“Take it!” he demanded again.
A light appeared behind him. It grew until another face came into view. I could see her, floating like a transparent veil in the distance, shaking her head as her image faded in the mist. Her face dissolved in and out of the light, but her bright green eyes remained fully corporeal as they warned me not to take the bait.
The room shook from a single thunderous blow to the ground, and a gust of wind sent me backward, slamming my head against the floor. I fought back the black fuzzy frame filling my peripheral vision, threatening to knock me out while a freight train roared through the room. I rolled to my side and covered my ears to block the deafening sound. And then as fast as it came, it was gone.
“Jesus, Alex! Are you okay?” Katie grabbed my arm to help me up. “Who the hell was that?”
A heavy rock crashed against the inside walls of my head as I sat up and looked around the room.
She shook her head. “He’s gone.”
“What did you do to him?” I looked her up and down, but her dragon was already gone.
“I scared the shit out of the old bastard.” Her concern was replaced with a wicked smile. “I don’t think he’s coming back.”
I gave her the condensed version of who and what Templeton was. Then I looked around the room and estimated the amount of books left to inventory. “I’m all right. We can knock this out today.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Alex. You might have a concussion. Take your cat and go home.”
I hadn’t thought about how to actually transport Bear to the house, so I placed him in my satchel bag and zipped it partially shut.
“Be a good boy and stay in there, or you’ll end up back on the street in some guy’s box.”
The short trip home was uneventful. I got a few strange looks when my bag started to bounce around my hip, but I was thankful not to be chasing a tiny kitten through the streets of New York.
Sophia was in the kitchen pantry with a notepad and pen when I walked in. “You need anything from the market?” She glanced at my moving bag while she jotted her list. “You got that poor thing in there?”
I unzipped the bag and pulled out my new best friend. “Bear, this is Sophia.” His tail flopped back and forth as his ears flattened.
“He don’t look too happy right now,” she noted. “You better put him down before he eats your hand.”
I put him on the floor and looked at Sophia’s list. “Sophia,” I said sweetly.
“We already talk about this.” She shook her head and wagged her finger in the air. “The gatto is your responsibility.”
All I wanted to do was add a few items to her shopping list. I would have been happy to stop myself for a litter box and food, but seeing how I had a cat in my bag, I thought it wiser to get him home first and worry about necessities later.
She pointed to a large box in the corner of the foyer. I looked inside and found an assortment of supplies: a litter box, a bag of litter, kitten food, and two bowls painted with paw prints—one for water and one for food.
“Did you do this?” I asked.
“Mr. Sinclair.”
I imagined Greer scouring a pet store, trying to decide between the paw prints or little fish decorated bowls.
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Now, you better get that box fixed up before he pees on the floor.”
The rest of the afternoon was spent getting Bear settled in. He made himself right at home like he knew the place. Like he was born to live in the big house.
I went upstairs for a minute, and when I came back down Sophia was carrying on a conversation with him about house rules. “You scratch the sofa, I kill you. You jump up on my kitchen counter, I kill you.”
She crumpled a piece of foil into a tight ball and tossed it on the floor.
“I thought you didn’t like cats,” I commented as Bear chased the shiny ball around the edges of the kitchen island.
“I like cats. I just don’t like cat poop.”
“I told you I’d take care of him.” I scooped up my drowsy kitten and placed him on a chair where he curled up and went to sleep.
Sophia finished making her list and headed for the door. “I be back in an hour to start dinner. Mr. Sinclair say he be home around seven.”
That gave me a few hours to rest before the pyrotechnics took place when I told Greer about my visit from Isabetta Falcone and Alasdair Templeton. Isabetta’s visit was bad enough, but Templeton’s boldness would send him through the roof. That meant the walls of my free zone were about to start closing in again. Greer wasn’t about to let me handle Templeton on my own, and rightly so. I could handle Isabetta, but Templeton was in another league. He was a window to my birthright, and that gave him power.
Greer walked through the door at seven o’clock. He looked at Bear who was still sleeping in the chair, and then at me. He said nothing for a few uncomfortable seconds, and by the look on his face I could tell he knew I had something important to say.
He glanced over his shoulder as he headed up the stairs. “We’ll discuss it over dinner.”
Twenty minutes later we were sitting at the table with a roasted chicken in front of us. Greer sat silent as he watched me fill my plate. Each second seemed like an hour as he refused to let up on the mind fucking. He was an expert at that, letting you stew in your own thoughts while he just sat back and waited for you to cave.
“You know, Greer, you should work for the CIA. You could make anyone talk just to get you to stop looking at them like that.”
“In my experience, only those with something to hide have a problem with scrutiny. Do you have something to hide, Alex?”
I opened my mouth to let the party begin. “Isabetta Falcone came by the shop this afternoon,” I mentioned as I scooped a spoonful of glazed carrots onto my plate. “Apparently, she thought it more beneficial to bypass you and speak to me directly.”
He placed a bite of food in his mouth and took his time chewing it before responding. “What did she want?”
“I think you know what she wanted.” I could feel the room heating up as his temper subtly flared. “She’s greedy. Why bother with you when she can go straight to the source?”
