Stumping up and down rickety wooden stairs in crutches is not the smartest way to speed up your rehabilitation, but I was determined to get back into the game as soon as possible. I'd never realized how handicap-unfriendly the Rogue became when the elevator was out, and after finding out, I was loud and vocal to the rest of the staff about it. Of course, I'm sure my sore jaw from my morning's trip to the periodontist-and the bad news that it would take upwards of six months to fix my teeth-had nothing to do with my mood.
They let me putter around the office taking care of administrative stuff so I'd feel useful, but in the end, at five o' clock, when one of Savannah's crew was scheduled to pick me up they shooed me out and told me-with odd smirks-to "Go enjoy the rest of the day."
I refused help, and stumped down the stairs expecting to see one of the red Volvos from the Consulate. Instead I found a black Prius in the parking lot, and my mouth fell open. It had two bumper stickers: one said COEXIST, written with each letter as a different religious symbol; the other said Osama Bin Laden Hates This Car.
I smiled. "Secret aaaagent man," I said, and heard a creak behind me.
Philip Davidson leaned back from the wall beneath the stairwell, stepping up beside me in his immaculate black suit-and with new sunglasses in his pocket. The sun struck his face, and for a moment, the warm light on his skin, glowing against his beautiful blue-gray eyes, made him look like a seer of the future-or a GQ Lawrence of Arabia.
Then he squinted and slipped on his black shades. "Ok, I tried," he said. "I just feel naked without them."
"They're very you," I admitted. "I take it you're my escort to meet Spleen and Wulf?"
Philip nodded. "Saffron was concerned they might be spooked by Consulate muscle, but both of them have already met me. Hopefully I'll be a bit less threatening."
"Less spooked by the spook," I said. "Well, we'll give it a shot. Hey, my shift just ended and I'm starving, and we still have a couple of hours before I'm supposed to meet Spleen and Wulf to set up the appointment to do his tattoo. I was hoping to-"
"Catch a little dinner?" he said with a broad grin that warmed me to my toes. He held his hand out to his Prius. "Thought you'd never ask. Your chariot awaits-"
"We need to talk about this one," I said, pointing at a small black square on his car window that said W – Still the President.
"Well, he is," Philip said mildly, stepping up to the car. It unlocked on its own. Slick. "But don't worry. Your boys will sweep the House and I'll be crying in my beer."
"Yeah, yeah, throw me a bone," I said, as he opened the door for me and took my crutches. "Rent a Prius, talk nice to the liberal, get down her pants-"
"No, I'm serious," he said. He opened the door for me and took my crutches, stowing them in the back seat. "When I was driving down from Virginia, I caught one of my boys duking it out with some host on NPR, man, what a bunch of progressives-" slam, he walked around the front of the car, deliberate but eager, nice butt, and open "-and, then, the host asks about the polls, and my boy loses it."
Philip pressed a big black POWER button and the car hummed quietly to life. He looked back, and the car started backing out silently, without the gas engine ever engaging. I was in love. And not just with the car, though his politics I could do without.
"My boy rails on how he's reading all these super secret Republican polls and whatever and when the host starts nailing him on specifics, he gets even more flustered and tells him that 'you can come up with whatever math you want, but I'm entitled to THE math.' And I'm hearing this and the whole time thinking-'Liar!*'
He said the last word so fiercely I jumped, and at last the gas engine engaged as he turned out onto Moreland and started heading north.
"In my job, I've got to pick out the truth every day-and when I heard my boy claiming we were going to win, all I heard was spinning." He cut left onto Freedom Parkway, the car humming louder. "So I looked at the polls, at all of them-"
"And how did you get access to the super secret Republican polls?" I asked.
"Let's just say the NSA has nothing on the DEI when it comes to information gathering," Philip said. "They may trawl wide, but we go deep-"
"Special Agent Davidson," I said, mock shocked. "Don't tell me you used the vast powers of your office to fact check an NPR story! But do tell me the juicy bits."
"Our remote viewers will do anything to settle a bet," he said. "And as for the juicy bits… well, let's just say I think you'll be happy come November seventh."
