In the Company of Witches (16 page)

He grunted, considered his hand. “There’s a school for the arcane, a very exclusive school. It takes a class of thirteen students every two decades. You don’t apply; you’re invited. You attend for thirteen years. Two cards.”

She passed them over, took his rejects back into the deck.

“It’s an initiation into some of the highest levels of magical practice, taught by mages of the Underworld. The school is held there, in its lowest chambers, so it’s hot as Hell—literally.” He pursed his lips, seemingly unaware of Raina’s fascinated attention. “You don’t see topside for all of those years. You live, eat and breathe the things they teach.”

“The knowledge must be worth a great deal.” She could only imagine the skills it had given him. From the brief taste of his magic she’d experienced, it was equaled only by things she’d seen Derek Stormwind do. “Say I wanted to give up sunlight for over a decade and attend. What’s the tuition?”

“No women have ever been alumni. That was never explained, but you didn’t ask questions there. Or say anything. A vow of silence is part of the requirements.” He paused, considering. “Actually, maybe that’s why women aren’t invited.”

She did her very best to leave the embossed imprint of
Moby-Dick
on his forehead. He countered, a magical arm-wrestling match where the book hovered halfway between the case and her objective. In the brief, exhilarating swirl of energy, she felt him around her in a way that was almost physical, the different pressures and textures of his magic, like the different textures and hardness of his male body. She undercut him by zapping his foot with a short electrical burst, and the book dropped to the floor. He shot her an annoyed look as she levitated it back to the case.

“Cheat.”

“You deserved the pain,” she said.

“A man is ever punished for the truth. You’re giving me crap for cards. I’m going to call for a different dealer.”

“Tell me more about the school. The one run by chauvinist pigs.” She dealt another hand. “So you didn’t speak the whole time you were there? Not even a whisper?”

“If you did, you were gone. Expelled.”

She digested that. “But you developed some form of communication with the others. You’d go mad otherwise. Passing notes?”

He snorted. “The youngest of us was five hundred, because human mortality wouldn’t have survived the Underworld climate. We’d already done quite a bit of talking in our lives. Some of us too much.” He lifted a shoulder. “No writing implements allowed; everything committed to memory. So we became adept at reading hand and face signals, body language.”

A skill he’d obviously mastered. She wouldn’t be surprised if the mages intended it that way all along. Putting down a pair of threes against his two aces, she gathered in the cards and dealt again. “So what’s the tuition cost for the attendee with the appropriate dangly bits?”

That firm mouth quirked. Raina wished she could think of something that would make him smile outright. She’d won a couple chuckles, but nothing that eased those lips into the sexy grin she was sure he’d have.

“At the end of the thirteen years, one student must become a Dark Guardian, forever serving the Underworld. That’s the tuition cost for the entire class. On graduation day, you’re allowed to speak, but only one word. Yes. To accept the honor.”

She stopped, resting her card hand on the edge of the table. “So you were chosen.”

“If no one volunteers, the headmaster chooses. I volunteered. I stepped out of the line and said yes.”

Her brow furrowed. “Why?”

When he didn’t respond right away, just tapped the table, she passed him another card. She couldn’t tell if he was going to answer, but she had a feeling he would. He seemed to be studying his hand, but she sensed he was tumbling words, choosing what he would let her know. She did the same whenever she spoke of things that mattered.

“When I started my studies, centuries ago,” he said at last, “I aspired to be a Guardian of the Light. That was what all wizards strive toward, unless they’re already committed to evil, which is not the same as being committed to Darkness, though most don’t realize there’s a difference. As time went on, and I was with wizards whose true calling was to serve the Light, it started to feel wrong to me. At the time, though, it was the path that made the most sense for my skills.”

“Like a graphic designer deciding to do tech support for Office Depot until Disney or Blizzard come calling.”

“Something like that.” He nodded. “Then I was chosen to attend the Academy. It nurtured the Darkness in me, and I knew I could serve the Underworld, for the overall good. At least that was my intent. Derek was in my graduating class.”

She came to a full stop. “
That’s
how you know each other?”

