and the illicit snacking that he thinks I don’t know about, right?” I asked.
“I should think,” Nathaniel said with a pointed look at Beezle, “that your safety would take precedence over talk shows and soap operas.”
“It does,” Beezle said. “But I’m not sure it takes precedence over chips and dip.”
Samiel smacked him in the back of the head and Beezle spewed out the half-chewed sandwich. “What was that for?”
You know.
“Oh, come on, Maddy is more important to me than snacks,” Beezle grumbled. “Anyway, I didn’t think you were paying attention.”
I can read lips.
“But I thought you were looking at your food.”
“Most people don’t focus on their meal to the exclusion of everything else,” I said.
“So it is settled, then?” Nathaniel said, cutting us off before our bickering spiraled down further. “The gargoyle will stay with you whenever you leave the house. He is the only being that can see the true essence of the shapeshifter. It would be too easy otherwise for the creature to approach you in the guise of J.B. or someone else you know.”
“He’s going to have to stay on my shoulder at the wedding like a mutant parrot. It would be too easy to approach me there.”
“Wedding? What wedding?” Beezle asked. “I don’t know anything about a wedding.”
“Uh, yeah,” I said, patting my pockets. “I left the invitation in the suit that was covered with squid blood.”
“So whose wedding are we going to?” Beezle demanded.
“Lucifer and Evangeline’s,” I said.
Beezle looked from Nathaniel to me. “When did this happen?”
“When we were at the Ghirardelli shop,” I said.
“Wait—you had time to go to the Ghirardelli shop between confronting Alerian and completely destroying our block? And you went without me?”
“Isn’t this business of a wedding more pressing than chocolate?” Jude asked.
“Nothing is more important than chocolate,” Beezle said.
“I don’t like the idea of you at Lucifer’s wedding,” Jude said. “Too many opportunities for an attack on you.”
Or for someone to attack Lucifer and for you to get caught in the cross fire, Samiel said.
“I will be with her,” Nathaniel said.
“And J.B. will be there, too,” I said. “Unfortunately, attendance is not optional.”
Samiel stood up abruptly. I just remembered. I noticed something when I picked up the mail outside.
“Oh, the mail,” I said. “I forgot about it after I tossed it on the lawn.”
Samiel retrieved the packet from the side table near the front door and brought it to me, bottom side up. Lucifer’s seal was on the back of the envelope.
I pulled the letter out of the rubber band and turned it over.
“This is for you,” I said to Jude.
The werewolf took the envelope from me with a fierce frown. He did not like anything that had to do with Lucifer.
“There’s another one,” Beezle said.
I turned it over. This letter was addressed to Samiel. There was another for Daharan, and even one for Beezle, who seemed thrilled that he had gotten a personal invitation.
“I’m totally bringing a video camera,” Beezle said. “I know people who would pay good money for video footage of Lucifer in a cummerbund.”
“So we’re all invited,” I said slowly. “Even Beezle.”
“Like I would have stayed at home anyway,” he said.
“But the point is that Lucifer made absolutely sure you would show up. All of you,” I said, looking around the table.
We are your team, Samiel said.
“But does he want you there to back me up in case things go pear-shaped? Or does he want to take you all out in one shot so I’m left alone and vulnerable? Or does he want to hold you hostage in order to get me to do what he wants?”
“Regardless, you are not going alone,” Nathaniel said.