“Yes.” Azriel’s gaze met mine. “I would suggest, however, we retrieve some clothes for you first.”
A smile tugged at my lips as I struck a pose. “You don’t think he’d appreciate my current attire?”
“I think he’d appreciate it entirely too much, and that is the problem.”
I laughed, then rose and dropped a quick kiss on his lips. “I do like it when you get all human on me. But Stane is a look-only guy—at least when it comes to me.”
“I am well aware of that. I was merely stating the fact that in
this
form, I have no desire to share.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Meaning in energy form, you do?”
He smiled. “Yes and no. To reapers, the music of the soul is a beautiful thing to behold, and it is something we share with all those close to us. It isn’t a sexual thing—as nakedness very often is here on Earth. It is—” He hesitated, frowning. “I cannot really define what it is, or what it means to us. But we do not have music or art or anything along those lines in my world. There is no need when there is the music of a soul.”
“
That
is a very beautiful sentiment.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You sound surprised.”
“Well, I may have seen you guys for most of my life, but I actually grew up reading all the regular myths and stories about angels, reapers, and demons. Let’s just say that none of you are really what I was expecting.”
“And that, I assume, is a good thing.”
“A very good thing, given I’m now carrying a reaper’s child.” I glanced at the clock near the bed and sighed softly. “I guess we’d better get this show on the road. Hunter’s deadline is getting altogether too fucking close.”
“Indeed.” He tugged me close, and a second later we were standing in the middle of my office at the café. Once I was dressed, I picked up the phone and rang Stane. It might have been easier to simply go there, but if he hadn’t pinned down the list, there was little point.
“Hey,” he said, his smile cheerful despite the deep rings of tiredness under his eyes. “I’ve been trying to contact you.”
“Sorry, been busy fighting evil, and all that.”
“With anyone else, that statement would be funny.” He half smiled. “I’ve managed to pin the list down to fifteen possibilities. I doubt I’m going to get any closer than that.”
“Fifteen is a hell of a lot better than the thousand or so we initially had,” I said.
He nodded. “Some of them are fairly heavily secured, though, so you’re going to have to be careful.”
“Bypassing security is the least of my problems right now.”
“Maybe, but I just happen to have gotten my hands on a couple of e-bombs.”
“You can explain what the hell they might be when we get there. We’re coming in direct, so don’t have a heart attack when we appear out of nowhere.” I hesitated. “And I sincerely hope you’ve got those additional security screens up and running.”
“Don’t worry, I have no desire to be vampire bait in the near future.”
Neither did I, but it would undoubtedly be a possibility if we weren’t very careful. “See you soon, then.”
I hung up, then finished my coffee and stepped into Azriel’s arms. A heartbeat later we were standing in the middle of Stane’s living area.
He swung around and handed me a somewhat scruffy-looking phone. “Seeing you haven’t got one at the moment, I took the trouble of finding my old one. It’s loaded up with the list of addresses.”
“Thanks.” I quickly found the list and brought it up onto the screen. “Some of these places I’ve never even
heard
of.”
“Which is a problem given I cannot transport us to places you have no clear image of,” Azriel commented.
“There
is
a thing called Google,” Stane said. “It’ll provide pictures aplenty.”
I raised my eyebrows. “You keep your discarded phones active?”
“Well, no. But when you can hack as well as I can, activating an old phone isn’t actually a problem.”
I snorted. “You are a very sneaky but very handy person to know.”
“That I am.” He swung around, picked up a small
black device, then tossed it to me. “And this should take care of any security you might encounter.”
I looked at it somewhat dubiously. It was rather innocuous looking for something with such a deadly-sounding name. “I’m gathering this is your e-bomb?”
He nodded. “Or, as they’re more officially known, an electromagnetic pulse weapon. This one is a small-scale version, but very handy if you want only a particular building taken out rather than a whole city.”
I blinked. “They can take out whole cities?”
