Page 39 (1/2)

Quill scoffed, pretending to be annoyed by the boisterousness But his ser

I’ured out Quilliam J Abernathy’s middle initial The J stands for jerk

31

I barely took the ti up as close to the sidewalk as possible, then hauling ass right out of the driver’s seat Florian and Quill followed closely behind They probably suspected exactly as I did Things worked differently in the arcane underground Dead things don’t always stay dead, especially when they’re dedicated servants of deities of the underworld

My fists hurt as I banged wildly on the front doors of the Rodriguez house Who cared that it was past ht? This could very well have been a matter of life and death All we needed to do was hand Monica the peineta with Leonora’s hair in it Then the younger Rodriguez would take care of everything, preferably by laying her grandmother to her final rest, where she would be way too dead to be interested in trying to kill me and the boys

The door flew open and I sprang back Monica Rodriguez, wearing a negligee, a fierce scowl, and very little else, stared wild-eyed at us fro white-knuckled over the haft of a knife, the other clutching what could have been a pointy chopstick, but was far ic wand

“What the hell do you want?” she rasped We’d woken her up, clearly, as evidenced by the disarray of her hair and the groggy, distant look in her eyes “Do you idiots knohat time it is?”

I pushed past her, Florian and Quill filing in withMonica out of the way “We wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t important,” I said hurriedly “Oh This is Florian”

Florian lifted a hand “Hi”

Monica shot both of us confused, irritated glares

“And this is your grand her the ornaht of it “Now, could you please deal with her? You neverto fly off the handle and come chase us down if we tried to

steal her hair”

She looked between the three of us, held the peineta to her chest, then rushed towards the kitchen “Come quickly We have to end this Now”

Monica e, ornate bowl and a prayer candle, setting her knife next to them She’d also extracted what looked like a round tupperware filled with – God, was that blood?

“Pig’s blood,” she said to no one in particular “Comes in handy for rituals” She uncovered the tub and threw the whole thing into the microwave