For a vampire, who was hundreds of years old, Nikki displayed uncommon impatience over the next few days. She virtually clung to me as I spent time online researching. I also ended up sending Jen and Jessie to DeGradi’s library to look up some of their more obscure folklore collection, particularly from the Far East collections. It turned out that Nikki didn’t care to piece together fragments of folk texts and apply them to real-life.
“ ‘Jade is a semi-precious gemstone, highly regarded in Asian cultures and certain North American Native American tribes due to the large deposits of jade found in British Columbia, The Yukon Territory, and parts of Alaska.’” She read. “Why are you looking up the geology of this substance, Matthew?”
“Because I never know,” I said.
“Never know what?”
“Yes.”
“I warn you I am in no mood for word games.”
After three days of this kind of questioning, I as in a mood, too. “Tough,” I said. “Research doesn’t move in straight lines. There’s no old man nor a book with all the answers. I piece all of this together. This is detective work.”
“I expected more searching for clues.”
“We’ve got a lot of clues. We don’t have a lot of information about them. I need to know more about this stuff before I can make an educated guess before I pump my guy for information.”
“Guy? This is the first time you’ve mentioned a guy. Some magician, perhaps? Or maybe Tony?”
“Tony’s long gone, Not coming back as far as I know.” It would have been nice if he would come back. He probably had the raw power to undo the enchantment, or at least be able to pinpoint what did it. “And my guy is more a con artist than a magician.”
“This does not inspire me with confidence, Matthew.”
“Ha! Good one,” I said.
She frowned at me.
“Confidence,” I grinned. “Con artist.”
She rolled her eyes. “I was not making a pun.”
“That’s too bad.”