What the fuck were you thinking, Ash?
Well, I had a very good answer to that, thank you very much. I couldn’t leave Rafael all messed up. My regular method of destroying magic hadn’t worked, healers and doctors hadn’t cured him, and the situation called for more extreme measures. And yes, while tangoing with the angel feather certainly counted as extreme, it had also been effective. The Nefesh magic was gone. Sure, it had been a little sketchy for a bit, but as soon as Rafael woke up, we could all put this incident behind us.
I grasped his hand, but my friend didn’t stir and the infirmary door remained closed with a depressing finality.
Until it slammed open, and I jumped.
Miles stormed in, his eyes wild, grabbed me by the shirtfront and dragged me into the waiting room, where he released me with such force that I staggered back. “You have no idea how lucky you are. If he’d been seriously hurt…”
Confused, I just gaped at him.
He leaned down and spoke in a low, dangerous voice. “What is it about you that people are so willing to throw themselves in danger?”
There were only two people whose well-being mattered to Miles this much.
My pulse fluttered in my throat. Swallowing, I forced myself to meet his eyes, my magic at the ready, and dread churning in my gut. “What happened to Arkady?”
“Chariot happened,” Miles spat.
I gasped. “How is he?”
Flames rippled over Miles’s body. “He’s got three broken ribs.”
“Where is he now?” I said.
“Why?” Miles sneered. “Because you want the amulet? That is all you care about, right? Stopping Chariot?”
“Fuck you.”
“Like it’s not true,” he snarled.
There was a sharp clap from the doorway. “Let’s put the dramatic focus back where it belongs.” Arkady stood in the doorway, pale, his arm across his torso. “Me.”
I marched over to Arkady and jabbed my finger in his face. “You were not supposed to go up against Chariot and get hurt. That totally undermines my moral righteousness and ability to be mad at you.”
He gave me a wan smile. “But it was fun.”
Arkady gave me the rundown, brief as it was. Chariot was already on the property when his team arrived. Six of them against four of our people. The fight was short, brutal, and bloody. Team Jezebel Strike Force had gotten the Kiss of Death, but one of the operatives ended up with third degree burns from a fire elemental. The operative was okay, but it had been dicey.
Chariot was a hydra. No matter how many heads we lopped off, another one took its place. How many more fronts would we find ourselves attacked on? The library was compromised—hell, I’d been compromised. Now Moran, Arkady, and even some operatives had been hurt. The damage was spiraling out of control like a bicycle chain gone wild. Even with more people taking up the fight, how could we possibly counter them?
How could we possibly win?
“Did you apprehend Chariot?” I said.
“No.” Arkady’s expression darkened. “They got away.”
Priya flew into the room with Mrs. Hudson. “I got your text! How badly are you hurt?” She went to hug Arkady but Miles gently tugged her aside.
“His ribs,” he said.
Her face fell. “Do you need anything?”
Arkady pulled her into a one-armed hug. “I’ll be fine. Miles is going to wait on me hand and foot.”
Miles shot me a look of death.
“Where’s the amulet?” I said.
“Levi has it. I’m taking you home,” Miles said to Arkady.
Arkady mock swooned, pressing a hand to his forehead. “I do feel rather weak.” His expression turned serious. “Am I forgiven?” he asked me.
Our lives are lived in stories. I’d written one about Arkady and me, casting him as the villain, instead of a guy helping out who regretted his actions, but, caught in his own shame spiral, was trying to make up for it in his own way.
Almost dying had put certain things into perspective, as did people being hurt on my behalf. Did I really want to lose more of our time as friends because I couldn’t move on?
“I’m still mad,” I said to Arkady.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Miles lunged for me, but was body-checked by Arkady, his eyes on mine.
“But I forgive you and I’m working on the rest,” I said. “It’s hard rewriting a story.”
Arkady frowned. “What?”
“Nothing. Just take care of yourself and don’t do anything stupid.”
Arkady nodded. “I will.”
