“Nothing—”
“Damn it, Azriel, you agreed to stop that. You said you’d be honest—”
“And I am.” He took a deep breath and released it slowly. “We are both in a precarious situation. The fates
have given no certainty of life for either of us, but that has been our situation since this quest first began.”
“But the fates have said something since this quest began, haven’t they? I can feel it, Azriel. It hangs like a weight in your eyes and your soul.”
“They have done nothing more than emphasize the precariousness of the situation, but that is something we have long been aware of.” He shrugged. “Now, please, rest.”
He was lying. I knew it; he knew it. The fates
had
said something else, something he feared to tell me. I swore softly but knew my reaper well enough by now to know he was never going to tell me what it was.
I tugged off my clothes and climbed into bed. As I pulled the blankets over my shoulders, I met his gaze, a smile teasing my lips. “Seeing you’re forcing me into bed, the least you could do is give me a kiss good night.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Is this a required custom here on Earth?”
“Totally,” I said. “And if you don’t kiss me good night, I’ll only get moodier.”
“Heaven forbid
that
happen,” he murmured, then bent down, his lips brushing mine briefly, before the kiss deepened, becoming a long, slow exploration that had desire curling through me again and heat sparking the air between us.
“That,” he murmured eventually, “is a very dangerous custom. And if you did not need sleep so badly, I might be tempted to join you under those sheets.”
“You still can.” I traced a line down his chest with a fingertip and lightly played with the button of his jeans. “Twenty or so minutes isn’t going to matter one way or another to my strength.”
“Twenty minutes hardly does justice to the fire that plays between us,” he said, and pulled away from my teasing touch. “Sleep, Risa. It is for the best, trust me.”
“You, reaper, obviously have a core of steel somewhere inside that rather enticing exterior of yours.”
“Believe me, I have not.” He caught my hand and kissed it. “I merely wish us both to survive the next couple of days.”
With that, he released my hand and disappeared. I sighed, then snuggled deeper into the blankets. And, despite the desire that still spun through my body, fell to sleep almost instantly.
* * *
A few hours later—feeling refreshed but still somewhat unsatisfied sexually—I leaned back in the office chair and rubbed my forehead. We were now back in the office above the café I owned with Tao and Ilianna, and the sounds of a world going about its business as usual drifted upward—sounds like the murmur of conversation, the clink of cutlery being polished, or the happy whistle of our sous chef as he prepared for the next influx of customers. Normal, everyday sounds in a life that had become far from normal.
At least for me.
But they were also sounds that would no longer exist if we didn’t find the remaining key damn soon. Unfortunately, the search was going nowhere fast. My father might have said that the key could be found in a palace whose coat of arms lay the wrong way around, but there were no actual palaces in the state of Victoria, and Google had thrown up hundreds—if not thousands—of places that used “palace” in their names. It was going to take forever to check and eliminate every one, even with Azriel’s ability to zip from one place to another in seconds flat.
“Perhaps it is time to call on Stane’s skills again,” Azriel commented. He was sitting on the sofa at the other end of the room, outwardly relaxed but not so inwardly.
His frustration swirled through me, as sharp as anything I was feeling. “Cannot a computer work far faster than either of us?”
Stane was Tao’s cousin, and a black marketeer who just happened to be able to hack into any computer system ever created. It was an ability I’d made full use of when it came to Hunter’s cases as well as the search for the keys.
“Yes, but while a computer can check location, it can’t visually visit every place and check whether it bears a coat of arms that lies the wrong way around.”
“But could he not write a program that would at least list those buildings that bear a coat of arms? Surely not every building would do so. It would, at least, shorten the list.”
I frowned. “I guess—”
The phone rang, cutting off the rest of my words. I glanced at the caller ID and groaned. It was Hunter. I guess I should have known the bitch would catch up with me sooner rather than later.
“You do not have to answer it,” Azriel commented. “Although doing so might cause the very problem we are trying to avoid with her.”
