by Keri Arthur
As he slumped—lifeless and headless—to the ground, I battled the bile that rose up my throat. No reaper came to collect his soul, and that could only mean his death wasn’t supposed to happen now.
I closed my eyes and attempted to keep my breathing even as footsteps approached. Then Lucian was bending over me, his warm fingers lightly brushing damp hair away from my face. “Are you okay?”
I nodded, swallowed again, then said, “Why the hell did you shoot to kill?”
“He had a gun.”
“He did?” I hadn’t felt it when I was grappling with him. And if he’d been armed, why didn’t he just shoot me rather than running?
“Yes. Wait here.”
He rose and walked forward. I took a deep, shuddering breath and regretted it almost instantly as the stench of the muck I was lying in made my already unstable stomach twist harder.
I pushed to my hands and knees and clambered from the water to the concrete walkway lining it. After a moment, Lucian returned. This time he was holding two guns.
“Told you,” he said, handing me the smaller of the two.
I accepted it somewhat reluctantly. “And why would I want this?”
He offered me a hand. “Because I don’t know who—or what—else might be down here, and another gun might come in handy.”
I nodded and placed my hand in his. He pulled me up easily, but the minute I got close to him, his nose wrinkled. “You, my girl, stink to high heaven. Are you okay to walk, or do you need a shoulder to lean on?”
I let go of his hand. “I’m fine.” Which was a total lie, but if there were other people down here, he needed to be able to react fast, and he couldn’t do that if I was hanging off him. “How did you find me?”
“Remember that telepathic connection you were bitching about only this afternoon?”
I raised my eyebrows. “I would hardly call what I said bitching. I was just a little unimpressed that you were wandering through my mind uninvited.”
“It is a by-product of sex,” he said, “and can’t be helped.”
“I know.” I stepped over Forman’s body and tried not to look at him. Tried not to think that my ability to question him had been annihilated as thoroughly as his head. “But what does that have to do with finding me?”
Lucian glanced over his shoulder, his green eyes shining fiercely in the shadows of the tunnel. “I was on the phone with you when the accident happened, remember?”
“Sort of.” I frowned and retrieved my phone from my pocket. It informed me that the connection had been severed. No surprise there, given the man I’d been talking to was now walking several feet in front of me. “So you used my phone to track me?”
“No,” he said patiently, obviously realizing he was speaking to someone with a slightly addled brain. “I followed the connection sex has given us. I knew roughly where you were when the accident happened, so it was simply a matter of driving hell-for-leather down here and then walking around until I felt you.”
“So the connection isn’t a long-distance thing?”
“Yes and no.” He shrugged. “Sometimes I do get tantalizing fragments, but it’s really nothing clear or concise unless I’m close.”
Which was a whole lot more than what he’d admitted earlier and made me wonder if this was actually the truth, or whether it was yet another misdirection.
“How did you get down here?”
“Sewer entrance. There should be another one coming up.”
“And you didn’t spot anyone else down here?”
“No.” He glanced at me again. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” I paused. “It just seems odd. I mean, he was asking about the book, but surely if he were so desperate for it, he would have ensured that I was more secure.”
“There was magic in the room. I could feel it even when I was standing outside the door.”
“Yeah, I know. It prevented me from becoming Aedh—”
“That is some pretty serious magical mojo,” Lucian interrupted grimly. “He may have thought that was all he needed.”
Maybe. And yet, something still felt off to me. I couldn’t explain it—particularly given that Forman had been pretty convincing in his desire to get the information out of me. It was just an odd, niggling feeling—and I’d long learned to listen to my feelings, no matter how weird they might seem.
“How long have I been missing?”
“Not long. A couple of hours.” He shrugged. “I doubt anyone has even realized you’re gone yet.”
Azriel would have. He’d have felt it, even if—thanks to the magic barrier—he’d been incapable of doing anything about it.
As his name ran through my mind, I felt the heat of his presence surge across the foul-smelling darkness. Lucian stopped abruptly. “I think your reaper just arrived.”
“I think you might be right.” I paused beside him. “Azriel?”
He stepped out of the shadows, Valdis held by his left side, her blade flickering with blue fire. The flames spun through the darkness like brief flashes of lightning.
His stormy gaze ran from me to Lucian then back again, but all he said was, “Are you all right?”
“No, actually, I feel like shit and I smell like it, too. Right now I just want to get somewhere safe and take a bath.”
“I can take—”
“No,” Lucian said forcibly. “I will take her to my apartment. She’ll be safe—”
“I think it highly unlikely she would be safe with the likes of you,” Azriel commented, his tone even but his grip on Valdis seeming to tighten. The fire along her blade flared.
“And yet it was me who rescued her, not you, reaper.”
“Oh for God’s sake, enough with this macho bullshit!” I all but exploded. “I’ll fucking take care of myself, thank you very much.”
Lucian swung around. “I did not mean that you couldn’t—”
I placed a hand on his arm, stopping him. “I know, and thank you for both the concern and the rescue, but right now I need to be away from people I care about.”
