by Jayne Faith
Jacob took me back to the elevator and tried to make small talk on the way down and out of the facility, to which I gave minimal responses. Outside, one of the buzz-cut guys was waiting in a golf cart to take me back to my truck. Apparently Jacob was done with me.
I retrieved my things from the locker, got into my truck, and retraced my route back to the main entrance. The sun had set, but it wasn’t full dark yet. Outside the gate, Johnny’s car was still waiting. I pulled up next to it and rolled down the window. Johnny lowered his, too, and the guys peered at me anxiously.
“Are you okay?” Damien asked.
“What did he say?” Johnny said at the same time.
I let out a breath and realized my fingers were curled in a death grip on the wheel. I loosened my hands.
“I’m fine. He’s keeping Nathan another couple of weeks,” I said. “But I don’t want to wait that long. I’ll fill you in on the details, but I want to get back home. Roxanne is waiting.”
I kept my foot on the brake while I sent Roxanne a quick text to let her know I was on my way. With a heavy heart, I told her that Nathan wasn’t free yet, but he was safe and he’d be out soon.
Then I rolled forward and saw Johnny flip a U-turn in my rearview mirror. His headlights were an unexpectedly reassuring presence all the way back to the North End and my apartment.
When I finally parked and shut off the engine, I slumped for a moment, drained. But there was no time for rest. We had work to do.
Chapter 14
THE WARM, SAVORY aroma of spaghetti sauce filled my apartment, and for a moment my anxiety eased. Loki bounded forward to greet me, and Roxanne poked her head through the kitchen doorway, a sauce-smeared wooden spoon in her hand.
“Oh good, you’re home. The spaghetti is in the pot keeping warm, and the salad is made.” She was all business about dinner, but I could tell she was trying to mask her disappointment about Nathan. I was pretty sure she’d hoped I would be coming home with him, even though I’d told her there was no guarantee that would be the result of my meeting with Jacob, and even when Nathan was released he’d need medical attention. “Can you help me with the garlic bread?”
“Of course.” I followed the sounds of preparations in the kitchen and inhaled deeply. “It smells amazing. Johnny and Damien are coming, too.”
She was standing at the stove, stirring. “You should invite your friend Deb.”
“It’s a long drive for her and she has to get up early, but I’ll tell her you wanted her to come. She’ll be bummed she missed it.”
I took up a bowl of melted butter and began drizzling it onto the loaf of French bread that was halved on a cookie sheet. She’d already minced garlic, which was waiting on the cutting board.
“This is really impressive,” I said, watching her. “Do you cook dinner a lot at home?”
She flipped a glance at me and lifted one shoulder nonchalantly. “Eh, it’s just spaghetti. But yeah, I’m in charge of meals a lot.” She set the spoon down on a little plate and turned to me, leaning back against the counter. Her posture might have appeared casual, but her eyes were wide and tense. “So what exactly did they say about Nathan?”
I set down the butter bowl so I could face her fully. “Gregori Industries says they will let him go, but not soon enough for my liking. So I’m going to find a way to get him home faster.”
“And he’s still stuck in the statue?”
“Yes, but he’s okay.”
Her gaze tilted to the floor and she nodded, taking a deep breath. I could tell she was trying to be brave, but I caught the welling of tears in her eyes. My throat thickened in sympathy. She was obviously capable of caring for herself when she had to and was accustomed to doing so, but at the same time there was something so small and vulnerable about her.
The sound of the front door swishing open caused both of us to straighten and blink away our emotion. Damien appeared in the kitchen doorway with a white baker’s box.
“I brought dessert, hope you like cupcakes,” he said. I could tell he was trying to cheer up Roxanne, and I shot him a grateful smile.
“Yum!” Roxanne rewarded him with a grin.
I heard the door open again. “Sounds like Johnny’s here. I’m going to talk to the guys for just a minute, and then I’ll come back to finish the bread.”
I beckoned Damien to follow. I grabbed Johnny’s arm and towed him back out to the front porch, where I turned to the two of them.
