Another gust hit me. I gritted my teeth and peeled myself from the wall. Keep moving, wuss. One foot before the other. As long as I didn’t think about falling. Or looking down there…Boy, that’s high.
The ground beckoned me. I almost wanted to jump. How the hell did people ever live in high-rises?
Above me female laughter rang out, followed by a low warning growl. Oh crap. Derek. I tore my gaze from the drop and started up the ledge.
I can do this. I just need to keep moving.
The ledge brought me halfway around the building. A large picturesque iceberg blocked most of the view from this side. More laughter floated on the breeze. Something was going on up there. What possessed Saiman to prance around in the snow barefoot anyway? And why was there snow atop the high-rise? It was bloody June, for crying out loud.
I climbed the last few feet separating me from the top. My feet found the solid roof under the blanket of snow. Finally.
I skirted the iceberg and saw Derek. He stood rigid, hands spread wide, his upper lip wrinkled in a preemptive growl. He was trying his best not to touch a blonde whose hands rested on his shoulders.
She was nude. Short, with hair down to her butt, she was proportioned with an almost obscene generosity: round ass, solid thighs, big heavy breasts tipped by pink nipples. Considering the size of her waist, it was a wonder she didn’t fold in half under the weight of her boobs. Her skin glowed, almost as if lit from within by sunshine, and so she stood there, naked, unashamed, golden. Sex in the snow. She looked at Derek with huge eyes and purred. “A puppy. Play with me!”
Derek’s eyes had gone completely yellow.
Past him, Ghastek’s vamp crouched on the edge, making no move to assist.
I swiped a chunk of crusty snow, clamped it into a ball, and hurled it at the blonde. The snowball hit her upside the head, bursting into powder.
“Saiman! Step away from him!”
The blonde whipped her head around. “Kate…”
Her body twisted with preternatural fluidity. Female flesh melted like wax and re-formed into a muscle-corded frame. She swept toward me through the snow, growing, twisting, molding, hardening, too fast to follow and then a man wrapped his arm around my waist pulling me to him.
He was tall, perfectly proportioned, and muscled like a Roman statue. The same golden radiance that had illuminated the blonde lit his skin from within. His hair, a deep red streaked with gold, fell to his waist without a trace of a curl. His face was angular, yet masculine, and his grin had a mordant edge sharp enough to draw blood. He leaned toward me and I got a good look at his eyes. They were orange. Radiant, brilliant orange, streaked with pale green that almost looked like the crystals of ice growing on a window during a freeze.
They did not look human.
“Kate,” he repeated, pulling me closer. He towered at least half a foot above me. Snowflakes swirled around us. His breath smelled like honey. “I’m so glad you came to visit. I was so dreadfully bored.”
That’s it. The flare had driven him insane.
I tried to pull away, but Saiman held me tight. There was strength in those arms that I had never expected. If I struggled too much, Derek would go ballistic. A woman wrestling with a naked man who probably outweighed her by eighty pounds tended to trigger onlookers’ protective instincts, even if they weren’t bound by a blood oath.
“Derek, please go down to the apartment and wait for me at the window.”
He just stood there.
“Jealous?” Saiman laughed.
I tore myself long enough from those eyes to stare at Derek. “Please go.”
Slowly, as if waking up from a dream, he turned and left the roof.
“What about the vampire?” Saiman asked.
“Just ignore me,” Ghastek said. “Think of me as a fly on the wall.”
Bastard.
Saiman touched my hair and I felt my braid unwinding on its own. In a moment, my hair framed my face. “What happened to you?” I asked.
He grinned wider. “Deep magic. It sings in my bones. Don’t you feel it?”
I felt it. It had pulsed through me like a wild wine ever since this magic wave had hit. Power twisted and wound within me, wanting to break loose, but I had held it in check this long and I wasn’t about to let myself off the leash now.
“Can you dance?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Dance with me, Kate!”
And we were off, spinning and twirling through the snow, raising glittering snowflakes with our feet. The snow refused to fall but chased us, following our movement like a light shroud. It was a wild dance, primitive and fast, and all I could do was follow his lead.
“I need some information,” I yelled at a strategic moment.
He clamped my waist, picked me up like I weighed nothing, and spun around. “Ask.”
“Too complicated for a fast dance.”
He set me into the snow and held me close in a classic stance, one hand on my waist, one cradling my fingers. “Then we’ll dance slowly. Put your arms around me.”
No! “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
We moved gently through the snow. “Things are chasing me.” Which wasn’t strictly true, but considering the circumstances, brevity was a virtue. “They’re called reeves. They are undead. Their hair can tangle you up and hold you like a lasso.”
“I don’t know what they are.”
“They are piloted by a tall creature who wears a white habit like a monk. He has tentacles. His name is Bolgor the Shepherd. I was told he’s a Fomorian.”
“I don’t know him, either.”
Damn it, Saiman. “What would a sea-demon want in our world?”
“What we all want: life.” Saiman leaned in close, his lips nearly brushing my cheek. His eyes drew me in, and I knew that if I looked too long into them, I would forget why I came here.
