“We moved around a lot,” I said.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” The question was innocuous, but it made me nervous just the same.
I shook my head. “It was just Mom and me. I’ve been on my own for a few years now, since she died.”
“But you’re so young,” she said. “How long have you been alone?”
“I look young,” I corrected her. “But I don’t feel it. I’ve had a lot of experiences.”
She took a tiny bite of a roll and chewed it thoughtfully. I could tell she’d thought of something and it was bothering her.
“Have you ever been in love?”
Before her, no, but it was a little early in the relationship to tell her I was in love with her. I answered her question, though. “Not love. Lust, maybe.”
“Then you’ve…”
“I’ve been around a long time,” I said gently.
“I haven’t,” she said. “Been around, I mean.”
“I know,” I told her. “I can’t believe it, but I don’t even know how old you are.”
“Twenty,” she replied. “Almost twenty-one. You?”
There was no good way to answer that question. “Close,” I said.
After our meal, we both ordered espressos, which gave Elizabeth major jitters. Or maybe it was the idea of spending the night with me.
“We should go,” I finally said. “I’d like to get an early start in the morning, if that’s okay?”
“You don’t want to”—she clearly struggled to find the right words to convey what she had in mind for the evening—“sleep in?”
“Nah,” I said. “I don’t need much sleep.”
“What do you need?” she said challengingly.
“You,” I said softly. “I need you.”
After dinner, we went back to her place. It was pretty clear what was going to happen, but I had second thoughts once we made it to her bedroom.
It was a textbook seduction scene. Silk sheets, candlelight, and my favorite booze on the bedside table.
I don’t know why the idea that our night was preplanned pissed me off, but it did. It seemed too planned, calculating even. But before I could back out gracefully, she pushed me onto the bed and pressed against me.
Her passionate kiss was almost enough to convince me that she was motivated by honest lust and nothing else. It was enough to almost convince me she didn’t have any ulterior motives. Almost.
“Elizabeth,” I said, but she wasn’t listening. She yanked off my shirt and then her hands were at my belt buckle. I grabbed them and held them away. “Wait.”
“Wait?” she asked. She sat up and moved away from me, but not before I caught a flicker of relief on her face. It was enough for me to scoop up my clothes and make a hasty exit, like someone’s Victorian auntie.
Chapter Eleven
I needed something to keep my mind and my hands off Elizabeth. I didn’t want to take advantage of her. Gratitude sex was the worst.
I’d find her brother while I searched for the charms and continued to infiltrate Parsi Enterprises.
Swimming at the Y fit the bill. Their pool was clean, well kept, and, most important, empty at 5 A.M. I fell into a routine. Early-morning laps at the pool at the YMCA, a little research, and spending time with Elizabeth.
The pool was usually deserted, except for the lifeguard, when I got there. One morning, someone had gotten there before me and was already swimming furiously.
I hesitated in the doorway, unsure whether or not I wanted to share my usual solitary swim, but while I dithered, the other swimmer hauled herself out of the pool and took off her swim cap. Long red braids tumbled down.
It was the girl from Parsi Enterprises. My cousin Naomi.
“I really should cut it,” she said, noticing my glance. I guessed she was in her early twenties. The older I got, the harder it was for me to judge ages.
“I was just leaving,” she said. She picked up a towel but shook herself off like a puppy before throwing it around her shoulders. She left without another word, but from then on I made sure I got there early enough to give her a nod hello before she left.
A week went by before we had another conversation.
“How long have you been swimming?” I asked her after she got out of the pool. I sat on the cement and dangled my feet in the water.
“A few years,” she said. “I used to come with my cousin Claire all the time.”
“What happened?” I said idly. “Claire give up on swimming?”
Her face went tight. “No,” she replied. “Claire just gave up.”
That’s what I got for trying to act normal, to have an innocuous conversation, more grief than I knew how to handle.
“That’s too bad,” I said.
She left without commenting on the banality of my statement.
She was always finishing her laps when I got there. We’d exchange a few words, but then she’d leave, letting me enjoy the blissful quiet.
Until one morning, when she wasn’t in the pool when I arrived. I was surprised to find out that I missed her. I’d just become used to the routine, I told myself before diving into the water. Becoming attached to my cousin wasn’t part of the plan.
There was no lifeguard in sight, but I dove into the water anyway. I was on my tenth lap when a flash of something dark beneath me broke my concentration and I surfaced. Treading water, I looked into the over-chlorinated depths but couldn’t see anything unusual.
I resumed my laps, but something made me look down again. Something long and dark charged me. It missed me by a fraction of an inch. I looked into the depths. A water hag stared back at me.
Water hags were older and more vicious than naiads and thrived on the sound of men screaming. Everyone thought it was an iceberg that sunk the Titanic, but in reality it was a few water hags in a bad mood. They feasted for days on that misery.
I wasn’t going to be this hag’s next meal. I swam toward the edge of the pool, but she clamped down on my heel and drew blood. I kicked out hard and connected with her jaw.
A water hag’s bite could be deadly. The venom was similar to a sea snake’s, which would paralyze their victims and they’d drown. I started to lose consciousness, but I forced myself to stay awake. Passing out was getting to be a habit I couldn’t afford to have.
