by DB Reynolds
Whipping the eggs as hard as she could, she poured them into the pan, and then started pulling out everything else she’d need. Plates went into the microwave to be warmed, and knives, forks, and napkins were placed on her small dining table, which sat near the sliding glass door with its natural sunlight, which he seemed to like. Condiments came next . . . salt and pepper for the eggs, blackberry preserves and creamed cheese for the bagels . . . she hoped he liked this version of bread. It was the only kind she had in the house.
By the time she went back to the eggs, they’d begun to set, which was the perfect time to begin scrambling. The eggs took all of her concentration after that. She was determined to get breakfast right. She didn’t want his first food to be a bunch of burned eggs and bagels.
“You about ready?” she said over her shoulder.
“Yes.”
Chatty fellow. “Go ahead and sit down,” she told him. “I’ll bring the plates.”
He didn’t say anything, but she heard the slightest scrape of the chair on the wooden floor.
KATO STUDIED THE table. Grace had set two places, both with their backs to the window. No doubt she’d done it to keep the sun out of their eyes. But he was a warrior. A warrior whose enemy had slain a man only hours before and far too close. He quietly moved one of the place settings—a piece of colorful cloth on which sat a glass of juice, a knife and fork, and a cloth napkin—to the end of the table where his back was to the wall, and he had clear sight of both the exit doorway and the big glass window, which was also a door. There were too many openings in Grace’s home, but it was, at least, on the top floor of the seventeen-story building. The height wouldn’t stop a demon, but it might vex any minions who happened to rally to its cause.
Grace did a double take when she saw he’d moved, but then her pale eyes darted left and right, and she nodded slightly. Perhaps she was more aware than he’d credited her, or perhaps she was simply intuitive enough to deduce the reason for his move.
“I hope you like it,” she said, placing a plate piled with food in front of him. “I’m sorry I don’t have any meat. I don’t normally eat much breakfast and—”
“It will be fine,” he assured her. “In my mother’s tribe, our morning meal didn’t include flesh of any kind, and I continued that custom even after I left. Though my brothers all disagreed with me as to their preference.” He smiled at the memory, but his smile was quickly washed away by fear for the fate of the men at whose side he’d fought so many battles.
Grace scooted her chair a little closer to his new position and sat. “Are your brothers . . .” Her voice trailed off, as if she didn’t know how to ask. But he knew what she’d been about to say.
“They were cursed in the same moment that I was. Beyond that, I have no knowledge. It may be that they’ve all been freed already, and I’m the last.” He said it, but he didn’t believe it. Because he knew that if they’d all been free to roam the world, they’d never have stopped searching for him, just as he wouldn’t stop now until he’d found all of them. His greatest fear was that their curses had been lifted only for them to perish in this new world, or, even worse, that their statues had been destroyed, and they’d died without ever recovering their freedom.
She gave him a thoughtful look, her head tipped curiously. “But you don’t believe that.”
For the second time, she surprised him with her intuitiveness, and he studied her from beneath his lashes, as he continued to eat his breakfast. The eggs were good, amazingly fresh and wholesome. The bread roll was warm, also fresh, and tasty enough, though the grain was too fine. More like cake than bread. The soft cheese was excellent, though the preserved fruit was too sweet. But all of it was, nonetheless, a feast for his senses after his long imprisonment.
Grace, too, was a sensory feast, albeit of a very different kind. He’d never noticed during their long nights together in the museum basement, when he’d still been caught by Sotiris’s curse, but she was nicely curved and remarkably fit. Thinking back on her choice of clothing, it was almost as if she’d intentionally hidden her body and downplayed her femininity when she came to work in the basement. But this morning there was nothing hidden at all. She wore dark knit pants that fit like a second skin on her long legs, and a top of some similar fabric that bared her arms and shoulders, while a fitted garment constrained her rounded breasts beneath the tight fabric. Her exposed skin was pale and smooth, her muscles firm and well defined.
“You’re staring,” she commented, without shifting her gaze from the bread roll she was slathering with soft cheese.
“Am I?” he asked.
She looked up, and he smiled fully for the first time since he’d been freed, gratified to see her react much as women had for all of his life. Her breath caught, and she blushed hotly. It was a very appealing look for her, and his mind immediately went to how she’d look in his bed, her legs spread around his hips as he brought her to climax after climax, her face flushed and sweaty with sexual heat.
As if she knew what he was thinking, her blush deepened, and she focused her attention back on her food. “So what do we do next?” she asked briskly, still a little breathless.
His smile died. He wasn’t here to bed Grace or anyone else. “First, I need to study the scrolls more carefully, and then I’ll hunt down and kill whatever demons you’ve conjured up.”
“I didn’t conjure anything up, not intentionally. And we’ll hunt them down and kill them together.”
“I hardly think—”
“Obviously you’re not thinking at all,” she said mildly, as she scooped a forkful of eggs, and then chewed before continuing. “Look, you know a lot more about demons than I do, I’ll give you that—”
“How gracious,” he murmured sarcastically.
