Infinity Key (Senyaza Series Book 2)

by Chrysoula Tzavelas

  But Hunter didn’t meet her gaze at all as he said, “I’ve been expecting you. Tarn’s little friend. Come on in, missy. You look like you’ve had quite a hike.” Instead, his gaze roved up and down her body before settling on her breasts. “We’ve got a shower if you want to get cleaned up.” The other men in the room snickered.

  Branwyn clenched her jaw and she heard herself say distantly, “Thank you, I’m fine.” At worst, a frat house. She’d been steeping herself in the dangers of magic too long. She’d lost perspective, and a new fear coiled in her stomach as a result. No, not a new fear. An old fear. One of the oldest.

  Hunter grinned. “Well then, take a seat. Annalise will get you a drink.” Branwyn scanned the room for an unoccupied seat she wouldn’t have to share, then jumped as Hunter barked, “Annalise! I said get the nice lady a drink!”

  A dark-skinned teenage girl with curly brown hair stood up slowly from where she’d been sitting on a piano bench with her back to the others. Without a word, she walked out of the room. “My daughter,” confided Hunter. “Come on, there’s room on the couch.” He returned to his place and Branwyn reluctantly followed him. It was a large couch, at least. She forced herself to sink deep into the cushions so that she wouldn’t look as tense as she felt.

  Hunter continued talking about his daughter as he settled into place. “I wanted her to inherit the family business, but she threw the most ridiculous tantrum over it. Even ran away for a while. I said, fine, but I figure she can at least make herself useful.” He paused as Annalise returned with a tray of bottles and plunked it on the coffee table where her father’s feet rested. She stole a quick glance at Branwyn, then averted her gaze and moved stiffly back to her piano bench.

  Her host picked up a bottle and showed Branwyn the label. “Local microbrewery. Pretty good stuff.” He opened it, handed it to her, then popped the cap off one for himself. The rest of the bottles vanished as Hunter’s companions claimed them. One was offered to Severin, who snickered and waved the man off. He’d placed himself, Branwyn realized, so that he could watch Annalise as well as Hunter.

  Hunter was still talking. “It’s a shame, really. Her mother was the prettiest little thing. Good genes.” He gave that not-actually-disarming grin again. “I still have her around somewhere.”

  Across the room, Annalise’s curls bobbed as she lowered her head.

  Branwyn’s stomach flip-flopped. What the hell, she thought. Why tiptoe? “This is the family business of… hunting things?”

  His eyebrows went up. “Things?” He smirked. “But nah. That’s really just a hobby.” His expression darkened. “Can’t enjoy myself too often or those self-righteous half-breed bastards start sniffing around and things get awkward.” He gave Branwyn a measuring look, as if wondering if she was going to defend Senyaza. When she remained silent, he leaned closer to her and said, “Don’t tell anybody I said so, but it’s kind of been a good thing. Forced me to think bigger than my immediate gratification. Develop what you might call a business plan.”

  “Yeah?” Branwyn said without enthusiasm, and tried to steer the conversation toward the purpose of her visit. “Tarn said you were almost a fae once.”

  An ugly expression passed across Hunter’s face. “Was I? I don’t recall.” Without taking his gaze off Branwyn, he raised his voice. “Annalise, get my brother a whiskey, since he rejects my beer.” Slowly, the girl stood up again.

  Lazily, Severin said, “Yes, AT, get me some whiskey.” The girl half-turned, raw pain on her face, then lowered her head again and left the room.

  Branwyn sat back, stunned. She knew the name AT from Marley’s stories. AT was the nephil girl who’d helped Marley rescue Corbin, who’d fought monsters beside her and held off a living nightmare until she’d finally been overcome. Severin, Marley had said, had returned her to her father for healing. And Marley had been moody and concerned about it, but Marley was often moody and concerned and—

  Fury swept over Branwyn and she turned a blazing glare on Severin. But he was looking at Hunter instead, smirking faintly.

  Hunter complained, “Why did you call her that ridiculous nickname when you know it makes me angry?”

