I pushed Nadia’s hand off me. “Let me go. This can only end badly if we let them ‘find their own terms.’”
Curtis’s voice rang through the wall again. “Go ahead, Devon, try it. I can put you down just as fast as I did your buddies in the alley.”
As I moved toward the voices, Lyle called to me. “If you go in there, they’ll stop.”
“That’s the idea.”
Making my way down the stairs to the rooms below, a sudden rush of power flowed from me into Devon, causing me to lose my footing. Things were about to get far more real than I was ready for.
Knowing Devon wouldn’t throw the first blow, I screamed out as I quickened my pace, “Curtis, whatever you are about to do, stop it right now!” I rushed into the room with a lot less grace than I intended and slid in my socked feet between the advancing men. “All right. That’s enough. Cool it, both of you!”
The men froze at my entrance, but their eyes were still intent on each other, murderous.
“Good,” I continued. “Now, I want each of you to take three steps away from each other, so we can all breathe.”
They both held their ground for nearly a full ten count, but finally Devon stepped backward, still facing Curtis. With a narrowing of his eyes, Curtis followed suit.
Great. I had them out of Threat Level Charlie, but what the hell did I do with both of them now?
I needed to speak with each of them individually. It was the only way to make them understand without feeling like they had to posture, but neither seemed to be in the mood to back down enough for that to happen.
Scanning the room, I found Nadia and Lyle had followed me up the hallway, and Carson was sitting in a wingback, out of direct range of the two raging idiots, but close enough to intercede if it came to that. He was a strong guy, but out of his weight class, and he seemed to realize it.
He smiled at me with a kind of “what now” look.
I returned my attention to the two idiots. “I know there’s a lot to figure out here, but right now is not the time.” Curtis moved to say something, but I put my hand up. “Not the time. There’s a girl out there whose clock is running out. We’re about the only thing she’s got that stands a chance in hell to find her in time. We are going to get here out of there before they do who knows what to her. We learned a lot last night. Let’s concentrate on those pieces of information and figure out a plan.”
eyed the two men, and they finally moved to the far corners of the room. Neither backed down to the other, but at least they weren’t ready to draw blood–literally. A start I could work with.
“First of all, thank you, Curtis, for, uh, doing whatever you did to save us,” I said.
“Yes, Curtis,” Devon interjected, “let’s discuss how you were able to best two vampires while two scions and two shifters were useless.”
You just can’t help yourself, can you? I narrowed my eyes at Devon. You’re better than this.
He’s not.
“Stop,” Curtis snapped at me and raked a stiff hand through his bangs, forcing them back. “Don’t defend me to him. I can stand up for myself.”
“And that’s why you were about to throw down with him and have us waste time by mopping you off the floor,” I snapped.
“I hate all that telepathy crap.” He moved his attention back to Devon. “You can insult me out loud, and I’ll kindly return it in spades.”
Devon fidgeted with his sleeves, removing his eyes from Curtis and pretending he was no longer worth his time. “You make it too easy, my boy. Hardly worth the breath it forces me to take.”
Reign it in!
“I told you to stop doing that. I can tell when you do it,” Curtis said.
I took a step toward him, cutting off his feeble attempt to get in Devon’s face again. “Fine. You’re right. I was saying that neither of you is helping, and time is ticking away. So, are you going to show us what you did, or are you done here?”
He stared me down for so long, I thought I’d pushed too hard, and he was going to walk out. Then he took a step back and drew out a small satchel hanging on a gold chain from his pocket.
“Please don’t open it again,” Carson said from his chair across the room. “What is it?”
Curtis never stopped squinting at me, but he answered Carson. “It’s a holy relic.”
“And how, exactly, does someone of your station manage to find yourself in possession of a holy relic on this side of the ocean?” Devon sneered at the bag but kept his distance.
“By having more balls than a blood sucker like you could dream of.”