“—but,” she continued with a scowl, “you know nothing about this world. How do you propose to do this hunting, huh? How will you get around? And how will you avoid getting arrested by the police or even, God save us, Homeland Security? You can’t simply walk down the streets of Los Angeles carrying a big-ass sword, you know. Hell, walking won’t even get you anywhere in this city. And what languages do you speak?” She paused suddenly, and gave him a puzzled frown. “How come you speak English, anyway? It couldn’t have been the language you spoke back in the day . . . whenever that—”
“I speak several languages, many of which I’m sure you don’t,” he interrupted smoothly. “It was part of my curse, and probably my brothers’, that we’d be able to see and hear everything around us, to be aware of the world passing us by, while we remained unable to interact, or to alert anyone to our plight. As for getting around your city . . .” He considered it for a long moment. He was unwilling to involve her in this inherently dangerous undertaking, but he couldn’t leave her on her own, either. Grace possessed a magical ability that she was largely unaware of, and her very ignorance, combined with her role in activating the spell scrolls, could put her in far greater danger than chasing after a demon with him. Plus, she’d already demonstrated both courage and determination when she’d accompanied him to the scene of the downstairs killing.
In fact, the safest place for her might be right by his side. “You have a point,” he said finally, and almost laughed at the shock on her face. “Your assistance will be welcome.”
She blinked at him, seeming at a loss for words. But not for long. “Well, good. I’m glad you’re being sensible about this.”
“It is your responsibility, after all,” he reminded her. “You’re the one who conjured up these demons.”
That took the air out of her bluster so fast that he nearly laughed. Again. What was it about this woman that could make him smile in this most desperate of situations? Granted, he often grinned on the battlefield, caught in the delicious bloodlust that spoke to the dark magic of his soul in a way that nothing else could. But that was a vicious joy, born of a hunger for violence and bloodshed.
What he felt when he laughed with Grace was simple pleasure
. He frowned, reminding himself that, for all her polite ways, she was much like the others in his life, demeaning his intellect, reducing him to a useful and violent tool. Only a moment ago, she’d even doubted his language skills, which was truly laughable. He almost certainly spoke far more languages than she did, some of them so long dead that they were unheard of in this time and place.
“You’re right,” she said so softly that he almost didn’t catch the words. She’d been looking down at her clasped hands, but now raised her eyes to meet his. “This is all my fault, but . . . I write copies all the time when I’m working on rare documents. We all do. The original is too delicate, and the copier does damage. I didn’t know this was different. But ignorance is no excuse. People are dying because of me.”
Her breath hitched suspiciously, and Kato slanted a careful glance her way, wondering if she was about to cry. His many sisters had cried frequently, often using emotion to manipulate their husbands or others into giving them what they wanted. He’d always considered it to be inherently dishonest, and he’d come to think Grace was more forthright than that.
As if he’d spoken his thoughts out loud, she snapped her head up, her steady gaze filled with nothing but steely determination. No emotional blackmail there. “How can I help?” she asked.
Kato laid his fork on the empty plate and wiped his mouth carefully, thinking about how to proceed. The first step was obvious. He’d done all he could with the copies she’d made of the scrolls, but it wasn’t enough. For the most part, she’d done a good job of duplicating the characters, but as he’d studied them more closely, he’d seen that she’d made some critical errors. It wasn’t really her fault. These spells were specific to the magic of the Dark Witch, his mother. Only someone with that ancient and arcane knowledge would have noted the incongruences in what she’d written.
But far more serious than Grace’s penmanship was the very fact that these were of the Dark Witch at all. It struck him as especially ominous. His mother had been a powerful and deadly creature, more witch than human, completely lost in the world of her magic. For all her power, however, she’d been selfish with her magic and hoarded it to herself, rarely writing anything down where someone else could make use of it. On those infrequent occasions that she did write a spell, it was for one purpose only, and that was to permit someone else to activate it. Typically, they were sold to another, lesser, witch or sorcerer, for either money or favor. Usually the latter, as the Dark Witch had no shortage of coin or goods. Written in blood—hers or Kato’s, depending on the spell—they were to be spoken and then burned.
But these three scrolls were something different. To his knowledge, she’d never conjured a demon for anyone else, not during his time with her. It was possible that she’d changed after he’d gone. His departure would have weakened her, after all. Or maybe she’d produced a second son to replace him, and the new child’s birth had changed everything, including his mother. Because every foretelling, every augury, every prophecy had all agreed on one thing. The Dark Witch was to have only one son.
Not liking the path of his thoughts, Kato closed the folder and placed his hand over it. “I need to see the originals. You’ve done an admirable job of replicating,” he added quickly, not wanting to offend her. “But there are certain characteristics of the originals that I must ascertain, and qualities of the scroll itself that cannot be duplicated by even the finest artist.”
“Which I’m not,” she said in blunt agreement, and then sighed. “The originals might be a problem. They’re still at the museum, and with what happened last night. . . . If we’re lucky, they’ll simply think someone broke in and trashed the place. And either way, they’ll probably come looking for me to find out what happened since everyone knows I work late almost every night. In fact, I’m surprised no one from the museum has called yet. I don’t think they’ll know exactly what time the disaster struck, but there’s an electronic log that will register what time I left, or at least what time my card left. And the security video on the exterior door. . . . Oh, fuck,” she said abruptly. “We are so screwed. The video will show you leaving with me.”
