Page 26 of Dragon's Golden Mate
“Hey, now.” A scrawny man of about fifty stepped in front of him. “This is a peaceful demonstration. We’re not breaking any laws, and you can’t kick us off this property.”
“It’s all right, James.” Lucille stepped up next to the skinny man. “I know him.”
James gave Kendrick a doubtful look. “But he was talking toher.”
“Think of him as a double agent.” Lucille gestured with her head and brought Kendrick over by the cooler. “Soda? Bottled water? Bologna sandwich?”
“No, thank you. Why did he refer to Cassandra Deegan that way?”
“She’s the enemy,” Lucille said with a casual shrug. “She wants to destroy something old, andshe’s not giving people a chance to make any grievances or even to say goodbye to the place.”
Kendrick understood what she meant, but something told him there was more to it than that. “How long do you think you can hold her off?”
At this, Lucille’s typical carefree attitude faltered a little. “We’re going to do our best, of course, but I can’t say. If she actually gets her last permit from the city, our hands might be tied. Or else cuffed, if she follows through on her threat with the police.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Did Maeve tell you what we found here? Or I should say who?”
She gave him a grave look. “She did.”
“The one that used to be on the roof is gone. That concerns me. What’s going to happen when that excavator starts tearing this place down?” Kendrick didn’t know if the gargoyles would come flying out to protect their property. Just as important was why they were guarding the building in the first place. What might be lost if the church was razed?
“I don’t know. Hopefully we can keep Deegan Enterprises tangled up in enough red tape to hold things off for a bit. We’ve got a guy who knows quite a bit about how to get all the right paperwork done. He’s at city hall right now filing for a demolition review.”
“Good,” Kendrick said with a nod. “In the meantime, I’ll try to think of something.”
“Check in with Maeve,” Lucille suggested. “She was looking through some more information that might be helpful.”
Was that a flicker of mischief in her eye? It didn’t matter. Whatever he felt for Maeve, whatever his dragon wanted, Kendrick knew what was right. He needed Maeve and her other coven members to help him figure out the problem of this church, but when they were done he wouldn’t have an excuse to speak to her any longer.
“All right,” he said gruffly. Kendrick bobbed his head toward the demolition crew. “And what about these guys? Are you and your friends going to be safe from them?”
“Are you kidding me?” Lucille laughed. “We go way back, and some of us are good friends! That’s Marshall there on the excavator. The Martinez brothers are on the bulldozers. They’re happy when we show up, because they get paid no matter what!”
Kendrick managed to slip away from the building without having to talk to Cassandra again. He walked back home, once again with more questions than answers.
10
“Areyou sure you’re all right with this?”
Maeve and Kendrick walked through the darkness, sticking close to the shadows of buildings and avoiding lights where they could. They carried no flashlights, but the sharpened senses of their inner beasts meant they didn’t really need to.
“Of course. Do you think I’ve never done anything like this before?”
“Well, I don’t know. Have you?”
Maeve thought about it. “Notexactlythis, no. But I wasn’t always a coven leader and a mother. I’ve had my share of escapades.”
His laugh was always a pleasant sound, but the darkness around them emphasized it. “Such as?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Maeve almost wished shehadn’t said anything. She sounded like she was trying to impress him, when she’d promised herself that she wouldn’t do anything of the sort. “Just typical teenager stuff, you know. Sneaking out when I wasn’t supposed to. Hanging out with friends my mother wouldn’t approve of.”
“And does what we’re doing count for either of those offenses?”
He certainly did make her feel much younger than her real age, and so did slipping through the streets of Salem at night in the company of a handsome man. “For the sake of fun, I’m going to say yes to both.”
The cathedral came into view as they went around the corner. It was tall and dark, a shadow against the moon. There were light poles in the parking lot, but no one was paying for them to shine on an empty building that would soon be torn down. The hustle and bustle of earlier in the day, that Kendrick and Lucille had each told her about, was gone. The building was a lonely bastion in the night.
“Honestly, Maeve.” Kendrick caught her arm, bringing her to a stop next to him before they entered the parking lot. “I want to make sure you really are okay with what we’re doing here. It could be dangerous. Anything could happen.”
