Bane's Choice

by Alyssa Day

  She nodded, slightly off-balance from his abrupt switch from sweet words to steely warrior, but she knew how important this was—they’d finally explained fully about the warlocks on the way over—so she turned her mind to cataloging everything and everyone she saw, so she could hopefully be of some help.

  But in the end, the necromancer, or at least the necromancer’s flunky, came to them.

  The man was rather short, with ordinary brown hair and an ordinary face. He looked like an accountant or a middle manager for an insurance company. He wore a plain suit, not a tuxedo, and he stood, unsmiling, waiting for them to notice that he’d followed them into a relatively small, second-floor library.

  When Bane whirled to face him, the man said nothing, just pulled back his sleeve to show the triangle tattoo on his left wrist. Bane immediately put himself between Ryan and the stranger.

  “You know who we are,” the little man said in a calm, pleasant voice. “I’ve been sent to tell you that we are claiming this territory. Leave or die.”

  Bane’s eyes flashed red, and he bared his fully descended fangs. “And if I kill you and toss your body into the Savannah River?”

  The man shrugged. “It would make no difference to anyone but myself, as you probably know.”

  “Take this message back to your masters. This is my territory, and I’ll defend it to the death. If they know anything about me at all, they know what that means.”

  The man inclined his head and turned to leave the room, but when he reached the doorway, he glanced back and fixed his mild gaze on Ryan. “Remember, perhaps, that those you care for are not as invulnerable as you might wish. And now, Sylvie and Constantin know it.”

  And then he was gone.

  Bane raced after him but stopped when he reached the door, scanned the hallway beyond in both directions, and then shook his head.

  “He vanished. Warlock games,” he said grimly, striding back across the room to Ryan. “We’re leaving. Now.”

  Then he gazed into the distance with the expression that Ryan had learned meant he was communicating telepathically with the others. After a moment, his attention returned to her.

  “Right. We’re traveling through the Between. This time, no screaming or fighting me, please. Is that enough notice?”

  “Wait—does it—”

  But he didn’t wait. Shadows came from nowhere to coalesce around them, and Bane swept her up into his arms and stepped forward into a hurricane. All Ryan could do was hold on.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  When they arrived back at the house, stepping out of the Between and into the ballroom, Bane’s first inclination was to carry Ryan off to his rooms, strip off every inch of her finery, and console himself with the pleasure of her body.

  Ryan, however, had other plans.

  “Have I mentioned how much I hate traveling like that?” Ryan sat down on a bench and pulled off her shoes with an expression of blissful relief and then glared at him. “How can you stand it? I feel like my molecules are being scrambled.”

  He shrugged. “It doesn’t affect me that way. Perhaps because you’re human? Meara has had no problem traveling with me, either.”

  She sighed and then glanced at the door to the safe room. “Bane, we should check on Hunter.”

  He felt a nasty tug of guilt. With everything happening, he’d almost forgotten about his friend and the Turn. And tonight should be the night Hunter came out of it. When he opened the door to the safe room, however, the firefighter still slept in the deep coma of the Turn.

  “Maybe since he only truly entered this state later, he’ll be in it longer?” He looked at Ryan, as if being a human doctor meant she’d have any idea about this.

  “I do have some thoughts about the anemia that his blood test showed me, but I need to compare his sample with yours to draw any valid conclusions,” she told him, putting on what he thought of as her doctor face. She’d start talking about carotid arteries or corpora cavernosa any minute.

  Ridiculously, he found that he liked serious Dr. St. Cloud very much. And that made him want to take her to bed.

  Everything made him want to take her to bed. Maybe it was the angel blood? But no—he’d felt like this when her magic had been bound.

  “Why don’t we go to my rooms and try that naked dancing we talked about earlier?” he murmured after safely sealing the door to the safe room again. But when he tried to kiss her, she slipped away, shaking her head.

  “Keep the tux on for a little while longer. I like you in it,” she whispered. “And stay right here. I have a surprise for you.”

