“What girl likes to be told she smells, I ask you. Not, ‘wow, what’s that perfume you’re wearing?’ but straight up, ‘hey, you smell funny.’ It’s not flattering.”
“Oh. My. Gods!”
Okay, that was a somewhat more satisfying level of response. Of course, Kylie couldn’t quite tell if Wynn was stunned, excited, or, you know, having an aneurysm.
“Personally, with those manners, I wouldn’t have thought he was a friend of yours,” Kyle continued, “but then, I wouldn’t have thought Bran and you were big ol’ demon hunters or some such, either. I guess maybe we shouldn’t rely too much on assumptions, huh?”
“Knox! Come here! We found one!” The change in volume told Kylie her friend had lowered her phone to call out to her new fiancé. Who apparently knew more about all this than Kylie did. That grated. “Ky, I can explain everything, but first I have to ask. Are you okay?”
“Oh, you’re totally going to explain, my friend, and you’d better make it good.”
“I mean it, Kylie. Are you okay? Are you hurt? Where are you?”
The urgency in Wynn’s voice made Kylie frown, turning some of her anger into concern. Just a skosh, mind you. “I’m fine.” She waved her hand dismissively and her ribs protested. “You know, relatively,” she qualified. “And I’m in Boston, natch, in a church, of all places. Nothing has caught fire yet, but I’m just in the belfry, so maybe it doesn’t count.”
A moment of silence. “You’re in a church belfry?”
“Yeah. Flew here. Imagine my surprise.”
Wynn cleared her throat. “Right. About that. You see…”
That was pretty much the point where the creature watching Kylie so closely seemed to lose his patience. “This witch you speak to, what does she know of the Darkness? Is she in league with the Order? How do you know you can trust her?”
In her ear, her friend let out an excited squeak. “Oh, wow, was that the Guardian? What’s his name? Where did you find him? Can I talk to him?”
“Yes, let me speak with the witch, human.”
Wynn babbled enthusiastic agreement in Kylie’s ear, and the gargoyle held out his serving-platter-sized paw for her phone. Kylie shook her head and took a step backward. She always reacted poorly to high-pressure tactics. “No, you know what? Before you all have your little kaffeeklatsch, I think somebody needs to explain a few things to me. Beginning with what the fuck is going on?”
The huge gray creature actually winced, but Kylie had to admit that could be the result of her voice rising an octave and about twelve decibels rather than an attack of conscience. On the other end of the phone, Wynn mumbled something conciliatory.
“Kylie, I know,” her friend said. “I know you deserve a whole bunch of explanations right now, but this is kind of a long story, and at the moment it’s really, really important to make sure that you and the Guardian are safe first. Like, earthshakingly important. You shouldn’t be out in public right now, especially since I’m assuming that one or both of you were just attacked by nocturnis.”
That was disconcertingly accurate. “How did you know that?”
“Another part of the story. It just seems to be the way these things happen at the moment. I will explain everything, I promise, but first and foremost, you need to get somewhere safe. Can you get home? Fast?”
Kylie wanted to dig her heels in and refuse to move until she got the answers she wanted, but something in Wynn’s voice made her grudgingly restrain herself. “I’m not all that far from my house. I don’t think. I don’t think he flew me more than a few blocks.” She looked at the gargoyle, who shook his head. “Yeah, I can get home in a few minutes. But what about tall, stone, and grumpy?”
“He needs to go with you.”
She knew Wynn was going to say that. That didn’t mean she had to like it, did it? She just couldn’t decide if her instincts were trying to tell her that sticking with the Guardian was the best idea ever, or the key to impending doom.
“Because you’re the genius wunderkind they call Kyle E. Woyote, that’s why.”
“Really? You’re gonna blow rainbows up my tokhes? Now, of all times?”
“If it will get you and the Guardian somewhere safe and private with a video-chat connection, I will blow rainbow-covered sparkly unicorn fairies up your butt, Ky. This is serious.”
“You know how wrong that sounded, right?”
“Koyote, please.”
Channeling the urge to scream out her frustration into a low, hissing growl, Kylie spat out her agreement. “Fine, I’ll bring the thing—and I do mean The Thing, capital T, capital T—home with me, but I am calling you back the minute we get in the front door, Wynn, and I’m not going to be satisfied with simple explanations. I want everything.”
“Oh, trust me, sweetie, there is no such thing as a simple explanation for this. You’re going to get as many answers as you can handle, which will be about a hundred more than you’re going to understand.”
“Don’t sell me short, Pooh Bear. I’m a genius, remember? I can understand almost anything.”
“How about the end of the world?”