“Do you really think you can stop me?” Sina cocked her head, studying Perci.
Perci bared her teeth in a mockery of a smile. “You don’t go out in the real world much anymore, witch. I wonder if you even remember how to fight. I do it every day. Yeah. I can stop you.”
Jack moved up to stand behind Perci, a strong, solid presence. His hand curved over the back of her neck. He pressed a kiss to her temple.
But to her surprise, he didn’t volunteer his very solid ass-kicking skills.
“Maybe if you could explain why it’s so important that you talk with her.”
Perci turned and gaped at him.
He grimaced. “Sorry, princess. I just…” He scowled and shot Sina a dark look. “I remember bits and pieces of her. She wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important. Although she doesn’t need to be such a domineering bitch.”
Sina started to laugh. “It would appear that no matter what life you live, Jacques, you will always state things exactly as you see them.” With an amused smile on her lips, she looked back and forth between Jack and Perci and then she nodded. “Very well. I’ll explain…briefly.”
She turned around, her long skirts swirling around her ankles. She took her place back at the table, a queen seating herself before peasants, Perci thought.
Then she focused eerie, otherworldly eyes on them. “Silence is not long for this world. It’s not his body that fades, but his soul. His heart.” She angled her head. “That girl…she’s already become his heart, but he fades for fear that she doesn’t feel the same.”
Off to the side, Finn swore.
Sina glanced at him. “Yes.” Then she looked down, black hair falling to hide her face. When she looked back up, the aloof mask she wore had fallen away and she looked tired and sad. “I cannot tell her to go to him. If I do, it will change things, alter their course too heavily. But Silence is my dearest, oldest friend and nor can I sit by and wait for this silly chit to decide she needs him.”
“That silly chit thinks Silence sent her away,” Finn growled, shoving off the wall, glaring at Sina.
“Then she doesn’t really know him all that well, does she?” Sina demanded.
“Oh, come off it.” Finn snorted. “If Silence is fading away, as you put it, because he thinks she doesn’t love him, then she’s entitled to think he sent her away—it sounds like some massive lack of communication on both sides.”
Sina opened her mouth. Then closed it.
Perci tilted her head back, laughing. “A lack of communication…from Silence. Imagine that. Sina, could it be that your good friend Silence hasn’t told her he has feelings for her? Why shouldn’t she think he sent her away?”
“Oh, do shut up, Percinette,” Sina muttered. She sighed and rubbed her brow. Then she lowered her hands, folded them in her lap. “Silence is…well, yes, it’s likely he wouldn’t have told her of his feelings. I cannot blame him. This girl, she’s so young, and his life has taught him that he is best suited to being alone.” She paused, shaking her head. “I cannot blame him—life has treated him harshly, and it hasn’t been much kinder since he crossed over.”
Perci scowled, vaguely aware of an uncomfortable, itchy feeling shifting through her. Something that felt a lot like guilt. She’d known Silence for a long time—known him, avoided him as often as she could. He made her uncomfortable.
Aware that Sina was staring at her, she looked up.
“He makes many people uncomfortable,” Sina said quietly. “He knows it—even enjoys it at times.”
Rising from the table, she moved to stare down the hallway. “His time is fading. Will you help me or must I go through you?”
Perci sighed. Then slowly she stepped aside. “I’m not doing this for you,” she said softly.
“Oh, trust me, Percinette,” Sina’s mouth twisted in a smile and her blue eyes glowed, “I know that very well.”
Chapter Eleven
Silence drifted in darkness.
He knew he wasn’t alone.
Will was there.
Will’s presence was some vague comfort, but it was distant and cold.
The pain that had racked his body, so obscene and bright, had faded.
Everything faded.
Except thoughts of her.
Vanya.
Where was she?
The only thing he knew was that she wasn’t with him.
And although he wasn’t truly alone, although he knew he had a friend he trusted at his side, he felt more alone than he’d ever felt. He should have been at ease with that because hadn’t he already decided it was better that way?
