Cressida Lahr. Grinning as if she’d just spotted her long-lost best friend.
Marley’s lungs seized. Her throat sealed and her vision tunneled again, tiny green lights flashing in the darkness around the edges.
“Oh, stop being a drama queen and sit down.” Cressida nudged the chair again. “Nothing’s going to happen out here.”
Marley sucked in a breath and looked around, half expecting all the people to be in a frozen tableau. As if the goddess had the ability to stop time so no one would see her kill her prey. But the tables immediately adjacent to the rogue goddess’s were empty, and none of the restaurant’s patrons seemed to sense anything amiss.
Marley’s reaction to seeing Cressida revealed more than she wanted to admit about her fear of confronting the woman again. She had no choice now but to sit and try to regain her composure.
“What brings you to LA?” Cressida asked pleasantly while Marley adjusted the chair and settled into it. Marley gave her a look, and she laughed.
“Okay, let’s try ‘fancy meeting you here.’” Her mask dropped away, revealing shrewdness, but there was something different about her. Marley studied the woman for a moment. Her hair was still gorgeous but pulled back in a simple ponytail that left one piece to curve around her face. Her eyes weren’t turquoise today but a paler version that was still striking against her dusky skin. It all enhanced her feline features but seemed natural. Definitely not power enhanced.
The goddess wore skinny jeans tucked into her black leather boots, which were now crossed on the seat of a third chair. Her shirt was more casual than before, but not T-shirt simple. Silky material, solid red. A half-empty green-tea smoothie sweated on the table, condensation dripping through the ironwork to the concrete below. Cressida sipped it, then smiled a genuine smile at Marley.
She seemed normal.
“I take it this isn’t coincidence,” Marley said.
“Of course not. Once I tag someone, I can sense his—or her—presence for half a mile. I knew exactly when you were coming.”
“Tag someone?”
She shrugged. “Identify their life force. Energy signature. Whatever you want to call it. Unique as a fingerprint and always detectable if I’ve been paying attention.”
It sounded similar to both Riley’s and Marley’s more limited senses, but she could sense Marley from half a mile? That was incredible range. She had never known any goddess to have any abilities that expansive.
What else was this Cressida Lahr capable of? How the hell were they going to go up against her? The element of surprise was obviously off the table.
“Anyway, I sensed you coming and thought we should talk.”
“About what? What do you want?”
“I want you to stop absorbing my energy before it drives you insane.”
Marley stared at her, aware her jaw had dropped but not quite capable of pulling it back up.
“What can I get you?”
It took Marley a few seconds to switch from Cressida’s mini-bomb to the waiter’s question. She twisted to look up at the tall, skinny guy in a white button-down shirt and black apron giving off a perfect air of ennui. He was born for LA.
“Same as she’s having.” Marley nodded at Cressida’s smoothie.
“Coming right up.”
He walked away, and Marley rested her forearms on the table. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Let me break it down for you. My power source is the sun. That means unlimited energy.” She ticked the facts off on her fingers as she went. “Unlimited energy is dangerous in its natural state. Living proof.” She pointed at herself. “You, however, are not just absorbing it, you’re changing it in a way that makes it a part of you. And it’s going to drive you insane. I bet it’s already started.”
When Marley embarked on this quest, she’d been seeking peace. Trying to become a woman she could respect, who’d made up for her mistakes. She’d never thought about what she would do as that woman, what “peace” would look like when the fighting was over. But now even the hope of it slipped away like bubbles down a drain, irretrievable.
For a few seconds, grief swamped her. The only thing she really wanted in her future was Gage, but if some version of Cressida was her destiny now, that possibility no longer existed.
Her lips trembled, but she firmed them immediately. There was no time for wallowing. The truth left her only this mission and one goal. If Cressida was in a sharing mood, Marley would learn all she could and then use it to stop her once and for all.
“How do you know that?” she asked.
Cressida snorted. “How do you think?”
