Her smile was more than a little predatory. He didn’t miss her glance at Paisley or the flash of irritation when she saw his hand over Paisley’s. “Can I sit down?”
“Sorry, Fen. We were just leaving.”
“Only for a little bit. What’s the harm in that?” She grabbed a nearby chair but kept it turned backward. She straddled the seat and crossed her arms over the top. “What are you doing, Skander?” She tipped her head toward Paisley. “With her?”
She said with her like she meant with that skanky bitch. Which she probably did.
“Not your business.”
Fen looked Paisley over before she held out a hand. “Fen Philippikos. And you are?”
He tightened his fingers around Paisley’s hand. “Don’t let her touch you. And it’s not Philippikos. She’s lying about that.”
Paisley looked from Iskander to Fen and back and did the wise thing, which was say nothing and keep out of reach. With her free hand, though, she massaged her temple, frowning.
“Fen,” Iskander said sharply. He couldn’t feel Fen’s magic, so there was no way to be sure what was going on without getting into Paisley’s head. But it was a fair guess that Fen was trying. “Whatever you’re doing, stop.”
“What will you do for me if I do?”
“If you have business here, why are you wasting your time with me?”
“Maybe my business is with you.”
He leaned back but kept his hand over Paisley’s. “Tell Rasmus it won’t work. He can’t have her.”
Fen studied Paisley. “Give up Iskander, and Rasmus will leave you alone.”
“He isn’t mine to give up.”
“Then leave him.” She leaned closer. “He belongs to me.”
“I have a feeling he disagrees with that.”
“We don’t have any business, Fen. If you want to talk to Nikodemus, I can make a call for you.”
“Oh, please.” She made a face and stared at Iskander. “Did you mean to tie yourself to him?” She swept her thick hair behind her shoulders. “Wouldn’t you rather be free?”
“Wouldn’t you?” Seeing Fen again wasn’t as bad as he’d been dreading. He wasn’t tempted to go back.
“You could work both sides,” Fen said. “My way, there’s no rules.”
He shifted his chair closer to Paisley, which was only smart, anyway, and slung his arm around her shoulder. Paisley’s shoulders tensed under his arm. “Go home to Rasmus, Fen.”
His former blood-twin pushed back so she was sitting straight on the backward-facing chair. “Don’t be difficult, my love.”
He played with a strand of Paisley’s hair, trying to figure out what the hell Fen wanted and deciding whether it was worth the risk of staying to find out. All those times he’d thought he’d go back to her if the opportunity arose, and it turned out he was wrong. He and Fen were done. “I’m not your love.”
“You should be. I’ll always love you, Skander. Nothing will ever change that. You should be free. As we were meant to be.”
“If it weren’t for Nikodemus, I’d still be fucked up and probably insane.” His voice came out flat and cruel. “What you did to us, that wasn’t freedom. And what you have now, that’s not freedom, either.” He stood, not letting go of Paisley’s hand. “Nice to see you. No, that’s a lie.” He leaned down. “Stay away from me and stay the hell away from Paisley.”
“We want you back.” Fen jerked her chin in Paisley’s direction. “With or without her.”
He kept his voice low, but he knew Paisley heard every word. “You touch her, you do anything to her, and I will crush your beating heart in my hand.”
“I could love her, too,” Fen said as if he’d been talking about the weather. “If I had to. I would let you have children with her.”
“With all due respect, Fen. Fuck you.”
Her eyes locked with his. “You used to,” she said. “And very well.”
He pulled Paisley to his side. “If you or Rasmus want to meet with Nikodemus, I can arrange it.”
Fen snarled, and though he couldn’t feel the magic she pulled, he knew she’d done it because Paisley flinched. On the other side of the café, the witch stood up fast enough to knock over her chair.
He whirled to face the witch. Her magic he could feel. So could Paisley, who went completely stiff at his side. He pointed at the woman and in a voice loud enough to carry said, “Stay out of this.”
