“We’ll check it out,” Nate promised.
“And remind Lucius there’s still one more artifact out there. If we can—”
“Go.” Sasha pushed him toward the door. “Turn it off for a few hours. We’ve got this, and you’ll be useless until you recharge.”
This was part of being a member of a team, he realized suddenly—not just having the others trust him, but trusting them in return. Which he hadn’t done before. He nodded slowly, letting the others see that he got it. “Okay. Thanks.”
Sasha followed him to the residential wing, ostensibly to make sure Reese’s condition stayed stable but also, he suspected, to call for help if he went down flat on his face. He stayed on his feet, but just barely, hesitating at his own door and then continuing down the hall to the apartment Reese had claimed for herself.
Their suites had the same footprint, with a main room, small attached kitchen, two blocky bedrooms and one bath, but she had given hers more character in a handful of days than he had in more than a year. She would probably call the maps tacked to the wall “research” and the huge bulletin board and the smaller wipe board “practical necessities,” but to him they were, quite simply, Reese. So, too, was the fat pottery jar in the kitchen, which he would lay money contained cookies. The air was lightly tinted with a spicy floral scent he suspected was her chosen shampoo—as opposed to the No-Tell Motel’s finest they had been sporting the past few days—and a hint of coffee.
He carried Reese into the main bedroom. There was a pile of research books on the nightstand, a pair of silver-toed cowboy boots in the corner, and a trio of potted cactuses on the windowsill. One was blooming.
“Do you want me to get her cleaned up and changed?” Sasha asked from the doorway. But what she was really asking was: Do you want to take care of her yourself? How close are the two of you?
“Yeah,” he said. “Thanks.” Because he didn’t dare put his hands on her while his defenses were shot.
So he set her down on the bed and retreated to the main room to raid a kitchen that was high on carbs, low on protein. She had Diet Mountain Dew, though, which surprised him because it had been his drink, not hers.
A few minutes later, Sasha appeared in the bedroom doorway. “All set. And her vitals are looking good.” As she crossed the main room, headed for the hallway, she shot a look at the half-eaten cookie in his hand. “I’ll have the winikin bring you some protein.”
“I’d appreciate it. Carlos and Tomas know what I like.”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know how a guy with amplified senses can eat what you do.”
“It’s a guy thing?”
“It’s a you thing.” But her expression softened, just a hint. “Get some rest, Mendez. You did good back there with her.”
“So did you. I owe you one.” He could have left it at that, but when she made an “I’ll take off now” gesture, he said, “So, we’re cool? You and me, I mean?”
He kept it vague so she could duck if she wanted. But she winced. “Shit. Sorry. I thought I was hiding it.”
“I’m sensitive to vibes. And the one between you and me has always been off.”
She hesitated, then nodded. “At first I told myself it was because you remind me of Michael when I first met him, back before he got control of the death magic. But that’s not it, really. It′s . . .” She shrugged apologetically. “To be honest, you make me a little nervous. Not in an ‘I’m in danger’ sense, but in a ‘this guy is going to shake things up’ kind of way.” Crossing to him, she stretched up to squeeze his shoulder. It was probably the first spontaneous reach-out between them. “Seeing you with her . . . it helps.”
It shouldn’t, he thought but didn’t say, because a cold, hard knot had formed in his gut at her words . . . because Sasha was Strike and Anna’s little sister, and prescience ran in the royal jaguar bloodline. “Are you a seer?”
“Gods, no. My talent is tough enough to manage, I wouldn’t want to be an itza’at. I’ll leave that to . . .” She trailed off, then shook her head. “No. You just weirded me out, probably because all I knew about you beforehand was that you’d been in jail and your winikin disappeared right around the time you got out.”
He relaxed a little. “My reputation precedes me.” It wasn’t a vision, then. Nothing he needed to worry about.
“I’m over it. And I’m sorry that I’ve been flinchy around you.”
“Don’t be. I’m a scary guy.”