“I know. Trust me, I know.” I reached for my Coke, taking a sip to ease the sudden dryness in my throat, then reluctantly hit the vid-phone’s Answer button.
A brief, psychedelic pattern ran across the screen; then Hunter’s countenance—which seemed oddly sharper—glared back at me. Her shadowed green eyes were filled with the promise of death, and a tremor that was part fear, part foreboding, ran through me.
“Good morning, Risa Jones.” Her voice was soft—pleasant, even. But there was something in the way she said my name that increased my fear. Or maybe it was the fact that she’d used my
full
name, something she
hadn’t done in a very long time. “I appear to be missing a Cazador. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”
“And why would I know anything about the disappearance of a Cazador?” I replied, feigning a calm I certainly didn’t feel and damn thankful she was at the other end of the vid-phone rather than standing in front of me. Hunter always seemed to catch my thoughts at the worst possible moment, despite the fact that I had superstrong nano-microcells inserted into my body. With them in place, no one should have been able to get inside my head—but she had a habit of doing things she shouldn’t be able to.
“Because this particular Cazador was one of the three who was astrally following you.”
I knew that. Just as I knew his name—Nick Krogan.
Just as I knew he wasn’t missing, but rather dead.
“Not Markel, I hope.”
Markel was the only one of the three I’d had any sort of contact with—outside of killing Krogan, that was. He also happened to be a supporter of the “get rid of Hunter” portion of the high council. Whether Hunter was aware of this was anyone’s guess, but given that he was still alive, I’d have to guess she wasn’t. Another of Hunter’s habits was getting rid of the opposition. Hell, she had a habit of getting rid of people just to teach someone a lesson.
Like Jak.
Tears stung my eyes, but I blinked them away and hoped like hell she hadn’t noticed.
“No, not Markel.” She paused. “But it is interesting you know his name.”
Oops. Trouble headed Markel’s way if I wasn’t very careful. “Hardly,” I replied, my voice coming out surprisingly even given the butterflies going nuts in my stomach. But then, I’d seen what this woman could do. I wouldn’t wish that sort of death on anyone—not even
my worst enemy—which Markel most certainly was
not
. In fact, he was something of an ally, even if he—like just about everyone else who’d come into my life over the last few months—wanted something from me. “He was on duty when I astral traveled to talk to that ghost. As you undoubtedly know.”
“Indeed.” She contemplated me for several seconds, and my heart began to beat so fast it felt like it was going to tear out of my chest. Because I knew what was coming.
Feared it.
Or rather, feared her reaction to my answer.
That’s presuming you tell her the truth,
Azriel said.
I would advise against doing so.
Not telling her the truth could be a whole lot more dangerous.
I took another sip of Coke. It wasn’t doing a whole lot to ease the butterflies in my stomach, but then, I doubted if even several bottles of the strongest alcohol ever made would do that. Hunter had that sort of effect on me—which I guess is why I tended to bite back at the bitch more than was wise. An illusion of bravado was better than none.
Perhaps, but it gives us time,
Azriel replied.
Right now, that’s what we need, more than anything.
No, what we needed right now was for the whole fucking lot to get lost and just leave us alone. But that wasn’t likely to happen. Not when the fates seemed to be using me as their own personal punching bag.
I returned my attention to Hunter and—trying to delay the inevitable—said, “Have you asked Markel about the missing Cazador? I mean, surely he’d know, given he had to change shifts with them.”
“That’s what is strange,” she drawled. Not believing me, not for an instant. “Markel claims when he came on duty, Krogan had already gone.”
Meaning Markel had removed Krogan’s body from
wherever it was they set themselves up to astral travel and, in the process, saved me from a whole lot of Hunter-type grief. Because while the life of a Cazador was usually a short and violent one—exceptions like my uncle Quinn and Markel himself aside—Hunter would have taken one look at Krogan’s body and known who and what had placed the killing blow.
While you couldn’t
technically
die on the astral plane, what happened to you on the plane
could
become reality here if the illusion was powerful enough. When I’d stabbed Amaya through Krogan’s heart, it was a combination of his belief
and
her power that had killed him, both on the field and here on Earth.