But as he drifted farther and farther into the darkness, all he wanted was to feel her at his side. He reached out to her, tried to whisper into her mind.
“Where are you…? I’m sorry, Vanya. Will you come back”?
But the words fell into the vast darkness around him, into the nothingness.
“Where are you…come back…”
The whisper was faint, so faint, tickling her mind, tugging her from a restless sleep.
Flinging an arm over her eyes, she tried to retreat back into sleep.
“He calls out for you and you would sleep through it?”
Vanya jerked upright in the bed, automatically reaching for a weapon. But there wasn’t one.
Something told her it wouldn’t do much good against the strange woman sitting at the foot of her borrowed bed.
Strange, strange woman…
Her eyes were blue, but not just one shade of blue. As Vanya willed her racing heart to slow down, the woman’s eyes shifted from the blue of the skies outside the window to the deep blue of midnight to a shade almost as pale and icy as Silence’s. It wasn’t just the way they changed shades, though. Wasn’t even the fact that her eyes seemed to glow a little either—although that was freaky.
There was a look in her eyes—something that barely seemed human. Too ancient, too wise, too…something.
She wasn’t particularly beautiful—her features were too unique for that. Her skin was a dusky shade of gold, startling against her blue eyes. Her hair was darker than pitch, falling ruler-straight down to the small of her back. Her mouth, ripe, full and lushly red, curved in a faint smile as Vanya stared at her.
Their gazes locked, and Vanya felt her heartbeat stutter. She all but tore her eyes away—this woman wasn’t human.
“No more human than you,” she murmured.
Hissing out a breath, Vanya shot her another look, although she didn’t dare let their gazes connect again. Shaking, she clambered out of the bed, looking around for something to wear. “I don’t care to have strangers digging through my mind,” she snapped.
“I’m not digging.” The woman shrugged. “I cannot help that sometimes thoughts are there for me to see. Any more than you can help that sometimes thoughts are there for you to hear.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I have to listen—or that you have to look,” Vanya snapped.
“But I like to look.” She smirked. She drew a knee to her chest, resting a chin on it. “He calls you. Are you going to hide away like a child?”
Silence—
Vanya swallowed, shivered as the ghost of his voice drifted through her mind. Where are you…come back…
Shaking her head, she muttered, “He sent me away, lady. Besides, he thinks I’m some idiot—he thinks I am a child, some brainless little girl who doesn’t know her mind.”
“So prove him wrong.” Sina lowered her leg and smoothed the vivid, bright cloth of her skirt down. “Although, I can tell you, he doesn’t think you a child. If he did, he never would have taken you to his bed.”
Spying her bag on the floor under the bed, she grabbed it and hauled it out. She pulled a pair of jeans out and tugged them on, cursing her shaking fingers. “So he enjoyed fucking me. Big deal. He got bored and sent me away.”
“No, he didn’t.”
She jerked her head up at the new voice. It was the other Grimm—Finn. Freckle
-faced, smiling Finn who used a gun to take down demons. He stood in the doorway, his hands jammed deep into his pockets, a sour look on his face.
Scowling, she said, “What?”
“He didn’t send you away. I know that’s what you thought, but that’s not what happened.”
“Finn.” The woman’s voice was sharp, harsh with warning.
He curled his lip at her. “Sina, bite me.” He shifted his coppery eyes to Vanya and said, “Will’s the one who told me I’d have to take care of you for a while, not Silence.”
Vanya sagged against the bed, her hands braced on it. She blinked, tried to breathe past the knot in her throat. It didn’t matter, did it? Silence hadn’t once tried to come and find her.
The bed shifted. Looking up, she watched as the woman—Sina—rose. In her hand, she held something, a book, Vanya realized. She came around the bed, stopping just a few inches from Vanya, far, far too close.
“Silence has lived much of his life alone, you know,” Sina said quietly. “He trusts no one. Not even me. Not completely. And I’m probably his dearest friend…his oldest lover.”
