Nick’s plate was empty, and after setting the bread down, he sat back and played with the end of his knife, making it lay just so atop his napkin. “I know it’s not my food,” he said. “What’s the matter? You’ve hardly said a word since you—ah—came over to the museum.”

I covered my smirk with a napkin and wiped the corner of my mouth. I had caught him napping, sitting with his lanky legs up, his feet propped on his cleaning table, the eighteenth-century tea towel he was supposed to be restoring draped over his eyes. If it wasn’t a book, he really didn’t care about it. “Is it that obvious?” I said, taking a bite.

A familiar, lopsided smile came over him. “It’s not like you to be this quiet. Is it about Mr. Kalamack not being arrested after finding, er, that—body?”

I pushed the plate away in a flush of guilt. I hadn’t yet told Nick I’d switched sides in the “Let’s get Trent” issue. I hadn’t, really, and that’s what bothered me. The man was slime.

“You found a body,” he said as he leaned across the table and took my hand. “The rest will follow.”

I cringed, worried Nick might tell me I’d sold out. My distress must have shown because he squeezed my hand until I looked up. “What is it, Ray-ray?”

His eyes were soft with encouragement, their brown depths catching the glint from the ugly light hanging over Nick’s tiny kitchen/dining room. My attention went over the short, chest-high mantel dividing it from the living room as I tried to decide how to broach the subject. I had been harping on him for months about letting sleeping demons lie, and here I was, wanting to ask him to call Algaliarept up for me. I was sure the answer was going to cost more than what Nick’s “trial contract” would cover, and I didn’t want to risk him paying it for me anyway. Nick had a chivalrous streak as wide as the Ohio River.

“Tell me?” he asked, ducking his head to try to see my eyes.

I licked my lips and met his gaze. “It’s about Big Al.” I didn’t like chancing that Algaliarept would conveniently assume I was calling it every time I said its name, so I had begun referring to the demon by the somewhat insulting moniker. Nick thought it was funny; that I was worried about it showing up unsummoned, not that I called it Al.

Nick’s fingers slipped from mine and he pulled away to take up his wineglass. “Don’t start,” he said, his eyebrows furrowed in the first signs of anger. “I know what I’m doing, and I’m going to do it whether you like it or not.”

“Actually,” I hedged, “I wanted to see if you might ask it something for me.”

Nick’s long face went slack. “Beg pardon?”

I winced. “If it won’t cost you anything. If it does, forget it. I’ll find another way.”