Priya said her goodbyes and once the men had left, escorted the puppy and me back into the room where Rafael remained unconscious. She dragged another chair up to his bed and sat down.
“Suzy Jones wanted to be my best friend in grade ten,” Priya said. “She was a nice girl.” She flung a fresh ice pack at me, hitting me square in the chest.
I eased myself into the other seat. “Suzy Jones became a hedge fund manager and anti-vaxxer. Her conservative bullshit would have gotten on your last nerve and you’d be in the big house taking prison showers. You hate public bathing.”
“I’d have been Queen Bitch of that prison yard. See? You routinely take years off my life and cost me my life goals.”
I snorted, unclipped the leash, and lifted the puppy onto the bed. She sniffed Rafael’s arm and then snuggled in against him. I held my breath, but he didn’t miraculously wake up.
“I want to kill those fucking Followers in the most painful way possible for getting Rafael injured in the first place,” I said, at the sight of him laying there helpless. I pressed the ice pack to my eye. It numbed my skin—numbed me—enough to blurt out the fear that had been crawling up my throat. “But I did this to him. I’m just as culpable, even if I meant well. Lux and her friends meant well too. They wanted to save Emma.” I placed my hand on Rafael’s chest, checking that his breathing was steady. “Did I take too much of his powers for him to recover? What if he never wakes up?”
“It’s only been a few hours,” Priya said. “And this is still better than being stuck in a cage for the rest of his life. Which, by the way, might have been greatly shortened because of that Nefesh magic.”
“I’m making a wins and losses column. Wins: Arkady successfully got the amulet and Isaac didn’t.” I ticked items off on my fingers. “Nathan isn’t going to force Talia’s resignation.”
I’d texted her that her career aspirations with the Untainted Party were secure. She’d replied with a terse “thank you.”
No word on whether or not mother-daughter brunches were back on the table.
“We can connect a charity that Jackson supported to the missing kids.” I looked at my hands. Huh. There were still a lot of available fingers.
“Losses?” Priya looked at Rafael. “Other than the obvious?”
“Talia saw my magic. Not the enhanced strength.” I made a face. “I told her all about Jezebels. She took it pretty much as expected.”
“Yikes.”
“To put it mildly. Then there’s Nicola, who is still stuck in her marriage.” I pulled my hair into a high ponytail, using the elastic that had been on my wrist to secure it. “Not to mention, there’s this dangerous amulet that Levi was all on fire to have destroyed and now crickets. I mean, get a sense of responsibility.”
Priya rummaged around in her giant purse. “Hang on. Let me say something reassuring and noncommittal. Uh-huh, totally.”
“You suck. How goes the digging into Theresa Magnon?”
“Not great. She’s a rich socialite from old family money made during Prohibition. I’m not sure what she has to offer Chariot, but I’ll keep looking.” Priya pulled out a copy of Dune with an “aha!”
“Are you staying a while?” I said. “What a kind, platonic gesture with no ulterior motives such as the sound of your voice penetrating Brit Boy’s haze so that when he wakes up, your emerald green eyes are the first things that he gazes into.”
She opened the book to the first page. “I’m going to read to him.”
“Yeah, I can see how sandworms are very soothing and not at all phallic.”
Pri blew her hair out of her face. “Oh my God, there is so much more to this story and that’s all you ever go on about. I am totally calling Suzy Jones later.”
“Suzy Jones hated sci-fi. I, however, made it through two and half books in the series.”
“Uh-huh, totally.”
“Just for that, I’m taking the dog. Oh, and if you could try kissing Rafael to wake him?”
Priya paused, glanced at Rafael, then quickly away. “Not funny.”
“I’m not entirely kidding?”
Grimacing, she tucked her black bobbed hair behind her ears, her chin dipping down. She gave a soft explosive argh and kissed Rafael. A perfectly sweet brush of the lips that lasted two seconds too long to be completely chaste.
We both leaned in…
… and were severely disappointed.
“This never happened,” Priya said.
