Mrs. Hudson yelped. I released my hold and she jumped down.
Rafael waved his hands excitedly. “Oh, that’s right! I was hoping to get the chance to tell you about my research developments.”
We all stared at him with varying degrees of incredulity that he was talking about dusty old facts that didn’t matter when we were all maybe going to bite it.
“I mean,” Rafael said, composing himself, “that our assumptions about the amulet in the first place were off. It isn’t the Kiss of Death, but rather Asherah’s Kiss. It took a while to translate, but thanks to the notes of the first Attendant, I learned that when the original Seeker was given magic, Asherah also gave her this amulet as extra protection. The kiss of the goddess. That’s why it took your cravings away, Ash, and why it woke me up when my own magic was too low to allow me to do so.”
“Then the name got changed when Chariot got hold of it?” Arkady said. “Because if they had the blood of a Jezebel, it meant the Jezebel’s time had run out?”
“Partially, probably,” Rafael said. “But it’s also a play on words. In Hebrew the root word of kiss is the same as the root for weapon. Neshek.”
“That’s so cool,” Priya said.
“That’s what I thought,” he said.
“Or it opens the door to a lot of awkward misunderstandings,” I said. “Imagine a cop pulling someone over and saying, ‘Excuse me sir, are you carrying kisses?’”
Levi half-grinned, but Priya and Rafael shot me identical looks of pity.
“Your lack of a sense of humor aside,” I said, “the amulet will keep me safe because of the goddess’s protection on it. I figured that out already.”
“It’s not a passive protection,” Rafael said. “It involves choice. The records document this and my experience confirms it. I had a choice of whether to wake up or not.”
“Not much of a choice,” I said.
“It was when I had no idea whether your plan had worked and if I’d wake up as myself or as that Ba’al freakshow. I chose to believe in Ashira.” Rafael paused to smile at me. “Once the choice was made, the Kiss’s magic made it so.”
Arkady quirked an eyebrow. “The power of decision making? That’s not much of a weapon.”
“Isn’t it?” Levi said. “If you’re holding a gun, you can choose to end someone’s life or show mercy. You can choose to keep going in the face of adversity. Choose to face hard truths and make more empowered decisions.”
Rafael pushed his glasses up his nose. “Exactly. Choice is the most powerful weapon there is. Nor was the decision easy. When faced with the Sefer’s magic, Ash, you’ll need to do the same. You’ve already done it with the feather.”
Had I?
I thought I’d smelled the feather’s magic faintly again when I wore the amulet in Levi’s office. Was that my doubt creeping in or a failure on the amulet’s part?
“That was different,” I said. “The feather remained in the pouch, and I didn’t mainline into the heart of its magic like I’ll have to with the Sefer to destroy it. We have no idea how powerful the combined scrolls will be. I could drown in that magic and do it with a smile on my face, no matter how much I choose otherwise. Forget the amulet.”
“You’re second-guessing yourself,” Rafael said.
“Regardless, if you’re not at full strength to pull me back from the brink yourself, Rafael, this isn’t going to work.”
We were so close. I had to be realistic about my limitations because we couldn’t afford any mistakes, least of all from me. The fate of the world depended on me.
My mother depended on me—for the first time ever.
Rafael sighed. “I can do it.” He removed the amulet from around his neck and handed it to me. “Will you at least consider what I’ve said?”
You face a choice, a voice whispered in my head as I took the necklace. But it is not what you think.
I dropped the amulet.
“Ash?” Levi frowned and bent down to retrieve it.
“It’s nothing.” I shook off the weirdness. “If it makes you feel better, Rafael, I’ll factor the Kiss into the plan as a secondary source. The essential protective power on it will still do something against the Sefer’s magic.”
Crunching noises came from the kitchen as the puppy chowed down.
Levi handed me the amulet, then perched on the arm of my chair. He was close enough to feel the heat of his body, but he didn’t actually close the gap between us.
I shifted away from him.
“We’ll keep both of you safe,” he said. “I hate to bring it up, but there’s another major obstacle to overcome. The rest of Chariot.”
