Out of Mind coa-2

by Stella Cameron

  How could there be more white-hot sensation already? But there was. And need. Pulling on her knees, he slid her over the bulk of his thigh muscles and entered her again. “Willow,” he said, clear and strong. “I love you. You’re mine, Willow.”

  She couldn’t form a single word. All that escaped her were jarring little groans with each fresh thud of their joined bodies.

  They made love four times with only minutes between each soaring journey to satisfaction, between each provocative wound they lavished on one another.

  Belly to belly, Willow collapsed on top of Ben. Their breathing rasped.

  Willow trembled. “I wouldn’t change it,” she whispered.

  “I wouldn’t even if I could.”

  “We don’t know if there is only one person for each of us,” she said, and wanted to cry bitterly just with the thought she hated so much.

  “Yes, we do.” His firm voice never wavered. “You must accept what is obvious, Willow. Somewhere, somehow, the Millets became creatures no one could bear to experience just once—or twice—or a thousand times.”

  “But—”

  “We’ve got to sleep, my love. I don’t want to, but I’m not sure we’ll be able to move for hours as it is.” He hugged her, tipped up her chin and kissed her, ran his tongue over the soft insides of her cheeks, along the tender flesh just beyond her lips.

  “I feel safe here with you,” she said.

  “You are,” he told her. “I’m not sure we should leave at all.”

  She smiled against his shoulder. “How long do you think it would be before they found us withered away to nothing?”

  He shrugged. “At least a couple of wonderful days—Sheesh, what’s that?”

  Something cool settled on her back. Ben lifted it away and she rolled over to see.

  A page, but not simply of paper the way Willow thought of it. Parchment curling slightly at the edges and discolored. With her head on his shoulder, Ben used both hands to hold it as flat as he could.

  “It’s her,” Willow said, staring at another drawing of her angel. “Look. What’s that?”

  Ben lifted his head to see more clearly.

  Pale mauve haze formed in the air around them. Gradually it seemed to run down, like watercolor on thin glass. The color turned to purple.

  Willow’s memory clicked into full gear, and she hauled a coverlet over both of them, huddled even closer to Ben. She wasn’t dressed for a visitation.

  “The edge of something round and gold,” he said. “Do you think she’s reaching for it?”

  She squinted. The angel’s lips were curved in an exquisite smile. “Yes. And something must be holding it up. Two red nails or claws.”

  “That’s what it looks like,” he said. “I wish we could see more of it.”

  Willow sighed. “It’s just another drawing. The others haven’t helped.”

  “I won’t take up much of your time,” a deep, male voice said. “It is for you to put the pieces together. What of the curse? What do they say about it?”

  Ben’s hand had closed on her shoulder. “Jude?” he said.

  “We’re not sure what the curse is,” Willow said. “My parents are trying to find out about it.”

  The sound the other one made was a clear and derisive snort.

  “Can’t you tell us?” Willow said.

  “Against the rules. You must sort out the truth from the fabrication and foolishness. Only then will you be strong. In the meantime, keep up the search. Remember what you see in this drawing. How beautiful she is, our Angelus. Beautiful and good. Be patient. The Millets have waited a long time to find the truth and they may have to wait a great deal longer. We shall see.”

  Willow put her chin forward to study the picture.

  Purple thinned to a luminous green, and disappeared. With it, it was as if the parchment had never been in Ben’s hands.

  She looked at him, but he guided her face into the hollow of his neck and put both arms around her again. “I wonder how long his ‘long times’ are,” he said and shoved himself to sit up, so abruptly, Willow looked all around the room, expecting something awful.

  “Oh,” Ben said, relaxing. “I could see his eyes looking at us, but it’s too dark in that corner. Come on out, Mario, you voyeur. Did you know you’d acquired a voyeur?” he asked Willow.

  Mario sat in that shadowy corner. He dropped to lie down and closed his eyes.

  Ben and Willow laughed.

  “I didn’t realize you’d brought him with you,” Ben said. “He behaves as if he understands every word we say.”

