Extraits

Oh, God, please stop," he said with a laugh.

"Gotcha. A major bromance."

"I guess," he said relunctantly, "though I wish there was a more, er, macho description."

"A sweaty bromancce?"

"That's worse."

"A machomance?"

"Oh, God, please stop," he said with a laugh.

"What do you mean your water just broke?" I demanded in horror. I looked down at growing pool of I-did-not-want-to-know-what-kind-of-liquid on the asphalt between her feet.

She shook off the dazed glare and scalded me with a glare. "It means my kiddie pool has a crack," she snapped.

"Excellent," I said. At least I hoped so. There was probably nothing to worry about. After all, how much trouble could an ex-hitman and an angry, obsessed, summoner child of a demonic lord get into?

Whatever happened, at least we had cookies.

"That arm looks fresh," Pellini said with dark suspicion. "Did it just get cut off?"

"Nah, it's been zombified for over six months," I said. "Mzatal put a demonic lord whammy on it to keep it from rotting."

Idris gave me a pained look. "A putrescence counter-cascade ritual," he corrected then re-wrapped the thing and tucked it away in his meesenger bag. Pellini had a glazed look about him but resumed his gun cleaning once the arm was out of sight.

We turned right at an intersection where we should have turned left to get to my house.

"Where are we going ?" I looked behind us in sudden worry. "Is someone following us ? Are you trying to lose a tail ?"

Steeev shook his head.

"No, but its imperative that you both consume ice cream."

I laughed.

"I knew you were the perfect syraza for this job."

At long last the class finished, freeing me from videos of devoted husbands counting breaths for panting wives. Jill and I headed out while Steeev hung back to collect one of every single guide and pamphlet the instructor has available.

"You want me to be in your face counting like the guys in the videos?" I asked her with a grin as we started across the parking lot.

"You'd get to 'one' before I punched you", she said with a sweet smile.

I laughed. "Note to self: Stay out of punching range".

"And whose idea was it to park in the last row because walking would be good for me?" she said in a tone perilously close to a whine.

"Steeev's, along with everyone who parked in all the closer spaces," I replied. "Though, if I was a meaner person. I'd say it was great payback for those times you force me to go running with you."

"At least I don't complain as much as you did," she said, passing between two cars.

I fell back to walk behing her in the narrow space which meant she couldn't see me roll my eyes. "Suuuure you don't."

"Are you rolling your eyes?" Jill asked, passing between another line of cars. "I can hear you rolling your eyes."