No. Jan’s rage subsided a little, her practical nature reasserting itself. Martin hadn’t abandoned her. He wouldn’t: she knew that now, as well as she had known it was Tyler, the moment he’d stepped through the door. Martin had come in to warn her, to stop her from doing anything stupid, but preters could scent him; if he had stayed, the bitch would have been alerted. Whatever reason they had for being here, she would flee—and take Tyler with her.
Or would she? If threatened, might not the preter abandon the human, cast him aside as a decoy, to distract her enemies? The thought, the possibility, filled Jan with determination. AJ had said that she was Tyler’s only chance to escape, that only her love could free him. Tyler’s showing up here was a gift, however it happened, and she would be a fool to ignore it.
Never mind what she had promised AJ. She would not let that bitch take her boyfriend away again.
* * *
Everything around him was noisy, so noisy and too bright, and almost-familiar without being familiar at all. Still shaky from the portal-crossing, still uncertain where they were, or how they had gotten there, he waited the way Stjerne had told him to, holding the table against others who might try to take it, glaring away those who tried to abscond with the empty chair. If he could do that properly, obey perfectly, the uncertainty and discomfort inside him should disappear.
Finally, Stjerne returned to the table, bearing two cups and a look of peaceful satisfaction on her face, a look he had never seen before, and one that made him shiver with fear, not pleasure, as though it somehow boded ill for him. But how? Had he done something wrong, after all?
He thought to hold his tongue, and not risk angering her, but the fear and uncertainty overran him. Once he opened his mouth, though, the words that came out were not the words he had thought to say.
“I know this place,” he said, even as he was accepting the coffee from her hands as though it were a precious gift. “I brought you here...but I don’t know how. Or why.”
She sat with grace, her long legs stretched out before her, seemingly unconcerned by either his worry or how they’d arrived there. “I desired coffee. You knew where there was coffee to be had. You performed your duties perfectly: think no more of it, my pet.” Her words matched her expression, a satisfied purr that not even his best efforts had been able to evoke. It reminded him, uncomfortably, of the looks on the faces of the ones who held him down, who did things to him, after he gave in. Hunger...sated.
He didn’t think it was the coffee that had made her feel that way.
Still. She said he had done well. A quiet burn of pride kindled within his chest, warming away his unease.
“Drink your refreshment, and we will be on our way. I have things I need to do here. So long as the portal holds, it would be foolish to abuse this opportunity, before we must return.”
“Return?” He wasn’t comfortable here, but the thought of going back was not pleasant, either.
“It is not yet time for us to stay,” she said, and her voice thinned a little in annoyance. “Not yet. He wants at least thrice-ten portals in our hold, before we show our hand. But soon we will be able to come back, and stay. And then we will see who holds the power....”
He didn’t understand anything she said, but there was something fierce in her, like the sound of wings beating against a cage or the roar of a lion over its kill. He felt himself harden at the sound, like a dog hearing a bell ring. Unlike when such a thing happened back in the structure of stone and mist, he felt a flush of embarrassment that she could play him so easily.
He stared down into the coffee, and in that flush of emotion something poked at his thoughts, the faded ragged edges of his memory, prying its way in. The music playing in the background of the café reminded him of another tune, something too-distant to grasp, but tantalizingly familiar.
“Black coffee.” He looked up, a fact clear in his memory, and compared the shades of his to hers. “You take yours plain.”
“Yes.” The fierceness in her remained, but muted, as though she had turned down the sound. “It is not a thing we have, and I have developed a fondness for it.” She was speaking to him, but he was hearing something else. Another voice, a woman’s voice, ordering coffee with just the slightest touch of cream.
“I want it to be the exact same color of your skin. Oh.” Her eyes, her sweet green eyes, had gone wide, and she’d looked horrified. “Was that racist?”
He had laughed, and cuddled her, and reassured her that it hadn’t been, that she was purely incapable of being that mean. And then he had put aside both their mugs and kissed her....
“Oh, pet.” Stjerne’s voice was steel and fire. “Look at me.”
Tyler raised his head, unable to deny her. The eyes that met his were not green but golden, and filled with something that unmanned him.
“Too soon,” she said. “He was right, the overbearing pretender, he was right. Too soon; you are not yet ready, and I was too eager. But no damage has been done, only a small setback. Give me your hand.”
He placed his hand in hers, and the gaze and the touch pulled him forward, soothed and anchored him, and the memory faded, the music faded, until all that was left of him was her.
“There. Better.” She smiled at him and leaned back, sipping at her coffee, still holding that fingers-to-palm contact. “I was not wrong; the bond held. The others worry far too much. So, a postponement, for now. A small delay, until you are ready. Soon enough we will claim what should be ours, put an end to this endless foolishness, and then no one—nothing—will keep me constrained, limited to what has been.”
He nodded agreement, although he had no idea what he was agreeing to, and drank his coffee, her presence and her pleasure enough to banish the last uncertainty and confusion.
