“Shut up.”
“I’ve got a really big soul, Delaney, all the ladies say so. Happy to share.”
“This is not funny.”
“It isn’t. But you’re smiling.”
I was? I drew my fingers up to my mouth. Yep. Opened my eyes.
He was leaning down over me his grin pressing lines at the edges of his eyes. I wanted to touch him. Kiss him.
“If you want a little piece of my soul, I’m all for it, but we’ll have to be quiet. Vampires and werewolves have good hearing.”
I shoved at his arm and he moved back so I could sit, crossed-legged facing him, our knees touching.
“You have to promise me you won’t let me eat your soul.”
“We’re talking about soul-soul here, and not sexy-soul, right? Because I can think of all sorts of sexy things involving your mouth and my soul.”
“Ryder. I’m not joking.”
He took my hands in his. Mine were cold and a little clammy. I wondered if my body went through the emotions I could no longer feel, or if I was just clammy because this whole no-soul thing was making me a little sick to my stomach.
His hands were warm and dry and calloused at the thumb and bases of his fingers. He had working hands, capable hands.
“I’m right here with you, Delaney. Soul or no soul, it doesn’t change my feelings for you. If sharing a part of my soul with you makes this better, then that’s what I’m going to do. At least until we get your soul back, because make no mistake, this is temporary. There are ways out of your contract with that demon. There are ways to get your soul back. I am not going to let you live the rest of your life missing a piece of yourself.”
“You know how to get my soul back?”
“No. Not yet. But my boss is the god of contracts. He also knows all the ways to break one.”
“He doesn’t like me.”
“That won’t matter.”
It would. I’d known Mithra for most my life, and he not only didn’t like me, he didn’t like my family much either. He knew how to hold a grudge that lasted through the generations and had always wanted to be the overseer of Ordinary’s laws and rules instead of the Reed family. It was why he’d made Ryder the warden. Mithra was looking for a way to control this town, and the gods and creatures within it.
I didn’t like the idea of giving him power over the state of my soul, but didn’t say that to Ryder. Maybe it was a possibility I’d have to consider. Maybe being soulless would get bad enough I’d make a deal with anything just to change it.
“Awful lot going through your head,” Ryder said softly. “Want to talk about it?”
“No. Just.” I huffed out something that might have been a laugh, but was really just a random sound. “I want this to be done. Want Ben home and safe. And want Lavius gone. Permanently.”
“Dead, you mean?”
“Yeah. If we can kill an ancient like him, however we kill a monster like that, yes. Dead would be best.”
“I’ve sent some feelers out to the DoPP.”
“And?”
“Kept running into walls. But there’s one agent who sent me a file.”
“And? Does it show Lavius is involved with the agency?”
“It shows there is a lot of money coming in from a shell corporation that is a shell corporation of someone very entrenched in old money.”
“Could be a lot of people.”
“Could be a vampire.”
“Anything that could lead us to him?”
“Not that won’t take some time. Do you think that demon is going to find Ben?”
“I kind of bet everything on it.”
“Not everything.” He leaned a little and planted a soft kiss in the middle of my lips. “And it’s more of a temporary loan than a bet.”
“Who knew you were such an optimist?”
He shifted and pulled his feet underneath himself so he could stand, then held his hand down for me. “I’m more of a realist, but my “real” has been expanded upon recently.”
“Finding out gods are real?”
“Still not sure I completely believe in that. But no. That’s not what I was talking about.”
“Finding out creatures and monsters and angry ancient vampires are real?”
“No. Finding you. Just. Finding you.”
I smiled for him. I knew I should be smiling for what he said, and for how it should make me feel: loved, cared for, all those other nice things. But since I couldn’t feel the impact of his words, I went with what I knew I should do.
Fake it ‘til you make it.
“You okay there?” he asked as I started toward the door with him, our hands still linked together.
“What?”
“What are you doing with your face?”
“Smiling reassuringly?”
“Well. Okay. How about you don’t do things you don’t feel like doing?”
“Because right now I don’t feel like doing anything.”
“Breathing?”
“Meh.”
He opened the door. “So what you’re saying is if I gave you a suggestion or two of what you should do, you wouldn’t hit me?”
“I’m still trying to get my feet under me on all this. I’d like to at least appear as normal as possible. Suggest away.”
“Did you have dinner?”
I thought back. Popcorn for breakfast, soup for lunch. A stop by the donut shop, but no donut for me. I stuck my hand in my pocket and found the warmth of the worry stone there. I rubbed my thumb in the smooth indent. It might be my imagination, but that action really was soothing, calming.
“I had some weird witch tea in the hospital that might or might not have been spiked. But no. I think I skipped dinner.”
“I’d like to note that things like ‘weird witch tea’ no longer sound strange to me. Burger? Pizza?”
“Don’t care. Whatever you want.”
“That new Thai place?”
I hated that new Thai place.
“Sure.”
“With the extra fish sauce?”
I extra-hated the fish sauce.
“I hate that stuff. No Thai.”
Ryder smiled. “Good to know you didn’t trade away your brain. I was beginning to worry your soul hole had gone to your head.”
