Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Ophelia tears the price tag off the largest pair of lobby gift shop sunglasses she could find and hands them to Mateo. Little rhinestones that he’d normally be repulsed by line the edges, but he puts them on without complaint, and she considers him. “You just look famous and bad at hiding it.”
Bold-faced lie. She’s being positive, which is a sure sign that things are shit. He is to famous person bad at hiding it as she is to sparkling and peppy.
“Think he’ll notice?” Mateo asks weakly and Ophelia cracks her shitty smile. She’s trying her best to act like this isn’t super bad so he’s trying his best to act like he believes her.
Of all the nonsense things he’s done in his life, trying a spell from his extremely evil mother’s extremely evil spell book that had recently lit him on fire was truly the most top-tier dumbassery.
Every waking moment of his life he’s been afraid of the thing hiding inside him.
Now it’s not hiding. He’d coaxed it out.
Undeniably a dude with a demon problem—sitting on a couch in a hotel room wearing shades, a medical mask, a beanie, women’s wool gloves, and a XXXL hoodie declaring his love for the vibes of San Francisco that Ophelia found up the street.
And he’s destroyed the little lady figure, maybe alerting something scary where he is, and lost the spell book.
A knock at the room door and Ophelia bounds over to get it. Another sign he’s living his worst life because she’s being exceedingly helpful.
Mateo’s customer service game is strong, maybe one of the best, but the way Quincy steps in, pauses at the sight of Mateo in a baffling assortment of face- and body-obscuring accessories, nods in greeting, and turns back to Ophelia without a series of frantic questions is a thing of legend. Topher better pay him well.
“Anything new?” Ophelia asks, which is good because Mateo’s not quite worked out how to talk well around all the teeth in his mouth.
“No.” There’s weariness in Quincy’s tone. “Christopher isn’t answering. Not that I think he’d be helpful. I called the law firm of the dead lawyer and got assurances someone else was sent to represent Topher, but that’s all they’d tell me.” No one wants to talk to the driver.
Ophelia wanders to the AC controls and blasts them, which Mateo appreciates deeply through his stifling layers and fogging up shades. “Any clue where Nystrom Senior is?” she asks.
“Usually work at this time of day, but his kid is in jail,” Quincy says with another glance at Mateo.
He so super wants to ask. But again, Quincy’s too Customer-Service-powerful, and shifts his gaze back to Ophelia.
“I stuck around the jail for a while, but Christopher never showed. Maybe I missed him, but—” He doesn’t finish.
They all know. Christopher’s a dick, so it’s highly probable he didn’t come to his son’s aid.
Ophelia, phone to ear, holds up a hand for quiet.
After a moment, in an impressive polite-society voice, she says, “Hello, I’m calling for Mr. Nystrom.
This is Cynthia on behalf of McBrian and Associates Law.
Mr. McBrian is on the line with an urgent matter.
” Silence for a few beats and then, “Very good. Thank you.” She lowers the phone. “Left forty minutes ago.”
“Could be going home. Could be going anywhere,” Quincy says, looking despondent. He’d probably hoped their arrival would help, but at the end of the day, they’re all the hired help.
Careful to enunciate each word, Mateo asks, “What are you thinking, Phee?”
“That Christopher knows something, and we suddenly have a persuasive way to force it out of him.” She looks pointedly at Mateo.
Right. Mateo would absolutely love to scare the shit out of a middle-aged asshole like this.
It’s a brilliant plan if they can find Christopher—but also, what’s Mateo going to do right after that?
And right after that? He can’t fly like this, which ruins any plan about going to Puerto Rico and scouring the island for brujas who might know what his mother did.
If it wasn’t so hard to use his phone with claws, he’d be researching container ships.
Didn’t Dracula travel that way? Isn’t it bad that he’s narrowed his life choices to the same ones as Dracula?
Beneath the medical mask, his mouth is filling with black goo, the sensation oddly soothing, and he suddenly can’t remember why any of that matters, his thoughts drifting out of focus. What’s he supposed to be doing? Figuring out how to find and eat Christopher.
No. Wait. Shit.
Figuring out how to find and scare Christopher.
“Do you think—” he asks, mentally shaking himself and awkwardly digging his phone from his hoodie pocket. His hands have an unnatural length and it’s difficult to find purchase on glass with sharp tips covered in cheap glove. “—Christopher would answer someone from work?”
They both turn to regard him, Quincy nearly breaking, eyes flitting between Mateo’s hands—which seem wrong—and the mouth he can’t see because a mask is hiding it. Blackness is definitely seeping from the edges.
But Ophelia speaks first. “Ethan? That’s quite the ask.”
“My wiles,” Mateo says, as if he possesses any.
Especially right now. But they could drive all the way to Christopher’s house, bogged down by traffic, and Christopher might not be there.
Every minute wasted is another minute the most beat-up-able and super-cursed guy in the world is trapped behind bars with other people.
He fumbles with his phone, trying to get to the call menu. It’s not the kind of situation you can text about. Ophelia crosses to him and takes the phone, dials Ethan, puts it on speakerphone, and holds it out for him to talk.
Two rings and a voice says: “You still in town?”
Mateo does a probably horrific wide-mouthed grimace beneath the mask to get the words out clearly. “Yeah. Trying to help.” Only sounds a little like he’s talking around a hoagie.
“And you’re calling me in the middle of that because of the oppressive guilt you feel about stealing my jacket even though your boss is in jail?”
He keeps forgetting Ethan’s exactly the kind of guy who’d call him on every bullshit thing he tries. It’s gotta be straightforward. “I need a favor.”
“He needs a favor,” Ethan repeats, but he doesn’t sound put out so Mateo presses on.
“A big favor.”
“Not really selling it … but now I’m curious.”
Mateo meets Ophelia’s eyes briefly. There’s no good way to ask this so he just says it. “I need to talk to Christopher. In person. But he’s not answering my calls and he’s not at work.”
A long pause. “You want me to call a senior broker at the place I work and wheedle out of him his physical location so you can …?”
It’s such a reasonable question and he can’t possibly answer in a reasonable fashion.
So, he doesn’t. Ethan hadn’t seemed that weirded out about the possibility of magic existing.
He hopes that holds true. “Topher hired me because he’s cursed; his mom is either dead, missing, or is the evil wizard who just tried to kill me; and Christopher knows way more then he’s saying.
I wanna strong-arm him into telling me what the hell’s happening. ”
An even longer pause. “I sure do think you’re hot, Mr. Occult Specialist, but I’m going to need a little more than these mad ravings and promises of assault to put my job at risk.”
It’s not like he’s suddenly developed a deep bond of trust with Ethan.
That takes more than some flirting and a pseudo-date that ended in someone drowning.
Hell, he’s not sure what that takes. The person going back in time and being Ophelia, probably.
But Ethan’s been alright so far. Enjoyable, even.
Understanding in a weird situation. Against all odds, Mateo kind of likes talking to him.
There’s a brief reticence at incinerating that tiny kernel of something like friendship, but this is an emergency.
They’re out of options and have zero leads.
Christopher’s the only one who might know what’s happening, so they need to get to him.
Executive decision, then. It’s his horrible secret. Might as well use it to convince a broker that magic’s real so he should help them.
Mateo pointedly doesn’t look at Ophelia as he asks Ethan, “Can you come to my hotel?”