“I’ve had worse,” she says. “Some kind of akvavit?”
“Some kind.”
“I’ve never seen it red before.”
“It’s pretty rare.” I don’t want to tell her that the red is semipoisonous Hellion herbs and a few drops of angel’s blood. She’s had a rough enough day.>“You know too. So I’m the only ignorant one here. Why is that?”
“Because of how you’re acting now,” I say. “You said that all that stuff that happened between us before was over and forgotten, but it’s not. You liked it when I showed you how there was real magic in the world. But you couldn’t handle it when it got down to the hard stuff. Magic and Lurkers were fun and sexy, but Heaven and Hell? You never even tried to deal with them and they’re part of everything that’s happening.”
Allegra is quiet for a minute. She looks out the van’s window at the sky.
“Is that why the sky keeps changing colors? Or the sinkholes?”
“I hadn’t heard about sinkholes. And I don’t know anything about the sky. I was talking about my current employment situation. I’m half a person with half the universe on my back, and if you think that makes me a monster, then you can go to Hell yourself, princess. The door handle’s there and there’s a bus stop at the corner.”
She sits for a minute looking at the floor, then slides the van’s side door open hard enough that it almost comes back on her. She gets out and walks away.
Vidocq gives me a look he’s never given me before. Like he actually wants to hit me.
“Well handled, boy. As graceful as always.”
“You better hurry. Make sure she doesn’t fall and crack her halo.”
Vidocq gets out and slams the door closed.
Candy and I sit in silence for a minute.
“Well, that just happened,” she says. “I have a big mouth. I’m sorry I said anything.”
“Forget it. It was going to happen sooner or later. Wait here.”
Lula Hawks, tattoos and scarred face, is walking our way. I get out and go around to her.
“Are you stalking me? You could have just asked for an autograph.”
She takes a startled step back.
“What are you doing here?” she says.
“I asked first.”
She nods toward Cairo’s place.
“You know King lives over there, right?”
“Yeah. When he comes back, I’m going to kill him.”
She pushes her hands deep into the pockets of her leather jacket. Takes a breath. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
“How is it you know him and want to sell him out to a bad person like me?”
“We went out for a while,” she says. Shakes her head. “I don’t like what he’s become since Aelita arrived. He’s out of control.”
“He’s always been out of control.”
“Not like nowadays.”
“Why did you send me to that stiff, Manimal Mike? He was pretty much useless.”