Desperation, a single drop, threatened to leak past his resolve. He forced himself to keep his voice even. “Please. I’ll wait until you have a break.”
She pressed a hand to her forehead.
He stood, his gut churning. What the hell is going on here? “Are you all right?”
The graying bartender barreled through the swinging door. Moving his bulk between Dev and Meda, he folded his arms across his chest. “You hassling her?” he barked.
Meda shook her head. “No. It’s fine. He was just leaving.” She met his eyes again. This time they were cool, unreadable.
In one swift move, he slid the contents of his pocket beneath the fold of bills sitting on the bar.
He had no idea why she was lying to him.
But he was going to find out.
Just not right now. Bobbing his head, Dev strode toward the door he’d come in. She didn’t want his concern, nor would he offer it. It would only make things worse. He wasn’t going to help himself any by getting thrown out of the place. Time to regroup.
He turned, his hand on the door. To satisfy himself his abilities were indeed in working order, he tuned into the guy who’d been sitting next to him the entire time, a plump, middle-aged sort.
Poor bastard. Needs to get laid.
Dev raised an eyebrow. Oh yeah, he could still read Vistas all right. Disgusted, he opened the door and trudged back into July in New York City. Not a drop of rain had fallen. Humidity had only tightened its chokehold on the city.
So far, nothing about this visit had gone as he’d expected. His charms had fallen flat. Meda clearly despised him, perhaps even feared him. Already a half a day gone and he hadn’t learned a thing. And why the hell couldn’t he read her Vista? It seemed the one surefire way he might’ve had to gain her trust was no longer an option.
She’d shut him down, cold. He hadn’t even had the opportunity to ask her a single thing about her father’s research. Yet. Setting his jaw, he marched toward his bike. Even as limited as his time was in the human realm, he had to resign himself to being patient. Not his strong suit. But he had more than one trick up his sleeve. He glared in the general direction of the bar. ‘Mysterious—and sexy—Meda’ wasn’t rid of him. Not by a long shot.
A pang of guilt speared him. The way she looked at me.
Like she’d seen a ghost. He’d had some kind of effect on her all right. Not the one he’d have liked. And he had every intention of finding out what it was.
Find strength in your weakness.
Don’t take more than you give.
The other two conditions Mataeus had mandated flitted through his mind. Maybe, just maybe, somewhere in the Watchers’ riddled manner of speaking, he could find some answers.
Sighing, he pulled his Smartphone from his jacket and tapped the screen. He spent the next twenty minutes sitting on his bike, the heat baking him from the inside out, reading with interest the information Curtis had sent him.
Closing the email, he texted Curtis. Need you to do something for me. In as few words as possible, he outlined his plan. They needed to stay a step ahead at all times.
He pocketed the phone and fired up his bike.
The sky weighed overhead, bruised, menacing.
And the air thickened, stifling him.
With cobwebs.
They permeated the space around him. Bracing himself, he focused, readied himself for attack.
Minutes passed.
His gut tightened. It was the second time today he’d felt a tremor of foreboding. Nothing full blown. But he hadn’t seen a single Betrayer. Like last time, he silently dared them to come for him. He’d waited for an opportunity.
Was this it?
As quickly as it’d come, it dissipated.
His breath coming in pants, he wiped sweat from his brow that had nothing to do with the temperature.
Maybe he’d gotten rusty, spending three months in the Watchers’ realm. Was it possible he’d overestimated the Betrayers, just this once?
He grimaced. Second-guessing himself wasn’t the way he rolled. Never had been. And he wasn’t about to start now.
Glaring in the direction of MJ’s, Dev gunned his bike and sped down the city street.
CHAPTER 5
Musko jerked a thumb in the direction Dev had gone. “What’s with him?”
Meda shrugged, unwilling to discuss it. “You know the city in the summer. I’m fine.” Knowing he didn’t believe her, she lowered her gaze.
And blinked rapidly at what sat on the bar. Quickly, she palmed it, slid it inside her pocket.
Worry colored Musko’s expression. “You want to tell me what the hell’s going on, chér?”
“When I know, I will.” It was the best she could do right now.
“Did you stop to have any lunch?”
She opened her mouth, prepared to lie. Instead she blurted, “No.”
“That’s what I thought. Go eat something.” He raised an eyebrow. “You’ve haven’t been yourself since this morning.”
She nodded, knowing he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Retreating to the kitchen, she poured herself a glass of water. Forced herself to eat a few apple slices. Her cold shoulder routine shut down most of the men who hit on her. Why had she let him shake her? Daily, she dealt with drunks and jerks and tourists and everything in between.
But he was no tourist.
Setting her glass on the stainless prep counter, she attempted a cleansing breath to no avail. Bleach scented the air. A fan whirred above the stove, mirroring the hum in her brain. She wiped her brow and slipped her hand inside her pocket.
Slowly, she withdrew the stone, let it dangle between her fingers from the thin strap of leather securing it. Green. The color of spring grass. Rough edges, imperfect.
