by Linda Howard
“No, of course not. There’s still so much to see, so much to do. I don’t want to die, but I’m not afraid of it.” Lenna offered her hand, palm up. “My world needs to change. That can’t happen unless I have the deck in my possession. Will you give that card to me, so I may take the deck to the Emperor?”
“I can’t,” Esma whispered. “I have a job to finish.”
“You also have free will,” Lenna said, though she already knew that argument was useless. To a Hunter, the mission was always uppermost.
Esma moved so fast Lenna could do nothing but spin out of the way as the female Hunter and Caine met with a monumental clash.
Caine restrained some of his strength; his main purpose, other than protecting Lenna, wasn’t to kill Esma, but to retrieve the card. One wasn’t more important than the other. Without the card in Esma’s pocket, the Alexandria Deck would never be complete. Lenna would be grounded here. In a matter of days, Aeonia would crumble, taking all the Major Arcana down with it.
She said she wasn’t afraid to die. He was afraid for her.
Esma was a good fighter. He knew that going in, because even the weakest Hunter was much stronger than a superb fighter of any other species; that was how they essentially served as bounty hunters for the known universe. What surprised him was what almost immediately became evident. She didn’t want to kill him any more than he wanted to kill her. They were both after Lenna and the complete deck; only their assignments—their employers—were at odds with one another. He heard Lenna yelling at them both to stop fighting, to be reasonable. He ignored her, and so did Esma.
They crashed into a wall, and Esma went partway through it. Toys fell from a shelf and tumbled to the floor and the bed. The crash was still resounding when Caine grabbed Esma’s shirt and pulled her back into the room, spun her and threw her to the ground. She landed with a grunt; the force would have knocked out any other being, but she was only winded.
He grabbed for the card in her pocket. He felt the thickness of it under his fingers—and then she teleported out and left him there on the floor, with no card, and no opponent.
Immediately he searched for Esma’s energy, but she had either left this world or had shielded herself. Likely she’d shielded herself and had been doing so before, otherwise he’d have felt her before he brought Lenna here.
Caine flipped to his feet and whirled to face Lenna. She could no longer be allowed to call the shots. The timing was critical; the situation had to be in his control.
He grabbed her and pulled her close, his fingers biting into her arms as he glared into those celestial blue eyes. Even in the dark, he could see into them, into her. “The search for Uncle Bobby won’t continue until I have every card of the deck in my hand.”
“What I have immediate access to is no good without the card Esma holds.”
“Then you lose nothing by allowing me to guard it for you.”
Lenna wanted to argue; she almost did. He saw it in her face, felt it in the tension that ran through her body. Her brows snapped together. Much as Caine hated to take the chance that he might rouse her legendary temper, he had to take a stand, for the sake of the mission, for her, and for Elijah. But after a tense moment in which they glared silently at each other, he saw the reluctant acceptance cross her face.
Her jaw set, she unzipped and reached into her red bag, coming out with a card that glowed as the Moon card had done. He took it with a curse—it had been right there, all along, but she’d been so careless with the bag that he hadn’t even considered the possibility she had the card with her and thus hadn’t checked—and slipped it into his pocket, asking, “The rest?”
There was a moment of complete silence.
“Trust me,” he said insistently. “We can’t just hope Esma won’t find them first. She already has the Moon. If she has the others, then the card you hold will be all that stands between her and success. Don’t get between a Hunter and the completion of a mission. She might not want to sacrifice you to get your card, but she’ll do it, anyway.”
Lenna hesitated, then she sighed in resignation. “I’ll take you there.”
He kept all sign of victory from his face, and instead pulled her close to him. “Don’t you mean, I’ll take you? Just tell me where. And do it now, because it isn’t safe here.”
Chapter 16
Lenna remembered precisely how many houses down the street Zack’s house was, and she conveyed the location to Caine. He held her, and they teleported out of Elijah’s bedroom, into the cold night. She found herself holding onto him in the dense shadow of a tall tree that was set between two houses and a bit away from the street. They were, for the moment, effectively hidden.
