Air chilled her skin, raising gooseflesh.
Don’t let it touch you!
She backed to the other side of the kitchen. Her breath fogged the air in short bursts, fear twisting her belly. She kept her eyes locked on him. He did the same. For a frozen moment, neither of them moved, then he sprang forward. She spun and darted away, but his palm slammed between her shoulder blades. She fell, crashing to the floor. The impact drove pain up her arms and knocked the wind from her. She scrambled to escape, but his hands on her throat strangled her and a knee in her back crushed her against the floor.
She strained to reach up and back, clawing at him as her eyes bulged and tongue thickened. He banged her head on the ground, and pain shot through her head in a blinding fury. She smelled licorice and rotten eggs, retched against a closed throat, and then ceased to hurt anymore.
Chapter 18
“Feel it?” Cerise asked with her right hand over Lysander’s left on the gear shift.
He nodded and shifted.
“Perfect. See? No one with your reflexes and coordination should drive an automatic.”
“When I said I didn’t know how to drive a manual transmission, I didn’t mean that I drove the other kind. Normally, I go the way of the wind. If I need to travel by car, I’m driven.”
“Like a child,” she teased.
He rolled his eyes. “Like someone born before there were cars.”
“What about horses?”
“Yes, before those, too.”
She smirked. “I meant, did you ever ride horses to get around?”
“Occasionally.”
“You don’t want to keep up with the times?”
He shrugged, shifting again. “I follow mankind’s progress. Sometimes I take advantage of it. I have a computer.”
“Do you use it?”
“I download music.”
“Do you have an email account?”
“I do,” he said, then laughed. “And a website that Merrick created for me when he was a teenager. Get-me-out-of-here-dot-com.”
She barked out a startled laugh. That’s hilarious.
“The email username was Fallen_guy.”
“Subtle.”
Lysander nodded. “And after soliciting a promise that I would check the account, he proceeded to send me pages of junk mail.”
“Did you get pissed?”
“No, I got even. I filled his shower with sand.”
“Sand?”
“To the top. He had a date with a girl he’d been pursuing. He opened the door and the sand spilled out.”
“Wow. The shower must have been unusable.”
“It was.”
“Did he miss his date?”
“No, he got ready elsewhere, but he was late. And afterward he couldn’t bring her back to his place.”
“There must have been sand in everything for weeks. Did he have to hire a plumber to fix the shower?”
“Certainly.”
“Did he stop sending you spam?”
“No, he sent twice as much. But then it only made me laugh because I knew how mad he was when the sand came pouring out. He cursed at me in three languages, including one he doesn’t speak.”
She smiled, charmed by the thought of the pair of hardened killers participating in a lighthearted one-upmanship.
He shifted gears. She glanced at his hand.
“It’s a crime for this car to be sitting in Alissa’s garage with no one around to drive it. And she needs her own car. Cars are freedom.”
“She can’t drive it,” Lysander said. “Her sight was damaged when she opened the portal to your ancestors.”
“I knew there was a problem with her eyes. What’s being done about it? Has she seen a specialist?”
“I don’t think so. Her vision’s returning slowly. It was fully restored with the Muse’s Wreath, but she wouldn’t keep it. She felt the Wreath would better serve the world from the Etherlin.”
“What would serve the world best is if one of its most powerful muses brought her magic back to the Etherlin. Do you think Merrick would move to the Etherlin if things there were different? If there was no risk of him being imprisoned? Or does he like being a mob boss in his own territory?”
“I believe what Merrick liked about his territory was its proximity to Alissa. Now that she stays with him, I doubt he cares where he lives.”
“Then why is he in the Varden when they’re being hunted by the ventala syndicate and that bitch Tamberi Jacobi? If they’re not going to be in the Etherlin, they should live in New York or the Florida Keys or Paris. Some writer-friendly place for Richard and Alissa’s aspirants.”
“They can’t leave the area yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because Merrick has an obligation to fulfill.”
“What obligation?”
“His promise to fight with me when the time of the prophecy comes.”
