“What is it?”
“The way you move. I couldn’t work it out before. But it’s—” He strode forward, his joints working as if he were fashioned of pistons and pulleys. “You don’t slow down or speed up by making your muscles move slower or faster. No, your muscles are moving fast all of the time—so your speed depends on how long you wait between movements. Like a pendulum that hangs in the air before swinging back down. When you go slow, the wait is long, even though the actual movement is fast.” He stopped in the center of the room and nodded, looking pleased with himself. “And that was why when you moved quickly, fighting the demon, it was smoother. Not so jerky.”
Alice squelched her sudden self-consciousness. What did she care of his opinion? “It’s efficient.”
“Maybe, but it’s also creepy as—Never mind.” He set the box of mice next to her laptop. “Drifter won about fifty dollars from me last month because I keep saying stuff like this. I don’t know what happens when women are around. There’s a filter between my head and my mouth—but it only lets the stupid shit out.” His mouth twisted, then he smiled with wry humor. “Obviously.”
So they were both uncomfortable. That suited her. He would probably leave soon. And until he did, she’d take pleasure in his discomfort as retribution for causing hers.
His gaze began to sweep the large room, curiosity leaking from his psychic scent. Alice crossed her arms, wishing that she’d vanished the contents of her quarters into her cache. The sketches and photographs filling the white marble walls, the painted vases, the bronze and stone figures were not just artifacts—they recorded the past twenty years of her research. The past twenty years of her life. They were not meant to be put on display in this intimate context.
Jake moved closer to a Minoan vase, crouching to examine it.
Alice’s fingers twitched. Where was Nefertari? Likely sleeping upstairs. Oh, if only the novice could not detect the use of her Gift, she would rouse the spider.
She’d use other means, then. Utterly conscious of the motion of her body now, resenting it, Alice crossed to the arch leading from the main room. “Come. Learning how I use the vampire blood will be more stimulating than that vase.”
He glanced at her in a distracted manner. “Actually, I’d rather—”
“Come,” Alice repeated, and walked into the next chamber. Square and high-ceilinged, the room was empty but for the tall wooden frames she’d constructed, and the giant orb webs filling them like silk screens.
Jake’s reluctance didn’t turn into fear when he saw the webs and the large spiders weaving them, but more of that maddening curiosity.
Alice found it difficult to wish him gone when he took such genuine interest.
“Holy mama,” he said softly, tilting his head to study the spotted brown spider.
“These are the Nephila,” Alice said, plucking the gossamer threads. Nero raced along the strands toward her fingers. “And though their names are similar, they have no relation to the nephilim.”
Jake glanced at her sharply, as if trying to determine whether she was joking or lecturing. “And does she have a name?”
“He. It is Nero,” Alice said, and with a small push of her Gift, she urged him onto her palm. It would confuse and disturb him to remain in his web while she gave her demonstration.
“A male? Aren’t they usually—” He lifted his hand, thumb and forefinger a short distance apart.
“Smaller than females? Yes. Shall I introduce you to his mother?” When he gave her another of those sharp glances, she relented. “It is the vampire blood.”
“You’ve made vampire spiders?”
Now it was her turn to wonder if he was serious. He should know that wasn’t a possibility. “They don’t transform, just as animals and insects don’t if they drink vampire blood.”
“Can you imagine vampire mosquitoes? Or immortal, blood-sucking ants who make you feel all sexy when they bite?”
“No. I can’t.”
He was undeterred. “Picnics would never be the same.”
“But rather popular, one would think.”
Self-reproach instantly followed the thoughtless response. Her dismay was compounded when Jake’s blank expression of surprise broke into a grin.
That would simply not do.
And if humor put him at ease, then she would be ponderous. “The blood offers these spiders strength and longevity. Furthermore, the male and female offspring are of equal size—though both male and female are larger than natural spiders. And there is also this.”
