Shane assured the server at the Pizza Oven, an overpriced Italian restaurant and occasional performance venue across from Annandale, that Steven was a method actor from the theater program. The sword was a harmless prop, so there was no need to worry. Even with her abilities, the server looked dubious.
Steven grunted his order, a pile of cheese and sauces that would have threatened his life if that were a concern, then clammed up, looking at the other diners but not Shane. In another man, she would mistake this for the pensiveness of a deferred death wish.
With too many complications before her, Shane could no longer tolerate anything less than full disclosure.
Keep reading...
There was little need to hide the footage of his associates' murders, but Shane found it indelicate to allow Jian Yue to watch it more than twice, hoping he might provide some clue that she had missed. She excelled in missing clues tonight, it seemed. Though she couldn't entirely blame that for the massacre she had witnessed through a criminal's eyes, it must be a causal factor.
Shane gave Jian Yue a sympathetic hug, without touching his skin. She didn't want to taste the bitter salt of his thoughts, especially now that he had taken this latest gut punch to his psyche. He had been quiet since his first viewing, inasmuch as that was an applicable term given their language barrier, but Shane did not find him worried.
"So, Shane, Jian Yue and I have a little bet going out here," Roselyn said before the museum door had closed behind the steward, handing her pint of ice cream to Jian Yue to protect. "He thinks that it is a sword of inestimable value heralded by the ages and destined to cleave the pantheons in twain."
Shane cocked an eyebrow, knowing Roselyn understood enough Spanish to laugh at telenovelas and didn't have enough grasp of Cantonese to order her Char Sui spicier. Such eloquence was surely beyond charades. "And what do you think?"
"Worthless fucking inconvenient toothpick," Roselyn said. "'Penny-ante nonsense,' I believe Mr. Oswald put it to you?"
"Ding, ding, ding, give the man his prize," Shane answered, motioning to the gangster. To her surprise, Jian Yue pumped his fist in triumph. Perhaps Shane did underestimate Roselyn's skill at party games.
"No shit?"
With enough time, anyone could have broken in. Snatch a key from a distracted librarian, jab a pocketknife in a latch, know which switch turned on the lights and not off the power, and creep down creaking stairs. Child's play. Though she might have found it too grimy, Shane Valentine couldn't understand why students refrained from doing this frequently to have a secluded place to canoodle when the mood struck them or roommates lingered.
"Why was some idiot who skimmed the Necronomicon wasting her time?" was the more pressing question. She checked her happy face watch, sighing at being held to a countdown. She flicked the switch and scanned to see if the thoughts of those in the library grew spiky with irritation. Instead, the fluorescent lights above buzzed to life.
From years of evading them, Shane knew that Annandale College employed around twenty-five security guards. It was hard to keep a count. The guards were fired when they didn't see something they should have or quit because they had seen something they should not have. Shane's duty, which she could not leave or be fired from short of her murder, was keeping Annandale and the surrounding community from seeing more of the real world than it could handle while avoiding starring in as many prophecies as possible.
Shane shot to her feet, any pretense of recuperation from the psychic tide abandoned. She tottered to one side, Roselyn buttressing her before she could topple and further stain her clothing, already a mess from abandoning her body on the saturating earth.
Shane righted herself in stern silence, appraising each of them in turn.
Roselyn and Arden shot looks between them that looked like they had been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, which contained their murder victims' hard drugs. Steven shrugged at a question no one had asked, gripping his sword in his hand. Jian Yue shifted his weight from foot to foot, reading the vibes, but not the words. Kit, for his part, fought every urge to express anything like guilt or fear, which made him shiver.
"Everyone intact?" Shane asked, no playfulness in her tone.
"Yes," said Roselyn.
"Circle broken, fire out?"
"Yes and yes."
Shane narrowed her eyes at the extinguished fire. "Any other magic in need of banishing?"
"No."
Shane's posture eased, though barely. "Any enemies, ill-wishers, sudden allies, or strangers of whom I have not been apprised?"
"Not to our knowledge," hedged Roselyn.
Shane clenched and actively relaxed her jaw. "It will have to suffice," she said.
Shane had already sent her witch friends cell phone pictures of twenty pages from her book. Yet, when they arrived at the riverfront, the three of them pored over the froofy-looking diary anyway, bickering with each other as much as the book. Kit didn't know what they could see there that wasn't in the pictures, but quibbled over the specifics of who would do what when and why. They were not unclear on the how: fucking weird witchcraft, which must be their default. Kit was surprised that any of them could tie their shoes without consulting a crystal ball.
He stood far enough away from their tet-a-tet---Shane was losing ground in the argument---that he could pretend plausible deniability if anyone should walk by. They had left the campus behind two hundred feet above, and the nearest path was at least fifty feet away. The trees were on the edge of green leaves bursting forth, further banishing the remaining clumps of snow whose melting made their walk squishy.
