His silver eyes bored into mine. “Each time you pass my club you want to come inside?”
“You put the spell on me. You know how it works.”
He smiled faintly. “I didn’t put a spell on you.”
The instant he said it, I knew he was telling the truth. I can tell when he’s being deceptive and when he’s not. Ryodan’s modus operandi isn’t outright lying, it’s shaping words into twisty little pretzels of obfuscation. His reply was too straightforward to contain any twists.
I stood there wishing I could simply erase the past few moments from the chalkboard of my life. I’d just betrayed to Ryodan that I’d been contemplating him with such frequency and intensity, I decided he must have put a spell on me. And he’d gotten that faintly smug look in his silvery eyes probably no one else but me would have noticed.
One way or another I was getting out of this one with grace. “So your tattoo doesn’t have any effect on me whatsoever?”
“To the contrary. I’m the one it’s a problem for.”
“No spell?”
He sliced his head to the left and that smug glint shimmered a little.
I exhaled gustily and said, “So it is because I can’t stop thinking about it.”
He arched a brow, waiting.
“Shazam,” I clarified. “Each time I drive by here, I start thinking about him. You said you could help me.” These past few weeks, I’d forced myself to put thoughts of Shazam in suspended animation, focusing on saving the world and Dancer, in that order. How could I justify pursuing something I wanted just because my heart hurt so badly it almost made me puke in the middle of the night, when the world was silent and I worried about where and how Shazam was and if he was crying and all alone, when billions were going to die if we failed to save them? How could I leave Dancer? What if he died while I was gone?
When I was a kid, my thoughts were so linear: point a to point b. There was what I wanted and what I did to get it. But when you get older, you suddenly have all these c’s and d’s and z’s you have to factor in, too.
When I first returned to Dublin I’d been acutely aware of how much time was passing for Shazam while I hunted for a way to rescue him and get us both back home. The more time that passed, the more worried I’d gotten that I would go back for him and he’d be gone. Not only would I still not have him, I’d have paid whatever price I had to pay for going back—for nothing.
I dropped down into a chair near Ryodan’s desk, waiting for him to go sit down on the other side. When he finally did, I said, “You said you could find me anywhere with the tattoo. You asked me not to use it when you were injured and I didn’t. I want to use it now.” Even as I said it, I wondered what I would do if he said yes. Could I leave this dying world? Dancer?
Ryodan rubbed his jaw, hand rasping over his shadow beard, and I had a sudden vision of that jaw tearing into a human thigh, the sleek black powerful beast he’d become, and I shivered. Yanking out a protein bar, I tore off half of it in a single bite.
“I believe we’ve got a week, at most, before one of the holes touches ground,” he said. “It would take longer than that.”
A week? Mac hadn’t told me that! But then I hadn’t seen her in several days. “Does everyone know?”
He sliced his head in negation. “It would start panic. We’re moving people off world as quickly as we can. Tell me about Shazam.”
I surprised myself by complying. I meant to give him a brief sketch but once I started talking, it just came gushing out of me, like an ocean backed up behind a leaking dam. Shazam lived when I talked about him. I could almost feel him again, warm against my body, hear him muttering crossly, demanding grooming, attention, and food, always more food. God, how I missed him!
I told Ryodan about meeting Shazam on the planet Olean, with the teleporting trees, how he became my best friend and companion, the many worlds we traveled together and the adventures we’d had. I reminisced and laughed and lit up inside. Talking took me back to those worlds where we’d played with zest and abandon when circumstances had permitted.
I told him how I’d gone to sleep and woken up with Shazam every day. For four years, give or take, we were each other’s whole world. We hunted and cooked and groomed and battled and ran wild. He was my rock, my teacher, my champion, my constant companion, and a day without my beloved grumpy, funny, brilliant, depressive friend was like walking around with a limb amputated.
Ryodan listened, leaning back in his chair, boots on the desk, arms folded behind his head, and while I talked he changed. And the more he changed, the more I talked.
