“Come on, Eugene,” Sandy said. “Let’s go get ‘em.”
Chapter Twelve
No Hexes, No Exes, and No Pissed-Off Brewers
Gideon
The curry the pub was serving for dinner was something Alvin had been working on as part of the whole festival experience. He said a good ale deserved a proper pairing, and he wasn’t going to let the winning beer sit on tap next to food that didn’t honor it. The result was a lamb and sweet potato curry with just the right amount of heat and flavor.
It was really good, but most of Alvin’s food was. He’d worked in a fine-dining restaurant in the city for a few years, but he missed living somewhere that was more supernaturally friendly, so he came home. He seemed happy here, and I hoped he was because I would hate to lose him.
I’d brought the food upstairs in two bowls covered with plates to keep the heat in, along with a couple of glasses and a bottle of Roy’s ale, since that was the drink it was paired with. I wasn’t sure how I felt about serving his ale with everything wewere learning, but until we knew anything for sure, I would stick to the agreement to serve it on tap.
Declan had said nothing about the ale when I poured it. He’d just picked up his glass, taken a sip, thought about it for a moment, and set it back down.
“It’s actually not bad,” he said. Which was high praise from Declan concerning a beer.
“It really isn’t,” I agreed.
“That’s annoying.”
“A little. I can get you something else if you want.”
“No, it’s okay. Besides, I haven't tried it with the curry yet.” He picked up his fork.
We ate in the comfortable quiet that had become one of my favorite things about being with him. We could hear the muted sounds of people talking and laughing downstairs at the pub, but up here in the apartment, it was just the two of us. No hexes, no exes, and no pissed-off brewers.
Licorice had taken up a post on the windowsill, facing outward, which I took to mean she considered the inside of my apartment sufficiently supervised and the street to be the more pressing concern. She’d barely moved since we came upstairs, and both my wolf and I approved. We liked knowing Declan had someone watching out for him when we weren’t there.
“Not a single one of them,” Declan said with a huff.
I looked up from my bowl.
“None of the brewers found a hex bag.” He stabbed a piece of sweet potato with slightly more force than it required. “We asked all of them, and nobody found anything.” He set his fork down. “So either Roy collected them after the fact, which means he’s more careful than we thought, or we’re wrong about the hex bags being the delivery method, or —”
“Or they didn’t find them because they weren’t looking,” I said. “You said they were no bigger than a golf ball.”
“I know, and I know without Licorice, we probably wouldn’t have found Ivan’s,” he said.
“A golf ball isn’t big, and places where someone’s brewing beer tend to have a lot of equipment and shelving. Lots of places to hide an object that small.” I picked up my glass. “I’m not saying they aren’t there. I’m saying it’s possible no one noticed.”
“They’ll be looking now,” he said. “Maybe they’ll find them after all.”
“Exactly, and if they find something, they’ll let us know.”
“And if not, we’ll go check ourselves. It’s not okay to cheat like that. The best beer should have won.” He glared at the almost-empty glass sitting in front of him before picking up his fork and taking another bite of the curry.
We finished eating at a slower pace. I told him what I’d learned at the panel, which was basically nothing, and he talked me through what they’d found at Ivan’s again, and what he and Elwood had been able to read from the hex signature.
By the time the bowls were empty and the ale was mostly gone, we’d gone as far as we could go with the investigation tonight.
Declan leaned back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. “We’re going to figure this out.”
“We are.”
“Roy thinks he’s been clever.”
“He has been, a little.”
