by Jenn Bennett
If the Mori were afraid of the creature, what the hell were Lowe and Hadley doing standing there?
Lowe seemed to be thinking the same thing. With a grunt, he ripped the hose off the tap and flung the snaking rubber at the giantess. “Go, go, go!”
They raced up the stairs, Lowe urging her forward with a firm hand on her back, and surfaced on the main floor to find Trotter holding a kitchen knife in one hand and a telephone’s earpiece in the other as he recited his address into the mouthpiece on the wall. “Sorry for the urn, Mr. Trotter,” Lowe said, throwing a shower of bills at the man as they ran by. “We won’t be needing your services after all.”
Wood exploded.
Hadley turned to see the fire goddess at the top of the stairs. The basement door dangled on one hinge; flames leapt across the splintered wood. The creature stepped through it and swung her lioness head around, looking toward Trotter. He dropped the telephone earpiece and fled down the hallway and out of sight. The creature immediately fixed her eyes on them.
“She’s after the crossbar!” Hadley shouted at Lowe as she backed away.
“And she’s damn well not getting it—come on!”
NINETEEN
LOWE GRABBED HADLEY’S HAND. They ran through the hall past Trotter’s office, bursting through the front door into cool night air. The hellish lion-headed giantess was dogging them—no mistaking the boom of her feet pounding through Trotter’s house.
Want the amulet piece, don’t you, old girl? he thought. You’ll have to catch me first, you sack of flaming shit.
He dug car keys out of his pocket as they raced toward the silver Packard. The giantess smashed through Trotter’s front door. Christ. The sleepy town of Lawndale was going to love seeing this. He unlocked the driver’s door and shoved Hadley inside, practically sitting in her lap before she had time to scoot across the front seat. A moment later, the engine roared to life. Tires squealed as he flicked on the headlights and sped away.
“Good lord,” she said, twisting around to peek out the back window. “She’s still coming.”
Haloed in flames, the creature bounded after the Packard, her bare feet scattering sparks over the asphalt. The Packard’s engine protested when Lowe switched gears and pushed it faster, but she didn’t fail him. And as he put some distance between them and the creature, he kept his eye on the rearview mirror, watching the monster’s frantic pace slow to a lope. Then a hobble. Then one of its legs seemed to give out, and the creature collapsed in the middle of the road and its body disintegrated into a roaring pyre.
“Hurra!” Lowe shouted excitedly, pounding the steering wheel with his fist. He grinned at Hadley. “Packard beats magic.”
She flipped back around and melted into the seat. “That was a disaster. Poor Mr. Trotter.”
“I gave him money—money that I couldn’t really afford to throw away, at that. You’re only upset because he was drooling over your legs.”
“He was most certainly not.”
“He was ready to drop to his knees and suck your toes.”
“Don’t be crude.”
“Oh, pardon me. I thought you wanted to be treated like a man. Are you now wanting me to sanitize everything for your delicate feminine ears?”
She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her coat. Something was bothering her, and it wasn’t him this time.
“You okay?” Lowe asked after a few seconds of silence.
Her eyes remained fixed on the road ahead as they headed back to the city. “You know that was Sekhmet’s form.”
“The breath that gave birth to the desert,” Lowe said. “Yes, I recognized the likeness.”
“And did you see the oil dripping from the ceiling before the creature formed?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I thought I heard someone upstairs right before, then a black liquid leaked from the rafters. The creature formed where it pooled on the floor. It seemed to be the substance on its skin. It was as if she were conjured or created out of that liquid.”
Lowe thought about that for several moments. “At Gloom Manor, when I dropped the jar, the griffin didn’t rise out of the ashes, so to speak. Remember how the parrots were fleeing it? It came from a distance.”
“Yes.”
“And if someone was upstairs in Trotter’s office pouring some sort of hellish oil into the basement, then the jars aren’t loaded with protective magic. Someone is following us and sending magical creatures—”
“To get the crossbar pieces,” she finished. “Both times, the creatures were after the pieces. Can I please see it?”
Lowe fished the crossbar out of his pocket and handed it to her. She inspected it, reporting that it looked much the same as the first one, and that the magical symbols continued on the back. “It’s real,” she said, handing it back.
“I’ll take it to Adam as soon as possible.”
Oncoming headlights beamed a triangle of slow-moving light across the front seat as a car drove past. Lowe thought of all the trouble he’d had in Egypt when news of his discovery spread. But all of those attacks had been dumb and brute. No finesse. No magic.
Monk was still looking for him. And Lowe was counting on the fact that Monk had heard about the amulet—he needed Monk to trust that Lowe would be offering him the real deal and not a forgery to pay his debt. But Monk would stick a gun in his face or pressure Winter to drag Lowe into his office for a meeting. He wouldn’t bother fooling around with stealth and magic. Especially not Egyptian magic. That significantly narrowed the possibilities.
He supposed it was possible a wealthy Egyptian had sent someone after him to steal the amulet. But how would any of these people know about their search for the crossbars? The only person who knew was Bacall, and it didn’t make sense that he would he pay Lowe to find the pieces, only to go to all this trouble to steal them.
