“Maeve came to me right after you were born. She asked for my help, and I was waiting.”
“I’m listening.”
“The necklace is an amulet. A key.” He cocked his head. “But you always knew it was more than just a piece of metal, didn’t you?”
“What do you mean key?”
“I’ll make you a deal.” He was up and pacing the room now. “You help me find it, and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“You’ve got to throw me a bone, Greer. Why can’t you just tell me the truth?”
“Because if you’re anything like your mother—and you are—the more you know, the harder I’ll have to work to keep you from getting yourself killed.”
“What?” I snorted. “That’s a little dramatic.”
He stopped pacing the room and turned around. The look on his face wiped the smirk off mine, and my intuition told me to take the offer. I glanced at Leda who was being exceptionally quiet at the other end of the sofa. Her eyes had changed from green to an ethereal emerald as she stared back at me with a softness I hadn’t seen in her before. She slid to my end of the sofa and cupped my cheek with her elegant fingers. “Work with us, Alex. I’ll make him behave.”
I looked at Greer who was waiting for a sign that I intended to cooperate. “I never take it off.” Leda’s remarkable eyes were sparkling when I looked back at her. “Ever.”
“Why did you?” Greer asked.
“I was only here a couple of days.” My mind went back to the night I was attacked outside of the hotel.
“What happened?”
“The barcodes,” I matter-of-factly said.
His face went still as a stone. “Explain.”
“The shadows. I thought I was imagining them.” I told him everything. I told him about the stairs and the invisible hands trying to yank the necklace—or amulet—from my neck.
“Jesus, Alex. Do you have any idea what you were dealing with?” He reacted like I told him I’d been playing with a loaded gun.
I sank deeper into the sofa. “Stop yelling at me. I didn’t invite the damn things to follow me.”
“Seethers.” Leda said. “Terminators. Seek and destroy. That’s all those airy little bastards are good for.”
“They’re after the amulet,” Greer said. “Good thing that guard showed up.”
“Really, Greer. You think?”
“Really.” He met my sarcasm with a dead stare. “Continue.”
“I got scared. I took it off for the first time in…I don’t know how long, and then I put it in my suitcase. Next thing I knew, I ended up here.”
He took the photos from the desk and pointed to the woman with the dark eyes. “Are you absolutely sure this is the same woman you saw at the hotel?”
I took another look at the face in the photograph, but I didn’t have to. There was no doubt it was the same woman. “Yes. It’s her.”
“Lumen.” Leda’s face hardened as the name rolled off her lips.
Greer came closer and practically pressed his face to mine. I met his challenge as he reached for my chin and brought my eyes up to his. “Well, you are a special witch, aren’t you, Alex Kelley.”
SIX
Freedom is something most of us take for granted. That is, until we no longer have it. I spent the next twenty-four hours being schooled on the rules of our partnership. I could come and go from the club as I pleased as long as I was back before dark. Apparently, bad things really did happen when the sun went down. Greer would put a plan together to hunt for the amulet, and I was to sit tight and be a good girl until then.
A name had come up during my family reveal the previous day, and I heard it uttered quietly several times as Greer and Leda spoke just outside of what they thought was my earshot. Lumen. What an odd name. Leda’s reaction to her possible presence in New York had been notable. When I asked who she was, I was given some bullshit line about how it was better if I didn’t know. Well, that just made me want to know even more. I’d come face to face with the mysterious Lumen, and all of the fingers in my head were pointed directly at her as the most likely thief of the amulet.
Greer closed the club for a few days in order to deal with the business of, well…me. Tonight was the first night the doors would be back open, and I was determined to see what the place was like in full party mode. After all, I was young and single, and I wasn’t dead yet. I also had this annoying curiosity to see what Greer was like in his own element. What was he like when he thought no one was looking?
When I came downstairs the next morning, Greer was conspicuously absent. My stomach growled, but my first day of freedom was more important than the paper bag breakfast and the cup of coffee he’d left for me on the bar.