* * *
It was unbearable. Or, like bears tearing at her insides. Or something, she didn’t know what, and she couldn’t calm her thoughts long enough to be rational. Jan waited at her table, her body practically quivering, trying hard not to stare, as though the hatred in her gut would somehow alert them...and it might. It was a vivid, tail-lashing thing, like a cat about to strike, and she was afraid that it could easily give her away, if she let it.
But she didn’t dare move; as much as she might want to make a scene here, drag Tyler away, scream at both of them, she hadn’t gone that far over the edge. No. She needed to get Tyler back, but she also needed to trap the preter, the way AJ wanted. Somehow.
So she waited until her mug was empty, and she had no more excuse to linger, and yet they sat there. They did not talk after that first exchange; every time she glanced their way, the preter sipped her coffee, that narrow mouth curved in a smile, and Tyler...
Jan’s stomach hurt, and the cat-anger lashed its tail again. Tyler stared at the preter as though he were unable to look away, trapped in her web.
“He’s been taken. Trapped. It’s not his fault.” She murmured that to herself over and over again, willing it to be true.
But she hadn’t forced him to hook up online—there were plenty of men who had gotten the lure and walked away. Just not him. Anger spat again, deep inside, and while most of it was directed at the preter—and Tyler—some of it curled around and burned her, too.
“Let it go,” she told herself. “He needs you. They all need you, all the ones who had been taken.” Because there had been others—at least three others, people whose lovers had tried, and failed, to rescue them. “You have to be strong.”
Besides, Glory would kick her ass if she knew Jan was beating herself up over a guy’s screw-up. And she’d be right to do so. Jan knew that—intellectually.
Glory. God, what she wouldn’t do to be able to talk to the other woman. Tell her what was going on.... Get some human perspective on all this. But Jan didn’t even know where to begin, how to explain any of this without sounding like she was two fries short of a Happy Meal.
Her phone let out a gentle, insistent beep. She looked down to see a new text from M
artin. Come outside
The text was a relief—an excuse to do something rather than sit and watch the love of her life moon over something not-human, and wonder about her own sanity.
Jan got up, carefully, nonchalantly, not drawing any attention to herself, and walked toward the door. There was no way to avoid it; the path took her right past their table. She walked past, close enough to reach out and touch his arm...and neither one of them looked up.
Then she was at the door, through the door, a step away from the door, and Martin’s arms were around her, pulling her close. To the outside it might have looked like a playful hug, the kind old friends or siblings might give, but the intensity in his hold was unmistakable. It was the same sensation she’d had when riding his other form, that she couldn’t have slipped away, couldn’t fall, even if she’d tried.
“Oh, God.” She gasped, feeling the coffee she’d had rise up as if she was going to vomit, and gulped it back down again, despite the horrible taste. She would not show weakness. She would not let that bitch cause her to lose it.
“I have you,” his voice promised against her hair, even as he was moving her away from the door. “I’ve got you, I’m here. Hang on and I won’t let you drown, I swear it.”
She clung, until the shaking in her legs eased, and her stomach settled. Tyler was alive. He was here, within reach. She should go back in there and demand answers, beg him to come back, throw something at him—maybe throw something at that bitch, too.
Instead, she stayed within Martin’s embrace, letting him guide her away from the coffee shop. His body was solid, reassuring, even without the magic of his other form.
Tyler was leaner, his chest narrow, his arms looser around her shoulders, somehow less comforting. That was unfair, she thought, but the comparison remained.
Magic. Martin used magic, glamour, something, to make her want to come with him, to keep her on his back. It wasn’t real. But it felt real.
Her Happy Meal was probably missing six fries and a soda at this point.
“Not too far away,” she said, her legs suddenly unwilling to move.
“No,” Martin agreed. “Just out of direct sight.”
So the preter couldn’t sense him. Right. She followed meekly, until they came to a bench in front of a storefront, currently empty except for a few pigeons fighting over the remains of someone’s sandwich. He sat down, tugging her gently until she joined him, their hands still joined.
Tyler was here. She grabbed at that thought, tried to make sense of it, then shook her head. Away from the sight of him, it seemed impossible. You didn’t just get captured by elves and then walk back into a coffee shop like nothing had happened...did you?
“Why are they here? Why...how?”
“I don’t know. You’re sure—of course you are.” He answered his own question before she could get pissed off at him. “We never thought they brought humans back, once taken. You said that you knew this café?”
Jan nodded and then shook her head. “We came here a few times, but not often. It wasn’t our place, or anything like that.”
They had come here a few times, early on, when the relationship had still been new and uncertain, and they hadn’t been quite comfortable just hanging around on the sofa. Did he take all his new girlfriends there?
The anger sparked again, but it was weaker now, as though Martin’s presence, his glamour, dampened it, kept her calm.
“There’s a theory,” Martin said, hesitant. “About portals.”
“What?”
“It’s just a theory.”
“Martin!” She tried to pull her hand away, but not seriously.
“All right. We’ve been trying to figure out why they’re taking humans, so many of them, I mean. And how it’s connected, if it’s connected at all, to how they’re getting here.”
“And?”