“I guess you’re insane.”
“Mostly. I have lucid days. Like today.” She tilted her head back, out of the shade of the umbrella, and closed her eyes when the sun hit her face. Her calm acceptance struck Marley as just another aspect of the madness. “When I’m in the sun like this, everything’s okay. I just soak it in, like any West Coast worshiper. I don’t consciously draw energy, but my body takes it in anyway, stores it, accumulates it, and once I figured out how damaging that was, it was too late. I was already on this road.”
“Tell me,” Marley invited gently. She got the sense this woman needed a confidant, a peer who might understand. Why else would she approach Marley like this? Marley doubted the goddess really cared what happened her, but was she in a sharing mood or did she have a greater purpose?
Cressida stayed still for almost a full minute before drawing back under the umbrella. “When I’m out of the sun, the energy drives at me. It’s not meant to be static or inactive, but I can’t use or expel enough of it to take the pressure off.”
“Why not avoid the sun, then?” But Marley knew it couldn’t be that easy.
Cressida laughed bitterly. “What do you think I’ve been doing all these years since the Society cast me out?”
What, indeed… No one had seen or heard of her for decades. “Why did they?”
Cressida stared at her. “You don’t know the story?”
Marley shrugged. “No one does. There are very few records of you and nothing that says what you did.”
“What I did?” She jerked forward in her chair, slamming the heels of her hands against the table and knocking it a few inches. “I did nothing but struggle to control my ‘gift.’” She sneered the word. “Did they help me? Did saintly Barbara Valiant ever spare a moment for a terrified young woman who shared her source? No. The fucking Society for Goddess Education and Defense,” she spat, “they sat in their official little conference room and primly told me that my actions, my choices, had given them no option but to expel me. Every goddess was too scared to come near me.” Her hair had come loose, strands falling into her face. Someone behind Marley must have been staring at her because she stiffened her spine and smoothed her hair back before resettling in her chair.
“I locked myself in a house with no windows,” she went on in a carefully controlled tone. “That’s a different kind of insanity, and it didn’t work.” She tilted her head. “Your sister’s like me, you know.”
“Not even remotely,” Marley shot back before she could help herself.
This time, Cressida’s laugh held true amusement. “I mean she’s powerful. She uses the moon, yes?”
That was common knowledge. “Yes.”
“And she’s aware of it all the time, even when it’s not full moon and she can’t directly access it?”
Marley didn’t remember ever having a discussion about that with her sister. “I guess.”
Cressida nodded. “When the sun’s overhead in the middle of the day, it’s pouring down on me, even if I’m not out in it. Light and heat aren’t the only kinds of energy it sends us.”
“What about at night?”
Cressida pointed at her. “I know what you’re getting at. Yeah, I went to Alaska, above the Arctic Circle. Spent a few years traveling back and forth, actually, between the two lands of the midnight sun. You have any idea what that wa
s like?”
Marley could imagine the basics. Depression, loneliness, freezing temperatures, harsh weather. It could hardly be better than what Cressida was trying to hide from, and that was without accounting for the grueling travel between locations. Marley had isolated herself from her friends and family for only a few months and was already being pulled back into their fold. She couldn’t imagine living that way, at the literal ends of the earth.
The waiter appeared and deposited a wicker basket of sweet potato fries in front of Cressida, then set Marley’s smoothie on the table before going back inside.
Cressida offered the basket to Marley, who shook her head.
“I ran out of money, decided living like that was as bad as dying, and if I wasn’t going to commit suicide, I needed to try something else. It took me a long time to reintegrate with society.” She dipped a fry in a pot of ketchup and ate it.
Marley shook her head. “You sound like a shrink.” She stuck a straw into her smoothie and sipped. The crisp cold slid into her mouth and down her throat, seeping out into her body and making her draw a breath of relief.
“I sound like my shrink.” She ate three more fries. “These are good. Sure you don’t want some?”