I smacked him on the shoulder with my free hand. “I’ll order food.”
Jame and Rossi were still in the living room, Jame in a recliner that looked like it had been built to fit him like a glove, and Rossi slouched against the arm of the couch, his long legs propped up on the coffee table.
Myra was in the kitchen, or at least I thought the sounds of cups and spoons banging around in there were her.
The men in the room watched my every move. “I thought I’d call in some food. Jame, is there anything you want. To eat?”
“No.”
I looked at Rossi. “Nothing,” he said. “I am curious as to what you’ll order.”
Vampires. For a race that really couldn’t eat much at any one time, they sure were curious about other people’s appetites.
But the question was: what did I want? Nothing sounded good, but that could be the results of it being nearly midnight, not that I didn’t have a soul. I pulled out my phone and scrolled through the list of places open this late.
Just the Blue Owl out on the edge of town. Everywhere else would have closed for the night.
Not helpful for narrowing down my choices. There wasn’t anything the diner wouldn’t cook.
I dialed, got Piper on the line.
“What can I get you, Delaney?”
Piper was a demigod–a child of a god, namely Poseidon, and a human. She was old enough to be my grandmother, but only appeared about thirty. She’d also been involved in the god powers being stolen, used as bargaining chips by the god who had claimed Ryder as his servant.
That was old news though. It’d happened a whole week ago.
“Maybe a couple specials?”
Since Piper
also had a knack for seeing the future, I went with it. “Enough for four, maybe five,” I said. If Bathin made it back before midnight, he might want food too.
If demons ate.
I’d have to check in on that.
“I’ll send out our delivery boy. He’ll be there in a jiff.”
“You have a delivery boy?”
“We do tonight.”
“All right. I’m at Jame and Ben’s place.”
“I know.”
Of course she did.
“You have my card on record?”
“Yes, Chief. I got you covered.”
“Great. Thanks.”
“Oh, and Chief?”
“Yes?”
“Hope is born from ashes and love yeilds to no other power. Return to your heart.”
A chill washed over me, even though I couldn’t quite muster up the dread that came along with it. Yancy had said the same thing to me.
“What?”
“It’s what I wrote down. It came to me just before you called. So I thought you should hear it. Did it mean something to you?”
“Not in any way I understand.”
“Well, shoot. Sorry about that.”
“No, it’s good. Thanks, Piper.”
“Sure. And stop worrying about if you should have come to me before Yancy. I can’t see the possibilities of the future as clearly as him, I don’t think. I just get specific glimpses of things that are sort of hard-wired.”
“Hard-wired?”
“Like I see the knots in fate’s strings, and he sees the whole loom on which fate is weaving. Maybe the whole tapestry.”
“That’s interesting. Are there any knots I need to know about?”
“Nothing except that thing I told you. Gotta hop, Chief. Movie just let out and I’m about to be swamped in pie-hungry people.”
I said my goodbye and let her get back to work.
Myra walked in from the kitchen. Her hands were damp, and her eyes were a little damp too. Washing dishes and crying? Or maybe she was just tired and had been rubbing her eyes.
“You okay?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Compared to what?”
Okay. She wasn’t in the mood to share. “Is Jean okay?”
That seemed to thaw her a little. “Yes. She’s knocked out on the good meds. Hogan stayed until Hatter and Shoe showed up.”
“Hatter staying with her overnight?”
“Shoe. Hatter’s on patrol tonight.”
I pictured the two officers. Hatter, tall and lanky like a cowboy doll someone had brought to life, and Shoe short, wide, and tough as a bear.
Dad had always liked the two of them, and trusted them. I’m not sure why he’d decided to tell them about Ordinary, but his instincts had been right. Hatter and Shoe were pretty terrific people.
“I ordered food.”
She shook her head again. “Sure. Blue Owl?”
“Yeah. Piper seemed to know what we’d want, so I just went with that.”
“There better be pie.”
“There better be pie,” I agreed.
That got a small smile out of her, and I liked it. I wanted to see her happy, even though I knew I’d disappointed her. “Myra, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.” She put her hand on my shoulder and rubbed it a little. “I know you are trying to do the right thing here. I just…I can’t agree on this one. So apologizing is just…yeah, not going to fly with me.”
It was strange to have this distance between me and my sister. Over the years we’d gotten into plenty of arguments, but this was more than that. This was a huge life decision that she did not agree with and would not agree with.
There was nothing I could do at this point. But she watched me, like she expected me to do something. For the life of me, I didn’t know what it was.
What would normal Delaney do? Smile reassuringly?
Ryder walked over—he’d put his boots back on—and draped an arm across my back.
“You two ladies doing okay here?” It sounded casual, but maybe there was more to what Ryder was saying. More Myra, or a person with a soul, could hear.
“This sucks,” I grumbled.
“What?” he asked.
“I hate being treated differently. I’m still me.”
“I know.” He deposited a kiss on my temple.
It was nice, but I wasn’t talking to him.
“Myra, do you understand that I only traded away a part of me, not the whole shebang.”
“Your soul is an awful lot of you,” she said.
“But not all.”