I headed for the door but stopped when a male voice called out from the right side of the room.
“And where might you be going?”
“And who are you?” I asked.
“Bartender.”
I turned in the direction of this bartender and saw a man taking an inventory of the liquor bottles lining the wall.
“A little early for serving drinks, don’t you think?”
“Checking stock.” He turned toward me, and I saw a long scar trailing from his left ear down toward the corner of his mouth. At first the prominence of the scar was startling, but then it kind of blended with the patina of his face. Without it, he’d seem unfinished. Images of a broken bottle fight in some pub came to mind, and I figured he probably had more souvenirs under that shirt.
I broke the stare and turned back toward the door.
“Are you going to tell me where you’re off to?” he asked again.
“Hadn’t planned on it.” Whoever he was, he was nosy. “I don’t think it’s any of your business.”
“But it is my employer’s business.”
Well, wasn’t that just like my keeper. My freedom had strings attached, and now he had the bartender watching me—the bartender. I went for the door but stopped when I realized an opportunity had just presented itself. I retreated back into the club and took a seat at the bar to engage this bartender with my feminine wiles. I wasn’t entirely sure how to use them, but now was a good time to learn. Femme fatale I was not, but I didn’t look half bad. I ran my hand over my hair, smoothing it against my collarbone. I considered my auburn hair to be one of my best assets, and for a change I’d let it hang loose instead of pulling it into a ponytail.
“So.” I extended my hand. “I’m Alex.”
“I know who you are.” He barely glanced over his shoulder as I attempted to engage him in conversation.
“And you are…”
He didn’t offer his name, and it was obvious he was on to me. That just made the challenge more interesting. He waited long enough to make me uncomfortable before he finally turned around and took my extended hand. He gave it a firm squeeze before looking me in the eye.
You did that on purpose.
He smiled.
Another mind reader?
“Thomas,” he said.
“So, how long have you worked for Greer?”
“A few years now.”
I watched him not watching me. Instead, he focused on the wall of bottles and took notes while the silence in the room stretched for miles. He appeared to be in his late thirties, which seemed a little old for bartending in a club like this. I had to admit they grew them pretty up here in NYC. Like a construction worker or an oil rigger, he was handsome in a rough and messy kind of way, a total contradiction to the club we were standing in. I determined that his tousled blond hair and day-old stubble was roguish chic, and in a very different way than Greer, he was a hazard to women.
“What’s he like?” I asked. “I mean…to work for?”
“Paycheck clears. Man of his word.”
He threw me another look over his shoulder as he anticipated my next question. He’d done this before, and I suddenly saw myself as he must have—a club groupie aiming my sights on the proprietor.
“I’m n
ot one of those.”
“Noted,” he said as he turned his attention back to the wall.
“Is he from here? New York, I mean?”
Thomas ignored the question, but I could see the grin visible from his profile as he scribbled on the clipboard.
“Married?” My mouth seemed to have a mind of its own as the question spilled from my lips and rolled away before I could suck it back in.
The sound of his pen hitting the paper ceased as he dropped his head and chuckled. “Me or Greer?”
“Greer.”
He laughed as I dug my hole deeper.
“Ah, the perennial question.” He turned back around to give me his full attention.
I was embarrassed, caught off guard playing my own game. All shades of pink were undoubtedly flushed across my face—a disadvantage of being a redhead.
“I suck at discreet interrogation.”
“Look, why don’t you just ask me what you want to know?” He was far too seasoned to fall for games, and with a boss that looked like Greer, I was sure he’d been the buffer weeding out the gold diggers since day one. “If I can answer your questions, I will. If I can’t, then I won’t.”
“Just trying to get an idea of whom I’m dealing with,” I said.
His eyes traveled as far down as the bar would allow, and then back up to my face. “Greer Sinclair is a good man, Alex. He plays fair.”
Finally, a last name.
Thomas grinned.
