My sigh of relief might have been silent, but no doubt Lucen had noticed my tension and the way it lifted. He returned a moment later.
“Don’t mope,” he said, taking away the empty bottle. “We are going to make this work.”
I forced a smile. “I hope so.”
“Yes, we will.” Lucen practically growled the last word. “Just as long as you stay away from humans.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I can’t restrict who your addicts are. You don’t get to restrict who I decide to sleep with on the side. If I do that at all.”
“You have a bad track record with humans. Also, you’re not human, so it’s not like you have so much more in common with them than with us. Also, again, polyamory isn’t a lifestyle with us. It is life, so I don’t have to worry about someone else trying to steal you away from me. That’s a lot less certain with humans. And four… Wait, am I up to four or five points now?”
“Four.”
“Fine. Four, most importantly, satyrs excel at sex. Trust me, after having been with me, you’ll never be content with a human again.”
“First you think you’re the most fascinating guy in the world, and now you’re a sex god? No self-confidence issues with you.”
“Why should I have any? I am amazing. Stick to satyrs. Plenty will be happy to help out, and none of them come with emotional baggage. We’ll both be happier. In fact, throw yourself at Devon again. He’s dying for it.”
“What?” Damn it. I could feel the blood rush to my cheeks. “I have never thrown myself at Devon.”
“Oh, no? I heard there was a time at Purgatory when you almost pulled his clothes off.”
He was laughing at me, which only made my blood hotter. “I was under the influence of drugs and magic. Doesn’t count. I would have thrown myself at a rocking chair if one had been nearby.”
“Wouldn’t have been nearly as satisfying, I bet.”
“This is the second time tonight that you’ve made light of me almost dying, you know.”
“Consider it revenge for you holding out on me about Gunthra. Besides, you turned a lovely shade of tomato. I think you have a crush on Devon.”
I glowered at him, wondering what sort of emotions of mine he was feeding on. Only I would have a boyfriend who was amused that I might be attracted to his best friend. “I’m a grown woman. I do not have crushes.”
“Then I stick to my original statement. You want to drag him to the floor and rip his clothes off. It’s okay. He’d enjoy it.”
I raised my middle finger at the idea, but for all my faking it, Lucen had to know he was skirting close to the truth by the way my blood pressure was up. “You’re satyrs. You do have that effect on even the most prudish of people.”
“Which is what you’re acting like. Just admit it. Have some quality naked time with Devon. Shag like rabbits. It’ll be good for all of us.”
Glaring at him, I slid off my stool. “Tell you what. I’ll consider it if you do something for me. I want to go on a date.”
That surprised the smirk right off his face. “You what?”
“A date. You know, what normal human people do? I’ll consider sexy, naked time with your satyr friends, embrace your licentious ways, if you’ll consider embracing some human ones. Dinner out and real conversation. I want something more than just tearing each other’s clothes off for a change.”
I must have stumped him because Lucen gave me a Gunthra-like, creepy, unblinking stare. “Okay, fine. A date. But I pick the place. It’s got to be somewhere pred-friendly, and you’ve got to be honest with me about future dealings with our enemies.”
“Fine.” I held out a hand.
He shook it. “Done. And we get to get naked afterward, right?”
“You’re hopeless.”
“I could invite Devon along.”
“Now I’m done.” Using work as an excuse, I kissed Lucen good night and went home, thankful that living alone meant I couldn’t embarrass myself in front of anyone else this evening.
If I’d known what my day was going to be like, I’d have actually gone to sleep last night like I’d told Lucen I was going to. Instead, I’d stayed up late, my thoughts drifting constantly to our conversation while I tried to read what might be the last ever Eric Marshall novel.
As such, I was tired again and in the perfect state to be blindsided.
“Do I want to know how you got the name of Eric Marshall’s lawyer?” Bridget asked, examining the paper I gave her.
“From his cell phone. Nothing sinister. We got kicked out by Eric’s brother before I could find the contract, but I thought the lawyer might be able to help.”
Bridget added the information about the lawyer to her case notes. “So you were snooping through Eric’s phone. That’s all.”
“In my capacity as a friend of his cousin’s. Not in any official Gryphon capacity that could get anyone in trouble. Brian told me I could, remember?”
Bridget shook her head. “Fine. I won’t ask any other questions.”
“Good. I take it this means I shouldn’t hand his phone over to you?”
Her brown eyes opened wide. “No, and I don’t even want to know you have it. I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”
“You know, you haven’t changed at all since the Academy.”
“Neither have you.” She smiled and spun her chair around. “I’m going to go call Mr. Marshall’s attorney and see if I can get us in to chat. That…” she pointed at me, “…will be in an official capacity.”
“I’d have just broken into his office and snooped through his files. Unofficially.”
She either laughed or choked on her diet soda. My guess would be choked. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”
Feeling useful—also unofficially—I returned to my desk with a spring in my step. Bridget had left me some tasks to do and some questions about what I knew of the goblins, and I figured I could grab a much-needed coffee from across the street and get to work on them. I could also brainstorm ways to get my hands on the information Gunthra wanted.