Mikhael shook his head. “We’ve known each other for a long time. A decade before we were chosen for enrollment, our paths crossed. We’d become friends, of a sort. Given what he does as a Light Guardian, he didn’t understand my choice. It doesn’t matter. Dark and Light Guardians aren’t meant to be drinking buddies. This is what my destiny called me to do, and I chose it.”

She flicked the edges of her cards thoughtfully. “I don’t know a lot about Dark Guardians. Just the rumors, the results of their work, but I don’t think it’s easy for a lot of people to understand.”

“Being a Dark or Light Guardian…It’s like a pendulum. When those who embrace Darkness move too far to the edge, and it’s determined that Dark is required to push them back toward the center, toward balance, then I employ the necessary methods to do that.”

Meeting his unfathomable eyes, she saw things that chilled the soul, made it curl into itself in the small hours of the night, caught in a web of hopeless desolation. He broke the gaze, and the moment was gone, but she rubbed away gooseflesh on her arms.

“It doesn’t help to explain it, trust me,” he said quietly. “But understanding isn’t necessary. In fact, the lack of comprehension makes the results even more effective.” Turning his cards over, he grimaced at the lack of options, folded and slid them back to her. “All jobs have their difficulties, Raina.”

“Right.” She cleared her throat. “Because a shitty day at the office ranks right up there with using Dark forces to balance the cosmic slate. You aren’t drinking buddies with Light Guardians, but what about Dark ones?”

“It’s solitary work. And not just because of my uniquely antisocial personality.”

“Okay.” He had a full house this time, which beat her hand. She didn’t deal another set, though, putting the cards aside. “Do you have anywhere you call home? The Russian accent…Is that home?”

“Not for centuries. It was my mother’s country, long before it was the Soviet Union. I learned to use
a
and
the
and rearrange my nouns and verbs in English order some time ago. As well as became fluent in all known languages. Translations spell.” He showed cynical amusement. “But I’ve found the Russian accent to be useful in the human circles I traverse. When I’ve been handling work in those circles, it affects my accent for a while after the job is done.”

He’d been a Russian gunrunner when Ruby had met him, but that had been almost a year before. As if reading her mind on that, Mikhael shrugged. “I could focus and get rid of it, but I suppose it’s a reminder of my origins. My version of a home, within myself.”

“Because you’re never in one place long enough to call it home.”

“Yes.” He studied her expression. “Derek has a pathological need to save, but I didn’t need saving. You’ve been around me a couple days, Raina. Does anything about me suggest I need your pity?”

“No regrets? No thoughts about what might have happened if you chose another path?”

“Yes.” He met her gaze. “But it’s not conjecture. I’ve seen what happens if I don’t do what I do. There are other Guardians who’ve second-guessed themselves or reneged on their oath at a time it was critical they be faithful to it.”

It reminded her of how seriously Derek took his oath as a Light Guardian. She had a feeling neither of them would appreciate the comparison, however.

“What did Isaac take?”

“Are we playing cards or twenty questions?”

She made a face at him, then sobered. “We have privacy here, Mikhael. It might be useful for me to know, to anticipate. I won’t share with the rest of my staff, if that’s a concern.”

“Best not to do so, though the object is useless in the hands of anyone but a highly skilled magic user, like a Guardian. Only a small number of demons could have taken it, and my contacts have eliminated them as possibilities. Which means someone we don’t know.” Mikhael gave her a long look, then relented. “Isaac stole a soulkeeper for her.”

She frowned. “Not sure what that is, but it doesn’t sound good.”

“It looks like a flute,” he said patiently. “With its touch or music, you can tear the soul out of someone’s body, capture its energy. The body will serve your will, while the soul itself provides a powerful magic. You can collect innumerable souls in it, and, with the right skills to channel that energy, you’re invincible to most opponents.”

“Removing a soul is the jurisdiction of the Lady. Or Lucifer.”

“A Guardian can do it, but it’s a different method, because of our connection to Them. However, the magic user who stole it has to break the body down to near death and pull out the soul the moment before the final gasp, before the body dies and the soul moves into the Lord and Lady’s territory.”

“The soulkeeper can detect that moment?”

“No, it can’t. Which is why it has to be an extremely talented magic user. The soulkeeper is just a refined tool and receptacle for use and storage.”

