Under those circumstances, saving even one life could become a talisman.
God, how would she save Heather now?
“You should let me up,” she said. “Before someone comes over to investigate.”
“Lena—”
“Don’t,” she interrupted. The last thing she needed from him right now was a gentle voice and sympathy. She’d collapse into a blubbering baby. “I’m not interested in your platitudes.”
For a moment, it looked as if he were going to argue, but then the white bindings dissolved. He took her hand firmly in his and pulled her to her feet. “You know, things would be a lot simpler if you’d just tell me what the hell is going on.”
Lord. How much easier would this all be if she didn’t feel a comforting tug every time she looked in his eyes? If she didn’t get a warm thrill just from having his hand wrapped around hers?
“Would they? What would change, exactly? No matter what explanation I provide, you’re not going to let me walk away with the coins.”
“No, but we could work around that. There’s got to be another way to get whatever it is you’re trading them for.”
She laughed. It sounded cold and hollow, even to her. She’d had the same idealistic outlook two—no, three—deaths ago. “Trust me, there’s not.”
“Bullshit.” Brian guided Lena toward the cab, which still waited patiently for its passenger. “We’ve got a ton of resources at our disposal. We can do pretty much anything.”
“What you have is a bunch of lunatics and a mage with dubious connections.”
“Yeah? Well, that’s more than you have.” After giving the cabbie the address of the ranch house, Brian pressed Lena onto the backseat and slid in beside her. “I’m all you’ve got, babe. You need to start trusting me.”
She studied his profile.
Actually, she did trust him. She trusted him to be honorable and courageous and true to his word. She trusted him to be a competent warrior. She even trusted him to be a considerate, if somewhat arrogant lover, should that ever come to pass. It wasn’t him she didn’t trust. It was Malumos and his two brothers. Time and time again, the demon triplets had handed her defeat on a silver platter.
And Brian was wrong about one thing.
He wasn’t the only ally she had.
“Take her to the library and sit on her,” Brian said, thrusting Lena’s elbow at Carlos. “I need to talk to Emily.”
The young Gatherer, still a little wan, nodded. “If you’re planning to give Em shit about the pizza guy, don’t bother. It wasn’t her fault. I called for delivery, not her.”
“You’d say that even if it weren’t true.”
“Maybe,” the boy acknowledged. “But it’s true.”
“Okay. You and I will chat about that later.” Brian watched Carlos escort Lena inside, then crossed the yard to where Emily stood with Stefan. Behind them, hanging like a giant purple balloon in the afternoon sky, was the glittering cloud of effluvium.
“Someone want to tell me what happened?”
“I didn’t mean—”
“It was an accid—”
“Whoa.” He held up his hands. “One at a time, please. Emily, you first.”
She folded her arms over her thin chest, chin down. “I didn’t order the pizza.”
“I know. Carlos already fessed up.”
As he waited patiently for her to come back to the point, she shuffled from one foot to the other. Her twisted face was a living portrait of regret. “I’m sorry. Really, really sorry. I had a small problem with the coin you picked up in New York.”
She glanced at Stefan, took a deep breath, and blurted out the whole ugly story, ending with a weak smile. “So, anytime you need some extra cash, just bring me your silverware.”
“Can you turn it back?”
She chewed her lip. “I’m actually not sure how I turned it into gold in the first place.”
Stefan shook his head. “I doubt it can be done. A cloud such as the one overhead appears whenever a mystical relic has been destroyed. It will remain there until the last remnants of magic are reabsorbed into the plane. Several hours, at least.”
“So, you’re telling me there are now only twenty-nine coins.”
“Yes.”
He raked a hand through his already tousled hair. Lost forever. On his watch. “I don’t suppose that means the power of the Judas coins as a whole has been destroyed ? That we’ve miraculously stumbled on a way to throw a wrench in Satan’s plans?”
“I’m afraid not. The cloud is not large enough.”
“Then what does it mean?”
The mage’s gaze fell to the leather pouch in his hand. “The answer is rooted in mathematics. If the whole is now twenty-nine, then each individual coin has grown in mystical value.”
Math had always come easy to Brian and he did a quick calculation in his head. “You’re saying that Satan used to own fifty-three percent of the relic, and now he owns fifty-five percent.”
“Yes.” Stefan didn’t explain how that would impact the devil’s power. He didn’t need to. Two percent of six billion people was one hundred and twenty million.
“Find a way to fix it,” Brian said grimly. “Yesterday. And while you’re at it, put some kind of Romany hoodoo around this goddamned ranch, because I sure as hell don’t need any more magic shit to hit the fan.”
Lena was back behind the computer when Brian entered the library. The nasty road rash had all but disappeared from her cheek, leaving only a few tiny scabs. Enough to make him regret her fall. Again. Carlos leaned against the frame of the big picture window, staring into the backyard. Both of them looked up when the door clicked shut.
Brian caught Carlos’s eyes.
“You’re a smart kid,” he said. “But ordering the pizza was a fuckwit thing to do. If you ever disobey an order from me again, I’ll kick your ass to the curb and slam the gate behind you. Got it?”
Carlos nodded.