But someone was waiting for me at my desk. My feet faltered and my good mood evaporated like a puff of dragon smoke.
“Jessica, I see you’re here.” Tom Kassin’s smile was smugger than ever.
In my sleepy daze, I actually took a step back, feeling as though I’d been punched in the gut. He wasn’t supposed to be here. Olivia had told me he was in France.
My heart pounded against my rib cage like it was begging to break free and beat on Tom itself. At my sides, my hands curled into would-be fists. “Yes, I’m back. No thanks to you. Go away.”
“I was hoping your presence here meant you’d rethought your position.” Tom’s accent had confused me at first—part Southern twang, part unidentifiable British. It sounded stronger than ever with both geographical regions right now. Like he’d been honing it just to irritate me. “Apologizing for your outburst seems unlikely, but I do hope we can be colleagues.”
“Not a chance in hell.”
“Unfortunately, it might come to that.”
I closed my eyes briefly and pushed by him. “Back to your end-of-the-world shit?”
“It’s not shit. It’s real and it concerns you.”
“No. What concerns me is what you did to me, but I’m trying to overlook that so I can help a friend. That’s why I’m here. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Coffee. Must get that coffee. I needed to be alert so he couldn’t ambush me again.
I left for the elevator, and Tom followed. “I’ve been in meetings at World since we last spoke.”
“I don’t think ‘spoke’ is the right word.”
“You don’t know how your existence and your gifts have shaken things up. There is a lot you need to know. It’s why I came back yesterday.”
Yesterday? He came back to Boston th
e same day that I came back to the Gryphons? Coincidence could bite me.
The elevator arrived, and Tom entered on my heels, a short, blond shadow.
“I know all I need to know,” I told him, “which is more than I can say for Director Lee. She’s extremely curious about you and your interest in me, so if you don’t want me yelling it to the heavens, you should leave me alone.”
“Nice try, but I don’t believe you have any desire for the director—or anyone else—to discover the full extent of what you are and what you can do.”
“I’d risk it.” But that was a lie, and Tom didn’t need to be a misery-sucking, quasi-satyr freak to detect it. “Don’t think you’re so clever. You don’t know the full extent of what I can do either.”
Brilliant, because now that I’d told him… I silently cursed my tendency to run off at the mouth when I got angry.
I stormed out of the elevator, thankful that Tom kept silent while we strode through the busy lobby. As soon as I pushed open the doors though, and the building’s A/C gave way to hot summer air, he started up again.
“If you won’t cooperate, Jessica, I’ve been authorized to make you cooperate. But I’d rather it not come to that.”
I paused at the bottom of the steps. “What are you going to do? Arrest me? Isn’t it bad enough that your people worked serious magic on me without my knowledge? Do they think they own me too? And why are you following me? Don’t you have other things to do?”
“If I don’t follow you, I won’t get to speak to you. And no, I don’t. This is what I was sent here to do.”
Peachy. World Headquarters or the Brotherhood or both had sent him to Boston to stalk me. Since that was the case, I gave up.
Tom crossed the street with me and entered the coffee shop. “To answer your other question, we don’t pretend to own you. But I have been tasked with the important job of making you see the light, of making you understand what’s coming and why we created you. You’re not stupid, Jessica. Nor are you devoid of any curiosity. How bad can it be to hear me out? Hate me, if you like, although I had nothing to do with turning you into what you are. But listen. You returned to work for a friend? Listen for your friend’s sake.”
“Why? What’s going to happen to my friend?”
“The same thing that’s going to happen to everyone unless we can stop it.”
I breathed deeply to control my frustration and inhaled the lovely coffee aroma. It alone didn’t wake me up, but it was soothing. As I calmed down, an idea came to me. Toying with it in my head, I placed my order.
Tom waited by the door. I took my time sprinkling cinnamon on my foamed milk, and when I was certain I had my best move, I returned to him. “I’ll make you a deal. You have some information I’m very interested in seeing. If you let me read it, I’ll hear you out.”
Tom regarded me suspiciously. “What sort of information do you want?”
“When we first talked, you told me you were here investigating the furies. I’m curious about that, seeing as I’m the person they framed for murder. I’d like to see those files, if you actually have them.”
He pushed open the door and didn’t say anything until we’d crossed the street once more. “I was investigating the furies, true, although that investigation has been put aside temporarily. I’m not sure there is anything in those files that would interest you.”
“I’d like to be the one to determine that.”
Although Tom must have sported some serious charms that dulled my ability to feed on his emotions, his warm chocolaty suspicion was strong enough for me to notice. Yet he nodded. “I don’t see why that should be a problem. I’ll share the information I have on them, and you’ll devote some time to learning about the magi’s prophecy.”
“Deal.” I sipped my coffee, wondering how many deals with the devil I could make in the space of two days.
Still, I’d known there would be a price to pay to Gunthra, and since Tom wasn’t going to leave me alone, in a way, my plan was kind of genius. Or, at the very least, convenient.
“Let’s go to my office,” Tom said, holding open the door for me. “I’ll get you the files, and we can talk.”
