by Stacia Kane
For a long moment he just sat there, his hand still holding the thing’s shirt, staring at its empty, twisted visage as if he could get some more information from it, as if words would appear scrawled across it that would tell him what he needed to know. What the fuck was that, and what the fuck had it said that caused the beast to go supernova like that?
And, of course, what the fuck did it want with him?
Chapter 5
Ardeth lived surprisingly close to his place, in a house a lot like his, set back off the street in Paradise Palms. He followed her succinct directions there with caution, and he could sense her apprehension as they approached her street, but he didn’t feel any presence when they got there. Nobody was waiting for them.
Which meant his suspicion—well, at that point it was more like a certainty—was correct. It was him they were after, whoever “they” were. He hadn’t suggested sticking around to try to question another one after their freaky snake friend’s body had capped the bizarreness by melting and disappearing, and if Ardeth had wanted to try, she hadn’t said anything, either. So it was still just a mysterious “they” he needed to find, before “they” found him first.
She obviously knew that, too. “You can spend the night here,” she said, opening the door.
It was on the tip of his tongue to say, “Yes.” It was right there, ready to jump out.
But he couldn’t. “I don’t think that’s such a great idea.”
“Oh, don’t worry.” Her long up-and-down look sent a spark of something that was definitely not fear through him. “I haven’t fallen prey to your manly charms. You get the spare room.”
Right. “Yeah. That’s not—look, we both know it’s not you they’re after, so I’ve already put you in enough danger. I’ve got some people I can call, people who don’t live in the city and who owe me a favor or two. You can get out of town tonight, and stay anywhere you want. Another country, even, if you have a passport. I’ll pay for everything.”
He’d expected her to be surprised but to pretty much jump at the offer. He’d expected her to consider it, at least.
What he did not expect was for her to laugh. A real laugh, that same light, pretty laugh he’d heard a few times already. “And miss all the excitement? Are you kidding me? I want to know how this ends.”
It was his turn to grab her arm, before she could finish crossing the threshold. “This isn’t funny. You saw that thing. You want one of those showing up here? A dozen of them? Let’s not make you a target—”
“I can take care of myself, Elvis.”
God, give him patience. “I’m sure you can. But I’m responsible for you being in this—”
“Oh, knock it off. Nobody is responsible for me but me, and I’m staying right here.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
Oops. Her eyes narrowed. Better fix that, fast. “Sorry. I just don’t want to see you—anybody—hurt because of me.”
Especially given how many people were hurt because of him on a regular basis. Every one of those marks on his chest reminded him of that.
Her expression softened a little. A very little. But hey, it was something. “I appreciate that. I do, honest. But…you’re not the only one who wants to know who’s behind all this. I knew Frank Mercer. It could have been me—it looks like it almost was me—who procured the demon-sword that killed him.” She bit her lip. “You’re not the only one who has a sense of responsibility here.”
One more try. “You’re not responsible for any of this. And there’s a difference between responsibility and danger. That thing back there wasn’t human, but it sure as hell was evil. If it comes here, looking for me—”
Her hand on his cheek silenced him as effectively as if she’d tossed a sponge down his throat. Did she touch everyone so much? Was that a thing people did casually, like that? Aside from women like Cookie Doretti—women who were way off-limits—he’d never spent much time around women who touched him unless they were touching him below the belt or obviously would be later. And women like Cookie Doretti touched him because they touched every man they met, either as a power game or an attempt to get attention. Or both.
The point was, he stood there for a second, struck dumb by her warm, soft palm against his skin, that amazing perfume filling the air, and he had no idea why or if that was what she wanted.
