Kanesha arrived quickly to rescue me. I managed to avoid giving him any contact details. Funny how nobody intervened, though.

I didn’t want to ever be photographed by that guy. I suspected he had an entire binder full of models somewhere to buttonhole if he ever bumped into them. But, to my pride, I restrained myself from hurting him.

“Who was that guy?”

“Some budding photographer who apparently memorizes model portfolios and was trying to convince me he was a fan of my work.”

“Of your tits, more like,” Kanesha quipped.

“Tell me about it. I don’t want to be photographed by him, ever.”

“He’d be as bad as…who was that guy?”

“Oh, that was David Parr. Yeah, Mr Roman Hands.”

But we were now safely on the plane. Safe from him, and I hoped safe from everything else.

The plane taxied away from the gate and stopped. And sat there. And sat there.

“Great,” Kanesha grumbled. “It’s broken down.”

She was right – that plane wasn’t going anywhere, and we ended up back in the gate, thankfully with no sign of Mr Aspiring Photographer, trying to find seats on any route back to DC.

I didn’t want to be suspicious about it, but it felt like we’d been trapped here by somebody. Could a demon sabotage a plane?

Probably easily enough, and at least the problem had been spotted before we took off. At least.

We bought crappy airport burgers and waited for another plane, but if anyone had planned to delay us, they didn’t have anything past that in mind. Still, I was nervous once we finally did take off, nervous about what we might find when we got home.

Kanesha was using the in-flight wi-fi to check Senate legislative schedules. Not too suspicious, I thought, for somebody with our destination. She even looked the part of the unpaid, overworked Washington intern right now. Well, except for the “unprofessional” braids. I certainly wasn’t going to suggest she straightened her hair, though.

I liked her braids, and her, just the way they were.

“Oh, come on,” she said abruptly.

“What?”

“The Senate legislative calendar site is down.”

I rolled my eyes. “Nobody has it posted anywhere?”

“Nope. I can get House, but not Senate. And House is all…yeah, I found the defense budget hearing for the House, in two days.”

“Which means it goes to Senate what, a couple of weeks?”

Kanesha shakes her head. “No way of knowing. They have to finish it, propose a bill, could be months. Which means that without the Senate schedule…”

I glared at her laptop, but I didn’t have any magic to make a website come back up.

“There we go. Ugh, this thing is as easy to read as badly written sheet music.”

I shot her a look, not having been aware that she’d ever played an instrument.

“Defense is one where the House and Senate have different versions of the bill.”

“Look for contractors who’d benefit from a change in the Senate version?”

“I’m trying.”

I would not be at all surprised to find they all had demons on the board, but I couldn’t deal with that. All I could deal with was the one matter at hand, the one demon causing the particular trouble right now.

Even she was a distraction from the real problems.

The plane vibrated slightly, but it was apparently nothing.