Idris dug a golf ball sized rock from beneath the leaves and threw it hard at the water. It struck with a heavy sploosh, sending up a spray of sparkling droplets. “Does Rhyzkahl know?”
“No,” I said softly. “And neither does Tessa. Someone manipulated her to believe you’d been stillborn and that the dad was an American in Japan who loved her and left.”
He frowned at me. “Who did the manipulation? Mzatal? Jesral?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “When I found out, I assumed the manipulation had been in place for twenty years.” I pressed the heels of my hands to my temples. “But now I’m not so sure. She’s off with Katashi—willingly. Maybe the manipulation is more recent.”
He toyed with a twig on the ground in front of him. “When were you planning on telling me?”
Exhaling, I dropped my hands to my lap. “You’ve been kind of a mess, and I didn’t want to screw you up more.” I shook my head. “So, of course, I went ahead and did exactly that. Idris, I’m so sorry.”
He went eerily still. “It’s okay. It’s out now, and I’m fine.”
“Uh huh. As fine as I was a few minutes ago.”
“I’m dealing with it,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m fine.”
“Idris,” I said with extreme gentleness, “you’re not fine. You haven’t been fine since you witnessed Amber’s murder. It broke you.”
In a mercurial moment, Idris shot to his feet. “You don’t know,” he said, breathing hard. “You don’t know what it did to me! I’m dealing with it.”
Remaining seated, I tipped my head back to regard him. “How?” My already hoarse voice cracked. “By staying angry and hostile all the time? By lashing out at the people around you at the slightest provocation?” I drew a deep breath and forged on. “You’re pushing everyone away as hard as you can because, if no one’s close to you, maybe a death won’t hurt so much.”
He flicked his hands dismissively. “I’m not doing that. I just have to get those fuckers. No bandwidth for social shit.”
“Idris, you’ve barely smiled since you arrived,” I said. “You go off on your own at every possible opportunity. And it’s a miracle I still have a tongue considering how many times I’ve bitten it after you’ve made an asshole-ish comment.” I kept my eyes steady upon him. “That’s not the Idris I once knew. That Idris is broken, and he keeps kicking the pieces farther apart.”
“Yeah? Well, shit has changed.” Idris pivoted away and folded his arms across his chest. “When I’ve dealt with Katashi and Steiner and Asher, then you’ll see me smile.”
“That’s what scares me.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It scares me that revenge is the only way you’ll find joy,” I said. “With your lineage, you’re pretty powerful. What’ll happen after you kill or capture those men? Will you return to being the Idris who can sing silly songs with his family at Christmas? Or will you hunt down the next target?”
Idris glanced back at me, a deep scowl on his face. “Won’t know ’til I get there, will I?” he said gruffly then shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Nothing for you to be scared of, though.”
“Until you decide it’s better for everyone if I’m removed from the picture,” I replied, keeping my tone even. “Why gamble that my arcane abilities could be restored?” I found my own rock and chucked it into the pond. “I’m defenseless against the arcane right now, and you scare the crap out of me.”
He spun to face me again. “Bullshit!” he shouted. “I didn’t take your abilities or try to have you locked down. Yeah, I said it was safer—after McDunn had already stripped you. I shouldn’t have said it, but I do believe it’s true for now.” Anger settled on him more heavily. “But that doesn’t give you any reason to believe I want to eliminate you.”
My experience and intuition told me it would be foolish to push him more on the subject. He wasn’t even all human. Who knew how he might react? Besides, my emotional reserves registered at nil. “Fair enough,” I said as lightly as I could manage. Speedy extrication from the subject was in order. “I think we should go to Tessa’s house. There’s a valve in her library that should be checked and, well, I can’t do it.”
His features relaxed at the change of topic. “It’s on the list to be assessed.”
Relieved, I nodded. “My schedule is quite free at the moment if you want to head over there tonight.”
Idris extended his hand to me. “C’mon. I need to grab some food, then we can go.”
