Even Vampires Get The Blues

Signing off for now. I'll see you for dinner later. Bye.

I'm just outside your office—

La la la, my fingers are in my ears and I can't hear you!

You're not listening to me with your ears, woman. I'll be at your office in twenty seconds or less, and then we will discuss the situation.

It wasn't easy to tune him out of my mind, but I did it. I hurried out the front way so I wouldn't run into him coming in the back, my soul bleeding tears of anguish. I just about cried salty ones when I got to Diviners' House and discovered that the shoebox in my bag was empty.

"Sam? Are you all right?" Jake asked as I stared numbly at the inside of the empty shoebox.

"No, I'm not all right. I'm just about as far from all right as you can possibly get and still be alive. God damn it, Jake! Someone stole my statue!"

He gave me a thin-lipped look. "After what you told me about being shot by that man Pilar, I'd think it would be a relief to have it off your hands."

I narrowed my eyes as I thought back to the visit to Caspar's house. "I bet it was Pilar who zapped me. I bet he stole the statue while I was immobile between realities. How on earth am I going to get it back?"

"Why do you want it back? It sounds to me like it hasn't brought you anything but bad luck."

"It's mine," I said, putting the empty box back into my bag. "The demon gave it to me. Yes, by mistake, but both Clare and I were shot for it—that means I have the right to get to the bottom of what it is, and why Pilar wants it so bad. Thanks, Jake. Sorry to disrupt your day for nothing."

He saw me to the door, stopping me briefly as I stood on the doorstep, soaking in the warmth of the sunshine. "So, this thing with you and Paen—I can't tell you how happy I am that you've found someone at last. I wasn't sure about him, since Dark Ones tend to be a bit intense, but he seems like a nice bloke. I wish you both an eternity of happiness. One question—should I be buying a wedding present anytime soon?"

The sun went behind a cloud. Pain gripped my chest and didn't allow me to breathe. "No," I said, and left.

I was pretty much on autopilot all the way back to the office, finding my way to the correct bus, getting off at the correct stop, and walking the two blocks to the office without seeing, feeling, or registering anything around me. I was too caught up in my own misery to even notice the sudden bank of black clouds that started rolling in from the north.

"Life sucks," I said as I opened the door to my office. Finn and Clare, back from wherever it is they'd gone off to, looked up from her computer, questions evident in their expressions. At my desk, Paen sat, making notes on a notepad. I noticed he was left-handed, as I was. It warmed my heart for a moment before I remembered that as far as he was concerned, my heart could take a flying leap.

"You look horrible," Clare said, getting up to take my coat and hang it properly on the coat-tree. "Did Brother Jacob not have anything helpful to say about the statue?"

"What statue?" I asked, pulling the shoebox out of my purse and handing it to her.

She opened it. "I don't understand. Where is the statue?"

Grief built up inside me until I thought I'd break down into a good, old-fashioned elf-dirge. I'd lost Paen, lost the statue, and I wasn't the tiniest bit closer to finding either the Jilin God or the Coda. A big old pity party welled up inside me and whined to be set free. "The statue was stolen from me sometime while I was held prisoner."

It took only a few minutes to tell my startled audience the events of the last two hours, ending up with a brief rant against everything that had gone wrong of late. "I can't believe this," I said, storming around the office, waving my hands in the best drama queen fashion. "I'm known for my ability to find things. It's what I do best! Nothing has ever stayed lost once I've tried to find it, and yet here I am, employed to find two simple items, and I'm no closer now to finding their whereabouts than I was when I was hired, not to mention losing a third item I wanted to keep!"

Clare popped a lilac blossom in her mouth, her eyes huge as she watched me emote.

"I think you're allowing things to get to you," Paen offered, getting to his feet. He tucked his notebook away into his jacket pocket.

I pointed a finger at him. "You're a big part of the problem, buster."

He raised his eyebrows. "I fail to see how our personal situation—"

"I'm not talking about your commitment issues—I'm referring to the fact that you didn't tell me everything you knew about the Jilin statue. You willfully withheld information about it, information that might have helped me if I had known it two days ago." That wasn't strictly fair, but I was grasping at straws.