“No,” I said as I walked into the kitchen.
“Aw, c’mon. I’m sure it’s romantic. A story your kids will want to hear someday.” He batted his lashes at me.
“First,” I said, coming out of the kitchen with a bag of potato chips, “our kids won’t want to hear it because we’re not going to have kids. Second, no.”
“We’re not going to have kids?” Zayvion interrupted. He sounded genuinely surprised. “Were we going to talk about it before we made that decision?”
I was surprised he was surprised. “I didn’t think you wanted children. I mean, the lives we live—the stuff we do. Hard to change diapers in the middle of a firefight, and then there’s braces and school and ... kids are messy.”
“So you decided no children.” He was keeping his expression carefully neutral.
Had I? No, I guess I hadn’t decided. I’d just assumed he wouldn’t be interested. “I didn’t really think it through,” I said. “Do you want children?”
He paused long enough for me to realize my heart was beating a little faster. This was more important to me than I’d let myself think about. It was a commitment, a possibility, a future for us I hadn’t really thought was an option. Maybe I wanted children.
But I didn’t know if we’d ever have room in our lives for that maybe to become a reality.
“I want us to talk about it,” Zayvion finally said. “To decide. Together.”
“So you like kids?” I asked.
“Always have,” he said softly.
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. There was something about his expression, a promise there that I’d never expected.
“Hello?” Shame said. “Can we get back to more important things. He was stalking you, wasn’t he?”
I stared up at the ceiling and blew out a breath of air. “Zayvion. Make him stop.”
“I wasn’t stalking her,” Zay said. “I was following her. And besides, that’s not the first time we met.”
“What?” I looked over at Zay. He was pulling his jacket off the back of the chair and shrugging into it.
“I first met you out in St. Johns,” I said. “In Mama’s neighborhood.”
He zipped his coat. Didn’t say anything.
“Zay,” I tried again. “I know I met you in St. Johns. You were following me. You were working for my dad.”
“That wasn’t the first time we met.”
“See?” Shame piped up. “A good stalker won’t be seen for weeks, maybe even years.”
“Months,” Zayvion said.
“When?” I asked. “Where?”
“I was on a job. Undercover in Lon Tragger’s blood den.”
I frowned. “The job I Hounded for Pike? For his granddaughter? You were there? I don’t remember seeing you.”
“I couldn’t forget seeing you. Covered in blood, carrying a gun and saving that girl. Wild. Fierce.”
Shame put his beanie on and gave me a smile. “Very sexy.”
“Oh,” I said. Lame, but when he looked at me like that, all I had left was lame.
“And how long did you stalk her?” Shame asked like a schoolteacher encouraging a child to show and tell.
“I didn’t stalk her.” He said it to Shame, but he was still looking at me.
“How long?” I asked.
“I couldn’t get you out of my head,” he said quietly. “I tried. Tried not to look for your apartment, tried not to trail you on Hounding jobs, tried not to think of you. Constantly.”
“How long?” I asked, quieter. I took a step forward and placed my hands on his chest. I could feel his heart beating through the padding of his old coat.
“Months,” he said. “Until I was assigned by your father to follow you. Until I couldn’t stand it any longer. Until I had to ask you out. Until I knew I’d keep asking you out until you said yes. All my life, if that’s what it took.”
“Oh,” I said again.
He leaned down and I lifted my head just the slight difference between us. His lips were hot, soft, and found mine with loving intensity, with sweet, warm familiarity. And I suddenly realized we’d been together long enough now that I knew exactly what he was saying with that kiss. How much he loved me, how much he had fallen in love with me at that very first meeting. And how even if magic or death stood in our way, he’d find a way back to me. Even if it took all his life to do it.
“Sweet stalker love,” Shame said. “Maybe I have been doing it wrong, Jones.”
I pulled away, looked into Zayvion’s eyes. “I’m glad you followed me.”
Shame sighed. “Jesus. I need to get laid.”
Zay and I looked over at him at the same time. Shame was staring out the window. In the late-afternoon light he looked so pale his skin was almost translucent. I felt the shock of concern run between Zay and me. I didn’t know if I was feeling it or if Zay was. Probably both. Shame was a thin ghost of his usually dark, vibrant self. Like he was fading away from us even as we watched.
“What?” He turned and studied first my expression, then Zay’s. Then he scowled.
Zayvion let go of me and walked over to pick up his car keys from the bookshelf.
“Go on with it. Get it out of your system,” Shame said. “Because I am not driving the entire way with that pity crap from the two of you.”
“It’s not pity,” I said. “We’re just worried about you. Friends worry.”
“I’m fine.”
“Think you’re really up for this?” Zay asked, like he was discussing what kind of pizza Shame wanted for lunch.
“I swear, if one more person asks me if I’m okay, I am going to break their legs,” Shame said.
Zay nodded. “Good to know. We’ll take my car.”
“Mine’s full of booze.”
“Which is why we’re taking my car,” Zay repeated.
Shame, in a very un-Shame way, didn’t put up a fight at all.
“Where is the service being held?” I asked as I pulled my coat off the hook and made sure I had keys, my journal, and my wallet. No backpack for me. Getting mugged sucked.
