“No...”
“He’s after it too.”
Pru shook her head and gave a dramatic sigh that didn’t lose any of its seriousness with the millisecond time delay. “You two are terrible.”
“Can you look into who hired him?”
“I can try.” She reached across the screen, her arm cutting over the lamp to the side, and returned with a pad of paper and pen where she jotted down my request. Most days her memory was still good but part of her disorder affected cognitive function and there remained the chance that if she didn’t have a note, she might not remember. “Got it. Is he already there?”
“I imagine so.” And hope not. Even if his flight was delayed, or had transfers, or he got stuck in customs, surely he’d be at the caves by now. Yes, we competed and threw grenades at one another, but at the end of the day, he was my brother.
“Anything else while I’m at it?”
Oh, many, many things, and top of the list was Buttons. But there seemed too good a chance someone would hear that request so instead I shook my head. “Not at the moment.”
“Richard Moss called. Again.”
I groaned.
“He wants to take you out for dinner. I said you’re in Africa and probably contracted malaria so you aren’t available for a while.”
“Good woman. Where’s my Buttercup?”
Prudence raised her hand and pointed a manicured nail-tipped finger downward.
Hiding under the desk. Not a good sign. “Does no one else want to come talk to me?”
We waited but Em didn’t speak up or move.
Prudence made a show of looking around the room. “No one I can see.”
“Hmm.” I drew the word out dramatically and spoke a touch louder. “I’m sure there was someone else. How about Giles? Does he want to see me?”
“I think he’s taking a nap.”
“Oh, well.” I gave a loud, dramatic yawn. “I guess I’ll be going.”
“That’s probably best,” Pru agreed. “Hopefully you can call back in a few days.”
“Probably a few weeks at the earliest—”
Very slowly a head of dark brown hair crept up from behind the desk off to the corner of the screen and Emaleth’s big owl eyes peered at me. She paused there, fingers clasping the edge of the desk.
My heart seized, emotion clawing at my chest. I bit at my bottom lip for a moment until I was certain I could speak without shattering my calm. “Hello there, little miss. Glad you could join us.”
Not taking her eyes from the screen, she shifted sideways until she was in front of Pru, who lifted her to sit on her lap. “Hi, Mommy.”
“Why were you hiding under the desk?”
Her shoulders deflated and she looked away.
“She was suspended,” Pru informed me when it seemed my daughter wouldn’t.
I blinked, my voice pitching to a shrill level. “She what?”
“She apparently punched another girl and the school has a zero tolerance policy.”
Oh my god. My jaw nearly twitched. I kept blinking. “I’m sorry, but what?”
Prudence gave Em a little nudge but she didn’t speak up. “She broke her nose.”
This couldn’t be happening. My six-year-old couldn’t be starting yard brawls in private school in the first goddamn grade. “Please tell me I died in that cave and this is some kind of hell or purgatory.”
“I didn’t hit her that hard!” Em burst out, her face going red and tears spilling down her cheeks.
But I would not be swayed by some crying. “You shouldn’t be hitting anyone at all.”
“I didn’t! But then she yelled and I hit her and she was bleeding and—”
I clamped down my lips while she spoke, counted to ten, then cut her off. “What is it you think justified assaulting this classmate?”
Em sat back in Pru’s arms, growing quiet.
My patience had long run out that day. “Emaleth Marta Anne Talbot, what was going through your head?”
“She was making fun of me,” she whispered in a small voice the mic barely picked up.
“You’re going to have to do better than that.”
“I didn’t like what she was saying!”
I resisted the urge to bang my forehead against the tabletop. “And what, pray tell, was she saying, darling?”
“Kaitlin said that Annabelle’s mom was saying stuff about you and Dad...dy...” She froze as she caught herself.
My blood pressure wasn’t getting any lower.
I peeled my fingers back from where they gripped the table’s edge, not even realizing I’d grasped it. Counting to ten wasn’t helping, so I opted for twenty before giving up all together.
I unclenched my jaw with effort just to force out words. “We need to have a long talk when I get home. Epically long. One that will continue probably until I’m too old to physically keep you in the room while I lecture. Let me give you a taste: First, you don’t hit people. I don’t care what the hell they say to you, Emaleth, even if it’s about me. Second, Denny is not your father. If this fact is difficult to remember, I’m sure no longer going for visits will go a long way to help. Are we at all unclear about any of this?”
She said nothing. Neither did Pru, who was very much the anti-disciplinarian, but she knew enough not to say a single hippy word about it when it came to my parenting.
My breaths heaved and I hadn’t realized exactly how tense I’d become until I got it all out. I didn’t speak again until I’d centered myself and was certain I could talk without losing my temper. “I was nearly killed tonight.” Emmy’s eyes grew huge and I almost regretted it, but continued on before I could pause to worry. “And I have to go back into a very dangerous situation again in the morning. I do not need to be worried about what you’re doing while I’m gone. How long are you suspended for?”
Em still stared at me, so it was Pru who spoke up after clearing her throat. “Three days.”
Sounded fair. “Emaleth, you’re grounded for the rest of the month. You do homework and chores. No video games, no TV. Absolutely no visits to Denny’s house. No friends over. Am I understood?”