Those remote silvery eyes warmed and came alive, developed complex crystalline depths. He smiled, laughed, became fully invested in my tales, asking endless questions. Hours spun by as I regaled him with our zany adventures, and a part of me that had been frozen solid pooled into a gentle summer lake.
“But it wasn’t all fun and games,” he said finally.
I shrugged, kicking a leg over the side of the chair. “Whose life is?”
“Why did you have to leave him?”
I closed my eyes and told him in a hushed voice about the last world I’d leapt into, following Shazam. Each one had its unknown perils but this planet had several that in conjunction were a perfect storm.
The portal on Planet X—that was what I called it because I hadn’t been there long enough to learn its name—was on a small island in the middle of a lake. The inhabitants were primitive tribesmen with bizarrely advanced technology or magic, half naked with elaborately feathered headdresses. They’d been doing some kind of ritual dance around the mirror when we came through, and obviously had experience with people or monsters invading their world via the portal, because there was a powerful force field set up that captured everything the moment it exited.
The planet was also one of those that shorted out my powers.
We’d leapt through, outracing a horde of monstrous night creatures on the last planet, with no option to return, caught between a rock and a hard place. Shazam was instantly trapped in a shimmering cage. Either I’d sped up at the last moment and dodged it or, for some inexplicable reason, it didn’t hold me.
I know it was meant to, because when the tribesmen realized I wasn’t contained, they attacked me.
I heard Shazam behind me, hissing and snarling, trying to break free to protect me, but the force field held, and he started crying out that I should leave and come back for him later.
I closed my eyes, rubbed them, and stopped talking.
I’d never told anyone about this day. I hated this day. I’d relived it so many times trying to isolate my errors, figure out what else I might have done.
I fisted my hands and opened my eyes. Ryodan was watching me with such fierce, quiet intensity, it made me feel like he’d been living everything I’d been telling him.
“You know how my mind works,” I said finally.
“At the fucking speed of light?” he said dryly.
I smiled bitterly. “I was wondering where the exit portal was and how long it would take me to find it, when I saw a shimmering reflection dancing across the tribesmen and sought the source. Across the water was an enormous, swirling array of endless mirrors rotating in a dizzying spin. Impossible to tell how many, because they whirled in an endless circle. Maybe a hundred thousand, maybe a million; it was as bad as the Hall of All Days. They never stopped moving, catching the sun, splashing it across us. And I thought, okay, I’m going to swim, do a mad dash into a mirror and, whatever world I come out on, I’ll get a bunch of weapons and go back and rescue Shazam, right?”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “You chose the mirror that brought you home.”
“Bingo,” I said wearily. “I told him I’d be back for him. ‘Wait for me,’ I said. ‘Don’t go anywhere. If you get free, don’t jump through another mirror or we’ll never find each other again. I swear I’ll be back. I won’t let you be lost, all alone.’ And he sat there looking at me with those big s
ad, violet eyes and tears were streaming down his face and he said plaintively, ‘I see you, Yi-yi.’ ”
“And you knew if you went back for him,” Ryodan said quietly, “you might never find your way home again. There was no way to choose the same mirror. And if he’d gotten free, there was no way he could choose the same mirror you’d taken.”
“Exactly. My only goal was to get back to Dublin. Goddamn it, I lived that purpose for five bloody years! What if I returned and he was dead and I never found my way home again? What if he escaped and left—and I went back for nothing? What if he didn’t even wait? What if he took another mirror?” What if he didn’t really love me? I didn’t say it but I’d thought it. “And what if he waits forever, believing I’ll come for him, losing hope, day after day? He cries so much and he feels so deeply. Ryodan, I’ve been back for months. Do you know what that means? If he’s still there, he’s been waiting decades for me! Decades!” My voice broke and the tears started to flow. I’d never told anyone any of this, and now that it was coming out, my heart felt like it was being ripped in half as badly as it had the day I plucked the crumpled Dani Daily from the trash and realized the terrible irony of where I was. I’d been so elated to come through to a world with civilization—translated, guns and badass weapons. But my elation had fizzled and I’d gone hard and cold as stone. I couldn’t deal. I couldn’t handle the pain.
