low heels off before following, holding them as we traced the cat’s path through the living room, down a long, narrow hall set against the windows, and finally to a large open dining room with a spacious kitchen at the back.
“Wow,” I said softly, one hand holding my shoes, the other my splat gun as I took in the view. It was the corner of the building, and there was even an outside space, potted evergreens and grasses to break up all the pale stone out there.
“Just in time for tea,” Landon said from the kitchen, and both Trent and I spun.
CHAPTER
31
Crap on toast, I thought, dropping my shoes and raising my splat gun. It would have been easier to down him while he slept, set up the curse, and wake him up when it was over.
Landon stood easy in the open kitchen behind the lengthy counter. He was in slacks and a button-down-collar shirt, his suit coat and ribbon of office draped over a barstool. His eyebrows were high in amusement, and I went cold when I saw Jenks plastered to the wall with sticky silk. The pixy was pissed, green sparkles sifting from him, and when the cat stretched to pat the wall under Jenks, fear slid cleanly through me.
“We came to talk,” I ad-libbed as I hiked my bag farther up my shoulder. “Your life is at risk,” I said, and Landon chuckled as he set the damp pot on the stove and lit the burner with a whoosh of flame. I couldn’t hit him from here. He’d just bubble himself to avoid it. Actually, it might have been safer to throw my splat gun under a chair in case he knew how to burst the charms in my hopper and put me out with my own spells.
“Not from that gun,” he mocked, and I spun it in my grip, holding it by a finger until I set it on the nearby glass table and pushed it away. It was only good against a nonmagic user or in surprise anyway. My mouth could do far more damage.
Trent stood beside me, clearly uncomfortable in his ill-fitting suit. “We aren’t here to hurt you. We have vital information. The baku you’re hosting is slowly eating your soul,” he said lightly. “Once it takes you, the Order will turn you into a zombie to imprison it.”
“The Goddess help you, you’re a mess, Kalamack.” Lips pressed, Landon took a clay-colored pot from an open shelf. His eyes went to Jenks struggling to reach his sword, swear words spilling from him. “What did you do?” Landon glanced at the splat gun on the table. “Crawl through the air ducts?”
“The Order is using you,” Trent tried again. “The baku is using you. We can pull it out. Bottle it. But we need your cooperation.”
“Pull it out? It took two weeks to convince it to work with me.” Landon smirked, his eyes never leaving ours as he opened a wooden box on the counter and filled the tea diffuser with something that smelled of lemons and Brimstone. “I know the Order’s plans. I know the baku’s, too. It’s in me. Right now. My thoughts are known to it, and its thoughts are clear to me. The only discrepancy is that we disagree on who will prevail. I’ll give you a hint. It’s going to be me. Either way, you will be dead, Kalamack, and with you goes the threat the demons pose, the threat you have let sex blind you to.”
My lips parted at the affront, and behind him, Jenks reached his sword. Struggling, the pixy got one wing free.
“Stupid bug,” Landon said, lip curled as he took the sticky silk spray can from the counter.
“Hey! Knock it off!” I demanded when the thin webbing plastered Jenks to the wall again. I stumbled when Trent grabbed my arm, gasping as the line we were both holding sang in us. Shrugging Trent off, I wavered to find my balance, hating Landon. It wasn’t so bad when we weren’t stressed, but damn, the glyph worked better the more tense—or excited—we were.
Landon looked too satisfied to live as he set the can of sticky silk down. “I’ll admit one thing you’re right about, Trent,” he said as he peeled film from his fingers and let it drop. “It is almost worth the collateral damage to know where you stand with your underlings. There’s only one person who knew the pass code to my apartments. I have sorely