“Fair enough,” Connor said, stopping at an intersection to look around. “I’d like to think Jane and I have softened toward each other over the past three months.”

As I waited for him to pick a direction, I couldn’t help but eye all the tables full of collectibles. I adjusted the well-worn leather gloves I had on. With my psychometric ability, it was hard to keep my hands to myself near all this geeky merchandise. Part of me would love to have touched something and read the past of the object, but now was so not the time for that kind of distraction. While I had gotten better at controlling my powers as of late, I was pretty sure going into the Oubliette after having depleted my blood sugar over a bunch of knickknacks was a surefire way to fail it outright.

“Come on,” Connor said, heading off to our right. “I think Inspectre Quimbley and Wesker said it was set up down this way.”

“So why is Wesker going to be here?” I asked. “Does the director of Greater and Lesser Arcana have nothing better to do than come ridicule me? We’re Other Division. He doesn’t even hold any jurisdiction over us.”

“But he does hold it over anything magical happening in the tristate area,” Connor said, “so Inspectre Quimbley is letting him make sure that the Oubliette rental goes smoothly.”

“So Wesker’s hope that I fail is just a bonus for him today, is it?”

“Something like that, kid,” Connor said.

The traffic of humanity thinned out a little over in this section of the Javits Center. We turned down one aisle and walked until it dead-ended at a hanging blue curtain. Connor pulled it aside.

“After you,” he said.

I stepped through into an open space about twenty feet square. The Inspectre and Director Wesker were there, and smack in the center of the curtained-off area was the Oubliette itself.