“Terrifying. So much so that I’m leaving you here with Reese, who I consider a friend.” She patted his shoulder. “Eat. Rest. And don’t stay uplinked for too long. There’s too much shit going down for you to be drained hollow.”
It was a given that he would be linking with Reese to feed her as much energy as he could. She was over the worst of the makol poisoning, and Sasha’s healing had helped close the wounds on her shoulder and lower back, but she would need his help to recover. The magi could make do with IVs of saline and glucose; humans needed more. He shrugged. “She can have whatever she needs from me.”
“Don’t drain yourself,” she repeated. “King’s orders.” But they both knew that Dez would make the call himself. Although the ancient writs placed the needs of the gods, the king, and the end-time war far above those of lovers and friends, the modern magi tended to put their mates and families first, starting with Strike’s decision to break the thirteenth prophecy to save Leah. And although Reese wasn’t Dez’s mate, she was his lover. Or at least she had been, for one perfect night.
Chest tightening, he took Sasha’s hand, gave it a squeeze. “Thanks for being there tonight. If you hadn’t been . . . well. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Now get some rest.”
Later, showered, changed, and fed, Dez lay down beside Reese in a darkness that was lit by outdoor floods, warning that all was not well at Skywatch. He had his .44 on the nightstand, an autopistol on the floor, and felt the subsensory hum that said the others were sacrificing blood to strengthen the ward surrounding the compound. He and Reese were safer in the mansion than they would be outside, he told himself. And that would have to be good enough.
When he took her hand and folded it into his, aligning his palm scar with the scabbed-over slash on hers to form a touch-link that let his energy wash into her, she shifted and turned toward him, murmuring, “That helps. Don’t let go.”
“I won’t.” He tightened his grip. But as he let her warmth seep into him and relax him one muscle group at a time, he found himself thinking that he hadn’t planned to let go of her the last time, either. Yet he had. As he went under, he heard himself whisper, as he had done to bring her back, “Think about Montana . . .”
And he slipped into a dream, taking her warmth with him.
After nearly an hour zigzagging through the tunnels and backtracking to make sure the Cobras weren’t still after them, Mendez led the girl to his current flop: a one-roomer in a condemned apartment building that had been boarded up a couple of years ago and scheduled for demolition, but had then apparently been forgotten by the wrecking ball.
Squatting rights were held by a foul-mouthed weasel of a man, nearly albino, who ran girls, drugs, and whatever-the-fuck else out of the first floor, and “rented” the other rooms. Dez wouldn’t be able to make rent another week unless he did something drastic—which didn’t matter because the Cobras would be gunning for his ass now. But he was probably okay there for the night, at least. Or rather, they would be okay. Because suddenly it wasn’t just him anymore.
In the light of the smoky lantern he had made out of an old soup can and fueled with leftover cooking grease that smelled like apples this week, the girl was thin and dirty, but he could see why she had caught Hood’s eye. She couldn’t be more than sixteen—maybe even less. Her chin was narrow and pointed, her wide-set eyes an interesting shade of rusty amber. And the dirt and ragged denim couldn’t hide her long curves and the high bumps of her breasts. He didn’t know what had drawn him toward Warehouse Seve
nteen that afternoon, or why he’d gone toward the sounds of a fight when he normally would’ve headed the other way, but he knew one thing for certain: She wouldn’t last much longer on the streets without someone looking out for her.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
She opened her mouth, hesitated, and then said, “Reese Montana.”
He snorted. “No, it’s not.” For one, she had stalled. For another, it sounded made up. Then again, “Snake Mendez” wasn’t exactly a winner in that department.
“It is now,” she said.
That he got. Most of the street rats he knew had run away from more than just a location, and many of them changed their names to avoid being scooped back up.
Something mean and nasty worked its way through him at the suspicion of what she was running from. For a mid-upper-class suburban kid—he got that from the way she talked and the oldest layer of ragged clothing—without an obvious attitude or drug problem to be on the streets like this . . . yeah. A hundred bucks said there had been a family member with grabby hands. He was going with that over outright beat-you-’til-you-bleed because she didn’t have that flinch-when-touched response. He should know.