  With that, she ran lightly down the stairs, barefoot this time, and he heard her calling out a greeting to Tommy and Mary Jo. Maybe she wanted some food?

  But in only a few minutes, she raced back up the stairs, followed by the Cassidys. Mary Jo was grinning like a delighted child, but Tommy looked exhausted or ill. He was walking behind Ryan, so she didn’t see it, because Bane had no doubt that when she did, she’d slip into doctor mode and take care of Mr. C.

  Like she kept taking care of him.

  “I have a gift for you, Bane,” Ryan said, clasping her hands and all but dancing with glee. “But you have to close your eyes for a minute.”

  “Nothing good ever started like that,” he muttered.

  Bram Stoker picked that moment to gallop into the room, barking, so it took a minute to get him to calm down. Ryan leaned over and kissed the top of the dog’s silky head, and Bane realized he was feeling envious of a dog.

  Mrs. C started laughing. “Oh, I can think of a few things that got started with closed eyes. When you gave us those cruise tickets, we found ourselves alone on the deck one night, and—”

  “Okay, okay,” he said hastily. “I’m closing my eyes. What now?”

  “Hold still,” Ryan said, brushing against him and then startling him by putting some form of hat—no, helmet, definitely helmet—on his head.

  “Hold out your hand,” she demanded, and then she put a cylindrical object on his palm.

  Then Bane heard whispering, giggling, and rustling noises, before Ryan finally spoke again.

  “Okay. Open your eyes.”

  When Bane, feeling unsure and vulnerable, opened his eyes, he took one look and shouted an unintelligible sound, and then he looked around again. “What the hell?”

  Somehow, through some magic he already knew must be science, he stood, in bright noon sunlight, directly in front of Buckingham Palace.

  He was back in London.

  He was back in London.

  He whirled around, and the images stayed with him. He was inside a movie, in the daylight, in London.

  And he had Ryan to thank.

  He held out the hand not holding the remote, because, of course, that’s what he held. This must be a virtual reality device; he kept up with technology, so he’d known about them.

  But he hadn’t known about them.

  She took his hand, and he held on as if to a lifeline while he stared in wonder at the milling crowds of tourists and the guards, standing impassively, and the cars going by, while he listened to the sound of Big Ben in the distance.

  “You can go almost anywhere in London, well, anywhere that they’ve mapped,” she told him, and he could hear Mary Jo chuckling.

  “Were you all in on this?”

  “The doc went out on her lunch break and bought the system, and I set it up for her while you were at the party,” Tommy said quietly. “Got a chance to see where Molly lives, too. Thanks for thinking of that, Doc. Awful nice of you.”

  It was beyond nice. It was the kindest thing anyone had ever done for him. That she would think of Tommy and Mary Jo, too, was astonishing. No, not astonishing or even unexpected.

  It was pure Ryan: pure grace, and joy, and kindness.

  “Try the Tower of London,”
she urged him. “It’s exactly right! I even followed the path through the place where they keep the crown jewels!”

  Bane discovered how to work the control, still holding tightly to her hand, and he spent the next half hour exploring London…both the London of his childhood, which was still there, albeit superimposed by a veneer of modernity, and the London of today, built on the sturdy bones of buildings created by architects long dead.

  “There! There’s the church where the priest would give us food if we could perfectly recite the Lord’s Prayer.” He grimaced, remembering how many times he’d gone hungry at first, too damn stubborn to offer up his prayers for the pompous ass’s satisfaction.

  “And if you didn’t?” Ryan’s voice was filled with outrage on his behalf, and yet another cracked, barren inch of his long-dead heart split open and came back to life.

  “No food. Sometimes they’d beat us out in the courtyard.”

  “Those bastards!” This was Mrs. C’s voice speaking. Anything to do with harming children would stir her mama wolf instincts.

