by R. L. King
This time, they caught a break. Stone glanced over his shoulder when they reached the car, and didn’t see the telltale red and blue lights of an approaching police cruiser. “Are you all right?” he asked Garra, who’d paused to lean against the BMW’s side.
“I will be.” She was still panting, but not as much as before.
He opened the sedan’s back door. When she scrambled in, he shoved her backpack in after her. “You’ll have more room back there. Stay down—I’ll get us out of here.”
He didn’t speak again until they’d gotten out of Oakland and were heading south down the freeway. He drove the speed limit, staying in the middle lane and doing his best not to draw any attention to them, glancing occasionally in the rearview mirror to make sure Garra was all right in the back seat. He heard her moving around back there as she unzipped the pack and pulled on a T-shirt and yoga pants. “Everything all right?” he asked at last.
“Much better, yes.” She did sound better: her voice no longer hitched and she wasn’t panting. She tossed his coat over the passenger seat. “Are you all right?”
“Fine.” His chest still hurt and his throat was still dry and scratchy from all the coughing, but the woozy-headed sensation had departed as soon as he got some fresh air. “Did you see who did that? You said they drove off?”
“I tried to catch them, but I wasn’t moving as quickly as usual—especially after one of them shot me. I got one shot at one of them, but they took off before I could catch up.” She sounded annoyed with herself.
“Were they the same ones as before?”
“One of them was. The other was different. Same type, though: large, muscular, very fast.”
Stone pondered that. Someone—whoever was trying to prevent them from reclaiming the chalice—was getting hold of some pretty formidable henchmen. Was there some kind of employment agency for supernaturally powerful brutes out there? He’d never seen anything like the men who’d attacked them before. The closest were Lane and Hugo, who’d worked for Elias Richter, but Hugo was dead and these two, while far too strong and fast to be normal humans, hadn’t been immune to magic. There was also the matter of the strange green band in their auras. “Well, for now, let’s get the hell away from here, and then we can discuss our next steps.” He drove for a while more, then remembered something. “You said you couldn’t shift inside the house. Was that because those smoke bombs caught you by surprise? Does fright prevent you from shifting?”
“No.” Now she sounded sober. “Usually my first response to a threat is to shift—I’d rather face it in my jaguar form, if possible. This time, I couldn’t shift. Something stopped me.”
“And that’s never happened to you before?”
“No. It was terrifying.” In the rearview mirror, she shuddered. “The thought of being stuck in this form is…”
“Hmm. So if you couldn’t shift, it had to be the smoke, somehow.”
She leaned forward, gripping the back of the passenger seat. “How can that be? How can smoke prevent me from using my abilities?”
Stone shrugged. “Those men have supernatural backing—I’d stake my magic on it. Your chalice uses alchemy. Perhaps the mage who stole it came up with a way to neutralize your powers. He—or she—has got to know you lot will be trying to track the chalice, so it’s not out of the question to believe they might have ways of shutting down shifters. That might be how they got it in the first place.”
“I didn’t think of that…” she mused. “It makes sense. It’s still terrifying, though.”
“We’ll deal with it. Clearly whatever it is, it doesn’t stop magic.” He glanced in the mirror again. “Are you all sorted back there? Healed up?”
“Yes. The wound was just a graze, but even if it had been a solid hit, I could heal it. We regenerate quickly. The only problem would have been blood loss—that takes longer.” Her grip tightened on the seat. “I just wish I could have caught at least one of them!”
“Yes, well, clearly they didn’t want to be caught, and they were ready for you. We just need to do some thinking.”
They crossed the Dumbarton Bridge and made it back to Palo Alto without incident, though Stone found it harder than he thought to keep to the speed limit. He pulled the car up in front of her apartment building in Menlo Park and waited while she gathered her things.
“Would you like to come up?” she asked as she got out. “We can have a cup of coffee while we discuss what to do next.”
He almost said no, but then glanced around, half-expecting that the two men had followed them. She’d clearly proven she could take care of herself as well as he could, but if they knew where she lived, they might be lying in wait. “I think I’ll take you up on that, thanks.”
Her apartment was on the second floor in a small, upscale complex. Stone followed her up the stairs, magical sight active, but didn’t see any lurking auras. Garra didn’t seem concerned, though, and no doubt she’d have caught an intruder’s scent. She opened the door, flipped on the light, and tossed her small pack on a chair. “Give me a few minutes,” she said. “I’ll get that coffee going. Make yourself comfortable.”
Stone didn’t feel comfortable, still on edge about the attack and wondering how the assailants had managed to track them to Oakland. He paced the room, frequently checking the window to make sure no green-tinged auras were approaching them.
Garra’s apartment was small, elegant, and she’d clearly rented it furnished. She’d added next to no personal touches to the areas Stone could see, which didn’t surprise him—now that he knew why she was here, he likewise knew once she’d found the chalice she’d be returning to Peru. She’d never meant to remain at the University, which was why, despite her excellent job performance and popularity with the students, she’d never seemed terribly concerned about the results of her probationary period.
