Dead Drop

by Carolyn Jewel

  The sensation wasn’t unpleasant, not the way it had been all those other times when they’d all been forcing the wrong process on her. But it wasn’t comfortable, either. Every so often she lost her way, and Palla ramped down, became less vivid.

  “You could make a link with me. Two way. Me in your head like we are now. You in mine.” It was strange, not being sure whether he’d spoken out loud to her. He arched an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

  “How?”

  “Most witches, I tell them their magic is like a pool, and they can draw from it.” His arm stared around her waist. “It’s like you said, that’s not how it is for you. I don’t have the right words. Not a reflection.” His fingers stayed wrapped around her upper arm, his other arm still looped around her waist. “Let’s say that’s how you’re seeing it. When you try the way we’ve been teaching you, it’s like there’s nothing there. But there is.”

  She leaned into him, and tried and got…nothing.

  “It’s fucking insane how strong you are. No wonder you dead dropped me. That’s how strong you are, that you could be like this and stay sane.” He scowled, but not at her. “I don’t get how you didn’t pass their test.” He meant the magekind. They tested all their children at three. The children who passed were trained. The ones who failed were usually adopted out to families without magical ability. A lot of those kids, though, they ended up on the street. Like her.

  He put his mouth by her ear, but he was talking directly into her brain, his thoughts forming there. “You make the others look like dabblers.”

  She laughed because, didn’t he know how to motivate her?

  “You’ve been handling yourself for years. You don’t freeze up over things you don’t understand. You’ll be fine.”

  “How do you know?”

  He released her arm to cup the side of her face. He smiled at her, smirked really. “Because I’ve got your back.”

  “You are such an asshole.” Maddy had warned her about him. That he was unstable and unfriendly and Entelechy. But right now he didn’t seem so bad, and that scared her.

  “Don’t you forget it.”

  Her torso was snug up against his, and she closed her eyes to block out everything but that place inside her that she used to think wasn’t there.

  “Come inside,” he said in a voice that sounded like sex. “Come inside where you belong.”

  Around the corner. Into the reflection. Ignore the way she’d been told it worked. There was magic, and she didn’t have to reach out and touch it, all she had to do was shape the container. She did and reached for him in this new way. Her way. What worked for her. Power shivered through her, and there she was. In his head. Linked with him.

  “Oh hell yes.” His eyes were brilliant green.

  She blinked a few times to orient herself amid the shifting awareness of herself and of Palla. Of them. She experienced his thoughts, his body, saw what he saw, as if she were in his body and not her own.

  “Let it settle.”

  “Don’t let go of me, I’ll fall.”

  He brought her closer to him. Until they were in an embrace. How had that happened?

  She touched his cheek, and his gaze stayed steady on hers until she blinked again, and she saw herself. She was looking down at herself, her arms around her waist—not her arms, Palla’s arms. She flicked in and out of the state of dual awareness. Palla’s sensations, the lure of her magic, the danger Maddy had warned them all about, that sizzle that drew the magekind to a demon and a demon to a witch, that volatile combination of sex and magic. She traced a finger along the line of his cheek and felt both his skin under hers and his reaction to her touch.

  Through him, she felt the vibration that was his awareness of Maddy and Telos. The two of them were still here. To Palla, Telos was kin. Both bound by an oath to the same warlord. Maddy was other. Magekind. Human. Safe only because she was sworn to Nikodemus.

  “We could be in different rooms,” she said, “and we’d know what was going on.”

  He set her back, and for a few seconds, her head swam. Her surroundings stabilized, and she was almost back to normal. Except not normal at all. Palla was still there, and there was still this two-way connection between them, and she had always been afraid of him on some level. Now she knew why. She saw and felt why.

  Entelechy. A demon not born to humans. Because that was how the demonkind reproduced now. With humans. Everyone who knew about demons understood that. From the few, many, by pairing with humans.

  “We used to do this all the time.” He touched his forehead and then hers, but she already knew what he meant. “With the magekind. Centuries ago. Before everything went to hell, and it was nothing but us trying to kill or enslave each other.”

  Images flashed through her head, emotions and memories that came with glimpses of people and places she’d never seen, and a sense of a Palla who didn’t have the bitter desolation of the creature before her now. A different Palla. Avitas.

  Their link had settled, less intense, not as overwhelming. Probably a good thing. It was disorienting to feel his psychic reaction in the split second before he moved or spoked. He shifted effortlessly between the levels of information exchanged between them; the psychic and the verbalized, while she needed—insisted on?—separating the two things and connecting them to the correct bits of information.

  “You’ll get used to it.”

  “I hope so. Because this will drive me nuts if I don’t.”

  “You will. I’ll make sure of it.” He pulled her smack up against him; torso to torso so he could growl in her face. Classic Palla. All the information she usually had about him said he was being his usual asshole, driven, self. This time, her beliefs about him were tempered by nuance she’d not been able to see. The way his magic formed another framework for assessment, the pull between them that he had held back because he was kin, and she was magekind.

  He touched her arm, no big deal. Kin touched each other all the time. To keep her balance, she clutched the outsides of his upper arms, and it was as if a switch flipped to the ON position after being stuck on OFF. Their conversation, her entire acquaintance with him, which had never once been about sex other than normal, fleeting thoughts, was now about nothing but that.