  “Did I?” asked Severin. “I must have forgotten. Sorry.”

  There was that horrible, painful clash of auras again, even though the two kaiju were on opposite sides of the room now. The other men in the room shifted their weight, drawing closer to Hunter and farther from Severin. Then AT reappeared, holding a tumbler full of amber liquid. She stalked across the room, apparently heedless of the headache-inducing tension, and offered Severin the glass.

  He took it, inspected it, then made a big show of sipping and savoring.

  The pulsing pain vanished, and Hunter turned back to Branwyn again, as if nothing had happened. This time, he looked from her breasts to the untasted beer she held in her hand.

  Branwyn responded by activating the charm Zachariah had given her to prevent tainted food and drink from affecting her, then took a swig. “Good stuff,” she said. “That reminds me. I have a present for you from Tarn.” She withdrew the casket from her backpack and handed it over.

  Hunter took it and glanced inside for only a moment, disinterest plain on his face. “Looks like work. I’ll take a look at it later.” He saw her expression and laughed. “It’s just a formality, missy. Like signing the papers after negotiating a contract.”

  Branwyn didn’t waste her time trying to reconcile the contradiction. “We’re in a bit of a hurry, actually.”

  “Well, that just means if I finish the deal, you’ll run off, and I’ll miss a chance to spend some time with the first green-haired girl I’ve ever talked to.” One of the peanut gallery muttered something to a companion and there was general laughter. Hunter chuckled and added, “Returning today or tomorrow isn’t going to make a difference to Tarn’s plans, believe me.”

  This was it, Branwyn realized. She could get up and walk out without the Machine part she’d come for, and she was almost sure they’d let her go without chasing her. Almost sure. Or she could put up with this bullshit until she got what she wanted from the situation.

  Her gaze was drawn to AT, back at her piano bench. Could AT just walk away?

  Branwyn looked back at Hunter and bared her teeth in a smile. “I am tired,” she said. “These midnight trips through Faerie take a lot out of a girl. But I’m pretty worried about Tarn. There was an… incident when we arrived. Your, uh, brother made a mess. And poor Tarn is already having—oh dear, maybe I shouldn’t say that.” The line sounded fake even to her, but it seemed important to get Hunter to accept Tarn’s message before doing anything else. Tarn would know, then, that she’d delivered it. No matter what happened, Hunter couldn’t claim ignorance.

  Besides, anything Hunter wasn’t in a hurry to do seemed like a good idea to Branwyn.

  He looked at her sharply, yellow eyes running over her face before meeting her eyes. She gasped preemptively and ducked her gaze, playing up nervousness and uncertainty. But his eyes weren’t like Severin’s. They didn’t stay with her when she looked away. Hunter wanted to own her, and would be delighted to break her in the process. But that was him, not her.

  He frowned and she wondered what he saw in her eyes. Was the Queen of Stone looking back? Would that make a difference to a creature like him?

  Probably not.

  The frown faded from his face like it had never been there. “Well, go on, missy. Tell me what Tarn’s problems are. Maybe I’ll be able to help out more than I already am.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t. I don’t really understand them. But I think maybe he put something in the message bubble?”

  Severin was watching her. Even without looking at him, she could feel it. She hated that she couldn’t be herself and just be direct and she thought he must be enjoying her self-hatred.

  But it wasn’t herself she hated, she realized. She hated Hunter, hated the men who followed him. She hated the situation. But she didn’t hate herself for doing
what she had to do to survive and achieve her goals. She looked up again and saw Severin's flickering smile out of the corner of her eye.

  He was pleased. She didn’t want to know why.

  Hunter considered her, then hooked the casket on the floor open with his foot. Without looking down, he picked up the message bubble. It popped.

  Once again, Branwyn only saw the reaction to the bubble, not the message itself. Hunter scowled, then actually growled under his breath. When his gaze refocused on the here and now, his scowl didn’t change.

  “Nothing’s changed. He’s weak, as he’s always been. Lacks the conviction to maintain his position.” He reached down and picked up the diamond, then sneered. “Hardly worth the trade. With time there might be something, but now—” He shook his head. “Pfah.”

