“Yeah…” I held a hand to my forehead. “Yes. Glenn, I can come out there….” I hesitated. “Where are you?”
Glenn cleared his throat. “Spring Grove,” he muttered.
A cemetery. Oooooh, how nice. “Okay,” I said, standing up straight and scuffing into my sandals. “See you in a bit.”
“Great. Thanks.” He sounded preoccupied, as if he were trying to do two things at once.
I took a breath to say good-bye, but Glenn had hung up. Eyeing Jenks, I thumbed the phone off and cocked my hip. “I have a message?” I said dryly.
Jenks looked uncomfortable as he put the bandanna on, to look like an inner-city gang member in his black working clothes. “Mr. Ray wants to talk to you,” he said softly.
I thought about his secretary having been murdered and the I.S. not only looking the other way but trying to cover it up. “I’ll bet.” Grabbing my bag, I looked to make sure I had all my usual spells. The thought occurred to me that Mr. Ray might be the one killing the Weres, but why would he kill his own secretary first? Maybe Mrs. Sarong had murdered the woman and the second killing had been in retaliation? I was getting a headache.
Remembering my suspended license, I hesitated, but what kind of image would I have if I arrived on a crime scene by bus, and I pulled out my keys. My gaze went to the shelves under the center island counter. Leaning, I smiled when the smooth, heavy weight of my splat-ball gun filled my palm. The metal parts clicked comfortingly as I checked the reservoir. Spells stored in amulets were good for a year, but unstored, invoked potions lasted only a week. These were three weeks old and useless, but waving my gun around made me feel good and ticked Glenn off. I dropped it into my bag as Jenks finished writing a note for Ivy. “Ready?” I asked him.
He flew to my shoulder, bringing the delicate scent of the soap Matalina washed his clothes in. “You want to take his ketchup?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah.” I strode into the pantry, coming out with the gallon jar of super-duper belly-buster hot jalapeño salsa and the big red tomato I had gotten him as a surprise. Pulse fast, I headed for the hall, a gallon of salsa on my hip, a tomato in my hand, and a pixy on my shoulder.
Yeah, we bad.
FIFTEEN
The afternoon sun was hot, and easing my car door shut, I gave it a bump with my hip to latch it. My fingers were sticky from the pastry I’d eaten en route, and I scanned the sparrow-noisy grounds while I dug a tissue out of my bag. Wiping my fingers clean, I wondered if I should have taken five minutes to change into a more professional outfit than shorts and a top—professionalism being something I desperately needed, seeing as I was skulking around the mausoleum that I’d parked my car behind.
Jenks had run vanguard for me as I took the back roads to Spring Grove. If I had driven the interstate, the I.S. would have nailed my butt to a broomstick. It had made for slow travel—driving three blocks, parking, waiting for Jenks to do some recon, then moving forward another three blocks—but I couldn’t stomach the idea of taking a cab. And as I hiked my shoulder bag higher and headed across the grass, I again thanked God I had friends.
“Thanks, Jenks,” I said, stumbling when my sandal hit a dip the mower had hidden. His wings tickled my neck, and I added, “I appreciate you running rabbit for me with the I.S.”
“Hey, it’s my job.”
There was more than a hint of annoyance to it, and, feeling guilty for having asked him to fly twice what I had driven, I said, “It’s not your job to make sure my butt stays out of traffic court,” then added softly, “I’ll go to driver’s-ed class tonight. I promise.”
Jenks laughed. The tinkling sound brought out three pixies from the nearby bank of evergreens, but upon seeing Jenks’s red bandanna, they vanished. The obvious color was his first line of defense against territorial pixies and fairies, a sign of good intentions and a promise not to poach. They’d watch us but wouldn’t start catapulting thorns unless Jenks sampled the meager pollen or nectar sources. I’d rather have pixies watching me than fairies, though, and I liked the idea that pixies had Spring Grove. They must be well structured, since the grounds were huge.
The sprawling cemetery was said to have been originally developed to tastefully “rehouse” cholera victims in the late 1800s. It was one of the first garden cemeteries in the United States; the undead liked their parks as much as the next person did. It had been hard to keep your newly undead relatives out of the ground back then, and being unearthed in such peaceful settings must have been a small favor. I had to wonder if the large, hidden vampire population Cincy had in those days had much to do with how the Queen City gained the dubious distinction of being known for grave robbing. It wasn’t so much that they were supplying the multitudes of teaching hospitals with cadavers but that they were pulling their relatives out of the earth and back where they belonged.