Chapter One Hundred

R OBERT WAS ANGRY . He'd been chased. He'd been stalked. He hadn't gone home with the absurdly cute bartender, Ritchie. The Silent Willow, his favorite bar, had probably been ruined forever. And now he'd had to come into work at five in the morning.

Granted, all of this was trumped by the fact that the world was likely ending in the very near future. So even though Robert was reasonably sure humanity was truly fucked and he really just wanted to die in a moment or two of fun, he was at work now, hoping he'd find something in the musty tomes able to help Brittany Stagg save the world.

Someone had gone into the library without sending the elevator back up, which was high on the list of Robert's Pet Peeves™, right up with not wiping down the toilet seat and people who chewed with their mouths open.

He waited for it to come back up, watching Dulce and her muscle search the other portion of the office.

Robert sighed. He could take the stairs, but that seemed so, well, banal. Stairs were for fat people, not people who were sensually thick.

The lift finally arrived. Robert stepped on and went down.

The lights were on in the library. Another no-no. Robert believed in saving the planet. It was his job, after all. No reason to burn the midnight fossil fuels if you didn't have to.

And, Robert fumed as he looked down, someone had been swimming in the pool. Water splashed all over the brick path around the pool, and no one had bothered to—

Blood was in the pool.

Robert's thoughts of his list and everything involved with it vanished from his mind, and he jumped off the still moving lift, landing in such a way that he rolled his ankle. But as soon as he got to ground level, his legs were pumping, getting to the pool as fast as possible because he thought he knew what happened.

He saw a dark form in the middle of the pool, somewhere near the bronze sphere.

"Oh, Joseph," Robert said to himself, "you didn't."

Robert kicked off his Sperry Topsiders and dove into the water, reaching Joseph's limp form in mere strokes. He grabbed the old man and pulled him bodily to the surface. Robert swam back towards the edge of the pool and pushed Joseph up and out, rolling the body onto he cement border.

Robert hoisted himself out as well. It wasn't his most graceful exit, but he was eschewing grace and style for speed.

Immediately, he took a deep breath and started in on CPR, hearing the sickening sound of Joseph's ribs breaking. Robert fervently hoped he wasn't too late.