The blinding light and pain from the alleyway made more sense now. Curtis was carrying around a blessed body part of a saint. Those were beyond outlawed and harder to find than a pre-Reclamation map.
Nadia stepped closer to the circle, though farther from Curtis and his bag. “I am not trying to belabor the point, my dear, but I truly want to know. How did you come by this? There weren’t that many relics in the new world to start with–mostly hoaxes–but the genuine articles were collected and destroyed half a century ago.”
“You missed a few,” Curtis replied.
Devon put a hand on Nadia and guided her to a chair. Turning his back on Curtis but still speaking to him, he poured a glass of juice. “And you just happened to find one of the few.”
I answered on Curtis’ behalf. “If there’s one thing you taught me, it’s that money can get you just about anything.”
Curtis shifted his gaze to me briefly then returned his stare to Devon’s back. I got the message, the bastard.
“Ah, so you played tomb robber for Masterson,” I said.
“I led an expedition to Ohio for him.” Curtis lifted the bag for better viewing. “I got these fingers of Liz Ann Seton for my troubles.”
“The shrine is still intact?” Devon asked, his eyes wide.
Devon’s surprise threw Curtis off his game, and he moved a few steps in closer to me with his advantage. “Yep, it’s still there. Though most was lost from the purge and nasty bloodthirsty creatures living out there. Once we got to Maria Stein, the Society of the Precious Blood was still active and watching over the relics they had left.”
“So, you took in their hospitality and stole from them.” Devon offered me the glass of juice over my shoulder, resting his arm around me.
Curtis’s eyes tightened. I took the glass, downed it, and put it on the table as an excuse not to be close to either of them. Catching Carson’s small salute of his glass at my maneuver somehow only made the whole thing more surreal.
Devon and Curtis fighting over me. Kill me now.
“When I explained what we intended,” Curtis continued, “they were more than happy to pick through their vault for us.”
“Give me a break,” I shot at him from my new location.
“Excuse me?” He turned on me, but kept his distance at Devon’s tensing muscles.
“I said, ‘Give me a break.’ Sure, you got some holy mojo from your treasure hunting quest of the Midwest. I can believe that. There’s no way in hell that’s what you used to hold off Mr. Wiry and his stocky sidekick.”
His eyes tightened. “And why not?”
“Curtis,” I offered in a far more patronizing tone than I had intended, “holy objects work because someone believes in them and their power of protection from the divine. You never bought into all that. Hell, you laughed at my ley line studies, let alone the–how did you put it–’sheeple running to the whore houses of religion.’”
He sighed. “I’ve seen Good and Evil, Ro. I know they exist now. I have to hope there’s some force of Good out there that will see us get past all this Evil.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Anyway, I cheat and help charge its power with something I do believe in.”
He fingered the gold chain, and I really looked at it for the first time. It was made of delicate, well-made loops, but nothing expensive. Something that would hold up for every day wear. From the center of the chain, hanging from
the bag, was a tiny gold cross.
I met his eyes, and he nodded. I took a step forward and held out my hand before I caught myself. “That’s mine!” It’s sounded childish, but it was the truth.
He lowered his voice and gaze, peering through his bangs at me. “Yep. I snuck in while everyone was at your bonding ceremony and took it with me. Knew how much you loved it and figured I’d give it back when we’d dealt with all this.”
A blush covered his cheeks, and I could feel heat rising in mine. He’d kept my crucifix, the one my mother had given me on my first Communion. The one thing I’d had left from my parents that I hadn’t had to sell. The one I’d worn every day until I’d become Devon’s scion and physically couldn’t anymore.
He’d charged a holy relic with his belief in it.
I wanted to be angry at him. Even if I couldn’t touch it anymore, Will should have it, not him. What he’d done with it was close to amazing, though. Something in me warmed at the thought that he still cared enough to make it take down vampires.
