by C. T. Adams
Whoever was on the other side of the door was no lightweight either, because dark-skinned male hands appeared around the bars near the top. The door hesitated and then began to move inward, an inch or so off the floor. Ahmad flicked his tongue out repeatedly, trying to catch the scent of the person through the scorched metal. Just before the door swung to the side, he apparently did and his reaction was telling.
I was catapulted inside Ahmad’s head, no longer an outsider watching, as I felt our tongue frantically move around in a dry mouth, trying to find enough fluid to make the venom sacs work. If Nasil found me helpless and in chains—
But it wasn’t the man I’d spent my entire existence loathing and fearing who first came through the door.
I felt my brows raise and a hoarse croak that hurt my throat. “Tuli?”
Her entire face lit up and her taste was filled with both relief and joy. It carried over to the word that was barely loud enough to hear. “Rimush.” She flung herself at me so fast that all I could do was catch her so I didn’t get knocked onto my back. Her lips were on mine before I could react and the taste of her sweet, almost salty venom was enough to make me clutch at her arms desperately. No. I had to push her away before I took leave of my senses the way I used to in the palace. She hissed from the sting of the silver in the cuffs and looked down at the burns struggling to heal at my wrists. She turned her head and whispered. “You see? I told you he was a prisoner.”
“You did indeed.” Now I raised angry eyes and pushed Tuli the rest of the way from me, preparing to fight. Nasil looked just the same, except his hair had grown to shoulder-length, the way he’d worn it for so many centuries. He let out a small smirk that could mean nothing, or everything. His voice was likewise quiet, the tone amused. “It appears you could use some help, my prince.”
What in the name of Anu was he doing here? Should I whisper or raise my voice and alert everyone in the clinic? I had to presume they arrived alone or Tuli wouldn’t bother speaking softly, so I followed suit. “I hardly need help from the likes of you, Nasil. As you can see, I’m nearly free on my own.”
He glanced at the solid steel-and-silver door, still smouldering lightly from the torch cuts, then raised a brow at me. “Oh, without question, my lord. Shall I return the door to its place so you may escape under your own power?”
“Stop it, both of you.” Tuli was in no mood for our banter, which was reasonably friendly at this point. There was no purpose antagonizing him until I had full freedom of movement. He was too fast and too deadly to risk that. “Of course we’re going to help you, my prince. It’s why we came.”
It was? But that journey takes nearly a day, and I haven’t been back long enough for anyone to grow concerned. Or had it been longer than I believed? “I’ve only been gone a day. I told you I would return in several.”
Tuli blushed and stared at the floor, which confused me. I thought at first that the traitor Nasil wasn’t going to answer me, but he raised that single brow again—probably because he knew how much I hated it. “We left only a few hours after you did. Tuli seemed to believe it was critical we reach you before . . . something happened. I have to admit to a certain amount of surprise we found you in chains. It does seem to support Tuli’s . . . feeling.”
I stared at her, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. That wasn’t like her. “Explain.”
I reached out to grab her arm to make her look at me but she slipped out of my grasp with a speed I hadn’t known her to have before. “We really don’t have time for discussions, my lord. We have little time to get you to safety before they find the cat.”
Had they harmed Amber? Charles would tear the world into bite-sized pieces to find them . . . and me if they had. “What have you done, Nasil?”
He was busy dripping a strong chemical acid on the cuffs on my ankles, and looked up at me with the sort of disdain I expected from him. “Please give me some credit, Ahmad. Do you really think me foolish enough to kill anyone here—much less Charles’s wife? I merely hit Amber with a tranquilizer. But I only used enough for an elephant-sized target, so we probably only have five more minutes before a healer of her stature wakes up. And she’ll have a nasty headache, which won’t make her a pleasant kitty to encounter if she discovers us walking off with a Wolven prisoner.”
Nasil knew Amber nearly better than anyone, so I believed that he’d used a sufficient, but nontoxic dose. He’d been the supposed friend of her brother, Antoine, for more than a decade and had been spying on the council for Sargon without my even knowing. I didn’t trust him, but I couldn’t argue he knew his job.