That I’d done it out of necessity—to save Uncle Rhoan—wouldn’t have mattered to Hunter, especially given the fact I’d done it to save Rhoan from
her
. And I had no doubt she would go after him
because
of it.
I raised my eyebrows, somehow managing nonchalance as I said, “And you don’t believe him?”
“Oh, I believe he was gone. I’m just not entirely sure Markel had nothing to do with it.”
Because he more than likely did. If the third Cazador following me had discovered the body, she would have reported it. I shrugged. “Well, I’m not sure how I’m supposed to help you given I have as little to do with them as possible. But hey, if you think it’s too dangerous for them to be following me around, feel free to remove them from the task.”
She smiled. It was not a nice smile. “Oh, they’re staying, whatever the danger. I want those keys, and you
will
give them to me, won’t you?”
Keys, not key. She had no idea the second gate was already open. Relief swept through me, its force strong enough to leave me shaking. Coke splashed over my hand, and I put the can down, hoping like hell she hadn’t noticed.
I had about as much chance of
that
happening as I did the full moon failing to rise tonight.
“Why, Risa, anyone would think you were nervous.” Her expression was that of a cat who’d just eaten the cream. “You weren’t planning on double-crossing me, were you? Because you know the consequences of such an action, don’t you?”
I had to clench my fingers against the sudden urge to grab the vid-phone from the desk and heave it across the room. As much as seeing her smug face smashing against the wall might give me a moment of pleasure, it wouldn’t really achieve anything more than a smashed phone.
“Yes,” I bit back, voice tight.
“Good,” she all but purred. “So tell me, how goes the hunt for the sorceress?”
“It doesn’t.”
She arched one dark eyebrow. “And why not?”
Because the bitch had been dragged into the pits of hell, and hopefully, that was
exactly
where she’d remain. Not that I could tell Hunter that, because I wanted to keep the truth about the second key from
her
for as long as possible.
“Because we’re having trouble finding Lauren Macintyre, the sorceress behind the theft. It appears she’s not only a face shifter, but a hermaphrodite capable of full-body transformation.”
Hunter raised her eyebrows. “That is an ability I’ve only ever seen once in the thousands of years I’ve been alive. Are you sure she’s not just using magic to transform herself?”
“We’re sure.” After all, Lauren had even used
my
face at one point . . . The thought stalled, and I swore. If she
had
somehow managed to break free from hell, what was stopping her from taking on my appearance and questioning—or even killing—someone I loved? If she could do it once, she could do it again. I scrubbed a hand
across my eyes. This whole fucking thing was getting more and more complicated. The sooner we found Lauren, the better—for both the quest and everyone I’d dragged into it. “I don’t suppose you know of any way to track someone like that down?”
“As a face shifter yourself, surely you should sense when you are in the vicinity of another?”
I grimaced. “If she were a werewolf and vampire or another kind of shifter, I’d sense that. But face shifting requires a different type of internal magic, and it’s not one that can be picked up by normal sensory means.”
“That is unfortunate.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “We’re trying to track down a couple of aliases we think she might be using, but it’s taking time.”
“Time you haven’t got,” she drawled. “I really do need the remaining keys in my possession by the end of the week.”
The fear churning my gut rose in my throat, and it was all I could do not to puke all over my damn desk. “It’s impossible to give you that sort of guarantee. I have no power over the speed of computers, for starters—”
“Then use other methods, my dear,” she continued evenly. I might not have spoken for all the impact my words seemed to have made. “You seem to be very chummy with the Brindle witches at the moment, so why not ask one of them to do a scrying for you? Or perhaps use some item of the sorceress to uncover a location?”
“Great idea, except we’ve tried the first and can’t do the second until we actually have something of the sorceress’s.”
That we actually
did
have something was a point I wasn’t about to mention. We’d already tried to use it to find the sorceress, and we’d come damn close to snaring her, too. But events since then had left us with little time to make a second attempt.