“I don’t want her to hear, and I’m gonna talk fast. Jacob has Phillip Zarella on campus.” Shock registered on both their faces, but I didn’t have time to acknowledge it. Words spilled from my lips. “Although Jacob said he’d release Nathan unharmed in a couple of weeks, I don’t trust him. Especially not with that psychopath roaming the facilities. I want to break Nathan out. Damien and I saw that three men were able to get the statue onto a hand truck. I say we hijack a Gregori van, get onto campus, and take the statue.”
Johnny gave me a sidelong look out of the corners of his eyes. “I’m not arguing with the urgency of the situation, but that sounds awfully risky. Not to mention potentially, oh, I don’t know, impossible?”
I made a face at him. “Those vans are all over the place. I saw half a dozen when I was there, and they’re close to the main gate. Three guys moved the statue with a hand truck, and we have the advantage of Damien’s magic to help us with the heavy part.”
“And you think you could get us into wherever Nathan is being held?” Damien asked, his voice pitched high with doubt.
“I know which building it is, what floor, and what room.” I looked at Johnny. “I’d, uh, need you to hack the security system, though. There’s a hand scanner, and then I think the cell requires a code to open it.”
Johnny planted his hands on his hips and shook his head, his lids lowered partway over his dark eyes. “I appreciate your confidence, but I think those things are beyond my skillset.”
I shot him a withering look. “Whatever, dude. You could do that stuff in your sleep, and we both know it.”
His expression grew grave. “I’m all for saving Roxanne’s brother, but once we’re on the Gregori campus, it’s like the frickin’ Wild West. If we get caught, they can basically do whatever they want with us. To us.”
In the silence that followed, I knew all three of us were thinking of Phillip Zarella. I swallowed as an uncomfortable tightening sensation gripped my chest.
“Dinner’s about ready, Ella just needs to toast the bread.”
We all jumped and turned to see Roxanne peering at us through the cracked door. I pasted on a big smile. “On it!”
I cast a glance back at the guys, widening my eyes. How much had Roxanne overheard? Probably not the part about Zarella hiding out on Gregori Industries property. She was plenty old enough to know about Zarella’s notorious crimes. If she’d heard me talking about Zarella at Gregori, I doubted she could have hidden her reaction. I watched the back of her pale blond head, concerned about what she knew. How did parents do it? All the worrying, the managing of expectations, and the soothing of fears. I felt the sudden weight of my responsibility for Roxanne settle in my chest, and for a moment it was monumentally overwhelming.
In the kitchen, I narrowed my focus to the present and helping Roxanne finish dinner preparations. As I carried my plate loaded with spaghetti, spinach salad with sliced cherry tomatoes, and a hunk of garlic bread, I marveled that for the second night in a row I seemed to have ended up hosting a dinner party. We gathered around the coffee table again—my little kitchen nook table only had two chairs and wasn’t big enough for all four of us anyway—with Roxanne in between Johnny and me on the sofa and Damien on the leather ottoman. As soon as we were settled, Johnny lifted his water glass.
“To Roxanne and her culinary bad-assery,” he said, and Damien and I raised our glasses too.
She giggled and her cheeks pinked as we all clinked our glasses in a toast, and when she flicked her eyes up at Johnny, her blush deepene
d. We all dug in, and I had to give her props—she put together a great meal. I had a forkful of pasta halfway to my mouth when Roxanne’s hand stilled at either side of her plate, and she looked up at us.
“So you’re going to jailbreak my brother out of Gregori Industries?” Her expression was equal parts fearful and hopeful, and the raw vulnerability on her face made my heart ache.
I set down my fork. “That’s what I want to do. What do you think of the idea?”
“I just want him home as soon as possible.” Her voice was high and small, like a child’s, and her lips trembled just barely before she clamped them together and looked down at the plate in her lap, but I knew Damien and Johnny saw it, too. She’d been so stoic, and a good sport about staying with me, but I could see her hope wavering.
“Then we’ll figure out how to break him free,” Johnny said quietly.