She grinned up at me, her mouth smeared red with my blood. I didn’t have a chance if I tried to fight her in the water. I scrambled up onto the deck, but she followed me. She had the torso of an elderly woman, but she had a tail.
She grabbed me as I got out and I went down hard. I banged my forehead on the metal handrail. It hurt like hell, but I kept moving.
I had the advantage on dry land, but she managed to reach me and clutch me in her arms. We were both slippery from the water, but I broke her death grip.
She squeezed until I couldn’t breathe, but as I looked down I saw it. Almost hidden by her trophies of men’s teeth and what looked like a dried-up scalp was a coral fish on a leather string. My mother’s charm.
Ignoring the sharp teeth headed my way, I closed my hand around the fish and yanked.
She gave a shriek of anger and bit into my forearm, but I held on tight.
I put up a hand and tried to summon a spark of magic, but it was as if it had been drained from my body.
I rolled over until I was on top of her, but she kept her teeth clamped onto my arm. She had the jaw of a pit bull. I needed to find something to use as a weapon. It wasn’t like I had an amulet sewn into my swimming trunks. Water hags had one weakness. They hated fire. My ability to summon a flame might finally be good for something besides roasting marshmallows on camping trips.
I tried again. “Flamma!” A burst of flame appeared in the air in front of us and she shrieked in fear, which finally loosened her jaws from my arm.
I waved my good arm and the flame drew closer to her. She jumped into the pool and disappeared. I said thanks to Hephaestus, the god of fire.
I
finally unclenched my fist, ignoring the blood dripping all over, and looked into it. The coral fish lay in the palm of my hand. I flipped it over and found what I was searching for, a miniature F carved on its tail. I stared at it for a long moment and returned it to its rightful place on the chain around my neck.
I grabbed a towel to stanch the bleeding and sat on the bench. I was dizzy and put my head between my knees. I heard footsteps, but didn’t look up until I heard Naomi’s voice.
“What happened in here?”
“I cut myself on a piece of glass,” I lied.
“How did it get there?” She fired the question at me.
What was a water hag doing floating around in a Minneapolis swimming pool? They hated the taste of chlorine more than they loved the taste of human flesh. Where had the hag gone? There was a trail of water leading out of the pool area. She’d probably found the nearest manhole and traveled through the sewers back to whatever hellish lake had spawned her.
“I’ll get the first-aid kit,” she said. “And I’ll bandage those cuts.” The one on my heel wasn’t bad, but I’d probably need to stitch up the cut on my forearm.
She came back and patched me up. Her hands were gentle, but when she cleaned the wound, I winced.
“Are you okay?”
“It’s humiliating to cry like a little kid,” I said. “Not that I’m not grateful.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone,” she said. “Your badass loner reputation is safe with me.”
“What do you know about my reputation?” I snapped.
“I was only kidding,” she replied. She had the dreamy innocent expression that usually disappeared with childhood. I wasn’t sure how she managed to keep her innocence, not with a family like ours. I wondered if I’d been set up somehow, but dismissed the idea. I’d tested the occulo spell on Gaston and Morta. It had held.
Had the water hag been there for my cousin instead of me?
I sat up and immediately wanted to lie back down on the cold clammy cement. I fought the impulse, but it took an effort. I leaned over and surveyed the pool.
Naomi leaned over, too. “I don’t see any glass.”
“I threw it out,” I said.
There was about a bucket of my blood all over the concrete and she didn’t even bat an eye. In the back of my mind, I wondered at such calm, but I had bigger problems to worry about.
“What did I do to bring this on?” I mused aloud. The attack had taken me by surprise. I should have been expecting it, but I hadn’t. It had been ages since I’d let my guard down like that.
“You make it sound like someone did it on purpose,” she replied. “Sometimes things just happen.”
That was rich, coming from the mouth of a Fate.
“What’s your name?” I asked. I knew it already, but I wanted to see if she would tell me the truth.
“It’s Naomi,” she said impatiently.
“Thank you, Naomi, for saving me,” I said. “I’m Nyx.” I was still trying to wrap my head around what had just happened. “Can you keep a secret?” I asked.
“You don’t know much about girls, do you?”
I grinned at her contemptuous tone. “Not a thing.”
She giggled in response and held out a hand to help me up. “I can keep a secret,” she said.
“I hate the sight of blood,” I replied. “I would have probably fainted and pitched into the pool and drowned without you here.”
“I doubt it,” she said. “You seem pretty tough to me. I’ve got to go, but do you want me to call you a doctor or something?”
“No doctors,” I said quickly. I’d been saying that a lot lately.
She stared at me for a long moment. “That’s what I thought.”
My cousin wasn’t what I expected, I thought as I watched her walk away.
Chapter Twelve
My body ached and the smell of chlorine on my skin made me want to sneeze. I hit the showers, but I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind. Had my aunts discovered my whereabouts? I rubbed the scar on my shoulder absentmindedly.
My mother had a beau once. Serge the blacksmith. We’d lived in a village where the other boys had noticed my lack of a father. Or perhaps it was my habit of constantly looking over my shoulder that set them going. Either way, they had taken to calling me names, including bastardo, which was pretty self-explanatory.