Kato only understood about half of what she was saying, but he got the gist of it. Her superiors would want to talk to her about the demon attack, and might consider her culpable. The dark magic in his soul was speaking, telling him that wouldn’t be a problem, but he didn’t know how to explain that to her, because he didn’t understand it himself. Hell, he didn’t even know why she’d be suspected. Shouldn’t her people worry more that she might have been injured? And what was this “video” that she was so concerned about?
He gritted his teeth in frustration. He wasn’t accustomed to being so lost when going into battle. And this was a battle, with a voracious and deadly foe the like of which Grace’s world had never seen.
“I need the originals,” he growled.
“Okay, okay,” she said, raising her hands in surrender. “I get it. Let me think.” She tapped her fingers on the tabletop, staring into the near distance without seeing for several minutes, and then finally flattening her hand on the table to look over at him. “You’re going to need different clothes.”
Kato blinked. All that thinking and she came up with clothes? He glanced down at himself, comparing his clothing to hers, and to his memories of the males who worked with her. She had a point. Not the most important point, but, yes, he would need different clothing if he was to blend in.
She pursed her lips. Apparently Grace required physical stimulus when thinking—tapping hands, pursed lips. He was sure there were more. She stood suddenly. “Stand up,” she ordered.
He raised an amused eyebrow at the idea of her giving him orders, but he went along with it, wanting to see how she intended to proceed.
She eyed him critically up and down, then turned her face away so he wouldn’t see the lovely blush coloring her cheeks. Kato smiled to himself, careful to hide his expression before she turned back.
“What you’re wearing will do, at least for a run to the mall to get something better. But the sword—”
“Goes where I go,” he said flatly. “It won’t be a problem.”
“Not a problem? You mean, no one will notice the big, pointy thing sticking out over your shoulder as we walk through the mall?”
He didn’t know what a mall was, but he knew his blade. “Precisely. The sword is ensorcelled. Once I activate the spell, no one will notice the blade unless I draw it, which would mean I want them to notice it.”
“Ack! No drawing the sword, okay? If there’s a need for violence, I’ll have my gun.”
Kato scoffed privately. Yes, certainly, if a demon popped up, he’d simply stand back and let her handle it with her gun. It was an effort not to roll his eyes. “When do we retrieve the scrolls?”
“I’m working on it,” she said impatiently. “Okay, look. First, we go to the mall and get you some clothes. And while we do that, I’ll make some discreet inquiries on my cell. That’ll tell us where we stand with the museum. If everything’s okay, or if they at least don’t think I’m the one who trashed the place, then we can go directly there. I work all kinds of hours, so no one will think anything of it. But when we get there, you have to act surprised at the mess . . . wait, scratch that. I’ll be surprised. You’ll be my supportive boyfriend who consoles me when I’m confronted with the obvious vandalism of my office. And then, while I check to see if anything’s missing from my desk or whatever, I’ll grab the scrolls from the filing cabinet.” She gave him a satisfied smile. “Okay?”
Kato regarded her steadily. He’d stopped listening after the word “clothes,” still not knowing what a mall was, or a . . . cell. In his time, a cell was a place where monks lived, or maybe your enemies, if you were kind or foolish enough to let them live. On the other hand, he was confident that he could handle whatever scheme she had planned.
“Certainly,” he agreed. “When do we leave?” That was the only information he really needed.
&nb
sp; She tsked irritably. “I need shoes, and then we’ll go.” It was her turn to roll her eyes, and she did it far less discreetly than he had. But as long as it got them moving, he didn’t care. Grace didn’t seem to recognize the danger she’d unleashed on a population that he was beginning to think didn’t at all believe in magic, and knew even less about it. And there was nothing more deadly than a demon running free among the ignorant.
Chapter Six
“WHAT IS THIS PLACE?”
Grace glanced over at Kato, who was staring up through the windshield at the sprawling shopping mecca that was Santa Monica Place. “This is the mall,” she said, as she pulled up to valet parking. Normally, she’d have parked in one of the public lots and walked up the outdoor mall on Third Street to get to this three-story indoor structure. God knew Kato’s outfit wouldn’t have rated so much as a second look in the weirdness that wandered around out there. But she’d been in a hurry, and this was faster.
He really had done something to make his sword invisible, though. She knew it was there, but even she couldn’t see it. Kato himself, on the other hand, was getting a lot of attention, she noted, as she took her ticket from the valet guy. Not for his clothes, but his looks. This was the Westside, after all. And looks were everything. Her ancient warrior had climbed out of the car, and everyone had noticed. People were whispering, saying he was a movie star, or no, a model, with those knife-sharp cheekbones and that beautiful golden skin. His long hair was tied back, but you could still see how thick it was, how it gleamed in the sunlight.
It was mostly tourists who whispered, of course. Locals paid attention, too, but they were more discreet about it.
She hurried over and slid her arm through Kato’s, glaring away a pair of young women who’d been approaching with cell phones and selfie sticks in hand.