“If it comes here,” she said, “then it’s in for a big fucking surprise. And if it decides it wants me, who’s to say it won’t find me anywhere? Isn’t it better that I stick near you? Or do you not think you can keep me safe if it shows—”
“Of course I fucking can,” he said, offended in spite of himself. And in spite of his worries that maybe he couldn’t. That word, that word the man-thing had said, made the beast feel like it was going to die. Like Speare’s head, his body, had become too small. Jesus, was it possible for the beast to grow somehow? To squeeze him out? “That’s not the—”
“Good.” She smiled. “So get the hell inside, okay? Before my neighbors notice me bringing home a strange man in the middle of the night. Mrs. Theopoulis gossips about me enough as it is.”
Without waiting for a reply, she turned and headed inside, leaving only the imprint of her skin against his, a phantom touch lingering like the scent of her perfume.
“Are you coming?” She switched on a lamp, so her next sentence seemed to come from within a painful halo of light. “Want a drink?”
“Sure,” he said, blinking. Closing the door behind him felt like admitting something. He didn’t want to think about what it might be. “Thanks.”
She crossed the white-tiled floor to the kitchen—also white—and pulled a bottle of vodka out of the freezer. From the counter she grabbed a bottle of bourbon; she held up both of them. “Which?”
“I don’t care.”
She shrugged, and poured vodka into one short, thick-bottomed glass and bourbon into another. The glasses looked expensive, like most of the stuff he saw. The lamps were elegant stalks of silver, futuristic and sleek against the white walls. The furniture was white—velvet? Suede. It would have looked sterile, except for the dark wood tables and green plants everywhere. One wall held a long wooden bookcase full of books; on the others hung landscapes of stormy seas, wild and mournful at the same time. Not prints, either, he saw as he stepped close to one to inspect it. Real paintings.
“Those were my dad’s,” Ardeth said, appearing at his side. She handed him the bourbon. “He loved Achenbach.”
He could see why. Whether they were actually good paintings, like art critics would appreciate, he didn’t know. What he did know was that they tugged at him. Spoke to him, though he wasn’t quite sure why. “Originals?”
“Stolen right off the gallery walls,” she said. “He planned each one for years. Didn’t usually steal things for himself, but he wanted those.”
“Why? I mean, why didn’t he steal things for himself?” Or maybe why did he keep asking questions he shouldn’t have been interested in and that were none of his business?
“Bad for business.” She headed for the kitchen to refill her glass and returned with the bottle, too. She’d taken her shoes off at some point, he noticed. Her toenails were bright red. “If you get caught stealing for a client, you were working, you know? But if you were stealing for yourself, you were wasting time. You go to jail, you don’t even have any of the pay upfront to cover bills or costs inside.”
“So why do it?”
She sat down in the low white bucket chair set at a right angle to the couch. Funny how perfect she looked against all that white, dressed in black with her pale skin and vibrant hair. It wasn’t at all the sort of place he’d imagined she would have, but it made sense at the same time. He bet it was easy to clean. He bet she wanted something with no dark corners or hidden spaces.
“Because we all have something we want,” she said. “Because there’s always one score we want to make just for ourselves, one impossible thing we dream about and fantasize about.�
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When he was younger, in the years after the beast made itself known, he’d spent hours dreaming of getting rid of it. He’d visited every spiritualist, demonologist, every crackpot exorcist in the world—at least it felt like that—and more than a few who weren’t crackpots at all, who really knew what they were doing. None of them could budge it.
A few had said they could, but might kill him in the process. He’d told them to do it. They’d found out too late that the beast wouldn’t allow that to happen. It wouldn’t let him kill himself, either. He was stuck with it, and he’d finally stopped pretending freedom might be possible. He’d stopped fantasizing about it.
How would it feel to still dream about achieving the impossible, and getting something he’d always wanted?
“So what’s yours?” Shit, he’d said that, hadn’t he? He hadn’t meant to. Somehow the words had just formed without him planning it. Maybe because he could feel her eyes on him, watching his reaction. Gauging it. Figuring him out.
“Oh, you know.” She waved a hand. “The same ones everybody in my line of work dreams about. The Mona Lisa, the Hope Diamond, that kind of thing. Robbing a casino.”