  Without thinking, Branwyn said, “You know Severin wants to kill him, right?” She couldn’t help it. She didn’t like the way Severin always knew what was in her heart.

  Hunter looked at her like she was a small child who’d just done something precious. “Missy, my brother wants to destroy everything. That’s just his nature. Mine too, really. Doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy ourselves along the way.”

  The other men in the room chuckled and nudged each other. Hunter’s gaze swept them coldly, almost scornfully, before settling on his daughter, watching her clinically as she shifted uncomfortably. For the first time, Branwyn realized just how much of a game Hunter was playing and started to get scared all over again. She still didn’t know where she fit into this new world, except as a victim. She had to find a better place.

  “So can I see it? The Machine you’re trading to Tarn? I’ll be the one working with it, you know.”

  He turned that cold gaze back onto her again. “Yes, I know.” Then the facade snapped back into place. “Sure thing, missy.” He nodded at one of his men, who left the room. “Yeah, it’s a little treasure. Got it off an angel who was trying to return it to Heaven after it escaped. She thought she could clean me up, too, but I showed her a thing or two. I heard she came back from the Sea of Dreams nuttier than a fruitcake. I guess there’s some things that outlast even death.” And he laughed and his men laughed and AT hugged herself and Branwyn promised herself she’d come back again with something more dangerous in her bag than a hammer.

  Hunter’s man returned, holding a slab of clear acrylic with something embedded in it. At a nod from Hunter, he brought it to Branwyn and then retreated again. Frowning, Branwyn turned the slab over. The Machine fragment inside was a toothed wheel on a stem, like a flower plucked from a mechanical plant. The acrylic encasing it was smooth and seamless.

  “Can you extract it?” said Hunter, leaning forward, his eyes glittering.

  “Of course.” Branwyn gave him a puzzled look.

  “Right now? I’d just love to see a little demonstration of your skills.”

  Frowning, Branwyn looked down at the acrylic again. There were a half-dozen ways of getting something out of an acrylic block, but they all required tools other than what she had with her. Something about the way Hunter said it, though, made her want to take the challenge. She activated the Sight and looked at it more closely. The acrylic itself was nothing more than a faint and fuzzy line, but the toothed wheel was vibrant, making everything else fade around her. She stroked the acrylic and watched the fuzzy line quiver. Rubbing her fingers did little more; she wasn’t going to cut or melt the acrylic with her bare hands any time soon.

  She realized suddenly how quiet it had become and glanced up, then recoiled at what she saw. She knew there were people in the room other than Severin and Hunter, just like she knew there were objects in the room other than the Machine fragment. But they were just shadows compared to the two fallen angels. That’s what they all are, she thought distantly. Severin, Hunter, Tarn, Rime…

  She looked down again, less worried about appearing intimidated than actually being overwhelmed. She didn’t let herself think about Severin’s skeletal wings and the black vortex over his head. She didn’t think about Hunter’s cloak of blood and broken bones. She thought, instead, about space. She thought about how small Earth was compared to the sun, and how small the sun was compared to other stars, and how small any star was against the endless expanse of the night sky.

  And yet here she was, dreaming of vastness. She could hold the universe inside herself. Perhaps it was a power reserved for the very small. The thought made her feel better, bracing her against the intensity of the kaiju presences.

  Protected by the shell of her own ego, she slowly let out her breath and focused once again on the acrylic-encased Machine fragment. When she held still, she could feel the faintest vibration. Even within the plastic, the fragment longed to move. It had been part of something once and wanted to be part of something again, and instead it had been locked away. It trembled, as if hurt by the rejection.

  It was far more real than the acrylic encasing it. Branwyn put both hands on the block, framing the fuzzy line between her fingers. Then she pulled her hands apart, fuzzing the line further. She’d never fuzz it enough on her own to break through the block, not with her current skills. But she wasn’t on her own.

  “Come on, then,” she whispered. “Time to work.”

