Rigo saw Jen’s eyes widen as she took them all in. Then Godiva said proudly, “You already met Rigo. This is Alejo, my—our son.”
Jen looked from one to the other again, and this time she smiled. “I’m really glad you found him. And that things are . . .”
“Good,” Godiva stated. “Real good. Five humina-huminas good since yesterday.”
“Mom!” Alejo clapped a hand over his face. “If that means what I think it means, that’s way too much information!”
“You have a very dirty mind, son,” Godiva said, patting him on the shoulder. “You take after me.” Her grin faded, and she turned to Jen. “We’re ready to go. But we didn’t finish translating.”
“Everybody is waiting at Bird and Mikhail’s,” Jen said. “Including a friendly classics professor willing to be rousted out of bed by Joey Hu.”
Alejo got up, bent and enveloped his mother’s small frame in a tight hug. Then he let her go, saying, “Here’s where I take off, then. Dad, if you’ll hand off the keys to the Phantom, I’ll drive it home.”
Rigo looked at Godiva’s wistful eyes, but then she blinked and smiled. “We’ll catch you later, right? Soon?”
“You’ve got to come and see the ranch as soon as you kick Long Cang’s ass,” Alejo said. “Call me tomorrow.”
“That’s a promise,” Godiva said stoutly. But her eyes followed him as he gave them all a wave and went out the door.
Then she turned, her hand stealing into Rigo’s. His heart constricted when he felt the tremble in her fingers. But all she said was, “Okay, Je
n, how do we do this?”
“You just have to stand there,” Jen said. “I will warn you, most people say it feels kind of like missing a step while getting an invisible punch. In an ice storm. For a few seconds. But the reaction goes away.”
She had to take them through one at a time, so Godiva volunteered to go first. Rigo let go her hand. She tugged her suitcase next to her, clapped her hand to her new hat as if it would be taken away, and in a flicker the two vanished, leaving him alone in the room.
He shut his eyes, and there, vividly imprinted against his eyelids, was Godiva last night, her heart in her wide black eyes as she stood outside the door to her room across the way, and said, Would you like to come in?
A whoosh of air and Jen was back, breaking the memory. Rigo stood where he was, gear over his shoulder, as Jen clapped his arm and he staggered. Her warning was no exaggeration; he stepped onto what he recognized as the garden terrace with the gazebo at Mikhail’s grand house. A shiver ran through him.
As he blinked away the reaction, he wondered what Godiva had said in the few seconds they were parted. The first time he met her posse, they’d looked at him like he was a giant cockroach. The second time, on this same terrace right before he and Godiva left on their trip, they had regarded him with polite neutrality. But this time their welcome was as genuine as their smiles.
Godiva stretched out her hand to him, and when he went to her, she patted the bench next to her, scooting close so they could sit hip to hip.
Joey Hu said to Rigo, “First thing to report will probably come as no surprise: some of our LA connections checked the address you texted us, but Cang’s house was empty. We think he has several lairs.”
Joey turned to face the group, and indicated a short, round woman with curly hair. “This is Sara Greenbaum, who specializes in Renaissance History.”
Doris, on Godiva’s other side, whispered behind her hand to Godiva and Rigo, “Raccoon shifter.”
While Sara looked over the translation papers that Godiva had stuffed into her purse, Godiva leaned forward. “Do you know how Long Cang would have connected up with Barth? Is there like a Scumbag Central Clearing House where villains can go shopping for evil?” Godiva asked.
Joey Hu said, “Not that I know of . . . Mikhail?”
The quiet imperial knight said, “My understanding is that there are various attempts to establish something like that. But from what we have been able to discover, those trying to form a shifter version of the Dark Net either require loyalty—stringently enforced—or else something equally valuable in trade. Ones such as this Barth are usually solo operators, making them much harder to find.”
Joey spoke up. “Bringing us back to Cang. Our plan to insert Caleb and Bryony—one of Nikos’s hetairoi—into Long Cang’s minions has been pretty successful. Neither of them has been able to get near Long Cang or his captains yet, but last night Bryony overheard mention of the latest plan, which we figure was put together as soon as Cang received the new charm.”
Mikhail said, “Tomorrow.”
Godiva flashed a glance up at Rigo, and he knew what she was thinking: just in time.
At that moment, Sara looked up from the translation papers. “Nice job here, whoever did this. You only misinterpreted a few words. What you call the zombie spell, which is here termed ‘A Call to Obedience,’ is centered around sound, as you already know. This new spell is complicated by the fact that it does two things, both centered around scent.”
“What are they?” Joey asked.
Sara winced. “There is both an effect on the user and on those around the user, and as such, it’s especially vicious. It purports to give the target super-strength, but at the risk of their lives. While under its influence, they have about an hour to use every reserve they have. As for everyone around them, the scent coming off the user will deaden their senses for a few seconds, making the user effectively invisible as they pass by. Unless you’re really looking for them—or in this case, expecting the scent.”