I frowned, rereading her header. It was brief, just the materials, name, and date the medallion had been created and then picked up. But the date it had been finished . . . the date stuck in my head. Why? It was from a week ago. Something about that date was important, but I couldn’t figure out why. It felt likes years had passed in this last week, but I nonetheless counted backward, reassessing my recent activities.

There. The seal had been made the day after I’d first gone to Vancouver . . . the day the vampire turf war had gone down. Would the seal’s creation have triggered anyone’s immortal radar? I didn’t know, but if it had, Jerome, Grace, and Mei would have all been busy sorting out the ensuing vampire mess. Misdirection.

From there, other things began to arrange themselves in my head. I thought back to the Army of Darkness, wondering what events their activities might line up against. The event in Queen Elizabeth Park matched the date the seal had been picked up. And the Army’s impromptu visit to Seattle . . . ? That had preceded Jerome’s summoning, though no one would have wanted to direct attention to that, would they?

The answer was here. I just couldn’t quite make the pieces fit yet. The Army had staged their show. Jerome, Grace, and Mei had given it their full attention. Jerome had been summoned. Where had this game’s other players been?

I left the bed and its aching, alluring memories. Finding my cell phone, I dialed Kristin’s number.

“Hi, Georgina,” she said, pleasant but busy like always.

“Hey,” I said. “How’s it going?”

“Crazy.” I could imagine the grimace on her face. “Cedric’s stressed to hell—no pun intended—with all these demons in the area. At least that . . . that succubus is distracting him.”

“Tawny?”

“Whatever her name is. Cedric’s actually out with her right now.” Bitterness and the tiniest hint of jealousy came through in Kristin’s voice. I remembered her perpetual devotion to him—and the look on her face when he’d asked Tawny out. I felt for her but had too many romantic hijinks of my own to deal with.

“Huh.” I didn’t really know what else to say. “Look, I have a question for you. Do you know, did Cedric come to see Jerome the day the Army was down here?”

“Yeah. Cedric came down after you left the message. I thought you knew.”

“No . . . I only heard about it after the fact, and then, the whole summoning kind of took precedence.”

“Why do you want to know?”