Melanie: I'm okay. Gotta go for now. Simon's here with Ieza. I'll get you up to speed as soon as I can.
I put my phone away and went outside just in time to see my parents wrapping two very confused Greeks up in a group welcome hug.
"Hey guys," I said, breaking up the very up close and personal hello. "Come on in."
It didn't take long at all to get Ieza settled in. From the sounds of it, she mostly just wanted to go back to sleep, something I could completely relate to. She demanded we give her any and all updates about her family the very instant that we can.
"I promise." I hesitated at the door, knowing just how hard this whole ordeal had been for her. "As soon as we know anything, so will you. Simon will come right back here and tell you himself if he can."
My mum reached over and wrapped an arm around Ieza's slight shoulders. She didn't know the details, but she knew enough to know that she was needed and how she could help.
I hoped I'd managed to pick that skill up from her.
Chapter 14
A guttural scream of surprise met my ears only seconds after Simon and I landed back in my living room. I turned my head in time to see Bryan scramble backward toward the door of my flat. He was dressed in his full uniform and screaming like a banshee.
Either as a result of the yelling or the random cop in my house, I stepped backward as well. I heard Cooper let out an ooph behind me before I actually saw him. When I turned, I found him and Taya both staring at me, their eyebrows raised in surprise.
The screaming cut out and an awkward silence fell over the room.
"What's everyone doing in my flat? It's barely even morning!"
And boy was I ever too tired for whatever this was about. I guess I’d expected Taya to still be here, though we hadn’t really talked about it. And I’d known Cooper was staying to watch over Ieza until we got her somewhere new. But having everyone just standing there, gawking at me and Bryan, set my nerves on edge.
Taya moved toward me, taking over the spot where Simon had deposited my body in the near-empty living room. "Everything's fine." She shot Cooper a look before lowering her voice. Cooper moved in to calm down his brother. "Or it will be. About two minutes after Simon left, this lad here showed up. He wanted to get a better look around. Discrepancies in the report. Or something. Thankfully, Cooper had just been getting ready to head out. I’m not sure what I would have done if I’d been here on my own."
I allowed myself only a few seconds to breathe and re-center. I wasn’t sure what I would have done either, or what I was supposed to do now.
I probably should have expected more than a cursory glance from the Garda about all this. As a woman, or simply a decent person, I should have been relieved that they were taking how terrible Ieza looked last night seriously.
I turned to Bryan. "I'll help however I can, but I've got to be honest, this isn't a great time. There's a lot going on right now and..." I looked over to Cooper, feeling a little helpless. At least he already knew about magick so I wouldn't have to try to explain away what he'd seen.
"I can explain all of this to you later," he said softly.
Bryan's grimace only grew as he locked his eyes on mine. "I can't begin to guess what kind of operation you've got going on here, but people are getting hurt. I'm not about to let that slide."
I held up my hands in surrender, trying to show just how much I wasn't a threat. I was probably overdoing it a little, but I couldn't find anything to say that wouldn't be a cliche or suspicious. I was running a pretty haphazard operation here, and people were getting hurt. I just wasn't the one doing it. But it's not like I could explain that I was one of the good guys and hope that would be enough. I gritted my teeth and forced what I hoped was an innocent smile before trying again.
"What happened to Ieza, it didn't even happen in Galway. It's a long story, but it's not my story to tell. Not any of ours. Only hers.”
I tried to work through a scenario where Ieza fully came clean with the police about what had happened to her. Could they help somehow?
A thousand times no. Even if the attack hadn't happened in an entirely different country, sending humans to Nadir's door would only be signing their death warrants.
"And I'm just supposed to take your word for that?"
"You can take Ieza's," Simon said. "I'm sure she'd be happy to talk to you again if that will help."
"And where is she?" That was a complicated question. Mentioning that she was at my parents wouldn’t help the case for her being a stranger to me a couple of days ago.
“Not here. Like I said, we just met.” None of this was technically a lie. "It's kind of early, and I haven’t even slept yet. Can the rest of this wait?” The question didn't come out quite as polite as I'd hoped it would.
"I apologize if this is an inconvenience for you. We have reason to believe..."
"Enough." Cooper interrupted. "We? So that's why you're here, without a partner, first thing in the morning? Official police business?"
When Bryan didn't answer right away, I had every piece of information I needed. This house call wasn't sanctioned. It might not have even been legal. Which meant I didn't have to put up with it anymore. There might have been value in playing nice, but there was a lot more value in putting all of this on the back burner for a while, no matter how much it pissed Bryan off.
There were officially way too many people moving around my tiny apartment. Were the local police on the verge of walking into something they didn't understand, or was this just one guy with a vendetta against a brother he didn't trust? I really didn't care.
"I'll go," Bryan conceded, face pinched together into a menacing scowl. He moved to hand me a card. "But this will all go much more smoothly for all of us if you give me a call. If you think of anything else that might be useful..."
No one said goodbye before he took off out the front door which I promptly locked behind him.
“Great. One more disaster I have to handle.” The snap of anger had burst out of me before I knew it was coming. A night's worth of frustrations bubbled to the surface of my soul in an instant.