“Did she threaten you?” he asked in a controlled, even voice. Greer didn’t like being circumvented, and he was doing a good job of concealing his anger.
“She didn’t have a chance. We were interrupted.” Greer’s face hardened as I spoke, because some invisible hand had thumped him on the head. In that way that only Greer had, he knew I was about to tell him something far worse than the story of a mafia princess trying to shake me down. “Alasdair Templeton also decided to drop by.”
“What?” Greer was standing over the table before I could blink. The room shook and Bear shot from the cushion of the chair. “You didn’t think that was important enough to pick up the phone?”
“It wasn’t like I had a chance. And by the way, he did send Isabetta and her cronies running for the hills.” I shook my head and picked at my plate. “What was I supposed to do? Tell him to hold that thought while I conferred with you?”
His eyes shut as he steadied himself with a calming breath. “You need to tell me everything he said. Every word, every syllable. I don’t care if he asked you about the fucking weather.”
“Fine. Every word. But you have got to lighten up. Jesus, Greer. I’m not exactly helpless.”
To be completely honest, I don’t know if I could have gotten myself out of the situation if Katie hadn’t been there to go all dragon on Templeton. Maybe I would have taken the necklace. And if I had, what would that mean?
Greer came around the table and motioned toward the library. “Let’s go.”
“What? Now? Can’t I at least eat my dinner first?”
“Are you actually hungry?”
My appetite suddenly ceased. “You scared Bear.” I got up to retrieve him from behind the door.
Sophia was standing in the doorway watching the fireworks. She
was used to the strange things that went on in her employer’s house, but she didn’t approve of him raising his voice to me, even if I wasn’t the actual target of his anger.
“I watch Bear for you,” she offered, shooting Greer one of her looks.
“Everything’s fine, Sophia. Alex and I are just having a discussion.”
I nodded to put her at ease. Greer may act like a Neanderthal at times, but he would never hurt me. I knew that as strongly as I knew that time never stopped ticking by.
He shut the library door and waited for me to begin.
I started with Isabetta. “She was trying to find out if we had David Oxford’s invention.”
“You mean the one that doesn’t exist?”
“I didn’t mention that part. And then Templeton showed up right about the time she started manhandling me.”
His expression went cold as I told him how Isabetta dragged me across the room and threatened me, and I knew he’d make her pay for it. Then I told him about Alasdair Templeton and the necklace, and how my mother showed up again and warned me not to take it.
“I’m relieved that you chose not to take that necklace.”
“What would have happened if I did?”
“You would have signed your life away.” His eyebrows cocked as he matter-of-factly told me how accepting that necklace would have been the equivalent of signing a contract in blood.
“Jesus, Greer. Why didn’t you tell me about the necklace before?”
“I didn’t know about it until now.”
I suddenly felt sick as the image of the package came to mind. “The athame! I need to send it back!”
He leaned in and looked closely at my panicked face. “No. The necklace belongs to the coven, but the athame belongs to the witch.”
“But not this witch.”
“You still don’t get it, do you? What was hers is yours, Alex. To the coven, you and your mother are the same.”
“I thought you were going to use that life force thing to make him go away.”
“That ‘life force thing’ is our ace card. We may need it in the future, so we’ll try to do this nicely first. But if he persists, we’ll knock his fucking house down. Just promise me one thing. If Templeton shows up again, you’ll pick up the damn phone.”
FOURTEEN
I woke the next morning with a burning headache. The day before had been a real shitstorm, and if today was going to be a repeat, I preferred to stay in bed. But there was inventory to take, and Katie didn’t deserve to have all that fun by herself.
My feet hit the floor as I dragged myself up and headed for the shower. I just stood under the water like a statue for a good ten minutes, reconsidering the sanity of going into work when I was so clearly a target anywhere outside of this house.
Having been so rudely interrupted by Alasdair Templeton, I wondered if Isabetta would be stupid enough to come back and make good on her threat. I’m sure she was curious about my conversation with him. At least I knew Templeton wasn’t coming back to the shop, but he would be back. Now that I knew what he wanted, I knew he’d never stop coming unless Greer threatened him with that small silver box.
I stepped out of the shower and wrapped myself in a robe. Bear padded his little feet after me as I grabbed my hairbrush and headed back into the bedroom.
“Come up here you little monster.” Stupid of me to think a tiny kitten could leap on top of the bed when my own feet barely touched the ground as I sat on the edge.
Bear made a chirping sound, and then a sharp pain radiated across the top of my shin as he obeyed my command and demonstrated his climbing skills. He was just a baby. He didn’t know that the scratch he’d just gouged into my leg could turn me into something dangerous.
I started to panic as a tiny line of blood oozed from the scratch. “Everything’s okay. Bear is not the enemy,” I repeated several times, staring at the innocent kitten sitting at the foot of the bed.
Greer and I had worked on my half-cocked reaction to shedding blood, but since that day at CTC I hadn’t had the opportunity to test my control of it with anyone—or anything—other than him. But based on how my eyes were burning and the way the rage was building in my head, I wasn’t sure I’d made much progress at all.
