Dan hadn’t really argued the point. Stewey was Stewey, and he was driving. At this time of night, dropping down to First and running up north had gone pretty quickly, past the SAM and Pike Place, all the way up to Broad before doubling back up the hill to Denny.
Stewey even had the good parking karma tonight and found a spot just as a group of hipsters were pulling out to go home.
Five Star Diner. Home of the serious plate of chicken fried steak and fixings. Eggs Benedict and all the local variations. Coffee by the slice. Bad movies on the screen and a bar on the other side of the building for people not wasting calories on food.
At two on a Thursday morning, the crowds had gone home, leaving the place to the hardcore partiers. Stewey grabbed the table clear at the back, where a pay phone had once apparently resided, and sat himself with a good view of everything and his jacket unzipped.
Dan was facing in, but he didn’t figure anybody was going to sneak up on his friend. Even the waitress had a hard look on her face when she approached.
“All good?” she asked Stewey with the comradery of old acquaintance.
“Buddy nearly got mugged, down in the I.D.,” Stewey said deliberately, referring to the International District on the south edge of downtown. “Gonna put some protein in him now so he can settle. Doubt anybody would bother us clear up here.”
“Gus is working bar side tonight,” she said. “I’ll let him know.”
“Thanks, Maddie,” Stewey said.
Dan wasn’t surprised that they knew Stewey in here. Or that he knew all of them. This was practically his other home. Would probably live closer, if he liked the hipsters and software nerds that were gentrifying the hell out of the neighborhood these days.
She left coffee. Dan supposed you could call it that. They had started with coffee beans, heat, and water.
Dan just didn’t like coffee that charred. Not that he would complain tonight. The raw bitterness of his first sip jolted him enough to add more than the usual amount of honey and cream.
They had talked about it on the drive up here. Stewey had reset a few things, so at least he’d know if the creature came back, but nothing they had between them was tough enough, if someone could summon that.
“Figure it left a signature on the walls, both coming and going,” Stewey said obliquely. “Come sunlight, I’ll see what I can identify. Might be able to fashion a more personal seal for next time.”
“You expecting a shadow servant next round?” Dan asked.
“As opposed to?”
“As opposed to his boss, maybe,” Dan said, sipping.
Drinking, apparently. The mug was already three-quarters empty.
And Maddie had expected that. She was already at his elbow with more.
Dan made a note to actually drink this cup, rather than inhaling it.
They were alone again.
“We big enough to draw that sort of attention?” Stewey asked. “Can’t think of anyone we’ve pissed off lately.”
“I’m still betting on that house with the stepping disk,” Dan said. “Nothing for the longest time, then we’re suddenly neck deep in magical gators around here. Something was going on with that house or the man who owned it.”
“So do we sell the bronze?” Stewey asked. “Melt it down and recast all that power into something else instead? Break them and bleed it out all over the place?”
“I don’t need a unicorn roaming the Arboretum, thank you,” Dan sniped.
He started to say something else when his phone chirped with a text message.
Wasn’t a tone he had programmed, and apparently the Do Not Disturb function had been broken again. He hated buying new phones. You spent weeks getting everything turned on and off right.
Dan pulled it out and studied the message. Made no sense, so he opened it all the way.
That wasn’t me. Khulan
Lovely.
The sourness must have been evident, or he was talking under his breath.
“Who?” Stewey asked carefully.
Dan turned the face around for him to read.
Stewey muttered several profanities under his breath.
Dan agreed.
Who, then? he typed back and hit send.
Why the hell not? She had his number from his business card. And had known something had happened, so she had at least one divination thread linked to him.
Dan was feeling grumpy.
Ignorance might be better. she replied.
Dan growled under his breath.
Maddie walked up at that moment, and they ordered.
Felt like a stupidly ugly day coming, so Dan matched Stewey with the chicken fried steak, eggs over easy, English muffin, and jojos. Slathered over with gravy and cheese. And gravy and cheese.
Bring it.
Who’s trying to kill me? Dan sent.
Easier to explain in person.
Sure. Cap a perfect evening. Or ruin a perfectly good morning.
Whatever.
He showed Stewey the screen again, ranting quietly under his breath.
“Better than her showing up at our door in the morning,” Stewey sighed. “Or waiting on yours when you get home.”
That was the bitch of it. Stewey was right.
Only the awakened were at any serious risk of magic. Harming a mundane was almost impossible these days, although the ancient legends said otherwise.
You’d have to have something like a shadow servant handy, one who could affect the material world for you.
“Where are the cash?” Dan looked at his friend. “Right this moment.”
“Under a rock in my back yard,” his friend said. “In the box with my zombie bug-out kit.”
So, the safest place Stewey could put something, on the off-chance that all those zombie movies and television shows were on to something and the world ended in a plague. The kind that only mostly killed you and left you hungry.
Dead of night. Zombies.
Could it get much worse?
But Dan didn’t even think that too loud, afraid the gods and powers of the universe would see that as a challenge.
Join us for breakfast? Dan typed and sent.
Okay.
Then nothing. Like she didn’t need to ask where they were.
Dan really didn’t like those implications.
Was he about to invite the monster into his living room? Or the slayer?