“There,” she said softly, pointing. From the cover of darkness they studied the house; she was surprised to feel a bit of rogue nostalgia.
It was here that Lenna had come into this world, thanks to Elijah and the Alexandria Deck. She couldn’t say she’d enjoyed everything, but she’d met Elijah, and Caine—most of all, Caine. Just thinking his name gave her a strange sensation in the center of her chest. It wasn’t his toughness, though by the One he was certainly tougher than anyone else she’d ever met; it was his heart. When Elijah had been traumatized by watching a man kill his mother, then another man try to kill him and Lenna, then yet another man attack Lenna, Caine had been the man who had undone the evil perpetrated by the others of his sex. He had protected them. Elijah would remember that.
At some point during the past couple of days, the residents had returned. There were lights on in the downstairs part of the house, but all the windows upstairs were dark; she hoped that meant no one was upstairs grieving in solitude, too bereft to turn on a light. She had bolstered too many beings during intense grief not to know that the wounded sought the comfort of darkness and quiet. Would Elijah’s friend Zack be crying in his room? He was just a child, like Elijah; surely his parents wouldn’t leave him to weep alone.
“I don’t like entering an occupied house,” Caine murmured, “but we have no choice.”
She didn’t want to go in that house, either; she could feel the grief from here, a sharp sense of loss not just for the young mother whose life was no more, but for Elijah, who was missing and, they thought, likely as dead as his mother. Grief was always worse when a child was involved.
Want to or not, she had to go with Caine. “The bedroom we want is the one on the right back corner of the house.”
No sooner were the words out of her mouth than they were there, with her clinging to his shoulders and wondering if the effect ever faded, if she would ever stop feeling as if she wanted to lie beneath him right now. Teleporting shouldn’t be sexual, she thought dizzily. It should be … efficient. It was that, too, but she wasn’t the only one who felt the sharp zing of desire, if she went by the hard thrust of his erection against her. She rested her head on his chest, allowing herself a moment to revel in the feel of his strong arms around her, in the powerful beat of his heart beneath her ear. Just one moment, though, then she lifted her head and looked up at him.
In the dark room, his eyes were a deeper darkness. “Shhh,” he whispered, his voice barely audible even though she stood in his embrace. “There’s a dog downstairs. We can’t alarm it.”
She didn’t question his discernment. If he said there was a dog, then there was a dog, though all they could hear was the faint sound of a television coming from downstairs; perhaps the family was trying to distract itself. She gave a brief nod and pointed at the closet where Elijah had called her through, where the rest of the Alexandria Deck patiently waited.
He looked at the door; the closet was only a few steps away, but they were steps that might be heard by the dog. He made a low sound—and then they were in the closet.
Not without some difficulty, however; Caine’s head bumped against something, and Lenna’s shoulder sent clothing scraping on their hangers along the rail. They both froze, listening for the sound of barking.
It was blessedly
silent. Perhaps the television had drowned out the bump and scrape of their in-the-dark landing.
She remembered the light switch Elijah had shown her, on their first meeting, but she didn’t remember exactly where it was and didn’t want to bump into anything else, so she opened her hand and formed a ball of light on her palm. Her light was silvery, otherworldly; in its glow she gestured toward the light switch, and Caine flipped it on, substituting glare for glow.
Lenna extinguished her light and silently got down on her knees, reaching beneath the hanging clothing into the corner where she’d left the box that held the cards. Her searching hand found shoes and then a folded blanket, but no hard corner of a wooden box. For a brief moment she knew alarm—had the cards been moved? Had Zack’s parents seen some evidence of disruption in their closet and searched it for valuables which might be missing? Had they decided to move the box to a safer location?