Same as the one her pushy visitor had been wearing around his neck.
She knew her stones. It wasn’t amethyst, jade, emerald, or calcite. Nor any other she was familiar with. He’d left it sitting on the bar, along with a stack of bills he hadn’t bothered to take.
For her. She was sure of it. Why?
There was no question. This man, Dev, was the source of the energy that’d slammed into her this morning like a storm surge into a sea wall. She’d known the second he’d walked through the door, been painfully aware of every inch of him in her bar. And it’d taken all the strength she possessed to weather whatever brand he was packing.
Not only was it unlike any she’d ever felt, she’d gotten . . . nothing from him.
No nagging impressions demanding her attention. And it wasn’t the same as it’d been with Jerry. Maybe, she guessed, this was how normal people felt.
It terrified her.
And fascinated her.
As did her unwelcome visitor.
Dev.
He’d walked in as if he owned the place, waving his bravado like a flag. Everything about him screamed ‘defiant,’ from the square of his jaw to the way he wore his jeans, slung low on his hips. His barrel-sized biceps strained for freedom beneath the short sleeves of his T-shirt. An undeniable charm whitewashed his boldness, something a more inexperienced woman might be sucked in by.
Not her.
More powerful than his charms or defiance were his eyes, bright with intelligence and determination, glittering as green as the stone in her hand.
Eyes that held secrets.
Her pulse drummed in her ears. She had a lifetime’s worth of experience with energies of all stripes—her own and everyone else’s. She wasn’t foolish enough to believe something this powerful would simply stop or disappear. Unique and powerful, it would find its own balance, its own way. And Dev’s energy was hell bent. As, she suspected, was he.
This she knew without aid of the ability th
at’d been bestowed upon her.
She believed utterly in fate, that wasting energy on fighting it was both foolish and disrespectful. She’d always thought herself willing and able to follow that belief.
Until today.
Not when he did things to her that no man ever had, simply by being in the same room.
How could she be expected to bow to fate’s whims?
And in essence, to him?
She’d grown fond of the walls she’d erected strategically over a period of years, against things best left locked away. Unconsciously, she rubbed a finger across the scar on her jaw. She’d be damned if anyone would waltz in here and knock them down without a fight.
What the hell could he possibly have to talk to me about?
A part of her suspected she already knew and thus demanded she find out. Another wanted to run, far and fast.
But Meda hadn’t been raised to run.
And yet, wasn’t that precisely what she’d been doing for the last three years? She could almost hear her father scolding her.
She balled her hands into fists. This would be different. By taking a stand. Protecting what was hers.
She’d rail against it, until the last possible moment.
Dev Geary would get what he came for.
But he would do it on her terms.
Biting her lip, she scraped the hair away from the back of her neck and stared out the window at clouds gathering steam, threatening the city’s horizon.
The storm the news had been predicting was coming in with a vengeance.
CHAPTER 6
In an alley adjacent Pittsburgh’s Market Square, Abel leaned against an aging brick building converted into a restaurant and tapped a finger against his meticulously trimmed goatee. His forehead, exposed by his receding hairline, took the brunt of the late day sun. Humidity clung, wilting plants and people alike, but he shivered inside his sweater.
Dev was back.
Haenus’ field test for the Similitude.
It’d worked. He’d drained him. Killed him.
The blitzkrieg of energy as he’d reentered the realm might’ve rocked a lesser leader. He and his brood had been victims of the Watchers’ mysterious ways before, and he made it a priority to prepare them, physically and mentally, for the unexpected.
There could only be one reason the Watchers had returned Dev to the human realm. To gain knowledge about the Similitude.
The gods would have to raise Haenus before he’d allow that to happen.
However, he recognized an opportunity when he saw one—namely, that the Watcher’s presence might offer an opportunity to discover how Libby Klink thwarted Haenus.
A mongrel.
Once he knew what she’d done, he would know if, and how, they could pursue the ultimate quest.
Controlling the Vitality quarry in the Watchers’ realm.
Dominating Keepers and humans.
Abel frowned at his ringing Smartphone—a necessary evil since he didn’t trust communications, brood or otherwise, at the moment. Eleven hours had passed since he’d sent Kemp and Jordan to New York. Time for an update. Tapping the screen, he held it to his ear. “Kemp. Go ahead.”
“He just left a bar outside Chinatown. From what Jordan overheard, it sounds like he came specifically to make contact with its owner. Mia Gray.”
Doubly pleased, he scuffed the blacktop with one of his steel toe Oxfords. A smile teased his lips. “It’s still working.”
Kemp fell silent a moment. “Yes. Like before, not consistently. There’s downtime.”
Abel had expected as much. “How’s Jordan holding up?” It wouldn’t do for a brood master not to inquire about a member’s well-being. Especially since she was his brother’s girl.
“This is the longest we’ve ever gone. I’m not sure how it’s going to affect her.”
“She’s strong. I know this is hard. It’s for the betterment of the brood. You know that.” He forced himself to speak gently, reminding himself that Kemp’s loyalty often trumped his weaknesses. Weaknesses he would continue to monitor. “I have to wonder. Why would a Watcher who’d just crossed realms come to see a human?”