Taking his hand, I stood, but then he caught me off guard by pulling me into a hug. Before I could return it, he released me and headed for the trail. Sighing, I watched his retreating back. An instant longer holding that hug and he’d have broken down. Idris needed to break down—scream and sob and let out the grief that tore at him. Yet I also knew how much he needed that anger to keep him going. With me already out of the game, we couldn’t afford to lose him on any level.
“Meatloaf,” I muttered and trudged after him. “Everything’s better with meatloaf.”
Chapter 26
Idris pulled into Tessa’s driveway, shut off the headlights, and let the darkness surround us. The ache of loss settled in my chest as I climbed out and surveyed the well-maintained yard and house. All distressingly ordinary.
I dredged up the memory of how it used to appear in my othersight—arcane protections glowing on every surface like phosphorescent filigree. The effort of clinging to the recollection was like trying to remember a dozen phone numbers at once. After a few precious seconds, I let it slip away with a resigned sigh. “It looks and feels so different,” I murmured.
“Yeah, I bet,” Idris said, already absorbed in examining warding. He winced as he realized his gaffe. “Shit. I’m sorry.”
Plastering on a smile, I squared my shoulders and moved to the walkway, then stopped and shook my head. “You know, I never got to finish my meatloaf. Let’s go to Lake O’ Butter and get waffles. We can do this tomorrow.”
I started to walk away, but Idris grabbed my upper arm. “Aversions,” he said. “Keep your eyes on the house. It’s all about willpower.”
The gloom hid my flush of embarrassment. Why hadn’t I remembered the aversions? “Right.” I swallowed. “Got it.” Ruthlessly, I moved forward and drove down the craving for waffles. With lots of butter. And bacon.
Idris lingered behind. “Kara, wait,” he said when I reached the steps. “I need to assess the protections.”
Tense and jumpy from the aversions, I stopped. Wards were stupid inanimate things, I told myself, stomach knotting. So what if they didn’t recognize me. I shouldn’t let it bother me. I lifted my chin. It doesn’t bother me. “Can you unweave them?” I asked over my shoulder.
Idris peered at the house through narrowed eyes. “There are a buttload of wards,” he said with dismay. “Looks like a mix of demon and Katashi’s work.” He swore under his breath. “I’m not going to be able to get through them.”
Well, that sucked ass. Too bad we didn’t still have the arcane-dampening cuff that I’d used to keep Mzatal and Idris from summoning me. I could have plowed through the wards with that. I retreated from the house, noting without humor how the desire for waffles faded with each step away from the aversions.
“I think it’s the same all the way around,” I told him, “but you might as well check.”
Idris began a slow perusal of the perimeter. I watched him until he disappeared around the corner of the house, then nearly startled out of my skin when the porch light flicked on and the front door creaked open. My hand flew to my gun, but I relaxed as Tessa’s boyfriend stepped out. “Carl! You scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry about that, Kara.” Lanky and soft-spoken, with short, near-colorless hair, Carl seemed an odd match for my petite and flamboyant aunt. Yet I’d always felt he understood her far more than most people—including me, at times.
I managed a weak smile. “It’s cool. Your car wasn’t out
here, and I didn’t see any lights on. Had no clue you were inside.”
“Come on in,” he said then looked toward the corner of the house where Idris disappeared. “Where’d your friend go?”
“Checking out protections,” I said, remaining where I was. Carl had a talent of arcane immunity which allowed him to slip through wards as if they weren’t there. Unfortunately, that didn’t help me one bit. “I was hoping to get a few books from the library and check the valve at the same time, but I can’t get through the protections.” I proceeded to give him a quick and dirty update on my condition.
“That’s rough,” he said, expression barely twitching from its usual impassiveness. “You want me to get the books for you?”
After brief consideration, I shook my head. “Thanks, but I don’t have specific ones in mind. Besides, the valve is the most important project.” I faked a casual shrug. “We’ll come up with a new plan.”
