be. It’s kind of cute.”
Lovely. Just what I want to be. Cute.
“Bite me, Jones.”
“Anytime.” He grinned.
We headed along the narrow concrete walkway that took us down into the parkade.
“Where’s Davy’s car?” he asked.
“Down a level. How did it happen?” I asked.
“What?”
“Greyson’s escape. Maeve said he was safe there. Said that cage couldn’t be broken or breached. How did it happen?”
“We don’t know yet. The spells in place to record the area were tapped, tripped, and disabled.”
“Hold on. The ancient order of powerful magic users who can make magic do anything they want got screwed by someone hacking their wards? Why wasn’t there a camera in there? Why wasn’t someone guarding him?”
“No cameras because we don’t want any kind of recorded information about the well, Maeve’s place, or Greyson. No cameras because magic has always been enough.”
“Common sense. Would it hurt you to use it like the rest of us mortals?”
“You sound like your dad.”
“Nice.”
“His ideas for how magic should be regulated weren’t all bad.”
“So you have a man crush on the man I spent most of my life hating?”
“I didn’t say I liked him. I said he had common sense when it came to magic. Backup systems, technological support, hands-on—he believed it could all go together, work together, instead of being sectioned and divided. Magic used by the few, technology used by the masses.”
“Common sense didn’t keep him from being murdered.”
Zay fell silent. That brought us full circle. Greyson was one of the people who had killed my father back when Greyson had been a man working for the Authority. As far as anyone in the Authority could figure it, the murder was a multiple-person, complicated job. James Hoskil, my dad’s ex-business partner’s son, had been involved. And so had Cody, the gifted but mentally limited Hand my friend Nola had taken in to live on her farm in Burns, off the grid, and out of reach of magic.
There were probably more people involved. We still didn’t know who.
A man leaned against Zay’s car. I’d expected Shame, but this man was taller, his white hair a beacon beneath the fluorescent light.
“Hey, Terric,” I said. “What brings you out?”
“An escaped Necromorph. You?”
“Injured Hound.”
“Shame with you?” I asked. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wished I could take them back.
Terric frowned, and brushed the side of his nose.
“He’s with Chase. Hunting.”
I glanced at Zayvion, who opened the driver’s-side door. “Get in. We need to get you somewhere safe.”
I got in. Not because I was going to let them drop me off somewhere out of their way, but because it was cold and dark, and I preferred to win my arguments where there was a heater and comfortable leg room.
Terric slid into the backseat. It was a little strange to have someone other than Shame back there. Since I didn’t know him very well, I distrusted him on principle. But Zay was perfectly comfortable with the man. Like he’d just had a work buddy return after a long absence.
“So who decided it’s a good idea to let Chase hunt her boyfriend?” I asked.
The muscle in Zay’s jaw clenched. Sore subject.
Terric answered. “She’s one of the best people to look for him, don’t you think?”
From how she was acting back at Maeve’s I didn’t think that was at all true. “I doubt she likes the idea of seeing him put back in a cage.”
“Maybe not,” he said. “But she knows that the Authority are the only people who might be able to help him.”
“Or kill him,” I said.
“That too. What is life without risk?”
“Long?”
Terric laughed, a sort of high whooping that made me—and Zayvion, much to my surprise—smile. Contagious. For all he had a serious exterior, Terric was the guy you’d want to sit next to at a funny movie, just to hear him laugh.
“So are either of you going to tell me why I can’t come on the hunt?”
“You need to be safe,” Zay repeated. Man did one-track mind like no one’s business.
“And where do you suggest my safety will be found?”
“Maeve’s.”
“You mean the place Greyson broke out of?”
“With people guarding you,” he went on over my remark. “There will be a new cage constructed for him. And if he comes to you—”
“Hold up. I’m bait?”
“Allie—”
“You have got to be kidding me. I’d be safer at home.” I didn’t say with my gargoyle because only Zay, Shame, and I knew the big lug had decided my apartment was his den, nest, quarry, whatever it was that gargoyles called