“Ah.” Cerise paused thoughtfully as she parked in front of Troy’s house. “Actually, Alissa may have the right idea anyway.”
“About what?” he asked, making no move to get out of the car.
“About leaving the Etherlin. I don’t know what our grandmothers would think of the Etherlin these days. They created it as a community for them to live and work together, to enhance each other’s powers of inspiration by their close proximity. And this spot was idyllic with its snowcapped mountains and ice-melt lakes, evergreens and cherry blossoms. It’s stunning. Each generation of muses became more powerful and world famous, but as we got more focused on our work and only our work, the Etherlin Council sucked up more and more control. The community needs money to keep it running. Since money can be a corrupting force when it comes to creativity, the muses signed over their earnings to the Etherlin trust. There were stalkers and vampires and ventala to contend with, so Etherlin Security had to become more protective and more formidable. Now between the EC and ES, we’re like dolls living in a dollhouse, flanked on all sides by men who want to protect and control our images and our lives. So much has changed in a couple of generations. Too much. The muses a few generations back were fiercely independent. Maybe they didn’t accomplish as much in as short a time as we do, but they also didn’t live their lives in some sort of weird perpetual adolescence. They weren’t prisoners in their own homes.” She glanced over at him. “They had affairs with whomever they wanted.”
“I can think of no one better suited to follow her own instincts than you, Cerise. And I don’t only say that because it’s in my interest for you to decide to have an affair with someone your community deems unsuitable.”
“I’ve played the rebellious teen for way too long. I’m closer to thirty than nineteen. It used to be simpler to keep secrets than to face resistance and EC scrutiny. And Griffin wanted our affair to be kept secret, so I’d sneak out of the Etherlin like a teenager climbing out her bedroom window. But this isn’t a game, and it’s time for all of us to grow up.
“The community and my family in particular have been on edge for weeks. Ever since Alissa left without warning or explanation. There was speculation that Merrick was controlling her somehow or had abducted her…seduced her into doing something she would later regret. But he didn’t. I know Alissa feels like she can’t come home. And we’ve been made to feel it’ll never be safe to visit her and that she somehow betrayed all of us by getting involved with Merrick, when in fact all she did was fall in love and be true to herself. That can’t be wrong,” Cerise said. “Now Ileana’s out there with someone dangerous. If she hadn’t tried to keep her relationship with the guy concealed, maybe one of us would have realized what he was.” Cerise shook her head. “I don’t owe anyone blind obedience, and they’ll never get it from me. But I do owe them the truth, even if it leads to an exhausting fight that costs me plenty.”
He smiled at her. “I admire in you the same things I admire in Merrick.”
She raised her brows in question.
“Consequences cannot deter you
the way they would deter lesser men and women.”
She smiled. “The consummate warrior approves of us fighting. What a surprise.”
He laughed softly, grazing his knuckles over her forearm, raising gooseflesh. “Heaven may not have given men the courage of lions, but what it put in mankind’s heart is just as noble. Perhaps more so, since fighting must be chosen.”
She liked that perspective, liked everything about him. Her gaze fixed on his mouth for a moment, temptation curling through her. “There’s no time right now for me to fully reward you for your restraint against the ES officers, but there’s time for a kiss.”
“Good,” he murmured, leaning closer. “Take one.”
She traced his lower lip with the tip of her tongue, mingling their breath. Moments stretched along with their bodies. When she finally lifted her face, he looked at her with eyes the color of the murky depths of the sea.
“I’m glad I never kissed you before last night.”
“Why’s that?” she asked, her heart tattooing a beat against her ribs.
“Because if I’d known how you would suit me, I would’ve been tempted.”
“Tempted to?”
“To always have you this close.” His mouth curved, wicked and sweet. “Becoming bound to you might not have been the result of an accident. I’d have considered seeing it done on purpose.”
She pressed another kiss, hard and rich, onto his mouth. Drawing back, she added, “Careful. If you spend too much time around human beings, you’ll become as reckless as we are.”
He sighed ruefully. “That is a danger.”
