Eduardo and Joey were friends of Suzy’s. But I shook off the thought as soon as it crept over me. A lot of crazy shit had happened the last few days, but if I could trust anything, it was my taste in friends. “You don’t know Suzy,” I said. Isobel made a noncommittal sound in the back of her throat. That sound was enough to take me from offended to pissed in two seconds flat. “How do I know I can trust you? You’re the one fucking around with demons in Helltown.”
“I’m the one the incubi in Helltown want dead,” she said dryly.
I winced. “Good point. The enemy of my enemy, or…whatever.”
“She’s been in Helltown,” Isobel said.
“What? Who?”
“Your Suzy. I asked around. Does she usually wear business suits and throw money at all her contacts? She was in Helltown this morning. Yesterday, too.”
That was news to me. But it didn’t mean anything. Suzy had multiple cases, just like I usually did. She could have been chasing down anyone. “We can trust Suzy.”
A smile flickered over Isobel’s lips. “I hope so, because you’re staking both of our lives on it.”
The light turned green. We got on the freeway and headed for Torrance.
Nine by Night: A Multi-Author Urban Fantasy Bundle of Kickass Heroines, Adventure, Magic
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
There was only one car in the parking lot when we got to Bittman Labs, and it wasn’t Suzy’s. Isobel passed the building at a crawl, leaning forward to squint out the windshield. “Is that hers?” she asked.
“No, Suzy said she’d be around back.”
Isobel hesitated, knuckles white on the steering wheel. “Last chance to escape with our lives.”
“I won’t have a life if we leave,” I said.
She parked the RV behind the morgue.
Suzy was already waiting for us on foot. No car in sight. She gave me a look through the windshield that could have curdled milk—or maybe that look was for the giant teal beast that came groaning around the corner.
I jumped out.
“Hey, Scooby,” Suzy said by way of greeting. “Nice Mystery Machine. Why is your bumper bloody?”
It was Isobel who responded from behind me. “It’s incubus blood. Don’t worry about it.” She clambered out of the RV, pulling a t-shirt over the corset that had more holes than cloth in it. The Cabo Wabo logo was stretched over her ample breasts.
Suzy’s expression changed completely as she looked Isobel up and down, hand resting almost casually on her hip where she usually wore a holster. No gun tonight. Probably for the best. The two of them together were a real Odd Couple, all right—Suzy buttoned up tight in a suit and tie, Isobel fast and loose.
“Agent Takeuchi,” Suzy said, extending her hand. “We haven’t officially met yet.” It was hard to tell what she was thinking, but the vein that had appeared in her forehead made me think it wasn’t real good.
After a beat, Isobel shook her hand. “I’m Isobel Stonecrow.” Was that a moment of hesitation before she said her name? Man, I wanted to run her face through our databases. See what other pseudonyms she might have.
“Why is there incubus blood on your RV?”
Suzy didn’t know about my history with the Silver Needles, and I didn’t want to have to explain why incubi might be attacking me. When Isobel opened her mouth to reply, I interrupted her. “We can talk later. We’re in kind of a rush with Erin now, aren’t we?” I asked.
“I guess so,” Suzy said. “Where are your supplies for the spell, Stonecrow?”
Isobel glanced at me.
I answered for her. “She doesn’t need them.”
“But the ritual sites we’ve found…”
“Fake,” I said.
“Interesting.” I’d seen Suzy in a lot of weird moods before, but not this one. She was usually brash. Aggressive. But this chilly thing, this was new. She jerked a thumb toward the back door. “I called ahead. Rob left it unlocked. Just gotta go in.”
She turned and headed inside.
Isobel hung back, hesitating to follow.
“Problem?” I asked.
“This is going to sound like the obvious statement of the day, but there are a lot of dead bodies in there.”
And she could probably hear every last one of them. I wouldn’t be eager to go inside either. “Could you call up Erin from out here?”
“I need to be closer than that.”
But she didn’t look like she was in a hurry to make that happen.
Suzy opened the back door, propping it against her foot so that it stayed open. “Coming?”
“I’m coming,” Isobel said, but she still didn’t move.