“I’d love it if you could come along on a few of our surveys,” he says. “You could meet Dr. Schelling; he has his own lab in Cleveland.”
I see what he’s doing—this is how my dad is going to keep me safe from the Humdrum. By hiding me in Ohio.
“Maybe,” I say. “If I can get out of lessons.”
“I’ll write you a note.”
“Can Simon come, too?”
He presses his lips together and pushes up his glasses again. “I’m not sure I can write a note for Simon,” he says, picking up his pen. “What did you say your school project is about?”
“The Watford Tragedy.”
“Tell me if you turn anything up that sheds light on the Humdrum. I’ve always wondered whether anyone felt his presence there.”
His head’s back in his work now. So I hop off the chair and start to leave. I stop at the door. “Hey, Dad, one more thing—did you ever know a magician named Nicodemus?”
He looks up, and his face doesn’t move at all—so I can tell he’s purposely not reacting. “I can’t say that I have,” he says. “Why?”
It’s not like my dad to lie to me.
It’s not like me to lie to him. “It’s just a name I saw in The Record, and I didn’t recognize it.”
“Hmm,” he says. “I don’t—I don’t think he’s anyone important.”
60
SIMON
We wait until after midnight to go looking for the vampires. Baz’s aunt wouldn’t tell him exactly where they hang out, but he thinks he can find them, and he says they should be done hunting by midnight.…
Which freaks me right out. To think of all those murders happening. While we wait.
If the vampires are hunting Normals every night, why don’t we do something about it? The Coven must know it’s happening. I mean, if Baz’s aunt knows, the Coven must know.
I decide Baz isn’t the right person to talk to about this right now.
We have time to kill after we leave his aunt’s, so we go to a library—the big one—and then to the reading room at the British Museum, where Baz steals at least a half dozen books.
“You can’t do that,” I argue.
“It’s research.”
“It’s treason.”
“Are you going to tell the Queen?”
When the museums all close, we walk around a park, then find a place where I can eat a curry while he looks through his stolen books.
“You should eat something,” I say.
He raises an eyebrow at me.
“Oh, piss off.” I wonder if this is why he’s never had a girlfriend. Because he’d take her on dates to the library, then insist on sitting there creepily while she ate dinner alone.
I’ve finished my curry and two orders of samosas, and I’m watching him read—I swear he sucks on his fangs when he’s thinking—when he snaps the book shut with one hand and stands up.
“Come on, Snow. Let’s go find a vampire.”
“Thanks”—I wipe my mouth on my sleeve—“but I’m already over the limit.”
Baz is already walking out the door.
“Hey,” I say, trying to catch up. When he ignores me, I grab his arm.
He frowns. “You can’t just grab people when you want their attention.”
“I said ‘Hey.’”
“Still.”
“I’ve been thinking,” I say, “if we’re going to do this, you have to start calling me by my name.”
I don’t know why this seems important. Just—if we’re going to walk into a vampire den together, it seems like we need to get past some of this stuff and actually be allies.
“Snow is your name,” Baz says. “Possibly. Who named you, anyway?”
I look away. It was written on my arm—Simon Snow. Whoever left me at the home must have written it. Maybe it was my mother.
“You have to call me Simon,” I say. “You’ve called me that before.”
He opens his car door and gets in, as if he didn’t hear me—but I know that he did.
“Fine,” Baz says. “Get in the car, Simon.”
I do.
* * *
It took us almost two hours to find this place—Baz sniffed it out; it was like walking around Covent Garden with a bloodhound.
“Is this it?” I ask. “Are they here?”
He straightens his collar and cuffs. We’re standing outside an old building full of flats, with a row of names next to the doorway and a brass slot for letters. “Stay close,” he whispers, and raps at the door with the back of his fist.
A large man opens the door. He sees Baz, then opens it a bit wider. Another man, standing behind a long bar in the centre of the room, looks over and nods. The doorman motions with his head