“And Elsa—you remember Elsa? She’s got a theory that the preters are binding humans to them somehow, and then using that connection to cross over. So it would make sense, when they pass through the portal, they return to somewhere the human knows. So, if she’s riding him back...he might bring her to somewhere familiar.”
“You mean...he deliberately brought her here? They... He’s not a captive?” She didn’t want to accept it, but it explained everything; how he had sat there and looked at her, that intense gaze that didn’t acknowledge anything else in the world. The same look that he used to give her, when he thought she wasn’t looking...
Martin freed one hand and stroked her hair, bending forward to rest his lips against the crown of her head, when she wouldn’t look at him. “Things change, when preters get their claws in. We’re not immune, but humans are always so vulnerable.... We warned you about this. I’m sorry, Janny. It’s not something I understand, but I’m sorry you’re hurting.”
Her jaw clenched, her teeth grinding against each other. She forced the muscles to relax, resting her forehead against his chest, breathing in the odd but not unpleasant scent that was distinctly Martin. Humans were vulnerable. But she could break that connection, AJ had said that she could.
“I need to get him away from her.”
He sighed and pulled away, leaving her feeling oddly chilled, despite her jacket. “I was watching them. Watching him. She’s had him for too long; he won’t crack.”
“But—”
“I know we said we’d rescue him, but if he can’t be convinced to betray them, Janny, we need to find someone else. We can’t risk her alerting them, that we’re hunting....”
He was right. She knew it, but seeing Tyler there, and then being told that he was impossible to reach, was the last straw. Anger, unable to hit one target, found another. “Screw that. This is what I came here for. This is the whole and only reason I’m in this. You help me, damn it, Martin. Help me get him back. Tell me how to do it. Or, so help me, call in all your weird friends for backup, because that’s the only way you’re going to stop me—and you’re going to have to find someone else to be bait because I’m done. I swear it.”
They stared at each other, her green eyes meeting his brown ones steadily, without any give whatsoever. And, just like that time with AJ, Martin blinked and looked away first.
Humans could stare down supernaturals. That was interesting, and possibly useful. Jan tucked that info away for later.
“You love him that much.” He wasn’t asking a question, so Jan didn’t bother to answer it. She just wrapped her arms around her body, suddenly feeling a chill, and waited.
Martin didn’t fidget or make faces when he thought; he went very still and quiet, and the only way you could tell anything was going on was the way his jaw clenched and then released, over and over again, as though he were literally chewing something. “If I tell you, if I help you... You have to promise me something in return. A debt. A debt to be collected when I ask it, with no hesitation or denial.”
Supernaturals weren’t to be trusted. They lied, they seduced, they were coldhearted and had their own agendas. AJ was using her as bait, had sent her out here with Martin—Martin who admitted that he was a killer, that it was in his nature to lure and drown innocents...innocent humans.
Jan stared at him, then said, “Agreed.”
Martin sighed and closed his eyes. “You need to lay hands on him, and hold him. That’s the only way you can save him. She has her hooks into him—yours have to be stronger, like thorns, like a briar patch that won’t let go. Grab him, hold him—no matter what happens, don’t let go. She will try to shake you—scare you. Don’t give her power.”
Jan nodded. “She’ll fight. I got that. You’ll help me?”
“I can’t.” Martin got up, and stepped away from the bench. She thought for a moment that he was going to keep walking, washing his hands of her entirely. Then he stopped, still facing away from her, but his voice carried clearly. “If she senses me, she’ll panic, same as the other one did. And... I don’t care about your Tyler, Janny. I can’t help you hold him. If anything, I
’d...be a distraction.”
There was a level of pain in Martin’s voice that made her want to put her arms around him, to comfort him the way he had comforted her. But she had to focus on Tyler: Ty was the one who needed her. “So. How do I do this? Just grab him? He’ll come with me, and then he’s free?” It sounded too simple: nothing had been simple for days; she didn’t buy it.
“He won’t want to come. You have to remember that. She’s had him for two weeks now; her claws are into him but good. He won’t recognize you, remember you.”
Jan shook her head, denying the words even as he spoke them. “That’s impossible.”
“Did he see you in the café?”
“I wasn’t trying to get his attention.”
“You saw him the moment he walked in. You sat there, not ten feet from him, and he never looked up. Never felt your gaze.” Martin turned now and faced her.
“Janny, listen to me. You think you know us, what we’re capable of, but you don’t. The fairy tales had some of it right: we’re not nice. And preters are worse, far worse than us. For whatever reason she took him, in his mind, his soul, he’s hers, now. He will resist you, fight you. You can’t let him go. Not even for an instant.”
“I won’t,” she promised, filled with a trembling excitement. All she could think about was that she could soon have Tyler back with her.
Martin just sighed.
* * *
The Center was more than a place; it was a neutral meeting ground. No matter what else was happening in the world, no matter who was feuding with whom, what group was having a hissy fit, who was declaiming their superiority, when you came to the Center, all that stayed outside. You would share your fire with anyone who came to it, if not as friends, then not as enemies, either.
Laura Anne Gilman Page 16
