sniggered and flipped his hat several feet into the air. It landed at a jaunty angle on his head as he turned to me. "Truly, Your Excellence, it ain't no trap."
"Then why did you laugh?"
"I'm sorry, Magnificence, but I'm a bit overwhelmed by your presence." His lips curled up ever so slightly as if he were enjoying a big joke at my expense.
I wanted to punch him. "Why do you keep calling me stupid crap like that? Justin will do just fine."
"Whatever pleases you, Your Holiness."
Heat flared in my face in a violent wave of anger. I bared my teeth at him and growled lower than humanly possible. I spoke in deep guttural tones, words in another language. Words I somehow understood. Do not mock me, filth.
The man backed up a step, his pale eyes widening ever so slightly. Elyssa jumped back from me, a shocked expression on her face. I looked uneasily at the two of them, unsure what had just happened. I tried to speak the words again, but failed to recall exactly what they were.
"What's your name?" I said, breaking the stunned silence.
The man narrowed his eyes, his lips curling back up with amusement. "If it please Your—you, Justin, my name is Mr. Bigglesworth."
This was the man Ivy had mentioned! "Are you the one who brought me this?" I held out the slip of blank paper from the graveyard.
"Aye, I put it out for you to find."
"Good lord, she really did visit you," Elyssa said.
"Fine, I'll take the ASE," I said, holding out a hand for it and hoping I didn't have to touch Bigglesworth's icky skin.
He dropped it into my palm. A smiled crossed his lips briefly before he straightened them. "It's real urgent, sir."
I tucked it into a pocket, unwilling to view it here where everyone could see it. "Where's my sister? What are the Conroys doing to her?"
He shook his head. "It ain't for me to say, no sir. Miss Ivy tells me what to do and I does it, no questions asked."
I stepped toward him, tempted to grab him by the collar despite his revolting skin. "Where do the Conroys keep her?"
Again, he shook his head. "I've done my duty, sir and I can't do no more." He tipped his hat. "G'day to you both." He winked at Elyssa and smirked. Turned on his heel and headed back toward the alley we'd come through a few minutes earlier.
I started after him. "Oh, no, you don't."
The chubby man increased his pace. I jogged after him, not wanting to make a scene. When he reached the alley, Bigglesworth turned. Tipped his cap at me and chortled. His body, clothes, everything, melted into a puddle of pale goop. Elyssa gasped behind me. I watched in utter disgust as the goop funneled into a drainage grating on the side of the alley floor and vanished inside.
Chapter 4
"What," I said, "in the hell was that thing?"
Elyssa shook her head. "Some kind of shifter, but one I'm not familiar with."
I looked at the marble-sized ASE, almost expecting it to melt into goop as well. Thankfully, it seemed quite solid. Still, just knowing Bigglesworth had held it made me want to scrub it and my hands with bleach and steel wool. "How do I turn this thing on?"
"Maybe you should wait until we're somewhere private," Elyssa said.
I turned back toward Founder's Square and noticed horns slowly growing from the forehead of the giant demon spawn statue. "Yeah, you're probably right."
After threading our way through congested afternoon traffic, we reached Decatur and parked behind a donut shop. A red X next to a smelly dumpster marked the spot.
"He chooses the loveliest locations," Elyssa said, holding her nose.
"Better than the one downtown." My nose wrinkled at the memory of the stained mattress in the abandoned building above that hideout.
I turned back to the red X. Imagining a set of stairs in the place of the mark, I said, "Open up, you green-blooded son of a bitch." As usual, my words alone had no effect. I blew out a disgusted breath and made a chalk circle around me. The static feel of trapped magical energy pressed against me. I repeated the spell. The concrete faded away to reveal a set of stairs leading down into a lit hallway.
"Shelton uses some whacked-out pass phrases," Elyssa said as we walked down the stairs.
"You'd have to be a nerd to appreciate it." I hurried down the narrow corridor and entered a large space the size of