Whatever. Now, can you please stop invading my head.
“Tit for tat, love. With your looks, I’d say we’re square.”
“I’m just trying to understand the man. I need to know if I can trust him.”
Thomas finally put down the clipboard and propped his forearms on the bar in front of me. He moved in close enough to reveal every nuance of his battle scar. “Look, Alex, if there’s one thing I know, it’s the signature of a worthy man. We’re all assholes now and then. If I were a woman,” he chuckled, “I may have reason for caution. But if I were in trouble, there’s no man I’d rather have gunning for my offender’s ass.”
By the conviction in his voice, I figured he must have been speaking from experience.
“Now, you go about your business and let that man do what he does best.” With that, he retrieved his clipboard and disappeared into the back room.
Greer opened a big fat can of worms by identifying Lumen and then telling me absolutely nothing about her. I had a plan, though. The plan was to head back to the hotel to dig up as much information on her as I could. Better yet, maybe I’d run into her. That’s where the plan ended and I’d improvise the rest.
I stepped outside of Crusades and looked for a street sign. I had no idea where I was, but since Manhattan was basically one large grid, all I needed was a reference point. The club turned out to be on the Upper West Side, sparing me a bus ride across town.
So far my airport welcome hadn’t extended to the streets of Manhattan, at least not to the point of having to dodge a psycho every three feet. Now they were spread about every ten feet. Greer had been vague about the amulet, but I assumed it was the driver for all the attention I was getting. One guy approached me with his nose raised in the air like a hound scenting a raccoon. His head snapped in my direction as he passed me and indiscreetly rubbed his arm against mine. Maybe I’d have a T-shirt custom made with the words “Fresh Meat” written in bold red letters.
I moved faster through the sea of pedestrians, grazed only occasionally by the elbow of a tourist who obviously didn’t know the drill. As my stomach began to growl, the memory of that bag-o-breakfast Greer left on the bar haunted me. Old habits are hard to break, and I had a very bad habit of skipping breakfast.
Something spicy hit my nose as I turned the corner. I hunted for the source, but the only restaurant I could find had a locked door. It was quarter after eleven. A little early for the lunch crowd, but with a smell like that, someone was getting ready to open.
I spotted a green door on the other side of the street with the word “Nirvana” written in large purple letters. The aroma intensified as I crossed the street and reached for the door. It was open. The pungent spice hit me like a sledgehammer—in a good way—as soon as I walked inside. The place was empty, and I almost turned around to leave before the intoxicating smell of cumin and cardamom drew me deeper into the small room.
“Hello.”
No one answered. My arms began to tingle from a shiver traveling over my skin. There was something off about the place, and though I was starving, I decided to backtrack and leave.
On my way to the door, a rush of air swooshed past me, accompanied by the sound of tiny feet padding across the room. I’d heard a similar sound in old houses as rats scurried around in the attic.
“Welcome to Nirvana.”
I whipped my head around to see who was standing behind me. A humming sound pulled my eyes down to a tiny woman, no more than four and a half feet tall, standing in front of me with a wide toothy grin. A vibrant blue sari swallowed her small frame, wrapping around her body multiple times before cascading over her left shoulder. Her salt and pepper hair was neatly pulled back into a tight bun, accentuating her dark eyes as they opened and contracted like a lizard eyeing an insect.
“I’m sorry. I thought you were open.” I motioned toward the door. “I’ll leave.”
“For you we are always open.” Her smile revealed a mouth full of yellowing teeth with alternating dark spaces, and the pungent smell of spice emitted from the pores of her skin as she moved.
“Hungry?”
“Starving, actually. The smell is amazing.”
“Oh, you will like.” She took my wrist and led me to a table in the middle of the room. The place was small, maybe seven or eight tables.
“Menu?” I asked.
“No.” Her eyes expanded again like giant orbs getting ready to burst. “Daily special. Momma cook just for you.” Her mouth grew wider, exposing even more gaps where teeth used to be. Before I could ask what the daily special was, she disappeared through a veil of glass beads that served as a door to the kitchen.