After a quiet moment, she exited the car. He followed suit and they went to Troy’s front door. About to slam his shoulder into it to force it open, Lysander stopped short at the sound of Cerise’s ringing phone. He tilted his head.
“Check who that is,” he said.
She cocked a brow, but pulled the phone out. “Amazing instincts,” she murmured when she saw Alissa’s name displayed.
“Hey,” Cerise said when she picked up the call. “Are you guys all right?”
“We’re fine,” Alissa said. “Merrick negotiated an end to the violence. At least temporarily. How’s Lysander?”
“Alive and kicking.”
“I never doubted it. My father wants to tell you something. He insisted that I call. Do you have a moment to speak to him?”
She glanced at the door, wondering how long it would be before ES marshaled its forces and made another run at Lysander. “Sure. We’re a little busy, but we can make time for Richard.”
Lysander nodded in agreement.
“Okay, Dad, Cerise is on the phone.” There was a pregnant pause and she heard Richard speaking in the background.
“What?” Cerise asked.
“Sorry,” Alissa said. “He’s talking something over with himself. Dad, Cerise and Lysander don’t have much time. Can you please talk to her now?”
“Hello?” Richard asked.
“Hi, Richard. There’s something you wanted to tell me?”
“Zelda said, ‘Nobody has ever measured, not even the poets, how much a heart can hold.’”
“Uh—”
“The Montblanc pen Helene gave me on our first date is inside a copy of The Great Gatsby on her desk. Bring it with you when you return.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“And her notes on my last novel. They’re in the closet next to the bamboo plant. My wife thinks I’d benefit from rereading her comments on that book. And my own. The margins, you know, we make use of them.”
“If Lysander and I go back to the house and have time, I’ll see if I can locate it. Listen, I have to go now—”
“I know. You’ve got to go back to the high-rise.”
“The high-rise?”
“Yes, and hurry. He’s breaking your doll.”
Chapter 19
For a split second, Cerise froze, but the next instant she grabbed Lysander’s arm and jerked it to indicate that he should follow her as she hurried to the car.
“What doll, Richard? What high-rise? Are you talking about Griffin’s little sister?”
“A bird in the air is better than two in the cage.”
“Richard,” she snapped as she hauled the driver’s door open. “Are you talking about Jersey Lane?”
“Possibly. Don’t forget the manuscript.”
“Gotta go,” she said, ending the call and shoving the phone into her pocket. As Lysander pulled the passenger door closed, she related what Richard had said.
The car roared through the Etherlin, and Cerise slammed her foot on the brake to jerk the car to a stop in front of Griffin’s building. She leapt from the seat and ran to the front door. Lysander kept pace.
The elevator ride was brief, but felt too long. Cerise sprinted to Griffin’s apartment door and when she pushed it open, she was assaulted by the one Molly Times song she hated. “Sympathy, Too.” Its eerie violin bow against guitar strings opening and the ode-to-death and self-destruction lyrics turned her stomach.
Razor-ending zero, I endanger lives.
Taken all at midnight, Black berries done all right.
“Jersey?” Cerise screamed, rushing through the apartment. “Jersey?” Cerise flung the bathroom door open and gasped. The sight of so much splattered blood left her breathless. Troy lay on the floor in a black cherry pool, one side of his throat gaping open like a startled mouth.
In the formerly white tub, a tiny naked Jersey sat with her knees clasped to her chest, blood dripping down her calves.
“What happened? Are you bleeding?” Cerise stepped over Troy to reach the tub. Jersey sat in a few inches of pink water. It gushed from the tap, but the plug lay sideways next to the drain with its old-fashioned chain hooked over Jersey’s foot.
“I woke up when he cut my wrist. I grabbed his head. I meant to bang it against the tub I think. Not sure—” Jersey stammered, looking up at Cerise with wide eyes. Without makeup she looked about fifteen. “The knife jabbed into his neck.”
Cerise glanced down at the bloody butcher’s knife whose blade could just be seen under the claw-footed tub. Cerise grabbed Jersey’s arms to examine them. The gash in her left wrist pumped bright blood and Cerise pressed her fingers over Jersey’s pulse to stop the bleeding.
