“If that’s what you heard, then you do have caramel in your ears.”
“We can be there in a few hours.” Clay clapped his hands. “Don’t have any fun without us.”
Leaning across me, Asa ended the call then kissed my neck. “Do we wait for them?”
And hope Dad caught up to us? Or not? I couldn’t decide which would be worse. “I don’t know.”
“Then I vote we get a room in a hotel without a resident black witch and nap.” Asa smoothed his fingertips under my eyes. “You need rest to face this.”
Sleep wouldn’t help. Nothing would. Except if the note were a cruel prank.
A text from an unfamiliar number lit up my screen, and I braced for the news.
>>Did your daemon leave anything behind in the mausoleum?
The mausoleum? Oh. This must be Marita’s number.
>No?
>>The coffin the guys raided for their throw toy was a concrete box in the center of the structure.
>>It was also chockful of random religious paraphernalia that smells like roadkill.
>>One piece has been smashed to bits, but the base is intact. A vase, I think. Not sure if the guys did that or if it was already that way.
Hope we had discovered the Boos’ cache made me grateful I had asked Marita for the favor.
>That’s evidence in our case. Can you lock it up, maybe put some guards on it?
>>Sure thing.
>Thanks. I’ll pick it up soon.
Soonmight be a slight exaggeration. I didn’t trust anyone else to secure the items, the worst of which would end up in my care, but I couldn’t circle back yet.
Impact rattled us in our seats, and we flinched at the massive dent in the roof above our heads.
Wand in hand, I leapt out the door and pivoted to see what manner of monster had found us. “Dad?”
He vibrated with rage that should have burned hot but turned him stone-cold. For a beat, there was nothing in his eyes when he looked at me. I don’t think he knew me or registered anything except a threat to the mate that was beyond needing him to defend her.
The black wings I saw him with last fanned out to either side of him, hidden from human sight, but not from me. He stepped off the roof and landed on the asphalt before me, his eyes dark and fathomless. A muscle twitched in his neck, and his gaze flipped down to where the pendant hid beneath my shirt.
For a heartbeat, two, I forgot how to breathe in the face of his all-consuming fury.
“Where?”
That was all he got out before his locked jaw caged any further conversation.
“We don’t know.” I hated admitting that to him. “A suspect we have reason to believe is already in control of one onryo left me this note.”
Dad snatched the paper out of my hand and skimmed it, cruel darkness billowing around him.
“My wife.” He crumpled the threat in his hand. “They would dare?”
The ball erupted into black flames that smelled of old blood and dirt, and Dad blew the ashes off his palm. Rather than disperse, they glittered with a spark of that same ember and caught a ride on a nonexistent wind toward the street.
“This will lead us to the person who wrote the note.”