Goddess of Fate

by Alexandra Sokoloff

  She looked concerned. “What now?”

  Luke frowned. “Hold on.” He started typing again.

  * * *

  Aurora sat next to him, worried at the look on his face, and at the same time almost dizzy with desire. She could barely keep her eyes off his thighs, the bulge at the juncture of his legs—the very smell of him was making her faint. Her whole body felt on fire; she could feel him on every inch of her body, inside and out, and she wanted him again, now.

  If this was what it was like to be human she didn’t understand how anyone got anything done at all; she felt completely useless. All she could think about was the feeling of his tongue on her breasts, melting her flesh...the feel of him inside her, filling her...

  Luke glanced at her. “If you don’t stop looking at me like that I’m going to have to do something illegal.”

  Aurora blushed. “I’ll try,” she whispered.

  * * *

  Luke forced himself to look away from her, to return to his train of thought. He’d just done some searching, and had found no profile for Tomasson on Facebook or other social networks. The man must deliberately be laying low. And the fact that Luke was locked out of the police databases meant he had a whole new avenue to consider now.

  “What is it?” Aurora said beside him.

  He turned back to her. “Did you see any police on the pier the night I was shot? Last night, I mean?” It seemed like days ago, even years.

  “Not that I know of,” she said seriously. “They all seemed like bad guys to me.”

  That was the problem, though—a bad-guy cop tended to look like just another bad guy.

  “I need to talk to my partner.”

  They hadn’t been working together long but Luke had felt comfortable with him. The rest of the department called them “Salt and Pepper,” not just because of the contrast of blond and black, but because they actually worked well together. Luke had never gotten the slightest sense of anything off with the other cop. Still, he couldn’t dismiss the possibility.

  But he wasn’t going to call. He wanted to see Pepper’s face.

  Chapter 9

  Back in the car again, Luke let Aurora drive. He was feeling fine, nothing more than a maddening itch in the vicinity of his wounds to remind him he’d been shot, but he wasn’t going to push his luck. And that way he had some time to strategize. They were a good three hours away from downtown San Francisco. But somehow this morning the drive seemed to be taking no time at all; they were already speeding through the rolling green hills near Hayward on the 580. And there was another thing Luke couldn’t ignore: he had to admit that time seemed to do strange things while he was with this woman.

  Pepper was due in court today to testify in a forgery trial; they’d made the collar together over six months ago and as usual they’d flipped for who would have to go to trial; Luke had won.

  So Luke knew where to find him and could catch him off guard, a perfect set of circumstances for testing the truth.

  Luke leaned back in his seat and put his sunglasses on so he could look at Aurora’s legs as she drove.

  * * *

  Aurora peered out the windshield at the road and pretended not to notice that Luke’s eyes were all over her as he pretended to sleep. It was hard; she could feel the touch of his eyes like flame on her skin.

  She wasn’t actually surprised that he was so quick to forget anything out of the ordinary, to latch on to a rational explanation for everything that was happening. Mortals weren’t actually supposed to be aware of the Norns; the Norns were never supposed to be so present that their charges would start to ask questions. They lived a peripheral existence to their mortals’ lives, an invisible, though sometimes palpable, presence.

  But this time she hadn’t just manifested; she’d made love with him.

  In spite of her exhilaration, she felt a twinge of anxiety.

  There was bound to be hell to pay.

  * * *

  The sun was playing hide-and-seek through gathering clouds as they hit the Bay Bridge, but the bay was as spectacular as always—that mosaic of blues and greens, the sparkling city, the Golden Gate in the distance, the eerie fortress of Alcatraz, the whole grand sweep of it. The most beautiful city in the world to Luke.

  Aurora’s face was shining. “It’s just so wonderful.”

  Privately Luke had to agree.

  They made a quick stop at an electronics store, where Luke purchased a burner phone. By the time they’d parked and hit the courthouse on McAllister Street it was raining, which was good; rain tended to make people much less observant of the people around them.

