Alaric, what’s your twenty?” Silence answered me. I bit back a snarl and tried again: “Alaric, where are you?” Getting mad at him for not knowing the weird mix of military and ham radio pidgin used by the Irwin community was pointless. That didn’t stop me from doing it.

This time he answered, his voice coming clear and easy through the phone: “I’m finishing up my edits while Becks does some final recon for her report.”

“Not an answer.” I raked a hand through my hair, watching Maggie try to guide Kelly through the steps required to mix pancake batter. Either Kelly was the worst cook in the world or Maggie was really shitty at giving instructions. It could have gone either way. “Where are you, exactly?”

“Down near Mount Shasta.” My silence must have told Alaric he needed to give me more information, because he added, “About an hour out. Why? Do you need us to stop at the store or something on our way back in?”

Back when Buffy was alive, we could trust our network against anyone on the planet, including the CIA. Our security isn’t that stellar anymore, but thanks to upgrades cobbled from Maggie’s house system, Becks’s jury-rigging skills, and Alaric’s computer know-how, we’re pretty stable. Stable enough for what I was about to say, anyway: “Mahir’s here.”

It was Alaric’s turn to go briefly silent. Finally, he said, “Mahir sent in a report?”

“No, dumb-ass, Mahir’s here. Mahir is asleep upstairs in the guest room I’ve been using. He showed up with pretty much the clothes on his back and a suitcase full of research, and he looks like hammered shit.”

Maggie looked over. “Is that Alaric? Tell him to stop by the House of Curries on his way home. I’m going to send in an order.”

“Got it. Alaric, Maggie says—”

“I heard her,” he said, managing to sound annoyed and astonished at the same time. “You’re serious, aren’t you? Mahir is actually here.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve been saying.” Alaric began swearing. I listened, impressed. I hadn’t realized he knew that much Cantonese. I let him go for a few minutes, then interjected, “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

Play nice with my Newsies, or I swear I’m going to make you sorry, said George flatly.

“I am being nice.”

Luckily, Alaric was still swearing, finishing off an elaborate phrase that started in Cantonese and switched to English as he said, almost wonderingly, “—son of a chicken-fucking soy farmer and a diseased convention-center security guard. How did he get here? Is he all right? Are we going to need to move again?”