She raised her head and gave him a watery smile, swiping at the single tear that had begun to slip down one cheek.
I caught Johnny’s eye over Roxanne’s head and silently mouthed “thank you.” He responded with a smile, and his dark eyes glowed with warmth. I meant to look away, but for some reason my gaze snagged on his, and I couldn’t break the connection. An unexpected spark lit in the center of my stomach, and I inhaled sharply through my nose. Snapping out of the odd little moment, I dropped my eyes to my plate, but I could still feel Johnny’s attention lingering on me like the heat of the low-angled sun in the evening. A bit rattled and curiously off-balance, I lifted my fork and took a bite, forcing myself to chew.
It had only been a second or two, maybe not even that long, but my face and chest felt as if they glowed a bit too warm, and I had the urge to splash cold water over my face. What the hell was that? Johnny just wasn’t that kind of guy, not for me. For other women he was, for a lot of women, according to his reputation and extrapolating from the times I’d seen him in action. I wasn’t an idiot—he was movie-star handsome and had a twinkling, charming vibe about him, but he was too obvious, too out-there with the way he pursued women, calling all of us “sugar” and “gorgeous” and getting all croony with his smooth voice. I preferred more subtlety.
I gave myself a mental shake. This was so not the moment to be entertaining silly little flutters in my stomach that probably meant nothing. What I really needed was some time alone with Johnny and Damien to figure out a game plan. Luckily, Damien and I had the next two days off, which was perfect timing. We could bust Nathan out tomorrow, I could catch up on some much-needed sleep the next day, and I’d be fresh and ready to return to work the following day. Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy.
Johnny’s phone bleeped, and he picked it up and flicked his thumb across the screen in a few quick motions. His eyebrows drew together, and he set his plate on the coffee table to focus more fully on whatever message had come through.
He grabbed his plate in one hand and sidestepped out from between the sofa and coffee table. “Damn, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to run. I’m on call as a consultant for the local police, and they’re paging me to come to a crime scene.”
With an internal sag of disappointment—which I tried to tell myself was purely due to Johnny’s departure ruining my plans for figuring out our next move against Gregori—I turned and watched him quickly load his plate and fork into the dishwasher. He retraced his steps to the living room and paused at the end of the coffee table, but I could tell his mind was already jumping ahead to the case that awaited him. Work and women seemed to be his two main points of focus in life, and he could get equally immersed in either.
“Call me when you can?” I asked.
“It’ll be late,” he said.
“No problem, I’ll be up.”
He flashed me a nod and half-grin, squeezed Roxanne’s thin shoulder, and then he was off to the front door, leaving a little stir of air in his wake.
I turned back to find Damien aiming a smug little smile my way.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.” He gave me an exaggerated wide-eyed look. He bent his head down to push a piece of spinach around on his plate with his fork, but I still saw the uplift of the corners of his mouth, as if he were enjoying a private joke.
I exchanged a glance with Roxanne, and we both shrugged. Exhaustion tugged at my limbs, but I forced myself up off the sofa.
“Let’s get the kitchen cleaned up so we can crash out,” I said. “We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
Roxanne hopped up and went ahead of me, and I let her go and stalled near Damien.
“What was that about?” I stage whispered.
He shook his head. “Nothing important. But I have something for you.” He flicked a look at the kitchen doorway, signaling it was something he didn’t want Roxanne to see.
That piqued my curiosity. We got the sauce-splattered kitchen wiped down and loaded the dishwasher. Once the machine was humming, I helped Roxanne fold out the hide-a-bed and found the remote for her. Within a minute she was zoned out, alternating her attention between the TV and her phone, and I beckoned Damien to follow me out to the back patio. Loki came too, bounding into the yard and then sticking his nose to the ground to sniff.
It was full dark, and the air had cooled enough that we wouldn’t break a sweat sitting on the patio. I noticed Damien had brought his backpack.
“Should I turn on the outside light?” I asked.
He glanced up. “Let’s let our eyes adjust. This will be cooler in the dark.”
