“Something like that.”
“Let’s talk about it inside.” Patrick deftly smacked Keith’s hand away from the cookie box. “I will stab you with my dagger if you even try to eat one. You’re married to Sienna. You can get cookies whenever you want.”
“Bullshit. I can’t get cookies in the field,” Keith shot back.
“Inside,” Gerard ordered firmly. “I need a beer that doesn’t taste like piss water.”
Keith elbowed Patrick in the ribs. “He’s been in a mood since he took a satphone call a week and a half ago.”
Patrick frowned as he shoved open the restaurant door. “You called me a week and a half ago about this visit.”
Gerard grimaced. “Yeah. Beer first. Then we’ll talk.”
The hostess gave them a polite smile, grabbed a couple of menus after confirming their party number, and led them to a booth in the rear of the bar. Patrick was sweating by the time they reached the table. He wasn’t the only one peeling out of his layers of outerwear before sitting down. Patrick let Gerard and Keith take the bench facing the front door, knowing they’d feel more comfortable with eyes on the exit.
Patrick skimmed the menu, picking out a burger, fries, and a Guinness to wash it all down with. The other two perused the menu quickly, with Keith making drooling sounds over every option that caught his eye.
“When was the last time you had decent food?” Patrick asked.
“DC the other day with Sienna. Smooth Dog here got roped into the dog and pony show with the brass. I don’t know what they’ve been feeding him,” Keith replied.
“Food that wasn’t A-rations,” Gerard said.
“That really isn’t saying much.”
The waitress came over to take their order, and Patrick wasn’t at all surprised about the amount of food they collectively ordered. Three burgers with fries, two orders of wings, potato skins, chili cheese fries, and a salad, along with their beer.
“Since when the fuck do you eat salads?” Patrick asked, staring at Keith.
“Sienna was on him during our last leave about not eating his vegetables,” Gerard said with a straight face.
“I’m going to take a picture of it, send it to her, and not eat it,” Keith admitted.
Patrick snorted. “You’re such a fucking child.”
“Speaking of children,” Gerard interrupted before they could devolve into name-calling, “You have a Sluagh problem, and I saw on the news a story about a changeling.”
Patrick made a face and quickly wrote out a silence ward on the table. The sigil glowed pale blue before fading into the wood. The restaurant around them went quiet, people moving beyond the table as if they were in an old silent film.
“The Sluagh went after the baby the other night. I put her in the care of an SOA agent that specializes in changeling cases,” Patrick said.
“How specialized is the agent?”
Movement out of the corner of his eye had Patrick pause as their drinks arrived. If the waitress was aware of the silence ward, she didn’t say anything, and passed out their drinks before heading off to the next customer.
“The SOA has safe houses for unwanted changelings. The agent acts as a go-between,” Patrick said once she was gone.
“Go-between? As in, the veil?” Keith asked. “Like Spencer?”
Patrick shook his head. “No, a regular liaison.”
“Boring. Speaking of Dead Boy, have you heard from him lately?”
“He called the day after Halloween bitching about drunken teenagers summoning zombies in the Bay Area.”
Spencer Bailey wasn’t really dead, but like the rest of them, he’d been christened with a nickname their fellow soldiers had come up with for him in the field. Spencer hadn’t been a Hellraiser, but he’d been assigned to their team from time to time on a temporary basis by the powers that be for missions that needed his particular skills. He’d been competent and trustworthy, and if he hadn’t been so specialized, Gerard would’ve snatched him up in a heartbeat.
A year older than Patrick, Spencer was a soulbreaker mage, capable of exorcising demons from souls and putting the dead to rest, amongst other things. He couldn’t raise the dead, but his magic had an affinity for death and was too close to necromancy for anyone in the government to be comfortable with. Spencer was alive today because someone had decided he could be useful.