“No,” she agreed. “Not all.”
The knock on the door got me moving.
“Nope.” Myra blocked my path. “Stay. I got it. It might be someone looking for organ donation. Can’t have you giving away your spleen before dinner.”
I rolled my eyes and tried not to let any more of my frustration show. Turned out I didn’t have to worry about that. As soon as it hit, my irritation sort of fizzled out.
Super annoying.
Which I didn’t care about either.
Rinse. Repeat.
The delivery guy turned out to be Mykal, our friendly vampire EMT.
“Didn’t know you’d taken on a night job,” Myra said as she let him in with the box he was carrying and directed him to place it on the coffee table.
“Just got done eating at the diner when your order came in. Told Piper I could drop it off.”
He acknowledged Rossi with a short nod then set the box down and approached Jame who had been focused on him since before the door opened.
They worked pretty closely together since Jame and Ben were firefighters and Mykal was a paramedic. I thought they were friends. But Jame was a werewolf and Mykal was a vampire. Despite Rossi faking his relaxed and comfortable vibe on the couch, there was not a lot of love stretching between the two races right now.
“Hey, man. Any word?” Mykal held out his hand and Jame clasped it.
That was a good sign.
“Not yet. There is a demon looking.”
“A…really? How did we score a demon on our side?”
“Gave it a soul.”
“Well, that’s a bummer. Who was the victim?”
“Delaney.”
Mykal looked over at me, just a little of his fang showing when he smiled. “Protect and serve doesn’t mean serve up parts of yourself to lying, cheating, underworld assholes, you know.”
“That’s a pleasant thought,” a whiskey-smooth voice said. “Would you care to repeat it to the lying, cheating, underworld asshole who just saved this vampire’s life?”
Bathin.
Bathin was standing in the middle of the room, just to one side of the coffee table.
In his arms was a very thin, very bloody, and very wet Ben Rossi.
Vampires are fast. Rossi and Mykal both made a move toward him. They would have reached him first if Jame hadn’t roared.
“Do not touch him!”
That, like a slap of thunder, stopped all of us in our tracks except Bathin and Jame.
Jame was on his feet, moving toward the demon. Bathin carried Ben like he didn’t weigh more than a box of chocolates, then transferred him, carefully into Jame’s arms, blood and wet included.
“Into your arms. Breathing, as whole as I found him, with no ties I am able to break attached.” Bathin looked over at me, met my gaze. “As we agreed.”
For a second, just three heartbeats, it felt like time stopped, the world stopped, and everything, everything finally clicked into place, was going to be okay. Was going to be normal again.
I knew there was nothing but gratitude in my eyes. I knew Bathin saw it, because there was, for the briefest flash, a clear and sincere acknowledgment in his gaze. Almost as if it had actually been his pleasure to save Ben, to bring him home, to do this good thing.
And then the world seemed to begin again. Jame moaned, keened. It was a gut-wrenching sound, a mix of raw grief and relief and a
nger. A sound I hoped I’d never hear again.
He was bent, shoulders bowed in as if to protect Ben. Then he rolled the unresponsive Ben into his chest, as close to his heart as he could get him, his head tipping down so that he could place his lips over Ben’s mouth.
“Is he breathing?” I asked. Stupidly. Vampires didn’t breathe and I knew that. “Is he alive?”
And, yeah, that wasn’t quite right either, but it was close enough.
Mykal put his hand on Jame’s shoulder. Jame snarled at him, his body responding with just enough of a shift into wolf that his arms and shoulders and legs bulked up and his eyes flashed yellow.
“Easy,” Mykal said. “Keep him there. Keep him in your arms. Hold him close. I need to check his vitals. Jame, let me see if he’s okay.”
It struck me then, as I watched Mykal, Jame’s close friend who just happened to be the one person who Jame might trust to give Ben medical attention, that Piper sending Mykal here, on this little delivery-boy trip, wasn’t a coincidence.
Piper has seen this knot in the string and made sure that we’d have the help Ben needed when Bathin brought him home.
Mykal touched Ben’s face, then his throat, then pressed his hand on the back of his head, as if he could sense some kind of vital statistic through his hands that only a vampire could feel.
“He needs blood, Jame,” Rossi said. “You need to get him to the hospital. Now.”
Jame must have only heard half of what Rossi said. Must have only heard him saying Ben needed blood.
“The ambulance is right outside,” Mykal said.
Jame wasn’t listening to him. He shifted his hold on Ben and tore into his own arm with teeth and fang, biting off a big enough chunk of his own flesh that even, I, the soulless one hissed in sympathy.
“Jesus, Wolfe,” Mykal said. “Sit down before you bleed out.” Mykal was no longer being tentative and consolatory with Jame. He took hold of him by the elbow and back, and steered him to the couch. He forced him to sit, and then helped arrange Ben across his lap so that Ben’s mouth could reach the bleeding wound Jame had created.
Jame looked both fevered and shocky, but at least he’d stopped growling. He couldn’t look away from Ben. Not even when Rossi reached down and pressed his own fingers, which were dripping a thick, dark fluid, into the corner of Ben’s mouth.