The Goddess Groupies stood in the bleachers frozen, wearing identical expressions of stupefaction.
Lux fell to her knees. “O Great Jezebel. Forgive us for not recognizing you.” She prostrated herself low. Like a row of dominoes, the rest of them followed suit, murmuring their apologies.
I lobbed the clay figure at them. Really? That was what they were sorry for? Not recognizing me? How about conjuring that thing up in first place? Or, I don’t know, offering to have a lunch date with us and failing to mention that we were the main course?
“Good heavens.” Rafael wheezed, his voice barely a whisper. “Now you’ll be completely impossible.”
“Save him!” I snarled in a loud voice, checking my friend for any invasive magic. “Or I will rain hell upon you all.” There was a tiny spark of the weird magic deep in his shoulder which I snuffed out, but the remaining physical damage was serious enough.
The group broke into a panicked chatter. There wasn’t a healer among the useless bunch, but there was a Transporter. Called it.
We landed at House HQ, where there was both an excellent medic and a healer on staff. I’d already cleared Ba’al’s magic from my arm, and while no longer black, it throbbed like a bitch.
The Gigis stood in a ring, while I sat on the cold concrete on the sidewalk, refusing to let go of Rafael.
“Miles Berenbaum,” I ordered. “Get him.”
Two of them half-bobbed a bow and ran like the hounds of hell were on their trail inside the building. There might be some perks to this admiration shit. Had I finally found the house elves I’d been seeking? Did they do laundry?
Lux hovered anxiously over me until I barked at her to back the fuck up, while Gabriel mooned adoringly. He was hella pretty, but I preferred men who weren’t total fucking idiots. Paunchy Guy had made himself scarce when we’d left the amphitheater.
Miles stormed out of the building with Arkady sauntering behind him. The Head of House Security glanced at Rafael and me and then raked a slower, more menacing gaze over the others, who did their best not to make eye contact. All except Gabriel, who I was beginning to think either had no self-preservation instincts or a very healthy ego that basically amounted to the same thing.
“Anything I should arrest them for?” Miles said.
“Reckless endangerment, attempted murder—give me time and I’ll put together an impressive rap sheet,” I said.
Rafael clutched my arm. “No. We can’t draw attention to this. Just heal me.”
Miles and I shared a rare look of perfect agreement that we disagreed, but neither of us would override Rafael’s wishes.
“If anything happens to you, I am totally rescinding that kindness we’re showing them. Miles, you need this.” I snapped my fingers. “Golem.”
A rangy black woman in a leather catsuit with holes strategically cut out of the sides clutched the clay figure tighter.
“Now,” I growled.
Arkady took the sculpture away from her. “Golems,” he said in a breathy voice the way Marilyn Monroe said “diamonds.” “Aww. You couldn’t stay mad at me, pickle.”
Looking very put out that he couldn’t haul anyone in, Miles hoisted Rafael in a fireman’s carry and walked away.
Arkady extended a hand to me.
Gabriel muscled in front of him. “Allow me,” he said, pulling me to my feet. He yanked me up so hard, I practically tripped.
“First rule of Jezebel worship. Hands off the Jezebel.”
Arkady’s eyebrows shot in his hairline. “They know?”
“Asherah’s followers. They know.” He fell into step beside me, crowding out Gabriel, who clearly wanted that position of honor. “This doesn’t make everything okay between us,” I said.
“Yeah? Wanna fight?”
I tried to make a fist with my numb arm but nothing happened. “I shall spare you for now.” I dropped my voice and turned to Arkady. “Is Rafael going to be okay?”
“He’ll be in good hands.” Arkady glanced over his shoulder at our entourage and shook his head. “This is going to be one hell of a debrief.”
By the time we got upstairs, the doctor and the healer had whisked Rafael away into some other part of the infirmary.
