By the time I had carefully—very carefully—laid out my idea, about fifteen minutes had passed. Nothing had changed in the room. I had no idea if the demon had even heard me.
If he had, I wasn’t sure he would agree to the terms I had laid out.
But I was out of time. If I lingered any longer, Lu or Abbi would get suspicious and come looking for me.
I tucked the stone into my pocket and walked to the bar.
Sunlight filtered through the windows, but the honky tonk was cool, the ceiling once again covered by solid wood, the air-conditioned breeze good enough it could make one think Texas heat wasn’t all that bad.
There were a lot of people from the coven here, the neonopensign switched off.
Lu sat with Abbi and Cassia at a table to the right, so I headed that way.
“Have a seat,” Cassia said. “Hope you don’t mind we ordered you up a lunch.”
Since the lunch was fried chicken, ribs, a good helping of beans, and fresh steaming corn bread, I plunked down into the chair.
“It looks amazing, thank you.”
Lula lifted her iced tea and took a drink. The bowl of fresh fruit in front of her was half empty, strawberry stems and little strips of melon rind left in a pile on her napkin.
Abbi, to my surprise, was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. “This is my second one,” she said.
Cassia didn’t have food in front of her, but she did have a large earthenware mug steaming with a fragrant tea.
“I’d leave you all to your meal,” she said, “but first I’d like you to fill me in on where things stand. Franny and Variance have already told me what they know. Abbi explained what happened on her side of things.”
“I stole the token and killed the vampires. Because I’m really bright.” That last was a challenge to me.
“Meh,” I said, “you’re bright enough.”
“Like the sun!”
“Sure, bright like the sun.” I pinched my fingers to indicate she was a little bit short. “Almost.”
Her eyes went wide in outrage, but it was spoiled by the dab of jam stuck on the corner of her mouth.
“Who wants to be the stupid sun anyway?” she muttered, taking another bite. “The moon is so much better.”
“If you can,” Cassia went on, “please tell me what happened when you got to the vampire stronghold. There are a few pieces missing from the story.”
Lula took the lead, which gave me some time to mow through half the food on the plate.
Iwashungry, but I’d eaten a big meal last night and found myself slowing down to listen to Lula recount the fight with Dominick.
“And then there were crows,” she was saying. “I think…Brogan? You were a part of that?”
I took over, explaining why I’d given Rhianna to the ghoul, and how I had guaranteed her safety.
“I like the part when you tell him I can smoosh him like a bug,” Abbi said.
“Then I went back for Lula. To fight Dominick. The vines…” I shook my head. “I had to hack through them to even get into the room. I had the vampire-killing knife Ricky gave us.” My hand drifted to it at my hip. “But I was too far away, and too slow.”
“Like I told you,” Abbi pointed out.
“Like you told me. I dropped the bracelet, threw the knife, and yelled to get his attention.”
Cassia and Lula wore matching frowns. Yeah, I didn’t need either of them to tell me how stupid that had been.
