Wrapt in Crystal

by Sharon Shinn

  “Long day,” he said.

  “Very,” she replied. “How is your investigation going?”

  He sighed. “I live in dread of being asked that.”

  “Sorry. We can talk about something else.”

  He shook his head. “No, it’s a legitimate question. I don’t feel like I’ve made much progress.”

  “Have you found out any more about Deloro?”

  He told her about the search for the postal address and the unhelpful clerks he had met with. “And the thing is,” he said, “I don’t even really expect to find her once I run all the clues down. I can’t seem to shake the feeling that she’s vanished somehow. Evaporated. When someone else speaks her name, it gives me the shivers. It’s as if she no longer exists—as if she never existed.”

  “What do you think happened to her?” Jovieve asked gravely.

  “Well, you yourself said you thought she must be dead.”

  “Then why keep looking for her? For a ghost?”

  “Because maybe if I can find out something about the circumstances of her death, I will find out—something. I don’t know. If the search takes me much longer and yields nothing, I won’t be able to justify continuing it.”

  “And then what will you do?”

  He shook his head, leaning forward to set his glass on the table. “Go back to the old files. Keep researching the old records. Hope a clue or a pattern emerges. And pray that I find it before the killer goes out again.”

  “Again? Do you think he will?”

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “He has worked so far on a pattern of three-week intervals. More or less. It’s been slightly over two weeks now, so I look for him to reappear in five or six days. I need you and your amicas to be very, very careful.”

  “What can we do?”

  “For one thing, never leave the temple alone. Always walk in pairs, or by threes.”

  “We have done that for some time now.”

  “For another . . .” He regarded her consideringly. “Would you allow me and Capitan Benito to come in one day—tomorrow or the day after—and instruct your women in the rudiments of self-defense? Even a little knowledge can help someone stave off an attack.”

  “Of course,” she said immediately. “Tomorrow is not the best day, but the day after—yes, we can work that out. How much time will it take?”

  “A couple of hours. Maybe longer. I need to find out how much time Benito has available.”

  “Some of the women may feel strange taking lessons in self-defense from a man,” Jovieve said. “I think they’ll try to learn, but—”

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll bring Lise.”

  “Lise?”

  “One of Captain Raeburn’s Moonchildren here on permanent assignment.”

  “If she’d be willing to come, that would be most helpful.”

  “She’ll come. She’ll love it.”

  She smiled at him but did not say what had amused her. “More wine?” she asked.

  “Better not. I’m driving, and it’s not my car.”

  She stood up anyway, and went to the kitchen to pour more for herself. “I’m still keyed up. I need it to help me sleep,” she said. With her glass full, she crossed the room again, this time behind him; he heard her open a window on the far wall. Instantly, the summer smell of roses wandered inside. Drake closed his eyes. His head was thrown back on the couch, his face tilted toward the ceiling; his whole body was relaxed and supine.

  “Hope I don’t fall asleep here,” he said.

  He heard her footsteps patter toward him and realized that at some point she had taken off her shoes. She had also left her wineglass on the windowsill, for when she came to a stop directly behind him, she laid her hands on the front of his shoulders. “You’re working too hard,” she said.

  He grunted, not opening his eyes. “Not working hard enough,” he said.

  She pressed her fingertips into the muscles along his upper chest, very gently massaging. “And you expect too much from yourself.”

  “I expect myself to be able to do a job well and guard those who fall under my protection.”

  “Were you ever easy on yourself?” she asked. “Was anybody?”

  He considered. The rhythm of her fingertips was hypnotic, disarming. He thought that she could, if she wanted, snap the connection of every muscle to every joint and leave him a small pile of happy bones in the middle of her sitting-room floor. “Nope,” he said. “High standards all the time.”

  She did not answer; she had begun to concentrate on her task. Now her fingers worked their way slowly up his neck, along his jawline, into the hollows of his cheeks. The slow, circular motion left him stupid with vertigo. He felt the whorls of his brain begin to melt and blend. She steepled her hands over the top of his skull and began to rub his scalp. He dissolved into the couch.

  “Yes, I’ll tell you the secret formula,” he murmured. “I’ll give you the exact location of the treasure. My true name is Oppenheimer and I am a spy for the resistance.”

  She laughed quietly. “Silly,” she whispered. Her hands traveled back down his face and throat, onto the stiff points of his shoulders. Slowly she worked her way down the corded biceps, bending lower to reach the outflung limits of his elbows. He felt a lock of her hair brush along his cheek, and then she kissed him. The kiss was like the wine; he shouldn’t have had it and it went straight to his head. Or perhaps it was the posture, his head thrown back and his perceptions distorted. Surely the soft pressure of her lips could not have left him so dizzy.

  She had collected her hands; they were now on either side of his face again, cool against his cheeks. He raised his own arms, lifting them up to wrap around her head, drawing her down with more force into the kiss. The sense of dizziness grew even stronger. The feel of her hair under his fingers was the most real thing in his world.