Marley was too queasy to consider eating anything. “No, thanks. I take it therapy didn’t help. What else did you try?” She cared less about the history than the future, but it took one to get to the other, and so far, Cressida was willing to share. Maybe she just wanted someone to understand—no one was a villain in his or her own story. But Marley sensed she had a more specific purpose.
“Everything—drugs, biofeedback. I became OCD about expelling the energy at the end of the day, but it’s not like I can just drain it into the sink. There has to be a receptacle.”
“A receptacle.” The nausea increased. “A person. A specific type of person. That’s why you started dealing it.”
The sunlight dimmed, a cloud drifting across the sky. “It works better than anything else has, but I didn’t deal it until the Deimons. Until Christopher and Aiden got involved.” A smile stretched her face, too wide, and her eyelids dropped to half-mast, fluttering. “Oh, the relief. I heard about the leeched goddesses and remembered the fairy tales. How they were meant to teach us not to give our power away. I went searching for those books, to learn how to do it. And I found something better.”
Marley’s heart thudded sluggishly. This was her fault. It was one thing to believe it when it could be disputed and another to have it confirmed to her face. If she’d never bestowed power on Anson, Cressida would never have known to try it and so many other people wouldn’t have been harmed. Not just the goddesses, but…
“What did you find?” she croaked, even though she knew.
“I found Numina.”
Chapter Thirteen
Face your challengers in the open, with frank discussion, to draw out their intentions and create open competition.
—Numina manifesto, revised
G
age walked to the Fiametta alone. He’d sent a quick e-mail to his father, a follow-up to the one he’d sent before he and Marley left New York. Whatever Quinn was doing to keep them distracted and focused on the summit was working because he’d only gotten a couple of texts back.
His father wanted a phone call, but Gage didn’t even attempt it. He’d ask too many questions Gage couldn’t answer. It was hard enough keeping things from him. He didn’t want to lie on top of it all.
Just before he passed through the front gate into the Mediterranean-style courtyard at the Fiametta a short time later, he tapped out a short text letting Marley know he’d arrived and was going in. He wished she were with him, but Aiden would only talk to him solo, if at all.
Sam and Riley perched on the edge of a fountain, which splashed merrily in the sunlight. Riley swept her hand through the spray, scattering droplets on Sam, who growled and tickled her. She screeched and gave Gage a thumbs-up behind Sam’s back.
So his path to the condo was clear, and they would be right here if he ran into trouble. Gage nodded and followed the corridor wrapping around the courtyard. The pinkish stucco walls echoed his footsteps on the travertine tile walkway. A breeze carried soft, flowery scents from the climbing vines on trellises placed around the courtyard, sectioning off stone benches and seating clusters for private lounging. This was a definite step up from the New York apartment, luxurious as it was, and thousands of miles from the rotting barn.
Aiden was in unit 4G. Gage reached the staircase and stepped from sunshine into shade. His heart beat in time with his footsteps, ringing out his approach on the metal steps. He stopped outside the glossy apartment door and knocked. After a few seconds, he couldn’t stand to wait. He turned and braced his hands against the metal rail circling the upper level. The courtyard looked great from here, the layout forming a pattern reminiscent of Italian Renaissance. Way out at the fountain, Sam bent to Riley’s ear. She was watching Gage up on the balcony. He imagined her expression was worried, though he was too far away to tell. He wished again for Marley to be at his side.
The door opened behind him. He turned quickly and stepped forward so he could block the door if Aiden tried to shut it on him. But his brother just nodded, stepped back, and motioned him inside. As if—
“I knew you were coming.”
Gage stepped through the doorway and waited while Aiden closed and locked the door. The foyer opened into a wide living room with tall windows that allowed sunshine to pour in. More Italian tile on the floor, white walls almost completely unadorned, all the plush furniture in ivories and wheats and browns, set off by dark antique cabinets and tables topped by ornate lamps. The coordinated pillows and blanket throws, as well as dried plants stuck in baskets in a couple of corners, told Gage the apartment was either professionally decorated or was owned by a woman. Sam had only traced the deed to a holding company.