I love Shazam unconditionally. There was no abuse or manipulation in our relationship. It was pure, full of joy, trust, and physical affection. I’d never had anything like it. I’d lost the only thing that mattered to me. Again. I was always losing things. Just like my mother, the erosions just kept happening. I’d felt so much pain and grief and I’d just wanted it to stop, and I’d finally understood why my mom drank and shot up. But I couldn’t permit myself to do that. So I’d numbed myself the way I knew how. And these past few weeks, I’d kept the Shazam part of me numb as I tried to let the other parts of me come back to life and do the things a superhero was supposed to do.
Ryodan was suddenly in my space. I bristled and tried to wheel away from him but he pulled me up from the chair and into his arms.
I snapped.
Something exploded inside me, larger and more violent than even the pressure behind that damned fragile dam that had made me tell him too much, and I attacked him like a wild animal. I threw punches and kicks, cursing up a storm, calling him names, calling myself names, raging at the universe for being such a grand shit to me. I railed and ranted. I picked up my chair and smashed it to smithereens across my knee. I shattered his and stomped it to bits then turned on his desk, that stupid fucking desk that a powerful man like him didn’t belong behind, and cracked it down the middle.
When I turned my fury to the walls, he got in my way, wouldn’t let me drive my fists through them. I wanted broken glass. I wanted blood. I wanted something else to hurt besides my heart. I needed the distraction of physical pain.
I’d been holding in so much for so long that I couldn’t keep a lid on it anymore. I hammered at him and he just took it, let me keep hitting him like some unbreakable Ironman, swing after swing. Catching my blows in his hands, other times just shaking off punches lethal enough to stop a human’s heart, watching me the whole time with a fierce, intense gaze.
My fury vanished with such abruptness that I deflated like a popped inner tube.
And there was nothing left but what I’d been trying to escape all this time—pain.
I went motionless, staring up at him through a tangle of curls that had escaped from my ponytail, opened my mouth to apologize and all that came out was a long, unending wail.
He put his arms around me and I sank into them.
Ryodan’s arms. Around me.
So strange.
So strong. Invincible.
This man had always been my nemesis, my punching bag, my rival. But he wasn’t now and I was beginning to wonder if he ever had been.
I leaned into him the way I leaned into Dancer, put my head in the crook of his neck and cried against his chest like a storm breaking loose, until his crisp white shirt was damp and wrinkled. And somewhere along the way, I started to laugh because I’d gotten snot all over the crisp, flawless Ryodan and turned him into a crumpled mess and I found that insanely funny. Then I was crying again until there was nothing left, and I was exhausted and quiet in his arms for a time, listening to the impossibly slow thud of his heart.
“Can you help me rescue Shazam?” I said finally.
He stiffened and my heart sank like a stone to the bottom of that hated lake that separated me from Shazam.
I drew back and looked at him.
He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his gaze shadowed by sorrow. “If you’d told me this as soon as you got back, yes. But Dani, we don’t have enough time now.”
“How long would it take?” I cried, anguished.
“Impossible to predict. I’d have to go through, figure out how far from Earth Planet X is and how many mirrors I’d need to stack to create a tunnel. It’s complicated. I’d have to die to get back out. The biggest variable is how long it takes me to get back from dying. And between the IFPs and the black holes, I’d have to go about it very carefully.”
“You mean it’s not, like, a three-day resurrection or something?”
His gaze shuttered. “I don’t talk about this.”
I said impatiently, “Ryodan, we both know if you were going to kill me, you would have done it a long time ago. I hacked your security cams. I saw you turn into the beast. I know your secrets and you know mine. That’s as close to family as you can get.”
“I haven’t even begun to plumb your secrets,” he said. “And you didn’t hack them. Your boy genius did. We found the calling card he left.”
“He left a bloody calling card?” He hadn’t told me that! I was furious that he’d taken such a ridiculous chance, but then I started to smile. That was my Dancer. No fear. I loved him for that.
