Odessa showed me straight white teeth that had definitely known braces. “Absolutely. It’s kind of bitter, though. Honey? It’s made right here—we have a bee colony behind the barn.”
How big was this place? “Sure,” I said.
Odessa disappeared, and I rolled off the couch and staggered into the bathroom to wash up.
When I made it downstairs, only slightly more awake now, I found Tobias curled up on the bottom few steps, fast asleep. Feeling guilty, I touched his shoulder.
“Lex?” He rubbed his fists in his eyes, like a little kid.
“Hey, buddy. How are you?”
“I was gonna wake you, but that girl said she’d do it.”
“How long have you been sleeping here?”
He shrugged. “Like five minutes. You said to come get you at dawn. It’s dawn.”
“I take it there wasn’t anything suspicious overnight?”
Tobias shook his head. “Safe here. But I saw your vampire. He said another one of his people was killed.”
“That’s true.” I sat down on the step beside him. “We’ve got today and tonight to figure out who’s doing this. You and I are going home tomorrow either way.”
He brightened. “We are?”
“Yep. But I’d really like to find this fucker before we go.”
Tobias nodded, looking thoughtful. “How can I help?”
“Right now, you can head back to the hotel and get a few hours’ sleep,” I told him. “You’ll be more useful to me if you’re rested. I’ll call you if I figure out something during the day; otherwise I’ll come by early in the afternoon to change and get my backup obsidian, and we can figure out our next steps.”
“Okay,” he said tiredly. “That’s good, you need that.”
“I really do.” And he needed some sleep. I patted him on the shoulder, and went to the kitchen to find Odessa.
She stood by the counter, stirring the last steaming mug in a row of three. Beside the mugs sat a jar of homemade honey with the lid screwed on. I wondered if she might be thinking of going into business with the honey, or opening a riding stable or something. I hadn’t actually asked her what she wanted to do next. I felt a little guilty that I’d been treating Odessa the same way I would my cousin’s high schoolers. She was nineteen, old enough to have her own opinions on things.
Then again, she was probably sick of people asking her about her future.
“Great timing,” she said, still obscenely cheerful. “Becca likes tea too, so I made her a cup.” She handed me one of the mugs, picking up another for herself. Then she put a dessert plate on top of the third mug to keep the heat from escaping.
I took a sip of the tea, some kind of English Breakfast flavor. It had the rich, complicated taste of tea that was particularly expensive.
“This is really good,” I told her. “You were right about the honey.”
“Do you want some toast too?” Odessa offered. “I can make it with the honey. Or some peanut butter.”
“Peanut butter toast sounds good,” I told her.
A moment later we were both munching on toast in companionable quiet. I leaned against the counter—my legs still felt cramped from the couch—but Odessa had hopped up, and was sitting with her boots swinging.
“You know,” she said, blowing across the surface of her tea, “Becca will be here soon. Beau said those spirit bomb thingies can only go off at night. You don’t have to wait around.”
I smiled. “I promised your uncle I would hand you off to Becca in person.”
She gave a little shrug. “You guys are flying out today?”
“No, not until tomorrow. I have one more day and night to find the person who’s doing this.”
“Why?” She looked genuinely curious, and I tried to imagine her perspective on this. I was a ghost specialist who’d come to Atlanta to figure out who was “stealing” Beau’s ghosts, and it had turned into a far more serious matter—two of his closest followers had been murdered. Odessa didn’t know that Quinn and I had done similar investigations before; to her it must seem like I was way out of my element.
Then again, I felt like I was way out of my element. “Those spirit bottles are still out there.”
Odessa chewed at her lower lip. “Are you sure you’ll be okay? I mean, I love Beau, but he’s putting you in an awful lot of danger, and it’s not even your territory. I thought everyone in the Old World was obsessed with territory.”