“Okay, go give your girlfriend a hug. She’s feeling pretty low.”
The young man left the room.
Lena watched him go, her hands frozen over the keyboard.
“You’ve got a funny look on your face,” Brian said, crossing the room to stand beside her chair. He ran a finger lightly over her cheek. A part of him had sorely wanted to let her keep running. Because escaping was obviously damned important to her. “What did he do?”
She batted away his hand. “He’s not a normal Gatherer.”
“How so?”
“His reflexes are unbelievable. And he senses things.”
Brian’s brows soared. “We all have those skills.”
“No, it’s more than that.” Shoving back the chair, she stood up, moving away from him. “Look in his eyes. Something’s not right inside him.”
“It’s just typical teenage angst.”
“I’m telling you—”
“Enough,” he said, suddenly weary of the battle of wills. Obviously whatever connection he thought existed between them was one-sided. She couldn’t accept anything from him, not even a gesture of sympathy. “I don’t want to talk about Carlos. I want to talk about you.”
“Me?”
The image of her just before he removed the binding spell was seared in his mind: the wounded face, the fury in every stiff angle of her body, and the desperate glitter in her eyes.
“I want to know why you find it so damned difficult to trust me. I’ve done nothing but give you the benefit of the doubt since we met. We’ve proven we’re capable of helping you work through whatever mess you’ve gotten yourself into. So why do you feel the need to keep running? Even when running might get you killed? Am I really that lousy an option?”
“You’re not a lousy option at all,” she said softly. There was no stiffness in her now. A slight sheen on her nose courtesy of the run-over air conditioner, a few loose strands of hair dangling from a weathered ponytail, and a light smile on her full lips. Nothing more. “Trust doesn’t come easily to m
e.”
“I can see that,” he said. “But you’ve really got to let go of the concept that I’m the enemy. I’m not.”
“I know you’re not.” Her fingers toyed with the gold pendant around her neck. “I’m very clear on who the real enemy is. I like you and respect you. I even admire your commitment to your goal. If my own goal weren’t in direct opposition to yours, we might be friends.”
“Friends help each other. Let me help you, Lena.”
She smiled sadly. “You can’t help me.”
“Bullshit.” He wanted to shake her. But touching her would be a mistake right now. So he circled the desk in the opposite direction and flopped onto the leather couch. “Want to hear my theory? I think this is a life-or-death thing for you. I think they’re threatening someone you love and demanding the coins in exchange. You are acting way too desperate for this to be about money.”
She spun to look at him, incredibly beautiful and still fluidly elegant, despite the tumble she’d taken. “For some people, money is life-or-death.”
Brian sucked in a short breath.
He knew that feeling—the cold bite of terror that started in his belly and slowly consumed his body, limb by horrified limb. He’d lived it the day he realized the smack owned him and he didn’t have the cash for his next hit. He’d lived it every day after that for a year. He also knew just how low he’d been willing to sink to get the money.
But Lena wasn’t a substance abuser. The healing function of a Gatherer’s immortal body immediately countered the effects of drugs and alcohol. No buzz allowed in purgatory. Could be a gambling problem, maybe. Or, there was the very real possibility this was just another story to throw him off the trail.
“I guess I can understand that. It’s certainly a big motivator in my life.” Pitching her a lazy smile, he added, “We need to work on the trust issue. Why don’t we start by exchanging intel about the enemy, since we seem to have some common ground there?”
“Intel?”
“Yeah. You tell me what you know and I’ll tell you what I know.” Everything she said, every word she uttered, contained clues to the essence of Lena Sharpe. If he was patient, maybe he could slowly peel away the layers until he got to the truth. “We’ll do it nice and civilized, over a cup of coffee.”
Her head tilted. “Americans don’t know the first thing about making good coffee.”
“You can’t cook, but you can make coffee?”
Shrugging, Lena led the way to the kitchen. “Priorities.”
While Lena ground the beans in an electric grinder and located a small saucepan, Brian tossed a bag of popcorn in the microwave. The popcorn was done long before the ground coffee and water had come to a soft boil, but Brian simply ate from the bowl and watched her pour the foamy coffee into two small cups.
“No sugar for you, I suppose?” she asked, stirring a generous spoonful into her own cup.
Off to a good start. She already knew who needed extra sweetening. “None,” he agreed.
They returned to the library. Convinced that sitting too close to her would tease his senses beyond tolerance, Brian took the armchair and left the sofa to Lena. He waited until she was comfortably settled on the overstuffed furniture, sipping her coffee. Then he went for the kill.
“Let’s start with our guests from today. You know a helluva lot more about those three thrall demons than you want to admit. Dish the goods.”
Lena blinked.
Wretch. He loved pulling the rug from under her feet. So much for hoping he’d forgotten about her knowledgeable warnings. “You know pretty much everything already.”
“You recommended splitting them up. Why?”
“I told you. The power of three.”
He kicked off his shoes and lifted his socked feet to the coffee table. “I’ve fought three demons before. Never saw the kind of orchestrated attack those three performed. Try again.”