“Good question. I’m sending you what I’ve got so far on this Mia Gray.”
“Excellent. I’ll get Magpie on it. Stay with him and report back.”
“I will.”
“You will . . . what?”
Kemp hesitated, long enough to raise his brood master’s hackles. “I will, Master.”
Abel ended the call and slid the phone into the pocket of his cargo pants, then secured the hair at the nape of his neck into a nub of a ponytail. Truth be told, he took a measure of enjoyment in reminding those under him who the brood master was now.
Me. Not Haenus.
However, requiring the salutation had a higher purpose. Instilling discipline. He’d been reared on it, believed in it absolutely, and knew without it, they would fail.
As they had before.
Quickly, he made use of the hand sanitizer he was never without. This time would be different, with him at the helm. He and his brood had waited, suffered, and invested too much, for too long.
In the desperate days and weeks after Haenus died, when Keeper Compulsions were few, he knew hunger yet again.
They’d survived. Because of him. During that time, he’d tested and retested, and strengthened them with a Similitude stone rendered virtually useless. Made a discovery that would change the way the Betrayers could do business, as it were.
And in the past three months, it’d become clear to him why they’d failed.
And because of that mongrel, what he needed to do to fix it.
He spotted Magpie in the crowd, and had only to raise a hand for her to join him. Quietly, purposefully, she moved toward him. Her skirt, in all its confusing layers and lengths, wrapped around the tall leanness of her body, grazing the tops of her combat boots. His Goth gypsy. Always, her Smartphone was a permanent fixture in one hand, her fingers nimble and busy, as adept at making an electronic device do her bidding as she was at pleasuring him.
She reached his side and tilted her face to his, her choppy mane matching the uneven hem of her skirt. The piercings in her lip and left eyebrow glinted silver in the sun. Tattoos graced her forearms, her fingers, and her left thigh. A few she’d inked herself, including his name.
“Did you talk to Kemp? What did they find out? What do you think he’s doing in New York?” Magpie’s words tumbled out, one over the other. “Why do you think he’s back? Do you think he’s going to come after us? Are Kemp and Jordan okay? Why did they go there? Won’t they be in danger? They can’t use the Similitude to drain anyone. We still don’t know how Libby stopped Haenus. Do we?”
Abel waited, as he’d done since they were children, until she ran out of steam. Selective answers were the way to handle Magpie. That, and a carefully raised eyebrow did the trick. She knew him, his moods, his gestures. He couldn’t begrudge her worry over Jordan. Since the girl had been orphaned, Magpie had become like a mother to her.
“There’s always a risk. I wouldn’t have sent them, especially her, if I didn’t think she could handle it. You know that.” At six-four he towered over her, and he extended a hand to pat her cheek. Her eyes, keen and hungry for details, softened, shone with hope, as he expected they would.
The gods knew he’d never purposely done anything to encourage that hope, but he’d learned to fan those flames at opportune moments, and Magpie was loyal as a pup. He trusted her, and he trusted few. He could count on her in the hard times, the lean times. He wasn’t mate material, and as far as he was concerned, neither was she. Her odd, witchy ways and looks sealed that deal. But the girl was in possession of computer geekery smarts, the likes of which he’d vet against any human�
�s microprocessor. Her abilities continued to serve the brood, and him, well.
Plus, she scratched his itch when he wanted it. She was clean and willing and she never complained. He could’ve had his pick of the younger, firmer brood females, but always, more pressing matters prevailed, and sleeping around wasn’t one of them. That there would never be any children between them was a concern she’d voiced only twice. He figured a man could do worse.
They ambled along the sidewalk in deference to the people on a mission to get the hell out of work and back home so they could do the exact same thing again in twelve hours.
Sighing in disgust at the death knell of humans’ daily routines, they crossed the street, yards from the opportunity Magpie had scouted, and he’d orchestrated. The policeman, the woman, and the mugger did what they did: shouted, cried; accused one another and passersby. His nostrils quivering, he absorbed the waft of Vitality energy, berating himself for needing it, wanting it. Then he cursed the Keeper who’d performed yet another good deed.
Dark energy swirled around the humans, thick and heady. Breathing deep, he fed, absorbing the waves in big greedy gulps. The blackness, along with the Vitality, energized his every cell. Minutes passed. Taking one mighty last gulp, he signaled to Magpie to begin feeding.
To his way of thinking, if he was healthy he could better take care of the brood. And if, when they were hungry they happened to be more pliable, so much the better for him.
Again, it came down to discipline.
It’d worked for his father.
And now, for him.
Besides, he knew one thing. He’d never go hungry again. He’d spent too many long, miserable years doing precisely that.
With that single thought, Abel’s senses lurched in awareness. At what had been. And what might be coming.
This was likely to be the last of the Compulsions for a while, if he’d read the signs correctly.
The Watcher (Crossing Realms Book 2) Page 4