The police and human discovery as a whole. The treatment of lesser magicks all over the world. Every vampiric power play. The summit. All of these different pieces that seemingly stood on their own, any one of them ready to destroy everything for those of us here in Galway.
And I was in no way functional enough to put the pieces together at that point. I needed sleep. And then I needed to deal with Nadir.
I'd had a few days to recover mentally and physically from everything I'd been through, and to move—which was feeling more and more like something I probably should have waited on. But I would never get time to regroup and officially get my new faction off the ground, giving us a fair shake at survival.
"I should really call and check in with Tilly." The statement surprised me as much as it seemed to the people around me. I'd all but forgotten about the first person who had actively sought me out after everything that had happened, hoping to join our faction and gain some security for herself. She was probably had some serious doubts about all of that by now.
"Uh, sure. But that can probably wait." Taya shrugged.
"I guess. Then maybe I should call my parents, make sure Ieza is settling in okay. We could let her know that the police here might be a problem. Wait. No. Actually, do we know what’s happening in Dublin? Simon and I were forced into a bit of a disappearing act, but even before then I didn’t exactly get the impression that the Mistress would be one of my biggest fans. And she’ll have to reach out to Nadir...”
“Mel?” Taya interrupted. “I think you might need to take a second here and get me up to speed.”
I shook my head. “No time. There’s never any time. I should call Ethan, see if he knows anything. Or maybe he can talk to the Mistress, smooth things over. Buy us more time.”
“Melanie,” Taya said again, more sharply now. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I snappe
d.
“Okay, you’re fine. But you’ve been through a lot. Let me just—”
I’d known Taya long enough to know exactly what her play would be. She’d always been the type to bend over backward for other people, sometimes for all the wrong reasons. She reached for me, but I shrugged her off.
“What? Help me? I think we both know that the kind of help you have to offer probably wouldn’t be in my best interest.”
I shoved my hand in my pocket, pulled out my phone and turned for my bedroom. But before I taken two steps, Taya had swatted at my hand, knocking the small device into the air. She caught it effortlessly before tucking my phone in toward her chest. “Melanie. Stop. You need to take a breather here. Be pissed at me if you want to be. If that’s what you need to do, I get it. But that doesn’t mean you need to do all of this by yourself. I’m right here. We all are. You don’t look good and are not acting like yourself.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve been better,” Cooper pointed out. “We need to be smart here. Anything you do right now is just as likely to get into more trouble as it is to actually fix anything.”
Right away, my eyes darted toward Simon. Hadn’t we recently had this same conversation?
The thought was enough to steady me, but only a little. There was no part of me that wanted to admit the Taya had a point. I was tired. Exhausted. I’d been exhausted when I’d shown up in Dublin, but adrenaline had pushed me through that, through Greece and then talking to my parents. And that already felt like a lifetime ago.
Maybe Taya knew me well enough to know when I push myself too far. But what did it matter?
“I’ll call Ethan,” I said, “just to check in. He can smooth things over then...”
“No,” Taya said slowly. “I’ve already got your phone. And I know how to work it. I can call Ethan. Simon will get me up to speed, and I can work from there, at least enough to get us through to the morning. I’ll do that, you get some sleep. You need it.”
Checking in with myself, I knew just how badly my muscles were aching for a nap, and how badly my skin longed for the comfort of the blanket tucked over me as I nuzzled into bed.
Bed. Bed. Bed. Bed. It had turned into a chant in my mind, in my bones.
But what if something happened? What if, somehow, things managed to get worse?
“What do you need?” Taya asked, her eyes shining with concern.
“I don’t know. A day at the spa, a large pizza, and a vacation.”
“Start with the nap,” she countered. “If anything happens, I’ll wake you, I promise. The suns out, so the vampires are just about useless. You’ll be better to everyone if you get some rest. We’re good.”
And there they were, the magick words. Every part of my body wanted to comply with the instructions it’d been given. Get some sleep. Let someone else deal with the follow-up for a change. Dive back in tomorrow when things are a little less insane.
Maybe there was something else I should have been doing. But I’d reach the point where I was no longer convinced I could do much else, not without bringing on a pretty epic coma, or getting myself killed in whatever fight was coming for me next.
“Mel, go.” Taya nudged me with one elbow, while shifting her body away from me to pull my phone out of my line of vision.
But I’d never even considered grabbing for my phone.
For that night at least, I was done. Bed was calling my name, and I was well past ready to answer.
Chapter 15
When my eyes popped open, the sky outside my bedroom window was a perfect blue. I wasn’t sure exactly how much sleep I’d gotten; it had to have been at least a few hours, but not a full night’s sleep. Still, I felt better. Or, I might have, if a dark-haired woman I’d never seen before hadn’t been standing at the foot my bed, cloaked in the shadows.
I froze in place, trying to control my breathing. I could make out little more than a silhouette. She faced my window, a cascade of dark curls flowing over her shoulders.
Did she know I was awake? And who the hell was she? If this had been an attack, I’d probably already missed my chance at fighting it off.