  The interior of the courthouse always bowled Luke over, an enormous domed rotunda with a circle of arched doors around a mosaic floor, a massive marble staircase leading to upper floors, a magnificent carved marble clock.

  “It’s beautiful,” Aurora breathed, looking up and around her as if she were in church. It was funny how she was always acting as if she was seeing things for the first time. And she seemed now to be feeling exactly what Luke often felt about the courthouse: reverence. It was a temple to justice, and it made him proud to be doing his part.

  He wore sunglasses and the Timberland coat he’d bought at the general store as camouflage—different enough from his usual leather and jeans to disguise him. But he had to admit his best camouflage was Aurora; when he was with her no one was going to be looking too hard at him.

  They hurried across the mosaic floor of the rotunda, Luke heading straight for one of the doors that he knew led outside to a street area where Pepper would duck out to smoke while he was waiting to be called.

  Then Luke slowed, looking up at the elaborate marble clock.

  It’s about time, Aurora had said.

  “Time,” he said aloud. “It’s about time.”

  She looked at him. “What do you mean?”

  “Something. Maybe.”

  He turned from the clock and moved into the hallway, striding for the outer doors. Aurora followed as Luke pushed out through the doors and scanned the sidewalk.

  A couple of smokers glanced at them from where they stood against the granite wall. Neither of them was Pepper.

  Luke guided Aurora down the street toward a doorway, out of the rain and out of sight.

  “He’s not here?” she asked.

  “He will be,” Luke said. His partner could never make it through a court appearance without at least one smoke break.

  He pulled Aurora into the recessed doorway so he could watch the courthouse door without being seen. Once he was in a good position, he kept one eye on the door.

  Aurora was very close to him, looking at him, and even as he watched the street he felt his body responding to hers. His eyes lingered on her mouth, on the soft swell of her breasts...

  Suddenly he reached toward the front of her dress. She drew in a sharp breath as he dipped his fingers into her neckline...

  He held her eyes...and drew out the rune stone on the chain.

  “So tell me about this,” he said.

  She opened her mouth slightly. “It’s a rune.”

  “I know it’s a rune. I want to know why you’re wearing it.”

  “It’s the symbol for the sun...” She dropped her eyes. “Or someone who is like the sun. It means victory, power, success, honor.”

  “And you wear it—for luck? What?”

  “To remind me of someone,” she said, and looked at him.

  Before Luke could push her further, he saw a big African-American man step out through the door, instantly reaching into his suit coat pocket and pulling out a pack of what Luke knew to be Marlboro cigarettes.

  He waited until his partner was busy cupping his hands around the cigarette to light it in the wet wind, and then walked out of the doorway through the rain toward him.

  Pepper looked up, exhaling a cloud of smoke...and his jaw dropped as he stared at Luke in shock.

  “Holy shit.”

  “Hello to you, too,” Luke said
tensely.

  Pepper shook his head in disbelief. “You’re not dead.”

  “Should I be?”

  “Mars, everyone’s been wondering if you are. Why the hell haven’t you called in?”

  Luke was looking him over, sharply. Pepper appeared drawn, as if he’d spent a sleepless night, and his clothes looked thrown together, not his usual fastidious attire.

  “You never called me back last night,” Luke said softly.

  His partner looked confused. “Called you? I didn’t get that message until the morning. I’d already heard you got shot.”

  “Who said I got shot?” Luke said sharply.

  “Some wit. A homeless guy they questioned down at the pier.”

  The one I saved. Plausible, Luke thought. “It wasn’t in the papers,” he said aloud. “Nothing about the pier, a shooting, anything.”

  “LT’s keeping everything quiet until we could figure out where the hell you were.” Pepper walked a couple of steps, suddenly threw his cigarette down. “Man, what the hell happened? We got to get you back to the station...”

  Luke cut him off. “I don’t want anyone else to know. Someone wants me dead.”

