Light My Fire
Page 42

“I was not. I was being polite, yet professional. What are you doing here? I thought you were going with Nora and Paco to Oxford.”
“Changed my mind. I thought she wanted to go shopping and eat—turns out she just wants to visit a friend. A vegan friend. No sense in wasting my time there. What are you doing?”
“Just killing time.” I glanced at the clock on the green marble table next to the door. “Drake is off doing things to transfer his business stuff to England. Nora’s visiting her friend. Rene ran home to Paris for the day. I’ve been forbidden by both Drake and Nora to tackle the imps or the person who shot me on my own, so I’m pretty much stuck here with nothing to do but read.”
“Geesh. You shack up with Drake and turn into a big ole lazy lump of nothing.” Jim shook its head and strolled over to the window, looking out at the street below. “My previous boss would never have just sat around on her duff waiting for life to happen to her.”
I sat up straight and gave my demon another glare. “Hey! I think I’m entitled to a little downtime now and again. And what do you mean ‘her’? I thought your demon lord was Amaymon?”
“He was.”
“OK, you’re being mysterious now, and you know how I hate that. You said you haven’t had any other demon lord.”
“What do you think I am—a three-time loser? The only way you can be bound to a demon lord is if you’ve been cast out. That’s only been done once, thank you very much.”
“So you worked for someone before you were bound to Amaymon?”
Jim sauntered to the couch opposite, shooting me a look.
“Absolutely not. This is not my house with its old, crappy furniture. Drake’s things are nice, and I’d like them to stay that way. I bought you a dog bed—use it.”
The sigh Jim heaved was rife with martyrdom as the demon plopped down on the comfy dog bed I’d set next to the couch, but I ignored it. “Yes, I worked for someone else.”
“Who?”
“No one you’d know.”
My lips thinned. “That’s not an answer. Who did you work for before Amaymon?”
“I believe ‘whom’ is the correct grammatical—”
“For whom did you work before Amaymon?” I said in a loud voice.
“Clio.”
I frowned as I tried to place the name, but it didn’t ring any bells. “Who was she?”
Jim rolled over onto its back. “Man, what is this, a third degree? If you’re going to interrogate me, the least you can do is scratch my belly while you do it.”
“I’m not interrogating you. I’m just curious about your life before Amaymon. You’re the one who brought this other employer up.”
“Only as an example of why it looks so bad for me now to have a boss who just lazes around and waits for everyone to take care of her problems for her.”
“Oh, now that is patently untrue!” I got to my feet and grabbed my purse, marching over to prod Jim’s shoulder with the tip of my shoe. “I am very proactive! I always solve my own problems—or at least I try to. Come on, demon. If you’re so hot and bothered to see a little action, you’ll get it.”
‘That’s more like it.” Jim trotted after me as I headed for the front door, pausing to write a quick note for Drake. “Where are we going?”
“The British Museum.”
“Huh? Why there?”
The pleasant late summer days we’d been having in London had fizzled into a gray, overcast dampness. I hurried through the drizzle to the closest tube station. I consulted the big chart of tube routes, trying to figure out which line would take me to the museum. “Because they have the best collection of books detailing the history of the Otherworld. Nora told me I should be hitting the special collection there as much as possible. OK. I think we just need to make one transfer. Shouldn’t take us long.”
“What are you looking for at the BM?” Jim asked, obediently dropping the volume of its voice when I tweaked its ear. “Ow. Meanie.”
“I want to see if there’s anything about a mage named Peter Burke.”
“Who’s that?”
“Amelie and I talked about him at G and T.”
“Oh. Like I was paying attention. Who is he?”
I gave Jim a brief, under-the-breath explanation of who Peter was on the tube ride. The British being what they are, no one looked twice at me as I carried on a conversation with my dog. By the time we got to the museum, Jim was asking questions about what his role would be when I became Venediger.
“Nothing, because I’m never going to be the Venediger. I’m only just coping with demon lord, wyvern’s mate, and Guardian, thank you.”
“I think you’re making a mistake. You could be someone if you were Venediger! Think of the fame! Think of the glory! Think of all the free food!”
“We can do quite well without any of that, thank you. Now zip thy demonic lips, or a museum guard will hear you.”
It took me a bit of fast talking (and the slightest bit of a mind push) to get Jim and me access to a collection of texts normally reserved for those with the proper academic qualifications, but eventually I found myself tucked away in a corner with a list of books about the otherworld.
Fat lot of good it did. “You can speak now,” I told Jim a couple of hours later as we exited the museum.
“I really hate it when you order me to silence,” Jim grumbled. “A simple ‘hush’ wouldn’t suffice for you, oh, no. With you it’s all bossy orders to do whatever catches your fancy.”
I pointed my finger at the demon. “Do you want to talk to Cecile tonight?”
Its lips twitched. “I hate it even more when you threaten me with revoking my phone privileges. Fine. Have it your way, oh mighty and fearsome demon lord. What did you find out about this Peter dude?”
“Nothing. Which is significant, don’t you think?” The drizzle had turned into an outright downpour, sending everyone who didn’t possess an umbrella scurrying down the wet road. I, being a true Oregon girl, had no idea where my umbrella was, or even whether I had brought it with me to London, so I turned up the collar of my coat and ran for the busiest street corner, hoping for a taxi rank.
“Significant how?”