  For him, desire had been there the whole time. His instinct for procreation, the natural draw of demon to magekind.

  There wasn’t room for anything but the fact that her stomach dropped a million miles. Palla was hot—no denying that—and that look of his said he thought she was just as delicious, and that was irresistible. No one could possibly be safer for her than Palla. They weren’t looking for anything. He didn’t want a relationship, and neither did she.

  She struggled to separate her reactions from his, and it wasn’t easy. She kept getting distracted by his state of arousal and the fact that he was interested, and she knew he wasn’t human, and he hated that she was and that he still wanted sex. Recreational sex.

  She could have pushed away from him. Maybe should have. She didn’t.

  He cocked his head. “You gonna blow my mind, angel?”

  It was such a matter-of-fact question she hardly knew what to do with it. He leaned toward her, and he was thinking all these things that completely and utterly turned her on.

  He leaned closer and she—both of them—knew Telos had left and that Maddy was on her way back. “Or you could just blow me. I’m up for that.”

  She managed to separate enough to see his lust as something apart—his, not hers.

  “Get your hands off her, Palla.”

  They both looked.

  Maddy crossed the room and pushed Palla away. “Did you have permission? You better have had permission. Wallace? Was this an indwell?”

  “No.”

  “It better not have been.” Spitting mad, wasn’t she? Maddy pointed at Palla while looking at Wallace. “Are you all right?”

  “He had permission.” She swayed on her feet, still caught up in the connection and now with he
r perception of Maddy. New ones, some of which belonged to Palla.

  “We had a break through,” Palla said.

  Maddy went still, and then she stroked the side of Wallace’s face, and there was more than a whisper of power in the contact, and Palla was there. Still there in her head, in her bones, part of her, and she was part of him. “Tell me.”

  “You’ll notice,” Palla said, “that she isn’t sick to her stomach.”

  “How long?”

  “Practically the whole time you were gone. She’s totally into me. If you hadn’t interrupted—”

  “Out of her head. Now.” Maddy’s voice was sharp. “You know I should have been here for this.”

  “You were busy.” Palla vanished from her head, and Wallace reeled from the change. She lost hold of her magic, too, and she was back to normal. Nothing special. Her stomach clenched, and when she tried to get her magic back, she couldn’t.

  “You should have waited,” Maddy said.

  Wallace gripped Maddy’s arm so she wouldn’t fall over.

  “Sorry for fixing your broken witch.”

  Wallace lifted her chin. “It wasn’t only you.”

  “True, but, angel, you needed me to get you there.”

  “That’s enough.” Maddy sighed. “Palla, I am not prepared to deal with you right now, and I don’t think Wallace is either. Just…go home. Please? We’ll figure out the rest later.”

  Palla fished a set of car keys from his pocket and made eye contact with her. Now that she wasn’t sharing a psychic link with him—humiliating, what she’d felt. “What you did is real,” he said. “Don’t think otherwise.”

  “If Maddy hadn’t come in, what would you have done?”

  “Let you blow me.” He was opaque to her now, and she had no idea if he meant it or not. “Look, if you want my advice—”

  “No.”

  “You wouldn’t have kept showing up here”—he made a back and forth motion between them—“if you didn’t want this to happen.”

  “You think I’ve been coming here so I could give you a blow job some day?”

  “Go,” Maddy said. “Now.”

  “You want it so bad you probably dream about it at night.” His gaze connected with hers, and she didn’t feel a thing in response to a demon looking for a way in, and she knew from his eyes that he was trying. “Let it happen again, Wallace.” But he said it dirty.

  “Stop it, Palla.” From the look Maddy gave him, she guessed he’d crossed a line he shouldn’t have, because Maddy didn’t often lose her temper.

  Never mind him pissing off Maddy, he’d crossed a line with her, too. “Not with you,” she said. “I am never doing that with you.”

  Maddy faced him. “You’re done here. You need to leave.”

  He laughed. “See you, Maddy.” He pointed at her, and she despised his smug grin. “You be good to Telos, angel.”

  “I promise I will.” Wallace waved at him with a fake smile. He’d get that she didn’t mean it, and he did.

  He replied with, “Fuck you, too.”

  When he was gone, Maddy put her hands on her shoulders. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

  “You’ll be relieved to know you’ll be working with Telos from now on. He says he’s willing.”

  “Whatever you think is best.” She felt guilty for being relieved, but she was disappointed at the same time, which made no sense.

  “Palla’s good, there’s no arguing with that. But Telos isn’t damaged the way Palla is. He’s going to be a lot safer for you. For all of us.” They walked to the door, Maddy with her arm around Wallace’s shoulder. When they got there, she said, “You’re sure he didn’t hurt you?”

  “He didn’t.” He’d helped her. He’d put her in touch with her magic. After all this time.

  “He was out of line.”

  “When isn’t he?” She wasn’t going to say anything to get him in trouble. “He’s a jerk, and I don’t like him, but, Maddy, we figured it out.”

  “I guess you did.”