She nodded.
“Now is there anything else you’d like to share with me before bed?”
Em bit at her lip, still staring at me. “I miss you, Mommy.”
Little vixen—knew immediately how to melt my heart. I ached for her, for home, and my voice softened. “I miss you too, baby.”
Her body relaxed, slumping against Prudence, and she rubbed at her eyes while Pru combed back her hair soothingly. “When can you come home?”
I hated making promises I couldn’t keep. “A few more days.”
“You got hurt?”
“No, I’m fine. I’m over the worst of it.” Lies lies lies. I couldn’t stand the taste of them. It would make her feel better, though. “And I think it’s almost your bedtime.”
“Um...”
“Yes, dear?”
“There’s a naked man behind you.”
Oh, for the love of— I sighed. “West, please tell me you have pants on.”
“Of course,” his deep voice came behind me.
I looked at Pru and cocked my brow.
“He does,” she said.
“Thank god for small favors. Now, you,” I pointed to Em, “to bed. Brush your teeth.”
Em rolled her eyes, apparently forgetting my ire moments ago. “Yes, Mom.”
“Properly.”
“I know.”
“For thirty seconds each side.”
“I know!”
She was going to be so much fun as a teenager. I glanced at Pru next. “Get any homework from her teacher tomorrow, please, and see that she completes it as well as extra chores.”
“Yes, sir.” Prudence smiled sweetly.
They were lucky they were on another continent. “I will endeavor to survive my talk now with my naked friend as well as any dragons I encounter tomorrow.”
Em’s eyes went wid
e. “Dragons?”
I held up a finger to stop her. “Don’t tell Miss Jennings. Not the dragon bit, nor about the naked man. Got it?”
She solemnly nodded and I didn’t believe her for a second.
“G’night, baby—I love you.”
“I love you too.” She waved, as did Pru. My finger hovered for a moment on the mouse, heart aching, before I gave in and disconnected the call.
With a near physical force, I pushed away thoughts of home—my house, my family, my place in the world—and locked it away, because it couldn’t come back with me here. I couldn’t let it follow me when I was trying to work, to survive, to—in some cases—kill. There, I was “Mom”; here, I was Olivia Talbot, retriever of supernatural artifacts and willing to make a payday at all costs. The more the worlds threatened to connect, the greater a liability I might end up being.
I shivered in the cold night air, my body chilled after sitting far from the fire. My eyes burned but deep breaths and blinking eased the ache, any tears I felt retreating to be locked in a box while I went back to work.
“Now.” I pushed my chair back and stood from the desk, steeling myself before facing West. “What did you want?”
He gestured over his shoulder, his expression impassive. “A walk and a conversation.”
Just in case, I took a moment to slip on my holster, snapping straps into place over my yoga pant-clad thighs and hips, and then slipped my gun into place on my right. I left the belt on Dawson’s table for retrieval later and nodded. “Lead the way.”
18
Getting to Know Mr. West
West didn’t lie about the fact he was wearing pants, a fact which I was quite grateful for.
He did skip the shirt, however, whether because the cold didn’t bother him or because it made some sort of sense I didn’t understand to keep the bandaged wound exposed to the elements. He’d forgone shoes as well, stepping evenly across the rough ground as if it was nothing—stalking, one could say, like a cat. He led me from the camp into the darkness; the firelight remained to my left, and he walked in utter blackness to my right with nothing visible beyond.
I kept aware of the gun at my side, my fingers flexing every few moments in case I needed to reach for it. My left thigh stung as a reminder I shouldn’t get in any scrapes with him, even if instinct cautioned me it might be necessary.
West broke the silence a dozen yards from camp. “I wasn’t aware we’d graduated from acquaintances to friends.”
“I think it’s more frenimies at this point.”
“Ah.”
“Better than nemeses,” I offered.
“There is that. So was that your girlfriend?”
I kept my poker face rather than snicker; if he was trying to be scandalous, he was a little late as it wasn’t like I hadn’t heard that before.
“Or, I’m sorry, is it ‘life partner’?” he continued before I could.
“Just because I’m not interested in your penis doesn’t make me a lesbian.”
“Never suggested such a thing. Was curious if she’s single is all.”
“You’re not her type.” I wouldn’t dare chance a look at him but could all but picture his feral grin in the dark at my remark.
“Why’s that?”
“She’s over the bad boy phase. We both are.”
“I don’t think I qualify as a boy.”
“Bad man, then.”
“That sounds extremely sordid.”
“I rather think so as well.”
Curiosity hung on my lips, many things I wanted to ask but then I didn’t want to expose my thoughts. I’d rather ask around him than him directly, since I figured any head-on collision wouldn’t end well. I’d heard stories of the odd shapeshifter before but they weren’t particularly common post-Pulse—he really didn’t strike me as a shaman. Perhaps Pru might be able to unearth some info for me later, or Dawson might stumble across something.
Wind stirred my hair, caressed my head and pushed my eyes closed, reminding me how much I would rather be sleeping on an uncomfortable cot again at some point tonight than be walking out here with him. “Is there a particular reason you’re subjecting me to your presence?”