“He choked me till I passed out,” she said through chattering teeth. “He could’ve killed me right then. He didn’t have to put me in the bathtub naked. Didn’t need to slice me up.” She paused and swallowed. “He took off all my clothes, left me with nothing,” she spat, her small shoulders starting to shake.
“He was staging it to look like a suicide,” Cerise said grimly.
“He left me naked on purpose. Fucking asshole,” Jersey said in her high clear voice. “I’m cold, Cer. Really cold.”
Lysander lifted a T-shirt that was wadded on the floor. He ripped a strip of fabric from it and held it out. “Here,” he said. “Bind the wound.”
Cerise fashioned a tight bandage around Jersey’s wrist.
“I’ll get her. You find something to wrap around her,” Lysander said.
Cerise nodded, standing and moving past him. When she returned with a blanket, Lysander lifted Jersey by her upper arms and held her aloft. Cerise wrapped Jersey in a tight cocoon of fabric and Lysander swung her into the cradle of his arms. He carried her out to the living room and laid her on the chaise.
“With Troy dead, we won’t get answers from him,” Cerise murmured.
Straightening, Lysander shrugged his brows. “That which is most precious or secret is kept nearest.”
Taking his meaning, she returned to the body. Still warm, but cooling rapidly, Troy’s body resisted movement. She tried to avoid the pooled blood as she knelt next to him and emptied his pockets. She set his wallet and keys on a patch of dry white tile. From his other pocket, she removed a pill bottle with a yellowed pharmacy label. It was Griffin’s prescription for Klonopin. He’d taken them for seizures. Had Troy put them i
n his pocket so they’d be handy? Was he planning to force a few down Jersey’s throat as part of the suicide scene?
Lysander’s large hands yanked Troy’s bloody shirt open, buttons popping free like popcorn. Lying against his black chest hair was a gold chain and from that hung a jump drive, a small three-pronged lightning pendant—the symbol from a Molly Times CD—and a small smoked glass and pewter vial. Lysander snapped the chain and spilled the pendants into his hand.
“Take the technology and the charm,” he said. After she obliged, he uncapped the vial. The smell of the blood on the floor was overpowered by the scent of licorice and rotten eggs.
She coughed, and Lysander recapped the vial. “There’s human blood mixed with the aspect of a demon in this vial. Rella wasn’t only under Reziel’s influence. He made a covenant with the demon, a blood oath. Tell the girl never to regret sending this man to hell. The world is well rid of him.”
The words were like a hammer against her skull, and Cerise’s mind was jarred between the present moment, kneeling on a blood-soaked floor next to the corpse of an apparently evil man and her memories of Troy, of the many times they’d shared as friends while working together to promote the bands she inspired.
She stared down at Troy’s handsome face, as familiar as her own. “I knew him my whole life. He was like family.” She felt ill. She swallowed, sweat dampening her temples and the nape of her neck.
“I considered Reziel my brother once. A close association doesn’t always reveal an underlying character defect. If anything, it can make it harder to fathom.”
“Then how can we prevent ourselves from being taken in?”
He shrugged. “I’m not certain we can. The only true defense is to trust no one.”
She frowned. “I couldn’t live that way.” The nausea ebbed. She grabbed a length of toilet paper and dabbed her forehead.
“Few people could. In lieu of that, I recommend keeping a blade close at hand and training yourself to move automatically in self-defense. In a fight to the death, there’s no room for sentiment or hesitation.”
“Great,” she mumbled as she stood. She went to the sink and turned on the taps. Cupping water in her hands, she brought it to her mouth, sucked it in, and swished. She spit the water into the sink and rinsed again, feeling a little better. “We should call ES about what happened here, but if we do that, they’ll take Jersey into custody and we won’t get a chance to talk to her about why Troy tried to kill her. She’ll also be stuck here where demons have apparently been hanging out with the highest-ranking members of Etherlin society.”
All That Falls Page 21