I hid my grimace behind my coffee cup. I wasn’t ready to start this crap today. Fortunately, my phone buzzed with a text, saving me from an immediate need for excuses. “I can’t now. Bridget got us an appointment with a busy lawyer, and we’re leaving ASAP.”
I held the phone up for him as proof because he looked like he needed convincing.
“I’ll be here when you get back.” With that, Tom walked away.
No doubt he would be.
Chapter Eight
Getting to Eric’s lawyer’s office required a drive to New Hampshire. Frankly, after three days in a row of it, I was getting tired of this stretch of I-95.
“He couldn’t do this over the phone?” I grumbled as I got out of the car.
Bridget peeled off her sunglasses as we entered the office lobby. “He refused to discuss client issues over the phone with anyone who wasn’t that client.”
To add insult to injury, or annoyance to irritation as might be more accurate, Eric’s lawyer kept us waiting for an additional twenty minutes even though we’d arrived exactly on time. When a secretary finally ushered us into the guy’s cramped office, I was daydreaming of letting loose a salamander in the building.
Eric’s lawyer was an older man with just the right amount of gray around his temples and wrinkles around his eyes to fulfill every lawyer stereotype I could dredge up. For Eric, he’d have made a perfect stock character, which is what critics usually accused him of writing.
He shook hands with both of us, then gestured for us to take the two chairs in front of his desk. “Your paperwork arrived right before you did. I needed to review it and make sure all the legalities were in order. Protecting client confidentiality is of utmost importance to us. You understand.”
“We do, of course,” Bridget said, and I decided I’d better let her do the talking because I wasn’t as good at faking politeness. “But time is also important if we’re going to have any chance of getting Mr. Marshall’s soul back to him before it’s too late.”
The lawyer folded his hands. “I understand, and I’ve had the pleasure of working for Mr. Marshall for years. Anything I can do to help, I will.”
Not making us drive up here would have been a start, I thought, but I bit my tongue.
If I had to guess based on her bitter impatience, Bridget was thinking the same. “We were hoping you might have a copy of Mr. Marshall’s contract with the goblin in question. That would be the simplest and quickest way to solve the problem.”
The lawyer’s shoulders sagged slightly. “Unfortunately, I don’t. Mr. Marshall hadn’t sent it to me yet.”
“Yet?” Bridget and I both leaned forward. “So it was a recent contract?”
“No, not to my knowledge. I meant Mr. Marshall and I had a meeting scheduled for this week to discuss it. I believe the contract itself is several years old.”
Hope deflated in my chest. We’d assumed as much, but for a brief second, I’d thought we might be wrong. That would have meant we had a longer timetable.
“What were you planning on discussing about it?” Bridget asked.
The lawyer raised a bushy, graying eyebrow. “Is that pertinent to the case?”
“Anything could be pertinent at this point. Anything could be a clue that points us toward the goblin.”
I didn’t see how the discussion was likely to matter, and clearly, neither did Eric’s lawyer, but he shrugged it off. To most people, the Gryphons worked in mysterious ways, and maybe this guy was one of those who put unwarranted faith in them.
“Mr. Marshall was interested in seeing whether there was a way to break the contract. Such proceedings are not my area of expertise, but I was going to take an initial look
at it for him and recommend a friend for him to talk to.”
Bridget’s expression was impassive, but her cool surprise mirrored my own. I couldn’t see how this information would help track down the goblin, but at last things became a little clearer. We had a motive.
Bridget spoke my thoughts out loud as we got back in the car a short time later. “If the goblin knew Marshall was trying to break his contract, he might have been worried Eric would be successful. It’s not as though Marshall couldn’t afford to hire the best lawyer to have a crack at it.”
“And even if Eric wasn’t going to be successful, the goblin could have done it out of revenge.”
Bridget turned out of the parking lot, chewing on her lip. “It would be a stupid move to make for revenge. For the average person, the attack might not have been brought to our attention, but for a semi-public figure like Marshall, the goblin should have expected we’d be alerted.”
“Possibly. But to be fair, if Marshall hadn’t been in a very public place when the attack happened, we might not have known it was an attack at all. People would simply have assumed Marshall’s master let him become a ghoul. And besides, we haven’t found the goblin. They might yet get away with it.” I yawned. Coffee was no longer doing it. I needed a nap. “Preds aren’t any smarter than humans. I can definitely see a vengeful pred acting without thinking.”
“No, they aren’t smarter, true. And also like humans, the best way to shake information out of them is to catch them off-guard.” Bridget handed me her phone. “Brian’s number is in there. Call him for me and tell him I want backup to be ready to meet us when we get to Boston.”
Warily, I opened her contact list. “What do we need backup for?”
“We’re going to question the goblin’s Dom. I wanted to avoid this, if possible, but we don’t have the contract or much time left. There’s a decent chance she’ll know who the goblin is.”
“We need…?” Backup for this? I bit my tongue. No point in letting Bridget know that I thought taking a group into Shadowtown to question one goblin was overkill.
Definitely no point in letting her know I’d met Gunthra by myself yesterday.
[M__M 03] Misery Loves Company Page 8
