I interrupted him, “1963 Ford Galaxie 500XL
Convertible 406 CID 385 horsepower with a V8.” Vayl nodded. “It also has a four-speed manual transmission.”
I blinked. I might’ve been crying by now. But I real y didn’t care. “It’s just like the one Granny May used to have.
She drove us to church in it. To the store. Everywhere.” Vayl waited until I’d torn my eyes from the beauty on the street to look at him again before he said, “It is the one your grandmother used to drive.”
I lost it. Right then and there, I just, wel , I kind of hate to say this, but I sat down on my ass and bawled on the sidewalk in Marrakech, Morocco. During which time I had to assure Vayl this was a good thing. And also during which he had to explain to me how Gramps Lew had sold the car to a neighbor of theirs, a farmer who’d always meant to restore it but never had. So it had stayed in the old guy’s barn until his son had opened his front door to find Vayl there with a shitload of cash in his hand and a trailer hooked to his rental truck.
When I final y pul ed myself together I said, “But, Vayl, she’s mint. I mean, I don’t see any rust. The interior is the same shiny red I remember. If I pop the hood—”
“It wil sparkle,” he assured me.
I shook my head. “That kind of work takes time. A lot more than we’ve been a couple.”
He had sat down on the sidewalk beside me, laying his arms across his upraised knees in that way he has of making himself comfortable in any position. Now he looked at the classic parked on the street and admitted, “I bought it soon after we met. I… had hoped someday I might have this chance.”
I pointed to the Galaxie. “You can’t possibly have felt like that for me then!”
He turned to gaze into my eyes, laying his chin on my shoulder as he said softly, “I have loved you with everything in me from the moment I saw you.”
I wrapped my arm around his leg, careful y avoiding his wound. “Damn,” I whispered.
He leaned forward, his lips like the breath of life itself, bringing my soul back into the dance every time they touched mine. He took his time, his tongue brushing against mine so gently it was like a second declaration.
When he pul ed back he said, “Every moment with you has been a revelation. I would not trade a second. Come, my pretera.” His eyes glittered as my inner girls screamed ecstatical y while they threw paper airplanes at each other to celebrate hearing him cal me Yaz-mee-na and his little wildcat both in the same day.
I managed a breathless, “Yeah?”
He said, “Let us gather the crew. It is time to ride.” Morocco’s medina is ful of streets so narrow sometimes you’re lucky to get a couple of donkey carts past each other. But the new city is ful of wide, wel -lit boulevards just made for a bunch of cruising assassins. I drove my Granny’s car with the top down and the radio blasting, my hair flying out behind me like a kid’s kite.
It was fucking awesome.
Vayl sat beside me, never taking his eyes off my face, his lips stuck in that semi-smile that let me know he was perfectly satisfied with the world and everything in it. If we had been living a movie, that’s where it would’ve ended.
Happily ever after, baby. Which, of course, is why it lasted less than fifteen minutes.
We pul ed up just down the street from the Musee de Marrakech and just sat, listening to the engine purr.
“I can’t believe you did this for me,” I said, rubbing the steering wheel like it was the soft fur of my malamute.
Sometime during our drive he’d dropped his arm behind my back. Now he touched my neck with his fingertips, sending shivers up and down my spine as he slid closer to me. Though he couldn’t hypnotize me, I felt captivated by the facets in his glittering emerald eyes as they caught mine and said exactly what my heart needed to hear.
“We wil take it with us everywhere,” he said. “No more shabby rentals.” He smirked. “No more mopeds.”
“I liked those mopeds,” Cole objected from the backseat. He sat next to Raoul, who rubbed elbows with Sterling, who’d slid down so he could let his head fal back and stare up into the star-studded sky.
Sterling rol ed his head to gaze on Cole. “Somehow I saw you more as a Camaro kind of guy. But whatever pops your clutch. I guess you liked your runaway demon too?” Raoul huffed, like he found that impossible to believe.
Cole drummed his fingers on the armrest. At least he remembered not to drop Kyphas’s name—and therefore give her a clue as to our whereabouts—when he said, “She had her good points. Somewhere deep… deep at her core.
Anyway, I’m stil wil ing to give her the benefit of the doubt.”
“Oh. So that’s why she fel for Vayl’s trap like a catfish jonesing for chicken liver?” I asked.
He shrugged. “It was pretty juicily baited.” When we al made sounds of doubt he added, “Come on. What demon isn’t going to try for the Enkyklios map on her own when you dangle the exact location in front of her like that?”
“We didn’t, the Luureken did,” I reminded him. “She was just conceited enough to think we were dumb enough to believe nobody but us good guys would act on it.”
“She did steal the cat,” Raoul reminded him, like that should be his last straw.
“You’re real y fixated on the robokitty, you know that?” Cole told him.
I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Raoul straightened even more as he said, “Astral sang to me after Nia left. The perfect song, in fact. I don’t think she’s ful y mechanical. She seems to have… insight.”
Since I knew the guys wanted to know but would never ask, I did. “What tune did she pick out for you?”
“She sang ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life,’
from the musical Spamalot,” Raoul said.
Cole immediately launched into song, with the rest of us providing the whistling where appropriate. “Always look on the bright side of life. Always look on the right side of life.”
“It’s not funny,” said Raoul.
“I believe it is supposed to be,” Vayl informed him helpful y.
He sat back and crossed his arms.
Cole scooted forward. “Our demon’s taking her sweet time in there. Do you think she’s onto us? Maybe she snuck out the back.”
“Nope.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Astral’s sending me pictures.” I turned in my seat, fluttering the fake lashes that received Astral’s signals. On top of Cole’s slumped form I could see the superimposed image of Kyphas as viewed from the ground up, sneaking through the museum. Just watching her face hover over Cole’s made me want to swear. Instead I said, “I can’t believe you even flirted with her, much less… She’s such a skank!”
He never took his eyes off the museum’s entrance.
“Absolutely. A skank with evil intentions and a shiny gold nugget at the center of her pitch-black heart.” I made gagging sounds while Raoul said, “Share with the other children, Jaz. What’s Astral showing you?” I rol ed my eyes at Sterling, who said, “You might as wel give us some narration. Otherwise we’re just going to start punching each other back here. And you know what that wil lead to.”
Gawd. With a warlock, an Eldhayr, and an assassin squished into the backseat, everything I imagined went from bad to nuclear. I started talking.
“It’s just what you’d expect. Boring little trek through the touristy part of the museum. Human-formed Weres in front, demon fol owing. They’re passing priceless paintings and cases ful of old crap.” I glanced at Vayl. “No offense. I know that stuff must be more meaningful to you than it is to me—” He shrugged. “Considering where I have been living the past few days, I find I much prefer the present.”