"You don't know how I vote," I said. He looked over at me, and we both snorted in laughter. "Hey, where are we going-"
"Does fish sound good?" he said. "Rand had a few recommendations-"
"Yes," I said, feeling my cheek; it felt like I would be able to eat. "I'm starving-I haven't had a bite since my trip to the dentist. The meeting with Spleen and Wulf is near Buckhead, and there's this great place, a little pricey, called the Fish Market-"
He looked over at me again in shock. "Well, what do you know," he said with a grin. "That was at the top of my list."
We crested the hill of Freedom Parkway just as the sun was setting, seeing the same panorama of downtown Atlanta I'd seen with Spleen the first night I met Wulf. This time we shot towards the glittering spires and slid into the canyon of the Downtown Connector, heading north into the fairybook playground for adults that was the Buckhead Village.
"There," I said. "Straight onto Buffered Extra-Strength Highway-"
"Buford, eh?" he said, slipping over a lane onto the long frontage road that paralleled the connector. "He said I had to check out the big fish. Is it that good? I'm on a diet-"
"If you can eat the big fish," I said, "I'll vote Republican." The Buckhead 'Village' was technically within the city limits of Atlanta, but had its own distinctive feel: upscale shops at the feet of high-rise offices and condos, high-end yuppie restaurants side-by-side with come-as-you-are bars. As the boxy, brightly lit shape of the Atlanta Fish Market became visible on Pharr Road, I stared straight at Philip to get his reaction.
"Oh. My. God," he said, staring up at the giant, three-story copper fish statue that adorned the front corner of the restaurant, curving towards the sky in all its grand, ostentatious Statue-ofLiberty-colored glory. "He wasn't kidding. That's a Big. F-ing. Fish-"
"Philip, your lane," I said, as he started to drift over the double yellow line.
A valet took the car, and after we got our names on the waitlist, we walked-well, he walked and I hobbled on my crutches-back to the towering fish and stopped on the little bridge that climbed over its tail.
"Holy cow," he said. "It's got that Statue of Liberty color-"
"Ah, Philip," I said, smiling, leaning my crutches and myself on the railing of the bridge. "It's the copper."
He leaned on the rail opposite me, and I stared at him… at the cleancut young Republican in his trim suit and devilish goatee, wondering how on earth I had ended up on a date with him and why I was liking it so much.
But there was a lurking weight on my shoulders, now heavier after the attack on Valentine. Whoever had done that had meant to get me.. . and in the confusion the police hadn't caught the guy. That had me more worried about Wulf s improbable 'enemies' that Philip had found all so probable… and the hanging question about whether Wulf was tied to our tattoo killer.
Another thought struck me about Wulf and Spleen. "You know-" I began.
"I was thinking-" Philip said, almost simultaneously. "Sorry."
"You go," I said.
"Ladies first."
"Fuck that," I said, and when Philip arched his eyebrow I raised my hand in surrender. "Seriously. Spleen is Wulf s point of contact. If we can find out when they talked-"
"We could figure out when Wulf rode into town from Birmingham, maybe eliminate him as a suspect?" Philip said. "That's what I was thinking. But Birmingham's only a few hours away. If he was our serial killer, he could have gone back easily, killed the blonde, and returned here. Or he could have used an accomplice-"
"But Spleen talked to him several times," I said. "If we could nail down a window of when he talked to him, we could either eliminate Wulf as the man on the scene in Birmingham or establish that he was AWOL from Atlanta during the last killing."
Philip shook his head. "Oh, man," he said, with a huge grin. "Have I mentioned how much fun it is to hang out with you, Dakota?"
My phone beeped. I started to ignore it, but Phil scowled. "What if it's-"
"Buckhead?" I said, staring at the number.
"Aren't we in-"
"Lord Buckhead," I said, pressing it. "Buck, this is Dakota. What can I do you for-"
"I sensed your presence in my stronghold," Buckhead said. "Come to the Storyteller."
"The… Storyteller?" I said. It was a statue-the statue of Buckhead, in Buckhead-not more than a block or two away. "But- we have our name in at the Fish Market," I protested.
"Come quickly, Dakota," he said. "Or it will be too late."
"Too late for what? What's happened, Buck?"
"Your friend Spleen," Buck said, "was just attacked by a werewolf."