“You’re not one to let questions lie. You have the opportunity to ask them now so you’re not distracting me with them tomorrow back in Kadhim.”
That answered one, then: he was sticking around—despite the injury—to help end this. Despite the assurance that I was for some reason not expendable, I did not find his involvement terribly promising. “If you had the tools to dig another entrance into the cave, why couldn’t we have done that to begin with?”
“Your flight didn’t stop in Addis Ababa or any airport in the country.”
“I noticed.”
He allowed a beat of silence to pass, whether to rethink what he was to reveal or draw the tension between us taut, I didn’t know. “Ashford has special permission to be here. He’s owed favors by a few members of parliament and decided to cash in for this trip.” West raised one of his large hands to count on his fingers, and for a moment the massive paw of the tiger stepping out of darkness an hour ago flashed in my head. “One, he may use that old airstrip for travel. Your pilot was flying under certain banners so your landing wasn’t questioned. Two, if he didn’t draw any attention to himself, the understanding is basically that they will look the other way.”
“Including stealing what amounts to a national and maybe religious relic?”
He dropped his hand at his side again. “That wouldn’t be part of the bargain, no. Also not included is altering any landmarks, like—”
“Drilling through a sacred cave named after some holy man. Gotcha.” Which raised the question of what made me the non-expendable one, worth sending a team in after in a way that broke one of those very rules, but I held my tongue on that for a moment. “Two-parter: any other conditions, and what’s the penalty for breaking that last one?”
“His business in the country must conclude within the week.”
Bloody hell. Hence the contract and him springing it on me that he’d be cutting a hundred grand a day beyond it—the guy knew money would speak to me more than anything else.
“If it doesn’t,” West continued, “or if he did something to expose his presence here...he has friends in high places but they’ll cover their own asses. That might mean Ashford or any of his associates are thrown in jail. It might also mean he or his people are simply forced to leave and barred from reentry.”
Pieces were beginning to arrange themselves in my brain but I had a few spots left to fill. “The others who went before me but were never heard from again?”
Silence. Tension crept around him, simmering in the air, and when more than the usual amount of time passed without an answer, I shifted my gaze his way, fingers flicking absently toward the butt of my gun.
The corner of his lips curved upward but his steady gaze remained locked ahead of us. “Do you shoot if you don’t like my answer?”
“Perhaps only if I don’t receive one. Will you cut off my hands if I try to?”
His lips twitched again, whether to broaden his smile or grimace, I didn’t know. “Is someone telling you stories?”
“People talk. You’re not denying anything.”
“I have no intention to. Working for Ashford isn’t a job anyone should take lightly.”
“Or...you cut off their hands.”
West sighed and shook his head. “Once. Just once and it’s all anyone can talk about.”
I can’t imagine why. I made no move to relax my hand, still itching to grab the gun. “Are you planning to answer my question?”
“The other teams of mercenaries,” he continued immediately, not even asking me to repeat it as if the hand-cutting discussion had bought him enough time to formulate an answer acceptable to give me, “were hired here, on the ground. The most recent time, he had mercs take scholars—experts in their fields of study—into the cave. Ashford tried for subtle and
avoided cashing in favors, and they didn’t make it out of the caves alive.”
I almost asked if perhaps they simply escaped with the ring, but that would be foolish—we both knew what was down there and how anyone unprepared would fair. “So this is his last shot.”
“Hire well, call in favors, get in and get out.”
And I’m not expendable because they can’t go back to the drawing board with this. All or nothing, and Ashford had made it clear he wouldn’t accept the latter option. I wasn’t a scholarly expert but perhaps he preferred someone without ethics who would retrieve the ring, no questions asked.
I was missing something here, but damned if I could figure out what it was—for now, I’d have to take everyone at face-value, with caution. At least nothing West said so far suggested he intended to cut off our hands and threaten our children, but I wasn’t about to trust him.
“Next.”
This twenty questions game was getting on my nerves. “Is it bigger than a breadbox?”
“Depends on the temperature.”
I tried to suck back a laugh and just ended up choking, air catching in my throat. “You win. I concede.”
“I wasn’t aware this was a contest.”
We’d turned back toward the camp at some point and now the fire grew larger the nearer we got; the air warmed, wrapping comforting fingers around my shoulders and drawing me closer. “Oh, I suspect, Mr. West, that you are always competing.”
“That’s assuming there’s ever any competition.”
I shook my head and avoided his gaze as I stepped past him for my tent. “Goodnight, Buttons.”
Just as I pushed open the tent flap, he called me back. “Olivia.”
I glanced over my shoulder.
Firelight cut dark orange over him, the color violent and sinister. “You mentioned a recording.”
“Check Dawson’s tech table—I’m sure if you ask politely, he’ll let you watch it on his laptop.” I slipped inside the tent and let the tent flap close behind me.
❇
Sleep was fitful and unpleasant; I’d thought exhaustion would take me into the depths of unconsciousness but instead monsters loomed in the corners of my brain, chasing me and sinking fangs through my body while I tried to rest.
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