“That might work in our favor,” I said. “The Ten’s numbers have thinned out due to in-fighting, and it seems to be every person for themselves where the Sefer is concerned. Any of the others who show up will cause as many problems for Isaac’s people as they do for us.”
“They’ll still be gunning for you,” Levi said. “I’m going to put operatives in place outside the perimeter.”
I patted his thigh. “Good plan. I’ll call Lux and her people. They offered to help.”
“You can’t be serious,” Arkady scoffed.
“Ash, I get that you’re trying to give us the best shot you can, but I don’t think these people will stand much of a chance. It would be cruel to ask them,” Levi said.
“Enough,” I said. “The only other opinion I’ll consider here is Rafael’s. We’re the ones with Asherah magic. They are the followers of Asherah. This is the will of their goddess in action on earth. If I were them, I’d like the choice of being involved. We owe them that respect. Rafael?”
We all looked at him.
“It’s possible we made tactical errors by not including them in the past,” he said, carefully. “I’m no longer willing to take on all the risks myself. If they are truly followers of Asherah, then we are better working together. Call them.”
By the time we’d come up with a workable plan, predicated on every single thing going right, there was barely over half an hour left. I took the world’s fastest shower, chucking the floral dress in the trash. Once I was fortified in all-black with my hair in a high ponytail, I felt stabilized enough to dash out to pick up a very important piece of the plan.
Priya slipped into my room. “Arkady and Rafael left. They’ll meet us at Lockdown.”
“Good. Once you’ve done your part, stay the hell away. I mean it, Pri.”
Her eyes flashed. “I heard you the first six times.”
I spread my hands wide. “I can’t afford this palace on my own.”
She snorted, her donkey braying laugh bursting free. “You’re an idiot, Holmes.”
“Yeah, well. Karaoke tomorrow?”
“First round is on me.” Priya pressed her lips together and spun around to leave, but I grabbed her hand and pulled her into a tight hug.
“Love you, Adler.”
Priya swiped at her eyes. “I’m not saying it back until you’re home safe. So there.”
I smiled. “I can live with that.”
“I have to get ready,” she muttered and stomped into her bedroom.
Mrs. Hudson came trotting into the foyer with Pinky as I was slipping into my motorcycle boots and dropped her girlfriend at my feet.
“You want to help too, don’t you, baby? I’ll be back soon, okay?” It would have been so much easier striding into this battle without worrying about all the people—and puppy—I might never return to. Who might not return with me. The old Ash would have preferred it that way.
I’d been a happy kid, but when Dad left, my life was overtaken by a fiery rage. Fire can be beautiful, but it needs to be stoked, and I’d fallen into a trap of constantly feeding it and calling that motivation. When my team had come into my life and my relationship with Levi had changed, I’d been in danger of that fire consuming me, but I’d made a choice.
For a brief shining moment, I’d chosen happiness.
When it was sna
tched from my grasp, instead of finding another path to that same emotion, I’d thrown myself back into the familiar and comforting arms of anger like any good addict. How would I right all those many wrongs without it?
What motivated me didn’t always have to be sadness and destruction or a twisted revenge. I could do things just because I wanted to.
For no other reason besides the fact that they made me happy.
I pressed a kiss between Mrs. Hudson’s ears, and threw the toy into the living room. Tail wagging, she waddled away.
“How was my mother?” Levi sounded subdued. He hadn’t been that gangly boy I’d first met in many years, but his eyes were still the bluest that I’d ever seen, even clouded and troubled.
“Scared, but unharmed.” We both ignored the implied “for now” that hung heavy in the air.
“Levi, I…” I didn’t know what I wanted to say. There should have been something profound, but I kept seeing that thirteen-year-old in the Camp Ruach T-shirt the day I’d first met him. Before things had gotten so twisted up and muddled between us, back when he was one more conceited rich kid with a perfect life and I swam through a cloud of anger.
We weren’t in that story anymore. I didn’t know the ending to whatever this new one was.
I didn’t even know what the next page, or line, or words were. All I had was a sense that this mattered.
