Dead Waters - Anton Strout [9]
Aidan stopped walking once again, looking like a pissed-off teenager despite his fortysomething years. “First of all, it’s far more real than anything at Epcot. Castle Bran is authentic. They moved it here long before I was turned, building this arcology around it to hide it. Secondly, I don’t think just dropping in is all that great an idea nowadays.”
I shook my head and started walking again. Jane followed. “Geez,” I said. “Stop the great vampire/human war and I can’t even get a visitor’s pass? I’m hurt.”
“Give it time,” Aidan said, coming up soundlessly next to us. “You know how it flows differently for us.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “We’ve already got a more pressing date. Business down at the Lovecraft Café.”
The massive glass doors leading out of the atrium to Columbus Circle came into view up ahead. Aidan cocked his head. “I know the night is just starting off for me, but isn’t it a little late for you guys to be calling meetings?”
“No rest for the wicked, or government employees,” Jane said with an enthusiastic smile. As wet and damaged as she was, I don’t know where she found the energy to be so chipper.
“I’m sure something sinister is going down for them to be calling us in now,” I said.
“Brandon may have us under orders to stay out of most human affairs right now, but you did do us this favor,” Aidan said. “So just let me know if you need me. . . you know, if things go bad.”
“Then I should just ask now,” I said. “Ninety percent of this job is cleaning up things that go bad.”
“And the other ninety percent is filing paperwork on it,” Jane said.
“That’s bad math,” I said.
“That may be,” she said, “but we deal with impossible things all the time. You’re suddenly going to start arguing about the math getting wonky now, hon?”
“Fair point,” I conceded. Part of the tattooist’s raw emotions were welling up again, and had me wanting to pick a fight, but I fought the urge. “Truth be told—if we’re going for messed up math here—I’d probably say that my caseload paperwork takes up at least a hundred and twenty percent of my time on the clock.”
Aidan cleared his throat. A ring of keys was in his hand. “Do you mind?” he asked, unlocking one of the glass doors that led out onto the rainy streets of Manhattan.
“Your gratitude is underwhelming,” I said. I held my hand out and felt the rain coming down hard on it. “At least I don’t have to worry about getting dry anytime soon.”
“Sometime tonight, kids,” Aidan said. “You don’t have to go home but you can’t banter here.”
“Fine,” I said. “Although I’ll have you know that I consider banter a necessary tool in keeping from wetting myself in a lot of these situations.”
Jane gave an uncomfortable laugh. “Sexy.”
Aidan frowned. “Can I add that to my list of things I wish I could unhear?”
I started to respond, but Jane grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out into the streets. “Come on,” she said, “before you say anything else that makes me question our relationship further.”
As we exited the building, the Columbus Circle wind at the southwest corner of Central Park whipped Jane’s long wet hair around like she had gone all Medusa. I turned around as something struck me odd.
“I’m surprised you didn’t call Connor first,” I said. “My partner is the resident ghost whisperer in Other Division with the Department, you know. . . and your brother.”
“Oh, believe me, I did call him first,” Aidan said, “but he was busy.”
“So nice to be considered second choice,” I said. “It’s like my prom all over again.”
“Connor’s too busy for his own brother?” Jane asked. She ran her fingers through her already windblown hair as she tried in vain to make it settle down. “You’d think after a twenty-year absence . . .”
Aidan pulled his hood up to avoid the water. Whether it was vanity or some vampiric aversion to it, I didn’t know.
“That’s kinda the problem,” he said. “Not every day can be a happy family reunion. . . especially with the workload your boss heaps on him. Plus there’s all the work