of Lionel St. Cloud’s personal assistant. When Lionel came to Miami for the meeting Thursday, Matthew came along with his mother. On Friday night, while we were watching Weber’s house, a group of the younger Cabal employees decided to go clubbing, and Matthew joined them. After a few drinks, they wandered out of a nightclub district and into a less savory neighborhood. The group split up, and everyone thought Matthew was with someone else. When they returned without him, the Cabals sent out search teams. They found him shot to death in an alley.”
“Shot?” Adam said. “Then it’s not our guy. Stabbing and strangulation. That’s his MO.”
“The Nast Cabal has since confirmed that their second victim, Sarah Dermack, was shot.”
“Did this Matthew call the emergency number?” Adam asked.
Lucas shook his head. “But neither did Micahel Shane, the St. Cloud victim.”
“Was Matthew on Weber’s list?” Adam asked.
“No,” I said. “And if he lives with his mother, who’s not a bodyguard, he doesn’t seem to satisfy the criteria. He’s also older than the others. But still, it does seem—”
“Like something completely different,” Adam cut in. “The guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time and got shot.”
“What are the Cabals saying?” I asked Lucas.
“Almost to the word, exactly what Adam just said.”
Our eyes met and I saw my own doubts reflected back.
“So we have questions, then,” I said. “If the Cabals aren’t going to ask them, we need to do it ourselves. That means we need to go to Miami and talk to Weber.”
Lucas went quiet. Adam looked from him to me.
“My opinion?” Adam said. “You both take this ‘protecting the innocent’ thing way too far, but if you’ve got questions, then you’d better get them answered before it’s too late. Yeah, I know you don’t want to take Paige to Miami, and I can totally understand that, but Weber’s locked up. He’s not going to hurt her.”
“It’s not Weber he’s worried about.” I turned to Lucas. “How does your father explain what happened?”
At first, Lucas didn’t respond, seeming reluctant to give his father’s rationales a voice. Then he took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “His explanation is that he has no explanation. He assumes that, in mentioning Weber’s name to the Nasts, he inadvertently provided them with the impetus to begin their own investigation, which culminated in the SWAT raid.”
“I suppose that makes sense,” I said. “I know you think your father did this intentionally, but you were in that house, too. He’d never put you in danger like that.”
“Paige is right,” Adam said. “I don’t know your dad, but from the way he was acting yesterday, this was as much a shock to him as it was to you.”
“So it’s settled,” I said. “We’re going to Miami.”
“On one condition.”
The hospital I was in was a small private clinic, far less opulent than the Marsh Clinic in Miami, but serving a similar purpose. This one was run not by a Cabal, but by half-demons. Doctors, nurses, lab techs, even the cook and janitor were half-demon.
San Francisco, like several other big American cities, had a sizable half-demon enclave. Half-demons had no central body like the witch Coven or werewolf Pack. As with most distinct groups in a larger society, though, they recognized the comfort and advantages of community, and many who didn’t work for a Cabal gravitated toward one of these half-demon cities.
One of the major advantages to living near other supernaturals is medical care. All the major races avoid human doctors and hospitals. Of course, supernaturals can be and have been treated in hospitals. If you get hit in a head-on collision, you can’t tell the paramedics you want to be flown to a private clinic hundreds of miles away. In most cases, such hospital stays are uneventful. But sometimes they aren’t, and we do what we can to avoid taking this chance.
Lucas’s condition was that, since I needed ongoing medical care, I must transfer to another hospital. Therein lay the problem. Miami was Cortez Cabal territory. The nearest non-Cabal supernatural-run hospital was in Jacksonville. Not only was that a six-hour drive from Miami, but it was run by sorcerers. If a witch was injured in Jacksonville, she’d stand a better chance of recovery by going home and treating herself than by showing up at a clinic staffed by sorcerers.
Benicio wanted me to recuperate at the high-security condo/hospital reserved for family, but Lucas refused. Instead I’d go to the Marsh Clinic and Lucas would