“I don’t believe that,” he said. “I think there’s something you want. You just don’t want to tell me what it is.”
Her lips curved. Damn, that was a sexy smile. He bet she knew it, too. “A lady has to have her secrets.”
“She doesn’t have to,” he said. “It’s not a requirement.”
“Uh-huh.” Slowly, deliberately, she rested her toes on the edge of the chunky dark-wood coffee table, as if she had to haul her feet up from the floor instead of just lifting them. Her steady gaze added to the pointedness of the gesture, punctuating it. “But it is a requirement that any gentleman who wishes to know those secrets behaves a little less like a dick, and a little more like someone who actually appreciates having a place to sleep tonight.”
“I do appreciate it,” he said. “I just don’t want to be responsible if you get hurt or killed, and I think you have to admit that’s fair, given what just happened. How would you feel if you were me? You’d be wary, too.”
“I might be.” That soft tone was back. It sent shivers up his spine. She finished her drink, another slow, deliberate movement, and tilted her head. “What did just happen?”
Shit. Here it came. Ardeth wasn’t an amateur; she wasn’t someone unfamiliar with the occult or magical items or anything else. She’d seen his reaction to the words, those hideous, itchy words spoken by the man-thing, and now she was going to want to know why he’d reacted that way and what it meant. And he couldn’t tell her that. “What do you mean?”
“Goddamn it,” she said. “Next time you give me a speech about trusting each other and insist I tell you everything, I’m going to tell you to go fuck yourself in the ear. How does that sound?”
He couldn’t help but laugh. It was only a chuckle, really, but she apparently found it amusing, because she laughed, too. He really wouldn’t have minded hearing that more.
Not that she needed to know that. Not that he ought to be thinking it, either. “I’m laughing,” he said, “at the idea that you have some kind of moral superiority as far as honesty goes.”
“Oh, come on. You’re laughing because I said something funny.”
He twitched his shoulders, dipped his head; yeah, he had to give her that one. “Be that as it may.”
“Okay, then. How about we agree we’re both a couple of lying hypocrites, and see where that takes us?”
She had to have an angle. He just didn’t know what it could be. There were too many options, too many possible games she could be playing with him, and the look on her face told him he didn’t have a lot of time to consider them all. So he nodded. “Okay.”
“Good.” She leaned back in her chair and motioned for him to sit down on the couch. “So, what the hell happened back there? That thing said whatever those words were—I’ve never heard them before—and you looked like you were going to die. I don’t mean you looked upset, I mean I actually thought for a second there that you were going to die. Your face went completely white, your eyes went almost black…what happened?”
“Don’t know.” Sitting on the low couch made him feel like a troll squatting on a mushroom. There was no place for his legs to go; his knees jutted before him at eye level, and he couldn’t separate them too widely without looking like a woman waiting for a gynecological exam.
It was probably comfortable for a tiny thing like her. She probably looked just as perfect lounging on it as she did slouching in her chair. But he felt like an awkward teenager again, all elbows and knees.
Or maybe it was knowing she wouldn’t be satisfied with “Don’t know” that made him so uncomfortable. Or maybe it was the look on her face that made it clear she was, in fact, not satisfied with “Don’t know.” He had to come up with something else. Something more.
“When it said those words,” he said, hearing them again in his head, feeling and hearing the beast snarl and twist just from him thinking them, “something shot up my arm. From touching him. I guess that first word was some kind of power booster or something, and the last ones killed him—a death spell.”
Would she believe that? He hoped she would, figured she wouldn’t.
“And that was it.” Her face gave him nothing. “Just words of power, strengthened by physical contact.”
He met her gaze. “Seems that way.”
The silence lasted longer than he would have liked. He couldn’t look away from her, since she was watching him for signs of weakness—signs of deception—but being pinned by her eyes like that wasn’t exactly comfortable, either. He was pretty good at lying; he did it for a living, after all, just like she did. But lying to her, about something like this, didn’t feel the way those lies did. It felt…wrong. Scummy.
