if I'd have been as sympathetic if I didn't have my own panic attacks. "Fine. Where?"
"Good question. Your house is no more," he said. "She doesn't live here, so she doesn't have a place. My house is no good. She won't go where there are so many fae."
"What about the garage?"
"In fifteen," he agreed. "Do you have anything that belongs to Gabriel?"
I opened my mouth and closed it again. How specific would the spell be? Better to play it safe. "I can't answer that question."
"Get something."
A woman's voice said, "Something that is his. Something he is connected to, that matters to him or that has belonged to him for a long time."
"You heard her?" Zee asked.
I didn't say anything.
"Good."
He hung up.
I didn't have anything like that. Gabriel was incredibly organized; he didn't just leave stuff lying around.
I looked around the room. Jesse would have something. It was either that or go face down Sylvia.
Thinking of Sylvia made me realize that I should have called her as soon as I found out about Gabriel. I would rather be stripped naked and walked through the mall with a pink feather boa. I would rather be boiled in oil. Rancid oil.
I could call her on the way to the garage. First I needed to find Jesse, in the hope that she had something of Gabriel's I could use.
Conveniently, Jesse walked into her room just when I was about to leave and hunt her down. "I'm looking for Samuel," she said. "He went walkabout. Ben says he ought to be fed because he didn't eat anything this morning, and for some reason Ben's pretty frantic about it. I didn't expect to find Samuel here - but I didn't expect to find you here, either."
"I was just coming to find you."
She looked at me, then at her stereo. "You like Bullet for My Valentine?" she asked. "Just like you were sharing my Eyes Set to Kill CD with Mary Jo earlier?"
"Sarcasm isn't lost on me," I told her. "You could tone it down and I'd still get the point. I was having a private conversation."
She gave me a tight smile. "Let me guess. Stuff I shouldn't know because I'm a girl. I'm only human. I can't be risked."
"You know how to use a gun?" I hadn't meant to ask that. I'd meant to just ask her for something of Gabriel's. But I knew what it was like to sit around while people were in trouble, and you couldn't do anything about it.
At my question, she stilled - just like her father did when something important was going on. "I have a sweet forty-cal 1911 Dad got me for my last birthday," she said. "Tell me you found Gabriel?"
And the intensity of her voice made my decision for me. They were young - he was trying not to be serious because he was aiming for college; she was trying not to be serious because she knew he felt that way. Nothing might ever come out of it, but she cared a lot for him. That gave her a great big stake in this mess - and if she could shoot, she could protect herself.
Jesse was her father's daughter. Smart, quick-witted, and tough. And yet I already had one of my fragile humans in danger, and I was considering another.
But I couldn't talk to the fae or the werewolves about Gabriel, and writing, as my attempt to write down everything for Adam had demonstrated, was too time-consuming. I needed Jesse.
I pulled Jesse all the way into the room and shut the door. "Zee called and wants me to meet him at the garage in fifteen minutes. He has a fae who is terrified of werewolves who can help us. We need to find something that belongs to Gabriel that he's pretty attached to. I don't think she intends to hunt for him by scent, so it can be something hard like a ring instead of just things that carry smell, like a sock or shirt."
"I get to come?"
"You get to come to this meeting," I told her. "I need you. But you need to understand that I will not be exchanging Gabriel for you. I'm not going to get you hurt." I gave her the best smile I could manage because the fae scare the pants off me. "I need you. But I need you to listen to me when I send you home, too."
She watched me with her father's eyes, and I saw the moment when