“I’m at the hospital. You need to come down here.”
I was already walking to the door. “Ben?”
“He’s awake.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” The tone of Ryder’s voice wasn’t giving me a lot to go by. “Is that not good?”
“He says he knows where Lavius is.”
“Holy shit. Okay. That’s great. Why don’t you sound happy?”
There was a pause, and I rolled my comment back through my head. It didn’t seem like a strange thing to ask and didn’t seem emotionally tone deaf. I was starting to be uncomfortably aware of that now. Like every time I opened my mouth, I had a chunk of parsley stuck in my emotional teeth.
“He said he doesn’t want to say anything more until you’re here.”
“I’m on my way.” I unlocked my Jeep and climbed in, Bathin following like a coffee-slurping shadow.
He was also eating a candy bar. When had he paid for that? There was no way the barista had comped him a Butterfinger.
“I don’t think you should come.”
Right. I was still talking to Ryder.
“What does that mean?”
There was a shuffling sound and I imagined he was moving out of hearing range of someone.
“He’s insisting he talk to you. It’s all he’ll say.”
Okay, that was a little weird, especially if Jame was there for him to talk to. But trauma was a trip and a half and I was more than just a cop. I was also the person who made it right for the creatures who lived in this town. The person who made it right for the gods to vacation here.
It wasn’t too much of a stretch to think he wanted to give me information and that he thought I would be the best person to receive it.
“Like I said, I’m on my way.”
“Delaney.” The pause while he gathered his thoughts and I listened to him breathe.
Inhale, exhale. Inhale, then exhale on a sigh. “Let’s look at this from another angle. Ben was kidnapped. Lavius found you on the beach and bit you to send a warning to Rossi. Which you did. Then you just happened to pick up the rock with your dad’s trapped ghost or whatever in it at Jame and Ben’s house where it’s been for the last year or so.
“You don’t know who sent that stone, who planted it here,” Ryder said. “And it just so happens to contain a demon in it who just so happened to know where to find Ben.”
“He’s on our side,” I said.
“Is he?”
“I…I don’t know.”
He grunted as if I’d just proved his point.
“We know Lavius sent demons in vampire bodies to Ordinary to hurt Jean,” he reminded me like I hadn’t been there when she’d been run over.
“Maybe not Jean specifically.” I was playing devil’s advocate, trying to poke holes in the theory Ryder was unpacking.
“That was not a luck-of-the-draw hit-and-run, and you know it.”
True.
“Do you think Ben is possessed?” I asked.