“Well, not this one, obviously, but the larger versions, yes.”
“How?” This thing was no bigger than a golf ball and looked a whole lot less dangerous, so how could it possibly have the power to take out a building’s entire security system?
“By overwhelming electronic circuitry with an intense electromagnetic field. It basically fries circuits and renders them useless.”
“Wow.” I studied the smooth black ball for a moment, then said, “It is reusable?”
“No, but I do I have three of them for you, and that should cover the more secure places. You’ll just have to figure out a way to take care of whatever security the other places might have.”
“How do I set it off?”
“There’s a small indent at the top. Press that down, toss it into the room, and let it do its stuff.”
I found the indent and nodded. “It won’t hurt people?”
“Unless they have a pacemaker, no.”
He handed me a small but well-padded bag. Inside it were the other two e-bombs. I added mine to them, then tied the bag to a loop on my jeans. “Thanks for this.”
“What’s the good of having a black marketeer for a friend if he can’t sometimes help you out with the good
stuff?” His grin was wicked. “Anything else you need? Laser cannons, invisibility shields, fighter jets?”
I blinked. “You are kidding, aren’t you?”
His grin only grew, leaving me totally uncertain. I cleared my throat and added, “All I want now is for you to keep the security screens up and running for the next twenty-four hours.”
He waved my concerns aside. “Trust me, not even a gnat will get into this place without me knowing about it. And I have no intention of going anywhere until you give the all clear.”
“What about a gnat armed with an e-bomb?”
“My shields are shielded against such a possibility.”
“Good.” I looked down at the first address on the list. I didn’t know the street, but I’d been to Foster itself and was familiar enough with the place that Azriel could at least get us there.
I glanced at him, and within a matter of seconds we were standing in the middle of Foster’s small and rather empty Main Street. The address was listed as the Foster and District Historical Society and didn’t actually give a street number. But Foster wasn’t a huge town, so it couldn’t be too far.
And it wasn’t.
The historical society center was a collection of beautiful old buildings, including a post office, an old school building, several cottages, and a jail, and while both the post office and the old school bore old coats of arms, neither of them registered on the internal radar. They weren’t the key in disguise.
But I guess that wasn’t really that surprising. After all, why would the fates make it easy for us?
“They are believers in the old adage, the harder the tasks, the more you appreciate surviving them,” Azriel commented.
“That may be the case, but they still don’t have to
keep shoveling the shit on.” I Googled the next address and brought up some pics. “And giving us
one
little break isn’t going to kill them.”
“We are still alive,” he said, voice somber. “I do not believe we should be asking for anything more than that.”
I flicked the phone around so he could see the pictures of our next destination. “If it comes down to a choice between survival and getting shit dumped on us, I totally agree with you. But they’re the ones who allowed this situation to get so out of control. It’d be nice if they gave the people who are trying to fix their mess more than just survival.”
“I do not believe the fates agree with your sentiments.”
Obviously, given they weren’t heaping on the help. We zipped across to the next location, a little town called Heyfield, but while the building—a pub with the name of O’Brien’s—did bear a coat of arms, it was Irish rather than Australian.
Our next destination was a prison near Sale and was obviously one of the places that Stane had meant when he’d mentioned high security. There was no way I was about to set off an e-bomb in such a place and let all manner of criminals loose, so I became Aedh and checked the place out that way. There was more than one coat of arms within the perimeter of the prison, as it was a government-run facility, but none of them were situated upside down or wrong way around, as my father’s hint had suggested.
Locations four, five, and six also proved to be useless.
“This is getting depressing,” I said, as we appeared on the center dividing strip of another town’s—this one called Yarram—main street.
“At least we now only have eight more locations to check out,” Azriel said. “That is far better than the fifteen we started out with. And are there not two possibilities in this town?”
I glanced down at the list and saw that he was right.
“The first one is the post office.” I glanced over the road, looking for a street number. “It’s further down the road, by the look of it.”
