by Cherry Adair
Serena shifted to sit up, casually pulling the sheet to cover herself. She wasn’t shy, so Duncan had to presume that the gesture was symbolic. “A serial killer is frightening enough. But a wizard serial killer?” Serena tucked the sheet under her arms. “That’s terrifying. And knowing that with every murder he’s assimilating new powers and gathering strength—God, it’s chilling.”
“Yeah. It is. If we don’t find him soon, he’s going to be unstoppable. He’ll be too powerful to kill. Even by magic.”
Serena rose with the sheet wrapped around her body toga-style, then materialized jeans and a purple tank top before dropping the bed coverings into a pool around her feet. “Is there anything I can do?”
Disappointed, but knowing that it was time, Duncan got out of the other side of her bed, and materialized his own clothing. “If I asked you to stay with me twenty-four/seven until the killer is caught, would you get pissed off because I was telling you what to do?”
Serena’s arms were raised behind her head as she did some knot thing with her hair. “I’m not the stupid girl in some cheesy slasher flick, Duncan. If we stick together, at least we’ll know that we aren’t the Morpher. But it’s going to be complicated as hell. We both have demanding jobs and now I have the whole Council thing, which, thank God, isn’t official just yet. How on earth are we going to be able to do our jobs if we’re living in each other’s pockets?”
“Inconvenient, but not impossible.”
“I’m willing to give it a shot. We’ll work out a viable schedule and take it from the—” This time it was her phone that rang. Shimmering the phone into her hand, she checked the caller ID. “Hi, Rhonda. No, that’s fine.” She listened for several more minutes, then smiled. “Yes, Ian would have. Thanks.”
“We should have left our phones down in that god-awful cave,” he told her when she was off the phone.
“No, that was good news from my attorney. The resolution of my court case. Paul and Hugh agreed to each accept an additional five million dollars if they’d waive any and all claims, present and future, to any money or other assets of their father’s. They agreed and signed this afternoon—it’s over.”
“That’s a large chunk of change.”
“Yes, it is. But Ian and I were prepared to give each of them up to ten million after his death, knowing his sons would make a huge stink at the reading of the will. Ian bequeathed them one million each. So the Foundation just saved itself eight million dollars. Not bad for a day’s work.”
“Beautiful and smart.”
“And sexy.” This time her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.
Christ, Duncan thought, observing Serena’s subtle withdrawal, was he telegraphing the last good-bye?
Because Duncan had an itch about it, they agreed to go to Siberia first. Sticking together, while it made sense, was also going to test his self-control to the limit. But until he could assure himself that nothing going on in, around, or above Siberia had a damn thing to do with Serena, he’d bite the bullet and stick to her like white on rice.
When they arrived at the factory building it was almost empty. Everyone had gone outside to assist in the assembly of the blanket.
They teleported close enough not to have to walk the two miles in the icy cold, but far enough away not to arouse suspicion with their instantaneous arrival.
Everyone was bundled up to their eyeballs in the freezing cold. Duncan was already aware of who these people were and their backgrounds. Juanita had done thorough background checks on everyone for him several weeks ago when this persistent goddamned itch on the back of his neck had intensified.
He’d been so caught up in his personal musings that the cold had yet to permeate his system. The hum of idling snowmobile engines nearly drowned out the sound of snow crunching beneath their boots as they walked. Christ it was cold. The air was crisp; each breath condensed into a swirl of white crystals before dissipating on the stiff, westerly breeze.
There were two dozen workers threading heavy wires through the grommets at the seams of the thermal blanket. Duncan supposed this crazy idea could work, but he was leaving the jury out on it.
“Where’s Joanna?” Serena asked Dennis Cole. How she knew who was missing was a mystery to Duncan, since everyone was dressed in heavy outerwear to combat the brutal cold.
Dennis frowned. “She was waiting for an important call. I was just about to go back inside to check on her. She shouldn’t miss witnessing the first stage of this.”
“I’ll go and talk to h—”
“Would you mind if I went inside first?” Dennis interrupted. “I’m kinda worried about her.”
