“It’s not about anything,” he said, “except the facts. Until Jane’s been debriefed, I’m not letting her anywhere near our operations center. Understood?”

“Ask Wesker,” I offered. “He can tell you exactly what happened.”

“Oh! Wesker’s in on this, too?” Connor laughed. “There’s a name I run to for trust and legitimacy!”

“Go ahead and quote policy to me some more, Connor…”

I felt a tender hand on my shoulder and turned to see Jane, who had stayed silent through all of this. “Go on, Simon. It’s okay, really…”

It didn’t feel okay. What should have been my finest hour was turning south and there seemed to be little I could do to control it.

“Simon,” she started, and turned to my partner. “And Connor, is it? You’re the other one from the lobby at the S.D.L., right? I think you were going to be next on my list.”

Connor nodded.

“Sorry ’bout that,” she said with sincerity. “Look, I don’t expect anyone to buy that I’ve changed overnight. I’m not sure I believe it myself. But, Simon, I do know that I’ve got the patience to go through whatever it’s going to take for you and your friend to believe me. So go.”

Her composure in all this floored me. In the face of all of Connor’s insults, she was holding herself together far better than either Connor or I was.

“You’re sure?” I said, and she nodded.

“Absolutely.” She took off her delivery hat, leaned in, and kissed me gently on the cheek. “Now get in there and enjoy your moment in the sun.”

Had the shoe been on the other foot, I’m not sure how I would have handled all this, but here she was taking everything in stride.

“Are you going to be okay?” I asked. Jason Charles, our friendly neighborhood corporate headhunter, was still out there. Looking, waiting…I didn’t want to abandon her again.

“I’ll be fine,” she said, squeezing my hand. Then she turned to Connor. “And as for you, Mister Man, I look forward to you questioning me someday. I can’t wait to see what you’re like when you’re not treating me like a crazed cultist. Simon speaks quite highly of you, you know.”

It was Connor’s turn to smile, but it was mixed with a look of suspicion.

“Yeah,” he said. “Well, the kid’s got talent, that’s for sure. I’d hate to discover that someone was using him for it.”

“So would I,” she said with conviction, and with a final look at me, she headed through the crowd and toward the door.

32

I went to change back into my street clothes, and after I finished shaking hands and pushing my way through the crowd to the office, Faisal had been unceremoniously dislodged from his carpety burrito. Seeing his face as they secured him to a sturdy metal chair further diminished my good vibe.

The feeling had faded pretty darn fast ever since Connor had turned Jane away at the door. Oddly, all the well-wishing didn’t seem nearly as important without her present. A gold star on my permanent record here at the Department was still a gold star, so I tried to keep my spirits up.

Seeing Faisal sitting stoically in the chair made it hard, though. The urge to smack him around like a piсata on Cinco de Mayo was overwhelming, and I stayed to the back of the room to keep myself in check. Besides, I was pretty sure that if I took a swipe at Faisal with my bat, he wouldn’t be filled with candies or little plastic toys. What would be the fun in that?

We had taken over one of the lesser used conference rooms even though it was already doing double duty as a storage area. Space was at a premium at the D.E.A. and the mounting clutter of paranormal research-spell components, cursed items, and boxes containing the unknown-piled up faster than the crates of antiques in my living room.

Luckily, this meant that due to our space confines, most of the departmental looky-loos had to be shooed out. Only a handful of divisional leaders (excluding Wesker, of course) were present along with Connor and me.

“Hroom!” the Inspectre sounded. Everyone settled quietly into their seats. “What’s say we get this unpleasantness out of the way, shall we? Why don’t you start, Mr. Bane, by telling us why you stole that wooden fish from Irene Blatt and what is it used for?”

I was surprised by the impressive figure Inspectre Quimbley cut. I admired the old man, but there had been many times when he appeared almost comically grandfatherly. Seeing this side of him when it came down to hardcore occultism reminded me that the Inspectre could really pull out all the badass stops.

This, however, did not mean that Bane would actually give up any information under Argyle Quimbley’s interrogation. In fact, Bane looked more composed than ever. He was devilishly handsome, and not a single strand of hair looked out of place, even though he had been wrapped in a carpet for the past half hour. Most people would have looked a little rough around the edges, but Faisal looked ready to pose for the cover ofOccultist’s Quarterly. The only thing that looked out of place was the thick coil of rope lashing him to the chair. It held him tightly in place, not that he was making any effort to strain against it. This surprised me.

I’d expected him, as the villainous head of fanatical cultists, to be full of wrath and rage in the face of his capture. Instead, he sat calmly, passively, and worst of all, unansweringly.

The Inspectre looked exasperated by Faisal’s silence as well. He paced back and forth, stroking his mustache. Every so often he would drop down in front of Faisal as if he had heard the cultist say something, but if he had, I couldn’t hear it. This slow process dragged on for another twenty minutes, each moment of silence seeming longer that the last.

Again the Inspectre got in Faisal’s face.

“What’s that?” he asked. “Eh?”

Silence.

“I’ve got all night,” the Inspectre said. “Or would you rather I start asking you more aboutthis?”

Like an old vaudevillian stage magician, the Inspectre rolled up his tweed sleeve and waved his hand through the air with a flourish. The manifest that Jane and I had taken from Faisal earlier appeared at the Inspectre’s fingertips. Faisal’s eyes moved to it and flickered with interest for the first time since we had brought him in.

“Ah yes,” Faisal said with a grin. His eyes left the manifest and turned toward me at the far side of the room. “The item retrieved from Ms. Blatt…I do wonder, though, is she still around?”

I didn’t like hearing her name on his lips, but I honestly didn’t have a clue as to where Irene had disappeared to since last night. I kept quiet.

With faux innocence in his tone, Faisal asked, “I wonder, Simon, does our precious little Janey know about her?”

His eyes actually twinkled and a wicked grin sprang upon his face, a grin that ran clear down to his dark soul. I felt the hair on the back of my neck bristle, but I held my ground. I could give silence as good as we had been getting it from him.

“Now, now,” the Inspectre said as he stepped directly between us. “You leave the boy alone. I’m asking the questions here.”

“Yes,” hissed Faisal. “And I see how well that’s working out for you…”

“Well, at least we’ve got you talking now, haven’t we?” the Inspectre fired back caustically.

Faisal fell silent again, then cast his eyes toward the door. “Not for long apparently.”

I turned to see mayoral liaison David Davidson standing in the doorway. As usual, he was impeccably dressed. Even the knot of his tie was perfect, and he looked every bit as composed and unruffled as Faisal had when we captured him. Davidson’s eyes scanned the room briefly before coming to rest on Faisal and the Inspectre.

“Sorry to do this, gentlemen,” he said with that friendlyI’m-about-to-screw-you-so-bend-over tone of his. “I’m afraid I can’t allow you to continue with this line of questioning.”