One minor problem from Monica’s illness…very minor compared with the rest…was that she couldn’t get into society parties any more. I couldn’t either. I was getting a name, but I was also not 21, and nobody wanted to invite under 21s who weren’t somebody’s kid. That meant that if we were going to tail the demon, we’d need somebody else.

Ideally somebody she wouldn’t notice. That, I supposed, was something we could leave to the spies. If I trusted them any more than they trusted me.

So? It was Thruor’s job to go to the party. She was perfectly capable of insinuating herself and had plenty of feminine wiles. Me and Kanesha camped out in a late-opening coffee shop opposite.

I saw the demon go in. She was in the form of a statuesque black woman with a net of jewels over her hair and a red dress.

“She looks ridiculous,” Kanesha whispered.

“I like the dress.”

“I mean the hair stuff. Have they made you wear anything like that?”

I shook my head. Of course, white gems wouldn’t work for me. They wouldn’t stand out enough. Maybe sapphires? You still wouldn’t be able to see the net, whether it was silver or gold. “Not yet.”

“Good. It would look even worse on you.”

I tugged on a blonde lock. “Or be unnoticed. Anyway…Thruor’s inside, and I bet they have somebody in there too.”

“I don’t like the spies.”

I glanced around. “Neither do I, but hush, I think that’s one of them there.” My eyes met the woman’s. She nodded to me.

Yeah. She was one of them alright.

“Who do you think is her target?” Kanesha asked.

“I don’t know, but I’m betting they aren’t white.” Which kind of sucked as a conclusion, but also made a sad amount of sense. If you wanted to seduce somebody you’d show up as the same race. Unless you knew they went for… I shuddered.

I’d had somebody accuse me of fetishizing Kanesha. It was horribly offensive to everyone concerned. But some people really were like that.

“What’s wrong?”

“My mind went into a bad part of the gutter. Sorry.”

“Ugh.”

Then I felt something. The faintest of disturbances. “Uh oh. Get ready.”

I tried to meet the spy’s eyes too. She needed to be ready. Just in case.