Hexed_ The Iron Druid Chronicles - Kevin Hearne [69]
“Oh. Is that all?”
“That’s it. The balls and bats are in your trunk, and you’re my snookie-wookie marshmallow fudge love pie.”
“Aw … wait. Did you just call me a Wookiee?”
I chuckled. “Caught that, did you?” I ended my conversation with her and then made my last call from my home phone. I’d saved it for last because I knew I’d be getting scolded. Lambasted. Reamed, even, in a Polish accent.
“That was poorly handled last night, Mr. O’Sullivan,” Malina said immediately.
“Those kinds of opponents aren’t my specialty,” I replied, wary of using the word Bacchant on a phone, untapped or not. “And I got most of them.”
“What do you mean, most of them?”
“There were fifteen, not twelve, as your divination foretold, so that was poorly handled, Ms. Sokolowski.” Talking about divinations and spells on the phone never worried me. Anyone listening from the government would dismiss us as fruity New Age hippies.
“How many got away?” Malina asked.
“Just one.”
“Ah, she will return to Las Vegas, then. But she may bring more next time.”
“Well, I can’t help next time. If that last one had wanted to fight, I’m not sure I could have taken her. What news of the hexen?”
“We have managed to bid farewell to two of them.”
“From your condo?”
“Even so.” She sounded a bit smug.
“You knew them previously?”
“No, these were younger members, not so well protected and not so wise about masking their true nature.”
That told me that Malina didn’t necessarily need hair or blood to deliver a lethal attack from afar. And she knew how to pick magic users out of a crowd. Good to know. “Well done,” I said. “Does that mean you know where the rest of them are?”
“Unfortunately not. We are getting closer, however. We’ve narrowed it down to Gilbert. But we need more bloodwort.”
“All right, I’ll send over a courier with three more pounds. No one’s going to be asking about the two you bid farewell to, are they?”
“You mean the way people are asking about what you did last night? No, there was nothing suspicious in their leave-taking.”
“Oh. I see.” Accidents happen.
“You should try subtlety sometime. But, look, they’re going to know they didn’t succeed in getting us their first time around, so you should prepare for more attacks, however it is that you do that.”
“Attacks like the first one?”
“No, I imagine they’ll try something different. It probably won’t be as flashy, but the result will leave you just as dead if you’re not protected.”
“Okay, thanks for the warning.”
A car screeched to a halt outside. I bet it’s vanilla. I quickly said farewell to Malina and opened the front door to see Hal stalking up my front steps, a scowl on his face and a newspaper in his hand. “Good afternoon, sir! My, what impeccable tailoring you have.” Hal stopped in his tracks and eyed me warily. “What the hell happened to you?” he said, taking in my shirtless and heavily bruised and scratched form. He gestured at my wounds and asked, “Is that from last night?” “No, it’s from the rough sex this morning.” “Smart ass. Sorry I asked. Hey, did you get your ear back?” “Yep. That was definitely the best part of my day so far.” Hal sighed in relief and waved the newspaper significantly. “I’ll say, you lucky bastard. Police are looking for a guy that matches your description with a missing right ear. I thought they had your number on that one.” I threw up my hands, perplexed. “How do police even know what to look for? The only two cops who saw me got killed.” “Well, some of the modern-day fops fleeing the club saw you handcuffed on the ground in custody of the now-deceased police, so naturally the living police are anxious to figure out what happened to said suspect. They have your clothes and hair color along with the missing ear to go on, and that’s it. No descriptions of your face, since you were sucking asphalt.” “Any mention of my tattoos?” “Happily not. Your tats must