by Hazel Hunter
However, now the wheels were beginning to turn. Things were going to change. His hand was on his phone. There was a number he could dial which would swarm the city. He touched the sword pin on his tie again, and pulled his hand away.
Out in the front room, Sophia was filing. Soon she would enter the city again, and sooner or later, she was going to be found. He could wait.
CHAPTER NINE
ONE OF THE benefits of being part of the Magus Corps, Dominic thought, was that in general, he could go anywhere he wanted. Milwaukee was an open book to him, and whether it was money or authority that he needed to enter a place, he had plenty of both. That was why around two in the afternoon, he found himself at the very top of the US Bank building, the tallest building in the city. A maintenance employee had been bribed into letting him up, and now he was alone. To his left was the lake, and to the right was the city. He hadn't really thought that he was going to find his errant initiate there, nor did it seem very likely that he was going to spot her from so high up, but he realized that his heart wasn't into it.
Despite Stephan's assurances, the crystal stayed stubbornly dark. Dominic was on the verge of simply chucking it off the side of the building and letting it shatter. There were other venues he could search, but they hadn't been very forthcoming. The Milwaukee coven was extremely small and secretive, and though they would of course bow to his authority, they would likely do it while being as stubbornly unhelpful as they could.
He could have called the Commandant for reinforcements, but the best case scenario was that he would get Stephan, whose search charms were legendary among the Corps. Even if he got Stephan, which was unlikely as Stephan was greatly in demand, Stephan's charm hadn't proved very useful so far.
Alone with the wind and the water, however, Dominic had to admit to himself that there was more to the issue than his simple lack of success. He had chased colder trails, trails that were far more dangerous, and even trails that were duller, but none of them had brought him into contact with anyone like Sophia.
He couldn't explain it to himself. It was more than the sex, and it was more than the way that she had looked up at him with those dark and lovely eyes. It was the way that she had given herself to him so completely and with such a lack of self-consciousness. Dominic had been with many women throughout his long life, and he had never met one who had affected him the way that Sophia had. He could remember her touch as if it were branded on his skin, and after her morning disappearance, he wondered if he would bear a different kind of mark without her.
Her disappearance made no sense, but he had been a part of many things that never made sense. It was likely something strangely simple or simply odd. There were answers, but for the life of him, he couldn't find them. There were more things to worry about than a woman who had left his bed, but right now, it was hard to convince himself of that fact.
His phone rang, and he thumbed it absently. “Berrett here.”
“It's Stephan, are you secure?”
Berrett frowned. “What the hell kind of question is that?”
“Passcode one-one-seven-four-eight-nine-one, Charlie Delta Tango. Repeat, are you secure.”
Dominic blinked. That was the highest authorization that he and Stephan shared, and the fact that Stephan laid it down like a stone sent a shiver up his spine.
“Dominic Berrett, seven-one-four-four-two-one-two, Echo Echo Victor. Confirmed secure. Now what the hell is up?”
“Maybe nothing,” Stephan said briskly, “but if it is something, it's going to be pretty damn ugly. One of our sources behind enemy lines is telling me that there may be Templars in town.”
“You're kidding me.”
“Wish I were, man. This source is beyond reproach, and they are definitely saying maybe. The Commandant isn't willing to call in a team yet, but I wanted to call you to advise you of the situation. Plus, if you think that we need more boots on the ground, I want you to have the ability to make that call.”
“Negative. I do not need more guys out here, definitely not. But gods above, Templars? We sent them running south two years ago, and we've not heard a single thing about them further north than Tennessee in months.”
“Hey, I know how it sounds. Last any of us knew, they were licking their wounds in some tropical paradise and likely burning it down if they thought the palm trees were evil magic. Look, I know the source, and she doesn't lie. Be careful out there, okay?'
“Yeah, you know it.”
Dominic hung up the phone, and the sense of foreboding that had been following him around since he left Sophia's apartment this morning bloomed inside. His mission was one thing, but Templars were another. The ancient war had come to a brief lull, but at the moment no one knew anything, and the Magus Corps was getting more nervous. However, the presence of Templars turned what should have been a simple, if frustrating, errand into a possibility of a full out battle. Dominic wondered how he should proceed. He wondered how his mentor would have moved forward.
The older man was a relic of another time in many ways. He called himself Alfonso, and he claimed to have remembered a time before bronze, though whether he was joking or serious was always up for interpretation.
“Show them only what you want them to see,” he had said to Dominic. “Show them strength. Show them cunning. Above all, do not show them your heart.”
Dominic took a deep breath and looked up into the clear blue sky. It was another beautiful summer day with not a single cloud to be seen. Taking a deep breath, he held his hand up over his head, and he felt the first sparks begin to strike and sting his skin. They built up fast, though, and he held the electricity long past the time when he would have been able to ward off a would-be mugger. There was a subtle sense of danger to this, in holding so much sheer power by his will alone and using his body as the focus. He let it build and build, and he knew that if anyone was looking at him right now, they would see his entire body lit up, the lightning spiraling around his torso, his arms and his head. In one rush, he released it, and a giant crack of blue lightning arched across the sky. It was there and gone with a nearly deafening boom, and Berrett wavered on his feet, slightly lightheaded.