His disappointment at the thought of her leaving surprised him. Obviously she couldn’t stay—she couldn’t go on pretending to be someone she wasn’t indefinitely. Someone would catch on eventually, especially if they decided to make her an offer for full-time employment after this quarter. And even if she had been who she claimed to be, she didn’t have the academic credentials to hold the position. There was no way Stone could think of to make this work, which was irrelevant anyway since all she cared about was getting the chalice back and restoring it to her people.
To his embarrassment, his thoughts returned to the way she’d looked in Jimmy Tanuki’s bedroom, standing there naked with no shame or self-consciousness. She was attractive, no doubt about it.
“Here we are,” Garra called. “How do you take your coffee?”
“Black, thanks.”
She appeared on the other side of the breakfast bar, holding up a bottle of Kraken rum. “I was going to put a little…extra something in mine, to take the edge off the evening. Shall I put some in yours too?”
“That would be brilliant.”
She dosed both cups, then brought one to him and took a seat at the other end of the small sofa. “Do you think they’ll come after me here?”
Stone glanced at the window again. “To be honest, I’m concerned they might.”
“I can handle them if they do.”
He didn’t answer.
“You don’t think I can?” Her eyes narrowed, and a bit of the big cat showed in her expression.
“I do—hell, I saw how well you handled yourself against them before. But those smoke bombs of theirs trouble me. If they can prevent you from shifting—”
“They didn’t prevent it for long,” she reminded him. “As soon as I got out of the cloud, the effect faded.”
He looked into his coffee cup, then took a sip. She’d put quite a generous shot of rum in it, and it felt good going down. He wished he could just have the rum and skip the coffee, but he still had to drive home.
Damn, the little voice in his head said. Too bad she won’t ask you to stay.
Stop that, he ordered it, tightening the grip
on his cup. To take his mind off her sitting there so close to him, he said, “Perhaps you should stay somewhere else for a few days. Somewhere they don’t know about.”
“You think they know where I live?”
“I found out. I don’t think it’s too difficult for someone who has magic.”
She gave him a sly, amused smile. “Where do you propose? Your place?”
He jerked his head up, startled. “No. No, of course not. Well—actually yes, but not the way you think.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ve recently moved into a new place, but I haven’t given up the lease on my old one yet. It’s a furnished townhouse near downtown Palo Alto. You could stay there. I already took the wards down, but I can put basic protective ones up quickly. You should be safe there.”
She didn’t answer for a while. “I hate to give them what they want,” she said at last. “If I show fear, they’ll know it.”
“It’s not fear. It’s prudence. If they find you—if they kill you—you won’t be able to find the chalice and bring it back to your people.” He leaned forward and met her gaze. “Don’t you owe it to them to take all possible precautions?”
She thought about it, looking away. “I suppose you have a point. I’ll give it some thought and let you know.” She picked up the bottle and added more rum to her coffee, then held it toward him in invitation.
He should have declined, but he didn’t. He watched as she poured more into his cup, then lowered it. She was still watching him with that half-amused, half-intense expression, and once again he couldn’t help picturing her as she’d stood in Jimmy Tanuki’s bedroom.
She tilted her head. “You know…you don’t have to leave. You could stay a while.” She held up the Kraken bottle and leaned in closer to him. “I don’t know about you, but after what happened tonight, I could finish this off, with or without coffee. Want to help?”
He blinked, startled. Had his thoughts caused him to misread her signals? She’d never shown any of that kind of interest in him before. His heartbeat quickened. “I—”
She smiled. “Just a thought…But…you can’t deny you want to stay. You can’t hide that kind of thing from me.”
He drew a deep breath and shifted to magical sight. There was her familiar green aura, blazing as bright as ever—but now it was overlaid with unmistakable red flashes. “Dr. Garra—”
“You know that’s not my real name,” she said. Her voice was lower, with a hint of the jaguar’s rumbling growl.
“I know…”
“I won’t tell you my true name—that’s only for my clan. But when I left them, I adopted another name: Viajera. It means ‘traveler’ or ‘wanderer’.” She chuckled. “Marciella and I both thought it was amusing that her last name, ‘Garra,’ means ‘claw’ in our language, given her interest in our people. An appropriate name for one of us, don’t you think?”
“Very much so…” he murmured, leaning closer. “But…I shouldn’t…”
“Because of your apprentice?”
“Yes. I…” He shifted, drawing back a little again. Get up and leave now, before you do something you’ll regret.
She took his hand and squeezed it. “You said she didn’t mind. That she encouraged it. Did you mean that? Did she? I know you can tell.”
And he could tell. Verity hadn’t learned to hide her aura from him yet, and he knew she truly didn’t mind. How could she? She was in San Francisco tonight with Kyla. It wasn’t as if he were cheating on her.
She leaned closer. “It’s up to you, Alastair. But I can see you want me…can you deny it?”
“No...” he whispered. “No…I can’t deny it.”
“We both nearly died tonight. I don’t want to be alone. Do you?”
He didn’t. He thought about what would happen if he left: he’d go home to his cavernous, under-furnished house, with only Raider for company—and that was only if Dr. Benchley didn’t decide to hijack the cat for another appearance.
“No,” he said again. “I don’t.” He reached out, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her.
