Grim Shadows (Roaring Twenties #2)(57)

“You okay?” Lowe asked after a few seconds of silence.

Her eyes remained fixed on the road ahead as they headed back to the city. “You know that was Sekhmet’s form.”

“The breath that gave birth to the desert,” Lowe said. “Yes, I recognized the likeness.”

“And did you see the oil dripping from the ceiling before the creature formed?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I thought I heard someone upstairs right before, then a black liquid leaked from the rafters. The creature formed where it pooled on the floor. It seemed to be the substance on its skin. It was as if she were conjured or created out of that liquid.”

Lowe thought about that for several moments. “At Gloom Manor, when I dropped the jar, the griffin didn’t rise out of the ashes, so to speak. Remember how the parrots were fleeing it? It came from a distance.”

“Yes.”

“And if someone was upstairs in Trotter’s office pouring some sort of hellish oil into the basement, then the jars aren’t loaded with protective magic. Someone is following us and sending magical creatures—”

“To get the crossbar pieces,” she finished. “Both times, the creatures were after the pieces. Can I please see it?”

Lowe fished the crossbar out of his pocket and handed it to her. She inspected it, reporting that it looked much the same as the first one, and that the magical symbols continued on the back. “It’s real,” she said, handing it back.

“I’ll take it to Adam as soon as possible.”

Oncoming headlights beamed a triangle of slow-moving light across the front seat as a car drove past. Lowe thought of all the trouble he’d had in Egypt when news of his discovery spread. But all of those attacks had been dumb and brute. No finesse. No magic.

Monk was still looking for him. And Lowe was counting on the fact that Monk had heard about the amulet—he needed Monk to trust that Lowe would be offering him the real deal and not a forgery to pay his debt. But Monk would stick a gun in his face or pressure Winter to drag Lowe into his office for a meeting. He wouldn’t bother fooling around with stealth and magic. Especially not Egyptian magic. That significantly narrowed the possibilities.

He supposed it was possible a wealthy Egyptian had sent someone after him to steal the amulet. But how would any of these people know about their search for the crossbars? The only person who knew was Bacall, and it didn’t make sense that he would he pay Lowe to find the pieces, only to go to all this trouble to steal them.

Something else troubled Lowe. Dr. Bacall had never told him why he wanted the complete amulet so badly. Yes, he’d claimed it was an obsession, and that it was something in the middle of a longtime quarrel between him and his old partner.

But he never would say what started the quarrel.

And then there was the warning Bacall’s wife’s spirit had given during Aida’s channeling. She said to keep the amulet away from both Dr. Bacall and “Noel.” Why? Maybe this was a question best put to Dr. Bacall. He made a mental note to do so before pain in his left arm suddenly became unbearable.

“What’s the matter?” Hadley asked.

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“I think I may have a small burn.”

“Where?”

Lowe shifted his hand on the steering wheel and winced. Now that his victory buzz was wearing off, his body decided to tell him something was wrong. “My shoulder.” He ducked his chin to get a better look at it. “Damned bitch burned a couple of holes right through my coat.”

Hadley leaned surprisingly close and tried to inspect it, nearly blocking his view of the road. “When she grabbed you?”

“Apparently. Hurt like hell. Hurts worse now, to be perfectly honest.”

“I’ve got first aid supplies at my apartment. I’ll bandage you up.”

He nearly ran off the road. Well. If he wanted a distraction from the pain, he certainly got one. Her apartment. Him. Her. Touching. Yes, please.

“No sense in paying for medical care if you aren’t badly injured,” she said in a defensive voice that made him want to grin deliriously. Oh, yes, please do argue your point, Miss That-Kiss-Can-Never-Happen-Again. Because a man and a woman didn’t kiss each other like there was no tomorrow and then walk away. That was the kind of kiss that inspired poetry. Just the memory of it was inspiring something beneath the fly of his pants even now.

But another thought sobered his good mood. “If someone’s following us, I don’t want to lead them to your apartment.”

“If someone’s following us, they already know where I live,” she said in a quiet voice.

That certainly didn’t calm his fears.

Half an hour later, with his shoulder throbbing in pain, Lowe pulled into her building’s entrance and parked the Packard in the shadow of a wall covered in climbing bougainvillea. It was nearly eight, and traffic up and down California Street was still brisk. He followed her into a swank lobby, where they entered an elevator.

“Mr. Walter must be on break,” she surmised, looking at the crank mechanism as if it were an unsolvable math problem.

Lowe shut the scissor gate. “I think we can manage on our own. What floor?”

“Nine.”

He flipped a switch and slowly moved the lever until they began ascending. Neither of them said a word, not even when they got to her floor and she unlocked her apartment.