  The block grew warm in her hands. With a creak, the toothed wheel began to turn. At first, the motion was infinitesimally small. Branwyn bent closer, working on the Geometric line. The block’s vibration became more noticeable, the creaking louder. They could do this. It was going to be easy.

  Large hands came down and pulled the block away from her. Branwyn looked up, indignant. Still sheltered in her bubble of ego, she scowled at Hunter and stood up. His cloak of blood and broken bone was frightening, but he’d asked her to do some work and then he’d yanked it away from her. There was no way she was going to put up with that.

  “Now, now, missy. You were about to injure yourself. No need to push things. I’ve seen enough. Tarn is very lucky to have you.” Blood dripped from his cloak onto the wooden floor, and the face that gave her a wide smile wasn’t the one he’d worn before. There was something almost lupine about it. If he’d licked his chops, Branwyn wouldn’t have blinked.

  He lowered his voice and added, as if reminding her of something she’d forgotten, “Best turn that off before you see something that hurts you.” The cloak flared around his shoulders like crimson wings, then swept forward. Branwyn fell backward onto the couch, the psychic protection she’d conjured for herself vanishing as droplets of blood burned on her skin. “Off, I said,” Hunter commanded again, his voice half an animal's growl.

  Branwyn banished the Sight, half-terrified, and slid out from his shadow, trying to get to the other end of the couch so she could bolt for the door if panic took over entirely. She scrubbed frantically at her arms where the drops of blood had landed, even though there was now nothing to see. Beyond the kaiju looming over her, she saw Severin leaning back in his chair, swirling his whiskey. AT, too, was watching her, half-turned on her stool, her hazel eyes swimming with compassion.

  “Hold your horses, missy,” drawled Hunter, looking like he had before. “I can see you’re in a hurry to get back to Tarn, but it’s far too dangerous to let you go alone and my brother did make a mess, as you said. Best spend the night here. I’ll put you on a plane back to LA tomorrow, with the package in hand.”

  Severin said, “And here I was, looking forward to escorting her back through the Backworld.”

  Hunter grinned broadly. “She’s not that kind of an idiot. And even if she was, there are predators no man would let her face.”

  He chuckled, and under his chuckle, Branwyn heard one of his... yes, his pack... whisper, “More fun when they run.”

  “Take me to the airport and I can get my own flight tonight,” Branwyn suggested. She didn’t expect it to work, but she felt an almost academic curiosity about how he’d respond.

  “You’re far too tired for that. I could see it as you worked with the Machine. These things
,” he tapped the block, “can take over the unwary. But really, let’s not argue about it.” He flashed a huge smile. “The fact is, I wouldn’t feel right if I let you go before morning. So it’s not going to happen. But don’t be such a worrywart. We have plenty of guest rooms and you’ll be just fine as long as you don’t go wandering the house alone at night.” He winked. “Predators here, too.”

  -seventeen-

  After another fifteen minutes or so, Hunter personally escorted Branwyn to a guest room. She felt she could have done without the privilege. AT trailed behind them, and several of Hunter’s pack followed behind her. When Hunter tried to draw Branwyn’s arm through his and she refused, as she always did, one of the pack muttered something nasty. But Hunter only smiled, as if she was a child to be indulged.

  “Here we go,” he said, opening the door into a room. “There’s a private bathroom through there. Toiletries and all.” He grinned. “I host parties sometimes. Anyhow, I’ll send somebody for you in the morning. Don’t leave before then or I can’t be responsible for your wellbeing.”

  Another door closed down the hall and Branwyn realized that AT had vanished into the room next door with a murmured, “Goodnight.”

  Before she could say anything, Hunter gave an elaborate bow, gesturing her into the room. “Sleep well, missy.” He closed the door behind her.

  Branwyn put her backpack on the bed and waited for a click that didn’t come. She tried the door and the handle turned freely. Of course he hadn’t locked her in, she thought. What fun was that? There was a lock on her side of the door, though, and Branwyn turned it. She had every reason to distrust his assurances of her safety. While a lock wouldn’t stop a determined assault, it might at least give her a bit of warning.