“I don’t think you’re grasping the magnitude of what I’m trying to tell you,” he said seriously.
“What I will be grasping are your man berries in a vise when I turn you over to my dad.”
“He knows who I am and where I’m from. He hired me to help you.”
“Dad knows who you are?” That straightened me right up. “And he made you my bodyguard? Because you’re really, really crappy at it.”
“I tracked you here, didn’t I?”
Touché.
“It was his cover for me. And you weren’t supposed to be leaving the house, so I wasn’t supposed to need to be good at it. But I put a GPS in your bag.”
I smacked him with my purse and then held it open. “Get it out. Now.”
After he removed the GPS and slipped it into his pocket, he looked at Lafitte’s, back at me, and then blew out a deep breath. “I’m really kind of like … a historian.”
“I’m an Aquarius.”
He groaned in frustration.
“So you’re here to make a historical note of what?” I shivered, rubbed my arms, and jerked the jacket back out of his hands, shoving my arms into the sleeves.
“I’m not here as a witness. My specialty is in something called the Infinityglass. I used to think it was a what. Now I know it’s a who. And you’re it.”
He looked at me as if he expected a big gasp, or some sort of physical reaction. I didn’t give him one.
“Hold up a second, Hagrid.” Laughter bubbled to the surface again. “If you think you’re here to tell me how special I am, you can stop. I already know.”
“You what? But … how?”
“Did you really think you were springing something on me?” I hugged myself, wrapping his jacket around my body. “That’s cute. Were you going to teach me the ways of the world, Obi-Wan? Did you think you were my only hope?”
I expected him to crumble under the weight of my sarcasm. Instead, he rested his shoulder against the outer wall of Lafitte’s, and looked all sorts of superior. And knowledgeable. “What if I am?”
His confidence carried knowledge instead of swagger. All I had was enough information to be dangerous.
“How much do you know about who you are, Hallie? Because I bet I know more.”
I shrugged and tried not to look like my next breath depended on hearing what he knew.
“Give me twenty-four hours,” he said. “I promise I can help you.”
“I can’t … I have to think about this.” I turned to head for the gate to the sidewalk.
And faced a ripple.
The man in front of me had lanky brown hair. His clothes were old-fashioned, but dusty, not dirty. Authentic. Real or part of a vision, his eyes were black and devoid of emotion.
“Things are hopping tonight.” I slid my arms out of Dune’s jacket.
Dune grabbed at me. “Wait, Hallie.”
“Just go around it.” I jerked away from Dune, still gripping the jacket, and took one fat step forward. So did the rip.
We became one. The present was lost. The Bourbon Street I knew slipped away. Cars were replaced with horse-drawn buggies, and daylight replaced dark. My body didn’t belong to me. Neither did my mind.
A memory I had no right to tickled the edge of my conscious.
“I’ve done no wrong. I didn’t mean to. It was an accident.”
My voice, but not my voice.
“It was a mistake.”
Suddenly, a man stands across from me, rage touching every one of his features. “You killed her.”
Callused hands scrape the thin skin of my neck.
My skin, but not my skin.
My coat smells of wood smoke, and the breath of the man choking me reeks, moist against my face. I squeeze the man’s wrists so hard I hear bones pop. I am surprised by my strength.
“You’re an abomination,” the attacker accuses.
A kitchen maid. A new one, with a gap between her front teeth. What I’d done wasn’t an accident. The swamp had stunk of rotting fish and algae in the late summer air. I hadn’t even pushed her skirt down before I rolled her into the water.
“I didn’t mean to,” I say inside my head, silently begging, as black dots cloud my vision.
I pushed against the memory, wanting out of the man’s mind. I focused on escape with all I had. We separated with force, and he stumbled into a veil that hung in the air, shining like sunlight on water. It was jagged around the edges, and the inside was nothing but swirling darkness.
The dark disappeared, zipping from top to bottom. It left no suggestion of the incident, with the exception of a faint hint of wood smoke.
I managed to stay upright for five seconds before the ground made a grab for my face.
Dune
The rip … absorbed Hallie.
It couldn’t have lasted for more than fifteen seconds, but it felt like an hour. I knew I was looking at Hallie, because her clothes didn’t change. At first, I wondered if it were a transmutation thing, if maybe she were trying to mess with me to make me leave her alone.
But her features rearranged themselves.
A broad forehead and small eyes took over Hallie’s face, unseeing. Thin lips formed words, something about a mistake. At first, anger distorted the expression, but it quickly turned to horror, and then the skin began to turn blue.
I was reaching out for her when Hallie’s facial features became more prominent, and she and the rip separated. She spun around, and almost as if she shoved him, the man fell backward into the veil, shimmering in the air. It zipped shut behind him.
I caught Hallie just before she hit the ground. We were still in the courtyard of Lafitte’s. After a quick check of the windows to search for peering eyes, I scooped her up in my arms and scanned the area for someplace safe. Going back into Lafitte’s wasn’t an option.
“Cab,” she said groggily, pushing herself out of my arms. “Get a cab and take me home.”
I flagged down a cab and helped her in, giving the driver the address to her house. I put my arm around her shoulders and pulled her to my chest. Let the driver think we were making out. He’d seen her. I’m sure he wouldn’t blame me.