Still, the woman seemed distracted, and I probably should have used that to my advantage. But, for all the frantic considerations my mind was still working through, I only had one guess for the intruder’s identity Leda. Who else but Simon’s sister, a woman with his same abilities, could have broken into my bedroom without any of the other people in my apartment realizing? But why had she come to me instead of Simon? But when it came down to it, the only way I could be assured of getting answers was to suck it up and ask.
“I don’t mean to be rude, but can I help you with something?”
Awkwardly, I shuffled upward, trying to sit with my back against my headboard. As far as faction leaders went, no one would vote me in as most distinguished. Leda turned to face me as I was still reaching upward for the light switch. When the bulbs overhead sprang to life, she flinched back at the sudden light, raising a hand to shield her eyes.
The action only briefly marred her undeniably beautiful face. The woman looked like a Greek goddess in modern clothing. Her skin glowed with a perfect dewy haze that I’d be forever jealous of. I’d almost think it was unfair, if it weren't for the fact that this woman was in the process of dealing with her wife's hospitalization and her daughter's kidnapping.
When she spoke, her Greek accent was thick. "I'm sorry to come to you this way. I was sent. My brother Simon came here in search of," she stumbled for a word, and with the adrenaline still coursing through me, I tried to speed things along.
"I'm up to speed. Your wife, she's okay," I said to start, because I knew that if it was me it would be the first thing I'd want to hear. “It's nice to meet you, Leda. We've been worried." The words come out more familiar than I mean for them too, but I really am relieved to see that she's okay. "Simon and Ieza are just in the other room if you want to..."
Leda holds up a hand, cutting me off. "I'm glad. But they are not why I'm here. I was sent to find you and bring you back with me. As an offering, an exchange."
I sat up a little straighter. "Thanks, but no thanks?"
"This is not my idea. Nadir, my... he sent me to find you. He says that if I can convince you to meet with him, to come to him, that he will release Kassie. My family and I, we will be free to go. But first I must bring him something of more value than me and Simon. There are very few things he would value more."
I had no idea how to respond, but was suddenly more grateful than ever for my comforter, an extra layer ensuring that Leda couldn't simply reach out and touch me, making a connection that would allow her to transport me along with her.
"I’m not a thing, and neither are you. Can I make a counter-suggestion? Of, you know, not doing this?"
I had no idea why I was trying so hard to keep my tone light, to keep the situation calm and avoid a fight. I probably should have been yelling bloody murder already, bringing everyone else into the room. Or maybe not, maybe this would lead to a fight. They’d be outnumbered, three versus two. But it was still very much something I hoped to avoid.
None of my options were looking particularly great.
"I went to your old home first. Tonight, I will tell him that I searched your apartment, but it seemed as though you had moved. He will send me back to try again."
That much at least was a good sign. Despite what was at stake, Leda seemed to be trying to find a way to avoid taking me like a lamb to the slaughter.
"Is there any chance he'll believe I've disappeared? That you can't find me?"
"I have as long as I'd like. He laughs, since there's no rush. But he promises me that wherever Kassie is, tonight she has had her final meal, her final drink of water. She will not be allowed to eat or drink again until I bring him what he wants. Until I bring him you."
Shit. I swallow hard. No matter how unwilling Leda is to bring me to her boss, her captor, I couldn’t even pretend that there's a chan
ce she'd risk her daughter's health or safety. "How long can you give me?"
"A day, no longer. Kassie will be sleeping now and probably doesn't realize anything is wrong. At least no more so than it was before. But that will change quickly."
"I understand. And I'll take whatever you can give me." Despite being covered nearly waist to toe in blankets, the flesh all over my body had begun to form goosebumps. "I have to ask. Do you know what he wants me for?"
There were a million possibilities and none of them would be good. I could be a tool or statement. And my earlier vision of my head on a pike for the summit was still fresh in my mind. It was still a fate I was very much looking to avoid.
"Nadir did not say. He is never been the type to divulge his plans simply for the honor of hearing his own voice echoed through the rooms of his home." Leda cocked her head slightly, considering. "But I do not think he would harm you. He is old, and he is cunning. And he has lasted as long as he had in a country as ancient as ours by learning to use the tools at his disposal. I have heard of who you are. You could be an interesting tool. Or perhaps he has something else in mind entirely."
"Well, even if he’s not looking to kill me, I’m still not exactly enthusiastic about the idea of handing myself over. I'm nobody's tool." And truthfully, I didn't have high hopes for how useful I could truly be. Perhaps this vampire was looking to bring his empire into the twenty-first century, and my technical abilities could be helpful. But if not, there was no guarantee that I'd stay alive long enough to find a way back out again.
"Would you be able to come back here a little later?" I asked. I wasn’t sure yet if having an extra teleporter around would be truly helpful, but it couldn't hurt. And they also knew, that to a certain point, Leda was on my side. She’d been the one to send Simon to be in the first place. She'd thought I'd be able to help.
"This shouldn't be a problem. Nadir's people cannot track where I go or who I see, not unless they already have spies in your city. So long as they think I'm looking for you, I can be wherever I like. But only for so long," she clarified, staring down at me to make her point clear. I could have time, but only so much of it. "I will check back in now with an update, and return as soon as possible."
Magic In My Soul Page 10
