Part 37 (1/2)
”Look, I just want... I mean. f.u.c.k it. Be careful, okay?”
”Yeah. You, too.”
He nodded and hurried after the others.
”You know,” Leah said thoughtfully as she zipped up her jacket, ”I was thinking it was just you, but I was wrong. You're both pathetic.”
”Leah...”
”Don't bother saying it. I'll meet you in the car.”
Tony listened to the soft sound of her footsteps die away. He shrugged a backpack strap up onto one shoulder and looked Henry in the eye. ”Vicki told me to call you. You know, back when this started.”
Henry smiled. ”I know.”
”You're a hard man to be separate from.” Tony wasn't sure he understood that, but Henry seemed to.
”I know.”
”With any luck, I'll close those three spots before they open, and you'll have a quiet night.” Didn't cost any more to look on the bright side.
”Good luck, then.”
Cool fingers rested for a moment against his cheek and, just for a moment, Tony longed for the days when he was the sidekick.
”Yeah. You, too.”
”I can't believe you don't know how to pick locks,” Leah muttered, one hand flat against the steel door, the other working the pair of straightened bobby pins back and forth.
”Why would I know how to pick locks?” Tony demanded quietly.
”Well, you're clearly a man with a past.” ”And my entire B&E career consisted of heaving a brick through a grocery store window and then sprinting two blocks carrying a watermelon.”
”Two blocks?”
”Ran into a cop. Big guy. Splat. Knocked me flat on my a.s.s.”
”Hmmm.”
The noise may have been in response to his story or to the lock on the apartment door, Tony wasn't sure. He glanced down at the open laptop, silently ran over the words to the Notice Me Not one more time, and hoped he wouldn't have to use it. Not only because new magic was always an exciting c.r.a.pshoot, but also because he needed to h.o.a.rd as much personal energy as possible given what the immediate future was likely to hold. Although he'd topped the tank with a double bacon cheeseburger and large fries on the way to the first site, he had no idea how long that would last. He probably should have bought a second milkshake, just to be on the safe side.
Leah's dimples had gained them access to the high-rise as an elderly gentleman was leaving. Ignoring Tony entirely, he'd held the door open and waved her through, making a rather explicit suggestion that Tony very much doubted he-or any man over sixty- would have the stamina to carry out, little blue pills or no little blue pills.
Dude, if yours are lasting more than four hours, someone should check for rigor mortis.
Finding the right floor had been simple. They'd taken the elevator up one floor at a time until Leah's gut had pinged. Finding the actual weak spot had been a little trickier, but they were about 90 percent certain it was inside apartment 708. Unfortunately, it seemed the tenants weren't.
Or fortunately, given how little he'd been looking forward to explaining what was going on.
”You'd think it'd be in apartment 666, wouldn't you?”
”Like I keep telling the vampire,” Leah snorted. ”Wrong kind of demons.”
”Hey!”
”I'm picking a lock here, Tony. If someone hears us, the words vampire and demon will be the least of our problems.”
She had a point.
He could hear at least one television-maybe two-and a couple of different kinds of music, but at just after nine on a Friday night, most of the people who lived on the seventh floor seemed to still be out. Or they were sitting silently in the dark behind their locked doors. Tony had no intention of ruling the latter out.
The hall smelled like sausages and a spice that bounced around the back of his nose like a pinecone, doing multiple points of damage with every landing.
”That's it.” Leah rocked back off her knees and stood, reaching for the door handle. ”But if there's a chain...”
There was. It was dangling down inside the door, unlocked.
”Nice to see they're taking home security so seriously.”
”You come home drunk and the chain's a pain in the a.s.s to get open,” Tony explained as they moved inside and closed the door behind them. ”And why do you know how to pick locks?”
”I hang around with a bad crowd in the fifties.” ”You mean hung around.”
”No. I mean that every century, I hang around with a bad crowd in the fifties. I like having a schedule.” She didn't sound like she was kidding. Reaching back, she flipped on the lights. ”Good lord.”
Tony snapped his laptop closed and raised his left hand, palm out, rune in defensive position. ”What!”
”It looks like your place: beige walls, cheap furniture, and an overpriced entertainment system.”
”That was it? I thought you saw something dangerous.” He started breathing again and his heart rate began to slow.
”No, just bland.” Walking out into the living room, she shook her head. ”And if it wasn't so bland, the similarities would be frightening.”
”First of all,” Tony muttered, sliding his laptop into the backpack, ”that's a sheet on the window not a flag, and second, this has a separate bedroom.”
”Which is probably beige.”
”Hey, he has a set of RexTeck speakers-3-D sound effects and an awesome ba.s.s boost.” Leah's silence pulled him around.
”What? I've heard great things about them.”
”Heard great things about demons taking over the city?”
Oh, sure. But she could take the time to discuss interior decorating. Half turned from examining the speakers, he paused. ”The weak spot's right there.” He could see the s.h.i.+mmer hanging just in front of the floor-to-ceiling shelves of DVDs. ”But I thought there had to be something missing?”
Leah moved closer and examined the shelves. ”He's missing the third Aliens movie.”
”He's not missing much.”
”And Star Trek, the Motion Picture although he has all the rest.”