The witch, however, couldn’t leave well enough alone; her kind never did. She stopped pulling, but she also walked over to them because the magekind thought they were the protectors of the poor harmless humans, and she obviously thought Paisley was in need of protection.
“Make it stop,” Paisley whispered. She swayed against him, but her eyes were on the witch, not Fen.
Iskander remembered what she’d said about the witch being a screamer. He needed to get her out of here, and that damned witch was between them and the door.
“This is not wise,” the witch said in a low voice. “A confrontation in front of so many normal humans.”
“We were just leaving,” Iskander said. He didn’t like having Fen behind them, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that.
“Stop,” Paisley whispered. “Stop the screaming. Please.”
“Let’s go, cupcake,” he said. But she didn’t move with him. Instead, she took a step toward the witch. A chill rolled through him. Holy Jesus, that was magic coming from Paisley. Not trivial magic, either.
“The screaming has to stop.” She stretched out her hand, her face a mask of agony, and she just kept going until her palm made contact with the witch. The witch’s eyes got big, and she howled. High and piercing.
Fen had her hands on her hips, her eyes on Paisley, doing nothing. He dampened the sound of the witch’s screams so they wouldn’t end up calling Harsh to bail them out of a mess with the police. Then things got worse.
Paisley made a fist and yanked. Hard. The air around them shifted as power left the witch, ripping away with the motion of Paisley’s hand. The remnants of dozens of lives—the psychic lives of murdered kin that the magekind took in order to extend their human years centuries beyond normal—left the witch with the movement of Paisley’s hand. All that energy swirled around her.
Her face relaxed, and she opened her hand, palm up, fingers taut but shaking like a leaf in a strong wind. Those dozens of lives were free. Somehow, Paisley had taken away the magic the witch had murdered for over the years. What was left of those psychic lives whipped around her. Already in contact with them, Paisley was the obvious refuge. Something very similar had nearly killed Nikodemus’s witch, Carson Phillips. Paisley’s resistance was the only reason the energy didn’t simply flow into her.
If he didn’t do something, the entire café was going to erupt in chaos. He put their half of the café under a dampening cover of magic that would make just about all but the most resistant humans simply look the other way. He shoved the still-screaming witch onto the chair Fen had been sitting on and spun the chair to face the window. The witch had her hands pressed to her chest, tears streaming down her face. At the same time, he muttered the words that would keep the magic Paisley had released safe from the witch taking it back, safe from other magekind, and safe from Fen. One after another, the lives Paisley had freed were absorbed into the psychic realm.
He grabbed Paisley’s hand, and he hauled them both out of there. Outside, he released his magic and took vicious satisfaction in leaving Fen to deal with the aftermath of the screaming witch. On the street, Iskander kept moving. His heart banged hard in his chest. What Paisley had done to the witch was miraculous. Amazing. She’d freed kin they had believed were forever lost. Jesus, he had to get them out of here. Now. Because she’d also broken one of Nikodemus’s rules.
“Slow down!”
He kept walking.
She yanked her arm. He put a hand on her back and pushed her forward. They were not safe right now. Not at all. “Keep moving, Paisl
ey.” He kept them moving. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here until I know if that witch intends to come after you or if Nikodemus is going to sanction you for what you just did.”
“Slow down.”
He did slow down, a little. But not much. They were nearly to his truck. “What that witch could do to you is nothing compared to what’s going to happen if Nikodemus comes after you. I can keep you alive if that witch tries something, but not if it’s Nikodemus.”
“Who’s Nikodemus?”
“My boss.”
His phone rang, and he almost had a heart attack when he saw Durian’s number flash at him. Nikodemus’s goddamned number-one assassin. He turned off the phone and dropped it into a mailbox. He didn’t want to make tracking him any easier than necessary. When they made it to his truck, he practically threw Paisley inside. “We do not go home,” he said. “We do not pass Go. We just get the hell out.”