While Charles would no doubt be displeased that I left custody, I could think of no better scenario for Nasil to find me in than this one. If I truly had been in league with my father, and Wolven discovered it, I would be in this exact same location awaiting trial before the full council. “I presume you have transportation waiting outside? Are there others with you?”
Nasil shook his head as he pulled apart the two pieces of the inch-thick cuff around my leg with a sizzling of flesh that made us both wince. “We came alone and while we have a stolen car outside to take us away from the complex, we flew commercial to get here. We’ll have to figure out some other way to get back before we’re discovered.”
I couldn’t help but smile darkly. It would serve him right for putting me through this level of hell. Nasil looked at me with interest when I swung my legs from the concrete slab and chuckled. “Actually, I may have a solution.”
Chapter Twelve
I CAME BACK into my head with a start as the scene went black at the clinic. I couldn’t seem to figure out why I kept getting these random flashes, yet had no control over them. Worse still, they were starting to make my head ache like I had a pinched nerve. I grabbed my chin and the top of my head to see if I could get my neck to pop and ease some pressure, but the muscles were too tight . . . probably from Ahmad’s struggle against the silver chains.
“Tony? Is something wrong?” Sue’s sleepy question was accompanied by an increase in the warm light in my head and it shook away some of the cotton in my brain.
“No, I—” I paused and reconsidered. Sue’s a smart woman. More than once she’s come up with an answer that had been eluding me. She’s been spending a lot of time reading through old records at Wolven headquarters, trying to figure out what was stolen by the mole. “Y’know, actually, yes. There is.”
She patted the bed and pulled back my side of the covers. “Come tell me about it.”
So I did. The trick was not to let the warm press of her skin against me lull me back to sleep. There’s just something about when she’s got one leg curled over my hip, with an arm around my waist and her head on my chest that makes everything right with the world and reality fade away. While I really needed the sleep, I also needed to decide what to do about Ahmad. I didn’t know what his solution was and without that, there wasn’t much to tell anyone if they asked where he went.
It took the better part of an hour just to tell her the highlights of the last few days. “And now I’m back here with you.”
“How weird,” she said. Her brow wrinkled under the fingers I was using to stroke her hair. “Well, let’s go through this. Ahmad thought it might have been the cave that did it, and I’ve read about that sort of thing happening in some of the really old books I’ve found. But why you, and why him? If it should be anyone, it should be Will Kerchee. That would make sense at least. He’s the one you were in contact with in the cave, or even Councilwoman Calibria or the other agent. But Ahmad?”
I shrugged, which moved her head and she had to readjust. “Precisely. But it is what it is. I just need to figure out how to make it work for me. You know Lucas and Charles are going to grill me about what happened now that they know I’m in contact . . . even occasionally, and they’re not going to let me leave to go deal with my job for Carmine. I have to at least get them started on something.”
She let out a slow, “Hmmm” and tapped one f
ingernail next to my belly button. “What did he think again right at the end? As exactly as you can remember.”
That was easy, so I repeated it. “It would serve him right for putting me through this level of hell. But I don’t know who him is, so I don’t have any idea what it might mean.”
She paused long enough that I felt my eyes starting to close. But I woke up again with a start when I felt her smile against my skin. A moment later, a flash of color jumped into my mind and the scent of triumph filled the air—sort of like bitter orange marmalade to my nose. “I think I know, and you’ve got a call to make.”
A SLEEPY, GRUFF voice answered on the fourth ring. I was already showered and dressed, which I did while Sue explained what she believed happened. I tried to push through an image into Ahmad’s mind. I’d managed a sound while I was standing under the hot water, but no image. Still the loud, whining roar I’d heard was probably enough to ask the question. “Go ahead.”
“It’s five A.M., Lucas. Do you know where your plane is?”
I could hear the confusion in his voice, which told me that either they’d given Amber a bigger dose of tranq than they thought, or he hadn’t answered his phone from several earlier calls. “What? Tony, is that you? What the hell are you talking about?”