  Pepper stared at him. “Oh, shit. You think you—someone set you up?”

  “I know someone set me up.”

  Pepper reached for another cigarette and lit up. As he did, he finally noticed Aurora hovering in the doorway and did a double take. He looked at Luke. “Don’t look now but there’s a gorgeous redhead over there checking you out.”

  Luke hesitated, and then said, “She’s with me.”

  Pepper’s eyebrows nearly sailed off his head.

  “It’s a long story,” Luke said.

  “She’s smokin’,” Pepper said admiringly.

  Luke felt a strange surge of pride—and possessiveness. “She’s just helping out.”

  “You show up with a goddess like that, back from whoever the hell knows where...this is some crazy shit, Mars. What am I supposed to think?”

  “You’re supposed to think like a cop,” Luke told him. “I need you to buy me some time and not say that you saw me. And do some legwork for me from your end while I track down a lead.”

  Pepper looked worried, conflicted and resolved all at the same time. “You got it.”

  Luke started by giving his partner the number of the phone he’d just bought, then told him, “I need everything you can get on a Tomas Tomasson. Year of birth 1982 or 1983, grew up in the Bay Area, graduated Pacific High in 2000. I need his criminal record, current whereabouts, everything.” Luke thought of the clock in the courthouse. Time. “And I need you to send me the files on the companies that got pirated. I want the reports, and I want the times the ships were hit.”

  “Okay, Mars. Okay. I’ll check it out and send it on.” Pepper started back toward the courthouse door.

  “And, Pepper...”

  The big man turned.

  “Watch yourself.”

  Pepper shook his head, troubled. “You, too, man.”

  * * *

  As Luke watched Pepper disappear back into the court building, Aurora moved up beside him.

  “You see him at the pier last night?” he asked her.

  “No,” she said, shocked. “You think he...”

  “I don’t know. I hope not.”

  It was frustrating and sobering to be locked out of his own department...at least until he could figure out exactly what was going on. But he had a solid lead with Tomasson, and he’d had that wild dream, which was giving him the feeling the best way to pick up the trail might be from the high school.

  * * *

  Aurora watched his face anxiously. It was so hard to be still when she wanted to be able to tell him everything about everyone, everything she knew. But that wasn’t the way it worked. For one thing, she only knew what Luke was disposed to do. Even then, there was always the element of choice. And she wasn’t supposed to interfere, just support.

  “Where are we going now?” she asked.

  “The school,” he said. “I need to go back. See if I can track down this guy from school records.” Schools often kept up contact information on former students, for reunions and newsletters and now Facebook and LinkedIn and other social networking groups.

  “Let’s go,” Aurora said.

  She really is a little crazy, Luke thought. But I like a woman who’s up for an adventure.

  Chapter 10

  Pacific High was on the other side of the city, West San Francisco, but nothing in San Francisco was that far away; it was a small, dense city.

  So as Aurora drove swiftly and smoothly up Geary toward the Park Presidio, Luke said abruptly, “We’ll make a little detour first.”

  Luke’s grandmother lived in the Sunset District, a residential neighborhood of mostly 1920s to 1950s houses comprised of Victorians and bungalows. Nona had nostalgically and stubbornly held on to quite a few of Luke’s old school things from when he’d lived with her. He had a nagging feeling that there was something he needed to know in those old things; at the very least the yearbooks would be a good place to start.

  He directed Aurora off the Park Presidio, and she glanced at him.

  “Are we going to your grandmother’s house?”

  He felt a jolt. “What do you know about Nona?”

  “You said something last night,” Aurora said lightly, but Luke couldn’t remember mentioning her. Then again, there was a lot he couldn’t remember about last night.

  “You said she raised you after your parents died,” Aurora added gently, and Luke got the feeling that she was inviting, coaxing him to say more.

  “She’s great,” Luke said simply.

  The next weirdness was that there were three possible exits to take off the Presidio and Aurora knew what off-ramp to take without Luke telling her.

