Page 45 of Insidious Monsters
She pressed her lips together. “I amnotsitting around here doing nothing.”
“Yes, you are,” Uncle Fred said. “You’ll do the wise thing and lie low until this cult is brought down.”
She looked like she wanted to argue.
Devyn’s offer came to mind. “Devyn said you can stay at the guild on Pendergrast if you want to.”
“What? No! I want to be here. I’ll stay indoors, okay.” She exhaled through her nose. “I get it’s the smart move.”
We all relaxed.
“The dead mystics had a symbol on their wrists,” she said. “Archie, do you remember it?”
Archie pulled a notepad from his pocket and scrawled an image onto it. “Looked like this.” He showed it to her for confirmation.
She nodded. “That’s the one.”
“I’ll call Devyn back. She needs to know about this latest development. If Margie and Bertie’s customer are one and the same, then we’ll need backup when we go to the address. I need to get a meeting with this Milo dude too, rush things along.”
“Ineed to sleep.” Nandi pushed back her chair and shuffled toward the door.
I waited until the door was closed, then turned to Uncle Fred. “You’ll take care of her tomorrow?”
He looked offended. “No. I thought I’d leave her alone and go out dancing. Of course I’ll bloody take care of her.”
“Good, I’m going to speak to Quentin and let him know what the plan is for tomorrow.”
“I’m gonna order food,” Archie said.
“There’s leftover noodles in the fridge,” Uncle Fred pointed out.
“I fancy a fresh batch.”
“So you’ll let perfectly good noodles go to waste?”
I closed the door on the two of them bickering over noodles and hurried up the stairs to the first floor. I had a handler to update.
* * *
There wasno answer when I knocked on Quentin’s door, unsurprising considering it was gone midnight, but the strip of light beneath it indicated he was awake…Unless he slept with the lights on.
I knocked again to no answer.
I’d speak to him tomorrow. I made to turn away when a beeping ringtone drifted through the door. It wasn’t Quentin’s usual ringtone, and the hackles on the back of my neck stood to attention. Why wasn’t he answering? Could he be that much of a deep sleeper, with the lights on?
Fuck it, something was wrong. I pushed open the door and entered the dimly lit room. The bed was made, devoid of a Quentin-shaped body because Quentin was sitting at his desk, chair turned away from me so that he was facing the window and a moonlit view. His phone sat on the desk behind him, still blaring that eerie ringtone.
“Quentin?” I took a step toward him. “Quentin?”
The ringing stopped.
“Quentin?”
He turned to face me with a frown. “August? What are you doing here?”
“Are you serious? I knocked several times, and I called your name. Were you asleep in your chair?”
“Asleep? No. I was working.” He smiled.