“I’d wondered where it had gone,” I said. “I’d wanted to give it to Will. I thought Devon had–”
Devon spoke up. “I would never have taken anything of yours.”
I shook it off. “Whatever; it doesn’t matter.” I intentionally looked away from both men. “It’s a weapon against our enemy, but it takes out most of our forces as well.”
Curtis cleared his throat. “If we can put them down, maybe that’s enough.”
“Not if they have any allies of a more mundane persuasion,” Lyle added to the conversation.
“And not if the bearer’s faith wavers in the heat of the moment,” I added without turning back around.
“Hate to say it, but all of this does us no good until we find out who these deviants are and where they’re hiding the girl.” Carson’s calm, refined voice drew our attention across the room.
I nodded and pressed my hand to my stomach, glad the butterflies were calming down. “So, we start with Mr. Creepy. He’s from out of town, so he has to have some base of operations, right?” A smile began to build on my face. “If we can profile the son of a bitch, we can find him. And if we find him, he’ll lead us to Hannah.” I thought back to our fight. “His tone was something Hispanic-like. I’ve heard similar sounds coming from the Mexican block when we used to live in the tenements.”
Devon shook his head. “Not Spanish. I speak Spanish and was listening with your ears. I couldn’t follow what they were saying.”
Nadia nodded. “I also know Spanish and got nothing. Words sounded similar but still foreign. At one point, it sounded like they spoke of something ‘alive’ and something else ‘conscious,’ but I’m pulling that as much from Italian and French as Spanish.”
“But Rowan is right,” Carson chimed in. “They didn’t sound Italian or French. There was a Spanish flavor to their words, but more like the Spanish from the EU couriers who visited us, not the Mexican dignitaries.”
I threw up my hands as I continued to pace. “Great, they might be from Spain. Or they might just have speech impediments, but none of this tells us where they are now.”
“Appeared like they’re from south of the border, though…” Devon stared at Nadia. Her eyes widened, and he continued. “That’s it–Portuguese. They’re Brazilian.”
My zing of excitement at putting one piece together died at the worry coming through Devon’s side of the bond. “Why does that sound bad?”
“It is. It could be,” Devon amended. “We have no connections to the South Americans. Not even Romaric.”
“They didn’t come at his call. They cut the world off when it was falling apart. Then when we rebuilt, everyone else cut them out. No one has connections there,” Nadia added.
“So, how can we use this?” I asked.
“We could try your networks again,” Carson suggested. “See if Norman’s group can narrow our search window.”
“Or we could try the old-school tracking approach,” Lyle added. “The alpha wolf from last night won’t give me anything, but I bet he’d roll over for you, Rowan, if you smiled at him right.”
I rolled my eyes. “As if.” Yep, that was the most grown-up response I could make.
“I think you should try.” Carson leaned back in his chair and raised his eyebrow at me. “You and Lieutenant Rigel did have some interesting banter. I think he’d share what his pack found if you asked him.”
Great. Exactly what I needed in my life. More banter. Witty conversation was going to be the end of me, if ex-boyfriends tracking me down wasn’t.
I stopped pacing, narrowing my eyes, and turned to Curtis. “Hey, Curt?”
He bristled. “Oh, great. Nothing good every follows when you call me ‘Curt.’”
“Curt,” I hit the nickname extra hard, “How exactly did you find us last night, jjust in the nick of time? With just the right weapon for someone like you to win?”
“Thank you,” Devon added. “I’ve only been asking him for the last three hours.”
“Devon, shut it.” I crossed my arms. “Well?”
Curtis had the decency to look nervous. “I got the tip from my sources around the area. Masterson has his group following members of homicide.”
“Convenient. And again, just in time,” I said.
“Ro, I had nothing–”
I put my hand up. “Save it. I think Carson is right. We should check our networks a little more thoroughly. I’ll start back with Masterson.”
urtis hunched his back against the new rain, stomping to the driver’s side of my little black car. Anger and worry made his movements stiff and automatic. My flash of annoyance at his assumption that he’d be driving died as panic and embarrassment painted his face the moment his key didn’t work. Smiling, I hit the button to unlock and threw my keys over the car to him.
