Chapter Twenty-Four
I woke up feeling refreshed and ready to take on Jude fucking Jingo. He’d been fucking with me and mine for far longer than I had ever known, and I was going to take him down. I just wasn’t sure how. All the same, I was ready.
I was also incredibly late.
‘Why did you let me sleep so long?’ I demanded of Robbie as I strode out into the living room. The smell of coffee percolating was strong and the Ouija board was open on the dining room table, next to Robbie.
‘Have you been speaking to Dad?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘About what?’ I asked.
‘You. What else?’ he replied evasively but smiled to soften it.
‘I’m late! I overslept.’ I looked with regret at the board. ‘Sorry, Dad. We’ll have to practise our spelling later on tonight, okay?’
The planchette moved to the top left corner: yes.
I cleared my throat. ‘Okay, great. Speak later then.’
God, what was I going to tell Mum? Rupert, Julian?
Nothing. Nothing for now. Nothing until I knew what the hell was going on.
Mum would be upset. And what if the ghost wasn’t my father?
My gut said he was – hell, every instinct I had said he was – but I’d need to do some tests all the same.
Ask him some questions only he’d know the answers to.
Robbie came up to me, Amber’s two small vials in his large hand. ‘Make sure you hide those vials.’
‘What do you mean, hide them?’ I had been planning to sling them into my briefcase.
‘Poison is a close-range method of killing. Used to sneakily incapacitate. If Amber’s Goddess wants you to have poisons, we need to make sure they’re accessible but not easily discovered upon your person.’ His eyes warmed with amusement.
‘You better not be thinking about suggesting I hide the potions where I think you are.’
His eyebrow lifted as his eyes lowered to my chest. ‘Definitely not. But I was thinking, put them in your ankle holster and add a weapon on top – knife, gun. Whoever searches you will think they’ve removed the threat from your holster, but you’ll still have the potions contained therein.’
‘Sneaky,’ I said approvingly.
‘I’m not just a pretty face.’ He winked.
‘You do have a pretty face,’ I agreed. ‘Ridiculously so. You’re almost vampyric in your beauty.’
He blinked. ‘No one has called me beautiful before. Stacy, I’m an ogre. I’m tough and scary. I’m not supposed to be attractive.’
‘Well, you’ve failed on that score, because you’re annoyingly handsome. Remember when that maid fainted?’ I rolled my eyes at the memory, and he gave a full-throated laugh.
‘I did enjoy that,’ he conceded. ‘But she fainted from fear, not attraction.’
‘You keep telling yourself that, big guy.’ I gave him a quick kiss. ‘I’ve got to go.’
‘Sure.’ He stood from the table and followed me out. I assumed he was going to his car, but when I reached the ground floor, three black Land Rovers full of ogres awaited me.
I frowned at Robbie. ‘What’s this?’
‘Your escort,’ he said blandly. Before I could object, he held up a hand.
‘They’re gunning for you, Stacy.’ His expression was carefully blank, and he had no need to name the they.
The Domini. The Order. Whatever they wanted to call themselves.
Bolton had warned me, threatened me, with his last breath.
‘Yeah, well, I’ll deal with them after I’ve dealt with Jingo.’
‘While I’ve no doubt you will, I’ll be taking measures in the meantime all the same.’
My eyes went flat. ‘No.’
‘No? What do you mean, no?’
‘I understand it’s not a word you hear often, but no, Robbie. I’m an Inspector. I can’t have twenty ogres following me around!’
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Considered my point of view. ‘Fine. I’ll send half of them away.’
It was a concession. A big one. But ten ogres would still be an embarrassing parade following after an Inspector of the Connection.
‘Maktel, Hanlon and Ivan,’ I bargained. ‘My final offer.’
‘And me,’ he added.
I sighed. ‘You’re the king. Don’t you have better things to do than play bodyguard to your fiancée?’
He pretended to consider it for half a beat. ‘Ah, no. It turns out keeping you alive is more important than literally anything else I can think of.’
‘I can keep myself alive,’ I groused, but I thought of Cathill’s attack.
The vampyr’s attack had come too soon after Aspen’s murder to have been Jingo, who’d been inside Kate’s home as Troy. Too soon to have been the Connection to chastise me for not closing Aspen’s murder quick enough. That left the Domini as a very likely contender.
If that had been their first shot at me, I guaranteed it had been a test to determine precisely what resources they’d need to take me out. I’d disposed of Cathill relatively easily. Next time it wouldn’t be a lone vampyr sliding out of the shadows. It would be a whole bunch of them.
I looked at my fiancé. ‘Just you four.’
Satisfaction glimmered in his eyes. He jerked his head at two of the cars and they pulled away.
Instantly.
My eyes narrowed. ‘Did you play me?’
‘What do you mean?’ he said with a faux innocence I didn’t believe for a moment.
‘You never intended to lump me with twenty ogres!’ I accused. ‘You just paraded them around here so that four would seem reasonable in comparison.’
‘Four is very reasonable,’ he said.
I ground my teeth and snarled, ‘I’m walking to work.’
‘You can of course do so,’ he agreed, ‘but don’t forget you’re running late, Inspector.’
With an inarticulate noise of rage, I stomped over to the car and slid in. ‘Not one word,’ I barked.
Hanlon was in the backseat next to me. He mimed zipping his lips shut, but his eyes were laughing at me.
Arsehole.
Robbie slid in behind the driver’s seat and we drove the short distance to my office in complete silence.
Elvira had little to report on the goings-on of the previous days. ‘We had some office sickness,’ she said. ‘But I’m happy to report everyone is feeling much better.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ I replied.
Neither of us cracked a smile.
Robbie and his goons agreed to stay outside, so long as I didn’t try to leave without them. That seemed fair enough, and I didn’t intend to leave the office unless there was a Grade One emergency, so they could sit out there talking about their hair for all I cared.
Having security, needing security, rankled.
I fired up my computer and logged in to my report of the vampyr attack. I added an addendum regarding his identity and appended the photograph of the scryed image that Bastion had taken. Then I marked it as closed and put it away.
Later on, McCaffrey stalked into my office, looking annoyed.
‘Listen, boss.’ She paused and thrust out a packet of Jelly Babies. I took one out of politeness. ‘Listen,’ she restarted. ‘Why didn’t I get invited to be sick at your flat with everyone else?’ She folded her arms, Jelly Baby packet crinkling.
I groaned. ‘We needed someone to man the fort.’
‘Woman the fort,’ she corrected. ‘Frost and I, we womanned the fort with Elvira. It was a testosterone-free day.’
‘What about Bland?’ I pointed out.
She snorted. ‘He doesn’t count.’ She examined me. ‘You okay, boss? You look spread thin.’
‘I’m fine. Thank you for your concern.’
‘I’m just saying, I’ve got your back.’
‘I appreciate that. The best thing you can do for me is keep on doing great work.’
She tilted her chin up. ‘You got it. Oh.’ She paused halfway out of the door. ‘Laura baked. They’re actually really decent. Cupcakes. Grab one fast if you want one.’
‘Thanks for the heads-up.’
Let’s get a treat,’ Loki suggested.
Good idea.
I was following McCaffrey out to the breakroom to do just that when my phone lit up. Reed calling.
Well now, what could Jude Jingo’s second want with me? Nothing good, my gut said, and it was rarely wrong.
I slid to answer.