It was now or never. I swallowed and raised my eyes to his—
Only to have him press a kiss to my forehead. “Kick ass, Ashira Cohen.”
It was just like when he’d illusioned me to look like him when I was fighting smudges and just as disappointingly platonic. I mean, wow. Avril de Leon had been dead and evil, and somehow she got a better sendoff kiss than I did. Didn’t final showdowns count for anything these days?
He slipped out the front door without another word.
I picked up a metal briefcase containing the tube with the scrolls, and pressed my finger against the lock to secure it. With the wooden ring now in Rafael’s possession, I clutched the gold token on its chain, standing a heartbeat later in Hedon, in the business district under that yellow crescent moon.
Vanilla-scented night air kissed my skin. Following the ramen bowl to my destination, I found the store owned by the steampunk cat and made a purchase: a small black rose hair ornament that I used to pin my ponytail down.
My next stop landed me on Her Majesty’s flagstone terrace. The Queen, Isabel, and Moran were eating BBQ salmon and pasta, drinking wine, and laughing. While Her Majesty hadn’t deviated from her usual color signature, the tablecloth was bright yellow and the dishes were cheerful multicolored ceramics. Isabel had brought color back to her mother’s world.
I would do no less for mine.
Moran saw me first and pushed his chair back. “Ashira?”
Isabel waved at me and I gave her a wan smile.
Moran frowned. “Is there a problem?”
I hugged the briefcase to my chest. “I’m going to trade Isaac the scrolls for my mom and Levi’s mom. So, it’s not in the top ten greatest days.” I gave them a quick rundown.
“How can we help, blanquita?” The Queen walked over to my side.
I did a double take, caught off guard by this unexpected offer. “Uh, well, keep the token for me? I can’t risk it falling into the wrong hands and this is the safest place I could think of. But I’m coming back for it.”
She took the gold coin from me. “Of course you are.” I appreciated her saying it without a trace of sarcasm. “Is there anything else we can do?”
“Take me to Lockdown Cybersecurity?”
“Absolutely,” Moran said.
“When you’re done with all this, maybe we could go out sometime,” Isabel said.
“Priya and I are going to karaoke tomorrow.” I crossed my fingers that I wasn’t jinxing myself. “You should come.”
She smiled shyly. “I’ve never had a girls’ night out before.”
I had to survive. We all did. Isabel had been through so much. She deserved a girls’ night in a dive bar with sticky floors, crispy fries, great music, and laughter.
All the laughter in the world.
And sure, this might not last forever. If the last few months had taught me anything, it was that relationships didn’t come with guarantees, no matter how badly you wanted them. Maybe we would be friends, maybe we wouldn’t, and that would hurt, but I’d be okay and find new people. I just had to keep going and letting people in, despite, sometimes, my better judgment.
Being a P.I. wasn’t enough anymore.
“It’ll be the first of many girls’ nights,” I promised.
The Queen hugged me. Her shoulder under my cheek was softer than I expected and she smelled like roses. “Hasta la próxima, chica.”
Moran took my arm. “Ready?”
I allowed myself one last moment to drink Hedon in. Magic signs lit up the sky in the distance, the Garden of People was shrouded in shadow, and, hidden by the fluttering white curtain leading through the open sliding doors into the palace, stood my father.
But he didn’t offer me a pithy quip or call me pet names. He just nodded at me and then tapped his fist against his palm twice. That had been his sign for whenever I’d been about to do something scary—like ride a bike on my own for the first time or jump off the high diving board—that he was about to give me the countdown to go for it.
As humans, one of our greatest talents was our ability to tell ourselves stories. And it didn’t matter if they were real or not, because sometimes all you needed was a story to tell you who you needed to be. A detective chasing a shadowy mastermind. A girl who, against all odds, lived.
But eventually all stories end.
Maybe it’s as simple as that. You need me to play a certain role, and one day, you won’t.
“I’m ready,” I said.
Adam held up one finger, a second, then a third.
Go.
I smiled, my eyes damp, and then nodded.
