Honeymoon of the Dead (10 page)

Jesus, the Ordway Room! Given that it cost us a couple thousand a night just to sleep here, I couldn’t even imagine what it would take to replace it.

Sebastian was going to be hopping mad about that. Despite having a lot of money, he usually hated spending it—especially to take care of Lilith’s problems—but he’d be more ticked if I didn’t get my butt to the consulate like I’d promised. I found the alarm clock half under the bed. Its case was a bit cracked, but, miraculously, it was still plugged in and working. Lilith’s tantrum had only taken five minutes. Okay, I had time to find a mind-clearing cup of coffee before I headed out. I picked myself up off the floor, brushed the plaster dust from my hair, and hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the knob on the way out.

 

 

I’d grabbed Sebastian’s keys and his iPhone from the
pile of debris that had once been the nightstand. I was really grateful Lilith hadn’t smashed the phone. If I was going to find the consulate, I needed a Google map, bad.

My thick winter boots shuffled on the soft carpeting of the hotel hallway. Passing a cleaning lady, I looked away guiltily. Lilith always wrecked everything. She had almost literally come between Sebastian and me during sex. Now there was the room. Was our marriage always going to involve Lilith and Her disasters? Sebastian thought I was the vortex of some bad juju that always invited creatures of the night into our lives. What if it wasn’t me so much as Lilith? My life had been crazy before Lilith, but rarely did it involve Gods or elves or zombies. How much easier would my marriage be without all these complications?

Hardly noticing my surroundings, I made my way down to the parking garage. It took me a few seconds after getting off the elevator to remember where we’d parked the car, and then a couple minutes more to remember what it looked like. I’d have asked the valet upstairs to fetch it for me, but that always made me feel weird, plus I didn’t really want an audience while I tried to remember how to drive. Thank Goddess the loaner car was an automatic or I’d be completely screwed.

Sebastian favored classic cars built in the twenties and thirties, but they didn’t tend to come with things like heaters. So in the winter, we borrowed whatever junker Hal had laying around at Jensen’s, the auto shop where Sebastian worked whenever he wasn’t teaching at UW.

Finally recognizing the beat-up Toyota with Wisconsin plates as the one we’d driven up from Madison, I stood beside the driver’s-side car door for a moment in order to puzzle out Sebastian’s phone for directions. I’d just managed to figure out how to turn it on when three guys in shapeless black parkas rushed up, shouting, “Down with the Illuminati!”

It all happened in kind of a blur. My brain registered kids in parkas brandishing their fists. One was tall, the other two medium. If the police asked me their description, all I’d have been able to come up with in that moment was: Yikes!

Apparently, Lilith decided She finally found the fight She’d been looking for. I squeezed my eyes shut. Oh, Great Goddess, my mind screamed, these poor kids are going to die! But instead of losing consciousness as was typical with Lilith, suddenly, and with hardly a thought from me, my hand that wasn’t holding the phone snapped up in a classic traffic cop gesture of “Stop!”

The boys, who were running at full speed, bounced back, like they’d hit an invisible wall . . . which, I guess, technically, they kind of had.

With my magical vision, I could see it sparkling silver, like a giant circular shield. My inner ear heard the sound of a thousand hissing snakes—wait a minute, snakes? That wasn’t a sound I usually associated with Lilith, no, it seemed a lot more like a certain classic Greek Goddess.

Athena!

My knees trembled as if with the effort of supporting something heavy, and I thought that they might buckle any moment. My eyes blurred, but I saw the boys standing still as stone.

They seemed uncertain what to do next. Meanwhile, I showed them Sebastian’s phone. “I’m calling the cops!”

That made them exchange nervous glances, but they didn’t move. Maybe they could tell I had no idea how to use Sebastian’s phone. Or perhaps they sensed that Lilith’s fire had started competing with Athena’s cool control over my body. My knees knocked in earnest, and sweat steamed from my forehead. I had no doubt that if the boys attacked again it would be Lilith they’d face.

And this time, when I awoke, there’d be blood on my hands.

My arm started to droop from the fatigue of holding Athena’s mighty shield. One of the boys in a ratty parka took a daring step forward.