Healer magic wasn’t a shortcut to an MD. Nightingales stimulated the body’s natural healing system in an accelerated way. Fracture a rib? Go see a healer. Same with an infection, unless you were anti-Nefesh, then it was a doctor’s visit and regular antibiotics for you. With an injury requiring a lot of outside intervention and precision like my shattered femur, a medical specialist got involved. Technically a Nightingale could set a broken nose, but unless they were a level four or five (uncommon), chances were they’d set it improperly and you’d need a surgeon to rebreak it and patch you up anyway.
Levi kept both on staff and each of them examined Rafael now.
Meantime, a nurse pumped me full of antibiotics and stitched the gash closed.
My Attendant was still being worked on by the time I was done. I asked Miles and Arkady to leave after giving them the basics.
Miles grunted, still mourning his missed opportunity to menace the Gigis, and left without further comment.
“He’s going to be a joy the rest of today,” Arkady bitched, shaking the inert golem at me.
“You’re welcome.”
If the Gigis weren’t going to face charges for what they’d done, they better prove useful.
Waiting to be updated on Rafael’s condition was torture. I chose to pass the time tearing a strip off Lux and Gabriel, the lone two Gigis refusing to leave my side. The three of us sat in a small waiting area, furnished with much more comfortable chairs than I’d ever found in any hospital.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” I said.
“Lux—” Gabriel said.
“We wanted to see Asherah,” Lux interrupted. “No amount of devotion over the years had been enough to summon her. We believed that if our faith wasn’t enough, that gifting her with her lover’s presence would be.”
“Except that wasn’t her lover. It was a golem that you infused with a fuckton of different magic. You think she wouldn’t know the difference? Even I could tell that wasn’t a god.”
“It wasn’t at full strength yet,” Lux said. “The ritual wasn’t completed. Our Ba’al would have achieved godhood.”
I massaged my temples. Multiple magics in an animated artifact that could be fed to gain strength. These dipshits were almost as bad as Chariot and their immortality quest.
“It was extremely complex and all the various parts had to be timed to the second. It was very cleverly done.” Gabriel turned bright eyes on me.
“Did you want a pat on the head and a cookie?” I said. “Had Ba’al achieved full power, you never could have contained him. The devastation would have been catastrophic.”
“He couldn’t have broken loose,” Gabriel said. “I have level-four Lockdown Magic.” Yeah, okay, Tupperware Boy. He tossed his hair. “But honestly, after this, I feel that I should be upgraded.”
I folded my hands tightly in my lap so I didn’t smack him. “Did you feed anyone else to him?”
Lux bit her lip. “You were our first.”
“I leave you alone for one day.” Levi stood in the doorway, his arms crossed.
“Who are you?” Gabriel said, rising.
I covered my mouth with my hand to hide my smirk at Levi’s gobsmacked expression.
“Levi Montefiore,” he said, managing to look down his nose at Gabriel, even though they were roughly the same height. “Head of House Pacifica.”
Gabriel shrugged. “Oh. Him.”
I coughed, choking on my laughter.
Levi pointed at the door. “Out or I’ll have you arrested for attempted murder. And put on a shirt.”
Gabriel slapped his six-pack that didn’t jiggle one iota. “I’m good.”
Lux grabbed his elbow. “We’re going.”
“One second.” I held up a hand. “A closed bamah. Do you kn
ow where it might be?”
Lux and Gabriel shook their heads.
I ran a weary hand over my face. Rafael was badly hurt, I was exhausted, and it had all been for nothing.
“The Divine Rod might,” Lux said.
I raised my head. “A divining rod?”
“Of sorts. Go to Just Dandy tonight at ten and see for yourself,” Lux said.
The name sounded familiar. A gay club? Huh.
“Is there anything else we can assist you with, Jezebel?” she asked.
“Oh brother,” Levi muttered.
“You may leave, but should you attempt anything like this again, you’ll feel my wrath.” I took Lux’s phone number and Gabriel handed his over without any prompting or my wanting it in the first place. “If I have need of you in the future, I’ll call. Pray that Rafael recovers.”
Lux bobbed her head at me and fled. Gabriel took my hand and kissed it. “I look forward to seeing you again.”
An untamed light flashed through Levi’s blue eyes.
I beamed up at Gabriel and resisted the urge to wipe off my hand. “As do I.”
