“Ah, it’s elven, actually.” You’ll be okay, Al. I promise, I thought as I found my phone again. “Ivy said the I.S. lost some inmates when the lines went down last September. I bet the men-who-don’t-belong did, too. They let us do the work, then collected the zombies once they were all together.”
“And the baku?” Trent asked. “You think it’s theirs as well?”
“Maybe,” I said, head down over my phone as I brought up my contacts. “The demons are scared to death of it. I don’t blame them. It eats souls, not auras. Souls. And if you never heard of it, and the I.S. never heard of it, it’s a good bet that the men-who-don’t-belong have.” Which didn’t explain the zombies unless that was what was left when the baku finished with them.
“You have their number,” he said flatly as I scrolled through my contact list.
“Not exactly.” I smiled at him as I hit connect. “But I know someone who might.”
“Who?”
But the ringing clicked off and I sat straighter, beginning to see the threads if not how they all connected. “Glenn! Is this a good time?” I said, beaming at his cautious “Rachel?”
If I was right, we might have to set an extra place at the Thanksgiving table.
CHAPTER
13
“Skinny demon, tall! Straight black grande!” Mark called, and I turned from the rack of overpriced coffee beans as the bell over the counter rang. I’d lost my grinder with the church’s kitchen, but if I was honest with myself, coffee was coffee. Unless it’s a tall Italian blend in skim milk, light on the foam with a shot of raspberry in it and cinnamon on top, I thought as I reached for the two steaming cups in their environmentally conscious sleeves.
“Thanks, Mark,” I said, and he smiled warmly.
“I’ll have Mr. Kalamack’s salted caramel and sugar cookie up in a sec. I’m kind of short tonight.” Mark’s smile faltered as he noticed Jenks’s dust on the counter, and embarrassed, Jenks hovered back. “Dali called in sick. I didn’t think demons could get sick.”
“I think he wanted Saturday night off,” I said, again thinking the demon was a coward. “Take your time. We’re meeting someone,” I said, then spun, gasping as I almost ran into Trent. Eyebrows high, he took Glenn’s coffee from me before I spilled it on him.
A straight black grande, I thought with a fond smirk. It described Glenn perfectly. The former FIB detective gone rogue was comfortable, accessible, and street-smart, and his quick insight into a difficult problem could wake you up better than a shot of caffeine. I had missed the tall, athletic man with a flair for making a personal statement. I knew his dad, Edden, did, too. That he’d vanished with little warning to join the-men-who-didn’t-belong, only to have been in town for what was probably two weeks while the zombies were corralled, kind of hurt.
“Where do you want to sit?” Trent looked over the sparsely populated coffeehouse.
“Back,” I said, and Trent headed to a half-bench, half-chair table, Glenn’s drink in hand.
The sun was almost down, and as I suspected, Trent and I had never gotten to the museum. After verifying our suspicions concerning the matching auras of the attackers, Ivy had gone home to sleep and maybe dig up something on the baku, but Trent and Jenks had stuck with me in the hopes that Glenn, who was “amazingly and unexpectedly” in Cincinnati, might tell us something that Ivy’s laptop couldn’t.
I slid into the bench with my back to the wall, then looked up, startled when I realized that Trent was still standing. Clearly he didn’t want his back to the door, either, and when I slid down even more, he gratefully sat beside me.
“You sure you don’t want a pastry or a cookie?” he asked as Jenks landed on the rim of Glenn’s cup and dipped some into the pixy-size mug Mark had given him, gratis.
“No, I’m good, but don’t let that stop you,” I said as I took up my drink. “Sorry about this weekend. I didn’t have anything planned, but talking to a human task force stealing zombies wasn’t on the agenda. I really wanted to get to the museum.” Let’s just add a sprinkle of guilt onto this, I thought as I breathed in the warm steam and took a sip.