I’d come home battered and bruised. Serge had gently dabbed away the blood and folded my fingers into a fist. “If you take on the biggest bully, you only have to fight once. But make that battle count or you will have to guard your back for the rest of your life.”
He didn’t know I’d been guarding my back since birth. I took his advice anyway and the boys never bothered me again.
A week later, my aunts’ harpies had found us. I’d stood in the village square, transfixed as the leader swooped in for the kill, claws extended, beak open. She let out a screech and her foul breath smelled like the opening of an ancient tomb. Serge had shoved me aside, but not before my shoulder had been sliced open by the razor-sharp beak.
My blood dripped onto the dirt and I just stood there.
“Run!” my mother had shouted. “Don’t look back.”
My feet carried me out of reach, but not before I glanced back and saw the harpies ripping Serge to pieces. Those razor-like claws had been meant for me, but once a harpy had tasted blood, there was no stopping it.
I rubbed the scar again as I remembered watching a kind man die, trying to protect a woman and a small boy.
I had to go through with it. I could do it. My aunts had asked for every bit of what was coming to them—and more important, my mother deserved to have her death avenged.
A face-off with my aunts would be of the last-witch-standing variety. I’d have to make sure I was the one left standing. It was the only way to make sure nobody else got hurt because of me.
* * *
After I showered away thoughts of the past, I headed to Elizabeth’s. We were supposed to talk more about her brother Alex. I beat Jenny to the kitchen and made breakfast. I’d learned to cook the time I worked at a truck stop in Nebraska for a few weeks.
My specialty was perfectly fried eggs and bacon with homemade biscuits, nothing fancy, but I felt like doing something for her.
I looked in their cupboards for utensils and plates and set a couple of places at the granite kitchen counter. I made coffee and then, when she still wasn’t up, put the food in the oven to keep warm and waited.
Elizabeth finally stumbled into the kitchen and I handed her a cup of coffee. She accepted with a grunt. The fact that she wasn’t a morning person only made her cuter.
“Be prepared to bring your appetite,” I said grandly. I set a plate in front of her. “Now eat.”
“Show-off,” Elizabeth teased. She took a cautious bite of a biscuit. “This is good.”
“Don’t look so surprised,” I said. “I am a man of many talents.”
For some reason, that made her blush. “It must have been fate that we met.”
“Fate?”
“You say it like it’s a dirty word,” she replied.
“Do people believe in that stuff anymore?” I took a bite of biscuit to avoid saying anything else.
“Some people are comforted by the idea of fate lending a hand,” she said.
“The hand of fate isn’t necessarily a kind one.”
“So you do believe,” she replied.
“Do I believe that there’s something out there, meddling in the business of mere mortals? Possibly. Do I believe in destiny? No.”
After breakfast, I scoured the kitchen clean. I was wiping off the counter when Jenny appeared and gave me a dirty look. “What are you doing in my kitchen?”
“Nothing,” I said innocently. I winked at Elizabeth, who giggled.
“What would you like for breakfast?” she asked Elizabeth.
“Nyx fixed me a delicious breakfast already,” Elizabeth replied. “There’s plenty left.
”
“No thanks,” Jenny said. “I’ll leave you two alone.” She didn’t sound happy about it.
After she left, I said, “Your roommate has all the charm of a prison warden.”
She shifted uneasily in her seat. “Jenny’s all right.”
I raised an eyebrow. “If you say so.” Time to change the subject. “Let’s talk about your brother.”
She had anecdotes about her brother’s brilliance, tons of photographs, and tissues for when she started to tear up as she talked about him. But she didn’t have any idea of who would take him or why.
“What about his friends?” I asked. “Can I talk to them?”
“No!” she said.
I frowned. “Why not?” Something wasn’t right. If Alex was such a wonderful guy, why didn’t he have any friends?
“He just didn’t relate to anyone well, besides me,” she said. “You have to understand, Alex isn’t just smart, he’s brilliant. That could wear on people sometimes.”
“Drug problem? Gambling problem?”
She shook her head. “No vices, except this intense curiosity.”
“We’ll find him, I promise,” I said. “Speaking of which, we should get going.”
She grabbed her house keys. “I’m ready.”
I led her to my baby, the purple convertible.
“And you thought the Lexus was conspicuous?”
“This is much more low-key,” I told her with a laugh.
“Right,” she said. “Purple Caddy. Real low-key.”
“You don’t like it?” I said. I pictured the guys she was used to dating. Rich boys who drove Porsches.
She gave the Caddy a long look. “It doesn’t matter what I think.”
She definitely didn’t like it.
“You’re the only one who does matter,” I said. She took a step backward and I told myself to ease up on the intensity.
“C’mon, tell me,” I coaxed.
She swatted the fuzzy dice and sent them swinging. “I think it’s perfect for you.” I wasn’t sure how to take that comment.
I opened the passenger door for her and turned the heater on full blast. I took a minute to defrost. Lately, I’d been dreaming of a white sandy beach and lots of sun. The real sun, not the anemic imitation currently making its appearance in the Twin Cities.
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