More stunned silence. "Where did you hearthatname?" It's whispered.
"The fat ugly fuck who pulled me bodily out of the car and almost killed me before Nico sprayed his brains all over the garage door."
"She fought like a trapped lioness," Nico says. "And he was a very large, very ugly, very frightening individual. He shot out her window, cut her seatbelt off, and threw her out of the car. She did not go quietly into that good night."
I glance at him. "Dylan Thomas, huh?"
Nico shrugs. "There is a surprising amount of downtime when one is crisscrossing the globe hunting a deranged psychopath. Poetry is a guilty pleasure of mine."
"I'm not sure you fully comprehend the meaning of 'guilty pleasure' there, buddy," A deep, rough, male voice says.
Nico frowns. "Then please enlighten me, Rev."
"Gentlemen, not the time," Sophia interrupts, very much like a teacher settling a squabble between kindergarten boys. "Let us move on to the reason you reached out, Nico."
"There has been a development, and not a positive one, I fear." He glances at me, for some reason. "Jakob has been taken by Pugli, and we suspect he has been shot. That is the bad news. The good news is that he is alive, last we saw, and I was able to place a tracker on the vehicle he is in." He pauses again. "We all owe him far more than merely our lives, which Miss Bennett has pointed out to me. I know he was very clear in not wanting us to interfere, but Miss Bennett has made an excellent point: we owe him more than just gratitude for saving our lives. I do not need to enumerate the many ways he has shown us generosity and loyalty. He redeemed us all from our various personal hells. Now it is we who must rescue him from his. We swore an oath—loyalty to the brotherhood above all, yes? He is our brother, even though none of us have ever seen or spoken to him. Loyalty, in this case, demands that we disobey his wish to handle this by himself. He did not let any of us deal with our demons alone. He will not, either."
"Nicolai," a woman's voice says—soft and quiet and accented—again, I can't place it, but that is not surprising, I suppose. "My love."
Nico's face positively melts at the sound of her voice. He answers in…who knows—some other language. God, I feel like an ignorant American around this man, who speaks a dozen languages better than I speak one.
They exchange words for a few minutes, and then there's a sense of farewell in the way he speaks, in the lingering softness in his eyes before his expression hardens once more.
Sophia's voice returns. "I thought you'd need a touch of home, Nico. Motivation, as it were."
"I did, indeed, Sophia. You are most thoughtful." A pause. "I will send coordinates, but our current location is outside of Rochester, New York, heading southwest."
Another hard, powerful male voice comes through the phone. "We got the jet spoolin' up, Nico. Be there just as fast as that fucker can go."
Another, different voice. "Try not to have all the fun without us, would you?"
"Wait!" This is a female voice, again, not the same as Sophia or Nico's wife or whatever she is to him. "Brys?"
I take the phone. "Yes, hi, this is Brys."
A giggle—several giggles. "We have a question we're hoping you can answer."
"Girls." Sophia's voice, scolding. "Not the time."
"Oh, hush, you. The men are still getting all their guns together. We have a second, right, Nico?"
"A moment or two, yes. We are driving, and they are not showing signs of stopping anytime soon. Ask your question." He looks at me. "It will likely be rather invasively personal."
"Would I ask an invasively personal question, Nico?"
He snorts. "Yes, Terra, you would."
"Fine, I would. But she's one of us now, so she's gotta get used to our ways."
One of them?
"Um?" I say. "I'm not sure I qualify as one of you."
"You hooked up with the mysterious Boss-Man. We wanna know what he's like."
"I—" Not wanting to lie, but also not wanting to betray Jakob's confidence, since he seems like a very, very,veryprivate person, I hesitate as to how to answer. "I wouldn't say we hooked up," I say, eventually. "Terra, is it?"
"Yep, that's me!" She's chipper, energetic, with a thick Boston twang. "Nosy ass bitch extraordinaire."