She came to him readily, her strong, lithe arms tightening around him, her lips meeting his. She tasted like coffee and rum and something primal.
30
Raider was waiting for him at the door when he arrived home late the following morning. It was absurd, but the cat’s wide green eyes seemed accusing. Either that, or Stone was projecting his current state of mind.
“Sorry, sorry,” he told Raider. He tossed his overcoat on a nearby chair, then headed to the kitchen to check on the cat’s food and water bowls.
After refreshing them, he paused by the sink, gripping the counter and gazing out into the wild backyard. Really must see to having someone over to take care of that, he thought idly. Need to find a housekeeper, too. This place was far too big to handle on his own, even if he wanted to. He’d only gotten away with it in the townhouse because it had been small and hadn’t required much attention to keep it at acceptable levels of tidiness. This place would be overrun with dust in weeks if he didn’t do something about it.
Yes, because you really want to think about dust, the little voice in his head said. It sounded unusually snarky today.
Thinking about dust was easier than thinking about last night, though.
The trouble was, he couldn’t stop thinking about last night.
He’d never experienced anything like that before. Garra—Viajera, he reminded himself—had responded to him with a level of white-hot passion that hadn’t let up through most of the night. He’d never been with a woman who matched—and most likely exceeded—his strength, and when combined with her insatiable hunger and her aggressive technique, he felt like he’d gone two rounds with some kind of amorous superwoman. Two very pleasurable rounds, but still. Her feline side came through in the scratches on his back, the way she’d clamped her teeth, gentle but insistent, into his shoulder , the way her cord-strong arms pulled him tight against her. She’d driven him to the kind of performance he’d be afraid to try on another woman, for fear of hurting her. If anything, he was a bit concerned she might hurt him. And all the while the red flashes danced around her green aura, mingling with those in his. Neither of them had gotten much sleep.
He pushed off the counter with a loud sigh, pausing to scratch Raider’s ears before trudging out of the kitchen toward the stairs. He’d taken a quick shower this morning at Garra’s place, but his clothes still smelled like the cloying gray smoke from the house, and that reminded him of what had happened in Oakland. He’d have to come up with some way to track those men before they came after Garra—or him—again. And he’d also need to get to fixing Garra’s illusion amulet, so if she had to shift again she could cover herself when she—
As he mounted the stairs, his mind once again spun off images of the exquisitely nude Garra, this time standing behind his car back in San Jose…
His mobile phone buzzed in his pocket.
He snatched it out gratefully, driving back the disloyal thoughts as he glanced at the number. Gerry Hook, the screen read.
Why was Hook calling him—
Oh, bloody hell, I forgot. “Hello, Gerry.”
“Hey, Stone. I didn’t wake you up, did I?”
Stone glanced at his watch: after eleven. Even he didn’t normally sleep this late. “No…bugger, I know what you’re calling about. We’ve got a thing tonight, don’t we?”
“A thing” was a performance by The Cardinal Sin, the band Stone had joined a few months back. Composed of four Stanford professors from various departments, the Sin played classic, hard-rock covers a few times a year at faculty functions and parties, along with occasional private gigs at local bars. Tonight’s performance was to be at a place on Castro in Mountain View. A friend of Hook’s knew the owner, and they were being paid in food, drink, and a small fee none of them cared about. Stone, who played lead guitar, had known about it for a couple of weeks and even put it on his calendar, but the bus
iness with Garra, the chalice, and Raider’s ghostly hitchhiker had driven it from his mind.
“We do,” Hook said. “Guess it’s a good thing I called to remind you. Maybe we need to start scheduling practices more often, yeah?”
“No…no, it’s fine. It did slip my mind, but I’ll be there, don’t you worry.”
“Great. It’s just two short sets, so we should be done by ten. Show up at eight-thirty so we can set up, okay?”
“Got it. Thanks for calling, Gerry.”
He put the phone back in his pocket as he reached the top of the stairs. Well—at least he had something to do tonight, to take his mind off his night with Garra. As he passed the open door to his study, he glanced at the black Stratocaster on its stand next to his desk, where he kept it so he could noodle melodies while trying to work out problems. He reminded himself he’d planned to pick up a better one, but he hadn’t been back to England in the meantime.
His thoughts strayed to Verity, and an uncomfortable surge of guilt ran through him. Stop it, he told himself, annoyed. He had no reason to feel guilty about what happened. She certainly wouldn’t want him to feel guilty. She’d probably be glad—possibly even relieved—about what he’d done. As much as he knew she cared for him, and auras didn’t lie, he hadn’t missed her uneasiness whenever she thought he was taking things too seriously.
Would he tell her? He didn’t know yet. He supposed he’d have to play it by ear. He wondered if she’d be at the show tonight. She knew about it, but hell, he’d nearly forgotten about it and he was in the band! If she decided to spend the rest of the day up in San Francisco with Kyla, he probably wouldn’t see her until at least Monday.
Ah, well. Shower first, a change of clothes, and then he’d spend the remainder of the afternoon sorting out Garra’s amulet. He’d need to get back to helping her track down the chalice, but that could wait until tomorrow.