I didn’t even have a wild guess at what he wanted to show me, and I craned to see what he was digging for in his pack. He withdrew his hand, and it appeared he held a coil of rope. But when he kept hold of one end and let it unfurl, it began to glow with a subtle green light of earth magic. The faint prickle of nearby magic raised the hairs on my forearms. I focused inward and then down, drawing up a weak thread of earth magic in an attempt to sense what he was doing, but couldn’t feel much more than a low vibration that seemed to emanate from the rope.
“What is it?” I asked.
Instead of answering, he flicked his wrist. The rope blurred through the air and there was a satisfying, sharp snap that startled Loki. He looked at us from the corner of the little yard with the glow of hellfire in his eyes and then went back to snuffling along the fence line.
“A whip that you’ve . . . charmed?” I ventured.
“Yes,” he said, his tone warm and pleased. “I minored in charmed weapons in college.”
“I, uh, actually don’t know how a charmed weapon works.” I rarely felt self-conscious about my lack of magical knowledge, but it struck me that between Damien’s ability, his exposure to mage-level craft through his family, and formal education, he was probably an expert on a lot of things. I couldn’t help feeling again that his talents were wasted on Demon Patrol.
“You use magic to connect yourself with the weapon. Let the energy become a live current that flows from your body to the object and vice-versa. It allows you to direct the weapon in more precise ways, as if the two of you are working in concert rather than you just wielding it.”
He flicked his wrist again, and instead of biting the empty air, the whip snaked out to one of my lawn chairs. The end of it wrapped around one leg. With another rapid movement of his hand, Damien flipped the chair into the air. It turned a full somersault and clattered back down on the cement slab, landing neatly on its four feet. The whole demonstration took maybe a second.
Then he raised the handle of the whip overhead and circled his arm in a quick lasso motion. A flare of green magic sped from his hand, down the length of the twirling whip, and then stretched off the end, as if it were an extension of the whip itself. The strand of magic extended, reaching for a branch high above, and wrapped around the limb like a hand. When Damien tugged the whip, the bough dipped.
He released his magic, and the green light extinguished as the whip’s tail fell to the ground.
“You can also use it to cast a large circle really fast,” he said. �
��That could come in handy in a pinch.”
I wrapped my arms around my middle, eyeing the length of the whip. “That’s really nifty, but I doubt I have enough juice to make any sort of use of it.”
He stretched out his arm, offering me the handle. “Even with your current level of ability, I think you can do something with this. I noticed you seem to have an affinity for earth magic over the other elements, so I charged the whip to easily channel that energy.”
Reluctantly, I took the whip, my stomach tightening with the expectation that I would disappoint Damien. As soon as my palm contacted the handle, a zing of his residual magic warmed my palm. The whip itself was warm, almost as if it were a living thing.
“I use earth magic because it’s the easiest,” I said. Every kid with any level of magical ability was taught to use earth magic first. It was the most concrete and abundant of the elemental magics. “I don’t really have an affinity for any of the elements.”
“You’re wrong,” he said. “You’re definitely an earth crafter, but you also have a strong affinity for fire. We’d need to do some training before you could do much with it. Try projecting your magic into the whip. Once you feel it, visualize what you want it to do and then flick your hand and send your intention outward through the whip. It’s all in the wrist.”
He moved several paces off to the side, well out of the way.
I knew my face betrayed my apprehension, and I was suddenly extremely glad it was so dark outside. In spite of my misgivings, I closed my eyes and stilled my mind, and imagined my feet growing roots into the soil, reaching for the magical energy stored there. When I felt the warm hum of it in my feet, I coaxed it up through my body, as much as I was capable of drawing.
As if the whip and magic were magnet and iron, the sensation swelled to a vibration, and the magic raced through me to the hand that held the handle, raising goosebumps in its wake. I sucked in a surprised breath. The whip glowed with strands of green earth magic, amplifying the supernatural power I fed it. The end of the whip twitched over the patio like a predator itching to strike out.