“Apparently not as interesting as things in—Did you say you were in a brothel?” Max’s voice lacked his characteristic humor. In fact, he sounded pissed off.

“Well, technically…”

His loud curse soared above the crackle of static. “Oh, that’s great. I’ve been sucked into a parallel universe where everyone else gets to have sex and I get to walk around with a permanent hard-on. I’m in hell.”

“Let’s not get graphic.” I wiped a line of drool off my cheek and hoped the newsprint hadn’t marked my skin.

Max was silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was grim. “I found Nathan.”

Oh, God. My arm fell, as though it were no longer attached to my central nervous system. Had he killed Nathan? I tried desperately to connect to the tie I’d blocked before. I’d stupidly, selfishly shut myself off from Nathan, and now he was dead. I’d wasted my last moments with him.

“Carrie, are you there?”

I made a squeaky affirmative noise, not wanting to sob into the phone.

“He wounded the other assassin pretty bad. I haven’t seen him since.”

If I had been standing, I would have fallen down. The relief would have dissolved my knees right there. I wanted to open my mouth and shriek praises to the sky, but all I said was, “Oh?”

“Well, don’t sound impressed or anything.” He made one of his long-suffering-Max sounds. “I had to trail Bella forever, she kicked me in the face, she shot me but yeah, my hard work is nothing to get excited over.”

I held the phone away from my face and frowned at it. “She shot you? Max, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. It’s just a flesh wound,” he assured me cheerily. “I’m going out again after sundown. Anything on your end?”

“I think so. It may be nothing.” I dismissed the notion because it was too unlikely. “I don’t know, this drive has been weird.”

“Oh, I understand, what with the male prostitutes and all. But it’s about to get weirder. I ran into Dahlia.”

Though the gesture would have been lost on him, I’d been prepared to raise my middle finger at the phone. I froze at his words. “Dahlia?”

“Yeah. She had some psychic vision. I’m not sure what it was about. And I wouldn’t put much stock in it before exhausting all other options, but—”

“I would.” Dahlia had powers I would never underestimate. “What did she say?”

“Louden. And Hudson.” He said the words as if they weren’t sending electric shocks straight down my spine. “Oh, and the Virgin Mary fits in there somewhere.”