There were very few occasions when a lightning strike of that size and shape was necessary outside of a full-fledged battle, but damn if it wasn't impressive.
“There,” he whispered. “Now you know that I'm here too.”
CHAPTER TEN
TODAY'S ASSIGNMENT WAS going a great deal better than her assignment with Mr. Turner the weekend before. This man, a Greg Burns, was also suspected of sleeping with another woman, but unlike the Turner case, Sophia wasn't there because someone had a settlement or a prenuptial agreement to protect. Instead, it was because Amanda Burns had come into the office with an envelope full of money and a desperate look in her eyes.
Amanda was a rather plump, middle-aged woman with soft laugh-lines around her eyes, and her hair cut into a practical snip-and-go style. She looked uncomfortable in their office at all, and when Sophia had gently asked her what she needed, the woman burst into tears.
“I don't...I don't want to keep him if he doesn't want to be with me,” Amanda had explained. “I've been alone before, and I can be alone again, and it's hard, but I can do it. I just need to know.”
Greg Burns had been acting out of sorts for the last three months, Amanda stated. He was tired and snappish half the time, and the other half of the time, he was smothering. She never knew whether he would be angry over what was on television or ask if she wanted to go out dancing, something they hadn't done in years. All told, the matter sounded fraught. Sophia almost wanted to tell the woman to save her money, that her husband was cheating on her.
“But he promised me he wouldn't,” Amanda insisted. “If you knew him, you would understand. I just need to know.”
I just need to know. It was the refrain of almost everyone who walked into Brent's investigative services. Sophia sighed. She gave Amanda a box of tissues and went to confer
with Brent.
“Take her money, give her what she wants,” Brent had said with a shrug. “This isn't going to be a hard one, kiddo.”
If she was beginning to feel jaded regarding the infidelity of forever promises, she could only imagine what it was doing to Brent. She nodded, but still there was something about this that tugged at her, that told her that there was more than met the eye.
That was why she was trailing Greg Burns in Brent's nondescript little Toyota. It was in good enough repair to avoid getting pulled over or stalling out, but it was dull enough that no one would ever give it a second glance when it was on the road. Greg Burns drove a mid-size sedan, dull in every way. Sophia thought cynically that his mistress likely made fun of that car when he wasn't around.
She wondered briefly if he was going to drive to the trendy neighborhood south of downtown, where he was meeting a cute girl half his age, or whether he was going to drive north to the home of an expensive escort.
Instead he did neither. He drove around in what felt like aimless circles for a while, and then he hit a drive-through. Sophia trailed him at a safe distance, growing slightly more confused as he pulled over and ate his food. She couldn't see his expression, but she thought that more than once, he dipped his head down, as if he were grieved or exhausted.
They were both momentarily distracted by what seemed like a flash of lightning striking out of the clear summer sky. It might have been a malfunctioning light in one of the buildings, or perhaps there were clouds behind the buildings that they couldn't see, but it raised goosebumps on Sophia's skin.
Greg Burns started his car again. Sophia wondered if the man was just depressed. It would be an easy thing to tell his wife, though whether Amanda believed her would be a completely other story.
He pulled onto the freeway, but instead of going home, he pulled off at an exit that Sophia didn't know. She followed him onto the off-ramp, down the road, and after giving a few more cars space to enter before she did, into a hospital parking lot.
She paid for her parking, and lurked until she found his sedan. There she waited, her stomach tied in knots. This was what Amanda had been looking for. If she had been asked half an hour ago if she wanted to tell Amanda that Greg wasn't cheating, she would have been ecstatic. Instead, the knowledge of what was going on preyed on her, sat like a stone in her stomach, and she didn't know what to do. She sat in her car for more than an hour. Though she grew hungry, she ignored it. She was thirsty but ignored that too.
Sometime around four in the afternoon, Greg showed up again and got into his car. He didn't move, however, and Sophia's tension rose and rose.
You have enough to give to Amanda, she said to herself. This is none of your business. None.
She had spent what felt like her whole life staying under the radar. Her mother had once said that her dark eyes never missed a single trick. If you wanted to know something, you could always ask Sophia. She wasn't the one who comforted people. She wasn't the one who took charge.
Sophia knew she should leave, but instead, she sighed, and got out of her car. She could see Greg's surprise when she came to stand beside his window. His eyes were a bloodshot red. Like Amanda, he was middle-aged. He was a lanky man with a thatch of hair that was as unruly as that of the teenager he had once been. It was easy to see how he and Amanda fit each other, and why she would be so hurt and so very confused when she suspected he was sleeping with another woman.
Sophia rapped on the window. At first, he didn't seem to understand why she was there. Then, worried and slightly suspicious, he rolled his window down part of the way.
“Can I help you?”