  Then she pulled back a little. He released her and she disentangled herself gently. “This would work much better if we were on the same plane of reference,” she said, and came around the couch to snuggle next to him.

  He put both arms around her and kissed her again, but it wasn’t the same. His balance had returned, and now all his senses were alert and functioning again. He smelled the wispy perfume of the roses, he saw the brittle patterns of starlight along the flagged floor. Deep in the distance he heard a door slam. The plush mouth beneath his was again like wine; something he wanted, something he couldn’t trust himself to take. Something he was not sure he wanted, something that would blind him to his true desires.

  Again she was the one to pull away, this time a little more abruptly. “What is it?” she said directly.

  He was embarrassed that the change in him had been so obvious. “Just remembering where I am,” he said.

  “I don’t think that’s all of it,” she said. She was watching him calmly; she seemed neither surprised nor offended. “You’re remembering who you’re with, maybe.”

  “The senya grande?” He smiled with an effort. “I think I’ve gotten over that part.”

  “No,” she said. “Alejandro Ruiso’s mistress.”

  “Ah.” He sat forward and took his wineglass again, though there were just a few drops left in it. Perhaps he should have taken more when she offered it. “You could be right.”

  “I know I’m right. You’re a monogamist at heart, and you think I would be cheating.”

  “Well, wouldn’t you be?” he asked.

  She shook her head slowly. “It is impossible to explain the details of any one relationship to someone else,” she said. “Alejandro and I are lovers, yes, but we are also friends—we are allies. The love is just part of it, a deeper affirmation of our other ties. But I am not the only one he loves and he is not the only one I love. We don’t love each other with enough intensity for that to be true.”

  He thought about trying to r
eply, but she went on speaking. “I know there are women who find one man and love him forever,” she said, “but I have never been that kind of woman. I do love forever, I don’t mean to say otherwise, but I love so many people. I have too much affection in me to bind it up in one person—I have so much to give, so much I want to get back. I want to get as close as I can to the people I love—I want to absorb them and understand them and make them a part of me. It seems artificial to me to choke off that love, to deny it, when no one is hurt by it and everyone is—uplifted. I’m not explaining it well. I don’t know if you can understand it. But I’m not betraying anyone, and I would never want to hurt anyone. Least of all you. You have already been hurt enough.”

  He smiled briefly, for the words made him remember old wounds and hurt him anyway. “I don’t know if I understand,” he said. “I’m trying.”

  “Your problem, Cowen, is that everything means too much to you, and so you try to let nothing mean anything.”

  “That’s not fair,” he said, smiling again. It was less of an effort this time. “I can be casual.”

  “In love?”

  He spread his hands. “Moonchildren, as a rule, are pretty casual about it. Moonchildren are not allowed to marry, you see, although there are always those who break the rules and form what amount to lifelong attachments. But we are so footloose, we travel so often and so far—marriage does not accommodate our way of life.”

  “So you have short, cheery affairs with each other and move on to the next assignment,” she said. “Somehow, I cannot picture you that way.”

  “I tend to be less casual about it than some,” he admitted. “So I don’t do it often. And, yes, I’m monogamous when I’m involved at all.”

  She was watching him closely with those dark, wise eyes. “In fact,” she said softly, “that’s the real reason you can’t make love to me tonight.”

  His eyes lifted quickly, involuntarily, to her face. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re in love with someone else. I hadn’t realized it before.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because it’s true. Who is it? That Moonchild girl you mentioned—what was her name?”

  In spite of himself, he smiled; the thought of her always made him smile. “Lise,” he said. “No.”

  “Then it must be that Fidele.”

  His whole body clenched with one painful contraction. “What Fidele?”

  “I don’t know. The one you’ve been dealing with lately. You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

  He looked down and away; he did not know how to answer that. “I don’t know,” he said at last.

  Jovieve laid a warm hand on his arm. Automatically, he twisted his hand to take hers in his. He needed the comfort. She said, “Oh, Cowen. That way lies heartache.”

  “Every way lies heartache,” he said. “I don’t think we get to choose.”

  * * *

  * * *

  He did not stay much longer; he didn’t think he could bear it. When he left the Triumphante temple, he drove aimlessly for about an hour through the empty streets of Madrid, too tired to think, too restless to sleep. He found himself before the Fidele sanctuary, watching the door, willing it to open and some fugitive figure in white to step out, on the way to dangerous missions. But no one emerged; there was no motion anywhere at all on the street before him. He waited for maybe half an hour, and then he turned the car and went back to his hotel alone.

  Chapter Twelve

  The postal clerk was much more helpful the following morning, which meant Benito had interceded on Drake’s behalf. The clerk even handed over a bulky envelope which looked like it had spent most of its life jammed into a crowded file drawer.

  “What’s this?” Drake asked.

  The young man shrugged. “Whatever was left in the box the next time we rented it. Hombuenos told me to give it to you.”

