ANY REASONABLE PERSON would expect a hot bedroom scene to follow the life-threatening stress I'd faced at the Gehenna tonight and Ric's return to walk-around good health.
Yeah, me too.
We nuzzled naked in my four-poster bed long enough to drive Quick out an open window to patrol what was left of the night.
And we came mutually... to an agreement that we'd better save what was left of our strength for our covert assault on the Karnak in the morning. Make war, not love.
Ric went home early the next morning and returned to the cottage wearing undercover black, a heavy Kevlar vest lacking only the big white letters, FBI, and high-top butt-kicking rubber-soled boots. He applied black camo face greasepaint from his kit bag once here and was much impressed by my Assault on the Karnak ensemble of steel-studded spandex patent-leather catsuit and matching crotch-high boots.
My silver familiar had assumed the form of a Wonder Woman brow coronet. When the silver familiar had the chutzpah to mock me I actually felt stronger.
"New bling, huh?" Ric teased, his forefinger touching the central five-pointed star. "One way to keep the hair out of your eyes for battle."
Quick wore his usual thick fur coat. I'd noticed that the silver circles on his black leather collar changed to represent all the phases of the moon: full, quarter, and half. Today they were almost at the full. His pale blue eyes were all black iris. When he grinned, it was to display a lethal mountain range of jagged teeth. I almost glimpsed a diamond glitter, but maybe that was his magic healing saliva.
I texted Manny's Demon-phone for him to meet Ric, Dolly, Quick, and me in the Inferno entryway at 10:00 A.M.
The lure of Dolly's chrome and horsepower and a big tip had Manny paying another parking valet to take his place while he ferried us to the Karnak parking garage. From there we'd sneak into the Karnak underbelly on our private commando mission.
I drove Dolly directly there, Ric and Quicksilver safely hidden in the car's hearse-size trunk. Facing the Karnak vampires still didn't faze him, but Ric had been nervous about this trunk part of the plan.
"NO OFFENSE, DELILAH," he'd whispered in my ear when Quick's furry back was turned, as if that would do any good with those sharp, pricked wolfish ears, "but he is your dog. I'd trust him with your life, but not, uh, my back. He's really possessive of you, not that I blame him. One session of playing ball doesn't mean he wouldn't snap mine right off."
Ric didn't know Quicksilver and his magic saliva, delivered by licking, had healed him not just once, but twice. From some supersensitive canine sense, Quicksilver had moved Ric up to Priority One after his Karnak ordeal and my supernaturally successful Kiss of Life efforts.
He hadn't been present at the Inferno when I reluctantly accepted Snow's Brimstone Kiss in the first place. Grizelle had been, and for me that had been one tiger and one human female too many for witnesses.
On the other hand, the canine/lupine breed depended on judging friend or foe by crotch sniff. When Quick had first met Ric, he'd made clear that if he didn't like how Ric treated me, the "spleen" would be the first to go.
Obviously my hundred-and-fifty-pound adopted shelter doggie had never had a sexually active human companion, or any human home.
It took those observant and rare wolfhound-blue eyes only seconds to figure out that Ric might look like he was attacking me, but in a welcome way. In those first awkward moments, both man and dog had been a bit uneasy with each other. Perhaps I should say, a "bite" uneasy.
Now I was asking them to make like littermates in the cavernous trunk of my car, which even then was not roomy enough for Ric when it involved getting down with doggie breath.
"Quick and I are a team, yes," I told Ric. "So are you and I. It's time we merged the K-nine operation with the human one. I'm counting on you guys to get along for the sake of the mission. Right, Quick?"
A short, sharp bark of agreement.
"Ric?"
"Some of my best friends in the FBI had hairy backs, and they had my back too."
"Then let's go kick Karnak butt."
"SHE'S YOURS AND Manny's if we don't come back in twenty-four hours. Or so," I told Hermie as I handed him Dolly's keys when we met at the Inferno drive-through. "I figured you and Manny would do anything for Dolly. And me."