Devil Sent the Rain - D. J. Butler Page 0,2

at least he’d gotten it right, despite being from a pre-Internet generation.

“Here’s all the site will show.” Gopher Girl brought up a page showing the Silver Eel at night, window signs lit and the lights of downtown Kansas City sparkling across the river in the background. The day’s date was in the subject line of a blog entry, which announced that the Notorious Gentlemen would be playing, and a set list.

Adrian chuckled. He didn’t love the fact that the song titles were listed, but it would be hard for anyone to track them by those, since they issued no recordings and had no Internet presence themselves. Also, the sight of the band’s name for the evening amused him, since he’d come up with it.

BOOM! More thunder. Adrian shivered, feeling a little uncomfortable. It was the storm that was making him edgy, he decided. He’d get over it once he hit a hundred ass-kicking decibels with the Hammond.

“Jim?” Eddie asked.

Jim stopped against one wall and nodded. His long black hair was clumped together by the humid air and hung around his pale face like a picture frame.

“He’s nervous,” Mike observed to Eddie. He pocketed a couple of candy bars and bit the head off a third. The skylight rattled in its frame with a glass-against-metal chinking noise. “Aren’t you? Couldn’t they give us just a little booze?”

“Seeing your cousin again?” Eddie asked the question, so it was sincere, even if it sounded harsh. If Adrian had asked it, he would have been asking in mockery. Even as he asked, Eddie’s own eye slid sideways and he shuddered.

“No,” Mike said. “But it wouldn’t hurt to be a little bit buzzed … just in case.”

Gopher Girl looked confused, so Adrian tried to get her attention back on the tablet and away from the talk of ghosts. A wordless voice nagged him in the back of his mind, telling him he was forgetting something important. He ignored it. When the voices in his head could come up with actual words, then he’d listen to them. “What do you think the odds are of me getting a copy of some of these apps … what did you say your name was?”

“They call me ‘Mouser.’” Mouser smiled. “Like a cat. It’s ’cause I handle all the little stuff around here, the mice.”

“Curiosity killed,” Adrian started, and then realized he might sound like he was threatening her, “er, you know.” For a two hundred megaton sorcerer, he knew, he had a real gift for sounding like a numbnut.

Mike charged ahead. “I mean jeez, who wouldn’t be nervous, after those flaming, sword-swinging giants smashed up the meat packing plant around us. Plus, the flesh-eating horse, the flying snakes, the lamia … and … you know, all of it.” He looked sideways at Mouser, like he’d just realized she was there.

Mouser giggled. “You guys are funny.”

Adrian shook his head and let her laugh. “You don’t know the half of it, sister.”

“Yeah,” Eddie grunted, “life’s a bitch. Let’s play, collect gas money and hit the road. Maybe the bartender will give you a free beer.”

“Or you could pay me,” Mike suggested around a mouthful of nougat.

“Or I could use the money to get us to Chicago.” Eddie’s nostrils flared. He hadn’t gotten the sleeves of his green army jacket replaced, so he looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando, only wiry and black and perpetually pissed off. “You do want to go to Chicago, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Mike looked down at his feet. “Yeah, I wanna go to Chicago. Cagado flat tire.”

“You got a better car?” Eddie snarled. “Last time I saw that Impala of yours, it wasn’t going anywhere fast.”

“The van’s our ride,” Adrian agreed. He definitely wanted to go to Chicago. For all the horsepower he had running under his wizard’s hood, he didn’t have enough. He still worked shackled to his uncle’s curse, and that was a serious practical problem as well as a constant humiliation. Eddie, he knew, was anxious to back out of his deal with the devil. Adrian wanted to make one, and Chicago was the place to do it. “Mike’s just saying what we all think.”

“Yeah?” Eddie glared at Adrian, eyes quivering. He was a bit on edge, and no wonder. “What’s that?”

“He’s just wishing the van wasn’t such junk, so he could afford to have a beer.” Adrian grinned a grin he knew would irritate the crap out of Eddie.

“It ain’t fancy,” Eddie agreed. “It needs a little extra attention, sometimes. Some of it’s