5

IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO PANIC

Emil kept his word and left me unbound while examining the other knights and sending several of them off in the van to get bones set or core temperatures stabilized or body parts sewn back on. The guy really must have had some juice, because the other knights went along with it even though they obviously thought he was insane. The first and last knight who argued got assigned sewer duty in New York for a year.

A lot of things have changed since I was a knight. I doubt sewer duty is one of them.

I rode shotgun next to Emil while knights in two Dodge Chargers escorted us from front and behind. A burly young knight was in the backseat behind us.

“Would you mind getting me some Hershey’s kisses out of the glove compartment?” Emil asked casually. “Eight?”

There was a small bag where Emil said it would be, and I counted eight of the candies out. I was trying to maintain my own façade of nerveless cool and appreciated his nonchalance. “Is there something significant about the number eight?”

“I’m not a werewolf,” Emil informed me. “Or a young man. I count calories.”

I nodded and put the bag back. “You seem pretty confident that I won’t break my oath. And you know I care enough about other people to blackmail me with my friends’ safety. Does it bother you at all, taking me in to be killed or tortured?”

So much for nonchalance.

The knight in the back stirred restlessly but Emil remained unperturbed. “A little. I’ve pieced together enough of your movements over the decades to know that you’ve probably killed more monsters than any knight alive.”

From the way the knight’s tongue was clicking, he was silently mouthing words that had a lot of “K” sounds. Suck? Fuck? Cock? Dick? Some combination of those words with suffixes and compounds, probably.

“Why did you decapitate Tobias Saunders and nail his head to a church door, by the way?” Emil went on. “Since we’re just talking.”

So that was the name of the knight who had killed Alison.

“I wasn’t thinking too clearly at the time.” The words came out strangled. My throat felt thick and my teeth didn’t want to separate. “But I was letting you know that I’d had enough. That if you came looking for a monster, you’d find one.”

“So it was a warning,” Emil said. “Not a declaration of war.”

“It was both,” I said.

“And see where it got you,” the knight in the back muttered, so quietly that I doubt Emil heard him.

“Speak up or shut up, you weak suck,” I advised, tilting my head slightly to look over the seat.

“Go ahead and mock me,” the knight said fiercely. “Kill me if you can. But at least I’ll die with honor. It’s too late for you.”

I remember when the world was that simple. I miss that world. Or I miss the young boy who believed in it. I think I was three. “That’s the advantage of embracing your inner coward,” I said. “It’s never too late to panic.”

“It’s easy to mock,” he hissed. “Especially when you’ve perverted everything you ever believed in.”

“That’s true,” I admitted. “What’s not easy is getting a lecture on knightly ethics from some weak-ass honorless cowards who only got me to give myself up by threatening to kill innocent people.”

The younger knight opened his mouth to hiss something, his face red and his eyes a little insane, but Emil finally intervened.

“Close your mouth, Stuart.” Emil’s voice was curt and vicious and crackled with authority. “Anger makes you weak and careless. He’s playing you like a cheap fiddle.”

Stuart backed down immediately.

Yeah, Emil was a problem.

“Well, you’ve been playing me like a flute,” I told him. “So blow me.”

Emil remained unflappable. “One of the teams looking for Tobias actually found his head before anyone else did, but when he died, the supernatural protection of his geas died with him. Psychics all over the world were having dreams of a dead knight with his head nailed to a church door by a werewolf.”

“You’re saying it caused you problems,” I said slowly.

Emil shrugged. It was the first time that I could tell his casual pose wasn’t real. His knuckles were slightly white on the steering wheel. “Your little gesture became a rallying point for a lot of supernaturals who resent us. You’re a symbol of defiance.”

No wonder they’d been looking for me so hard for so long.

“So there’s not going to be any streamers saying Welcome Back when we get to wherever you’re taking me?” I asked. “No balloons? No ice cream cake?”

Emil painted that humorless by-the-numbers smile over his face again. “There will be celebrating.”

A Dodge Charger passed us slowly on my right, two knights glaring at me through its windows. I waved at them.