“Graveside,” Shame said. “She’s at the Pioneer Cemetery, right, Z?”
Zayvion nodded.
“Which Pioneer Cemetery? Hillsboro?”
“No,” Zay said. “Down in Salem.”
“So we have an hour’s drive?” I asked.
Shame nodded, and tugged on the beanie he was wearing. Then he put a lot of effort into making it look like it didn’t take any effort to stand up from the couch and stride across the floor.
“Not if I were driving,” he said. He gave me a quick grin as he passed me and walked out the door, but I could smell the pain on him, a sour scent mixed with his usual clove and cigarette smell.
Zay walked out next, his finger running across the back of my hand, his concern and his comfort transferring to me more quickly and thoroughly than words.
Right. All we could do was keep an eye on Shame and hope he didn’t let his stubbornness get in the way of his good sense.
Oh, who was I kidding? This was Shame I was worried about. He didn’t even have sense, much less good sense.
I locked the door and the Ward kicked in like a snap of electricity that poured out a solid liquid wave of hurt.
Zay and Shame had paused at the top of the stairs. Shame had his arms crossed over his chest and was glowering at Zayvion. Zayvion had his hands tucked in the pockets of his coat, and from his body language I’d say he was doing that to keep from strangling Shame.
“What’s up?” I asked as I walked over to them.
“We’re taking the elevator,” Zay said. “Aren’t we, Allie?”
Shame shifted his glower from Zayvion to me.
“Legs. I break them,” he said.
“Oh, sweet hells. Get in the damn elevator.” I stabbed the button. The door immediately opened with a happy little bell tone.
I held my breath and strode all the way to the back wall, then turned. Zay and Shame were both standing
outside the door, with the same expression on their faces—shock.
“Get in the damn elevator,” I said. “Before I start breaking legs.”
Zay stepped in, and Shame followed behind him. Zay pushed the button for the lobby and the door closed.
I shut my eyes and counted down from one hundred, trying to go as slowly as possible. I hit minus two hundred and the bell dinged. Zayvion and Shame were smart enough to get out of the elevator and get out of it quick. Good thing, because I would have just run them over. I kept walking across the lobby and shook my hands, trying to get the smallness, the closeness, the suf-focationness of the elevator off me.
It did not matter how many times I forced myself into an elevator, it still freaked me out. I shuddered, and pushed out the door to the back parking lot, where Zay always parked his car.
The boys followed me more slowly. So slowly, in fact, that I had time to lean against the passenger’s side door of Zay’s car and watch them.
They were talking, both looking straight forward at me, both with their hands in their pockets, walking shoulder to shoulder, close enough that they almost brushed arms.
Zay hadn’t had a great time of it lately. The coma, death, the magical fight, getting pounded on by Dane Lanister’s men, and the escaped prisoners. He was a little on the thin side, a little on the hard-and-angry side, which just made him look like he was sculpted entirely out of bone and muscle and attitude.
Shame, however, seemed frail. He was wearing the sunglasses again, the peacoat collar flipped up, the beanie covering his dark hair. Even so, he had a hunch to his shoulders that made it look like his chest hurt and that even walking against the wind was a chore.
What I needed to do was find out exactly what was wrong with him—well, I knew what had hurt him: being possessed by Mikhail’s spirit. But I hadn’t heard about the physical damage it had left behind, or what his prognosis of recovery was. Just so I wouldn’t forget, I pulled out my journal and jotted down a note: ask Dr. Fisher about Shame’s health.
Zay strode up beside me and unlocked the doors. I got in the front and Shame got in the back.
Zay turned on the radio, the volume low. Classical. I’d never seen Zayvion use his radio. He always drove with it off when I was in the car. I glanced over at him, but he just flicked a glance at the rearview mirror.
Okay, so he had turned the radio on for Shame. I still didn’t know why. We had barely made it out of Portland’s city center before I heard the soft snoring from the backseat.
Shame was shrugged up against the window, fast asleep, the beanie in his hand tucked between his face and the window. His hair bristled at odd angles. He’d recently cut it pretty short all over except for his bangs, which still brushed the edges of his eyebrows.
Zay stretched his hand out and took mine. I could feel his worry. For Shame. For me, I supposed, and for saying good-bye to Chase one last time.
We didn’t say anything, not wanting to wake Shame. I finally closed my eyes and drifted off for a few miles.
I woke up as Zayvion was decelerating for the exit. It’d been a while since I’d driven down to Salem. The outer edges of the city had built up some, and businesses had done their usual swapping out so that where once there was a pizza joint, now there was a chain Chinese restaurant, a shoe store, a bank, but otherwise not much had changed in Oregon’s capital city.
“Do you know the way?” I asked Zayvion softly.
“I’ve been here before.” He navigated through the city center, then left the main roads for a neighborhood in the hills.
Shame stirred and stopped snoring. He shifted enough that I knew he was awake.
“We there yet?” he asked.
“Almost,” Zay said. “How was your nap?”
“Fucking awesome. I’m thinking of going into napping as a career. I hear there’s a lot of future in it.”
