20
Rinaldo tappedhis fingers on the iron arm of the patio furniture he was sitting in. They were at a coffee shop downtown—some dumb little place the Cardinal had suggested might be a good place to meet Maggie. Somewhere his snipers could get a clean shot if need be.
He was nervous, to say the least. Ally was at his side but didn’t seem to share his mood. As usual, she was smiling away, sipping her coffee, and launching into random conversations with the strangers around them.
Checking his phone for the millionth time, he finally turned it face down and slid it away. No outside communication for the half hour prior to a planned incident with a dangerous party. Or at least potentially dangerous.
Maggie was just a girl. A poor girl, caught in the crossfire of the world’s most dangerous necromancer. A poor girl who was trapped in some strange cycle of death, but…Gideon was to blame for that.
When he had received a text message from her, asking to meet up, he’d been surprised. They lost track of the undead trio—Gideon, Maggie, and Harry—back in Northampton, Massachusetts, several months prior. He had expected them to jump the continent, head somewhere far away and quiet. Not head back to Boston.
But here he was. Sitting on the sidewalk of a café in Boston, drinking a not-nearly-as-good-as-the-real-stuff cappuccino, waiting for her to show up.
“Hi, guys.”
He jolted in surprise and looked up at Maggie. She smiled at them warmly.
She was alone.
Well, save for a rat on her shoulder, who looked far more alive than the last time he had seen it. “Is that…?”
“Hm?” She looked down at the rat, scooped him up from her shoulder, and smiled. For all intents and purposes, the creature looked fully alive. “Yeah. I’m getting better at this.” She tucked him into her bag and placed it down on the ground by the chair across from them. “Hi, Ally. How’re you?”
“I’m just peachy,” the demoness-turned-sister at her side said with a beaming smile. “You look good! You look fantastic, actually. What’s changed?”
“Oh. A lot. A lot’s changed.” Maggie rubbed the back of her neck. “Can I get a coffee before we launch into this, and you probably put a bullet in my head?”
Rinne stammered for a second before he gave up and nodded. Something felt off. Very off. Maggie had…changed. Ally was right. She did look good—the bags under her eyes were gone. She didn’t look so pale. Hell, the girl even looked like she had a tan, of all things. But that wasn’t the only thing that had shifted.
Her aura had changed. The colors around her were no longer muted but flared in fully saturated tones. He could barely see it before, the weathered tones grayed and lifeless. And her mood had risen to match. Her smile seemed natural and real. She wasn’t…afraid. Or morose. It was like some weight had been taken from her shoulders.
“She’s here alone,” Ally observed thoughtfully. “Interesting.”
“They might be lurking nearby.”
“Could be. Or not.” She hummed. “Something feels different.”
Maggie came back a moment later, carrying a coffee and a tray of various sweets. She put the pile of confections down in the middle of the table and sat across from them. “All right. So. Hi. Been a while.” She glanced up at the city skyscrapers around them. “How many?”
“Four,” Ally answered, ever chipper.
“Not bad.” Maggie snickered. “I feel important.”
“We assumed you’d have friends with you.” Rinnie was tempted to reach over and take one of the croissants, but…having sticky hands during a gunfight that might happen seemed like bad protocol.
Ally didn’t seem to have a problem with it and plucked a donut from the tray and began picking it apart to eat it. “Thanks for the treats.”
“You’re welcome.” Maggie snorted. “Not my money, though.”
“Raithe?” Rinaldo eyed the young woman, still trying to figure out what must have happened to change her in such a way.
“I’m having fun racking up his credit bill. Bastard keeps paying it off, though, so…I don’t know. Might buy a yacht tomorrow. Yachts sound fun. Oh!” Maggie snapped her fingers as she remembered something. “I never got to say, Ally, your demon form is epic.”
“Thank you.” His partner smiled almost bashfully. “It’s rare that I get to stretch my legs.”
“How is it that you can walk in your demon form, but not in your human one?”
“Ah. Well, I was cursed.” Ally shrugged. “A witch doctor from the village in South Africa where I was trying to save the sick.”