It looked like she had taken—or at the very least ducked—a few punches recently though. She was squared off opposite him, ready to run or fight at a second’s notice. Her body vibrated, strung tight as shit, and with good reason. He had gotten her away from Hood and his fanged freaks, but for all she knew, he was just looking for some privacy.
“You’ll be safe here,” he said for like the fifth time. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
She didn’t say anything. Just looked at him.
What the hell was he going to do with her? Teach her a few things and send her away? Keep her around? “You hungry?” he said when the silence got weird.
Her stomach grumbled in answer.
He grinned, then took a risk by turning his back on her to crouch and pull up the loose floorboard to reveal his food stash, which was heavy on the salt and protein his body craved, with some other randoms because a guy had to grab what he could get. “I’ve got pepperoni, mixed nuts, nachos, and this chipped-beef jerky crap. It tastes like cardboard and takes forever to chew, but it’ll keep you going.” When he looked up, though, he saw that she had crept toward him, her eyes locked on the edge of a bright orange wrapper. One of the randoms. He pulled it out, looked from it to her and back again. “Reese’s, huh?”
She nodded slowly, then lifted her eyes to his. They packed even more of a punch up close, sucking him in and making him suddenly all too aware of his body, and hers. She’s just a kid, asshole. Hands off.
A sad smile quirked the corners of her mouth. “My dad used to get them for me.” Then she pressed her lips together, like she wished she hadn’t said even that much.
He nodded, filing the info. The father hadn’t been the problem then. Stepfather? Uncle? Fucker. Even after everything that he’d seen and done—or fought off—since he’d been on his own, it pissed his shit right off to imagine someone going after her like that. I’ll protect you, he thought. I won’t let anybody else hurt you. He would do it for the baby sister he hadn’t been able to save. And he would do it for her, for this whiskey-eyed kid whose street luck had run out the moment Hood got his eyes on her and picked her to be the next in the rolling cast of disposable “girlfriends” he used up and tossed aside.
He needed to play it low key, though. Didn’t want to scare her off. “So why Montana?” he asked over the open food stash. “Is that where you’re from?”
“No, it’s . . . it’s stupid.”
He wiggled the peanut butter cups, holding them just out of reach. “Why Montana?”
She scowled. “That’s blackmail.”
“Technically, I think it’s extortion.” But it had gotten her attention without scaring her. “Why Montana?”
Rolling her eyes, she said, “Because when I was a little kid, before the—well, before things got bad—I had this poster of Montana in my room, on the wall over my bed.” She held out her hand. “Pay up, Hannibal.”
Hannibal? Oh, quid pro quo. “Not yet,” he said. “What did you like about the poster?”
“It had these mountains in it, with a big blue sky, green trees, wide-open field, the works. There was a man and a woman riding double on a spotted horse, headed for the hills.” She was flushed but her eyes were defiant. “At the bottom it said ‘Escape to Montana.′ And if you laugh, I’ll break your nose.”
“No laughing.” He held up a hand. “Scout’s honor.”
Her eyes locked on the scar that ran along his lifeline. “You were a boy scout?”
“Nope.”
“Mendez, right?”
It was what Keban had called him—that and “boy” or “pussy,” depending—because he said he hadn’t earned his bloodline name yet, probably never would. “Yeah, it’s Mendez.” But then he surprised himself by saying, “You can call me Dez.”
“Dez,” she said it slowly, trying it out, as if she somehow knew he’d never used the nickname before. Then she nodded. “Okay, Dez. What’s the deal here?”
“Beats the hell out of me.” He held out the candy. “Earlier today, something told me to go into that warehouse even though I usually stay the hell out of Cobra business. Now, that same something is telling me we should stick together, watch each other’s backs, stay out of Hood’s way. That sort of thing.” Mentally, he added: get you your GED, a job, and up and out of this hellhole. Because she sure as shit didn’t belong down there in the stews.