“Are you okay?” I whispered into the hair above her ear. “Is there anything I can do?”
She hung on to the front of my shirt and tilted her chin to look up. “No. But thanks for catching me.”
“What did you see?”
“You first. What did you see?”
Her jaw had gone slack, her eyes blank, and her limbs loose. “You were limp, staring out at the dark like you could see something playing out in it.”
Hallie nodded and then shivered. “I could.”
“Your face … it was like you lost yourself for a minute.” I didn’t want to tell her how much her features had changed. “Then you and the guy separated.”
“I did.” A deep wrinkle formed between her brows.
“Then the veil went dark.” Or sewed itself shut. I didn’t want to say it, because it sounded too crazy, and we were running high on crazy already.
She nestled into me and held on tighter. “I became someone else. A man, one who’d done terrible things, and another man was choking me. Then I was me again, and I … pushed.”
“Has anything like that ever happened to you before?”
“No.” I heard fear in her voice. I’d known her for a week, and I was certain Hallie Girard didn’t do fear. “You’re the expert. Can you explain it?” she asked.
“I don’t know the answer.” A primal drive kicked in when I looked into her eyes. “But I will.”
“I believe you.”
We reached her house. I paid the driver and helped her out of her seat. She held on to my arm, just until the cab drove off, and then she pulled away, promptly hitting the sidewalk on her knees.
“Damn!” She went on her palms next, uttering several more curse words.
Hallie prized her independence and I wanted to give it to her, but she was in obvious pain.
I dropped to a squat beside her, resting my elbows on my knees, my hands outstretched.
“I’m not leaving you. I can help you get to your house, or at the very least, I can walk behind you. Whatever you want.”
“I don’t want anything.” She bit her lower lip as she stared at my hands. “From anyone. I can handle situations by myself. Usually. This … this is … different.”
I reached out farther. “It’s five minutes of assistance, just enough to get you to your room.”
“My room, huh? Are you trying to get another flash?”
“Not tonight. I won’t make any promises about tomorrow.” I smiled, and watched as the teasing softened her. When she smiled back, my heart gave an extra kick in my chest.
Hallie took my hands and I helped her stand. She held on tight, and when we reached her house, she stopped at the side entrance.
“I’ll take it from here,” she said. “Carl’s on duty, and he won’t rat me out or ask any questions. Thanks for getting me home.”
“So, tomorrow. Do you want me to come back, or are you planning to … what was it? Put my man berries in a vise and hand me over to your dad?”
Her laugh was soft, her eyes curious. We looked at each other, and in that long moment, we came to an understanding.
“Yes,” she said. “Come back tomorrow.”
Chapter 7
Hallie
Dad’s bedroom door was open.
“You did it,” I said from the hall, “again.”
Even though it was almost midnight, he still had on his tie. His holster and gun sat on the top of his dresser. I knew the safety was on. For the millionth time, I started to wonder what drove him to constantly arm himself inside his own home, but stopped.
The answer was my mother.
He gestured me inside. “I did what again?”
I’d showered and changed. My knees were completely healed, but my legs still felt wobbly. From my fall. Not from nerves.
I sat down in the armchair by the window. Bulletproof glass, of course. “You brought somebody in to handle business you should’ve taken care of yourself.”
He didn’t look at me, just loosened his tie.
“Dune knows I’m the Infinityglass. So do you.”
Now Dad spun around to face me head-on. “He told you that?”
“No, Daddy,” I said softly. “Mom did.”
Sadness came into him slowly, pulling down his shoulders and the corners of his mouth. I hated to watch him carry regret for her choices. She’d thrown us off so carelessly, and he’d tried to make up for her absence. He’d really tried.
I wanted to spare him any more pain, but I wanted the truth, too. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Dad turned his back, took off his belt, and untucked his shirt. “I don’t know enough. Definitely not the kind of answers you’re going to want. When did your mother tell you?”
“She called and offered to help, all motherly-like. It was the same day you told me about Poe being in the hospital. About his betrayal with her.”
He grimaced. “We must have been on her mind.”
“There’s a first time for everything.” I focused on some loose threads at the bottom of my Lady Gaga T-shirt.
“Poe … I might have been too harsh. I don’t know if he knew what he was doing when he helped your mother.”
“He’s been in the hospital, but he hasn’t even called. That’s a pretty good sign he’s hiding something.”
Dad just frowned.
“How did you find out about the Infinityglass and … me?”
He picked up his ever-present glass of Maker’s Mark. “Gerald Turner. He’d been doing some research, and he found some things.”
Gerald Turner had been my godfather, and a professor at Bennett University in Memphis. He’d also been murdered in October. “What kinds of things?”
“Clues that the Infinityglass was human, and that the specific gene for it is dormant.” Dad frowned and fiddled with the top button of his dress shirt. He wasn’t a fiddler. “For the Infinityglass gene to become—activated, for lack of a better word—he or she had to come into contact with something that triggered a genetic response, a stressor that kicked that specific gene into overdrive.”
