Holidays are Hell(16)

I flushed, embarrassed, but if I couldn't admit it to a ghost, maybe I shouldn't even try.

Pierce's free hand scratched at his beard in what I hoped was simply a reflexive action. "That was what my midnight profession was," he said, "but it wasn't called such. The I.S."

The bus swayed and squeaked to a stop. Pierce didn't move, holding tight to the pole as Robbie and I stood before the bus had halted. I waited for Pierce, letting him walk between Robbie and me as we got off.

The cold hit me anew, and I squinted into the snowy night as the bus left. "You want to wait for a bus going back into town?" I said, and Robbie shook his head, already on his cell phone.

"I'm calling a cab," he said, looking frozen clear through.

"Good idea," I said, cold despite my coat, mittens, and fuzzy hat.

"We need to go to the mall," Robbie said, "and I don't want to waste a lot of time."

"The mall?" I blurted as we dropped back deeper into the Plexiglas shelter. "What for?" Then I winced. "You need a new coat."

Phone to his ear and his face red from cold, Robbie nodded. "That, and it's going to be hard enough getting the I.S. to believe we're not nuts coming in with a naked man in a coat."

Pierce looked mystified. "The mall?"

I nodded, wondering if he'd let me pick out his clothes. "The mall."



* * *





Chapter 5





Bored, I sat in the comfy brown fabric chair beside Pierce and shifted my knee back and forth. The mall had been a success, but Robbie had pushed us from store to store inexcusably fast, getting us in and out and to the I.S. in about two hours. Pierce was now respectably dressed in jeans and a dark green shirt that looked great against his dark hair and blue eyes. He still had on Robbie's coat, and I swear, he had almost cried when he was able to shift up a half size of boot with the ease of simply pulling another pair off the rack.

But for the last hour, we had been sitting on the third-floor reception area doing nothing. Well, Pierce and I were doing nothing. Robbie, at least, was being taken seriously. I could see him down the open walkway at a desk with a tired-looking officer. As I watched, Robbie took off his new, expensive leather jacket and draped it over his lap in a show of irritation.

Pierce hadn't said much at the mall, spending a good five minutes trying to locate the source of the mood music until he got brave enough to ask. I made sure we passed an electric outlet on the way to get him some underwear. The food court had amazed him more than the electric lights, though he wouldn't try the blue slurry I begged off Robbie. The kiddy rides made him smile, then he stared in astonishment when I told him it wasn't magic but the same thing that made the lights work. That was nothing compared to when he saw a saleslady in a short skirt. Becoming beet red, he turned and walked out, his head tilted conspiratorially to Robbie's for a quiet, hushed conversation. All I caught was a muttered, "bare limbs?" but Robbie made sure we went past Valeria's Crypt so he could see the same thing in lace. Men.

Pierce's silence deepened after finding an entire building devoted to Inderland law enforcement, but even I was impressed with the I.S. tower. The entryway was a fabulous three floors high, looking more like the lobby of a five-star hotel than a cop shop. Pierce and I had a great view of the lower floors from where we sat. It was obvious that the designers had used the techniques of cathedral builders to impart awe and a feeling of insignificant smallness.

Low lights on the first floor created dark shadows that set off the occasional burst of light. Acoustically, the space was a sinkhole, making what would be a loud chatter into a soft murmur. The air carried the faint scent of vampire, and I wrinkled my nose wondering if that was what was bothering Pierce, or if it was that we were three stories up.

A minor disturbance pulled our attention to the street-level entrance as two people, witches, I guess, brought in a third. The man was still fighting them, his arms securely behind his back and fastened with a zip-strip of charmed silver. It looked barbaric, but bringing in a violent ley line witch was impossible unless they were properly restrained. Sure, there were ways to prevent magic from being invoked in a building, but then half the officers would be helpless, too.

Pierce watched until the witch was shoved into an elevator then he turned to me. His expressive eyes were pinched when he asked, "How long have humans known about us, and how did we survive giving them the knowledge?"

I bobbed my head, remembering Pierce's shock when two witches started flirting in the mall, throwing minor spells at each other. "We've been out of the closet for about forty years."

His lips parted. "Out of the closet…"