Raina felt a cold twist in her stomach. “Mikhael, a sex demon can detect that moment. We feel it right before it happens. Maybe it doesn’t have to be a talented magic user, just one who has the right receptor.”

His expression sharpened, considering it. “So the demon may be after Isaac as more than a loose end.”

“Yes.” She was about to rise, but he caught her wrist. “He’s in the house, with the others, protected. It doesn’t change anything. Except we might want to put that question point-blank to him to see how he reacts. It will tell us if he knew her plans, but I’m betting he didn’t.”

“Me, too. He’s not the type she’d trust with any element of her strategy.” A pawn. The young incubus was being used, just as Mikhael had said.

As if sensing her change of mood, he pulled her back down to a seated position, put his elbow on the table. She’d pinned her hair back with a barrette, but a shorter piece had come free. As he wrapped it around his fingers, playing with it, he answered her earlier question. “I don’t have a home, but I do visit the Underworld to turn in mission-critical information that has to be communicated face-to-face. If you like, I could take you with me sometime.”

She blinked. “Sorry. I’ve had dates in Hell. I wasn’t impressed.”

He tugged her hair. “There’s one particular place I think you’d like.”

Saying nothing further than that, he picked up the deck and began to shuffle it with dexterous moves that could be used by dealers in Vegas. Only they didn’t have the ability to float the cards from one hand to the other, spinning and cutting them in the air.

“Now you’re just showing off.”

“A little. You were getting too serious. Your turn to answer some questions. About yourself.” He put the deck down between them, the residual energy still sparking off it in a pretty display of purple fire that wafted across the table.

“You’re a Dark Guardian, not a priest,” she said primly. “A woman’s secrets are her treasure to keep.”

“And a man’s to discover.”

“They’re none of your business.”

“They are, because of the things I plan to do to you tonight.” He gave her a heavy-lidded look.

“You’re just trying to disrupt my game focus.”

“Yeah, and you’re already thinking about what I’ll do to you.” He sobered then, tapped her knuckle where she clasped the cards. “Raina, it will help if I know what happened to you. I won’t use the information against you. You know I won’t.”

“Yes, you will. In ways that I’ll want.”

She wasn’t going to explain why that was bad. It was a woman’s prerogative to be this perverse. That cold trepidation was pushing forward. He was doing what he’d been doing all along, drawing forth things she didn’t share. If he did break that open in her, let the battle play out once and for all, she might be bonded to him in a way that would mean far more to her than to him. Of course, that would be her little problem, because he wasn’t staying, was he?

He put his hand over hers, drawing her eyes up. “Tell me.”

She understood why her body wanted to capitulate, but her soul’s desire to open to him was more complicated, and probably why she was balking. She hadn’t really told anyone, ever. Ramona and Ruby knew some of it, but not the level he was seeking.

Goddess help her, she was going to tell him. Maybe because of what he was, but more likely because of what he’d done to her last night. No one had ever called that from her before.

He wasn’t soft, wouldn’t reassure her like a child, and that comforted. In fact, she’d be pleased if he was a jerk and simply fucked her brains out afterward, using her and driving her over that cliff edge of pleasure. That way, it wouldn’t mean anything. Just a bunch of words, the same way his story about becoming a Dark Guardian was just words. Words about the moment when his life changed irrevocably, making him the mysterious, brooding stranger she saw now. The one who never smiled.

“Incubi and succubi aren’t born needing to feed on sexual energy. Thank Goddess. That would be quite disturbing.” She gave a grim chuckle. “The transition happens in your teens. Up until then, you’re like a normal human child. We have a lot of kinship with the born vampires in that respect. In fact, it’s been suggested our blood might be a vampire-demon cross, instead of Fae-demon. Or some of all three. There’s no scientific funding for studying the ancestral tree of the energy-sucking genus.”

Her short laugh sounded too forced. Rising, she moved to the open doors, focused on the whimsical statue of a frog out by the meditation bench. She’d found it at a junk slash vintage slash antique shop, her favorite type of store. Crossing her arms across her chest, she rubbed her temple. She needed Gina to redo her nails. She’d chipped one, probably when she’d dug her nails into Mikhael’s hard body the night before. “I’m not sure I can do this. Or rather, I’m not sure I should do this. You’re not a kind man, Mikhael.”