“Don’t,” I said weakly. “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”

Just then, from out of the shadows of the parked cars, someone approached. “You there!” he shouted, carrying a baseball bat. “Get away from her!”

I blinked. The menacing figure approaching almost looked like James Something, except, you know, I couldn’t be sure. Which I guess meant it was him.

“Get out of here,” he yelled again, this time waving the bat around threateningly. Taking one look at James and his manly command of the Louisville Slugger, the boys bolted. But not before one of them—the brains behind the operation?—spit on the ground and snarled, “Eat the Rich.”

Wait, was I just assaulted by a roving gang of social progressives? Ack, those were supposed to be
my
people!

Light-headed, I held on to consciousness by tightly gripping the car door. Lilith seemed equally unsettled. She shifted and scattered under my skin, giving me hot and cold flashes. I thought I might actually throw up this time.

James Something cautiously came up beside the car, holding the bat loosely at his side. “Are you all right?”

“You know, I used to have a shirt that said that,” I muttered. “I stopped wearing it because, you know, with Sebastian the connotation seemed kind of kinky.”

“Sorry?” He asked again. This time I noticed the slight British accent.

“James Something!” I said in happy acknowledgment, even though my world spun as I turned to face him. “Am I ever grateful you’ve been stalking us!”

He put his arm out to steady me, but I stumbled away from it. “Sorry, but if you touch me I’ll probably puke.”

His hand retreated guiltily.

Lilith finally settled with a low, uncertain groan, deep inside my belly. It felt wrong, somehow, like She retreated in pain or fear. Despite the unease of it, I was just happy to feel the floor solidify under my feet. Plus, without Athena’s intercession those kids would be dead, I was sure of it.

James Something continued to hover nearby protectively. I looked him over measuringly, keeping a careful watch on that baseball bat. “You know,” I told him, “I really would have thought you were on their side.”

“Not hardly. The Order of the Green Garter is ever at your service, madam.”

Oh, well, if it was like that . . . “Great. Do you know how to work an iPhone?”

 

 

Turns out my main problem was a lack of signal. James
Something suggested we go upstairs, but the restaurant wasn’t open and I wanted a cup of coffee. It was actually quite unreasonable how much I’d done this morning before imbibing a single drop of caffeine.

I still didn’t trust James Something, but since he was going to stalk me anyway, I took him along in my search for a cup of joe. Since I needed to get to the consulate as soon as humanly possible, I decided if I didn’t find something in a block or two I’d give up and go cold. Meanwhile, James ditched the baseball bat in back of a beat-up Outback station wagon parked not far from Sebastian’s car. The brief view I had of the various weaponry in his trunk did little to make his case that he was friendly, especially since he seemed to have a good supply of garlic and sharpened wooden stakes.

Of course, I’d be more worried if either of those really worked on Sebastian. Sebastian is really quite fond of garlic, and a stake to the heart only immobilizes him. And pisses him off, but I figured that was a detail James Something could figure out on his own, if he was stupid enough to go after Sebastian, which supposedly he wasn’t going to since he claimed to be some kind of knight and on our side and everything.

When he noticed my eyes on the weapons, James quickly shut the hatch and flashed a nervous smile. “It’s good to be prepared.”

“Hmmm-hmm,” I murmured, though it was a skeptical affirmative. “Sure, so the Green Garters are Britain’s answer to the Boy Scouts?”

“What?” He laughed. “No, no, nothing like that.”

Yet somehow he didn’t manage to answer the question either. Why was I not surprised?

We found a place in the Landmark Center across the street where I could get a pastry as well as a nice, strong cup of coffee.

With my hands wrapped around the paper cup for warmth, I stared up at the reddish marble columns of the four stories that loomed majestically over the wide, empty space below. The coffee shop huddled against one end of the atrium, like a mouse in the shadow of a cathedral.

Noticing my glance, James Something said, “John Dillinger was held here when it was the courthouse, did you know?”