Vicious jealousy ripped through Vanya. She didn’t bat an eyelash as she stared at the other woman, though. Keeping her voice flat, she said, “And you’re telling me this…why?”
“So you can try to understand.” There was no anger in her voice.
And when Vanya allowed herself to look into the woman’s ever-changing blue eyes, there was sympathy there. “He loves nobody—he will not allow it, because everybody he has ever loved ended up betraying him. He learned in his mortal life that he was better off alone, even if he loathed it. It’s a lesson he cannot easily unlearn.”
She held out the book.
Vanya looked down at it, frowned. Slowly, she took it.
“His heart already belongs to you—perhaps he hasn’t told you this, but it’s yours.” Sina waited until Vanya looked back up at her. “If you wait much longer to answer his call, though, it will be too late. For both of you.”
She turned and walked away.
“Hey…what do you mean?”
Sina paused in the door and shook her head. “I cannot tell you anymore. I see glimpses, bits and pieces of what may come. And if I share too much, it causes more problems. I’ve already shared too much.”
Finn snorted.
She gave him a narrow look as she pushed past him.
He didn’t bother moving aside.
Shaken, Vanya looked at the book she held.
At first, she wasn’t sure she understood.
She traced the faded gilt of the title, frowning.
Finn ambled inside, coming to stand beside her. He craned his head, studying the title. “Huh. I always wondered.”
She looked up at him.
“Wondered what?”
“Who he was.” He nodded at the book. “Not all of us have a story to go along with our pasts. But many of the older ones do. I’d say that’s his.”
Her gut knotted as she looked back at the book.
The Man in the Iron Mask.
Her knees threatened to give out on her.
Blindly, she flung out a hand, gripped the footboard of the bed to steady herself. “Are you saying this book is based on him?”
“Well, loose myths anyway.” Finn shrugged. “Dumas wouldn’t know the real truth if it bit him. Will and the old ones, they were always very good at hiding things, rearranging things…or even pulling some pseudo-Jedi crap.”
“Jedi crap?” she whispered, her voice faint.
“Yeah, you know…like ‘These are not the droids you are looking for’.” He shrugged. “But not droids. There’s something of the truth in the myth that inspired this story, but you’d have to ask Silence to know the real story.”
Vanya swallowed again. She’d read the book, remembered only bits and pieces. How much was true…?
A hand touched her shoulder. “You don’t have time to stand there and wonder and worry right now, darlin’,” Finn said softly. “Wednesday Addams out there might not want to tell you what’s going on but I will.”
The gravity in his voice cut through the fog in her brain.
Looking up, she met his eyes. “What is it?” she asked, suddenly terrified. “What’s going on?”
“Finn—”
They looked up and saw Sina standing in the doorway. She glared at them. “You can’t. She has to make the decision herself.”
“She will. Once she knows what’s going on,” Finn said easily.
“Damn it, you young fool—” She started toward them.
He pulled Vanya away from the bed. “Don’t panic, okay?”
Before she could ask, flames surrounded them. A wall of them, all around—she gasped and instinctively flung herself closer to Finn. “It’s okay—they won’t hurt me, and as long as you’re here with me, you’re good,” he said. “Now listen…she won’t give me much time. Silence is dying. Do you want to go to him or not?”
Vanya stared at him. “What?”
“That’s why he hasn’t come after you, I’d bet. Because he can’t. He was hurt in an attack the same day the orin attacked you, although I didn’t know about that until later. He was hurt pretty bad, although nothing he couldn’t heal. Except he doesn’t want to. He thinks he’s lost you, I guess, and he’s decided to give up. So…here’s a question. Do you love him?”
Vanya grabbed the front of his shirt and jerked him close. “Take me to him.”
“You didn’t answer me,” Finn said easily.
“You stupid son of a bitch,” she snarled.
