She was going to lose at that bargaining table.
But she would give it a try.
And that personality defect of arrogant narcissism was going to be the only reason he was able to get inside the mhis alive. What happened after that? Who the hell knew, but he had a feeling she could only work through him if he was asleep.
Otherwise, she would have appeared to him in person when he was awake.
As Balz re-formed on the front steps of the mansion, he went to run up to the enormous door—but then he thought about the scratches that had been on his back and stopped.
“Fuck,” he muttered as he looked down at himself.
And wondered just exactly what was inside of his skin.
Taking one step back . . . and another . . . and another . . . he kept going until the courtyard’s fountain bumped into his shoulder blades.
Staring up at the mansion’s great gray stone walls, and the gargoyles at the corners up high, and the slants of the slate roof, he thought about who was behind all those glowing leaded glass windows—but he kept the images in his mind vague. He had the sense that he needed to make sure his thoughts were as indistinct as possible.
With a feeling of dread, he took his phone out. The first number he called didn’t pick up. The second? No answer. The third? Voice mail.
As his heart started to pound, he had a sick fear that things had taken a very bad turn.
The fourth number was answered before the initial ring had even started to fade. “Sire! How fare thee? May I please be of your service—”
“Fritz,” he said grimly. “Drop the shutters. All around the house. Drop them right now—I don’t have time to explain.”
Any other butler, in any other royal household, might have taken a breath to ask why. Maybe gotten a little flustered or thought that he needed to talk to one of his true masters.
Not Fritz Perlmutter.
“Right away, Sire.”
And by “right away,” the doggen meant exactly this second: All over the mansion, on every floor, on each side, the shutters began to lower.
“What else, Sire.”
“Where is everyone,” Balz asked. “No one’s answering their phone.”
• • •
As Sahvage re-formed at the park, he was partially obscured by a mist that had started to come off the river, the result of a strange imbalance in the weather that had most certainly not been going on when he’d been down here earlier. In between the spooky banks of fog, the ring of trees at the edge of the clearing appeared and disappeared, and overhead, the moon and the stars were likewise masked and revealed by turns as clouds drifted by.
With no streetlights or lanterns around, it was very dark, the skyscrapers off in the distance offering only glowing spears rather than anything that could help you see.
“You are not afraid.”
At the sound of the Reverend’s voice, Sahvage turned around. “Where’s your guy.”
The other male stared at him silently, as if he were making some kind of assessment. “And still you’re not arming up.”
“How many are with you,” Sahvage said roughly as the Brother came forward.
“All of them.”
At that, more figures stepped forward . . . Vishous, who now had a goatee. Murhder, who was still red-and-black-haired. And then there were others whose faces he didn’t recognize.
And there were others who he expected to see and did not.
But it had been a very, very long time.