For a moment, Sophia wasn't sure how she wanted to proceed. It was one thing to see a tragedy in the process of being born. It was another trying to figure out a way to stop it. This was something she had never done before. For a moments, she thought of fading out. She could see his eyes start to waver as he began to forget that there was someone standing next to his car. But Sophia thought of Amanda, and she shook her head hard.
“You need to tell her.”
“What?”
“You need to tell her. She deserves to know.”
Tears filled his eyes, and she couldn't tell if they were tears of rage or sorrow.
“It's fine,” he choked. “It's not terminal, they say they caught it in time. They said...they said that I'm probably going to be fine, but she's...she's got a heart condition, she worries, she gets scared...”
“She should know,” Sophia said sternly, and she knew that her voice was growing louder. “You love her, and she needs to know, sir.”
“I...I can't...”
“You can. Because she will find out on her own, and then she will never trust you again.”
The words seemed to strike the man like a body blow, and he hung his head. For a long time, he was silent.
“Who are you?” he asked, “What do you care?”
“Let's...let's say that I'm a friend. Just tell her.”
He held her gaze for another long moment, and finally, he nodded.
She wished she could tell him it would be all right. That no matter what happened, he and Amanda would be together. But she couldn't. Instead, she walked back to her car and sat there as he pulled out and drove away.
Her thoughts drifted to Dominic. She remembered with vivid clarity his hands on her body, the sweet boyish smile on his face, and the way his breath had felt on her neck.
“I want you,” she whispered, and across town, to Dominic's consternation, the quartz in his hand lit up far more boldly than it ever had before and subsided to silence again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE NEXT FEW days were a nightmare. Work was fine, if challenging, and the nastiest anyone got was slamming a door in her face while she was tracking down a dead man's heirs. The thing that made it a nightmare was Brent.
He had respected her wishes not to talk about coming to his home, but his disapproval hung over her and her work like a wet towel. Whenever she was in the office, she squirmed under his sharp gaze. More than once, she had looked up to find him in the doorway, simply watching her. It got so bad that she was making excuses to do her work on the road or at the library. By the time Friday rolled around, she was ready for a few days away from him.
I like him a lot, but man, he's a creeper sometimes.
Friday was as beautiful as the entire week had been, but there was a faint chill to the air that hinted at rain. Grinning, Sophia walked to the small park across the river, where there was a free jazz concert playing. She didn't have to fade out to be ignored. In her customary black skirt and gray tank top, she was as unremarkable as she could be. She listened to the music, she watched the couples holding each other, and she smiled at the families on blankets on the green. There was a carefree beauty to it all, and for once, it was close enough that she could touch.
She was just trying to decide whether she should go home and make a sandwich or whether she would splurge at one of the fried food stands on the edge of the park when someone spoke her name.
Startled, she turned, and she looked up and up into Dominic's surprised face.
“Sophia...”
There was surely too much longing in his voice for only having known her for a few hours. There was surely too much sweetness and tenderness in the way he looked at her. She knew these things were true, but she also knew the way her body swayed towards him, and how how she felt when he reached out one hand as if to touch her and really understand that she was real.
To her disappointment and her relief, however, he pulled his hand away and shoved it into his pocket instead. The crowd swirled around them, and the sounds of the jazz band were muted. It was as if nothing existed in the world except for the two of them.
“It's you,” she found herself murmuring.
He smiled, as if relieved that she remembered him. It was foolishness for a man that handsome to look so shy, but he did.
“It is...Sophia...I...what did I do?�
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Sophia's eyes widened at the hurt and anxiety in his voice. Now that she looked closer, she could see that he was drawn and tired. In the dimming light of early evening, she could see the lavender circles under his eyes, and the stiff set to his shoulders.
“What do you mean?” she stuttered.
“When I left, you were gone. I.. I would like to know if I did something that offended you, that hurt you.”
“No! I mean, no, I wasn't...it wasn't that, Dominic.”
His smile was bright but it was brief. It became something a little more wistful.
“Was it simple disinterest then? That would surprise me, but I could understand it...”
“It wasn't disinterest, either.”
Sophia's head was spinning. The man who had been haunting her thoughts for the entire week was suddenly right there in front of her. He was gorgeous in a way that she had only ever imagined, and the look on his face tore her heart.
For some reason, she thought of Amanda and Greg. She thought of the grief that they had put each other through simply because they were unable to be honest, to be vulnerable. That was the crux of it, she realized. To be seen meant that perhaps she would suffer. Perhaps things would be harmful, or perhaps she would be changed.
She remembered the knives in Dominic’s boots. She remembered the chilling conversation he’d had. She also knew that whoever he was looking for, he did not think it was her. Dominic didn't lie, she realized with instant understanding.
“I'm tired,” she said finally. Her words came out choked and with a slight sob.
He looked alarmed, and she reached out a hand to snag at the hem of his T-shirt.
“I'm just…so, so tired,” she repeated, her voice little more than a whisper.
In a moment, his arms were around her, and he was guiding her to the shelter of a large building nearby. Next to the brick wall, they were away from the clamor of the concert, and it was like they were alone again.