“Yeah. I’ve been called that and worse. And I’m the only one who can and will take you to him right now—he’s not in a place you could ever find in time, and Will isn’t coming for you. So if you want to go to him, you’ll answer me, and you’ll give me the truth. Do you love him?”
Starkly, Vanya stared him. “Yes.” Then she tugged him closer until they stood nose to nose. “Now take me to him, you son of bitch, or I’ll gut you.”
The flames faded.
Sina smiled as the space beyond the flames turned out to be empty.
Perci stood behind her, her mouth gaping open.
“What in the hell…?”
“Young Finn can teleport,” Sina said quietly. “He’s a bit of a handful, as much a handful in this life as he was in his mortal life—he plays with fire, he teleports and he likes to shoot demons. Such a pain in the ass, that one.”
“Shooting them works as well as anything else.” Jack pushed past them, crouching down to study the floor. “Lucky little punk—if he’d burned up my floors, I would have kicked his ass.”
“He only burns what he wants to burn,” Sina said, still smiling.
Perci turned suspicious eyes on her. “You know, for somebody who was yelling at him to be quiet, you look awfully pleased.”
“Well, I couldn’t share the knowledge with her. But if it came from another source…” Sina shrugged. “I didn’t see the problems arising if Finn told her. But Finn never reacted well when he was asked to do something. He always did so much better when he thought he was forbidden.”
“You wanted him to tell her.” Jack stood up, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Yes.” Sina smiled. It was a lovely, frightening smile. She turned around and strode to the door. “You two lovebirds have a wonderful day.”
She opened the door and strode through.
Perci ran to the door and jerked it open, a thousand questions still on her tongue.
But when she looked out, Sina was gone.
Vanya was going to be sick—
The moment solid ground was under her feet, she hit her knees and started to retch.
Finn touched her shoulder. “Sorry about that. I don’t travel with others often and I’ve never figured out how to make the trip easy on them.”
“Don’t ever do that again,” she muttered, shooting him a dirty look. She rubbed the back of her neck, thought about saying somethin
g else, thought about hitting him, or…something. But then she noticed they weren’t alone.
Will stood before them, his arms crossed over his chest, a grim look on his ageless face.
And just beyond him, on a wide, luxurious bed, lay Silence.
Although she couldn’t see his face, she knew it was him. That hair, that body—she’d know it anywhere.
Despite the lurching in her gut, she shoved to her feet and started toward him. As she passed by Will, he caught her arm. She reacted by hauling off and punching him.
His head jerked back, blood fountaining from his pocket.
“Feel better?” he asked, tugging a handkerchief from his pocket.
“Hey!”
Hearing a woman’s voice, she turned her head, watched a slim brunette come striding toward her. Green eyes narrowed, furious, her face contorted in a scowl, the woman looked pissed.
Good—Vanya still had some rage to burn.
“Mandy, take Finn outside if you would,” Will said levelly—his voice somewhat distorted.
“Like hell,” she snapped.
“Now.” He bit the word off, shooting her a dark look.
Finn smiled and pushed between them. “Mandy, is it? Darling, if you would be so kind, I’ve already had Vanya pin my ears back today—and I’m not looking forward to what she has to tell Will here. I don’t think you want to listen, either…”
Vanya tuned them out, glaring at Will as they left. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why didn’t you ask?” he replied. “Did you really think he’d leave you all on your own?”
“I wasn’t alone! I had Finn with me—I thought Silence had sent him after me!” Then, abruptly, she stopped and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
Moving around Will, she edged closer to the bed, bracing herself for what she might find. What she might see.
Her breath escaped her in a rush as she sank down on the edge of the bed. “He…he looks fine…but Finn said he’s fading…”
“Silence is strong—physically. He took a grievous injury, but he heals even faster than most.” Will stared at the still man on the bed. “He fades because he wishes to. Perhaps you can make him decide otherwise.”
Locked in Silence: Grimm's Circle, Book 5 Page 15