As I waited to be served, I wondered how a room with only a wooden door separating it from the noise of Manhattan could be so quiet. It was too quiet, and I was reminded of the last time I experienced such an extreme in the middle of Manhattan. The only sound in the room was the humming from the woman in the kitchen. There were no pots or pans dragging across the stove and no utensils hitting plates, just the constant hum of the old woman.
I spotted a glass of water on the table. I knew it was a bad idea to drink from a vessel that just seemed to show up, but I took a sip anyway because my mouth was beginning to feel like the inside of a tube of toothpaste.
Momma burst through the beads, rear end first, with a tray full of small metal bowls. She dumped the tray on the table in an overly aggressive manner, causing me to jump in my chair. I looked at the tiny woman who was almost at eye level now and wondered what happened to the innocuous woman I’d met a few minutes earlier. The flat line of her mouth and her flared nostrils exuded seven feet of impatience.
“Thank you.” I looked at the spread of curried chickpeas, potatoes, and Naan bread. Everything looked perfect, but the whole scene sort of had a Hansel-and-Gretel-ish vibe.
“Eat!” she barked and then quickly flashed that jack-o-lantern smile.
That’s what I did. God help me if I refused her offering, because I had a feeling she wouldn’t appreciate the snub. I stuffed the bread into my mouth like a ravenous dog. The more I ate, the more I wanted. In contrast to the bread frenzy, I carefully sucked the sauce off of each chickpea and wondered if anything I’d ever eaten had tasted so delicate. I attacked the potatoes next and allowed the curried sauce to run down my chin. Momma Nirvana watched me like a hawk and started humming again as I decimated the tray of food.
“Eat.”
When I finally came up for air, the old woman was circling the table, and I could only gues
s that she was fascinated by my ravenousness. I couldn’t have been that much of a pig, but then maybe she’d never seen someone my size pack it in like a linebacker. I stopped eating and placed my fork on the plate when my arm started to feel numb. Momma had stopped circling and was now standing on the other side of the table. She looked fuzzy. When my vision blurred completely, my elbows hit the table and I tipped sideways over the edge of the chair.
“Sick. I feel…”
If food was indeed the window to the soul, I was in trouble, because my soul felt like it was being sucked right out of my body. I went through the motions one goes through when screaming, but I couldn’t tell if any sound was actually coming from my mouth.
Eat. Eat. Her words kept driving through my head.
The pendant light suspended from the ceiling came into view as I slid down to the exotic tiled floor. It swayed back and forth from something shaking the room. The glass beads separating the dining room from the kitchen rustled, and Momma’s eyes popped as something heavy dragged across the floor.
“Isssss it upon her?” I heard someone say from behind me.
The voice sent a vibration across the room that resonated through me as I squirmed on the floor. I swung my head around to see what had entered the room. The face behind me was spectacular and beautiful, but the eyes looking back at me were terrifying—black slits encased in sockets of green quartz. I was looking into the eyes of a serpent. She came toward me as the fabric of her dress blanketed the floor. It trailed behind her like a flowing train of a wedding gown, shifting in an S-shaped motion as she moved. Her hair was streaked with silver. As she bent over me, it pooled on the floor in a swirling heap that even at full height would have reached her feet.
I recoiled as the back of her hand slid across my cheek. The translucent skin stretched across her limb felt like a cold dead fish, and I could see the muscles covering her long bones. She glanced in the direction of my stare and smiled as the shock spread across my face, and when that faded, so did her smile as her own face stretched into a Salvador Dali painting.
My tiny host knelt beside the woman, an insignificant heap huddled next to the power of the snake. Momma turned her face to mine and slowly raised her lips in a comforting gesture that quickly morphed into a mouth full of razor sharp teeth.
The Amulet Thief (The Fitheach Trilogy Book 1) Page 6