She hooked her forefinger around a thread near the center of the orb and pulled. The web bowed slightly—then it held. She applied more pressure, and the silk threatened to bite into her finger.
It sprang back into place when she let go.
“You’re kidding.” Jake looked from the web to Nero combing his tufted legs on her right hand. “Can I?”
“You may,” she said, then caught his wrist when he reached for a radial thread. “Not there. See how it’s flat? They’re like razors. Try the spirals. They’re thicker—and round.”
“Here?” At her nod, he slipped two fingers around a strand. The muscles in his forearms flexed as he pulled. His teeth set, and his brows lowered in concentration. The frame creaked and listed toward them.
Men were such strange creatures. “You are strong enough to break it,” Alice said when she smelled blood. “But lacking protection, not without damage to yourself. A blade will cut through, however.”
Jake released the thread, and righted the frame with a push of his hand.
“Okay,” he admitted as Alice returned Nero to his web. “That was worth coming in to see.”
“Very good then.” Alice injected as much dismissal into her tone as she could, satisfied that it hid the delight his acknowledgment had wrought. “It was kind of you to—”
“But,” he interrupted with a smile and enough charm to set her teeth on edge, “I’m here about the temple in Tunisia.”
Of course. “An apology isn’t necessary.”
“Well, no. I’m—”
“Then we agree.” She strode toward the main chamber.
“Agree about what?” Jake came after her. “Oh, I get you. Sure, I’m sorry for kissing you, but I’m not sorry for . . . And there’s no flippin’ chance this will come out right.”
She frowned and faced him again.
Though his laughter never escaped, his amusement rolled through his psychic scent with the subtlety of a boulder. He flattened his lips and leaned his shoulder against the archway. He glanced up at the ceiling, then back at the webs. A wooden toothpick appeared in his hand, and he twirled it between his fingers.
Finally, he looked at her. “So, spiders are safe to discuss, right? And everything else is off-limits.”
Alice lifted her brows.
“All right. I can do that.” Jake looked toward the spiders again, then his gaze shifted to the room beyond. “So, do you have any . . . Okay, I probably shouldn’t ask if you have—”
“Black widows?”
He slipped the toothpick into the corner of his mouth and dug his hands into his pockets. “Yeah.”
“Thirty in the upper levels of this building.” She paused. “You must have a dog.”
His forehead creased in puzzlement. “No.”
“But I have heard that in San Francisco, the woman who doles out your assignments calls you Ethan’s puppy.”
His short laugh was not the abashed response she’d anticipated. Her frown deepened.
“That’s true,” he said. “But coming from Lilith, ‘puppy’ is practically a declaration of love.”
“How so?”
“Well, there are two things in the world she loves more than any other: her hellhound, and Hugh Castleford. Hugh mentored you, didn’t he?” At her nod, he said, “Me, too. Until Drifter took over.”
“Ethan is a brave man. And patient.”
Jake’s eyes narrowed, and he regarded her steadily before
shrugging. “Yeah, he’s a hero. Anyway, Lilith named both Hugh and her hellhound ‘Sir Pup’—and she also calls her hellhound ‘puppy.’ So I see it as a compliment.”
“How very optimistic you are.”
With an easy grin, he strolled into the room. “I am. And you called Lilith ‘woman’ instead of ‘Lucifer’s hellspawn.’ So you don’t have a problem with her heading Special Investigations? Some other Guardians do.”
“In truth, I hardly know of her.” Except that, through trickery and lies, Lilith had convinced Lucifer to release her—Lilith—from a bargain. Alice had taken particular notice of that. “Michael approves. As does Hugh, who knows her best. I will defer to their judgment.”
“And she’s human now, so you couldn’t kill her without breaking the Rules, anyway.”
Alice smiled thinly. “That is also true.”
Jake stopped in front of her, and Alice decided she did not like that he stood over her by several inches. Why had she never shape-shifted into an immense height? But doing so now would be too obvious.
