When her door closed with a click, Adam turned to me. “What should we tell them?”
I thought over it for a moment, weighing the options. “We’ll tell them I did it.” When he opened his mouth to protest, I shook my head. “It’ll be easier. They won’t be surprised if I claim responsibility, and it’ll avoid the additional drama being thrown at PW.”
He smirked. “PW?”
I shrugged. “I’m cool switching to ‘she’ and all, but that name is a mouthful. Besides, every one needs a nickname. Right, mancy?”
He blew out a breath. “Okay, let’s get this over with so we can focus on coming up with a plan.”
I nodded and led the way toward the sound of voices coming from Zen’s workroom. As we got closer, Giguhl’s animated voice drifted through the door. “….. then the Incubus said, ‘Rectum? I damned near killed him!’ ”
I paused just outside the door, turning to Adam. “What if we don’t find her in time?” The idea of facing everyone down and admitting we failed to get Maisie’s location again made my stomach cramp. At least now we knew when. We just needed to figure out where.
Adam grabbed my hand. “Hey,” he said quietly. I looked up into his familiar warm eyes. “We’re close. Don’t lose your nerve now.”
I squared my shoulders. “You’re right. Let’s go.”
Opening the door, I pasted a smile on my face. “Hey, guys.”
Zen, Rhea, and Giguhl looked up. From the looks of things, they’d been busy trying to clean up. Zen looked up from lighting a candle on her restored altar, which featured a few new items, including 151-proof rum, iron nails, and a machete.
“How did your errand go?” Zen blew out the match.
I sighed. “Not so good, actually.”
Giguhl narrowed his eyes. “What happened?”
I ran a hand over my face. “Unfortunately, we were right. Alodius was involved in the attack. He wasn’t here, but he was the one feeding intel to the attackers.”
“Where is he?” Zen asked, but her eyes told me she already knew the truth.
“Dead.”
She crossed herself and closed her eyes.
Rhea stepped up. “Did you get any information out of him first?”
Adam filled them in on everything we knew. When he finished, Zen dropped into a chair, looking a little shell-shocked. “I still can’t believe he was wrapped up in this, this Brotherhood. I’ve known him for years. He always seemed so friendly.”
Part of me envied her ability to have faith in people. On the other hand, I couldn’t believe she wasn’t cursing the man’s name. Because of him, her business was ruined and her friend was experiencing some major emotional trauma in the aftermath of a brutal beating.
“Regardless, we have some information to go on now. It’s not much, but it’s more than we had three hours ago,” Rhea said.
“We should pay Erron Zorn another visit,” Adam said. “Now that we know Lavinia and the Brotherhood are planning on summoning Master Mahan, any info he can give us about the Caste might help.”
I sighed deeply. Once again, time was working against us.
Zen looked up. “We didn’t find any other clues while we were cleaning. That must mean the picture of Maisie is the key to finding the location.”
I reached into my jacket and held up the photo. Zen took it from me and we all gathered around her. “Okay, here’s the plan,” she said. “You and Adam pay the recreant a visit and find out what you can about the Caste. Rhea and I will scan the photo into my computer and analyze it for clues.”
I felt torn, wanting to be both places at once. “You’ll call the minute you find something?”
Zen and Rhea nodded. “Absolutely.”
“What about Pussy Willow?” I asked. “She’s pretty shaken up after everything.”
Giguhl stepped forward. “I’ll go check on her before I do my rounds.”
I smiled at the demon. “Thanks, G.” I turned to Adam. “Let’s go.”
The demon sun was high in the sky by the time we finally found Erron. The delay in locating him was due to a brief detour to his house. A surly little person, who it turns out wasn’t a hooker at all but Erron’s hairdresser, greeted us at the front door and informed us— after five minutes of arguing— that we’d find him at City Park doing his sound check. With everything else going on, I’d almost forgotten it was already Halloween and that Erron was playing Voodoo Fest.
When we finally found him in the huge park, Erron stood at the foot of a large stage overlooking an empty grassy area. Rows of oak trees flanked the green space, which, come nightfall, would be filled with thousands of Necrospank 5000 fans. In the meantime, the sun beat down on us like a drunken stepfather. Luckily, in addition to the pints I’d chugged at Alodius’s shop, I’d had the forethought to toss a couple extra in Adam’s backpack, because otherwise I’d have been useless for the rest of the day.
