“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.
“I wonder if she left any notes in her apartment,” I said.
“I don’t think breaking and entering would look very good to upper management if you are being followed,” J.B. said.
“I don’t have to break and enter,” I said. “I’m the Hound of the Hunt. I can pass through walls and all that good stuff, even if Lucifer doesn’t tell me to do so. If Chloe left some notes, we may be able to figure out what Azazel is doing. And if we can figure out what he’s doing, then maybe we can work out where he’s hiding.”
“And if that doesn’t work?” Jude said.
“Then we’ll go to the Forbidden Lands and see if we can find my cockroach of a half brother,” I said. “But first we have to get rid of this tail. I don’t want some Agency stooge hanging around when I expressly disobey Sokolov’s orders.”
“It’s strange,” Jude said thoughtfully. “I believe you when you say that you’re being followed, but I didn’t smell anything unusual outside when I opened the windows.”
“And what does that mean?” I asked. “Why does everything that happens to me have to be mysterious? Why can’t I just have a straightforward situation—Agency wants me followed, Agent follows me, we neutralize whatever sad sack got stuck with the job? Why does there have to be something weird?”
“Obviously because the Agency is terrified of you, and thus has sent their best and most unique Agent to follow you,” Nathaniel said.
“I wonder…” J.B. said, his eyes widening.
“What?” I asked.
“I wonder if it’s Bryson,” he said.
“Bryson the invincible?” I asked. I put my head in my hands. “No. No, no, no. I don’t need any super-soldiers hunting me. Doesn’t my life already suck? Do I need this, too?”
“Who’s Bryson?” Jude asked.
“He’s like the ultimate Agent,” I said. “He’s got a perfect record—never a ghost or a lost soul in the thirty years he’s been collecting. And for the last ten years he’s been leader of some elite unit that takes only the most difficult cases. He’s awesome.”
“But so are you,” Nathaniel said. “Do not underestimate yourself. You have surely overcome creatures far more powerful than a mere Agent.”
“I’ve overcome those creatures through a combination of luck, willpower and magic. Most of the time I take advantage of their emotions, like I did with Oberon. But you can’t do that with Bryson. He’s like a robot.”
“In other words, he’s the exact opposite of you. You’re emotional and impulsive,” Jude said.
“Don’t forget prone to pyromania,” Beezle added.
“He’s logical and orderly,” Jude said, continuing as if Beezle had not spoken. “So we play to your strengths in order to disarm his.”
“You’re suggesting that if she acts like her usual spastic self, it will throw this guy off the scent?” Beezle said skeptically. “That doesn’t seem like much of a plan.”
“This may come as a surprise to you, but most of the things I do don’t have much of a plan,” I said.
“That is not any surprise to me at all,” Beezle said. “I always suspected you just did whatever came into your head at the moment.”
“I do not think we should assume this super-soldier, as you call him, is the one following you,” Nathaniel said. “It may be someone else entirely.”
“No,” I said. “J.B.’s probably right. Bryson is likely the only one who could effectively hide himself from Jude.”
“But now that I know he’s out there somewhere, I can find him,” Jude said. “Lack of scent is just as powerful a signature as a strong smell.”
“You mean you would be able to sense where he is from the empty space, so to speak?”
Jude nodded.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s get rid of Bryson, and then I’ll go to Chloe’s.”
“You’re not going alone,” everyone said, and Samiel signed it for good measure.
“Yes, yes, I know you all have to pretend I’m small and helpless so you can feel more confident in your masculinity,” I said.
“Nobody here believes you helpless,” Nathaniel said.
“But you are small,” Jude said.
“Definitely the smallest one here besides Beezle,” J.B. said.
And Beezle’s not that much smaller than you are,
Samiel added.
“All right, all right. You’ve all had your fun at the expense of the short person. Listen, I don’t want Bryson hurt,” I said.
“How are we supposed to neutralize him without hurting him?” Nathaniel said. “He will surely fight.”
“Don’t hurt him any more than necessary,” I said. “He’s not malicious. He’s just following orders. He doesn’t know any other way to be.”
So what’s the plan?
Samiel signed.
