“Litha?”
Elora looked back toward the conference room. “Um, holding up. She’s gone to get help looking. I’ve got the baby.”
“Okay. We’ll be there.”
“Hey. Wait. Not that I don’t always want to see you, but we need pass riders. I’m afraid the rest of us are benched for this one.”
“If I really can’t be of help, I may not stay, but I’ll at least come and say something to Litha.” He paused. “Rammel’s going to…”
“Be hard to handle. I know.”
“The main thing is to bring Jean-Etienne so he can ride herd.”
“Agreed.” He hesitated to hang up. “This is… I feel…”
“Yeah. Same here.”
She hung up. Ram would probably be finishing his workout and heading back to the apartment. She ducked back into the conference room. “Going home to tell Ram.” Glen stopped when the weight of that sunk in and nodded. “Don’t be surprised if he shows up down here and tries to take over.”
“Honestly. I’d like his help.”
Elora noticed that all of a sudden Glen looked a good bit older than twenty.
By the time Ram reached the conference room, it was as noisy as a political convention. Elementals, angels, demons of every sort, and a few unidentifiable species, all talking and arguing at the same time and not necessarily in the same language.
Litha sat in a chair looking shell shocked. Glen stood at one of the smart boards with a pointer in hand, hoping for an excuse to feel useful.
Ram, his hair still wet from a shower, leaped up on top of the conference table, put three fingers in his mouth and let loose an ear-splitting whistle. The room went instantly quiet.
“Who is takin’ responsibility for findin’ my friend?” No one answered. “Everyone who is no’ takin’ responsibility, be quiet and do no’ say another f**kin’ thin’ unless you’re bein’ asked.” He turned to Glen. “Where are we?”
Clearly frustrated, Glen ran his free hand over the bed head he was rocking. “I can’t tell.”
While Ram was looking at Glen, someone at the back of the room yelled, “Angels rule!”
Ram’s head jerked in that direction. “Exceedin’ly immature for creatures claimin’ to be superior. There’s no room for politics and games here. This woman…” He pointed at Litha. “…is missin’ her husband. ‘Tis scary for her. Do you no’ get that?
“We’re grateful if you’re here to help. If you’re no’ here to help, get out so the rest of us can get down to business.”
Elora was standing toward the back of the room, feeling a little numb. Her mind was on alert and trying to mount a defense against thoughts she didn’t want to think. What if we don’t get him back?
Seeing movement out of the corner of her eye, she brought her head around to see Baka quietly slipping in with five vampire close behind. He nodded as he spotted Elora and started drifting her way.
When he reached her side, she leaned over and whispered, “Good to see you. Thanks for coming.”
He rolled his eyes. “Like there was a question. What’s going on here?”
“Ram is trying to sort things out and get the search started.”
Baka’s head jerked toward her. “No one’s looking?”
Elora shook her head and Baka could read the worry on her face. “Not yet.”
“Christ.” He rubbed a hand over his mouth.
When no one met Ram’s challenge by leaving, he turned on Deliverance and didn’t try to hide the fact that he would have loved to turn the demon into a pillar of salt. On the spot. With no fanfare beforehand and no marker afterward. The only thing that kept him from plotting the murder was the fact that they probably couldn’t find Storm without the one who lost him.
“I do no’ know anythin’ about the geography of passes. Can you take the route you used to get here, divide it into sections and assign these different…” He looked around the room as the thought flitted through his mind that dozens of academic types employed by The Order would have a field day if turned loose on that gathering of creatures heretofore thought mythological. “…factions an area to cover?”