“She might—” Serena started, then changed her mind. “Sure. Go ahead.” She waited until the other man had walked away before saying quietly, “I’m worried about her, too. She hasn’t been herself for weeks.”
Duncan was only half listening as he watched the men working in unison to roll out the heavy material across the snow-covered ground. The fabric weighed hundreds of pounds and the men’s heavy breathing was visible as they worked tirelessly to position each enormous square. Magic would have been quicker, but he didn’t offer.
“Are those two an item?” he asked, turning to Serena. Anything that might have an effect on her was grounds for inquiry as far as Duncan was concerned.
“Joanna and Denny? No. Although I suspect with very little encouragement he’d be interested. But she already has a guy she’s seeing.”
“Someone possessive,” Duncan observed absently as he returned to watching the fruition of Serena’s plan to bring food to the world. She just might do it, too, he thought, proud of her amazing humanitarian accomplishments. He admired her enormously. Serena was a woman who put her money, and her actions, where her mouth was.
She gave him a curious glance. “Why possessive?”
“Because he gave her hickies, remember? Something teenage boys do to their girlfriends to show ownership. ”
Neither mentioned that Trey had given Serena several of the damn things way back when. Duncan had known even then that Trey had marked Serena to prove to everyone at school that Serena was his. At the time Duncan had been relieved that Trey hadn’t known how strongly that incident had pissed him off.
“Trey used Charm on me, you know.”
Christ. The bastard. Duncan had suspected. But his jealousy of Trey and Serena’s relationship had made him doubt his instincts, and made him imagine that his suspicion was just a case of sour grapes. “Are you telling me you only dated Trey because he Charmed you?”
“I’m not sure. But in retrospect? Probably.” Serena shrugged. “To tell the truth, I only realized that he’d used Charm when we were in the cave. That Trey was nothing like the man I thought I knew. It suddenly dawned on me then that he must’ve Charmed me. But even with that,” she said dryly, “my attention was short-lived.”
“Happy to hear it.” They shared an intimate smile.
“Duncan, I—”
“We need to—” They spoke simultaneously. “One thing at a time, okay?”
She nodded, then turned back to watch the workers. “God. Look at this, isn’t this amazing?” Her gray eyes glowed, and her nose was pink from the cold. She glanced up at him, and his heart melted to see the excitement on her beautiful face. Her beauty struck him every time he saw her. Whether it had been five seconds ago, five hours, or five years. He needed to store up her every expression for After. After he reminded her that the Curse made any relationship between them impossible. After he could no longer see her. After he could no longer touch her.
Looking at the purity of her profile, Duncan wondered if he would always think of Serena when he caught a drift of jasmine scent on a summer’s breeze.
Yeah. Probably.
She watched the men dragging the heavy netting into position. The brown material stood out against the stark, barren, snow-covered tundra in a crosshatch pattern taking up a footprint the size of a football field.
“Once the cr
ops start growing,” Serena snugged her fur-lined hood more tightly around her throat, “no one will even see the thermal blanket. But it’ll be there, carrying water and nutrition to the plants. We believe we’ll be able to harvest at least three wheat crops before we need to replenish the fertilizers. This is an incredible breakthrough, and as soon as we finish our negotiations we’ll have a power source and really get to see how this baby works.”
A theory slammed into him with chilling clarity. “What kind of power source?”
“Oh, we’re negotiating right now with a Spanish company to be able to use their satellite—”
“Christ! That’s it!” Duncan looked toward the sky as he worked the hypothesis in his head. It was possible. It explained the repositioning of the satellites. It was a fucking disaster waiting to happen.
“What am I missing?”
Duncan grabbed her arm. “Let’s get inside. I have some calls to make.”
But the moment they raced inside, they bumped into Denny. “What’s the matter?” Serena demanded, seeing his pale, worried face.
“I don’t freaking know,” Dennis combed his fingers through his hair in a gesture of frustration. “But Joanna is in her office crying hysterically. She won’t tell me what happened, and she won’t let me comfort her. Go and help her, Serena. Please.”