  “Both of us. And now nothing’s ever going to be the same.”

  “True.” She patted Wallace’s shoulder. “Palla is right about one thing. You need a better job. I’m going to talk to Nikodemus about bringing you on staff.” Wallace gathered her jacket and purse while Maddy opened the door. “I’ll offer again. You can stay the night here.”

  “Maybe sometime when I don’t have to get up so early the next day.”

  Maddy glanced up and down the street. This was a quiet neighborhood. “I should have made Palla stay long enough to walk you to your car.”

  She snorted. “Thank God you didn’t.”

  “Telos, then.” Maddy laughed, too. “Where’d you park?”

  “Not far.” She shrugged on her jacket and slung her purse crossways over her chest. Her bus pass was safe in her back pocket. She pointed down the street.

  “Text me when you make it home?”

  “Sure thing.” Which she would do when she made the transfer in Berkeley. Otherwise, Maddy would worry about how long it took her to get home.

  With a wave, she headed downhill and even took out her house keys as if her hypothetical car was only a few feet away. She stuck her keys between her clenched fingers, Wolverine style, and headed down the hill toward North Berkeley and the nearest bus stop that would take her downtown.

  She was well out of sight of Maddy’s house when someone stepped out of the shadows.

  CHAPTER 7

  Palla didn’t have to make a link with the human to know he’d scared her. When she was like this—her normal state, well, what used to be her normal state—she had no ability to sense his kind. So, yes. He’d frightened her. He backed away, hands up, more cautious now that he knew she could touch her magic and that her current state made it more likely that she might do some damage. Until she had control of her abilities, she was dangerous.

  “Angel.” From her reaction, maybe he should have been more careful. “It’s me.”

  Keys protruded between the clenched fingers of her right hand, aimed at his groin. “What the hell.”

  He saw plenty well in the dark. Well enough to know her big brown eyes were wide open and that she wasn’t close enough to stab him with her keys. Not that he’d let her if she were.

  “Why would you do that? Jumping out at me like that?”

  “What?” He spread his arms to either side. She was so hyped up right now he had no trouble hearing her heart pounding away or picking up on the fear still swirling through her.

  Bam. Her magic kicked in and there she was, nothing but psychic quiet. Jesus fuck, that was impressive. He was lucky she hadn’t dead dropped him again.

  “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” She backed away, too.

  He wanted to return the verbal attitude full force, but since he was about to ask her a favor, that wasn’t the best idea. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

  “You are not.”

  True. He wasn’t sorry. “I want to talk to you.”

  “Why? We aren’t going to be working together anymore. You have to be as relieved as I am.” She shivered. Like a lot of Northern Californians who refused to admit it got cold at night—for them—she wasn’t wearing a decent coat. Her tee-shirt wasn’t going to keep her warm. Fine with him she didn’t to wear a real coat. She looked good in a tee-shirt. Not flashy the way he liked, but good.

  “What for?”

  Of all the witches he’d worked with, she was the hardest for him to read. After tonight, he understood that her magic was a big part of the reason, compounded by the fact that he was still having trouble connecting himself to anyone. Times like this, the rules against making links with humans were annoying as hell. If he had a link with her, he wouldn’t struggle with talking to her like he cared. “Can we shortcut the bullshit? I have to talk to you to tell you what for.”

  “You could have talked to me at Maddy’s. There was plenty of time for th
at there.”

  “It’s private.”

  She gave him one of those looks humans did when they were staring over the tops of a pair of glasses. Skeptical, if he was right about the contexts in which he’d seen that expression from others. No glasses in this case. If she’d put any magic behind that glare, he’d be hurting.

  He lifted his hands and tried to remember how to make his face look like he didn’t have any problems with her. “Can we sit in your car and talk?”

  “No.”

  Not the answer he needed. Okay, so maybe now he regretted his smart-ass comments to her before about her blowing him. At the time, his crack had seemed both hilarious and a good idea. Now? Not so much. “I won’t pull anything.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” She caught up quick, he had to give her that. “You have got to be kidding. No. Just don’t even.”

  “Even if it was allowed, I wouldn’t do anything to you.” From her disgust, which he got loud and clear, he could tell that had come out all wrong. Well, roll with it, right? They weren’t going to be friends anyway. “I would like to talk to you. Please.”

  “If this has anything to do with us working together, never mind. Maddy wants me to work with Telos from now on.”

  “It’s not about that. Exactly.”

  She gave him a long look.

  “Please?”

  “Make it quick, all right?”

  The usual evening fog chilled the air. She had to be cold. Her jacket was a joke. “It’s cold. Let’s sit in your car.”

  She started walking again, so he followed along. He scanned the parked vehicles, trying to guess which car was hers. Something cheap, for sure. She went past a couple of candidate junkers. Maybe she’d surprise him and be driving something racy. She kept walking.

  “How far away did you park?”

  She kept her hands clenched around the strap of her purse and kept moving. “My car is called AC Transit.”

  AC Transit was the East Bay bus system. “You better be kidding about that.”

  “Nope.”

  He grabbed her elbow, and she whipped around, but he’d already let go because touching her made his fingers go numb. He did not want her turning his magic into another gaping void.