“This Shepherd’s hunting a young girl. Can you research why?”
“I could, but there is too much magic. I can’t concentrate. I would rather dance. It’s a magic time, Kate! Time of the gods.”
The thought of mentioning money briefly popped into my head. But then he always gave me a discount, both because I had once saved his life and because he found me entertaining. He wasn’t that interested in money even during normal time, and right now he was simply too far gone.
“Morrigan is somehow involved. And a cauldron,” I said.
His face was alarmingly close to mine.
“The Celts have a liking for the cauldrons. Cauldrons of plenty. Cauldrons of knowledge. Cauldrons of rebirth.” His breath warmed my cheek. His hands were warm, too. By all rights he should have been freezing.
“Cauldron of rebirth?”
“A gateway to the Otherworld.”
He tried to dip me, but I resisted and he smoothly turned the dip into a turn.
“Tell me more about it.”
“You should ask the witches. They know. But ask later. After the deep magic wanes.”
“Why?”
“Because if you leave, I’ll be bored again.”
Oh crap. “Tell me more about the witches. Which coven should I ask?”
“All of them.”
He slid my hand onto his shoulder. I pulled back, but he already held my shoulders, hugging me tight to him. His huge erection pressed against me. Great, just great.
“How can I ask all of the covens? There are dozens in the city.”
“Simple.” Honeyed breath washed over me. “You ask the Witch Oracle.”
“The witches have an oracle?” We had slowed down to mere shuffling now. I shuffled backward, heading toward the end of the roof where the ledge lay.
“In Centennial Park,” he said softly. “There are three of them. They speak for all the covens. I hear they have a problem they can’t fix.”
“Then it’s best I go to them.”
He shook his head. “But then I’ll be all alone.”
“I have to go.”
I noticed the ice building around us. If this kept going, we would be encased in an igloo in a matter of minutes.
“Why is the ice growing?”
“It’s jealous. Of the vampire!” He laughed, throwing his head back like it was the funniest thing.
I knocked his hands off my shoulders and jumped off the roof.
I landed in a crouch on the ledge and slipped. My back slapped the ice. I slid, rolling down the narrow path. I dug my heels into the snow, grasping at the wall to slow myself down, but my hands slipped. I hurtled along the path, helpless to stop my fall.
The end of the ledge flashed, feet away.
I ripped a knife from its sheath and stabbed it into the ledge. The momentum carried me forward and I jerked to a halt, my legs suspended over the edge. Carefully I flexed my arms and slid myself back onto the ledge, trying very hard not to think of the bottomless chasm yawning at my feet.
Derek grabbed my shoulder, pulled me up, and neatly deposited me on the carpet within the apartment. “Some expert,” he growled.
“Yeah. Last time I come here.” My brain finally realized that I wouldn’t be falling from fifteen stories and impersonating a pancake on the ground. I scrambled to my feet. “I owe you one.”
He shrugged. “You had it anyway. I just sped it up a bit.”
The vampire met us as we untied our horses.
“You dance very well,” Ghastek said.
“Not a word. Not another bloody word.”
Chapter 14
“So this Saiman, he has a thing for you?” Derek asked.
“Right now Saiman has a thing for everyone, including you, from what I saw. He’s drunk on magic and bored.” I finished rebraiding my hair and guided my horse up Marietta Street toward the dense forest that used to be the twenty-one acres of Centennial Park. I really didn’t feel like continuing this conversation.
The magic fell. It would reassert itself in a minute: the waves had been coming one after another, short and intense.
“It appeared you were definitely his preferred entertainment,” Ghastek said.
Asshole. “It didn’t matter who was up on that roof, he would’ve changed his shape until he found a perfect fit.”
“In more ways than one.” The vampire cut in front of the horses again.
“Thank you for your commentary. I noticed you didn’t do anything to help.”
“You seemed to have the matter well in hand.” Ghastek sent his vamp galloping forward, ahead of us. When confronted, run away. My favorite strategy.
“Look,” Derek said, “all I’m saying is it would’ve been helpful to have all relevant information before we walked in there.”
“I didn’t have all the relevant information. Had I known he would be on the roof dancing in the snow, I wouldn’t have gone up there.”
“I can’t effectively help or protect you…” Derek said.
I turned in my saddle. “Derek, I didn’t ask you to protect me. I didn’t ask you to come with me. If I had realized that you would be imitating Curran the entire time, I would’ve thought twice about letting you tag along.”
Derek clamped his mouth shut.
Ahead of us the vamp turned to the left, loping onto Centennial Drive.
That wasn’t a good thing to say. I halted my horse. Derek stopped, too.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap.”
“Who should I imitate, Kate?” he asked softly.
I didn’t have an answer.
“Or are you going to give me a load of bullshit about being myself? Who would that be, Kate? A son of a loup and a murderer, who couldn’t save his sisters from being raped and then eaten alive by their father. Why would I want to be that?”
I leaned back in my saddle, wishing I could exhale all of the weight that had settled on my shoulders. “I apologize. I was wrong.”