He winked, and then Moran and I were gone, appearing about a block away from the building that housed Isaac’s company.
“Well.” Moran bowed low. “Until we meet again, Jezebel.”
“Until we meet again, Bunny Boy.”
He gave an exaggerated sigh and vanished.
Five minutes to get to the building. My boots thudded against the ground, echoing up off the empty buildings around us. Night had fallen and the street was empty.
Or so it seemed.
The House operatives and Lux’s people were in place. Miles was in charge of all of them, commanding the operation to keep any other Chariot members from getting inside. He’d assessed the Followers’ magic and teamed each one up with an operative.
I’d barely stepped onto the property before my magic flattened out. Isaac had brought a null to the party, just as anticipated.
I looked up at the stars. It was a perfectly ordinary night with no sign that four hundred years of struggle was about to end. I whispered the names of my predecessors under my breath like a prayer: Serach, Tehilla, Liya, Catriona, Atef, Vasilisa, Thea, Rachel, Nikolia, Freyja, Vishranti, and Gracie Gavriella. I won’t let you down. Your deaths will not have been in vain.
This long game of chess had put me in check, but I could still be crowned queen. Chin up, I went to make my final move.
Hans waited for me outside the front door to the four-story building with his gun, a hulking man, and Avi Chomsky.
The null who’d executed my father. I betrayed no emotion beyond a muscle ticking in my jaw. Isaac wanted me unnerved? He’d have to do better than that. Adam was dead. I couldn’t save him, but my mom was in peril. All this bitch move had done was given me absolute clarity on how much I’d enjoy destroying Montefiore once and for all. My focus was laser sharp.
“You cunt,” Avi hissed. “I almost died because of you. I hope I can return the favor tonight.”
I didn’t bother answering, spreading my arms and legs when the guard stepped forward
to frisk me.
“What’s this?” he grunted, his fingers pressing against the right side of my boob.
“Well, Jimmy,” I said, “those are called breasts. You probably don’t recognize them without nipple tassels and—shit. Watch it.”
He dug his cold meat sticks into the side of my bra, pulling out a pink mini Taser that was about the size of a USB drive. He laughed and clicked on the flashlight part before stuffing it in his pocket. “Cute.”
“Anything else on her?” Hans asked coldly.
The man finished patting me down. “Clean.”
“Open the case,” Hans said.
I shook my head. “When we do the trade.”
“Cut her finger off,” Avi said. “Open the case yourself.”
“Do you know which way to lay my print on the lock?” I said. “Do it wrong and the case will flood with ink, ruining the scrolls.” I shrugged. “Your call, since I have no magic to stop you.” I kept my gaze steady and my body relaxed, despite not wanting to part with any digits today.
Hans examined the lock, taking so long that I was convinced he was going to take Avi’s advice, and my pulse spiked. “Isaac will take great pleasure in personally unlocking your case,” he said.
“I know English is your second language, but way to make it weird, dude.”
Hans jerked his chin at the minion, who grabbed my arm and hauled me inside. Levi had assured me there were no wards, but I still braced myself when I crossed the threshold because my intents were definitely hostile.
The walls in the large reception area were steel gray and the furniture was all hard lines and unyielding fabrics, everything projecting an image of strength.
Using a keycard and a thumbprint scan, Hans led us through a metal door and into a large room with rows of white tables, each of which had two workstations with sleek monitors. Moonlight streamed in through the many windows and the inset overhead lights cast soft pools. We crossed to the other end and through another door.
This space was almost as large as the other one, but it was dotted with beanbag chairs, couches, and ugh, a foosball table. How hipster of Isaac. There was a small kitchen along one wall.
Furniture had been pushed out of the way. Nicola and Talia stood close together, looking haunted under the watch of another goon, this one bald and also armed. Nicola’s betrayal still stung, though I’d forgiven Talia for asking me to ward up my magic. However, even if I’d been furious at both of them, I’d do everything in my power to extricate them safely. I clenched my fists and kept myself in check.
Revenge & Rapture: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files Book 4) Page 26