He backed out of the infirmary like a thespian reluctantly exiting his encore.
“Delightful people,” I said, once they were gone.
“Evidently,” Levi said. “All my best friends create false gods that land me in the infirmary.”
“Speaking of which.” I stood up. “I should check on Rafael.”
“Sit down, Ashira.” Levi dropped into a chair and unfurled a cold smile. “We have a few items to discuss first.”
I did as requested, crossing one leg over the other and swinging my foot like I didn’t have a care in the world. “Sure. How was the rally? Did your speech go over well?”
“My speeches always go over well. What I wanted to discuss was your involving a bunch of radical wingnuts in this search my mother set you on.”
“Technically, you have Rafael to thank for that. And to be fair, we did get a potential lead.”
“It was bad enough when you were playing fast and loose with my mom’s well-being,” he said. “But to add this level of risk? For what? Your little fan club?”
I pressed my finger to my cheek, my head tilted. “I’m confused. So revenge is now fine, it’s my ego that’s the problem?”
Levi hooked a foot around my chair and dragged it sharply toward him. “All of it is the problem.”
“Explain to me in great detail how I’ve further endangered Nicola. Unless you’ve told anyone, no one knows she hired me except the two of us, Priya, and Rafael.” I leaned forward, my elbows braced on my thighs, with a bone-deep sorrow that Levi was no longer the man I’d believed him to be. “Who are you really mad at? Me for pursuing every lead when it comes to Chariot, as I’ve always said I would, or you, because when push came to shove and you found out your father was involved, your renowned sense of responsibility failed you and you went back to being that scared little kid cowering before him?”
The walls broke into jagged shards, crashing and shattering on the ground. I curled into a ball, shrieking as chunks of the ceiling fell in on us. I tasted plaster, stray fragments grazing my legs like bullets. Lightbulbs exploded overhead like gunfire.
Levi sat immobile, carved from ice, his eyes flat. He closed his eyes and unclenched his fists.
Silence fell. The room was intact and undamaged.
I watched him warily, my heart racing, waiting for his self-control to fail and his magic to upend reality once more.
He glanced down at his hands, now faintly shaking, and jammed them in his pockets. “You’ve been many things, Ash, but you were never cruel.”
“Cruel or honest?” I said, softly.
I’d gotten a lot of glimpses over the years into who Levi was. Smart, fiercely protective, kind, funny. This side of him was honestly disconcerting. I hadn’t said what I did to hurt him. I longed for the man I knew Levi to be to come back and not be this shadow of himself so scared of every step that needed to be taken.
Levi stood up. “I don’t know if I can be a part of this anymore.”
An icy numbness stole through me. I’d accepted the loss of Levi as my romantic partner, but I’d never imagined he’d walk away from having my back. I opened my mouth to say that I couldn’t do this without him, but looking at his face, he didn’t care. He was so locked inside his own head and his own fear that nothing was going to get through to him.
“Are you taking House resources away? You’ll cripple me in this fight.” I stilled. “But you already know that, don’t you?”
“I need time to think,” he finally said, and left.
Two months ago, Levi had broken my heart, but I’d been the one to walk away. Being the one left behind was worse.
“Today has been bollocks and it’s not even teatime.” Rafael lounged in the doorway from the inner hallway of the infirmary. His shirt and tweed jacket had been replaced by a baggy House Pacifica sweatshirt. Rafael in gray jersey material—was the apocalypse nigh?
I jumped up and threw my arms around him, careful of his injury. “How do you feel?”
“Like a god shoulder-fucked me.” His eyes grew wide. “Whoopsie daisy. That’s the pain medication talking, I believe.”
“It was only a wannabe god and more of a finger bang, but I’m glad you’re on good drugs.”
The Nightingale came out and assured me that Rafael would be fine. The wound had been cleaned and sealed, there was no trace of infection, and he could sleep off the lingering effects of the drugs.
I said I’d take him home with me. Miles had sent an operative to pick up Moriarty and it was parked in the underground garage here at the House. Apparently I owed the operative a bottle of wine for the stress of dealing with my devil of a car.
