or he was telling the truth. If he was lying, given what kind of hot water I could get him into, he was also an idiot. I didn’t think he was one of those. If he was telling the truth, it meant . . .
It meant that either Susan really had hired someone to kill me, or else someone who could look like Susan had done business with Stevie D. If Susan had hired someone to kill me, why this guy, in particular? Why hire someone who didn’t have better than even chances of pulling it off? That was more the kind of thing Esteban and Esmerelda would come up with.
That worked a lot better. Esmerelda’s blue and green eyes could have made Stevie remember being hired by Mister Snuffleupagus, if that was what she wanted. But how would she have known where to find me? Had they somehow managed to tail Sanya back to the church from my apartment without being noticed by Mouse?
And just where the hell were Susan and Martin? They’d had more than enough time to get here. So why weren’t they?
Someone was running a game on me. If I didn’t start getting some answers to these questions, I had a bad feeling that it was going to turn around and bite me on the ass at the worst moment imaginable.
Right, then.
I guessed that meant it was time to go get some answers.
Paranoia is a survival trait when you run in my circles. It gives you something to do in your spare time, coming up with solutions to ridiculous problems that aren’t ever going to happen. Except when one of them does, at which point you feel way too vindicated.
For instance, I had spent more than a couple of off hours trying to figure out how I might track someone through Chicago if I didn’t have some kind of object or possession of theirs to use as a focus. Basic tracking magic is completely dependent upon having a sample of whoever it is you want to follow. Hair, blood, and nail clippings are the usual thing. But let’s say you don’t have any of those, and you still want to find someone. If you have a sample of something in their possession, a piece snipped from their clothing, the tag just torn out of their underwear, whatever, you can get them that way, too.
But let’s say things are hectic and crazy and someone has just burned down your house and your lab and you still need to follow somebody.
That’s when you need a good, clear photograph. And minions. Lots of minions. Preferably ones who don’t demand exorbitant wages.
There’s a Pizza ’Spress less than two blocks from St. Mary’s. Sanya and I went straight there. I ordered.
“I do not see how this helps us,” Sanya said, as I walked out from the little shop with four boxes of pizza.
“You’re used to solving all your problems the simple way,” I said. “Kick down the door, chop up everybody who looks fiendish, save everyone who looks like they might need it. Yeah?”
“It is not always that simple,” Sanya said, rather stiffly. “And sometimes I use a gun.”
“Which I applaud you for, very progressive,” I said. “But the point is, you do your work directly. You pretty much know where you’re going, or get shown the way, and after that it’s just up to you to take care of business.”
“Da,” Sanya said as we walked. “I suppose.”
“My work is sort of the same,” I said. “Except that nobody ever points the way for me.”
“You need to know where to go,” Sanya said.
“Yes.”
“And you are going to consult four large pizzas for guidance.”
“Yes,” I said.
The big man frowned for a moment. Then he said, “There is, I think, humor here which does not translate well from English into sanity.”
“That’s pretty rich coming from the agnostic Knight of the Cross with a holy Sword who takes his orders from an archangel,” I said.
“Gabriel could be an alien being of some kind,” Sanya said placidly. “It does not change the value of what I do—not to me and not to those whom I protect.”
“Whom,” I said, with as much Russian accent as I could fit into one word. “Someone’s been practicing his English.”
Sanya somehow managed to look down his nose at me, despite the fact that I was several inches taller. “I am only saying that I do not need the written code of a spiritual belief to act like a decent human