He sat still for a long minute and nodded to me. The vamp halted in the street, waiting for us.
“I shouldn’t have nagged,” he said. “I get like that sometimes.”
“It’s okay.” I sent my horse forward. I knew why he got like that. I’ve seen him meticulously fold his clothes. His shave was perfect, his hair cut short, his nails clean and trimmed. I bet his room didn’t have a single item out of place. When you live in chaos as a child, you strive to impose order over the world. Unfortunately, the world refuses to comply, so you have to settle for trying to control yourself, your habitat, and your friends.
“I’m just worried about a lot of things,” I said.
“Julie?” he guessed.
“Yes.”
I wished I could have called in to check on them, but I had no clue where I could find a working phone line and with the preflare magic, the phone probably wouldn’t work anyway. Andrea had promised to stay with her. Barred from the field or not, Andrea could shoot a squirrel in the eye from across the street.
“It’s hard for you,” Derek observed. “To rely on other people, I mean.”
For a moment I wondered if he had developed telepathy, too. “What makes you say that?”
“You said you were worried about Julie and then your face looked like you had a hemorrhoid attack. Or a really hard…”
“Derek, you just don’t say things like that to a woman. Keep going this way and you’ll spend your life alone.”
“Don’t change the subject. Andrea is cool. And she smells nice. It will be okay.”
Apparently I was supposed to sniff people to determine their competence. “How do you know?”
He shrugged. “You just have to trust her.”
Considering that the two men I had most loved and admired spent my formative years drilling into me that I could rely on myself and myself alone, trusting other people was easier said than done. I worried about Julie. I worried about Julie’s mom, too. Since I’d gotten the liaison position with the Order, I made it a point to hang out in the knight-questor’s office, because I knew next to nothing about investigative work, and he, being an ex–Georgia Bureau of Investigations detective, knew pretty much everything. While there I had picked up a few vital crumbs of information, and I knew the first twenty-four hours of any investigation were crucial. The more time passed, the colder the trail grew. In a missing person case, that meant the chances of finding that missing person alive dropped by the hour.
The first twenty-four had come and gone. The first forty-eight were waving good-bye from the window of the “you suck at your job” train. None of the normal procedures applied in this case: canvassing the neighborhood, interrogating witnesses, trying to determine who wanted the person to be missing, none of it applied here. All the witnesses were missing with her.
I had no clue where Julie’s mom had gone. I wished she was safe back at her house. I had left a note on her kitchen table, explaining that I had Julie, she was safe, and asking her to contact the Order. Until she showed, all I could do was to tug on the tail of the only lead I had—the cauldron and Morrigan—and hope there wasn’t a woman-eating tiger on the other end.
We turned to the left onto Centennial Drive, following Ghastek’s vampire. A solid wall of green towered along our left, blocking the view. Pre-Shift, the park was open and airy, a large lawn, sectioned off by paths and carefully planted trees into predefined areas. You could stand on the lookout at Belvedere and see the entire layout of the park, from the Children’s Garden to the Fountain of Rings.
Now the park belonged to the covens of the city. The witches had planted fast-growing trees, and an impenetrable barrier of verdant green hid the mysteries of the park from prying eyes and sticky fingers. The park was larger, as well. A lot larger. It had swallowed several city blocks previously occupied by office buildings. All I saw was a wall of green. It must’ve quadrupled in size.
The fact that so many covens had banded together to purchase a park was always a puzzlement to me. If you piloted vampires, yo
u belonged to the People, and if you didn’t, they would quickly make a very persuasive financial argument in favor of your signing up with them. If you were a merc, you belonged to the Guild, because you wanted 50 percent off your dental, 30 percent off your medical, and access to a Guild lawyer. But if you were a witch, you belonged to your coven, which usually topped out at thirteen members. Witches had no hierarchy outside of their individual covens. I always wondered what different covens had in common. Now I knew: the Oracle.
It’s a good thing Saiman was high on magic. God alone knew how much this information would’ve cost me under normal circumstances. Of course, under normal circumstances, all this mess wouldn’t have happened.
The city gave the park some berth but not too much. Across the street the ruins had been cleared and a new timber building rose, proudly bearing a YardBird sign. Under it in big red letters was written “Fried Chicken! Wings!” And lower, “No Rat!”
The air smelled like fried chicken. My mouth filled with drool. The good thing about chicken is that it’s hard to disguise dog meat as a chicken wing. Mmmm, chicken. Thanks to Doolittle’s efforts, I still had the metabolism of a hummingbird on crack. The fried chicken aroma beckoned me. After the witches. Once we were out of Centennial Park, come hell or high water, I’d get myself some chicken.
The carpenters from the new construction going up ahead had much the same idea. They sat outside at small wooden tables, munched on wings, and watched the afternoon sun broil the streets. Laborers and craftsmen traveled up and down Centennial Drive, feeling the pavement through their worn shoes, staying on the other side of the street, away from the green. The sidewalk peddlers recommended their wares with hoarse voices. Up ahead at the intersection a fetish vendor, a short middle-aged man, danced about his cart, shaking colorful twine and cord charms.
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