“You shouldn’t have shown me your spiders,” he said. “Now that I’ve seen you with them, you don’t freak me out anymore. If you’d bitten their heads off, maybe. But being so careful with them? Nope.”
What a terrible miscalculation. “That is unfortunate,” she said. “What if you need to teleport?”
“I’ll manage. If it helps, you’re still creepy. Thirty black widows—and you’re feeding them vampire blood? Weirdsville.”
She would not be amused. “I also have a tarantula.”
“I think I’ve seen it.” His gaze dropped to her mouth. “All right, aside from Daddy Longlegs, that taps out my knowledge of different spider species. How about we move on to the temple in Tunisia?”
“Literally?”
“Well, I would, but here’s the thing: I already went back earlier today—and it’s gone.” He spread his hands, shook his head in disbelief, and repeated, “Just, gone. There’s a cliff, but no temple.”
Alice looked away from him, fought the ache again. Her gaze slipped over the sketches on the walls, the photographs.
“It is such a bother when that happens,” she said quietly.
CHAPTER 3
Alice hadn’t expected her answers, such as they were, to satisfy the novice. After all, they’d never satisfied her.
But that was where the similarity between them ended. She hadn’t stalked around her quarters, muttering to herself in the way Jake was now, his hands linked behind his head like a prisoner on the march. He didn’t lower them, even when he stopped in front of a photo and studied a male figure painted in profile.
She’d memorized the figure’s sword, his simple tunic and sandals, years before. Though there weren’t any hieroglyphs to identify him, Alice was certain it was Michael.
“And this one?”
“From a temple about fifty miles west of where Abu Simbel stands now. That is a site in—”
“Southern Egypt. Constructed during the reign of Rameses the Great, and relocated in the seventies when they built the Aswan Dam. Yes, I know.”
His interruption was the first sign of irritation at her lecturing tone. He’d listened patiently through a monotonous history lesson about Mesopotamia and India, though he’d seemed to be biting his tongue. She’d pushed on, certain she’d been boring him. But he’d just been polite, letting the eccentric natter on; he’d already known all she’d told him.
“It seems you do.” She’d tired of it as well. His reaction reminded her too much of her human years, when she’d smile and nod as people lectured to her on subjects that she already knew as well—or even better—than they, and then go on about her business. “I have no idea how long this temple stood before I discovered it, and it disappeared four days later.” Her gaze skimmed the wall below the photograph. A deep gouge scarred the smooth marble surface.
No, she hadn’t paced the room in her frustration—she’d taken her weapon to it. She’d gained nothing, and left a blemish on her home.
Oh, why didn’t he leave?
A soft noise from the mice reminded her how he’d tricked her into inviting him in. He hadn’t brought them in apology, but as a bribe. She would attempt her own if it meant he would go.
“I have photographs from Tunisia on my computer,” she said, lifting the carton of mice. Their cage hung from the ceiling, a heavy contraption with steel mesh and bars as thick as her finger. “You’re welcome to take them.”
Jake joined her, tapped the laptop’s touchpad. “Your battery’s dead.”
“How observant you are.”
She ignored his quick grin, but appreciated his doubtful glance at the cage when she opened its door. “Don’t tell me,” he said. “You feed them vampire blood, and they can gnaw through metal.”
“No.” She slid the brown mice into their nest. After vanishing the empty carton to her cache, she pulled a mangled pet-store cage out of it. “This is what Nefertari did to the previous one, so Irena made another.”
Jake looked at the gaping hole in the side, the twisted wires. Something flickered through his psychic scent—remembered terror, remembered pain. She vanished the cage again.
She’d intended him to speculate about Nefertari, not reopen a wound. She had too many scars of her own to take pleasure in that.
Reaching over her desk, Alice tugged the flash drive from the port. “I’ve already copied the pictures. If you would only return the—”
Jake held up a large rectangular battery, and she thought there was a slight smirk on his mouth when he looked from it to the small memory stick she offered. “Or, I can just get your computer rocking again and save them to my own.”