  He shot a sharp look at her, but she didn’t seem to realize that she’d just done something unusual. So instead of directing her, Luke kept quiet to see if she knew where she was going.

  Sure enough, she made the correct right turn and cruised down California Street as if she’d done it a million times before. Luke sat back in his seat, thinking quickly.

  So she knows where I used to live? And he felt a frisson of unease, a bit like reality wobbling.

  Aurora seemed to realize he was being silent and watchful, and suddenly asked, “Which way do I go?”

  He answered her shortly. “You seem to be doing just fine.”

  “Well, it looked like a main street to me,” she explained prettily. “Is this wrong?”

  “No, it’s perfect.” Too perfect.

  He sat back in silence as they drove on. As they approached the turn that would take them into his neighborhood, Luke remained silent to see what she would do. He could see her hesitate as she came up on the street...but then she kept driving. After a second he spoke up.

  “That was it. You’ll have to turn around.”

  “Oh, sorry,” she said innocently, and made a left to turn around in a side street.

  She continued to play innocent and he guided her through the warren of cul-de-sacs in his old neighborhood, to Nona’s house on Cherry Street.

  It was a California bungalow, a charming house from the 1920s—charming, that is, if you didn’t have to do your own upkeep, which Luke had done pretty much since he could pick up a wrench. But he’d been glad to help, to feel like the man of the house. And it came in handy with his present—that is, nineteenth century—digs.

  “Oh, how pretty!” Aurora exclaimed as they both got out of the car and she looked up at the honeysuckle-covered trellis over the front gate. Luke shot her a look; he had the strong feeling this was an act, that she’d been here before.

  But when exactly? Why?

  He’d have to see if Nona recognized her. Or something...else.

  Nona was opening the door before they reached the porch, and her face was lit up with pleasure. “Luke!” She was a good foot shorter than he was, but she still felt bigge
r than he was for a moment, until he swept her up in a crushing hug. She smelled the same—vanilla and lavender and sunshine.

  He put her down and took a look at her.

  Nona was a formidable mix of Old World and modern woman: flaxen hair in crossed braids pinned to her head, dressed in natural-spun fabrics from “fair trade” shops—a blend of practical and elegant in style and character.

  She was looking him over herself with a sharp eye. “You look pale. Is something wrong?”

  Before he could answer, she was turning her eyes on Aurora, another deeply appraising look. It was a strange thing, but Luke hadn’t even thought of how odd it would seem, him showing up on Nona’s doorstep with a woman. He hadn’t brought a girl home since he was in high school. Nona was sure to think—well, any number of things.

  Luke turned to Aurora. “Nona, this is my—” for a moment words escaped him, then he settled on “—my friend. Aurora.”

  “Aurora,” Nona repeated, and held out her hand. Aurora put her hand in the older woman’s and Nona held her hand, and as Luke watched closely, for a moment it looked more like a fortune-teller sizing up a client than a handshake between strangers. It didn’t look like she recognized her—exactly. There was something strange there, though, and Luke held his breath, wondering...

  “You’re a pretty one,” Nona said finally. Nothing supernatural, nothing about Norns, which was more of a relief than Luke was willing to admit. “Luke never brings women home.” She glanced at him. “I wonder what that means.”

  “What it means is you should invite us in, so that I can talk to you,” Luke said firmly, diverting that line of conversation.

  “Of course, children, come in.” Nona pushed open the red-painted door and led the way.

  Inside, the house smelled just as Luke remembered, just like Nona herself: lavender and lemon furniture polish and a hint of vanilla candle. The old dark wood floors gleamed, the thick colorful rugs were clean, and Nona’s vivid, slightly surrealistic paintings were on the walls.

  “You have a beautiful home, Ms. Thorsson,” Aurora said with real enthusiasm. Except that Luke had not introduced Nona by her last name, which was different from Luke’s, so how did Aurora know it? His eyes narrowed as he watched her move across the room.