Carl closed the door behind him and took a seat on the steps. “Seems as if quite a bit is going on,” he said calmly. Not that I’d ever seen Carl anything but calm. Ever. As a morgue assistant for the coroner’s office, he handled all manner of dead bodies and bizarre crime scenes with cool aplomb and a dry-as-the-desert sense of humor. “If you need any help, I have time on my hands.”
“Because Tessa’s out of town?”
“Because I retired last month.” A whisper of a smile passed over his mouth.
“Nice,” I said with what I hoped was the right amount of enthusiasm to cover my surprise. He couldn’t be older than mid-forties and hadn’t worked at the coroner’s office that long. Then again, he might have added the time to a previous pension. “What on earth is Dr. Lanza going to do without you?”
“Curse a lot,” he replied.
“I don’t doubt it,” I said with a brief laugh, but I quickly sobered. “Thing is, Tessa went off with her old teacher, and it has me pretty worried. Did you know about that?”
Carl shrugged, an almost imperceptible gesture. “Doesn’t much matter one way or the other. We’re not together anymore.”
“Crap. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” Tessa sure hadn’t mentioned a breakup. Tilting my head, I peered at him. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but if y’all aren’t together anymore, what are you doing here?”
“Like I said, I have time on my hands. I come by every few days and check on the place. Fix what needs fixing.” One side of his mouth twitched. “What Tessa doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
I wasn’t so sure. Intruding on Tessa’s affairs was a dangerous game at the moment. I knew that all too well. “Be careful,” I said. “All you need is one neighbor to call the cops, and you’re hosed.”
He remained silent for a moment. “I’ll keep that in mind, and you keep me in mind if you need anything. I’m handy. Painting. Cleaning gutters.” He paused. “Other tasks.”
“I appreciate the offer,” I said. With Steeev gone and me next to useless for arcane projects, we were at a severe disadvantage. I’d never thought of Carl as a resource, but we were desperate, especially for anything in the other category. “We could sure use the help.”
Idris rounded the corner, frowning.
“What’s wrong?” I asked after he reached me.
Idris flicked a questioning glance at Carl then gave me a head shake. “Nothing.”
“Oh, sorry,” I said. “Idris, this is Carl. He used to date Tessa, and I’ve known him for years. He’s cool. He, ah, knows we mess with arcane stuff.”
Idris lost a measure of his wariness and gave Carl a nod. “Warding is wicked all the way around the house,” he told me.
“Figured,” I said. “We’ll find another way to get in to deal with that valve.” Maybe Idris could summon a demon to take down the wards. “We have to get going,” I said to Carl. “You need a ride?”
“I’ll walk,” he said. “Thanks anyway.”
I let out a low whistle. “You must have titanium skin to be willing to brave miles in mosquito paradise after dark.”
“The world is full of strange and curious things,” he said with a straight face then climbed the steps to the porch. “Don’t forget to call me.”
And one of those strange and curious things is you, I thought with mild amusement. “No worries there,” I said. “You’ll probably regret volunteering soon enough, though.” I kept my tone light, but I had a feeling he didn’t really know what he was getting himself into.
“Time will tell, Kara Gillian,” he said as he opened the front door and entered the house. “Time will tell.”
• • •
Jill and Pellini had gone off to their respective beds by the time Idris and I made it back to the house. The only light still on was the one over the stove in the kitchen, but the empty sofa indicated Bryce was awake. Though I didn’t see him in any of the common areas, I felt no need to worry. I knew he wouldn’t be far from Jill.
Idris headed straight for the basement to map out the valve repair plan for the next day. With Bryce taking over Jill-duty, Idris would be partnered with Pellini. That would be interesting, to say the least.
I slouched into the recliner, too wired and unsettled to go to bed. My routine for the past few weeks had been to check the nexus and survey the protection wards before turning in, but obviously that would need to come off my chore list. Along with a dozen other tasks that Idris would have to take over. This sucks, I thought in ginormous understatement.