Serena glanced at Duncan. “Let’s see what she has to say,” he told her. “My calls can wait a few more minutes.”
“She’d not going to talk to me with you there,” Serena told him as they hurried down the hallway, leaving a concerned Dennis behind.
“Yeah,” Duncan told her grimly, “she will. Especially if I suspect that she’s very much involved in one of my operations.”
“Joanna isn’t involved in one of your operations.” Serena wasn’t sure whether she should be amused at the very idea, or horrified that Duncan would suspect Joanna of being a terrorist. “She’s a scientist, and a damn good one. She loves working for the Foundation. She’d never do anything to jeopardize or compromise her work here.”
“Let’s see what she’s so upset about and go from there, all right?”
Since her day had somehow taken a left turn into uncharted territory, Serena wasn’t sure about anything. She pushed open Joanna’s office door without knocking.
“Joanna?” she said, moving over to where the woman sat on the floor, head in her hands, and her back against the cold brick wall.
The low, desperate sounds of her raw sobs echoed, as did the hiccups. Joanna made no attempt to control her sobs. She didn’t even seem to be aware that Serena and Duncan were in the room.
“Hey,” Serena crouched beside her friend, wrapping her arms about her heaving shoulders. “Shhh, shhh,” she crooned, rocking Joanna while she continued sobbing as if her heart were breaking. “Whatever it is, we can fix it, okay? Can you get up? Let me help you. There you go. Come and sit in the chair and tell me what’s going on.” Serena helped Joanna to her feet and led her to a nearby chair.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Duncan had materialized a bottle of Scotch. She nodded, and he poured a few fingers into a glass and handed it to her. “Here, sip this slowly, and try to stop crying. What’s the matter? You should be thrilled. All your hard work for the last few years is about to become reality. Is it Henry?” Serena asked, reasoning that Joanna might be feeling melancholy because their friend and mentor wasn’t there to see the thermal blanket come to fruition. But there was a vast difference between feeling melancholy and this kind of desperate sobbing.
Serena got a sick feeling. Oh, God. “Has something happened to Casey?”
Joanna gulped down the Scotch, her eyes red and puffy. Finding a box of tissues floating within reach, Serena shot Duncan a grateful look. Pulling out a handful, she gave them to Joanna who dabbed at her streaming eyes, then blew her nose.
“Lord save me,” her voice broke. “Yes. He—”
Concerned, Serena rubbed her back. “Is he hurt? What hospital is he in? I’ll teleport you—”
“He’s been ki-kidnapped.”
“When?” Duncan demanded from his position leaning against the closed door. He looked deceptively relaxed unless one saw his eyes. He was watching Joanna intently.
“A little over three weeks a-ago.”
“Oh my God! Why didn’t you say anything?” Serena asked, as a mental slideshow of Joanna’s recent behavior played in her mind. The moodiness. The way Joanna had stopped interacting with the rest of the group. She’d known something was wrong for ages and wished she’d nudged her friend weeks ago to tell her what was wrong.
“I couldn’t. They threatened to kill him if I said anything to anyone.”
“I’m not anyone,” Serena told her quietly, relieved that the wrenching sobs had petered down to an occasional hiccup. “I can help. Duncan can help. Tell us what you need. Ransom money?”
Serena’s mind was going a mile a minute, but Joanna shook her head. Her eyes welled again. “It was never about money.”
“The thermal blanket?” Duncan pushed away from the door.
Serena felt a chill even as his warm hand came to rest at the small of her back.
Joanna looked up at him, hollow-eyed, and nodded. “They want the final codes for manufacturing the thermal blanket. I d-didn’t have all the damned codes! Henry forgot to document them. I went to him, and he was going to give them to me but then he…he…he collapsed. Then I didn’t know what to do. I’ve been working day and night to decipher his notes all while my poor baby is suffering God knows what.”
“Not all your days and nights,” Serena reminded her gently. “Unless you made up that fabulous new boyfriend?”