“Dr. Turner just called you, out of the blue, to talk about the Infinityglass? And Mom called me to talk about it, too. He lived in Memphis; Mom’s been operating out of Memphis. That’s not a coincidence at all.”
“Neither was the timing of his death.”
The implications weighed heavily on me, and from the lines on Dad’s face, he felt them, too.
“Gerald and I talked about Liam Ballard and the Hourglass. He believed they were trustworthy. Then Liam confirmed Gerald’s claims that you were the Infinityglass. I guess your mother telling you reinforces it again.”
“And then you hired the Hourglass, and they sent you Dune.”
“He’s gone.” When Dad set his jaw, I knew I was in for a fight. “He wasn’t supposed to tell you anything. He broke our agreement.”
“Dad, you can’t. Things happened to us that blew his cover. It’s not like he just started spewing information.”
“Intentional or not, he still broke our agreement.”
“Our only other option for answers is Mom,” I argued. “Dune has information that you want and I need. He said he was working for you instead of Hourglass now.”
“He was supposed to be, but I’m not sure he’s competent.”
I thought about the way Dune had reacted so calmly to the rip, my sudden face change, and the possession. A lesser man would have pissed himself and then run like hell. Not only had he stuck, he’d helped me get home without making me feel needy.
And he really did have the sweetest eyes I’d ever seen. He smiled with his eyes as much as he blinked. He was solid. It was a gut feeling, and I always went with my gut feelings.
“He is.” I surprised myself with my own vehemence. “If you don’t believe it, give him a job to do, let him prove himself. He pulls it off; your faith is restored. Even better, give him a job that stretches him a little. One that requires him to put his Goody Two-shoes morality aside.”
“You’re talking about the Bourbon Orleans job.”
“Since Poe’s out of the picture, you don’t have anyone else to do it, and if I recall, the finder’s fee was hefty. It would be a shame to cancel it now.” I leaned over and gave him big, innocent eyes. “He won’t have to do much, and I’ll be perfectly safe. You did hire him to be a bodyguard.”
“He wasn’t supposed to ever leave the house with you.”
“He found me in the Quarter and brought me home, didn’t he?” I felt a twinge of guilt that I hadn’t given Dad the whole story about what happened outside Lafitte’s, but deciding what information to share and what to withhold from him was a constant struggle. It sucked to need leverage with your own father, but it was what it was.
“You drive a hard bargain, kid.” He shook his head. “You did learn from the best.”
“So you aren’t going to fire him?”
My father considered me for a long moment. “Why does this matter so much to you?”
“We’ve been walking around for days keeping a secret from each other that basically everyone knows. I’m the Infinityglass. Besides my waste-of-space mother, he’s my best chance for finding out exactly what that means. That’s why you hired him in the first place, right? Because he’s supposed to know the most?”
Dad nodded.
“There you go. Plus, I think that if his balls are big enough for him to show up at work tomorrow after he blew his cover tonight, he might be more of an asset than either one of us expects. Am I right?”
“I’d prefer not to hear you talk about his … balls.” Dad winced as he said it. “But you’re right. If he comes back, I’ll send him with you on the hotel job.”
“Thanks, Dad. And no more balls. Swear.”
“Go,” he said, pointing at the door.
But he wa
s smiling.
Dune
Exercise had become a thing.
Since I’d discovered the Infinityglass was human, I’d read and reread every piece of information I could understand. I’d sorted it all into neat lists, spreadsheets, and folders on my desktop. I’d stared at it for so long I didn’t know what it said anymore.
Until I walked away.
The pounding of my feet on the pavement, the clanking of free weights landing in the rack, the swooshing sound of the elliptical—all of them made my mental calculations and deductions clearer. Connections flowed as freely as sweat, and the million-piece puzzle I had to solve became manageable.
My phone rang as I was leaving the apartment to go down to the gym.
“Dune! What’s up?” It was Michael, returning my call. I didn’t waste time on pleasantries.
“There’s some weird stuff happening here, and I wanted to see if you were experiencing it in Ivy Springs, too.” I opted for the stairs instead of the elevator. “Have you guys noticed changes with the rips since I left?”
“They’re more complex. Bigger.” He was quiet for a few seconds. “I feel like the tear in time used to bleed like a paper cut, and now we’re at full hemorrhage. What about there?”
“Same. But …” I paused, tried to figure out how to phrase my next question. “Have any of the rips tried to take over?”
“Take over how?” He sounded as grave as I felt.
“People. Possession.”
He proceeded to say more curse words in fifteen seconds than I’d heard him say in the past five years. “What the hell happened?”
“It was Hallie. I’ve never seen anything like it or read anything about it. Her face, her voice took on different characteristics. The rip … moved in.” I stopped walking and lowered my voice. “She relived a murder.”
“You need to tell Liam.”
“Not yet. Give me a couple of days. It could’ve been a fluke thing or an Infinityglass-specific thing, and I want to know for sure.” I started back down the stairs. “Let’s see if it happens to anyone else first.”
“I defer to your wisdom,” Michael said. “But you know I’m a phone call away.”
“Ditto, brother.”
I hung up and pushed open the door to the gym to find Poe climbing off the treadmill. There was a towel hanging over the security camera.
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