“Existential crisis?” I say.

She barks out a laugh that’s just this side of panic. “Yeah. And then some.” She finishes her cigarette, and vaporizes the butt with a gesture.

“If it helps any, he’s a real asshole. From what I saw, so’s the rest of his family.”

“You mean your family,” she says. She nods at the ring on my finger. There’s no anger, no bitterness. Just a statement of fact. Pissed off at me, hating me, never wanting to see me again. Those I can handle. But this? Vivian has her shit together. Vivian always has her shit together. Something’s wrong. I don’t know what it is. I doubt she’d welcome any help I might give her.

She closes her eyes and rubs her temples, a bone-weary sigh escaping her lips. It’s the most emotion I’ve seen from her since I woke up. “What now?”

“You remember Letitia Watson?”

“High school, right? Barely. Didn’t she stab you?”

“Yes, and yes. She’s part of the Cleanup Crew now. Working with the LAPD. Has a side thing going with a lawyer and some guy running for mayor. Councilman Chang, or something.”

“You mean David Chu?” she says. “I’ve heard of him. His office keeps calling me for donations.”

“Yeah? He a good sort?”

She shrugs. “He’s a politician.”

“He is that. Turns out there’s a whole file on the murders I’m getting blamed for showing that I didn’t do any of them.”

“You’re fucking kidding me. Why am I just now hearing this?”

“Because they’re not telling anybody. They want to bring down the assassin who’s doing it, and want to use me as bait.”

“Do they know she’s with Quetzalcoatl?”

“If they do, they didn’t say anything. I’m not inclined to tell them either. It’s one thing to have some people trying to kill me out of misplaced vengeance, it’s another to have everybody trying to kill me to get rid of Quetzalcoatl.”

“If you’re dead he’s got no reason to stick around,” she says, producing another cigarette and lighting it with her fingers. “It would solve the problem.”

“I think you and I might have differing opinions on that. More to the point, if Chu and his Merry Mages know she’s behind the Vernon fire, they might be more inclined to let everybody else know about her. Having L.A.’s mages pointed at her instead of me might slow her down a little.”

“You think they’ll do that?”

“Not Chu,” I say. “He’s looking for political capital with the mages and wants to be at the center of whatever takes her down. He’s been making Mage Council noises.”

“Oh, for fuck sake,” Vivian says. “Is he that much of an idiot? Those always end with corpses.”