“Oh, but surely that can’t be for the same model—”
“It is.” Without waiting for her consent, he flipped her computer over. “I requisitioned laptops, weapons, and a bunch of other shi—stuff—for the Guardians working at Special Investigations,” he said. “I ordered fifteen extra batteries for Drifter. But I kept five, because he never remembers to charge anything. His cell phone is a joke.” He clicked the new battery into place, set the machine down, and powered it up. “I haven’t seen him use his computer since I gave it to him—which wasn’t a surprise, considering he can’t touch one without it locking up. But apparently there was another reason.”
Only her failure to hide how much she’d coveted the machine when Ethan had shown it to her. “Apparently,” Alice said.
Jake hefted the depleted battery in his hand. “Do you want the other four?”
She hesitated only a moment before nodding. Acceptance did not make her indebted to him. This was nothing but a service he provided many Guardians.
They appeared on her desk in a neat stack. Jake was already bending over the computer, his gaze fixed on the screen, when she said her thank-you. His response was a careless lift of his shoulders.
Uncertain whether she was perturbed or amused by his dismissal, Alice watched him scroll through the pictures. He could have easily copied the files and looked them over later, but here he was, oblivious to her presence in his eagerness to study them now.
She could see why he’d been called a puppy. There was no awkwardness in his tall, wiry form, nothing that suggested a lack of control. His every step revealed his confidence; indeed, his movements were almost cockily self-assured. But even when he was still, he seemed to contain a boundless energy resembling the exuberance of youth.
Yet he couldn’t be so very young. They’d had the same mentor for their basic training, but she’d already moved on to her specializations by the time Jake had come to Caelum—so that must have been forty or fifty years ago. She could recall him among Hugh’s students, so he hadn’t significantly altered his appearance since becoming a Guardian. Perhaps his blue jeans hung a little lower, his T-shirt fit a little tighter against his leanly muscled torso—but that reflected contemporary human fashions more than a change in his body type.
Her gaze skimmed his back
pockets, noting the slim outline of a wallet. Strange that he hadn’t vanished it into his cache; it was more convenient. He’d likely carried it in his pocket as a human, then. Even centuries after transformation, there were actions many Guardians automatically performed: breathing, blinking, and individual habits engrained while they’d lived on Earth.
Habits, such as appreciating a superior example of male anatomy.
Alice hadn’t been human for almost a hundred and twenty years, but she still hadn’t broken that particular habit—and she saw no reason to do so now. Jake’s fingers on the keyboard were long and nimble, his forearms strong and deeply tanned. The long plane of his back melded into a taut backside that was neither too spare nor too full.
Her gaze settled on his pockets again, and recognition slipped through her, curving her lips.
She’d sketched him once. He’d been nude, lazing about in a courtyard after participating in one of the orgies that had once been so commonplace. A Vietnamese phrase had been tattooed over that firm swell of muscle.
What had the phrase been? Alice couldn’t recall, and the sketch was probably lost amid her jumble of personal papers upstairs. But she remembered that he’d seemed to possess boundless energy then, too.
And—according to the gossip she’d overheard from his fellow students—not much finesse.
“I see you’ve got more folders here, more pictures,” Jake said, then turned from the screen. After a glance at her face, he darted a wary look over his shoulder, then at her feet. “Do you mind if I copy those, too?”
“Of course not,” Alice said.
Eyes narrowed, Jake straightened. “What’s with the smile?”
“Something amused me. Why else would I smile?”
“Maybe you’ve got something waiting to take a bite of me.” He studied her mouth. “Your teeth are longer now.”
So they were. Not by very much—but enough to be good practice, should she ever have to imitate a vampire. Such a need had not yet arisen, but one never knew.
“How suspicious you are, novice.”
“How creepy you are, Alice.” But Jake’s own smile lifted the corners of his mouth as he focused on the computer again.
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