Something else troubled Lowe. Dr. Bacall had never told him why he wanted the complete amulet so badly. Yes, he’d claimed it was an obsession, and that it was something in the middle of a longtime quarrel between him and his old partner.
But he never would say what started the quarrel.
And then there was the warning Bacall’s wife’s spirit had given during Aida’s channeling. She said to keep the amulet away from both Dr. Bacall and “Noel.” Why? Maybe this was a question best put to Dr. Bacall. He made a mental note to do so before pain in his left arm suddenly became unbearable.
“What’s the matter?” Hadley asked.
“Nothing.”
“What?”
“I think I may have a small burn.”
“Where?”
Lowe shifted his hand on the steering wheel and winced. Now that his victory buzz was wearing off, his body decided to tell him something was wrong. “My shoulder.” He ducked his chin to get a better look at it. “Damned bitch burned a couple of holes right through my coat.”
Hadley leaned surprisingly close and tried to inspect it, nearly blocking his view of the road. “When she grabbed you?”
“Apparently. Hurt like hell. Hurts worse now, to be perfectly honest.”
“I’ve got first aid supplies at my apartment. I’ll bandage you up.”
He nearly ran off the road. Well. If he wanted a distraction from the pain, he certainly got one. Her apartment. Him. Her. Touching. Yes, please.
“No sense in paying for medical care if you aren’t badly injured,” she said in a defensive voice that made him want to grin deliriously. Oh, yes, please do argue your point, Miss That-Kiss-Can-Never-Happen-Again. Because a man and a woman didn’t kiss each other like there was no tomorrow and then walk away. That was the kind of kiss that inspired poetry. Just the memory of it was inspiring something beneath the fly of his pants even now.
But another thought sobered his good mood. “If someone’s following us, I don’t want t
o lead them to your apartment.”
“If someone’s following us, they already know where I live,” she said in a quiet voice.
That certainly didn’t calm his fears.
Half an hour later, with his shoulder throbbing in pain, Lowe pulled into her building’s entrance and parked the Packard in the shadow of a wall covered in climbing bougainvillea. It was nearly eight, and traffic up and down California Street was still brisk. He followed her into a swank lobby, where they entered an elevator.
“Mr. Walter must be on break,” she surmised, looking at the crank mechanism as if it were an unsolvable math problem.
Lowe shut the scissor gate. “I think we can manage on our own. What floor?”
“Nine.”
He flipped a switch and slowly moved the lever until they began ascending. Neither of them said a word, not even when they got to her floor and she unlocked her apartment.
“Mrs. Wentworth?” Hadley called out. No reply came. “My maid must have stayed with her daughter tonight. She only started last week, and we haven’t got her schedule worked out.”
She flipped a switch and a pair of etched sconces came to life on the nearby walls, casting light into the room. It was spacious and elegant, just as he suspected, all polished marble and clean, modern lines. It was also very formal. Not exactly a welcoming place to cozy up.
“I’ll just get my supplies,” she said, hanging up her coat and hat.
He glanced out the window while she rummaged in one of the back rooms. No new cars at the entrance. Nothing suspicious. Carefully peeling his wet coat off his injured arm, he surveyed the apartment. Very little furniture. No decor but a mirror and two paintings, which were fixed to the wall with corner brackets, as if she were afraid someone would try to steal them. Odd.
A radiator beneath the windows felt hot enough to dry his clothes. He shrugged off his vest and long sleeves and hung them over the radiator’s fancy silver fins. His undershirt was mostly dry, but it wasn’t every day that he found himself with a believable excuse to rid himself of clothes inside a woman’s apartment. So he stripped to the waist and admired himself in the mirror for a moment—not bad at all, if he did say so himself—before turning to the side to wince at the burn on his arm. Then he plopped down onto a gray velvet slipper chair and stilled when he felt something brush up against his leg.
• • •
Hadley strode into the living room with her hands full and nearly dropped it all when her gaze landed on Lowe. Dear lord. He was half naked.
Yellow lamp light spilled over his bare torso. His body was strong and tightly muscled—a body that knew labor. Her gaze crept over burnished arms to an impossibly well-constructed broad chest and broader shoulders. Muscles everywhere. Muscles on his stomach—his stomach! And the middle of it was covered in golden hair that darkened as it arrowed beneath his belt buckle.
George certainly didn’t look like that. In fact, she was quite sure every unclothed male torso she’d ever seen—and there weren’t many, including her own father and the occasional movie star in the theater—were all lumps of dough and loose skin held up by a few bones.
They weren’t this.
If her mind was impressed, her body was ecstatic. A tremor started in her chest and ran through her center, until she was hot all over. She licked dry lips and swallowed nothing. Tried to remember what she’d been doing before her knees had gone weak.
Deep breath.
She calmed down enough to notice Number Four. The damn cat was on his back, stretched out lengthwise on the seam between Lowe’s closed thighs, all four paws in the air. Lowe slowly scratched the beast’s belly.