“All I did,” she said as he put the truck in gear, “was make the screaming stop. It wasn’t real, Iskander.” She was shaking, pale as chalk, and still leaking magic. She covered her head with her hands. “I’m not crazy. I’m not. Not completely. It’s just my brain, telling me how to compensate for whatever is wrong with me. Nothing happened.”
“You aren’t crazy.” He took deep breaths until he had himself under control. He pointed them down Clay. “What you did was real. It happened.”
She lifted her head, calmer now. “What happened? Because I surely do not know.”
“What you did was harm a witch.”
“There’s no such thing as witches.”
“Wrong. Listen to me.” He squeezed the steering wheel. “I don’t think your mother is crazy. I think she probably can read minds.” He wasn’t sure how she was taking this. Not as bad as she could be, but she wasn’t sitting there agreeing with him, either. “She couldn’t read your mind because you’re a resistant.”
“A what?”
“Resistant. To magic. And trust me, what you did back there was magic. For all I know, that witch will die from what you did. It’s bad even if she doesn’t. We’re not allowed to harm the magekind. Nikodemus can’t afford for anything or anyone to screw things up for him. He’d be within his rights to sanction you for what happened.”
“What’s a sanction?”
He looked at Paisley. “It’s what we call it when someone needs to be dead.”
CHAPTER 15
Iskander stopped in Novato, in Marin County, to stock up on supplies at a supermarket. Paisley came along, which he would have insisted on in any case. He wasn’t going to leave her unprotected. She didn’t say anything while they walked into the store, and he didn’t know whether to be worried or relieved. So far she hadn’t demanded any of the answers she deserved except for, “Where are we going?”
They were heading north into Sonoma County to the farmhouse where he used to live. In the store, she pushed the grocery cart while he dumped in food. Every so often, she looked at his selections and put them back when she thought he wouldn’t notice. She threw in plenty of the fruits and vegetables she stocked in the house and tried to get him to eat instead of pizza or leftover takeout, but she also cleaned the store out of Swiss chocolate and loaded up with a bunch of other cooking supplies he wouldn’t have known to buy.
When they got to his favorite aisle, the cookies and chips, she didn’t make the turn. He shot out a hand and bodily pulled the cart left. She pulled back, but he was stronger and forced the left turn. She planted her feet. “No way.”
“Yes.”
“This aisle is evil.”
He dragged the cart down the aisle and grabbed a bag of chips.
“Evil,” she said. “Pure evil. Trans fat. Carbs. Salt. Partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Chemicals you can’t even spell let alone pronounce. Don’t put that stuff in your body.”
“Evil tastes even better than chocolate.” Iskander tossed in another bag of Doritos and headed for the baked goods.
She gasped, laughing. “Blasphemer.”
“We should get doughnuts.” He was glad he could make her laugh. “Those little powered ones. I love those.”
“No. No. Absolutely not.” She jerked the cart backward so his doughnuts landed on the floor instead of in the cart. “I’ll make you doughnuts.”
He turned around and arched one eyebrow at her. “Powdered ones?”
“Yes, powdered ones.”
“Really? You’re not just saying that?”
She sighed. “Really. I will make you powdered doughnuts.”
“Awesome.”
They finished the shopping and got in line. He also won the argument about who was going to pay by refusing to notice her digging in her purse and being faster than her to take out his plastic. She, of course, did not have plastic with her. He handed over his and smirked at her. “I’d let you pay, cupcake, but you didn’t bring your block of ice.”
“You’re lucky, because I’d hit you with it.”
Damn, she was pretty when she smiled. “I love it when you threaten me. Do it some more.”
She made a face at him.
They put the groceries in the back of the truck. While he had the chance, he fished the driver’s-side window out of the well and duct taped it to the top of the door frame. “This is why you should never travel without duct tape.”
“That’s not enough tape,” she said. The weather was colder here than in the city, and she buttoned her peacoat against the chill.
He studied his handiwork. “Sure it is.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“This here is the AC.” He tapped the window with a knuckle. “If I put more tape on it, I’ll never get the window down when it’s hot. Not the normal way.”