But why would they? If Zack’s father had any idea of the value of the deck, would he have stored it in the closet? The box had to be here. Probably when the family had returned and unpacked, items had been shoved into the closet that pushed the box farther away. She stretched her arm out and her fingers brushed wood. As soon as she touched it she felt the power of the cards within, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Using both hands, she pulled the box toward her.
Kneeling on the closet floor, she opened the box. Nestled inside were tarot cards—mere paintings on paper like so many others—but these had been imbued with great magic, and in her presence they came alive. The images shifted, as did the words. The cards glowed, the edges bright, as the Moon had in Esma’s hands, as Strength had for her. She felt their energy all the way to her bones.
And the deck wasn’t complete. Would it ever be again? If they couldn’t retrieve the Moon from Esma, all of this power was useless.
Worried, Lenna thought about Esma, mining her memories of the female Hunter to see if she had misread the type of person Esma was. She wasn’t a bad person, but like Caine she took her assignments seriously. She wouldn’t give up; literally nothing short of death would stop her from fulfilling her mission.
But Caine would listen to reason … in a way. He listened to reason when he had no other choice. Perhaps they could get Esma to listen; after all, the one card she had was useless without the cards they had.
She lifted the cards from the box, cradling them in her hands. They were heavy and oddly warm, and simply holding them caused her hands to tingle. She laid them aside, then carefully returned the box to its place, rearranging shoes and other items as she had found them. As she did so, she wondered if Zack’s father would ever notice that the contents were gone, if he’d simply brought the box and cards home and then forgotten about them.
For a moment she remained there, on her knees, facing a wall of skirts and pants. What machinations of the universe had brought all this together? Zack’s father, these cards, this house, a traumatized child with the ability to call, her surprising transport from Aeonia … Caine. Of all the Hunters the Emperor might’ve sent for her, he was the one who’d been chosen. Had each and every step been directed by the One or was this adventure, this experience, the product of chance? It didn’t seem like chance, not to her, who had seen centuries pass as events fell into place and begat other events.
She didn’t, couldn’t, regret dedicating herself to Elijah’s safety, but at the same time … logic dictated that she should’ve given the cards to Caine when he’d first asked, that she should’ve allowed him to return her to Aeonia. There she’d have petitioned the Emperor for the freedom to travel so that she might see to Elijah’s well-being for herself. Perhaps he’d have denied her, but perhaps not. She could be very persuasive, and she didn’t give up.
But if she’d given in to logic and returned home, she wouldn’t have experienced Caine’s amazing tour of this world. She wouldn’t have come to love Elijah. She wouldn’t have taken Caine as a lover. Did she love him? She had never wondered such a thing before; love wasn’t part of her duties. Yet here it was—or she was simply overwhelmed by the raw vibrancy of life the world of Seven had to offer.
If she had immediately handed the precious Alexandria Deck over to Caine when he’d demanded it, nothing would ever have changed. She would have continued to live a perfect life in a perfect world, untouched by the aspects of a real life: the pain, the beauty, the wonder, and the horror. And she wouldn’t have known what she was missing.
She stood slowly and turned to face him, the cards held in both hands. Caine was so large the closet was not quite big enough to contain him. There was sufficient physical space, but it was as if he filled the closet from wall to wall, from floor to ceiling. She was accustomed to remaining close to him, to traveling in his arms, to sleeping and bathing and working side by side, and yet now she felt as if she was drowning in his essence.
She liked the feeling more than she’d expected, more than she should.
Lenna held the cards out for Caine to see, and she whispered, “I regret nothing.”
Perhaps she didn’t have regrets, Caine thought later that night as he worked to locate Robert Markham, but he certainly did. He’d crossed a line for Lenna Frost, one he’d never crossed before. Still—what could he have done differently? He couldn’t take her back to Aeonia without the entire deck of cards, and she’d outsmarted him by hiding two of the cards.