She took the chocolate, but shot him a long look under lowered brows. “That’s it? Watch each other’s backs? Nothing else?”
His fingers tingled where they had brushed against hers, but he shook his head. “Not the way you’re thinking.”
Because although most of Keban’s “lessons” might’ve been cracked crocks of shit, a few that made sense had stuck. And one that had gelled on a gut level said a man didn’t take a mate until he had everything else under control.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
December 17
Solstice minus four days
After being cooped up in emergency confabs all morning, Sven was feeling seriously squirrelly. The news was bad and more bad: two more villages had been taken, and Lucius and the others hadn’t been able to pinpoint the fifth artifact, figure out what “dark lord” Iago planned to summon, or zone in on where the bastard was hiding or how he would attempt to set off the weapon now that he had at least four of the five pieces, maybe even the fifth. Reese was recovering, but slowly, and that had tied up Mendez, who refused to leave her for long. Strike was looking seriously ragged around the edges, and Nate and several of the others had been shooting Sven strange looks for the past couple of days, like they were afraid he was going to pass out again, or worse.
I’m not your problem, he had wanted to snarl at them, but kept that one to himself. He had been keeping lots of things to himself lately, including the headaches and the dragging fatigue. Sasha’s chu’ul magic hadn’t helped with the symptoms, so why bitch about them? For all he knew, they were in his head, just like the funky dreams he’d been having, where smells and sounds were amplified, his perceptions altered, and he awoke with a keen sense of loss, like he was missing something important.
Before, he would’ve taken one of the dune buggies out, or headed over to one of the nearby lakes and bummed a boat. Now, he prowled the halls of Skywatch, not sure what the hell he was looking for anymore. All he knew was that it wasn’t in the mansion.
“For gods’ sake, people, this isn’t just about JT,” Tomas’s raised voice caught his attention as he passed the winikin’s wing. “Sure, he let the delivery truck through, but can we really say none of us would’ve done the same thing? We shouldn’t be throwing blame around when the simple fact is that we’re struggling. And that’s unacceptable.”
Sven paused as JT retorted, “Let me guess what you’d consider acceptable . . . opening Jox�
�s letter and blindly accepting his choice.”
“Yes, that is exactly what I think we should do. We’re spending so much time trying to reach consensus that we’re not getting our shit done. Period.”
“Fine. So we vote in our own leader.”
“That’s not the way it works.”
Sven kept going. It was no secret that things were coming to a head with the winikin—if they didn’t make a change soon, Strike would make it for them. More, Sven had given Carlos a choice between telling Strike there were other surviving winikin out there, and JT knew how to find them, or having Sven do it. He couldn’t keep that from the king much longer; his fealty oath was already barking. Right now, though, the winikin’s problems weren’t his priority. Searching was. His head pounded in time with his heart as he prowled out to the garage, grabbed a set of keys to one of the older Jeeps, and hit the button to open the big doors at the end of the hangar-sized building.
He had to puzzle over the stick shift for a second, which just showed how tired and strung out he was; he’d been driving standards since he was twelve, booting the ranch truck around to fix fences, and . . . What was he doing again?
Right. Driving.
But instead, his thoughts scattering, he left the vehicle idling and headed through the open door into the dry warmth of the great outdoors. Yes, he thought. Yes. There was sunlight on his face and hot hardpan beneath his feet as he struck out, drawn onward.
He looped around the back of the mansion, past the pool and out to the picnic area where the fight had taken place. Someone had raked away the scuff marks and greasy ash piles, but a picnic table was missing and several of the closest cacao trees bore gouged-up bark, scorch marks, taped-up branches, and other repairs. Moving past them, he pushed into the cacao grove. The air turned instantly warmer, moister, becoming that of a rain forest. He halfway expected to hear parrots and monkeys overhead, but didn’t.
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