I said nothing as he got in, fixed the mirrors, and turned the wipers on. Still silent, he wrenched the gearshift into drive and maneuvered the car from Lyle’s driveway. I held onto the “oh shit” handle over my head as our speed increased around the curves of freshly rain-slicked road. If he wrecked my car, I’d kill him and make Masterson pay for it.
I chanced a glance at him. Curtis’s motions were tight and sudden. His muscles strained against his snug, black dress shirt as he circled the wheel around again. He’d never been this built before. He was a long way off from the book geek I’d known growing up.
The lights of the neighborhood flashed around us, falling onto his face. His jaw was lined with stress. I understood. My back hurt from maintaining perfect posture while waiting for us to figure out how to react to our sudden privacy.
Swallowing the dried knot in my throat, I tried to unclench my body and calm my heart. It was beating as fast as Lyle’s wings would after torching some crystal meth. Using the steady rhythm of the wipers, I slowed my breathing to a manageable level then unwound my fingers from their death grip on the handle and placed them casually against my crossed knees.
With a sigh, I started, “Curtis–”
“I had nothing to do with this, Ro. Nothing.”
Breathing deep, I took in his scent, but, even without it, I believed him. “I know.”
His eyes narrowed, and he gripped the wheel until his knuckles were white. “Your vampiric nose tell you that?”
I stifled my anger the best I could. “No, you did.”
He snuck a side glance at me, and I could see his effort to let go playing on his body. Slowly, his shoulder eased back, and the white lines on his jaw disappeared.
Time to try again. I tucked my hair behind my ear. “So, treasure hunting looks good on you, but politics…”
An honest smile traced his lips. “Dashing, huh?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “I’m not sure which is more dangerous.”
He grimaced as he pushed his bangs from his eyes. “Like what you do is safe.”
I laughed, and after a second, he joined me. The mood shifted as both of our postures eased.
“Have you talked to your folks?” I asked.
“After the first year, I never stopped. I have them set up in mid-city. They’re enjoying retirement.” He glanced at me then back to the road. “They still ask about you.”
I drew in air. They’d been my second family. Helped in what ways they could. Hell, his father had taught me to ride a bike while my father had been away to work the migrant farms down south. Our mothers had taken turns with shifts, so we’d never been alone like the other kids in the neighborhood. Losing them when Curtis left had hurt almost as much as losing my own parents.
“I thought they’d blame me. Hate me. I couldn’t take that from them,” I said.
He gave my knee a reassuring squeeze then returned to his neutral position on the gear shift. “You were always welcome. Probably more than I was at some points.”
The thought there could be people out there still caring about me was foreign. The hope was nice, even if he just told me so to make me feel better.
Careful. Remember he has his own agenda.
Shut it. Stop butting in. I tried to block Devon out.
“He’s talking to you again.”
My silence was answer enough.
“How can you stand it? Never any privacy.”
I shrugged. “You get used to it,” I lied. “Kinda like the annoying uncle who never leaves you alone.”
Devon sent amusement through our line, but it only annoyed me more. His thoughts suddenly felt like chewing tinfoil. I shivered the feeling away.
With a sideways grin at me, Curtis shook his head. “Then let’s move to conversations which are none of his damn business. How’s Will? Is he ready to be president yet?”
I couldn’t help it–laughter erupted from me. “Just about.”
Feeling the rise of Devon’s exception to Curtis’s comments through our bond, I sent a warning and relaxed when he backed off.
Curtis raised an eyebrow at me, but returned his attention to the road.
Recrossing my legs to face him more, I went on. “He’s doing great. All his teachers love him, which helps when other kids give him a hard time. He’s already smarter than both of us.”
Of Scions and Men Page 19