Part 25 (1/2)
”Oh, yes, that's conclusive. Moron.”
”He got stupid over you.”
”Ninety percent of the male population does. Means nothing. Didn't you see Kinsey?”
”Sure. Liam Neeson totally got screwed by the Oscars that year.”
”Granted, but my point is that if most of the world's population is neither completely gay nor completely straight, then even the odds are in your favor. I'm not sure why he'd choose you to break cover with; I mean, you're just pa.s.sably attractive, reasonably intelligent, excitingly powerful, remarkably pleasant, appealingly broad-minded, definitely loyal, and appallingly self-sacrificing.”
Reeling under the torrent of adjectives, Tony opened his mouth to respond, but nothing came out.
”Next to a man like, say, Liam Neeson,” she continued before he could find his voice, ”you're practically invisible. He's someone I'd do in a minute.”
”Right,” Tony snorted, finding his voice. ”You'd do ninety percent of the male population in a minute.”
She shrugged. ”Eighty max.”
”Kevin Groves.”
”Fine. Eighty-one.” She dropped down onto the end of the chaise lounge. ”It's always amazed me,” she sighed, ”that two men can ever manage to get together at all given the whole lack of being articulate. Maybe he's scared.”
”Lee? Scared? Of me?”
”Don't be dumber than you have to, okay?”
Tony dragged his jeans back up over his hips-they were a little big and shoving his hands in his pockets dragged them low-and sat down beside her. ”You sounded like Amy.”
”You discuss your s.e.x life with Amy?”
”Okay, first, Lee has nothing to do with my s.e.x life, and two, are you insane? Give Amy an inch and she'll take a kilometer.”
A dark brow rose and one hand patted his thigh. ”Mixed metaphors, that's what's wrong with the world.” Leah glanced around the empty soundstage as though she'd lost something. ”Where is Amy? Based on our very short acquaintance, I would have thought she'd be here.”
”She left with the rest of the office staff. She had a date.” ”On a Thursday? Good for her. I'm all for a sister getting some.”
”Big surprise. Not. But it's just for coffee at Ginger Joe's-it's a Goth coffee place she likes. She's meeting a guy she knows from the net.”
”You told her to be careful because she didn't know this guy, right?”
”Yeah.”
”And she told you that you were the one waiting for a demon, so you should be the one being careful, right?”
”Not in so many words, but yeah.”
Leah nodded, smug. ”After a few thousand years, people get predictable.”
”So where's your partner?”
Jack jumped and only just resisted spinning around and answering the question physically. He put most of the energy into slamming the door of his truck and managed to turn with something approaching calm. ”She's home with her kids. Tony call you?”
Henry Fitzroy nodded and Jack wanted to wipe the smug, superior look right off his face. Which wasn't fair because all the guy had done was nod, but there was something about him, something that made Jack want to fall in behind him and charge the s.h.i.+eld wall. He wasn't even sure what a s.h.i.+eld wall was, but he f.u.c.king hated the feeling.
”Tony tell you what's going on?”
”Yes.”
Yes? That's it? Fine, you want to be mister one word answer, we don't need to talk. But the dark eyes were strangely compelling, and Jack's mouth kept moving without any apparent prodding from his brain. ”He thinks the demons are attracted to the soundstage, to his acc.u.mulated power at the sound-stage.”
”But you don't believe that.”
”He's not telling me everything.”
”Why would he?”
”Because...” Jack had a feeling that because I told him to wouldn't fly. ”Because it's my job to protect the public!”
”I think we've moved some distance away from your actual job description, Constable.”
”No, we haven't. Look...” He folded his arms, unable to look away but unwilling to appear compliant. ”... I catch the bad guys; that's what I do. These are bad guys. In order to catch them-all right, deal with them,” he added as a red-gold brow rose, ”I need to have all the facts. Which I don't.”
”Perhaps he doesn't think you can cope with all the facts.”
”Well, he should try me.”
”Yes. Perhaps he should.” Distracted by Fitzroy's too-charming smile, it took Jack a moment to realize that the other man's eyes weren't dark at all but hazel.
Frowning, he matched his shorter stride as they headed toward the studio's back door.
”I a.s.sume you're here as backup muscle? He sent me out to buy cherry-flavored cough medicine,” Fitzroy continued before Jack could answer. ”A specific brand that's, unfortunately, not particularly popular.” He hefted a bulging canvas bag. ”I had to visit nearly every drugstore on the lower mainland before I found the volume he asked for.”
”What's Tony going to do with that much cherry-flavored cough medicine?”
”He's going to do magic, Constable Elson.”
”What the h.e.l.l was that!”
”I think someone's at the back door,” Leah sighed.
”Right.” On his feet, heart pounding, Tony could barely hear short, sharp bursts of the buzzer over the thrum of blood in his ears.
”Do you think it's a demon?”
”I think demons seldom ask to be let in. And I think that your boss gave the security guard the night off, so you'd better get it.”
”Right.” Tony headed for the back of the soundstage, his breathing almost returned to normal.
There was no security hole in the door and since Leah hadn't actually said it wasn't a demon, he took a moment to find his focus and wrote ”go home” as small as he could manage it an inch or so from the pitted steel. If there was a demon, and the demon charged when he opened the door, it would charge right through the command and that would hopefully be that.
Except that the door opened inward.