My knee throbbed and tears stung my eyes, but I pulled myself to my feet, and cautiously leaned forward. The bottom of the falls ended in a frothing river of—surprise!—more corrosive lava. It was very far away. I gnawed on the edge of my thumbnail. It was just an illusion.
Ten minutes later, with two wet spots on my thighs from where I’d been wiping my palms on them, I hurled myself off the top.
Apparently, I only had the capacity to break one part of this very fine illusion, so while the lava didn’t burn, I fell and fell and fell, screaming all the way.
At some point, it almost seemed pointless to keep screaming, except I was only halfway down, which was a good reason in and of itself to keep going.
I hit the river feet first, sending up a plume of lava. It still didn’t burn, but I couldn’t breathe under there. I kicked up as hard as I could, my enhanced strength barely giving me the edge over the racing current.
I broke the surface, grabbing onto a log rushing past. Then I screamed because it wasn’t a log. It was Jonah.
He was charred and bark-like, his red hair patchy, but while unconscious and still cuffed with the magic-suppressors, he was alive. I didn’t know if this was an illusion or Levi had actually fricasseed him somehow, but I was pretty sure that using him as a floatation device was not bucket list worthy. Since I couldn’t help him until I found Levi, I released him and swam for shore.
Hauling myself out, I found myself confronted by a dense forest made of twisted metal spikes. Set into this impenetrable wall was a door barred with a rusted, heavy lock. I wrung an orange puddle of lava out of my shirt. “I played nicely with your ghost face and your stupid magmafall, but I’m done.” I held up the ring on the chain. “Show yourself right now or I’m out of here.”
With a creak, the spikes grew taller and more twisted.
“Yeah, you didn’t protect me. Accept it and move on. This self-flagellation is getting old, Levi.”
The ghost face appeared again, the eyes glaring at me.
I twirled a finger between the lava river and the spike forest. “Then this isn’t you playing martyr? Okay, must just be you throwing a tantrum like a little kid.” I rolled my eyes. “Jonah is a necromantic dick. I lived. I have a pretty good track record of doing that. Now punch him in the face and let’s move on already. I’m hungry.”
Jonah’s body flew out of the river, once more unblemished. Well, until he flew face-first into some of the spikes and his nose shattered. I had a feeling that back in reality Levi had smashed him into the concrete hallway wall.
“Happy now?” I raised an eyebrow.
The lock banged against the door, still very present. Was this what he’d learned to do growing up, making more and more elaborate worlds to escape into whenever real life got to be too much? Was this still how he was spending his adulthood?
I swear, I was getting him some new hobbies when I got out of here.
I tried to break the weather-beaten lock with my enhanced strength, but I didn’t even dent it. “Why are you making me work so hard? It’s me.” Manifesting lock picking tools, I set about opening it. It was so choked with rust that by the time I succeeded, my arms were aching and my hands were so sweaty that I almost couldn’t hold the lock picks.
The sound of that damned lock hitting the ground was one of the sweetest ones I’d ever heard. I wrenched open the door and stepped through.
I found Levi less than a minute later. He stood outside the open jail cell door, his head thrown back and his eyes completely black, a whitish blue magic pouring out of him like he was an evil video projector.
While the cell was visible, the rest of the isolation ward wasn’t. Levi was still surrounded by the metal spikes. His arms were outstretched as if he was conducting an orchestra, but his entire body shook under the weight of this illusion and corpses had rosier tints to their skins than he did.
I checked his eyes. They’d gone totally dead. There was no light to them, no awareness whatsoever.
“Levi?” I whispered. No response.
I repeated his name louder and more sharply but there wasn’t even a flicker that he’d heard. He’d never been unresponsive before.
My heartbeat thrashed in my ears. I grabbed him by the shoulders shaking him. “Answer me, damn you.”
Levi remained motionless, his arms frozen in what mockingly resembled a victory pose. This wasn’t a win. I was down and out in the last quarter and I needed a Hail Mary.
