I was glad. I didn’t want to explain myself. My head was heavy with the talk I’d had with Sitri, with the deal I’d made and metaphorically signed in blood, what I’d given him and what he’d given me in return. I dragged my dread behind me like the Conduit’s golden chains, feeling the weight.Still, as I lay back on the sofa and stared up at the peeling plaster, I felt an emotion I hadn’t known in days. Hope.I let myself sleep until dawn, then I took a quick shower and darted out the door before Bentley or Corman woke up. I had a lot of work to do.My first stop took me to the outskirts of the city, down in the shadow of an overpass where the air smelled like diesel fumes and mastiffs snarled behind a barbed-wire fence. The Sunset Garage hadn’t changed much since the 1950s. It even had the same neon-rimmed sign up on a soot-stained pillar, showing a gleaming green Studebaker in the sun, but the neon had burned out years ago and nobody had bothered to replace it.I let myself in through the open service bay.