“Didn’t see a thing.” I clipped Mrs. Hudson’s leash back on her, set her on the floor, and off we went to see a man about an amulet.
Chapter 23
The walk across the seventh floor had never felt so long. It was late and only a couple of employees were around.
“How is it even possible?” a man said. “There’s no color. It’s totally flat.”
“Creeped me right out,” his co-worker replied, nodding hello as she passed me.
“What did?” I said.
“The exterior of the House,” the woman said. “A few hours ago it went kind of dead-looking.”
“How weird.” I hustled Mrs. Hudson out of there, beelining straight for the elevators. Shit. I’d broken Levi.
My sense of responsibility caught up with me somewhere between my fifth and sixth stab of the call button. “We should check on him in case he’s stroked out or something. That would be bad.”
Mrs. Hudson barked, up for anything.
I dragged my feet towards His Lordship’s office with a level of enthusiasm generally reserved for French aristocracy hooking up with Madame Guillotine. Sadly, Veronica had left for the night. Damn. I’d kind of hoped the dragon would have actually barred my way. There was a first time for everything after all.
I rapped twice on his office door. No one answered. Duty fulfilled. I could go home.
Mrs. Hudson sat down in front of the door.
“You’re impossible. Fine.” I opened the door. “Knock. Knock.” Shoot me now. I’d become one of those people who made the damn sound effect with a pleasant middle management smile on their face.
Levi sat on his repellent sofa, his legs extended along the cushions. He’d taken off his suit jacket and tie, undone the first two buttons on his pinstriped shirt, and was turning an obsidian black stone circle over and over, his expression distant. Its thin gold chain hung between his fingers.
The metal pouch containing the feather was on the coffee table. Levi’s Emporium of Wonders.
“Is that the amulet?” I said.
Levi glanced at me, briefly, but didn’t say anything. His eyes were bleary and dark stubble dusted his jawline.
Mrs. Hudson strained against her leash, so I freed her. She ran over to him and raised her paws, scrabbling against the sofa. Levi picked her up and placed her in his lap. She licked his hand and, content, closed her eyes.
I scratched my head. “Is your dad all right?” That might have been the correct question to lead with.
“He’s fine.” Levi traced a finger around the smooth edge of the amulet. “Chariot is going to double down on their attacks on you.” His jaw clenched. “The Jezebel with the blood catalyst and the amulet all in a handy one-stop shopping package.”
“I’m going to destroy the Kiss of Death now so that won’t get them very far.”
I set his desktop pendulum in motion and sat down on the table, surreptitiously sniffing my pits to make sure I wasn’t too vile smelling. At least I hadn’t puked on myself.
Levi’s loafers, however, were nowhere in sight and he’d changed his black dress socks to ones with tiny white squares.
The pendulum balls clacked rhythmically for some time with still no reply from Levi.
“I never specifically told Miles to keep our angel feather plan from you,” I said. “Though I didn’t exactly tell you myself, but you would have tried to stop me.” I glanced sideways at him. “Maybe you wouldn’t have. It wasn’t an issue of trust, though I could see how it would appear that way from your perspective.” I sighed. “Could you just get mad at me already because I think you broke your House and you need to get this out of your system, and then I’ll apologize.” I bit my lip. “I’m doing that a lot, aren’t I? Apologizing after the fact.”
“What does game over look like to you?” Levi said, quietly.
Should I be relieved he didn’t want to revisit what had happened—or worried?
“The Sefer no longer exists. Chariot is…” I pushed on one end of the pendulum to speed it up again. “I don’t know. I’m not sure it’ll be possible to dismantle it and have the Ten ever see the inside of a courtroom. The world can’t learn what was really at play when magic came into existence.”
“No. It would unite Mundanes against Nefesh.” His fist closed over the amulet.
“Nor have we spent centuries acquiring proof of their shadowy power plays,” I said. “Our directive was extremely specific. Asherah made Jezebels to stop Chariot from becoming immortal, so that’s my focus.”
“Other than my father.”