  “He’s just precocious,” Willow said. “I didn’t bring him. Sykes must have. He’s done it before when he figured I needed all the comfort I could get.”

  Ben made a face, and Willow kissed him until he flopped onto his back.

  “You’re all the comfort I need,” she told him.

  “Thank you.” He popped up to kiss her nose. “That’s what I wanted to hear.”

  They both heard a small metallic sound and leaned over to see Mario. On the floor in front of him was another gold key. Sykes had spoken to Ben before Willow left the Brandts and admitted to finding one himself, making three with this one.

  Chapter 32

  Ben winced and sucked in a breath. As carefully as he pulled shut the gate leading to the Court of Angels, it still squeaked. In the quiet of early, early morning, the noise sounded like a small explosion.

  They had given up on waiting to get back to the Court of Angels. Tired as they were, neither of them could sleep, and Willow insisted she had to see if she could find out what happened to Fabio.

  The next sound Ben recognized was Willow’s giggling, and he caught her—and Mario—in a bear hug. “Quiet,” he whispered. “We don’t want anyone to wake up.”

  “Me be quiet?” she whispered back and pressed her face into his chest.

  “You’re hysterical,” he muttered, and gave a muted “Oof” when she poked his ribs.

  Lightning flashed repeatedly, and thunder rumbled before the light show faded. In seconds, the sky lit up again.

  The phone in his pocket vibrated. “That’ll be Sykes, so be really quiet or we’ll have him down here with us,” he said, and answered. “You got my message?”

  He listened while Sykes, sounding a bit miffed, told him he still had the two keys they had found earlier. Ben and Willow had wondered if Mario somehow lifted one of them from Sykes and carried it in his mouth. Ridiculous as it seemed, it had been a possibility.

  “Okay,” Ben said. “And now there are three. Any more ideas about them?”

  “Several,” Sykes said. “You want to talk about it now?”

  Ben considered the best way out. “It’s too late now. Long day coming up.”

  Sykes cleared his throat. “Are you and Willow—Are you getting close again? I mean, really close.”

  “Is that any of your business?” Ben smiled, though.

  “Could be,” Sykes said. “If it has to be.”

  Ben figured he’d wait to ask for a full explanation of what that meant. “We’re fine,” he said. “Great. Goodbye,” Ben said and hung up and gave Willow a long kiss.

  “What was that for?” she said when she could.

  He breathed in the scent of her. “Let’s do whatever we can out here and get up to your place…to sleep.”

  “Sure.” Still carrying Mario, she held Ben’s hand and led him, walking as quietly as they could, into the courtyard. It was fortunate that the bedrooms were at the back of the flats.

  “See how it glows?” Ben said in her ear. A luminous shimmer emanated from statue after statue, casting a frothy silver-green into the shrubs.

  “No,” Willow said. She flinched at more lightning. “Now that glows.”

  “Very clever.” He frowned and looked around. “Okay. I don’t know why I’m singled out for all the attention here, but I’ll take it. The inmates are muttering. They sound like water bubbling.” He paused, listening. “They are agitated
and excited—and they’re welcoming us.”

  “Okay.” Willow didn’t sound convinced. “If you say so.”

  “Hey, aren’t you the one who came here and saw Chris in a bottle? How weird is that?”

  She leaned on him. “Less weird all the time. I did see colors, but like watercolors. We can’t look for angel clues in the dark, but I can see if I can reach Fabio somehow.”

  “Sykes told me Marley hears voices.”

  “She does,” Willow said. “When she travels they guide her, but she hasn’t traveled since the Embran attack. I think Gray’s worried she’ll try to do something about the people who are missing now. It’s dangerous—she could die if she can’t get back to her body.”

  Ben put an arm around her shoulders. “I don’t blame Gray for being nervous.”

  “Particularly now,” Willow said. “She shouldn’t travel with the baby.”

  He stood still. “Marley and Gray are having a baby? I didn’t know that.”