He sounded too tired for the long explanation, so I opted for the short one. “I’m pretty sure Ahmad escaped the cell in the basement this morning with some help from Nasil, and is on his way back to the jungle . . . in your jet.”
I could hear sounds of abrupt movement in the background and then his voice wasn’t so sleepy anymore. “Nasil’s captured Ahmad? Did you have another hindsight from him? Was he . . . lucid when they grabbed him?”
I shook my head as I tried to reach my other shoe where it had bounced during last night’s romp. But the landline cord wouldn’t reach. Sue noticed and walked across the room to pick it up and hand it to me on her way to the bathroom with a cosmetic bag tucked under her arm. I made a kissing motion at her before I replied. She smiled and winked. “Lucid, yes, but not captured. He went willingly. In fact, he suggested it. I think he’s ticked at you for putting him in chains and thought having to track down your plane would serve you right. And I’m still not certain whether to call them hindsights. These feel different. I still think they’re real-time.”
I could hear tiny little blips over the phone line. Probably checking his cell phone for missed calls. He must have a high-end model. I can’t do that with mine when I’m talking on it. “Nobody’s called me. Are you certain about this?”
I let out a chuckle. “Oh hell no. I’m not certain about a damned thing lately. But so far, these images have been dead-on, so I figured it was worth calling you. I’m already dressed, so I figured I’d wander back to the clinic with Charles’s car to check it out. Thought you might want to come along. Are you in Boulder or Denver?”
“I’m in Boulder, at my house. But I don’t want you coming up here. If things went badly . . . no. I don’t want you up here.”
I pulled the phone away from my face to stare at in disbelief, like I could make him see my expression if I just looked hard enough. “Afraid I’ll faint at the sight of blood? Uh, hello? Besides, I’ve got Charles’s rental. I presume he’s going to need it if I’m wrong about the vision.”
He paused and then sighed. “Fine. Bring the car back. Maybe you can help figure out what’s happening. But leave Sue there where it’s safe.”
I couldn’t disagree, but apparently Sue did. She walked up, hand on hip, and motioned for the receiver. She could hear him talking from across the room? That was new. I shrugged and handed her the plastic handset and backed away.
“Lucas, it’s Sue. Look, I appreciate the thought, but really . . . I’ll be fine. I’ve been spending a lot of time at the Wolven facilities. I’ve gotten pretty jaded about blood and gore.”
That raised my brows. She had? I didn’t mind her tagging along, since it wouldn’t do any good to say no anyway—I mean, where would she go? But maybe it’s not just since the ritual that things had changed. I wasn’t kidding about being gone on four assignments in a row. I hadn’t been home for more than a few hours in nearly three months, and have been trying to keep Sue out of my head during the interim. Maybe I needed to sit down with her and find out what she’d been up to on this end that hadn’t made it into the nightly conversations.
His voice sounded tired and determined. But so was she—the chilled metal scent was stronger than her perfume. “I really think—”
“Don’t, Lucas. Don’t think. I’m growing up, okay? It’s a shame it took twenty-six years to do it, but I’m finally becoming an adult. Shit happens. People die. People I love die. I can’t fix it, I can’t help it. All I can do is move on and do my damnedest to be happy. Isn’t that the lesson you wanted me to learn?” She didn’t wait for a reply, and I was amazed and proud of her for it. I found myself with arms crossed over my chest, staring at her with brows raised and a smile on my face. “So, yeah. I’m coming up. Whether or not Tony does. There’ll be things to do whether Ahmad is there or not. ‘Cause like it or not, that’s what I do now—clean up messy things that nobody else wants to, because they have to get done. So see you soon. Bye.” Sue hung up on him and it made me laugh. She wasn’t shaking, she wasn’t near tears, nor angry—so my laugh just made her turn her head as she was putting down the phone. “What?”
I raised my hands symbolically and clapped lightly. “Attagirl. But I probably ought to ask if you’re planning on telling me to go to hell soon too?”