He bet it was because she was in danger and he still felt guilty about that danger. That was all it was. Well, that and the fact that the lie made the beast happy—all lies fed it a little, pleased it—and anything that made the beast happy was bound to be wrong.
If she noticed his discomfort, she didn’t say anything. She was probably enjoying it. “Okay, then. I guess that was all it was.”
He nodded. “It wasn’t pleasant.”
“You realize I’m trusting you here, right? I mean, I just don’t want there to be any misunderstanding. I’m trusting that you’re telling me the truth.”
“Why would I lie?”
She emptied her glass again—damn, she could drink, couldn’t she?—and licked her lips. Slowly licked her lips, so it looked more like she was pressing the tip of her tongue between them, savoring the taste of the vodka. He shifted in his seat again, trying to stop looking at it. That would probably be easier if looking at it—thinking about that tongue, about the sound she might make if he caught it with his teeth as he kissed her—didn’t feed the beast, and if he didn’t need the beast to be fed so he wouldn’t have to worry about it breaking through. “I don’t know. I guess you wouldn’t.”
Pause, one last pause—so he hoped, at least. So he assumed, with relief, when she spoke again. “So let’s see if we can find anything about what he said. What was that word? Gethleshi, wasn’t it?”
At least he was prepared this time. At least he’d already clenched every muscle he could possibly clench, started to tune out from her voice, before the word came. He’d even started to look away from her under the guise of having an itch on his leg, so his gaze was cast down and she couldn’t see if his eyes did anything like they apparently had before—which was also not a fun thing to think about.
All the same, the beast’s voice thundered through his head and the feel of it thrashing around, its pain rocketing through him, made his jaw lock. It took a second before he was able to speak. “I think that was it.”
“Funny.” She was watching him. Her gaze was a physical weight on his head. “I didn’t feel anything, saying it.”
That could no
t be good news, but then, he hadn’t expected there to be any. He shrugged. “Maybe it won’t work for you. Maybe you didn’t put the right intention behind it.”
“You try saying it, then.”
Like that was going to happen. Ever. “I don’t want to say it.”
Those fine dark brows rose. “Afraid of a word?”
He glared at her, and kept glaring. Damn it, he’d thought they were past this baiting, that they were starting to at least be okay working together. “If you’d felt what I felt, you wouldn’t be too eager to say it, either, especially when we don’t know if something transferred to me when he said it. Feel free to keep being a bitch about it, though.”
“Okay.” She’d produced a laptop from somewhere and flipped it open; she typed as she spoke, her slim fingers dancing on the keys. “I am not finding anything for Gethleshi online, at all. Not even on some of the—oh, wait.”
Shit, would she stop saying that word already?
“There’s a ‘Mirror of Gethleshi,’ ” she went on, obviously unaware that he was starting to sweat with the effort of looking normal, acting normal. Every time she said the word the beast’s spasms became more violent. “Eighth century if not older. Very valuable, last known owner got hold of it not quite forty years ago—oh my God.”
“What?”
She snapped the laptop shut and sat up, her face a shade paler than it had been. Not good.
He tried again. “What?”
It was odd to see her looking so worried. It was even odder to want to get up and go to her, to gather her in his arms and try to chase the frown off her face. He didn’t even want to think about the desire to personally slaughter whoever had written whatever it was that made her look that way, which was doubly ridiculous since she’d apparently gotten upset about a fact, not somebody’s ridiculous Internet opinion.
He couldn’t, and wouldn’t, do any of those things. But he could, and would, move forward to the edge of the couch, where he could reach out and touch her arm. “Hey. What’s wrong?”
She wasn’t upset, though—at least, that didn’t appear to be the dominant emotion furrowing her brow and making her lips twist. He saw confusion instead, confusion and pain. When she turned toward him he saw sadness in her eyes. “My dad,” she said. “The owner of the mirror was my dad.”
