The joke wasn’t funny. I didn’t dignify Azrames with a response. Instead, I turned to my friends.
“What’s everyone doing to stay sane while we wait out the apocalypse in a haunted church?”
Nia looked up from her phone. She lifted the silver rectangle and said, “Researching homeowners’ insurance and seeing if I can get it upgraded to cover acts of God.”
“Smart.”
“And buying new mirrors,” she added.
“Just have Az seal the ones you have now,” I said. “They’ll be safer than new mirrors.”
She rapidly hit a button on her phone. “Delete from cart. Oh, I’m also getting backstage passes to Alessia’s next speaking engagement. It’s tomorrow night. Did you know Az was some kind of hacker?”
My mind filled with flashing computers, short-circuiting cameras, and the slack-jawed dissociative state of a thoroughly punished hotel clerk. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Oh.” Kirby gripped the purple drink with their right hand and fished in their pocket with their left. “Whoever you called has been redialing you. I knew it wasn’t for me, and that you’d sleep off your buzz in a second.”
I took the phone. Whatever alcohol-fueled spell had sent me to sleep it off had apparently spared them. “And you’re both fine? Not tipsy? Not hungover?”
“I helped them out,” Silas said, shrugging a single shoulder.
“You’re good at that, aren’t you,” I clipped. I’d barely accepted the phone when it began to buzz with Xuân’s number. An underhanded view of my pixelated chin informed me that she wasn’t just calling. I looked at the others, about to tell them I’d be back, but Azrames had joined Nia and Kirbs against the dusty pulpit, and whatever they were doing on the computer was too interesting for them to worry about me. Istepped into the annex just behind the sanctuary, stopping in a pool of outside light before I answered. “Hello?”
“Who the hell are you?”
I blinked rapidly at the shock of lime strands dangling over the camera. On our first encounter, she’d worn her hair in a frizzy bun. This time, it was stick-straight and hung just to her shoulders. Her face was free of makeup, save for the barest of black wings on her outermost corners. I said, “I’m…Marlow. Merit. Both?”
Xuân remained steely. Chaos, children, and the unkempt kitchen were absent as she moved from one room to another. I wasn’t sure where she was going, but she was in a hurry. There was no levity to her question as she stared at me.
“I already gave you my legal name and my pen name. What do you…?”
I sucked in a staccato breath. I’d struggled with the veracity of giving my pen name over my birth name before. I’d had no way of anticipating that she’d find the Pantheon books and be offended by the legal name. I battled for my first word when Xuân took the labor off my shoulders by elaborating.
“Priscilla is already on her way. Apparently, she wasn’t deterred by you summoning us to some haunted-ass serial-killer abandoned church in the middle of the no-go zone. After I met with my guides, I called her. She pulled the Ten of Pentacles to confirm that you mean big money. Yes, yes, you’ll reimburse us, but what the fuck is going on? Exorcism? Come on.”
I could have sworn I heard a mocking laugh wafting from the pews. I had no idea how good Azrames’s ears were, but it wouldn’t shock me if he’d mastered multitasking to eavesdrop.
I focused on Xuân. I didn’t know what to tell her.
I felt like I was in trouble. I hadn’t hidden anything. “I told you money was no object. My books have done well. Name your price.”
“Sorry, we’re miscommunicating. I don’t care who youare.Whatare you?”
I opened my mouth but was met with dust on my tongue. Everything was too big. It had spiraled too quickly. I had no information that anyone would find satisfying. I didn’t even have a plan for what I’d intended to say upon their arrival. Honestly, I’d expected Az would do it for me.
I shivered in the dark, huddled between collapsing passageways and broken doorframes. It seemed ridiculous to fear the dark, given my allies, but I knew the world was filled with things far scarier than demons.
The angle on the phone screen changed as she fixed her phone into a small holder. A slamming door and the snap of a belt buckle followed.
“Oh, Pris might beat me to your ghost-infested church. Her intuition told her to be a lot more trusting than I am.”
I didn’t even want to be in the so-calledghost-infested church. If I’d had my way, I never would have stepped foot on religious soil again. My lips bunched to the side as I awaited Xuân’s final judgment.
She said, “I’m starting my car now. But, Marlow Whatever-the-Fuck-You-Are, explain what we saw in our divination. Why were my guides screaming at me to drive to the middle of downtown? Why did the Infernal Court tell Pris to get her ass over there? Neither of us has had clearer, louder readings in the history of forever. My cards, my oracle deck, my meditation was basically alecture.” She punctuated the word with more sass than I knew how to handle. “Explain yourself.”
Oh.
“I don’t know where to start,” I said honestly.