“Really? That’s kind of cool.” I took a sip of the black, deliciously bitter coffee, and headed for the door. When I was at home at my favorite coffee shop in Madison, Holy Grounds, I always had a honeyed latte, but I found when I traveled I preferred hard-core coffee. Plus, there was something about Minnesota—a nod to its spartan Norwegian heritage, perhaps—that made me take my coffee unadorned here. “Did you figure out the phone?”

“Oh, some time ago. I’ve got you all set to get to the Austrian consulate.” He handed me Sebastian’s iPhone with a polite smile.

Up close, James Something radiated a bit more personality. His eyes, I noticed now, were a delicate shade of pale blue, which actually seemed capable of flashes of intensity. The boring mousey color of his hair occasionally had streaks of gold blond that could, in the right light, shine. “So, what’s this organization you’re part of again?” I asked, checking the time on Sebastian’s phone. Great Goddess! It’d been nearly a half hour. I needed to get a move on, especially since, according to the phone, the consulate was all the way out in North Minneapolis or something.

“Order of the Green Garter,” he said in a reverent whisper.

The guy seemed normal enough, except he got the vaguely intense gleam when he mentioned his order. Frankly, I was always a bit leery of people who belonged to orders, given my experience with the Order of Eustace, the Vatican witch hunters. Plus, anyone who carried weapons in his car made me more than a little nervous. “Well,” I said, with what I hoped was an okay-this-is-your-cue-to-exit tone, “thanks again for the rescue.”

He touched his hand to his heart and gave me a slight bow. “At your service, as always, lady.”

James’s show of chivalry tickled me almost as much as being called a lady. I wondered why Sebastian was convinced that this guy was with those Illuminati Watch thugs. He seemed sincere, but honestly, I’m not the best judge of people. I shrugged.

“Well, I really have to take care of this,” I said, lifting the phone.

Like some old- fashioned guy, James held the door for me. I stepped out into the cold air. Aches had settled into my body. I could feel the bruises Lilith had left after Her tantrum in the hotel room and the muscle strain from holding Athena’s shield. I was getting too old for this; it kind of made me miss trolls and Frost Giants.

James Something was still at my heels after crossing the busy intersection to Rice Park. “Are you coming with me all the way to the consulate?” I asked, a bit irritated.

After last night’s snow, the ground was dusted with fluffs of white that sparkled blue and yellow in the sun. Pigeons milled around near a broad, circular fountain that had been closed for the season. They cooed noisily and scattered in a flurry of wings as we passed a bronze statue of F. Scott Fitzgerald holding an open book.

“I’ll follow in my own car, of course.”

Right, I’d forgotten he had nothing else to do but stalk Sebastian and me all day. I chewed on my lip at that thought. I wondered how Sebastian was holding up. He was so mad when he left. And who knew we’d gotten a wedding present from the Austrian ambassador?

Sebastian certainly had his share of secrets.

I was anxious to get to the car and get a move on.

“We should really cross at the light,” James said as I stood between two parked cars trying to gauge the best time to make a dash for it.

“Why? Did you take a vow not to jaywalk?”

“A knight is required to be as law abiding as possible.”

“I’m not a knight!” I said with a snort. A break in the flow of cars came, so I darted through the exhaust-smudged slush to the other side. James shook his head and pointed to the crosswalk. “I’ll see you at the consulate.”

I rolled my eyes. I probably would.

 

 

The trip out to North Minneapolis was relatively pleas
ant, especially considering how much I hate to drive. I only got a little lost on the highway interchanges, and I got to listen to the radio stations I liked.

The meeting with the honorary consul general was uneventful, other than having the disconcerting experience of being treated like royalty. The “embassy” wasn’t much more than a modern office in one of those ubiquitous brick and glass, five-story buildings in the suburbs that seemed to always house a tax consultant, chiropractor, and three law offices.

At first, I couldn’t believe I was at the right place. Then I saw the consulate listed on one of those cloth building directories with the push- in letters near the elevator bank. The consul general himself was a nice, older man with a noticeable comb-over and a bushy gray mustache. He invited me into his office, which smelled faintly of pipe smoke, and plied me with coffee and treats and assurances that D.C. had everything under control and that Sebastian would be released later this afternoon.