She shivered. “Right now it’s cold.”
“It’s not much farther. We’ll be fine.” He opened the door and she slid in, scooting over to the passenger side.
She looked at him sideways while he started the truck. “Bet you a dollar that window falls.”
“Done.” He wiggled his fingers at her. “Show me the green, Paisley. I’m not taking plastic or IOUs from you.”
She rooted around in her purse and came up with three quarters, two dimes, and five pennies. “There. Now you know I’m good for it.”
“Sucker.”
The window stayed up for the twenty minutes they were on the freeway, but five minutes after they were on the back road, the duct tape failed. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at him. He pulled a crumpled dollar out of his pocket and handed it to her.
“Thank you very much.” She shoved the dollar into her jeans and made a show of buttoning her coat.
He stuck his elbow out the window and kept driving. Back roads meant street lighting was nonexistent except at rare intersections. He knew the way well enough that his lead foot wasn’t a problem even on these narrow, twisting roads in the hills between northern Marin County and southern Sonoma County. Before long, he turned the truck down the long rutted gravel driveway that led to the farmhouse. Paisley braced a hand on the dash.
He parked the truck in the barn and got out. Paisley did the same, stretching while she looked around. This was where his life with Fen had fallen apart. They’d moved here after Fen hooked up with Harsh, when the guy still believed he was a normal human doctor and was stashing his money in real estate that hadn’t yet gotten insanely overpriced. Harsh had come into his power here, with Iskander and Fen to get him through the confusion of the change.
For a while, things had gone well. Harsh was in the city a lot, but he came up whenever he had time off. Once in a while, Iskander and Fen had driven to the city to meet Harsh, but that was rare because back then neither he nor Fen dealt well with other kin or crowds of humans. Then Fen had betrayed them with Rasmus Kessler, and his life and Harsh’s had become a nightmare.
Not all the memories were bad, though. Nikodemus and Carson had saved his life at this house. In the driveway behind the house, he motioned to Paisle
y and tapped his chest. “Do you feel anything?”
She stayed where she was, on the gravel area between the barn and the house, hands shoved deep in her coat. In the dark, her hair was a shadow of its usual color. “No.”
“All right, then.” As they walked up the steps to the back porch, he resisted the urge to take her hand. He said, “Whoever Harsh got to look after the place is doing a good job.” The house had been recently painted, there were no cobwebs, and the yard was weed-free. In rural Sonoma County where native grasses could easily hit six feet high, that was an accomplishment. The proofing was solid and remained in place. He wondered who Harsh had found to take the dog.
He held up a hand. “Stay here until I say it’s okay to come in, all right?”
She nodded.
After dealing with the proofing inside the house, he hit the light switch. The lights came on. The first thing he noticed, besides the place being clean, was that all signs of Fen were gone. That had to be Harsh’s doing, from whenever he closed up the house after Nikodemus established himself at the Tiburon place. Harsh had just as much reason as Iskander to want to eradicate Fen from his life. She’d cost Harsh his freedom and the life he’d built for himself among humans. He appreciated the follow-through.
Farther in, his spine tingled, but he recognized that as a reaction to the magical residue of his now-long-ago encounter with Nikodemus and Carson. He’d been so close to giving in to the insanity, but instead he’d ended up severed from Fen and sworn to Nikodemus. Best two things ever to happen to him. He took a deep breath before he walked back to where Paisley waited, leaning against the porch railing. He motioned to her. “Come on in.”
“Nice place,” she said when they were in the living room. She looked around while she took off her coat. She was still wearing her work clothes, which consisted of black pants, chef’s jacket, and rubber-soled clogs. She looked good. “It’s cute.”
“Thanks.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll get the groceries.”
“I’ll help.” She help up a hand. “Don’t argue. Please.”
They put away the groceries, and when that was done, he said, “Can I borrow your phone? I have a couple of calls to make to find out where we stand. Then we’ll talk.”
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