Ryodan flinched, and I got the impression he’d just heard me think that. And apparently I’d been right, he didn’t like the thought of me caring about someone we both knew could die any day. My smile vanished because I despised myself.
If I’d told Ryodan as soon as I’d returned, if I’d trusted him, he could have helped me rescue Shazam. Assuming my testy, adorable beast was alive, he’d be here with me right now.
I’d blown it.
R-E-G-R-E-T. I can spell that word now. Raw. Endless. Grief. Raining. Eternal. Tears. That’s what regret is.
“You had no reason to trust anyone, Dani,” he murmured. “And every reason not to.”
“Yes, I did have a reason, and a big one—trusting would have saved him,” I said bitterly.
“You’re not allowed to beat yourself up. Only I get that privilege,” he said, and I smiled faintly with brittle humor.
“Can’t you mark the Silver from this side?” I hated the way my voice broke on the words. That was what I’d spent the majority of my time seeking—a spell to etch a symbol on the mirror that would show on the other side, guaranteeing we could find our way home. We’d have to be fast to hit the right Silver, but Shazam and I were speed demons. Still, if I hadn’t searched, if I’d only trusted and asked…If only. I got it now. Why people got so fucked up as they grew older. Impossible choices, impossible trade-offs; each erosion had a price you carried in your heart forever.
“Barrons and I tried to devise a way to do that for a long time, with no success. You said they caged him. It’s been decades. Do you really believe he’s still there and alive?”
My hands fisted behind his neck. “I have to try.”
He said nothing for a time, and I stood there with his arms around me, in no hurry to step away because it felt so quiet and solid and safe. With Dancer, it felt quiet and solid and safe, too, but in a different way.
“Wait a few days. If all appears hopeless on Earth, we’ll go through together and save him. But you have to promise you will never tr
y to return to this planet.”
“I can’t promise that. It’s my home. Maybe we can make it back in time.”
“You wouldn’t know until you tried. And the odds are high you’d die. You should have left already with the other colonists. Go somewhere. Live.” He started to speak then stopped, shook himself and said roughly, “We’ll take Dancer with us. The three of you can make a life somewhere for yourselves.”
“Right. So I can watch Dancer die.” Here and now, I could deal with my boyfriend’s condition. But go off with him to a new and potentially dangerous world? Start a life, maybe one day even start feeling safe and have children—only to lose him? God, why were there no easy choices anymore?
“How many fucking people do you think I’ve watched die?” His silver eyes flashed crimson. “Over and over. That’s what you do. You love them while you have them and when they’re gone, you grieve. That’s life. At least you had them for a while.”
I stared up at him, realizing that, just like Dancer saw only part of me, I saw Ryodan through a filter, too. And right now I was seeing him in a way I never had before. He’d loved. Many times. Deeply. And he’d lost countless times. And that was why he fought so hard to keep his men together. He was intensely controlled because at the heart of it all, he cared intensely, and even though he was immortal, he’d never turned off emotion. I narrowed my eyes, staring into his gaze, startled by how similar we were. He felt as fiercely as I did, and like me, he’d donned his own version of my Jada persona. He slipped it on every day with his crisp businessman attire, his aloofness, his calculation.
“Do you know why I didn’t kill Rowena?”
“Ro?” I shook my head, not following the sudden leap in conversation, still off-kilter by how differently I was seeing him now. He’d become a whole person, not a caricature of my archnemesis anymore. A man.
His hands were on the sides of my head then, and he was urging me to close my eyes with his mind, and this was a spell of compulsion because they drifted shut without my permission and he filled my head with images and I stared at the visions in horror because he was showing me that his childhood had been so much worse than mine. It was brutal and savage and punishing and desperate, and Ryodan had actually been a child once, some kind of child, and he’d been so badly abused I couldn’t believe he’d survived it. One man had done it all to him, and his hatred of that man who kept him chained in a dark hole in the ground had been so consuming, there’d been nothing of a little boy left.