“Other than your father.” It was pointless to deny it. “You didn’t drop the Adam illusion.”
“I wasn’t going to let you down.” He gave me a wry smile, idly scratching the sleeping puppy’s ears. “This time.”
Ever since Levi had dumped me, I’d been so angry with him for not putting the two of us above our family histories, above our fathers, but had I? Hadn’t I expected Levi to be part of my mission without reservation? I’d made ruining his father a condition of the two of us.
All these stories that I’d written in permanent marker, certain of their indelibility, were now filled with glaring errors in bright red ink.
“I’ll trust you even if you walk away from helping me,” I said. “There’s a difference between refusing to let Isaac have any power over you and actively taking him down. My quest isn’t yours.”
“But it ends in the same place.” He curled his fingers and an image of Isaac clutching at his heart appeared in miniature in mid-air. Levi let the illusion play out for a moment, before waving a hand through it, blowing it away. “I would have stopped things from going too far today, so you see, I haven’t returned to the Zone of anything.”
Was that why the House had gone dark? Not because Levi was mad, but that he was disgusted with himself because he’d failed me? It wasn’t even true. Levi had pushed past his line in the sand and provided the fuel for my petty act of revenge because he refused to let me down.
He was so close. I could cross the room, sink my teeth into his lower lip, and unleash the storm charging the air. I could also run like a bat out of hell because I’d learned the hard way how much power Levi had over my heart, and that was when we’d barely been together at all. I couldn’t go through that again. I was crazy to imagine otherwise.
Wasn’t I?
Was there hope for us, now that we’d both had time to think things out?
I imagined myself as some wizened old woman, rocking on her front porch. Looking back over my life, what would be the bigger regret—that I tried again with Levi and got my heart stomped on for a second time when he decided that he couldn’t handle this, or that I ran away? My heart and my brain had two very different opinions on the matter. I took a deep lungful of air and slowly exhaled.
I sat down on the sofa and dug my palms into my thighs, the denim rasping against my skin. “If our Zone of Trust was extended beyond work
at some point…” My voice came out hoarse and I cleared my throat.
Levi had never actually indicated he was interested in a reconciliation.
“At some point what?” Carefully placing Mrs. H on a cushion so she didn’t wake, Levi swung his feet onto the floor, his head cocked to the side.
“I have to meet you halfway.” I shook my head. “No. I have to—I’d want to—give you something important in return. I’m just not sure I can.”
“Maybe any expansion of trust has to wait until we’re both sure of what we can live with.”
My shoulders slumped.
Levi slid closer and took my hands. “But…” He looked down before saying quietly, “With the acknowledgement that we want to try and find that common ground?”
My heart thundered so fast, I tasted the beats in my throat. Due to the “S” shape of the building, other parts of the exterior were visible from Levi’s office. House Pacifica was lit up behind Levi in a pale yellow like a sunrise, the dawning of a fragile hope that I wanted to turn deep gold. Except even the thought of being in that freezer again didn’t scare me as much as letting him back in.
“Yeah. With that acknowledgement,” I said.
Levi’s answering smile was dancing fireflies on a perfect summer night. He tossed me the amulet.
The second it touched my hand a deep sense of security settled over my shoulders. I held it up to the light. The stone circle wasn’t solid black. An X made of a dark burnished wood was inlaid on one side. I inhaled the familiar buttery honey scent: almond wood.
“I’m going to open the metal pouch.”
“You think that, do you?”
“I know that. I won’t remove the feather, I want to test a hypothesis.” I held my hand out. “You can’t say no to science, Leviticus.”
Levi placed his hand over the container. “This isn’t science. It’s magic.”
“It’s the scientific exploration of magic.”
“What’s the hypothesis, Ash?”
I held up the amulet. “This comes from Jezebel’s altar, right? Where she communed with Asherah. Chariot perverted its use for their own gain, but to me, Asherah’s chosen? It makes me feel safe.”
Revenge & Rapture: A Snarky Urban Fantasy Detective Series (The Jezebel Files Book 4) Page 22