  She gave a frustrated puff. “You make me too comfortable. I tell you things I shouldn’t. I don’t think they know it yet, either. It’s only been a couple of weeks. We shouldn’t say anything, okay?”

  “Okay, Miss Normal. You get more interesting all the time.”

  She shrugged. “I just know these things, is all. It’s to do with emotions. Marley’s are all over the place at the moment, but even more gentle than usual. There’s something different there.”

  “But it doesn’t have to be a baby,” he pointed out.

  “Yes, it does,” she said, and closed her mouth firmly.

  “I’ll take your word for it.” He squeezed her tightly and kissed her temple.

  “What?” she said. “What did I do to deserve that?”

  “Nothing and everything. I just had a pleasant thought, but don’t try and get it out of me. You need to start concentrating.”

  “Do you want children, Ben?” she said, her voice very quiet.

  “Maybe.” He carried on, leading her deeper into the courtyard. Whispering in her ear again, he said, “Our children.” And the difficult thing for him to cope with was that he did want their children. He’d always been the lone one, the single actor with a single mind, but now Willow was his other half, almost the beat of his heart, and he longed for their official Bonding—and even the official ceremony they would go through.

  Marley and Gray had a real wedding, too. Gray’s dad, Gus, was blamed for that by Gray who insisted it was only to please his old man, but Ben had heard all about the excitement over the event.

  He took Mario from Willow. The dog struggled and he put him down. Immediately, the animal scuffled off into the closest undergrowth.

  Willow went to the fountain and stood in the light spray beating up. “Do you wish it would rain—really hard? I do.” She raised her face to the sky. “Everything’s so tense. I just want it to break loose.”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “Please go on up. I need to concentrate.”

  He understood how she felt, but he wasn’t leaving her here alone. “I’ll go keep an eye on Mario. Then I want to check the locks on the shop doors.”

  Fortunately, Willow was already thinking of other things or the pathetic excuses wouldn’t have flown with her.

  Ben knew where to find Mario. He sat among the bamboo that hid his favorite stone griffon. Actually leaning against the statue, the dog looked up at Ben as if he was trying to telegraph some wisdom.

  Ben crouched to scratch rough, red fur, but he listened hard for any sound from Willow. He couldn’t see her from here. He stood and crept far enough through the bamboo to part the canes and peer out.

  She wasn’t by the fountain.

  Panicked, he stepped out and started forward. Willow stood beside what must once have been the doorway to a storeroom. Concreted shut, Ben never remembered it any other way.

  With her face pointed skyward again, her arms were outstretched. When he crept closer behind her, he heard her say, “Can you hear me?” and he kept still.

  Willow’s eyes closed. She listened to air rushing and touched her face. A warm current blew on her skin. The heavy scent of flowers and rich earth settled around her. A tropical place. That’s where she was—not the courtyard with its flashes and the rumblings of a storm—but a tropical garden.

  “Fabio?” she said. “Chris? Are you there?”

  He hadn’t heard her when she saw him before. Once more she was looking at glass, thick and wavy, shiny on the outside, but difficult to see through. She concentrated hard.

  Not sand, but pink granules rose several inches inside a bottle.

  “You gotta stay with me, man.”

  Willow’s eyes opened. That was Chris’s voice again, but this time she didn’t see him. The bottle wasn’t his.

  “Fabio—this is gonna get worse. They’re planning something—they gotta be.”

  “Leave me alone.”

  This time she recognized Fabio’s voice, then she saw the pink granules churn, and a tiny, almost transparent creature emerged. It pushed to the top of the grains and seemed to flop out flat.

  “Fabio,” she said. “It’s me, Willow. Tell me where you are.”

  “It’s got to happen soon, man,” Chris said. “I don’t even know how many of us there are. I sleep and when I wake up, there’s someone else. They’re gathering us all up, I tell you. They’re clearing N’awlins. They’re taking over.”

  “That’s fucking ridiculous,” Fabio said. “I had this sex. It was, it was—”

  “Frickin’ amazing? Yeah, I know. That’s how they’re getting their victims.”

