Dead Man's Deal The Asylum Tales - By Jocelynn Drake Page 0,48

there.”

“Where are you going to be?” Trixie demanded.

“At my apartment, waiting for some answers. My contacts are unlikely to talk to me if anyone else is around.” Both of my friends frowned at my comment and I couldn’t blame them. It certainly didn’t sound safe. “Don’t worry. I’ll have Sofie with me.”

The cat made a sound of disgust as she rose so that she was sitting on her hind legs. “So it’s like that, is it?”

“Sorry, Sof. You know I’d go myself if I could.”

The cat muttered something under her breath in what sounded like Russian. She hopped down off the case and walked over to the front door, which opened for her as if manned by some ghostly doorman who waited on her pleasure. A faint smile touched my mouth as I watched her go, the door shutting behind her. She had been expecting my request, but then I had a feeling that she was also anxious to get the inside dirt on why Indianapolis had been unexpectedly leveled. This was the first big strike that the Towers had made in years and the first that Sofie had not been privy to before the event. Curiosity had to be eating away at her.

Of course, I was itching to put my hands around Reave’s neck and keep squeezing until his eyes popped from his skull, but I couldn’t overreact yet. There was a slim chance that the destruction of Indianapolis had nothing to do with him gaining the locations of the Towers. But I wasn’t counting on it.

“Where’s Sofie going? Will she be safe?” Trixie asked.

“She’s off to make contact for me. She’ll be safe. It’s me the Towers hate, not her.”

“I’ll get on those calls so we can get going, Trix,” Bronx said, breaking the lingering tension. Trixie didn’t argue, as I doubted she wanted to be alone. I wished it could be me in her apartment all night, keeping her safe, but it was more important that I understood what was happening in the Towers. The elf absently patted Bronx’s arm before she turned and walked into the tattooing room, where I could hear her settling into one of the chairs.

“Thanks for this,” I said as I started around the counter. It was no small thing for Bronx to agree to spend the night at Trixie’s. It would mean that he would also be stuck there during the day, as he couldn’t go out in sunlight without risking being turned to stone. And unlike gargoyles, this was a permanent state for trolls. If anything happened to Trixie’s apartment building during the day, such as a fire, he was trapped.

I had been to Bronx’s house a few times and it was heavily protected so that he would be safe during the daylight hours. The small ranch-style house was plain and austere on the first floor, but the windowless basement level was loaded with large comfortable chairs, an entertainment center, several bookcases filled with books, a sweet gaming system, and a fully stocked kitchen.

“No problem. Just try to stay out of trouble and away from Reave,” he warned in a low voice.

I flashed him a quick grin. “Got to. Trixie and I have a date tomorrow that I wouldn’t miss for anything in the world.”

Bronx shook his head as he picked up the cordless phone before walking back into the tattooing room, where he kept his personal schedule.

Shoving my hands in the pockets of my jeans, I wandered over to the large picture window that looked out onto the street. The sidewalk was empty and there wasn’t a car in sight. Low Town, like most of the world, had closed up shop. People were clustered in their homes behind closed doors with the blinds tightly drawn against the world. They were sitting around their televisions and scanning the news sites on the Internet, trying to digest this latest development.

Wars happened every once in a while between two countries, but the battle lines were neatly drawn in most cases and the deaths of innocent bystanders were infrequent. The United States had been lucky in that we hadn’t seen any battles fought on our own soil in a long time.

But this was different. The Towers had been quiet on a large scale for decades. We had convinced ourselves that if we kept our heads down and ran when they appeared, we’d be safe. We told ourselves that they wouldn’t have a reason to attack us. We could live in peace if we