“The first thing is that we’ve got to get Jude outside so he can sniff around, but Bryson can’t suspect.”
“I could put Jude under a veil while also cloaking myself,” Nathaniel said. “Then we could explore to our heart’s content without his knowledge.”
I shook my head. “Too complicated. Besides, I bet he’ll have some way of detecting the presence of a veil. He’s a super-soldier, remember? We don’t want to spook him.”
“How about you go outside and stare longingly at the stars like you’re missing Gabriel, and the rest of your entourage follows you out because they’re worried about you?” Beezle suggested.
“Then everyone is standing still, and how will Jude sniff around? We need to all be outside and moving around, but not in a way that will make Bryson suspicious.”
We all fell silent, trying to come up with some logical reason for us to be outside in the snow on a frigid January night.
“Let’s make a snowman,” I said.
“A snowman?” Jude said, looking skeptical.
“Yeah, a snowman. We’ll all be outside running around the yard collecting snow, so you’ll have plenty of opportunity to sniff around. Bryson will have no reason to suspect that we’re trying to find him.”
“I thought we’d reached a low when we tortured the rat-demon. Now you want to try to trick Mr. Awesome Agent by playing in the snow?” Beezle said.
“You were the one who said I should be my usual spastic self,” I said. “Building a snowman gets all of us outside. And Nathaniel and Jude don’t even have to actually do the building. You can stand around and look bored, or sneer, or whatever. It will look like you want to keep an eye on me but don’t want to participate.”
“I don’t want to participate, either,” Beezle said. “Rolling around in the snow is not my idea of fun.”
“Then stay inside. But you’re not getting anything else to eat.”
None of the others looked too thrilled with my idea, either.
“If anyone else has a suggestion, I’m happy to hear it,” I said.
“I guess it could work,” J.B. said reluctantly.
“It will totally work,” I said with a confidence I did not feel. The truth was, I thought it was kind of a dumb idea, too. But a lot of my dumb ideas seemed to work out. I laid out the basic plan and everyone agreed.
I pushed away from the table and said to Nathaniel, “Drop the veil now.”
My ears popped as the veil disappeared. I made a big show of being annoyed.
“Fine, the rest of you do what you want,” I said loudly. “I’m going outside.”
“Yeah, go outside and get yourself killed by another thing from Faerie,” J.B. said. “That’s real smart.”
“I’m not going to stay locked up in this house forever just because you think I should live under glass,” I said, grabbing my coat and stomping toward the back door.
Samiel followed me.
Maybe you should listen to J.B.
“Not you, too,” I said, and clattered down the steps toward the outside door.
I threw the door open with a huff and went out to the back porch. I looked around for a moment, like I was trying to gather my thoughts. I couldn’t see any sign of Bryson, but my spider-sense was tingling. He was here somewhere.
Samiel tapped me on the shoulder, holding up my hat and mittens.
Forget something?
he asked. He was already bundled up.
I took the hat and gloves from him. “Thanks. I’m sorry I lost my temper.”
I went down the three stairs to the yard and kicked the snow around, doing my best imitation of a person torn between depression and anger. It wasn’t that big of a stretch. I missed Gabriel every second of the day, and I was angry at constantly being hounded by threats and assassins.
Samiel tapped me on the shoulder, holding out a small, perfectly formed snowball.
Want to make a snowman?
I smiled at him, like I was letting him cheer me up. “Sure.”
We started rolling the snowman’s bottom half. A few moments later Jude and Nathaniel came outside.
“Where’s J.B.?” I asked.
“He left,” Jude said.
Actually, J.B. had gone around front and intended to circle back by way of the alley. I felt that Bryson had to be flying or resting somewhere at second-story height, because he would want to see and hear what was going on inside my apartment. My hope was that he would be focused on me and not paying attention to J.B.’s approach from the alley.
Jude prowled around the perimeter of the yard like he was bored. Nathaniel walked to the fence that separated my property from the alley and leaned against it, watching us.
After a while Beezle came outside. He couldn’t stand not being in the middle of things. He had a scarf wrapped around his horns and another one wrapped several times around his middle.
“Why is it we’re outside freezing our butts off?”
“Can you not see that we’re building a snowman?” I said.