“I guess that means you’re welcome.” She marched toward them, as if it were the most normal thing in the world that a beautiful man with the body of a god sat in her living room wearing nothing but his pants and shoes. “Though I should warn you that he’s got a nasty biting habit. The building superintendent thinks he’s a demon in disguise.”
“Animals love me.”
“Of course they do,” she mumbled irritably. Animals, secretaries, her father. Lowe had everyone wrapped around his finger. She supposed she could add her name to the list.
“I wouldn’t have taken you for a cat lover. What’s his name?”
She set her armload down on the nearby end table. “Number Four.”
He squinted for a moment before chuckling. “A curious cat, is he? Did he go through those first three lives before or after he came into your possession?”
“I didn’t choose him. He chose me. Now I can’t seem to get rid of him.” She reached to scoop him up, but hesitated when she realized where her hands were headed. “How’s the pain?”
“Fine.”
“Liar.”
“I thought we’d established that as an invariable fact.” He groaned and plucked Number Four out of his lap, setting the cat down on the floor. “All right, if you want to know the truth, the pain’s pretty goddamn awful.”
Easy to believe when she tilted her head to get a look at the burn. Nasty. His left biceps were splotched with an angry red patch of blistered skin. “My God,” she murmured. No telling how much he was hurting. “Would you like aspirin or whiskey?”
“Both.”
She screwed off the cap and poured him a couple of fingers of scotch. “Would be funny if this was your brother’s booze,” she said, handing him several aspirin and the liquor. He downed it in one gulp.
“Didn’t envision you as a big drinker.” He handed her the empty glass.
“I’m not.” But liquid courage might be needed if she was going to be near so much bare skin. Skin she’d have to touch if she was going to do this. So she poured herself a drink and tipped it back, shaking off the burn. Malted warmth spread through her stomach. “Every once in a while I can’t sleep, and this does the trick. Though, I do try to avoid drinking while sawing.”
His laugh sounded pained. “Wish I’d taken that advice. Don’t be stingy.”
She poured him another and opened a tin of ointment while he tipped the glass back a second time. “Better?”
“Much. But I have a feeling you’re about to change that,” he said, eyeing the scoop of salve in her fingers. “Be gentle, Nurse Hadley. I wouldn’t want to faint on you.”
“You aren’t the only one.” She knelt next to the chair. Her eyes darted to his nipples and the dusting of honey hair ringing them. Best to get this over with, and fast. “Take a deep breath.”
As he followed her instruction, she swabbed the ointment over the top of his burn. He jumped, then stilled himself and spoke through gritted teeth. “Your furniture is bolted to the floor.”
She flinched and reached for more ointment. “Yes.”
“Mirror’s bracketed to the wall.”
“Yes.”
“No chandeliers.”
“Mmm.” She gouged out another measure of ointment. Felt the scotch’s pleasant warmth in her belly. Then she sighed and let the words come.
TWENTY
“MY FATHER CALLS THEM Mori specters,” she said. “Shades of death. I suppose they look a bit like ghosts made of smoke and shadow. I don’t know if they are actual ghosts or demons or something else entirely.” The ointment was cool on her fingers. She gently spread it over the rest of Lowe’s burn. “I inherited them from my mother.”
“That was the curse she spoke of when Aida channeled her spirit?”
Hadley nodded. “Once she died, they started showing up. Whenever I’d have temper tantrums, they’d float up from floorboards and attack the cause of my anger. They like to use nearby objects to inflict damage. Glass, wood, metal—whatever they can manipulate. When I called them up to attack the griffin, that was the first time I’d seen them attack something directly.”
“I knew it,” he whispered.
She kept her eyes down and cut a square
of gauze with a pair of scissors. “My father says my mother never knew anything about their origins. They just started appearing to her one day after a trip my parents made to Egypt, apparently. He said it must’ve been some bizarre mummy’s curse. I never saw them until they started appearing to me. They’re fueled by negative emotions. When I’m very angry, they are difficult to control. It’s hard to explain. They . . .”
She sat back on her heels, reaching for the right words.
“They don’t speak or communicate with me in any way,” she finally said. “But it’s as though they can pick out my thoughts and act on that information. And I can feel their energy. They’re hungry, I guess you’d say. To be blunt, they want to hurt people. And if I loosened their leash and let them go wild, they wouldn’t stop until they’d killed.”
He didn’t ask her how she’d tested this theory, and she was grateful for that. “So you have some control over them? Oww.” He flinched and hissed as she covered the ointment with gauze.
“Sorry,” she murmured. “And yes, a little. I didn’t send them out specifically to pull that chandelier down, if that’s what you’re thinking. They are, well, I like to think of them as bounty hunters. My mind gives them the target name, and they do whatever they must to bring down the target.”
“Are they here now?”
She shook her head. “Remember how Aida told us she had to summon my mother across the veil? I don’t know for certain, but I feel like they live in another place, and they only come here when they catch scent of my emotional state.”
“And these specters are the reason for your touching phobia.”
Her hand stilled. “When I was thirteen, a family named Price lived next door to my father. Mrs. Price’s cousin moved in with them. The man wasn’t right in the head. He’d been arrested for crimes related to the molestation of children, but beat the charges on a technicality.”