He caught my hand and tugged me forward. Though it was not yet dawn, lights were on at the bakery and the delicious aroma of freshly cooked pastries and breads filled the air. My stomach rumbled, despite the fact that I’d eaten a full meal not that long ago.
“I can go acquire some, if you wish,” Azriel said.
I laughed. “Thanks, but no. And you’re going to have to get out of the habit of acquiring things. I have plenty of money to buy what I wish, and besides, I can’t imagine either the fates or your reaper bosses would look too kindly on you stealing.”
“You may be right in the long term,” he agreed. “But for the moment, if it relates to keeping you safe and/or in good health, they will turn a blind eye.”
So they could turn a blind eye but couldn’t lift a finger to help? “I think they’ve got their priorities screwed.”
“Possible.” He stopped as we reached a beautiful old redbrick and white concrete building. “I believe this is the building we seek.”
My gaze scanned the terrace that fronted the building. Two archways framed the square main entrance to the building, and on the left-hand side of these, there was a royal crest with the letters “ER” on them—once again, not what we were looking for. I pulled my hand from Azriel’s and walked up the steps. Postboxes lined the left-hand wall and an old sash window dominated the right. The door, however, was modern and clear glass. I peered inside. It was pretty much your typical country post office, with not only postal facilities, but sundry other items like cards, gifts, and various office items for sale. What I couldn’t see was a coat of arms. I became Aedh and slipped inside anyway, just to be certain.
“Off to the next one?” Azriel said, as I reappeared next to him.
I nodded and glanced at the address. “It should be at the end of the next block.”
We headed down that way. With the night so still and quiet, and the stars bright in the sky, it would have been easy to forget what we were here for, to pretend that we were nothing more than lovers out for an early-morning stroll.
As we neared the building, energy slithered across my skin—a caress so light it barely brushed the hairs on my arm. But the Dušan stirred in my flesh and I stopped abruptly. The key was near.
Remember we have a watcher,
Azriel said, and tugged me forward again.
You cannot give her any hint that we may have found the key’s location.
He was right; we couldn’t. I forced myself to keep the same slow pace even as my gaze scanned the nearest buildings. The building we were just passing was an old weatherboard home that had been turned into a pizza place, and then there was a small Mazda garage. The building beyond that was a large two-story structure that was painted a pale green and looked to be a mix of residential and commercial, with stairs leading to the upper floor nearest us, and a café at the far end.
The closer we got, the stronger the wash of energy became. Excitement and dread began to pulse through my body. We needed to find the key, to keep it safe from Hunter, and we couldn’t do one without jeopardizing the other.
I fought the fierce draw of the key’s closeness and slowed my steps as we reached the old building. I had to make a show of looking around for our watcher’s sake. The Dušan’s movements were growing stronger, and her head snaked up from my skin and stared upward. Knowing that the last two times she’d done something like this, she’d actually been telling me where the key was, I had no doubt it lay on the floor above us. But I couldn’t go straight there. I had to play the game first.
Azriel tugged me on. As we passed the last arch of the
residential section and moved on to the café, the Dušan snaked around, her tiny claws digging into my flesh, as if in frustration.
I know, I know,
and I wondered even as I said it whether she could hear me. I still had no idea.
Given she should not even be able to move or lift herself from your skin on this plane,
Azriel said,
it is entirely possible she could also understand even if she cannot communicate.
Why
can
she move here on Earth? Your Dušan can’t—can it?
No, it cannot.
He mentally shrugged.
Perhaps it is a result of your mixed ancestry, and the fact that you have always been not only sensitive to the elements of my world, but the more arcane arts here on Earth as well.
I made a show of looking through the café’s large windows. There were a number of tables scattered through the room, all decorated with checkered tablecloths in pale green and white and small vases of flowers, and along one wall there were a number of comfortable-looking sofas for those who wanted to relax a bit more.