said, Hound meeting 7:30, same place.
A phone started ringing, and I got up from the table to answer it. Except it wasn’t my phone.
Zayvion pulled a cell phone out of his pocket. I didn’t think he had a cell. This thing looked more like a Victorian card case, with metal swirls and gears and beveled glass and tinted mirrors. It took me a second, because I guess I was just slow today, but I finally recognized a Shield glyph etched into the case.
Heavily Warded didn’t begin to describe that thing.
“Yes?” he said.
Whoever was talking on the other line was quiet enough I couldn’t hear them, not even with my acute hearing. Either that or the phone had some sort of Privacy or Mute spell worked into it too.
All I know is the man before me went from a happy lover to a blank wall of Zen.
“Yes.” It was one, stilted word. The answer of a man having to fulfill an unwanted duty. I wondered who it was on the other line and what they had asked him to do.
He hung up and pocketed the phone.
“Nice gizmo, Batman,” I said.
He frowned, and it was strange to see him try to figure out what I was saying. That call must have shaken him up more than I thought.
“The phone,” I said. “It’s neat. All magical and stuff.”
He nodded. “I need to get you one like that. You said your cell keeps dying, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“That’s because of how much magic you use. Hold in you. The Wards on it help with that.”
“Great,” I said, feeling like he and I were talking around whatever was really going on. “Is everything all right?”
He rubbed at the back of his neck. “It is.” At my look, he said,“It’s just a job. I need to take care of something. I thought I had the rest of the day before . . . before I had to go.”
He went silent and somber. I tried to lighten things up. “No rest for assassins.” I caught myself on the last word, and Zayvion gave me a sharp look.
“You aren’t going to kill someone, are you?” See how understanding and supportive I could be?
“No,” he said. “Not today. Not this job.” He gave me a hard smile, and I had no doubt that he had killed in the past. And would kill again.
Hells. Now, that was a way to blow all of the fun out of the room.
Still, that’s what Zayvion was—an assassin, a magic user, a Closer. He was also a lover, my lover, and someone who had done his best to help me, and other people in the past. I wondered whether one thing balanced the other.
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked.
“No. It’s fine. I know . . . it’s fine.” He took a breath and let it out again, pulling his Zen back over the top of the killer.
“Do you want me to pick you up here?” he asked.
“Why?”
“To take you to Maeve’s today.”
That’s right. I’d forgotten about class again. Ten o’clock or she’d get demon diaper rash or something.
“Sure,” I said. “Around nine thirty.” I gathered up our plates and coffee cups and took them to the kitchen sink. I walked back to the living room.
Zayvion stood at my window, curtains back just enough so he could see the street below. It was six o’clock, and false dawn was beginning to polish the edges of night.
“Huh,” he said.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He let the curtain drop, picked up his coat, and put it on.
“Good luck,” I said, not knowing what else to say. “Be safe.”
“I will.” He touched my arm. “Be careful.”
With that, he walked out my door.
I stood there, not doing much more than staring at the walls and thinking about too many things. A lot had happened in a day.
Which reminded me. I was seriously behind in my journ aling. I pulled my book out of my coat pocket, and the small manila envelope that Violet had given me fell out onto the floor. I was surprised I hadn’t lost that in the fight.
My self-defense list. Might need to make a few calls on that before Violet sent the Beckstrom Enterprises henchmen out to get me.
I took the envelope and journal with me back to the living room and tossed the envelope on the table. That could wait. I found a blank page in my journal and quickly recapped everything that had happened in the last day.
Just reading it made me tired.
I got up and pulled