Page 89 of The Wolfing Hour
“Aurora Pallás,” I said.
“Your wolf’s kin. I see it now. They have the same eyes.” He removed his glasses from the pocket protector and set them on the tip of his nose so he could peer over them at the photo.
Why he bothered with the affectation confounded me. I filed it in the “someday I’ll ask Sexton about this” folder and moved on.
“She’s missing,” I said. “You helped me find Ronan once, so I thought you might be able to do the same for her.”
“You would like me to ascertain her standing in the realms?”
I’d never get over the way he said that. “Yes.”
“Who is hiding her?”
“Her father—Floyd Pallás. He’s using her to hurt Ronan. He’s not above killing her to keep himself in power.”
“Revolting. A father should never harm his child.”
The cognitive dissonance was astounding, but I wasn’t going to bring it up. “I agree.”
“There is an issue.” Sexton removed his glasses and tucked them back into his pocket.
“You won’t help me?” I asked, my voice squeaking on the last word.
“Granddaughter, if you dropped an earring off the side of a sailboat and required me to drain the Pacific to find it, I would not hesitate. You need only ask.”
“Eh, I don’t want to create a climate disaster over a piece of jewelry, but I thank you for the sentiment.” My reply had been flippant, but the feeling Sexton had engendered in me was anything but offhand.
Part of me wanted him to treat me like a granddaughter. I missed Mom and Abuela Lulu so much—especially the way they’d loved me. Ours had been an effortless sort of love, the kind you didn’t have to try hard to feel, even when you disagreed. I wanted to experience it again, and this scary, odd cemetery demon was the only family I had left.
However, another part of me was terrified of the damage letting him further into my life—my heart—might do.
“Sadly,” he continued, “even one such as I has boundaries exacted upon me by the gods. I cannot locate a person I have never seen in the flesh, and I have never had the good fortune to meet your young friend.”
My disappointment was a thousand-pound weight in a quicksand pit. Just when I thought it couldn’t sink any deeper, down it went.
“Worth a shot,” I said, tears itching at the backs of my eyes. Why was everything so damn frustrating? The spell hadn’t worked right, the runes, and now Sexton.
“I am sorry, granddaughter. I have failed you.”
“No. It’s not your fault. I appreciate you answering my call so quickly. You didn’t have to help and you—Wait a minute.”
His head turned to the side with an old-door creak. “Yes?”
I shuffled through the other photos, held up the one of Floyd. “Have you ever met this assface?”
“Not in the flesh, no.”
I tossed it aside and held up another. “How about this one? His name is Mason Hartman.”
One bony finger crawled out of his billowy black sleeve like a spider and tapped the photo. “No. Before I reintroduced myself to you at your wolf’s drinking establishment, I had not ventured into the county seat in several decades. I had, of course, made appearances elsewhere.”
An allusion to his visits to my mother before she died.
“I am sorry to have disappointed you,” he said.
“Again, not your fault. I was just hoping you might go into your trance state to find Rory, like you did for Ronan. But if you can’t, you can’t. Thank you for coming.” The words were a gentle dismissal. If he couldn’t help me, I had to find someone—or something—that could.
He rose in that peculiar way of his, with creaking joints and rattling bones. Rested his fingertips on the table and gazed down at me, with a gentle smile.