He regretted that Lenna wasn’t safe; he regretted that he hadn’t been able to get the Moon card from Esma. He’d protected Elijah, but he’d made damn little progress on doing the same for Lenna. He had to keep her shielded at all times, which meant keeping her near, which meant he couldn’t tackle the problem of Robert Markham as … vigorously … as he otherwise would have. Had he been on his own, Robert Markham would already be dead. Teleporting Lenna everywhere with him was wearing on his strength; for that matter, popping here and there wasn’t how he usually operated, and that, too, was draining him. He wasn’t exactly weak, but he did need more sleep than normally he would.
He needed sleep now. He didn’t get it, because he was laboriously following computer links to find Markham. He knew where the man lived. He knew what kind of car he drove, and the license plate number on that car. But Atlanta didn’t have the extensive camera network of New York or London, so finding any particular car was more hit or miss than he liked. That said, there were cameras, some of which could be accessed by the public. He started at the residence, found when Markham left the house, and then by trial and error had to pin down the route the man had driven.
Normally his concentration was unbreakable, but that was before Lenna was forced to stay close to him. She sat quietly, patiently, but that didn’t stop her scent from surrounding him. It wasn’t perfume; it was her skin. She smelled sweet. She smelled like a woman. He’d never before noticed how a woman smelled, other than when they were having sex, but Lenna’s scent stayed with him. He couldn’t get it out of his head, couldn’t stop himself from responding every time he noticed it.
Then there was the damn deck of cards. He wished they’d all burn to ashes. The deck—minus the Moon card—was in Lenna’s red bag. He didn’t have her instincts, but even he felt the energy that radiated from that bag. He’d felt the other cards fold Strength back into the deck, and now he felt a yearning coming from the bag, as if the cards were a living entity.
They wanted the Moon. They wanted to live again.
Lenna was wilier than he’d expected; when she’d had only her own card in the bag, she’d left the bag lying carelessly around, paying no particular attention to it, not keeping it with her. He’d been fooled into assuming there was nothing important in there, but when he thought about it—what would Lenna have been carrying around? Lipstick? A cell phone? She hadn’t had any Seven cosmetics until they’d visited Walmart and he’d bought the lip balm for her. She hadn’t had so much as a brush for her hair. He should have realized, but women carried handbags on Seven and he hadn’t thought anything of it.
N
ow—now every card but one was in that bag; she kept it with her at all times. She wasn’t taking the chance that someone could pick up the bag and get the cards. Esma couldn’t do anything with just the Moon card, so they had the upper hand. If necessary, he thought, he’d take one of the cards himself and put it in his pocket, a precaution against letting Esma get the upper hand.
First, he had to find Robert Markham, let Lenna determine if he was indeed the one who had killed Elijah’s mother, and take care of that problem. Then he could concentrate on locating Esma and relieving her of the Moon card. Once they had the Moon, he’d complete his task and Lenna would be safe.
He suspected that all he had to do was drop his shield and Esma would appear. She’d be more prepared when they met for a second time; worse, she might not come alone. He’d have to come up with a plan to protect Lenna before he did that. He’d also keep searching for Esma’s energy, but she was shielding, too, and if she had a companion—nothing there, either. It was frustrating. He didn’t deal well with frustration; he moved in and got the mission accomplished. Not this time.
Priorities, he thought. Lenna was his first priority, but Elijah was hers, therefore the problem of Uncle Bobby was first in line.
It had taken all his computer skills to generate a last-known location for Senator Robert Markham. This sort of research was his least favorite part of any job, but in a world with so many inhabitants jammed together in cities—like Seven—it was often necessary. He couldn’t function in this world or any other without fairly in-depth knowledge of technology.
He had a complication in his search for Markham, an urgency that went beyond Lenna’s time restraints. The police would also be looking for Markham. Caine wanted to find the murderer first.
For Elijah.
The child would never feel safe so long as the killer was alive. Legal systems moved slowly, and he didn’t want Markham in police custody. The Hunters were their own legal system, and there was nothing slow about their methods.
