the rain was over, but the parking lot shone in slick black puddles that rippled and shuddered in the wake of passing cars. Humidity was murder, closing warmly around me like a saturated, microwaved blanket. I herded Cherise and Sarah and the profusion of bags to the car; by the time we were getting inside, our preferred, close-in space was being scouted by an eagle-eyed old vulture in a shiny Mercedes and a determined-looking teenybopper with the ink still wet on her learner's permit. I pulled out and fled before the combat could get up to ramming speed. A few sullen raindrops spattered the windshield. Overhead, the sky was lead gray and utterly wrong; the patterns were definitely wonky. There was wobbling all up and down the aetheric, and little sparks of power as some other Warden made slight corrections. Nobody seemed too exercised about it, at least not yet; it was obviously not developing into the storm of the century. What was worrying to me about it was that I was supposed to be the only free-range talent out here. And somebody had messed with the weather to make this happen.
Thunder rumbled on cue. Resentfully.
"His name is Eamon!" Sarah said, leaning forward over the seats as I made my way toward the road. "Did you hear his accent? Isn't it adorable?" Sarah always had been a sucker for a foreign accent. Hence, the whole French Kiss-Off debacle.
"Yeah. That's Manchester, by the way, not West End London," Cherise said, and inspected her fingernails in the sunlight to admire the glitter effect.
"Probably hasn't got a dime, Sarah." Never mind that she was tripping all over herself to get his attention before Sarah had captured the English flag. "I wouldn't get my hopes up if I were you. He's pretty, but he's probably... you know."
"What? Gay?"
"Nah, didn't feel gay to me. Kinky. Most English guys are."
Chapter Seven
"You think so?" She sounded interested, not alarmed, but then Sarah, I remembered belatedly, had stories about Spider-Man costumes and Velcro sheets.
Oh dear God. Top of the list of things I didn't need to know about my sister ...
I felt compelled to run the train off the tracks. "Oh, c'mon, he was just being friendly," I said.
"Who are you kidding? He was jaw-droppingly cute," Cherise said. "Cute guys are never just being friendly when they throw out pickups in the fast-food line."
True. Cherise was heartless, gorgeous, and very perceptive. "It wasn't like he kissed her or anything. It was a handshake." I shrugged. "I'll bet he didn't even give her his phone number."
"Actually..." Sarah said. I looked in the rearview mirror. She was dangling what looked like a crisp, white business card.
"Oh, kill me now," Cherise sighed, and slumped down in the passenger seat. "I schlepped around the mall all day carrying another woman's packages and what do I get? Dissed by a Brit. Man, I may just have to go seduce Kurt to restore my self-image."
"Set yourself a challenge, at least," I said. "Go for Marvin."
"Ewwwww. Please. I need to have a self-image at the end of it. That's just gross. You go for Marvin. He's hot for you, you know."
Sarah was reading over the business card. I distracted myself with that, to drive away the image of Marvin in his skivvies, leering at me. "So what does he do, your knight in shining tweed?"
"And don't tell us he's got some kind of title and a castle, or I really will commit suicide by Marvin," Cherise said.
"He's a venture capitalist. He's got his own company. Drake, Willoughby and Smythe." Sarah ran her newly manicured finger over the card type. "Raised printing. He didn't just run it off on a laser printer or anything." She frowned. "Although I guess he could be broke. Did he seem broke to you, Jo?"
"Hey, he could have lifted the card off of some guy he murdered at the airport," Cherise said. "And then he stashed his body in a steamer trunk and checked it through to Istanbul. He's probably a serial killer."
We gave a moment of silent homage to the fact that Cherise's mind actually worked that way. At least she'd steered away from any explanation involving aliens and body-switching.
I felt duty-bound to try a defense, even though I barely knew the guy. "First, Cherise? Way too many scary movies; second, Sarah, it might be a little early