“Yeah,” I muttered. “It’s not as much fun as it looks.”
She regarded me with a soft look in her brown eyes. In a minute, she might call me pobrecita and try to tend my wounds. Clearly Chuch had himself a tenderhearted woman, whatever her foibles otherwise.
“He’s using you to find his mother,” she surmised. “What a shitty thing to do, like you could say no—and you still half in love with him.” Tsking, she shook her head.
“I am not!”
Instead of arguing, she laughed, and that made it worse somehow. “Lies. You eat him with your eyes, Corine.” Then she did say it. “Pobrecita. Men can be such assholes.”
I didn’t. Did I? Unhappy, I clutched my coffee mug, resolving not to permit any more visual binges.
“Anyway. I handled the Buddha statuette his mother left behind and saw a white truck. Something Sanitation or maybe Something Salvation . . .” I trailed off, depressed at how slim a lead that offered.
“Did you check the phone book?” At my blank look, she got up and went to the bureau just outside the kitchen door and returned with a directory in hand. “I guess that’s too obvious, huh?” Eva flipped the pages, first looking under sanitation. “Five listings. Would you recognize the truck if you saw it again?”
I nodded. “Pretty sure. White with blue lettering, and I got a good look at the logo.”
“So we can eliminate the Salvation Army trucks. Those aren’t white.” Double-checking the directory, Eva tapped a finger thoughtfully. “I’d rule out salvation altogether, myself. There aren’t any other listings.”
Wow, she wasn’t half-bad at this deductive stuff. Maybe she should get her license if the forgery thing didn’t pan out. “Write down the addresses, and we can do a drive-by so I can check out the trucks.” A plan of action cheered me up some. “Let’s go tell the guys.”
I’d forgotten about the chess game in progress. As Eva trailed me into the office, Chance said, “Check.” The pieces on screen meant nothing to me, but I didn’t want to interrupt. It didn’t take long for Booke to decide he was doomed, though, and after some gentlemanly cursing, he ceded the game, which Chance took with his next move.
“I haven’t seen an opening like that since Pavel Blatny played Rasmussen in ’eighty-four,” Booke said, openly enthused. “Really unorthodox stuff, but—”
Chuch mouthed a kiss to Eva while reining in his pet Englishmen. “Booke. A deal’s a deal, mano. Info now; deconstruct the game later.”
“Oh. Right.” Booke sounded subdued, and I gathered the impression that this sort of thing comprised his primary social outlet. If I were computer girl, I’d message him sometime. Hell, I might do it anyway, provided I could figure it out. “Well, it’s clearly a variation on a summoning circle found in the Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis.” I wasn’t the only one who went blank, but luckily I didn’t have to ask.
“The what?” Chance looked at me like I ought to know, but I’m not a witch. I don’t use rituals. I don’t even look at the old books anymore, though I’d never throw them away. They’re all I have left of my mother.
“Sorry,” Booke said. “It’s a rather famous grimoire. It covers a lot of ground regarding summoning, binding, and making deals with demons. Though I can’t be certain from her sketches, I do think the ritual involved the Knights of Hell. Caim, Balam, Murmur, and Foras most closely resembled the symbols, but none of them were a perfect match.”
I cleared my throat. “Either my memory or my drawing might have been at fault. In layman’s terms, what does that mean, Booke?”
The speakers crackled, and I could practically hear him weighing his response. “I’m not sure,” he said at last, “but I believe she used the Knights to enforce a bargain with those four men. Their oath against their souls, sealed in blood.”
For a moment, I imagined Knights of Hell coming to collect on a bum deal. Heck of a way to make sure someone kept his word. Never mind how Min knew how to do so. “It must have been important.”
“To say the least.” Booke sounded amused. “I’ll keep investigating the matter if you wish and e-mail Chuch if I find anything.”
“That’d be great, primo. See what you can turn up on the four Knights she invoked, would you?”
“Absolutely. Talk to you later, Chuch. It was lovely meeting all of you.” Booke’s teatime manners put a smile on my face even as I turned to face Chance.
You’d think he might be used to bad news by now, but I guess it just never gets easier to hear that your mother knows how to conjure common household demons, never mind the Knights of Hell. Maybe his back hurt, or maybe the huevos rancheros sat wrong, but he looked like he was in serious pain. I wanted to go to him, but remembering what Eva said about eating him with my eyes, I waited for someone else to make a move. Anyone.
“That sucks, huh?” Trust Chuch to reduce it to the simplest terms.
Chance echoed Booke’s words with a faintly ironic inflection. “To say the least. But you two looked like you had news when you first came in.” He offered a half smile. “I hope it’s good.”
I let Eva do the honors.
Searching for a Needle
Chance let me drive, a pretty good indicator of his mood.
I caught him looking at me out of the corner of my eye, but I didn’t speak, mostly because I couldn’t think of what to say. This was new territory for us. Usually I teetered on the verge of falling apart while he appeared cool and removed. Maybe if he’d shown more emotion when we were together—