"Er… Sam? I hate to hurry you, but I think you should try to wrap this up," Jake said, his voice worried.
"Why?" I asked, my vision still turned inward, trying to pull out of the tomb to see where it was located.
"Because you're starting to emit light, and there's a lorry-load of butterflies heading this way that look like they aren't going to be content with just fluttering merrily around you."
I pulled back out of the scrying vision and glanced down first at myself, where tiny little pinpoints of sunlight were bursting out of me. "Wow. I'm in sunshine overload… holy moly!"
Heading toward us in a veritable tidal wave of brilliant color, every butterfly in the whole of Butterfly World was zooming straight at me in one solid mass that knocked down everything and everyone in its path. People screamed and threw themselves to the floor as the swarm flew at us. As if that sight wasn't frightening enough, the butterflies' chant of "Drink the light! Drink the light!" turned my blood cold.
I dumped the water out of my scrying bowl and leaped to my feet, snatching up my backpack before throwing myself through the palms, butterflies falling off me as I bolted for the door. "Run! Run for your lives! Killer butterflies!"
Chapter 9
"I don't believe I've ever run across a butterfly I'd classify as murderous," Paen commented a few minutes later. He stood in the shadow of an overhang of a maintenance building, clad in the same ankle-length black coat and hat that he'd worn to my office.
"Yeah, well, you didn't hear those little monsters chanting about drinking you." I stopped brushing off the butterfly dust—which Jake helpfully informed me was actually miniscule scales off the butterflies' wings—and scrunched my nose. "Why was I emitting light? I've never done that before."
"You've never channeled power from the sun before, either," Jake said, watching Paen with bright, interested eyes. "You probably pulled more than you needed, and it had to go somewhere."
I patted my torso, still a bit weirded out by the experience. Unlike Clare, I was not immortal, nor did I recover quickly from wounds. The fact that sunlight could burst out of me without doing damage relieved my mind on one level, and disturbed me greatly on another. I'd have to worry about it at another time, though. Right now I had more important concerns. "Whatever the reason, I'm glad it's done. I'm just sorry I couldn't pinpoint the location of the statue."
"You have no idea where it is?" Paen asked.
"Somewhere fairly close, that's the only sense of location I got."
"Close meaning Edinburgh? Scotland? The planet Earth?"
"Very funny," I said, walking toward the parking lot. I stopped and looked back at Paen, still standing in the shadows. "Mind giving us a lift back to town?"
He angled his hat so it shaded his face, stuffed his hands in his pockets, and strode past me into the sunlight. Jake and I followed, hurrying to keep up with Paen's long-legged stride.
"The answer to your question is this area. I think. Lowlands of Scotland. Somewhere around here, there's a tomb holding that statue. Any obvious spots you'd like to search first?"
"No," Paen said, turning his back to the sun so he could open the car door. I noticed for the first time that the windows of the car were heavily tinted. From the inside, they appeared normal, but anyone standing outside it saw windows almost as dark as my scrying mirror. "But I have information that may make such a search moot."
"Really? What sort of information?" I asked as I got into the car, claiming the front seat while Jake took the rear. I scooted around on the seat so I had my back to the door, able to see both men. "What did you find out?"
Paen's gaze flickered to the rearview mirror for a moment.
He's absolutely trustworthy, you know. You can say anything you want in front of him. He won't repeat it.
I could feel Paen hesitate, unwilling to share information in front of a stranger.
I know it's asking a lot, but I trust him with my life. You really don't have to worry about anything you say in front of him getting spread around.
"There was a demon waiting for me outside your flat when I left this morning," he said finally, evidently deciding to trust us both.
Jake's eyes widened.
"It's not like it sounds," I said hastily, giving Paen a small frown. "We didn't have sex."
"We didn't?" Paen asked.
"No, we didn't!"
"We were both naked," he pointed out. "And you begged me to make love to your ears."
Jake's eyes practically bugged out.
"Paen's blowing this totally out of proportion," I told him, waving a hand at my would-be lover. "The ear sex thing was unexpected. And just so you know, all he did was bite my ears. There were no ear-to-genital encounters. That's just creepy."
"I think this is probably none of my business," Jake said, looking oddly delighted. He kept shooting little questioning looks at Paen, then grinning at me.
I frowned in return. "True, so if Mr. Blabberfangs there doesn't mind, we can move on past the fact that we were naked and indulging in a little ear make-out session, and get to the point." Unbidden, my gaze dropped to Paen's lap. "Er… point of the conversation. You saw a demon?"
"Yes. On the street. It was waiting for me. It said it had been sent by its master, the demon lord who demanded the statue. The demon said that there was a man in Edinburgh, a theurgist who has an interest in art from the Dark Ages. This man evidently has information about the statue, and possibly knows where it is located."
"Oooh, good clue, even if it does come from a demon," I said, pulling out my PDA to take notes. "What's the name of the guy?"
"Owen Race. Professor Owen Race."
I almost dropped my PDA. "Huh?"
Paen didn't seem to notice for a second or two that Jake and I stared at him with mouths hanging open in surprise. "What? Do you know him?"
"Kind of," I said, choking slightly. "He's a client. Jake referred him to me."
"Client!" Paen looked as surprised as I felt. "What did he hire you for?"
I bit my lip (a bad habit, but one I am unable to stop). "I can't tell you. That would be violating my ethics. It's not to find your statue, though, I'll tell you that."
"I appreciate that you wish to adhere to client confidentiality, but I must insist on knowing what work Owen Race has engaged you to undertake."
"Insist away. You are a client—I respect your right to privacy. Likewise, I respect Mr. Race's. I'll go so far as to assure you that my job for him has nothing to do with your statue, but that's all I'm saying."
"That's not good enough. There may be a connection that you don't see," Paen argued, turning onto a familiar street.
"Might I remind you that I'm a professional?" My frown got a little tighter. "I'm not a complete idiot, you know. I can tell the difference between a job locating a stolen book and one to find a missing statue."
"Stolen book? What book was stolen?"
I growled to myself.
"I think this is where I get off," Jake said, evidently sensing the coming argument. He waited until Paen pulled past a zebra crossing and hopped out, poking his head back into the car for a moment. "Nice meeting you, Paen. Thanks for the entertainment, Sam."
"Bye, and thank you for all the support," I said, upping my frown at Paen to a full-frontal glare. "I'll let you know later how things turn out, OK?"
"It's a deal. Later."
Paen drove off, heading not toward my office as I wanted, but into the newer part of town where our apartment was.
"You're taking me home? I don't want to go home. I have work to do at the office," I said. "There's a little business about your mother's soul, remember?"