  “So why don’t they just kill us?” Fabio said.

  “I told you. They want us for something, and we’re not goin’ to like it.”

  “So how do we get out?”

  “That’s the rub,” Chris said. “Even if we make it to the top of these bottles, we can’t just break out. I heard two of them talking. We’re dehydrated. Dried like pieces of fruit leather. But if we let air in we start going back to normal size. If our hands are outside the bottle necks hanging on, they’ll swell till they’re so big they break the glass. We could lose our hands. Put our heads out and—”

  “I get the picture,” Fabio said fast. “So what do we do? Lie down and wait to die?”

  “We’ve got to come up with a plan, but timing will be everything. We all gotta do the thing together. So far I can’t get the rest of them to shut up long enough to make sure they’re with us.”

  “What if they’re not? Or they’re too scared?”

  Chris made a frustrated noise. “Caroline’s in. The three of us will go it alone—I think we’ve got some time. I think they’ll be bringing bunches more of us before anything changes.”

  “Chris,” Willow cried, “Fabio. Please. Where are you?”

  The bottles shivered. Water sprayed them and ran down in rivulets. The scent of flowers grew heavier. She could distinguish gardenias, then jasmine.

  First the vision disappeared. The floral scents lingered. She dropped her arms and stepped backward. Rain started to fall, and she welcomed it on her hot face and body. Her own tears joined the rain, and she couldn’t hold back her sobs.

  “It’s okay,” Ben said, holding her. His touch was gentle.

  “It’s not okay.” She turned in his arms. “Ben, you and Nat, Sykes and everyone, you’re right. New Orleans is being attacked.”

  Chapter 33

  Throughout the hectic day of preparing for the Brandt event, Willow had felt herself waiting. She had no rational idea of what she expected, but whether it happened tonight or at some other time very soon, the hidden enemy would burst into the open, and the idea of what that could mean terrified her.

  Now the bizarre celebration of Chloe Brandt’s life had begun.

  Minstrels wearing rich green-and-gold-striped tunics and bloomers, their legs encased in green tights, wandered through the grounds of the Brandt house. Full face masks hid their identities. Tassels
on green velvet caps swung as they bent over their instruments, strumming medieval sounds. And fantastically costumed guests formed a grand, strolling scene.

  “Perhaps masks should always be worn at memorials,” Ben said, joining her in his flowing black cloak over tight-fitting dark clothes. A white collar stood high at his neck with a white, austerely tied cravat. His white mask and the hood he wore pulled up disguised him, but not the character he played. Ben was a vampire tonight.

  He mesmerized Willow, who looked past the mask and into his fathomless eyes. “This is a celebration,” she reminded him. “Why do you think that about masks?”

  “They’ll hide all the tears Chloe’s dear friends must be shedding. In this group, they’ll also hide anything else that could give us a clue to who killed her.”

  “You really believe the killer is here?”

  “I’m sure of it. There’s something showy about everything these Embran do. They pretend they want to move about in secret, but what they do is guaranteed to draw attention to them. They’re tired of anonymity. Now they want to come out into the daylight—or perhaps the spotlight.”

  Acid burned in Willow’s throat. Ben echoed her own thoughts—and made her even more fearful.

  Candles, hundreds of candles flickered from every area of the grounds. Even the pool lights had been turned off and more candles gave an eerie glow that didn’t penetrate the surface of the water. Inside the house, frescoes painted on hangings and carefully placed columns added to the medieval picture.

  Vanity insisted everyone must be incognito and had sent the costumier to Willow, who detested what felt and looked like a Little Bo Peep outfit. The costumier said it was a seventeenth-century shepherdess rig. A tall white wig itched. A whalebone underskirt added an ungainly sway to every step she took. And a bright blue costume with laced white blouse showed more of her breasts than she ever showed in public. Her mask had the face of a young girl with tiny red lips and for some reason huge “diamond” earrings hung from her ears. A wide red slash painted around her neck didn’t make her feel less uncomfortable.