She looked at the phone, and the air was suddenly filled with the flurry of conflicting scents that confusion brings. “I didn’t tell him to go to hell.”
I took the two steps over to her and touched her face lightly. “Not in so many words, but yeah . . . you did. It’s okay, and even though I admit I’m surprised, it’s been needed. I probably deserve to have it said to me too. I’ve been keeping you out of the shit I do, and haven’t even bothered to ask whether you want to be kept out.” Whatever was waiting at the clinic could wait a little longer. I motioned toward the bed and sat down, reaching for her hand to have her do the same. “So, what do you want? I’d like to think that my life will be settling down soon, but I honestly don’t see that happening. If anything, it’s going to get busier. I’m afraid you’re going to wind up alone more than I’d like, but short of flipping off the council and disa-damn-pearing to parts unknown, we don’t have many choices. If this ritual really did work and you’re going to stay healthy, what does Sue, Version Two-point-oh, want out of life?”
She looked a little taken aback. “Out of life? Wow. I can honestly say I haven’t thought that far out. But I’m a little surprised that you’re surprised. How could I not grow up? It was like throwing a pet dog into the wild to live with wolves. It learns to survive or it dies. I’ve been really grateful to all the people I’ve met at Wolven. They’re really good people, Tony. Dedicated and hardworking, fearless and tireless . . . a lot like you. They’re just amazing. It’s hard to be afraid of anything when they’re around. Serial killers? No problem. Terrorist threats? Piece of cake. Feral new turns? All in a day’s work. Yeah, they come back bloody and exhausted, but they still manage to train and do paperwork. There really isn’t much bookkeeping to do on a daily basis, you know. It’s all on the computer and once I started to sort out all the inconsistencies and fix them . . . well, that took about two weeks. It’s been ten months, so I’ve had to figure out other things to do. I know Lucas just took me on as a kindness, but I’ve really been trying to be useful, so I’ve sort of turned into an all-around secretary. Do you know how many reports I’ve had to Wite-Out splatters of blood and run them through the copier just so you could read them . . . including yours? How could I not learn from people like that?”
I listened, really listened to her ramble, because I really hadn’t thought much about the other half of the business, or what she’s been doing. Of course there have to be copies, and of cour
se they have to be semilegible. The council members are demanding SOBs, which must mean she’d been busy.
She smiled and squeezed my hand. Her scent was a blend of everything good in the world and it made me return the squeeze. “Lelya in Chicago has been great as a sounding board, but Tahira has really been the terrific one to get to know. Even though she came over from blood, she was nearly an adult when it happened. So she started out a lot like me—human and clueless. Plus, we both wound up marrying tough guys who don’t always talk about what they’re going through. One night when we were alone and I was sorting out a bunch of files Lucas brought by, we sat down and started going through the cases you guys have worked on. It wasn’t hard to read between the lines and combine the careful language with the little bits you’ve told me on the phone, and the bits when I got sucked inside you during a crisis. I’ve started to figure out what you’re going through out there.” She paused for a long moment and looked at her lap, her fingers nibbling on themselves, then tapping on her leg, her scent filled with indecision. I realized it wasn’t that she didn’t know what to say, but wasn’t sure how I would react to it.
“Go ahead,” I urged, because I really did want to hear it. Behind her, the sun was starting to light the horizon. The mountain backdrop and flickering streetlamps reminded me of our first conversation, in another hotel room far from here. But neither of us were the same people anymore, and I was thinking that was a good thing.
“I’d like to start doing fieldwork. I really think I’d like that.”
Okay, I wasn’t expecting that. “Fieldwork. Like as a Wolven agent?” She nodded and I had to draw in a sharp breath. I raised a hand to rest against my mouth and chin while I thought and let out the breath slowly. “Wow. Um. I can’t imagine that anyone would approve that, even if I did. Hell, they don’t even like me working on cases because I’m a three-day. You’re full human. You’d get eaten for lunch out there, sweetheart . . . literally.”