We bundle out into London and rain. Felicity throws open her minivan door. Tabitha and Clyde pile in one after the other. I step aside for Devon, but Coleman grabs her elbow.
“This way, my lovely.” He tugs her toward a sleek black penis extension with a BMW logo on the hood.
Devon resists. Inside the van, Clyde gets his legs tangled with the seatbelt. Devon closes her eyes. Coleman tugs again and she goes with it.
And Devon had my back in the conference room in Oxford; there’s no way I’m abandoning her to this fate.
“Wait—” I start, grabbing her other arm.
Then Kayla comes out of the hotel at the sort of speed that puts the fear of God into world-stability-threatening creatures from every plane of existence.
“You,” she points a finger at me, “don’t get her wrapped up in your feckin’ trouble.”
“You,” she fixes Coleman with a deadeye stare that would shake even Clint Eastwood on a main street at high noon, “keep your dirty feckin’ hands to yourself.”
I’m not sure if Coleman or I swallows harder.
“I’m all right.” Devon’s voice is small, but she meets Kayla’s eye—a feat I’m incapable of. She shakes off my hand and Coleman’s.
The intensity of Kayla’s gaze slackens from “flame broil” to nonplussed.
“But,” Kayla says, “the Underground. We can take—”
“I’m all right.” Devon’s voice has gained in strength. She turns to Coleman, grimaces. “Let’s get on our merry way then.”
Coleman recovers. “Step into my parlor,” he says. He even manages to leer as he opens the car door.
“But—” Kayla says to the closing door.
“But—” I echo.
“Come on, Arthur!” Felicity calls from the front seat. Coleman slams his door and revs his engine.
I get into the van. Kayla swings up behind me, settles disconsolately beside Clyde and Tabitha. Felicity stamps the accelerator to the floor. Tires screech. Rubber burns. We spin out into traffic.
And then the seatbelt nearly chokes the life from me as she stamps on the brakes.
Black taxis. Red buses. Red lights. London traffic.
“Shit!” Felicity loses control of her temper if not the vehicle.
In front of us, Coleman lays on the horn. I hope Devon’s OK in there.
I glance back over my shoulder at Kayla. Our resident swordswoman is chewing on her collar, staring blankly out at the rain-spattered streets.
I need to explain to Devon what’s going on. What Kayla’s going through. So Devon can explain to Kayla that making her a surrogate daughter is not a healthy or fair thing to do.
So I don’t have to explain it myself.
Ahead of us the lights flicker to green. We gain approximately six inches of blacktop. And red. A herd of pedestrians swarms across the road.
Felicity’s phone buzzes. She flips it open, one eye on the traffic light, foot ready to pounce on the gas. She punches a button.
“—cking bullshit lights. Fix this, Felicity. Sirens. Police. Anything,” Coleman’s voice barks.
“Clandestine organization, George,” she says, sugary sweet.
“Fix it!” he barks. The rest of the car grimaces at the phone. I think I can see Kayla reaching for her sword.
“Tabitha?” I fight my seatbelt and call over my shoulder. “Any chance you could help us?”
Tabitha is already unfolding her laptop. “Course,” she says. “Hack into the grid. Rejig the algorithm.”
“Oh wait!” Clyde pipes up. “I think—”
“No,” Tabitha says. There is no debating that word.
“But I think I can—”
“No,” Tabitha says again.
Even my balls retract at that one. Clyde says nothing.
“Clyde?” says Tabitha. She sounds suspicious.
Still nothing.
And then: the jingling of change.
I strain to look around. Even Felicity takes her eyes off the light.
“Oh you stupid silly fuck!” Tabitha’s fingers suddenly blur across the keyboard.
And I see Clyde’s hand. His hand in his pocket. It’s vibrating, rattling the coins.
Man, Clyde has some stones.
My eyes fly from his pocket to the traffic light.
“What are you silly bastards playing at?” Coleman says over the phone. “Fix it already.”
Red. Red. Red.
“Lives on the line, you incompetent fucks!”
“Oh yeah,” I snap, unable to bite my tongue. “Well that sort of encouragement is definitely going to help save them.”
“The day I start taking leadership advice from an incompetent fuck like—”
Green.
Cars lurch forward. Pedestrians scatter. Coleman is cut off. We all brace for the slamming on of brakes.
And it doesn’t come. Green. Green. Green. Light after light.
“Got it,” Clyde says. “I got it.”
He sounds like a man who just ran a marathon. Who just ran it and won. He’s breathing hard, lying back against the seat. It’s the moment in the movie where Kurt Russell would roll the girl off him and light the cigarette.
“More bloody like it,” comes Coleman’s disembodied voice from the phone.
London passes in a blur. Record stores. Theaters. Pubs. Accounting firms. Law firms. Government buildings. History. Far too many tourists for anyone’s liking.
Tabitha still types furiously.
“I got it, Tabby,” Clyde says. He finally seems to have noticed that she’s pissed at him. He reaches out a hand to her. “I got it.”
“Stupid,” Tabitha says, shrugging off the arm. “Silly. Fuck.”
“But I—” Clyde starts. “I fixed it. We’ll get there.”
“Yes,” Tabitha snaps, finally looking up from the screen. Her fingers don’t stop moving though. “You cleared a path. Fixed the lights. But, I mean, for a moment, did you think to put them back afterwards?”
Clyde is very, very quiet.
Which gives us a chance to hear the concert of car horns sounding in our wake.
“Not your job.” Tabitha enunciates the words very carefully. “For a reason.” She doesn’t speak loudly. Not even forcefully. But every word is a body blow that rocks the car.
And paradise is most definitely in trouble.