  “Agree,” Ryan growled. And then, softer, “Bane. If this is bringing back bad memories—”

  “No!” He laughed and pulled her close for a hug, careful not to smack her in the face with his bulky helmet. “No, a thousand times no. This is the most amazing gift anyone has ever given me.”

  He heard the click of high heels over the rushing sounds of London traffic in his headset, and his sister spoke up.

  “Well, that’s saying a lot, considering I bought you that Lamborghini last year,” Meara said. “What the hell are you wearing?”

  Reluctantly, he pulled the headset off, feeling like his face might split in two from the enormous smile he couldn’t seem to shake. “I was in London, Meara. In the daylight!”

  Ryan smiled shyly. “You gave me this amazing dress, Meara. And the hair and the styling…I wanted to give you Paris.”

  His sister stared blankly at first Ryan and then at Bane. She wasn’t much for technology, so she might not even know such a thing as VR existed. Behind her, Edge scowled, no doubt kicking himself for not thinking of doing this for her.

  Ryan took the equipment from Bane’s hands and made a few adjustments, and then she asked Meara to close her eyes.

  When Meara opened her eyes to find herself in Paris, in the daylight, she gasped. “Oh! Oh, mon Dieu! Oh! Notre-Dame de Paris!”

  “It’s Notre Dame before the fire,” Ryan said. “So probably just as you knew it.”

  Bane then was treated to the fascinating experience of watching Meara rediscover the city of her childhood, in the full light of day. When Ryan walked back over to stand next to him, he realized her face was wet, and he hugged her to him.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice muffled by his jacket. “I’m an easy crier these days.”

  “Never apologize to me. Your tears are merely your heart’s goodness overflowing.”

  She sniffled, and then she looked up at him, her eyes shining. “Did you really like it?”

  “I love…it,” he said, catching himself from making the declaration right there in the ballroom in front of everyone. Knowing he’d tell her the truth, soon.

  He loved her. He’d fallen in love with her. He wasn’t sure when, exactly, it had happened, but he’d fully realized it upon seeing London. Feeling the full impact of the wondrous and incredibly thoughtful gift Ryan had given him. And again, while watching his sister, hearing her cries of joy at seeing her beloved Paris again. He’d never forget this moment, if he lived to be a thousand years old.

  And if the Chamber kills me? Then what do I have to give Ryan?

  He tightened his arms around her. Tomorrow. He’d think about that tomorrow and plot and plan his attack and counterstrike. It would take time for his message to get back to the higher-ups in Europe and for them to decide on a measure and implement it. He’d also need to protect them all from Constantin and Sylvie.

  Tonight, though, he just wanted to enjoy being here, with his family. With Ryan.

  “This is amazing!” Meara shrieked, spinning around in a circle. “Where can I go next?”

  “The software has settings for most major cities in the world and all the major historical sites,” Ryan offered. “Maybe—”

  “The Taj Mahal!” A few seconds later, Meara’s peals of laughter rang through the room. “An elephant just walked right by me!”

  “Ooh! I’d like to see that,” Mrs. C said. “And what about the Blarney Stone? The west coast of Ireland, where our people come from?”

  “And what would you like to do now, Doctor? Anything you want is yours.” Bane spoke quietly, since everyone else was chattering excitedly about the VR. Everyone but Edge, who continued to brood in a corner, scowling. Bane felt a moment of sympathy for the poor man. Meara would lead him on a merry chase.

  Ryan put her hands on his face and looked into his eyes and said, “Anything?”

  “Anything,” he said, fantasizing about what anything might encompass.

  “I’d like to go to my apartment so I can check my mail and water my plants.”

  He blinked and then started to laugh. “Well, I did say anything. Shall we get changed and go?”

  She stopped him with a hand on his chest. “This time, let’s take the car.”

  Before they could sneak out of the room, though, Tommy collapsed, moaning, to the floor.

  Bram Stoker rushed over to him and started sniffing him, barking like a fool, and Mrs. C tried to pull the dog away.