By God, the man was a pit bull. Leapt for the throat, clamped on tight, and didn’t let go no matter how hard you tried to shake him off. Of course, fending him off would be a lot easier if he looked like a pit bull. Or if he’d just stop staring at her with that lightly amused, openly sensual expression on his face. It was very distracting.
“I can’t explain that. All I know is that whenever I’ve fought three demons, they’ve been immensely powerful.” It was a lie, but short of telling him she knew these three were unique, that they were triplets, that she knew precisely what they were capable of because they’d slain Amanda and her father Don and Father O’Shaunessy, what could she say? “Perhaps you’ve had more experience than I.”
His smile widened. “Wow. Are you flirting?”
She looked away, annoyed that a mere suggestion of intimacy could send such a delicious current of desire rippling through her body. “Of course not.”
“Is that blue smoke typical of thralls?”
“Yes. It acts like a will-sap spell.”
“And that flaming torch effect?”
“It only happens when the three of them work together.” Too late, she realized she’d said the three instead of any three.
Brian appeared not to notice. “In your opinion, are three thralls working in concert the worst the demon world has to offer?”
“I think three martials would give them a run for their money,” she said dryly. “And I’ve never been unlucky enough to face a throne demon or an archdemon.”
“Throne demons are Satan’s bodyguards.”
She nodded.
Brian put the bowl of popcorn on the table and picked up his coffee. “And archdemons are the equivalent of archangels.”
“The monsters of legend,” she agreed. “Lucifer, Beelzebub, Mammon, Belial, Moloch, Leviathan, Abaddon, and Astaroth. Each one reigns over his own fiefdom in hell.”
“Are they able to cross into the middle plane?”
She nodded. “As easily as an archangel does. But they don’t.”
“Can’t say I’m unhappy about that, but what stops them?”
“The Covenant.” Lena shook her head. “This should have been covered by Death in your Gatherer initiation. Were you not paying attention?”
“My first week was pretty fuzzy.”
Lena stood up and walked back to the desk. Fuzzy was exactly how she felt every moment she spent around Brian. And she was making mistakes. Eventually, he’d catch her on some carelessly discarded fact. “It’s a miracle you didn’t die shortly thereafter. A basic understanding of how the demon world operates is make-or-break information.”
“Yeah, well, Death took a shine to me.”
Using a primal spell, she deadened the sound around the keyboard and, after a quick check to ensure Brian’s head was turned away, began to type. Involving Kiyoko was a huge risk, but her options had dwindled to almost nothing. She needed someone to round up Tariq before he absconded with the coins. Someone supremely capable. Someone with a very long reach. “What does that mean? That she took pity on you?”
“Yup. Pulled my ass out of the fire a half dozen times before I got the hang of things.”
She hit SEND, then shut down the e-mail application, spun around, and stared out the window. Just in time. Brian pivoted in his seat.
“Pretty sure she set me up to bump into MacGregor, too.”
“Why?”
“I told you, she likes me.” His smile was rueful. “Not sure what I did to win her fond regard, but I’ve made every mistake a Gatherer can make and I’m still around. Go figure.”
“I guess some people are just born lucky.” Not her.
“Yeah,” he said slowly. “That must be it. I’m lucky.”
Just the way he said it made her look at him. For once, he wasn’t smiling; nor was he angry. There was a furrow in his brow and a distant look in his eyes that made her think he was revisiting an unpleasant memory.
The e-mail was sent and the wheels were in motion. She should be feeling pleased. Instead, a clear view of the road ahead had settled upon her. And
it was lonely. Very, very lonely. If by chance she survived the days to come, she would have 386 years left to serve as a Gatherer and not a single person she could share them with. The other Gatherers would hate her. Brian would hate her.
But he didn’t hate her right now.
She slipped her foot out of her shoe and used her toe to power down the computer.
“We almost bit the dust today,” she said quietly.
His gaze sharpened, finding her. “Yes, we did.”
“We might not always be so lucky.” She put her foot back in her shoe, then rounded the desk to Brian’s chair. Standing before him, she unbuttoned the top button on her blouse. “Since you seem to have luck to spare, how about helping me get lucky?”
He smiled.
She bent to kiss him. Hot and wet and deep.
“Should I be worried,” he asked hoarsely, when she allowed him to surface for air, “that you’ll try to brain me with a paperweight?”
“Fear not. I promise to be good.” She licked his lips, tasting coffee and a hint of buttery salt. “If you want, you can tie me up.”
His laugh was choked. “God, don’t tempt me.”
“But I want to tempt you. I want to tease you to the point of no return and let you take complete advantage of me.” She took his hand and placed it over her breast. Looking deep into his silver gaze, she said, “Please. Just for one evening, make me forget that evil really exists.”
9
Brian could barely breathe.
His hand was on her breast, her taste was on his lips, and his blood was howling with a need that almost made his eyes roll back in his head. What was his vow again?
Oh yeah. No sex until he’d completed the twelve steps.
Lena peeled off her shirt, her white bra a delightful contrast to the rich cream of her skin. Why had he chosen such a simple design? Had he really thought that replacing her French lace with boring cotton would dampen his enthusiasm? He must have been crazy. If anything, it made her smooth flesh look softer and more inviting.
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