“Nice place. Cressida’s?”
Aiden nodded once and led his brother into the living room. He dropped onto a chair, leaving a matching one or the sofa for Gage. He chose the sofa for the direct line to the front door.
“How did you know I was coming?” Gage asked.
“Cress knew. She’s more aware of everything going on than you’d believe.”
“I don’t know. I’d believe a lot.” Gage studied his brother. This was the longest they’d ever spent apart. They both attended local colleges and never went more than a couple of weeks without getting together, either just the two of them or with their father. Aiden somehow looked older, taller, and more mature than he’d been before Gage left for his last business trip. He wore khakis and a golf shirt no different from his usual attire, but he somehow wore them…better. Or maybe he wore his body better.
“I’m surprised you let me in,” Gage said. “I’m sure you know Dad’s worried about you.”
Aiden shrugged. He sat against the cushion with his arms outstretched, his gaze landing somewhere on the other side of the room.
“Did you think we wouldn’t be interested in whatever enterprise you’ve got going here?”
Aiden loosened his fingers on the arms of the chair. The dents filled in slowly. “Yeah, you’d be interested. Interested in taking over. Telling me everything I was doing wrong. I wanted this to be mine. To succeed on my own merits.”
Gage opened his mouth to protest, then closed it and looked down at his hands, loosely folded between his knees. “We’d have wanted to help, yes. You can’t blame us for that. We have experience and could offer you advice.”
“Yeah. Like I said.”
“Okay. Well, I’m proud of you.” He almost choked on the words, knowing what kind of business Aiden was running. “What prompted you do to this now? Just trying to get your trust?”
Aiden’s stone face tightened into annoyance. “Actually, no. That’s not the reason. I haven’t been in a rush to get my trust like you were.”
The unfair jab wasn’t typical of Aiden, and Gage reacted sharply. “I hav
en’t touched that money, and you know it. I believe in hard work.” He stopped, took a deep breath. “The point is…I’m glad you’re building something. The offer to help stands. Any time. Just let me know.” For an instant, he saw something lighter, hopeful, in his brother’s eyes.
But he only said, “I’m fine,” in that same flat voice.
“Sure. Just offering.” Gage braced his forearms on his knees, folded his hands, and clamped his fingers down. He wanted to move, to pace, to slam something past Aiden’s defiant calm. But he shoved all that back behind amiable interest. If he was right and Aiden still wanted his big brother’s approval, maybe even despite himself, then giving it might be the way to get him to talk.
“So what’s it like?” he asked.
“What’s what like?”
Good. He was responding. “The flux.”
Now Aiden faced him, surprised. “Why are you asking me that?”
Gage sat up straighter. “It’s the product you’re selling. Taking it is good business. Why wouldn’t I ask how it was?”
“Because she said you’d know—that the whore you’re with can tell.” Aiden’s composure had been broken, and he looked around, as if hoping Cressida would step into the room and clarify the discrepancy.
Gage’s vision flashed red. “If you expect me to respect your goddess, you’d better respect mine.”
“What? Who?” Aiden frowned at him. “What do you mean ‘your goddess’?”
“Marley. The woman who’s been trying to save you all from yourselves. You saw her at the New York ceremony? Tallish, red hair, white eyes?”
Aiden curled his lip. “She’s no goddess.”
“She’s as much a goddess as Cressida Lahr is. But that’s all off topic. What did you think Marley would know?”
“That we didn’t take it.” He looked unhappy that he’d revealed anything but sighed with resignation. “The business partners—me, Chris, Tony, Brad. None of us take the flux. Not yet.”
Gage couldn’t stop himself from sagging into the couch cushions. It had been three days since New York, plenty of time for things to have changed. He may still be late, but he wasn’t too late.
Sunroper (Goddesses Rising) Page 23