The easiest solution would be to tug on his magic. Just enough to shock him to his senses. I licked my lips, anticipating the taste of scotch and chocolate, then stilled. What if I couldn’t stop?
I rocked back and forth, my head buried in my hands. Sight, hearing, touch, all gone. That left taste and smell. If neither of those worked... I straightened up, my spine rigid. We’d wasted years dancing around each other. I wasn’t going to lose him now.
Clasping his face in my hands, I rose onto tiptoe and kissed him. It didn’t work.
“Fight, you stubborn bastard.” I kissed him again.
His arms dropped to his sides.
Yes. Cupping the nape of his neck, I brushed my lips against his again, pouring all my feelings into it: trust, care, longing, need.
He eyes blinked open, his irises once more a clear beautiful blue.
The normal world flicked back into view.
“If this is how I can have you, then I’ll take it,” he said and rested his forehead against mine.
“Excuse me?”
He laughed and touched the spot between my eyebrows. “Did you know when you frown, your eyes crinkle up, and I want to kiss you? I did. Good thing, right? Or how would I have created that now?”
“I’m not an illusion.”
“You’re real to me. I don’t care. Just don’t leave.”
“Is that supposed to be romantic? You idiot.” I punched him. “It’s really me. You think being sent to Sheol would kill me?” I made a raspberry noise. “Bitch, please.”
“Don’t mess with me.” He paced the length of the hallway like a caged tiger, refusing to meet my eyes.
Dread skittered through me. “I’m not.”
Pain flashed over his face. “You got locked in Sheol. The real Ash got herself out of a lot of impossible scrapes, but even she couldn’t do that.”
“You’re right. This is an illusion, but I’ll never leave you, baby. How could I? You’re perfect and you’ll always protect me.”
He stopped pacing.
“Also, I think Miles and I are going to be great friends for the rest of our lives.”
He warily inched closer.
“You should also really give Veronica a raise and—”
Levi crashed his mouth on mine. I wrapped my arms around his waist, relaxing as his scent enveloped me.
“I believe you,” he whispered and kissed me again. Sweet and slow, it lit me up like a thousand fairy lights riding through my veins.
Somewhere in the distance, shouts and thudding feet got louder. Miles sprinted into the room and we broke apart, just before he crushed us all back together in a bear hug.
“Okay. That’s… Yeah, no.” I wriggled out of it, but Levi held fast on to my hand, while he proceeded to apologize to Miles for the trouble he’d caused him.
“Shut up, Levi, and let your girlfriend take you to the infirmary.”
“Lovah,” I said.
Both men grimaced.
“Jonah has been secured,” Miles said. “I trust you’ll leave him in my care now?”
“He’s all yours,” Levi said, holding tightly to my hand. “I’ve got everything I need.”
We ended up with two paramedics as escorts, asking Levi all kinds of questions as we went to the infirmary. He was remarkably lucid, though he moved slowly, wincing every now and again.
I sat quietly by his side while he was given scary shots and vision tests and hooked to a heart monitor.
Levi didn’t say much, nodding abashedly while the House medic admonished
him that he was going to do permanent damage if he ever invested that much of his power into a single illusion again. I’d have chalked it up to post-illusion fatigue if the expression on his face hadn’t grown more and more pensive.
The doctor finally finished all the tests. He gave Levi some pain meds for his fractured ribs and a couple of sports drinks to combat mild dehydration, but at last Levi was told that he was good to go home and rest.
“I want someone to stay with you,” the doctor said.
I raised my hand. “That would be me.”
Levi gave a wan smile.
I waited until the man was gone and Levi was putting his suit jacket on with slow, careful movements. “What’s on your mind, Leviticus?”
“Nothing.” He wrapped his tie around his neck, tying it tightly. Oh boy. Locked-down mode in full force again.
“Bullshit. You thought I was dead. I’d have been miffed if you hadn’t gone all dark side.”