“You started a relationship knowing your son had been kidnapped?” Duncan asked, clearly surprised, but his tone conveyed something else that Serena couldn’t decipher.
Joanna combed shaky fingers through her short salt-and-pepper hair. “Yes. No. Not started. Grant and I had been together for a while before—” Her eyes squeezed shut. “I know, God, I know what you’re thinking. Believe me, I feel horrible, but Grant promised he’d help me find my son, and whenever he was around I…I don’t know how to explain it. A sense of calm came over me, and I knew Casey would be okay, and e-everything would work out.”
“Who is this Grant?” Duncan asked.
Serena heard the censure in his tone and discreetly elbowed him. Joanna was already in meltdown mode. The last thing she needed was Duncan’s disapproval.
“We were neighbors,” Joanna explained. “We ran into one another in our local branch of the bank. He asked me to lunch. Strangely, I didn’t even hesitate in saying yes. One minute we were ordering sushi, and the next thing I knew, we were in a hotel room.”
Joanna bit her lip. “Serena, you know I don’t normally do that sort of thing. But Grant, well, he just has this way of making me feel—I don’t know—special. Cherished. We started dating, then a few weeks later I came to Schpotistan. He’s been visiting me on a fairly regular basis ever since.” Her face was pink. “And he was horrified when I told him that Case had been kidnapped. Grant runs some sort of communications company, and he’s had his techs reviewing the disks of Casey for some clue as to where he’s being held.”
“Disks?” Serena asked.
“The kidnappers have been sending videos to me via e-mail every day, and I’ve been copying them onto disks and giving them to Grant. Today was only the second time in three weeks that they haven’t contacted me.” She finished the sentence on a hiccup.
“What changed?” Duncan asked briskly.
“Nothing—I don’t know! I gave them what they wanted.” Joanna’s fingers went white around the empty glass she was holding. “I finally put the last piece of the schematic together. Grant thought it was too dangerous for me to meet with the kidnappers, so he went on my behalf. But that was more than six hours ago and I haven’t heard a thing. What if they did something to Case? Grant walked into a trap set for me. What if they—”
&nb
sp; “What exactly did you give them?” Duncan cut her off. Which was probably a good thing, Serena thought. Joanna was getting more and more hysterical.
“They wanted to know all about the power source. I gave them the coordinate codes for satellite positioning on the thermal blanket.”
“Shit,” Duncan muttered as he hit speed dial with his thumb. “Have Chapman and Brown here ASAP. And have that data ready when I get there,” he said briskly into the phone. “I’m on my way.”
Joanna shot out of her chair, grabbing Duncan’s arm. “What? No! I swore I wouldn’t tell anyone. I won’t risk Casey’s safety.”
“Calm down, Joanna,” Serena said as soothingly as possible, tugging the other woman back to her seat and out of reach of Duncan, who was rattling off instructions to someone on the other end of the phone. “He knows what he’s doing. Have you tried contacting Grant again?”
“He isn’t answering his cell phone and I tried teleporting to him but—”
“Teleporting?” Duncan repeated. “You’re a Half. You don’t have that kind of power.”
Joanna blushed. “Grant gave it to me.”
“Double shit,” Duncan met Serena’s eyes. “Grant’s a wizard?”
A wizard who was gifting powers. A big no-no. Dread pooled in the pit of Serena’s stomach. She’d known the man was a wizard, but hadn’t thought much about it. Now it was starting to ominously add up.
“Grant made me promise not to tell anyone.” Joanna rubbed her face. “He told me a lot of things and at the time, it all seemed to make sense. But ever since I gave him the codes, I haven’t felt the same. It’s like, I don’t know. Like someone turned on a light and I’m standing in an empty room.”
“Charm,” Serena said softly.
Duncan’s jaw clenched. “Culver.”
“Yes,” Serena said flatly. “Joanna, is Grant tall, with light brownish blond hair, and brown eyes?”
“No.” She started to look relieved. “He’s medium height, and very blond, with hazel eyes.”