In contrast to the idyllic park setting, the air filled with the metallic, thrusting beat of industrial music. Erron stood at the foot of the stage hugging a microphone like a security blanket, rocking back and forth in a trance. Then, suddenly, his voice rose over the music like a rusty nail down a chalkboard. Other than a few “fucks,” he might as well have been screaming in tongues.
I leaned toward Adam. “Someone’s got some anger issues.”
A smile lifted the corner of Adam’s mouth, but he kept his eyes on the recreant. “Let’s hope he’s gotten it out of his system enough to chat.”
We moved forward then to climb the stage’s steps. That move gained us the attention of festival workers in yellow windbreakers who wielded walkie-talkies like weapons.
The commotion with the workers was loud enough to distract the keyboardist, who missed a couple of notes. I know that because a beat later, Erron Zorn, who until that time had been lost in his song, stopped screaming and spoke in a deadly calm voice. “Nicodemus.” He didn’t turn around to address his bandmate. “Do we have a problem?”
“Erron,” Adam called. The lead singer’s head tilted up and slowly turned. His eyes narrowed into an icy stare.
“I’m in the middle of a sound check.” He said it like he fully expected us to apologize and back away slowly.
“We need your help,” Adam said.
Erron smiled humorlessly. “The last time I helped you, that one”— he jerked his head toward me— “thanked me for my efforts with insults. And now you interrupt my sound check and expect me to drop everything because you have a problem? Not bloody likely.” He nodded to the band. A split second later, the stage filled with the earsplitting music again. Erron turned his back to us and started singing again as if nothing happened.
Adam nudged me with an elbow. I shot him a glare. His eyebrows rose and he pointed toward the recreant’s back. I set my jaw and looked to the sky for patience, only to find the sun’s cornea-searing light instead. I blinked back the tears of pain and sighed. Time to grovel. Again.
“Erron!” I yelled. My voice evaporated into the wall of sound. Gods, I did not have time for this shit. So I pulled my gun from my waistband, pointed it to the sun, and pulled the trigger five times. The music cut off abruptly as band members dove to the stage. Only Ziggy, the deaf mage drummer, remained at his station behind the drum kit. He shook his head and rolled his eyes in judgment. Meanwhile, Adam cast a freeze spell on the bouncers, who were about to tackle me from behind.
Erron’s scream trailed off as he turned slowly. I’d expected another glare, but apparently gunplay amused the mage, because he smiled wryly. “You could have just tapped me on the shoulder.”
I ignored his sarcasm and forged ahead with the apology to get things moving. “Look, I’m sorry if I insulted you the other night. I wasn’t aware of your ….. limitations. Someone I care about was injured, and you refused to help him. But perhaps I could have been a tad more ….. diplomatic with my delivery.” I paused for a breath. “Now, since your band is already distracted, would you please take a break and speak to us for a few moments?”
Erron watched me, as if pondering whether saying no would result in more gunfire. I raised an eyebrow and tapped the gun on my thigh to let him know it would.
Finally, he nodded. “Take five,” he said to the band. To me he said, “Let’s go to my dressing room.”
Two minutes later, Adam, Erron, and I sat on stained couches in the recreant’s dressing room. Serving trays on the coffee table offered an assortment of deli meats, cheeses, and Quaaludes. After Adam and I each refused his offer of drinks, he opened a bottle of top-shelf vodka he pulled from an ice bucket.
“So what’s up?” Erron propped his booted feet up on the coffee table. His raven hair was expertly mussed, and he wore his trademark aviators.
“We need you to tell us everything you know about the Caste of Nod.”
Erron slowly swallowed his mouthful of liquor. “How much time you got?”
“Not much,” Adam said. “How about the Cliff’s Notes version.”
The recreant leaned forward and set the bottle on the table. “I think you two better tell me what the hell you’ve got yourselves mixed up in first.”
“We don’t have time for all that,” I said. “We have it on good authority that some members of the Caste, a secret society of humans, and the leader of the vampire race are trying to summon Master Mahan here tomorrow night. So anything you can tell us that will help us defeat them and him would be great.”
Erron threw back his head and laughed. Then he raised the bottle of vodka in a mocking salute. “If that’s the case, I suggest you two have a drink, after all.”
I frowned at him. “Why?”
“Because you might as well get drunk until it’s time to kiss your asses good-bye.”