She straightened up a little as irritation crossed her expression. When she met my direct stare, though, her spine bowed once again.
“Reagan, you’re giving her crazy eyes,” Callie said, grabbing the girl by the upper arm. “But she’s right, Penny. This is the point of no return. There is going to be some serious danger in there.”
“Assuming we’re even in the right place,” Dizzy muttered.
“I take it you didn’t mention any of this when you spoke with her?” I asked Callie.
“Then she wouldn’t have come,” Callie muttered. “I definitely told her we were going to banish a demon, though.”
“It’s okay.” Penny sighed and straightened up again, her eyes flicking to Darius. She looked away just as quickly. “I owe him, so…”
I looked at Darius, something weird and hot rising through my chest. It didn’t take long for me to identify the foreign emotion.
Jealousy. Super. Can this day get any worse?
But, of course, the answer was yes, it could get worse. It could get alotworse. Was about to, in fact, because either we were in the right place and were heading into battle, or we weren’t and a demon with my secrets would escape to the underworld and tattle to my father.
“If you’re coming, Penny, harden up,” I said, walking. “Otherwise, get out now.”
“You’ll be fine,” Callie said. I could hear pats, probably Callie trying to comfort her. “Just hex the hell out of anyone who isn’t on our side.”
“Hex, shoot, stab, eye-gouge—whatever.” I walked out into the crisp night, a wonderful change from the sticky humidity of New Orleans. “This is the easy part. Finding some meddling mages.”
“Meddling is not the term I would use for a group of serial killers.” Dizzy jogged up to me. “So, Reagan, can you walk me through your method?”
“Sure. I walk around, usually quietly, and look for evildoers. Sometimes I find magic instead. So I tear down the magic andthenfind the evildoers. Generally, a battle ensues, and I kill said evildoers, often accidentally. I always blame this on them, of course.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” He watched my face. It was awfully distracting.
“Dizzy, why don’t you look around for anythingodd?”
“The rest of the group will do that. You are infinitely more fascinating. Your unique approach to danger always gives me ideas for new spells.”
Fabulous.
“That must be the yard office,” Callie whispered, pointing at a squat, rectangular building up ahead. “Beyond it will be lots twelve through fourteen. I assume… Ah yes, there we go, various cargo. Companies must rent this space out. There are other lots on the other side, but I can’t remember the numbers.”
“Why do you know so much about this place?” Penny asked.
“I looked at the map, dear. There are several online.”
“Oh.”
I paused in the shadow of a quiet checkpoint, my gaze focused on the building Callie had called the yard office. A man stood outside, just beyond the edges of a beam of light trained on the ground from a corner of the building. His gaze swept in an arc, surveying the area. Though his head was moving, and his eyes were no doubt scanning, no one was home. I could tell he wasn’t taking in what he was seeing. Boredom from inactivity would do that to a person.
Continuing on, sticking to the shadows around the large check-in structure that was shut down except forone guard also asleep at the wheel, we skirted by without a problem.
I gritted my teeth as we made our way through the lot, looking at the various containers and other cargo. Nothing looked out of the ordinary, and more importantly, I didn’t sense any magic.
“What’s beyond this, Callie?” I whispered.
“Um.” A soft glow illuminated her face as she studied her phone. “On the other side of the road, which we can’t see from here—”
“I can’t see anything at all,” Dizzy whispered.
“—is the other lots.”
“Are,” Penny said. It sounded like an afterthought.