I glanced back. Shame was smiling, but the hard light in his eyes betrayed how annoyed he was that he had had no choice but to nap.
“So what did Dr. Fisher say your recovery time would be?” I asked. When in doubt, be blunt.
Shame swallowed, and looked out the window, as if there was an answer the passing trees and houses could give him. “She doesn’t know. One day at a time is all we can do for now.”
“Is the crystal still in your chest?” I asked.
He nodded. “It’s there. I’d show you, but it’s too damn cold in this car.”
It wasn’t cold at all in the car, but I was nice enough not to point that out.
“This is it,” Zay said.
He drove between the brick columns of the gate and then up to a mortuary at the top of a hill. He parked between the other cars already there.
“We have to walk?” Shame whined.
“Yes.” Zay got out and so did I. Shame followed a moment or two later. Zay opened the trunk of the car and reached into it for something.
The graveyard was beautiful in its own way, trees and bushes bursting with leaves, flowering cherry trees fluffy and pink above marble gravestones and concrete crypts. Birch trees, maples, massive oaks and cedars and cinnamon-barked madronas stood at attention among the crooked headstones.
The cemetery was built on rolling hills with just enough height to give a view of the blue horizon and the western hills that eventually lead to the Coast Range.
Zay closed the trunk. He started walking down a concrete path toward the north side of the graveyard, carrying a handful of daffodils tied with a red velvet ribbon. Shame paused next to me and just stared at Zayvion’s back. “You okay?” he asked me.
Funny, I’d been thinking I should ask him the same thing. I shrugged. “I think so. Just worried about him. And you.”
“That’s one of the things I like so much about you, Beckstrom. You worry about everyone.”
“Trust me,” I said, “I don’t.” We started walking and I set my pace to Shame’s. His nap seemed to have done him some good, and we made respectable progress, keeping up with Zayvion. The road narrowed to a single-file path for a bit and Shame walked to my left over the edge of well-tended grass. With each step, the grass beneath Shame’s feet lost its vibrant spring green and withered as if it had been burned, or suddenly died.
Was he pulling that much life energy out of the things around him? Or maybe he was drawing that much energy out of living things as a side effect of being possessed by a dead and very powerful Death magic user. I didn’t have a chance to ask him.
The path opened up again and Shame joined me on it.
“So does the Authority always gather like this?” I asked. “I don’t remember a ceremony for Liddy.”
“It depends. Chase had her burial all set up—most of us do. But I think Zayvion’s the one who called for this.”
“Really?” I peered at Zayvion’s back. He hadn’t told me he was behind this get-together. As a matter of fact, he’d told me Maeve set it up.
“Didn’t tell you, did he?” Shame was quiet for a bit. “If he hasn’t said it, her death really tore him up.”
“I know,” I said. And I did. What I didn’t know was why he wouldn’t have talked to me about it. I would have helped, would have at least been there to talk over the details.
Zayvion had been pulling away. I’d just passed it off as him needing time to think, or time to deal with the new boss in town. But he’d been coming home late most nights, and though we’d certainly been together, I’d known for a while that he was holding a part of himself separate from me.
“Did he tell you anything else?” I asked.
“Zayvion doesn’t usually talk about these things,” Shame said softly, like he was afraid he would hear us. “He’s private. I thought he might have talked to you about it. But you know how it is.” He shrugged as if that was all that needed saying.
I didn’t know what else to say, so we strolled along. Shame held his breath for a moment, like he’d just caught sight of something surprising. Then he let it out slowly. Pretty soon I heard foots
teps behind us. I glanced back.
Terric was striding toward us, his white hair a flash of moonlight in the middle of the sunny spring day. He wore a tailored gray trench coat, slacks, and shiny shoes. I glimpsed a tie at his collar. In his hand was a small bouquet of bright orange tiger lilies.
Very slick and stylish.
I suddenly felt completely underdressed.
“Afternoon,” Terric said, catching up.
“Hey,” I said.
Shame grunted. But I could tell from the ease of his shoulders, from the subtle relaxing of his gait and posture, that Terric being near him seemed to lessen the pain, or at least give him some strength. He even took a nice deep breath, which was good to see since all he’d been doing was breathing off the top of his lungs.
“How’d it go today?” I asked Terric.
“What do you mean?”
“With Bartholomew.”
Terric made a sour face. “I don’t know that his objectives and mine are in alignment.”
Shame snorted.
“What are his objectives?” I asked.
“To reorganize the entire Portland Authority.”
“What?” Shame said. “Why in God’s balls is he talking to you about that? You don’t even live here.”
“That’s why.”
We rounded a bend in the path. The grave was clearly marked by the small crowd of people who surrounded it.
“He can kiss my ass,” Shame said quietly, “if he thinks he’s going to tell me what to do and who to follow.”
Terric pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and nodded toward the grave. “Later, Flynn. Let’s handle one tragedy at a time.”
The people gathered were all members of the Authority. I recognized most of them, though I was surprised to see at least a dozen unfamiliar faces.
“Who are the extras?” I asked.
Shame finally stopped glaring at Terric and looked around. “Lots of people from the business side of things, civilian interface jobs.”
I frowned.