“I, like you, am more than able to take care of myself,” he retorted. “And not just with a gun—”
“I know,” I repeated, then rose up on my toes and kissed him lightly. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Right now I think it’s better I get the hell out of here, just in case Forman’s boss decides to come investigate.”
“Then perhaps,” he said slowly, “I should remain here, just in case. At the very least, I can study the magic and see if there’s a clue as to its origin.”
I frowned. “I really don’t think you should be putting yourself in danger like that—”
“Danger?” he snorted softly. “Trust me, one lone practitioner does not represent a danger to me.”
“But—”
He briefly placed a finger against my lips. “I will be fine. Besides, it’s a good chance to flex some muscle. The life of an accountant is somewhat boring.”
I chuckled softly, then kissed him again. This time his arm snaked around my waist, and he kissed me more fully. It hurt my ribs but, right then, I couldn’t have cared less.
“You still stink,” he said eventually.
I grinned. “I promise I won’t tomorrow.”
“Hey, as long as you’re warm, willing, and able, I honestly won’t care what you smell like.”
I laughed, touched a hand to his cheek, then wrapped my hands around my phone and wallet, avoiding Azriel’s steely gaze as I called to the Aedh. Her energy surged through my body, numbing sensation as it broke down every muscle, every cell, until my flesh no longer existed and I became one with the air.
In that form, I fled down the tunnel until I found a storm drain and was able to escape into the cold night air. I had no idea where Azriel was—he couldn’t follow me when I was in this form—and half wondered if I should have warned him to leave Lucian alone. If Valdis was—as I was beginning to suspect—something of an indicator of her master’s emotions, then Azriel had not bee
n happy to discover Lucian beside me.
But had he been angry enough to attack?
I doubted it, if only because Azriel seemed to operate off some grand master plan. And if Lucian’s death had been part of that plan, then it would have happened long ago.
I whisked along the city streets, heading for the café. While I could slide into the Langham unseen in this form, my clothes were rank and there was no way I was stepping back into them after a shower. I still couldn’t go home, so the week’s worth of clothes I’d left in my locker at the café was the next best option. I certainly couldn’t go shopping in this state.
The place was relatively quiet for a change. Tao was in the kitchen, humming happily as he worked, and several waitresses were clearing tables, readying for the next rush of people. I flowed up the stairs and into the changing room, ensuring no one was about before I shifted back to human shape. I released my grip on my phone and purse a second before I hit the tiled floor, then stayed there for several minutes, battling for breath and waiting for the pain in my head and the shaking in my body to ease. It had been one hell of a night, and I just had to hope the surprises were done with. I really couldn’t take much more right now.
“You need to eat,” a soft voice said behind me.
I jumped instinctively, then swore as I recognized the familiar wash of heat when he stepped into existence.
“Damn it, Azriel,” I said, pushing up onto my knees. The pain in my head sharpened briefly then eased off, but the ache in my ribs remained at a barely bearable level. “You really have to stop scaring me like that.”
“And if you’d been more attuned to your instincts, you’d have felt me coming long before I actually arrived.”
And if any other man had said that, I might have been tempted to grin and tease him about double meanings. But Azriel wasn’t any other man.
His legs appeared in front of me. I glanced up the length of him, unable to help admiring his lean, muscular body, then met his gaze. His expression was as neutral as ever, but his eyes, like the sword strapped to his back, were filled with energy. I sighed. “Azriel, I’m really not up to an argument about Lucian right now.”
Surprise flickered briefly across his face before neutrality clamped in again. “I wasn’t looking for an argument.”
He offered me a hand and I accepted it gratefully, allowing him to pull me to my feet.
“And the Aedh is right,” he added, not releasing me immediately. “You stink.”
“Thanks.” I glanced down at our hands and he took the hint, letting go. I flexed my fingers, unable to escape the warmth of his touch, and tried to ignore the feeling that he’d wanted to say more than he had. I stepped back. “Did you and Lucian investigate the room I’d been held in?”
“The Aedh did. I examined the body in the sewer.”
I turned around and began stripping off as I walked toward the shower. Azriel’s gaze was a weight that pressed against my spine, and despite the fact that I was werewolf—and more than used to parading around naked before all and sundry—embarrassment began to swirl through me.
Because he wasn’t all and sundry.
And that, I thought in annoyance, was the stupidest thought I’d ever had. He wasn’t all and sundry because he was a reaper, and he didn’t care if I was clothed or naked, upside down or inside out. The only thing that mattered to him was achieving his mission. Nothing more, and nothing less.
“That is not entirely true,” he said softly.
I closed my eyes as I turned on the water. Damn it, why couldn’t I just stop thinking such stupid thoughts? “Why isn’t it?”
“I care for your safety. I care that you are not looking after yourself properly.”
“Only because my carelessness could affect your mission.” I stepped into the shower and simply stood there for a moment, letting the hot water sluice down my body, washing away the worst of the sewer grime as well as the remnants of my clothing. Then I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “You know, we’ve had this argument before. I really need to get over it, don’t I?”