  Bane went to help her, but then he paused. “Wait. Look!”

  The dog was nosing Tommy’s front pocket and whining.

  “I don’t want to go all Timmy’s down the well here, but is it possible that there’s something in his pocket that is causing this?” Luke grimaced. “I mean, it’s just a thought, with warlocks around. I know they use charms and stuff sometimes.”

  “No, it’s a good idea,” Bane said. He knelt and reached into the old man’s pocket, and something in there burned his hand.

  He swore viciously but managed to hang onto the metal object for long enough to get it out of the pocket and toss it across the room.

  Meara stalked over to it. “A gold coin. Looks extremely old. It stinks like magic, too.”

  But Tommy was still moaning, and he’d started jerking and twitching with what looked like the beginning of convulsions.

  “Out of my way, please,” Ryan said briskly. She knelt down next to Tommy and put a hand on his forehead, and the man’s eyes flew open. He stared at her with wild eyes, and then he started screaming.

  “None of that,” she told him, and then, with a quick glance up at Bane, she put both hands on Mr. C’s cheeks and leaned closer to him.

  And then she—both of them—started to glow.

  Within seconds, it was over. The glow vanished, and Tommy, looking tired but less gray and drained than he had before, sat up and hugged his wife.

  “You’re a miracle,” Mrs. C said to Ryan, utterly awed.

  “I’m a doctor,” Ryan said, smiling. “With maybe a little extra juice.”

  “I don’t know what happened to me or where I got that coin, but I could feel it was wrong,” Mr. C muttered brokenly. “I tried to take it out of my pocket, but I couldn’t, and I tried to ask for help, and I couldn’t do that, either. I’m so sorry, Boss. It was—somehow, I could feel him, inside my brain. He was trying to send you nightmares.”

  Bane felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He’d definitely had the nightmares. And now, here was the proof that he’d failed to protect his own people.

  “I’m so sorry, Tommy. I should have warded you, as well as the house. Both of you. We’ll do that before you leave the house again, okay? For now, you should get some sleep.”

  Luke helped the Cassidys down to their quarters, and Meara, who’d left the room, ca
me back with a bandanna in one hand and a small wooden box in the other. She carefully wrapped up the coin and dropped it into the box.

  “I’ll go online right now and ask the monks for the proper way to destroy that,” she told them.

  Edge touched her arm. “I’m coming with you, if that’s okay.”

  She nodded, and they headed down the hall toward Meara’s room and the waiting computer.

  “This is bad,” Ryan said. “I guess this means we’re not going out?”

  Bane pulled Ryan into his arms. “They know this place, not yours. I think it’s safe enough. And thank you for giving me London. You are a miracle.”

  She sighed. “The miracle needs a cheeseburger. You up for a drive-thru?”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  After devouring a fast-food meal, Ryan surprised herself by dozing off in the car on the way to her place, worn out from a long day and the healing—healings?—she’d done. Staying up all night might be fun when she could sleep all day, but she’d worked a full shift at the clinic, and her life had been more than a little draining this week, too.

  Heh. Draining. Now she was doing it.

  “Was that your Nephilim power? Did you—have you learned how to channel it?”

  She yawned. “I don’t know. Maybe? Something happened at the clinic with a sick little girl, and I just thought—maybe it was instinct—that I could help Mr. C. I’m glad it worked.”

  “It’s definitely something for you to explore,” he said lightly, but his grim expression didn’t match his tone.

  When Bane pulled the sleek car—his; he’d refused to ride in the Prius—to a stop outside her townhouse, she stretched. “Maybe we can get a nap, too.”

  His quick grin was almost predatory. “Is nap code for get naked and see what happens?”

  She laughed, but it turned into another yawn. “No, it was pretty much just nap. It has been a very long day. But maybe I could be convinced.”

  “I’ve scanned the area but feel nothing out of the ordinary. Still, we know necromancers can mask their presence, so let’s move quickly.”