“Get out of here, Bear! Now!” I yelled, trying to scare him away before I could hurt him. He just sat there at the foot of the bed with his eyes fixed on mine and his tail sweeping back and forth across the comforter.
My head snapped in the direction of the window as a bird hit the glass and landed on the narrow ledge. Its stunned body quickly recovered, and it hopped back to its feet and cocked its head to inspect the interior of the room.
“Not another fucking bird,” I muttered. I used to like birds, but they’d become a real liability lately.
I’d never noticed a discernable expression on a bird’s face before, all beak and eyes permanently fixed in place. Expression or not, this one seemed awfully determined. It flew back into the air but kept aiming for the window and bouncing off the glass.
Bear craned his head to look at it. A staccato-like clicking came from his throat, and the bird settled back on the ledge for a moment before flying away.
When he looked back at me, his eyes were different. No longer green but a midnight blue that nearly matched his arched black brows, and the symbols framing them. His face was covered with fluid black lines that knotted and swirled like a mask around his eyes, nose, and mouth–his very human mouth.
I shut my eyes to clear the hallucination. When they reopened, his blue eyes were back to green and his tiny face was covered with orange fur.
“Bear?” I whispered, the image of that face still vivid in my mind. “What are you?”
His paw rose to his mouth so he could lick the small spot of blood from the white fur on the underside. When he was finished, he bobbed his head and murmured a sound into the air.
“What did you say?”
I knew the question was absurd the second it left my lips. But then my eyes rolled back in my head as a wave of fantastic light came at me and slammed into the center of my chest. It moved straight through me, leaving something behind as it exited through my back just as quickly as it had entered.
“Whoa.” I tried to stand but plopped back down as my head spun in a light, euphoric swirl, like I’d had too much wine or half a Valium to take the edge off.
A tiny flame flickered at the stem of my navel, spreading through my stomach and limbs like a blanket of ermine or a shot of smooth whiskey. It spread deeper and deeper until every drop of rage vanished, and the heat in my belly lowered to a warm glow.
I shook my head to clear the fuzzy haze that was clouding my thoughts, and a familiar voice whispered something in my head reminding me that it was time to go downstairs and start breakfast.
Taking care not to catch my heels on the wooden treads, I hurried down the steps to the kitchen. How I’d managed to do it every day without taking a nasty fall astonished me. But it was getting late, and if I didn’t hurry I’d never get breakfast ready.
“Good morning, Sophia.” She was pushing down on the coffee press, releasing the aroma of freshly brewed Sumatran beans.
I grabbed the loaf of bread from the counter and opened the fridge to get the eggs and milk. I could feel her eyes on my backside as I scurried to catch up on lost time, disappointed that I’d interfered with her plans to prepare breakfast herself.
She stopped pressing the coffee and stared at me with her mouth open.
“Is he up yet?” I asked as I pulled the whisk from the drawer. I cracked the eggs into a bowl and whisked them into a light foam with the milk.
“You feeling okay, Miss Alex?”
I stopped whisking and turned to look at her. “I feel fine. Why would you ask me that?”
It must have been the late start that had her questioning my mood.
“I just got up a little late this morning. I think I had a headache when I went to bed last night. Took something for it
and it just knocked me out.”
Her eyes ran from my shoes to my neckline, and then continued up to my face. “Why you dressed like that?”
“Like what?” I looked down at my floral print dress and beige pumps. “Oh, I know. The yellow is a little bright, but it is spring. When in Rome…”
She reached for the bowl I was mixing, but I pushed her aside with my hip. “Now Sophia, I know you like to cook breakfast, but I’ve got this. Why don’t you just pour yourself a cup of coffee and relax for a moment.”
“Huh?” Her face twisted into a tight knot as she released the metal bowl and stepped back.
“Is the master up?” I asked for the second time. “Do I need to go upstairs and get that man out of bed myself?”
“Mr. Sinclair!” Sophia yelled.
I dropped a couple of slices into the egg mixture and then plopped the soaked bread onto the griddle. The French toast sizzled as it hit the buttered surface, filling the room with the delicious smell of fried custard.
“Where is my brain?” I headed back to the refrigerator and rummaged through the shelves. “Are we out of bacon? French toast without bacon?”
Sophia reached around me and pulled a pack from the bottom drawer. She handed it to me without a word and called out for Greer again. “Mr. Sinclair! I think you need to come down here.”
As I snipped the end of the package open, Greer came into the kitchen. I turned around and caught my breath when I saw him leaning against the wall. No matter how many times I looked at my husband, he still took my breath away.
“There’s my lazy man.”
A butterfly dipped into the lower region of my stomach as he looked back at me with his beautiful blue eyes. The scissors slipped from my hand as I crossed the kitchen floor and kissed him, the perfume on my skin mixing with the faint scent of his aftershave. “Good morning, baby. Did you sleep well?”
When he didn’t respond and the returned kiss was cooler than I’d expected from the man I loved, I took a step back and studied his face. “Is everything all right?”
The Blood Thief (The Fitheach Trilogy Book 2) Page 13