“Yes.”
I grinned and glanced at him over my shoulder. He was leaning against the far wall, his arms crossed and his expression dispassionate. Valdis sat in her sheath, yet little amber fireflies of energy flew around her hilt. Not indicating his anger, I thought, but something else—though what that something else might be, I had no idea.
I grabbed the shampoo and tried to concentrate on the mundane task of washing my hair rather than the very unmundane man behind me. “Did you find anything on the body?”
“Nothing at all.”
“What do you mean, nothing?” I said, a little confused.
“No wallet, no identification, no phone, nothing.”
I frowned. “What about a holster?”
“No.”
“Why would he have a gun and not a holster?”
I was thinking out loud rather than asking an actual question, but Azriel answered anyway.
“Maybe he doesn’t normally carry a gun and only grabbed it once he was running from you.”
“He didn’t have time to grab anything. He simply ran.”
“Then logically, he was carrying it all along.”
Logically, yes. But I still couldn’t escape the itch that something about the whole situation was off.
“Then you need to listen to instinct,” Azriel commented.
I sighed. “The trouble with that is that instinct isn’t giving me a whole lot more than vague feelings of unease.”
“You’ll get more, if you give it time.”
And time was something we didn’t seem to have a lot of. “Was his soul collected by a reaper?”
“No. His death did not follow the ordained order, so his soul will roam the wilderness between this world and the gray fields.”
“Could you find it? Question it?”
“No. He is in the lost lands. I can see the lost ones, but I am not able—nor am I allowed—to communicate with them in any way.” He paused. “But you might be able to. Adeline Greenfield said you had more of your mother’s talents than you were aware, and your mother communicated with both the dead and the lost ones.”
“I might be able to see ghosts, but I’ve never known how to communicate with them. And right now we haven’t got the time for me to learn.” Although if things kept going against us, I might just have to find the time. “Did Ilianna get her books and equipment okay?”
“Yes.”
“So why didn’t you come riding to my rescue when I had the car accident?”
“Because the Raziq attacked us at the house.”
I spun around. “What? Is Ilianna okay?”
“Of course. They attacked in force, which meant I had to flee rather than fight.”
I studied him for a moment, hearing the annoyance in his voice even though it didn’t show in his features, then turned around and squirted some soap into my hand. “And you would rather have fought?”
“Of course. The more Raziq I destroy, the fewer there are to find and use the keys.”
“So why not gather together a group of Mijai and hunt them down?”
“Because,” he said patiently, “that is against—”
“—the rules,” I finished for him. “Whoever made these rules of yours really sucks, you know that?”
“There are times when I think a certain amount of absurdity has been added to the whole process,” he agreed solemnly.
I glanced at him again and saw the brief twinkle in his bright eyes. “It’s hard to believe that, when I first met you, I thought you were devoid of humor.”
“I’m afraid it’s merely a side effect of holding this form.”
“How can holding human form affect whether or not you have a sense of humor?”
“It’s not just a sense of humor we gain.” He hesitated. “We are not without emotions, as I have said, but holding this shape for any length of time sharpens certain emotions, and that is often inconveni
ent.”
“Meaning it makes you more like us?”
“No.” Again he hesitated. “It simply makes us more … susceptible … to certain types of emotion.”
“What types of emotion?”
He shrugged and his game face came back down. “That very much depends on the situation we find ourselves in.”
“So if you find yourself guarding a totally annoying woman who won’t listen to reason and who insists on seeing an Aedh you distrust intensely, you’re liable to become more angry and more unreasonable the longer you hold this form?”
Amusement briefly touched his lips. “More than likely. Luckily for us both, I am not stuck guarding a woman who totally ignores reason. She just ignores it when it suits her best.”
A smile twitched my lips. “Ah, but she is seeing a fallen Aedh.”
“I didn’t say she was perfect.”
I laughed and he smiled. It made his whole face seem warmer, more alive. More handsome. And I shouldn’t be noticing. I turned around and finished washing myself.
“Did you discover anything else about Forman when you examined him?” I asked as I turned off the taps then reached for a towel.
“No. And there certainly wasn’t enough of his brains left to enter his mind and read the lingering shadows of his thoughts and life.”
“Yeah, Lucian did get a little trigger-happy.” I walked across to my locker and began dressing. “I would have loved to have questioned him about his boss.”
“So Forman did not set the magic?”
“No, and it wasn’t an Aedh, either, because the magic had a different feel. It was darker.”
“Suggesting a sorcerer or Charna, perhaps?”
“Perhaps.” I finger-combed my hair. “But why would either of those want control of the gates?”
“Power,” he said simply. “Especially if we’re dealing with a dark sorcerer.”
“And if the dark sorcerer is also behind the buy-up of the businesses around Stane?”
He shrugged. “West Street sits on a major ley line junction. That would be a huge draw to someone after power—especially if he cannot naturally walk the gray fields.”
I raised my eyebrows as I grabbed my bag of clothes and closed the locker. “How could a junction of ley lines help a sorcerer walk the grey fields?”
