doors are in place."
"So you'll just appear," Galen said.
"Yes."
"How do you make certain someone isn't in the doorway when you appear."
"I can feel if it's empty," he said.
"Nifty."
"I didn't know you could do doorways," I said.
"Its a power that has returned since we were crowned."
"Don't tell Barinthus," Galen said.
"I will not." He'd been solemn when he said it. "But I will scout the area and if reporters seem aware you are on your way; tipped off, I believe they say."
"They do," I said with a smile.
"Then I will call if they have been tipped off." He'd gone with his blond hair looking short, his golden eyes as brown as Galen's and mine. Sholto even made his face less handsome so he wouldn't even attract attention as a too handsome human.
Rhys drove since it was his car. We put Saraid in the front with him, and the rest of us scattered in the back. We could actually see the distant flash of police lights when Rhys pulled over into a small parking lot. Julian or Jordan Hart leaned against one of the company cars. It wasn't until he turned and gave me that smile of his that I knew it was Julian and not his twin brother. They both had short, rich brown hair cut so it was short on the sides, but a little longer on top, where it was gelled into small spikes. But Jordan didn't have such a careless, devil-may-care smile. He had a good smile. They both did. They'd made enough money from modeling to first start their own detective agency and then to buy into the Grey Detective Agency. They were both six feet of tanned and easy handsome, but Julian was lighter, more of a tease. Though oddly it was the teasing brother who had found a monogamous relationship and done happily so for more than five years. Serious brother Jordan was still quite the ladies' man, though even in his single days Julian had never been a ladies' man. A gentleman's man, if that was a phrase, would have been more accurate.
He was wearing small-framed glasses with yellow-tinted glass that complemented his shades of brown and tan clothes. He came to me laughing. "You should have called, dear. I'd have worn another color so we wouldn't have matched."
I smiled and gave my cheek for a kiss, which I got and returned. His face still held that edge of laughter, but his eyes behind their almost-silly tinted glasses were very serious.
"You haven't been to the crime scene yet, have you?" I asked.
"No," he said, his voice as serious as his eyes, but if anyone was watching, his face still laughed and was pleasant. "But Jordan has."
Now I understood why his eyes were already a little grim. The twin brothers could let each other see what they were looking at, if they wanted to. When they'd been little they'd had no control over it, but they'd gone to the afterschool psychic programs along with all the other little gifted children and now they only shared if they chose. Whatever Julian's brother had shown him was bad enough to take the shine from his eyes.
He looked past me to the men with me, and the smile climbed back up into his eyes. There were other human wizards who would have had to ask before being certain who was hiding behind the glamour, but Julian really was that good, and so was his brother. So he went to Galen and exchanged a cheek kiss like he had with me and a handshake with Rhys. The fact that he knew who to kiss and who to just shake hands with said that the disguises weren't really fooling him. That was not good, since some police were now wizards, but most didn't specialize in "seeing" the truth.
Julian hesitated at the women, which meant that it wasn't what they looked like to his physical eyes that let him know who to kiss. It was something more mystical than that. He didn't know the female guards well at all, so he shook their hands. He was actually more careful of the women than the men.
Of course, even Julian hadn't quite been his exuberant self since more than half of Kane and Hart's detective agency had gotten eaten by a very big, bad piece of magical beastie called the Nameless. We - my men and I - had eventually entrapped it, but Kane and Hart had been ground down to only four employees,