  Drake took the envelope to a window to examine its contents by strong sunlight. The first sheet he pulled out was the rental contract for the postal box. The signature at the bottom was Aurora Perdida, again in that somehow slurred handwriting that he recognized as Diadeloro’s. She had taken the postal box for a six-month period, the minimum contract available, and had not renewed it.

  So either she had not planned to stay long in this location, or she did not expect much mail.

  The contract held no other clues, though he read it several times. Well, this was certainly worth three days of his life. He folded it carefully and tucked it inside his breast pocket.

  The other two items in the packet looked more promising: two long, flat envelopes that had never been opened. Both bore return addresses from the city commissioner’s office, and both were addressed to D. de Vayo, so that supposition at least had been confirmed: Aurora Perdida was Diadeloro. Drake hesitated only a fraction of a second before ripping open the first letter.

  It was a follow-up inquiry, asking the recipient why she had neglected to pick up her tax forms from the city commissioner’s office now that the sale of her parents’ house had been finalized. It was dated about five months after Deloro’s disappearance, about two months before the contract on the postal box expired.

  The second letter proved to be, chronologically, the first: a check from the city commissioner for the sale of her parent’s house, dated a month before the other letter. The sum of money was not, by Semayan standards, great, but a woman in hiding could have used the money, Drake supposed. He sat for a moment in the small, dingy postal office, and thought deeply.

  She had come to this neighborhood to disappear. She was, most likely, afraid of someone who had killed people close to her and might want to kill her as well. Was she so afraid that she dared not cash a check endorsed with her real name? Or had she been killed before she even had a chance to pick up all her mail?

  Drake left the building, staggering a moment under the relentless sunlight. He paused on the street, looking around him a little hopelessly. It only made sense that a woman would choose to have her mail forwarded to the postal office nearest her new home; therefore, he should begin looking for Deloro here in this neighborhood. But the blocks of rundown old houses, apartment buildings, shacks and sheds stretched on for uncounted miles. He was not quite in the barrios, but near enough, and no one here was going to keep records of renters from five years ago.

  And she, he thought, was frightened enough and clever enough to live one place and direct her mail to another, so that he could spend the rest of his life searching for her without success.

  He sighed and headed for his car. Half-formed thoughts nagged at his heat-soaked brain. Was she dead before the check arrived from the city commissioner’s office, or did she just have no interest in profiting from a house that had held such tragedy for her? If she had never intended to pick up the check, why had she given that address to the commissioner’s office? Why had she rented a postal box at all? Had there been some other information she was so interested in obtaining that she went to the expense of renting the box for six months? If so, what? If he could find that out . . .

  He sighed again and switched on the ignition. If he could find out anything, he would be a bit more pleased with himself. Sixteen days on Semay and he had learned very little.

  * * *

  * * *

  At the Fidele temple he asked for the abada, although he knew in his heart it was Laura he really wanted to see. He was shown very quickly to the small chamber with the large desk and the tiny old woman.

  “You have news?” she asked him before the door had even shut behind him. Drake shook his head.

  “No. A request, more like.”

  “Certainly. Anything I can help you with.”

  He smiled at her, because he really liked her. “I’m not so sure,” he said. “Capitan Benito and I think that the killer will be looking soon for a new victim. He works on a cycle, and he is close to the end of this one. I
would like your permission to come in and teach the ermanas some rudimentary self-defense so that they can protect themselves if they are attacked on the street.”

  She stared back at him with her snapping black eyes. “I thought we went through this once before,” she murmured. “I told you, we are careful.”

  “Careful isn’t enough,” he said. “If you would allow me and the capitan and one of the other Moonchildren—a woman—to teach your ermanas a few simple defenses—”

  “Kicking and clawing and gouging out men’s eyes?” she said, still softly. “I hardly think so, Lieutenant.”

  “You’re worried about dignity?” he said, striking hard. “It is hardly dignified to have your throat cut.”

  She nodded. “True. And yet, my ermanas are gentle women. I cannot see them avidly learning how to jab a man with their elbows or knee him in the crotch.”

  He was so surprised that he laughed out loud, but he could not allow her bluntness to divert him. “You’re wrong,” he said. “Your ermanas are fighters, just as you are. They are fierce about the people they protect, and they are no strangers to violence. They see it on the streets every day when they walk among the poor. They would not be afraid to use simple weapons, I think, if they were taught how.”

  She regarded him; he thought she was almost won. “The goddess abhors weapons,” was what she said.

  He leaned forward as far across the wide desk as his long frame would take him. “Senya querida,” he said, calling her “dear lady” with a low, intense voice. “You said once that even I might be a part of the goddess’s plan. Do you remember that? If Ava sent me here to protect you and your ermanas, how can you turn away the help I have to offer you? Let me teach your women how to protect themselves, at least a little bit. Ava would want them kept safe.”

  She stared back at him; it was hard to tell whose face was the most stern. He felt her black eyes penetrate the flimsy flesh and bone of his face and go glancing across the interior surfaces of his brain. Infinitesimally, she nodded.