“It isn’t funny.”
“My darling Levi, you’re a monster. This is not news to either of us.”
“Not this monstrous,” he said. “How can you be okay with this? I didn’t even think twice about what I was doing. Jonah had killed you and I wanted him to pay. No matter how I came off or what it cost me. All my years of being in control and I threw it away in a heartbeat.”
“Because of me.” I took a step back. “You’re worried I’ll do something and make you lose control again when I get hurt.”
Not if.
“No. Ash. Fuck, I’m making a mess of this.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I’ve always known exactly how deep my darkness runs. That’s why I’ve always kept the worst of it in check. No one who truly mattered was ever supposed to see it.”
“You’re forgetting how bright your light is. You only have this darkness because you care so much. What we have might be new, but if our positions were reversed? I’d have ripped that fucker’s magic out in the most painful way possible. We are who we are, and you’re the only one I trust to see it.”
The tension drained out of his body and he hugged me, burrowing his face in my neck.
“Do you want to still come home with me?” Levi said, and handed me my jacket.
“Yes. So long as we can stop by my place to get clean clothes, because I need a shower like nobody’s business. Then you have to feed me.”
“You know, most women would want to take care of me after the ordeal I just went through.”
“The one of your own making?”
Levi tugged on my hair. “Be nice.”
“I’m always nice. Also,” I said, “as we’ve established, I am not most women.”
“No,” Levi said. “Most women induce ninety-seven percent less heart attacks in me.”
“Where’s the fun in that? Hey, Leviticus?” I caught his hand, swinging ours together.
“Yeah?”
“Dead people, psycho illusions, I don’t care. I’m happy.”
His eyes danced and his smile was sweet and all-mine. “Me too.”
Rafael sent me a text ordering me to meet him immediately at the library.
I got a sour taste in the back of my throat.
Me: Unconscious. Sorry. Try back tomorrow.
I’d promised to stay with Levi. Moreover, I’d only barely convinced him that he could share all sides of himself with me and I wasn’t going anywhere. I couldn’t run out on him now.
I wasn’t going to add another scar to the ones he bore.
Attendant mine: Your Jezebel duties come first.
The words sat there, heavy, black, and immutable, reminding me that before Levi, I’d made a promise to serve the greater good. I’d accepted all of Levi. Would he do the same and not get tired of a girlfriend who couldn’t take one night to put him first?
“I have to go,” I said, my voice heavy with regret. “Rafael wants to see me in the library. A.S.A.P.” I tried to slide my hand from Levi’s, but I couldn’t make myself let go.
A tightness flashed over Levi’s face and he pulled free of my grasp. “I’ll ask Miles to stay with me.”
Fuck it. I pulled out my phone to tell Rafael to wait until morning, but another text came in before I could.
Attendant mine: Now, Ashira!
Rafael was not an exclamation point kind of guy. Maybe an ellipsis in extreme circumstances, or in the event of the zombie apocalypse he’d forgo a period, but such profuse emotion? In a text? Horror.
“Rafael must have…” My legs gave out on me and I dropped heavily onto a chair.
“Must have?” Levi prompted.
“He must have cracked the codename.”
I still harbored revenge fantasies around this person for ordering my dad’s execution, but this interlude with Levi had dampened my enthusiasm somewhat. There was a lot to be said for being happy. I had never truly understood that before. As soon as Rafael said the name and set us on this path, that part of my life might become a distant, if precious memory.
Shit was about to get very real.
“I’m not sure I’m ready for this,” I said.
“Let me come with you.”
“You can’t. He’s at the library. And, I think I need to face this myself. But can I come over right after?”
“If you want to go home,” Levi said, “be in your own space, be with Priya, someone who’s been there with you all these years in dealing with Adam’s absence, I won’t be hurt.”
“I want to be with you.” I kissed him quickly, but he hauled me back against him, taking his time until I clutched dizzily at his shirt front.
“Now you can go,” he said smugly.
