Leo, master of his own poker face, is silent and still. But I know he’s ready to spring into action the second Sean does anything threatening. Leo neither provokes reactions nor reveals anything. Ever. No wonder he stayed alive so long. He has a way of blending into the background until he needs to act. Gods, he’s an amazing Watcher.
“Come into my office,” Sean says. “You could have asked for me, you know. You wasted a lot of coffee.”
I feel sheepish now that he’s being so reasonable. “Can you sort it and, uh, wash it? Put it back?”
He laughs. “I’ll refill the bins with the same cheap, manky coffee beans they held before. It’s all the same, innit? These stooks’ll buy anything if you put a fancy label on it. Especially if the label says ‘Organic.’ Technically everything is organic.”
“Charming business ethics,” Leo mutters.
Sean leads us to a portion of the giant cellar in the opposite direction Artemis had run. Unlike the rest of the stone-and-brick space, his office is boxed in and finished. It’s brightly lit, all clean modern lines, with a fish tank that takes up an entire wall.
“No way!” I lean close to the tank. What some might take for an eel turns in a lazy circle to reveal a human eye watching us all with disturbing awareness. “That’s a remora demon, isn’t it?”
“You know your stuff.” Sean sits at his desk, leaning back.
I point to it, looking at Leo, more excited than I should be. “In the open air, they grow to fit whatever container they’re in. Water pressure keeps them from expanding in aquariums, though. Otherwise they just keep going. And they eat lead and turn it into gold! It was actually a Watcher way back in the Middle Ages who used one to turn lead into gold to fund our whole operation. It started all the rumors that caused alchemists to try and re-create turning lead into gold. But they never could, because hello, demon. They’re super rare!”
“And picky eaters.” Sean frowns. “I’m lucky to get a nugget a month from the damn thing. Hasn’t even paid itself off yet. Now. To the point. What do you want? I’d apologize for the other night, but to be fair, you were the one who jumped in the pit. And you killed all my best hellhounds and several of my highest betters. So you really ought to apologize to me.”
“I didn’t kill anything except the hellhounds and the zompires!” I say defensively. “Serves you right, throwing a Slayer in the pit!”
“She was in on it.”
“She was not!”
“Okay, maybe not in on it. She’s done jobs for me, here and there. But she got rid of a zompire nest I had quarantined and marked for the fights, and then she ran afoul of one of my vampire allies. She knows how things go—she cost me money, so I used her to make more. If she has a problem with it, she can come talk to me herself. I would have cut her in on the profits if she had won fairly. She’s even fought willingly a few times before.”
She participated? Willingly? Then why did I have the dream about her in trouble? Maybe because that was her first unwilling event. Or maybe because I was supposed to bring her back with us. To save her from what was coming after the fights. I slump in one of the chairs facing Sean. It’s a beautiful chair, all clean lines and utterly rigid bottomly discomfort. No matter how I shift, I’m sure my entire butt will be asleep within seconds. “I’m actually not here about Cosmina. I’m here about Doug.”
Sean sits up straight, intense greed lighting his face. “You know where Doug is?”
“I did. He, uh, got away.”
“Dammit. I sent two of my best-trained hellhounds after him.”
“Those were yours? They attacked my friends and me!”
Sean holds out his hands in an oops sort of gesture. “Hazard of the trade. I make certain they’re well fed before they go out, but some of their instincts can’t be avoided. They were only trained not to rip apart their actual target. If something else gets in the way, well. It can end poorly. If it makes you feel any better, they’re an endangered species now.”
“Good riddance.” I might have some weird compassion for the caged demons and for Doug, but not hellhounds. “Your hellhounds aside, we’ve got two dead bodies we need to figure out. And the last one led us here.”
Sean