Out of habit I reached for Mzatal, with as much result as if I’d reached for the moon. My breath shuddered out. The loss of the bond gnawed at me, and my overall uncertainty salted the wound. I wanted—needed—to talk to Mzatal, get his advice and opinion about what happened to me, as well as his comfort and support. The bond had been an intrinsic part of our relationship for six months, and I felt its absence now as keenly as if I’d lost my right hand. Did Mzatal feel the same way? What was six months against the thousands of years he’d lived without a bond? I didn’t know if the relatively brief time would make it easier for him to handle the loss or if it made it all the more tragic.
My chest tightened as I ran my thumb over the curled prongs of my ring. If only I could touch him, I’d feel better. A whisper. That’s all I needed—
“Stop it,” I growled to myself and stomped down my self-pity. I was mooning and moping like a lovesick teenager, for fuck’s sake. How was that going to solve my problems? Maybe I wasn’t thousands and thousands of years old, but I’d managed perfectly fine for thirty years without any sort of quasi-telepathic connection. Sure, it hurt like walking barefoot over broken glass, but there were other ways to send word to Mzatal. Idris would need to summon a demon to deal with the wards on Tessa’s house anyway, so it might as well be one of Mzatal’s.
Cursing, I pushed up from the recliner and stalked to the kitchen, unable to keep my frustration at bay. Sending a message to Mzatal via demon was a lousy and not-always-reliable substitute for the conversation with him I truly craved. Hell, even if our bond was working at its best, a mental touch wouldn’t give me any answers. I’d need an interdimensional connection like the one Bryce and Seretis had, with a true exchange of thoughts.
I stopped dead in the hallway. Bryce and Seretis! Maybe Bryce could get word to Seretis and ask him if my affliction could be reversed? Short of returning to the demon realm, I saw no other way to get the direct input of a demonic lord.
Excited by the possibility, I proceeded to hunt for Bryce. A teensy part of me wondered if he was in the guest room with Jill, considering his obvious-to-me deepening affection for her. I instead found him in a rocker on the back porch, a shadow in the shadows.
“Hey, Bryce,” I said. “You okay?”
“Hey,” he replied. Quiet. Subdued. “How’d it go at your aunt’s house?”
I winced. “Not so great.” I sat in the rocker next to his and filled him in on the salient points.
“Damn,” he said when I finished.
“Yeah.” I went quiet, listened
to the chirp of crickets in the dark and the croak of frogs from the woods and pond. Not far above the trees, the moon waxed gibbous. Four days until the full, I thought idly. Easy to pinpoint the moon’s phase after more than a decade of obsessing over it. A year and a half ago I’d have been chafing at having to wait four days to summon again.
I had one hell of a long wait in front of me now.
“My condition screws up the team,” I said. “Idris is now the only one who can perform the necessary arcane maintenance. It helps that Pellini can see the arcane, but it’s not enough. We need to find a solution as soon as possible.” I looked over at him. “Do you think you could ask Seretis what he thinks?”
My eyes were adjusted to the gloom enough to see his grimace. “I already tried with no luck,” he said, regret coloring his words. “I couldn’t get the specifics across. I’m sorry.”
“Oh. Yeah, okay,” I said with the lightness of a bowling ball covered in concrete. “It was worth a shot. Thanks for trying.” Back to square one—wherever that was. Stupid tears pricked my eyes, and I blinked furiously, grateful for the darkness.
His shadow shifted, and he put his hand over mine on the chair arm. “I’ll connect with Seretis in the morning from the nexus. It’s the best time of day, and the link is always stronger there. I think I’ll be better able to get my point across to him then.”
I turned my hand over, threaded my fingers through his, drew from his strength. “Thanks, Bryce.” Any other words on the topic seemed unnecessary. I squeezed his hand. “What about you? What has you brooding in the dark with the mosquitos?”
He exhaled. “Security gets trickier when long-range weapons come into play.”
“Good news is they don’t seem to want Jill dead. They could have accomplished that today. They want the baby—alive.”