“You’re a bastard.”
“Good. When you get back, we can fight about that fact and then have really good make-up sex.”
“Get real. I’m not forgiving you that easily. We’ll have really good hate sex first.”
He lay his hand on my cheek. “Thank you for not being dead.”
I smiled at him. “Thank you for breaking Jonah’s face. And take Miles home to watch over you.”
I slid the ring on my finger and disappeared.
Rafael was practically levitating, he was so excited. His eyes sparkled behind his slightly askew glasses, his short hair sticking out in tufts as if he’d been pulling at it.
The library looked like a bomb had gone off. There were Attendant records strewn all over the table, from the very ancient to the most modern, along with reams of loose leaf paper and a variety of colored pens.
He dragged me over to the table and pushed me into a chair. “I did it.”
“Can I get some tea?” I said.
“Pardon?”
“Tea? Generally served in one of your frou-frou little cups, preferably with something sweet to accompany it. Your host skills were subpar on that front last time.” I didn’t give a damn about the tea. I was stalling.
Rafael glanced about him, bewildered. “You really want tea? I don’t have any here and I can’t remember what I have at home.”
I sighed. There was no putting off the truth. “What did you find?”
He rummaged amongst all the books. “I got to thinking. Chariot took its name from the Old Testament. What if the members took their codenames from there as well? I found…” He picked up an older leather-bound volume. “Right. Here it is. Remember I mentioned how we had another codename? It’s 34E13.”
“Yes. Number, letter, number. I don’t see what it stands for, though.”
“Ah, but throw in the Old Testament.” He bounced on his toes.
“Still not following.”
“The five books of Pentateuch. It occurred to me that the letters might correspond to the various books. Thus the E in 34E13 refers to Exodus.”
“And the numbers?”
“Quotes. Generally when a passage is cited it would be written like this.” He grabbed a red pen and scrawled Exodus 34:13. “They rearranged it a bit. If you were going to use it as a codename, you wouldn’t want to be obvious about it.”
“Heaven forbid. Okay, lay it on me. What’s the quote?”
“Exodus 34:13.” He cleared his throat. “‘Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and cut down their Asherah poles.’”
I slammed my hands down on the table. “You. Are. Shitting. Me.”
“I’m not. I assure you. This has to be the key.”
“It does. But does it give us their identity?”
He frowned. “I’m still working on that part.”
“You’re doing brilliantly. Truly,” I said. “What’s the quote corresponding to 26L1?”
“Ah. That one comes from Leviticus.” Grinning, he pushed his glasses up his nose, totally unaware of the tsunami he’d unleashed with the word Leviticus, now barreling toward me to upend my life.
He babbled on as he found the correct passage. I tried to shut him up, but I couldn’t get anything other than a faint squeak out.
“Aha!” Rafael said. He didn’t notice me frantically waving my hands. “Leviticus 26:1. ‘You must not make idols for yourselves or set up a carved image or sacred pillar, or place a sculpted stone in your land to bow down to it, For I am the Lord your God.’”
The quote on the clock.
A pained sound from deep in my belly escaped me as I bent over, my fists pressed into my stomach. I gagged on the taste of bile, then jumped up, barely making it to the trash can before I vomited.
Rafael stared at me, the book forgotten in his hand. “Ashira? Are you still injured?”
I wiped my mouth. “26L1 is Isaac Montefiore. Levi’s father.”
Chapter 28
Hope is a funny thing. It forces parents to sit by the phone years after their child has gone missing, just in case. It causes spouses trapped in loveless marriages to have a baby—like that can save them.
It found me cramped in an economy seat, flying back to Antigua to see Paulie, seeking a miracle that would make this nightmare disappear.
I’d been too cowardly to talk to Levi, texting that I’d been wrong. Rafael desperately needed my help breaking the codename and we’d be working late into the night. I used my own funds to buy the ticket.
Shadows & Surrender: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files Book 3) Page 28