As we slowly made our way downstairs, Rafael demanded to know what Ba’al had been. My explanation about the golem and the ritual sent him into a paroxysm of giggles. “Gabriel is a wanker,” he said.
“They’re all a bunch of gits,” I said.
Rafael beamed at me. “Why, Ashira, I’ll make a proper Brit of you yet.”
“Sure, dude.”
He looped his arm through mine. “Is Levi really going to abandon us?”
I shrugged, helping him remain steady as we crossed the parking garage. “If he does, you’ll get me all to yourself again, and won’t that be a delight?”
He made a snarky face. “On a scale of income tax audit to prison shower?”
“Jerk,” I said, fondly. “I’m sure Priya will stick with us at least part-time.”
“That’s good. I like her. Cracking girl.” He poked my hair, a little woozy about the eyes still. “Too bad about the Montefiore chap, though.”
Wasn’t it just? There was a hot, restless buzz behind my ribcage. From the familiar rush of antagonism to the comforting purr from being the object of his desire, Levi had occupied a large part of my world for half of my life. Space was an airless vacuum that would kill you, but Levi’s absence was worse, because I was still breathing.
Chapter 7
While Rafael rested in the car, I hurried back upstairs to the sixth-floor security hub and retrieved my dog, telling Priya not to be alarmed if she found a loopy man dozing in our living room.
She kept typing in her small cubicle as she fired questions at me. “Is he cute? Will the circumstances of his being there disturb me? Does this have anything to do with why you and Rafael ended up in the infirmary?”
“Yes, yes, and yes. I’m bringing Rafael to recuperate at our place.”
She paused typing for a fraction of a second. “Okay.”
Good save, cracking girl, but not good enough to fool me. Still, I decided to be merciful. Priya had been through a lot lately and the least I could do was not give her crap about this. “I have a quick errand and should be home before you are, but I wanted to give you a heads-up.”
I installed Rafael on my sofa with tea, a cozy blanket, and the Wi-Fi password, then Mrs. Hudson and I went to see
the Queen.
The gold token took us to a majestic lawn bearing tables strung with fairy lights and strewn with mostly-empty platters, save for a couple of lonely-looking wilted cucumber sandwiches. I inhaled the crisp night air, weaving around statues that rose up in purple shadows around me. Another scenic jaunt to the Garden of People.
Moran and Her Majesty stood between two large shrubs covered in a riot of purple and red flowers that smelled of honeysuckle and orange, inspecting a statue of an old man with a giant mole on his cheek, giving them the finger.
“Action pose,” I said, coming up from behind them. “Nice. Is he a recent addition?”
“Yes,” Moran said. “You missed the unveiling.”
“I’m good, thanks.” Having almost been an unveiling myself, I had no need to experience what I’d so narrowly avoided.
Mrs. Hudson flattened her ears and growled at Moran.
“Not now, Mrs. H,” I said.
“Ashira,” the Queen said. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
“Updates.”
The Queen gave the old man one last scathing look. “I could use a drink,” she said. “Come.”
Moran pointed at the pug. “Leave her.”
Making a snarky face, I bent down and unclipped her leash. Mrs. H wouldn’t run far, but I wasn’t sure I trusted Mr. Insta-Blade to hold onto her. Plus, she still hadn’t pooped today and could very well go down in history as the first dog to leave the Queen of Hearts a present.
The Queen led me up to her flagstone terrace where two glasses of sangria awaited us on a small bistro table. She lowered herself gracefully onto one of the rattan chairs, smoothing out any wrinkles in her red slacks with one hand.
The drink was perfectly chilled and not clogged up with too much fruit that would hit my nose every time I took a sip.
Below us on the lawn, the puppy growled again at Moran, ready to leap. He growled back and lunged at her with the sword. The dog went nuts, barking and jumping in rapturous delight, all while Moran taunted her that she’d never catch him. I knew it was a game and they were clearly having fun, but it still took some effort not to white-knuckle my chair.
Revenge & Rapture: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files Book 4) Page 6
