THE EQUINOX STONE (Knights of Manus Sancti Book 2)

by Bryn Donovan

  “Where are we?” Britt asked.

  Everything in this room was wrapped in yarn, needlepointed, or cross-stitched. The floor lamp. The damask wallpaper and framed paintings. The coffee table and the magazines and mug on it. Even the remote for the TV.

  Val felt a rush of affection for Britt. But she had to ask. No one could help who their family was. “Britt, are your parents Tribunal?”

  Britt blinked. “My mom says we’re a little bit Cherokee.”

  Well, that was a no. Val slipped out, wiping the memory. She lifted her head and opened her eyes again.

  “Were you saying grace?” Britt asked.

  “I always do before I eat.” Val picked up her chopsticks.

  “Maybe I should too.” Britt stared as Val took a first bite. “Who taught you how to eat with chopsticks?”

  Didn’t everyone know how? “My mother, I guess.”

  The corners of Britt’s mouth turned down. “I’m sorry about your mom and dad,” she said. “Mrs. Hammons told us what happened.”

  Gossipy teachers. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She didn’t feel like faking grief, having seen enough of the real thing. “Tell me about yourselves,” she said to both of them. “What do you like to do for fun? Any hobbies? Do you do crafts?”

  She sighed. “I used to. But I don’t have time now.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m writing all these essays for college applications.” Her anxiety spiked alarmingly as she said it—and Mia’s too.

  Mia nodded. “I have to meet with my tutor three times a week to get my test scores up. I take it again next month.”

  “Me too,” Britt said. “My ACT was— Ugh.” She suddenly turned her face away from the room.

  “What?’ Val looked up to see a group of three girls pass by.

  “I’m mad at Olivia,” Britt whispered. “And the others got mad at me for getting mad at Olivia. Which was totally unfair.”

  “I was mad at Hannah, anyway,” Mia said. “Because she said mean things about Megan.”

  “Who’s Megan?” Val asked.

  Mia sighed. “She was our friend.” She gestured between herself and Britt. “We were like the three musketeers. But then she had to leave school.”

  “Why?”

  Britt and Mia exchanged a look. Then Britt said, “She got in trouble.”

  Val darted another glance at the other girls, now sitting down at a table halfway across the room. “Why were you mad at Olivia?”

  “She totally stole my boyfriend.”

  How did they even find boyfriends when they went to an all-girls’ school? Val lived in a complex stuffed full of single men and still hadn’t even had one. That bothered her in a way it never had before. These high school girls were way ahead of her.

  But of course, she’d always been hung up on Michael.

  “Who was your boyfriend?” she asked.

  “Lucas,” Britt whispered. “He goes to my church. So does Olivia.” She took another morose bite of her pizza. Mia patted her shoulder.

  Her misery pinched Val’s heart. “You’ll get over him. He’s not important.”

  “Yes, he is,” Britt murmured, almost inaudibly.

  “Why?”

  She put down her pizza and hung her head. “I shouldn’t tell you.”

  Val said what she was pretty sure any high school girl would say too. “Now you have to tell me.”

  Mia looked from Val to Britt. Clearly, she knew.

  Britt twisted the butterfly ring on her index finger. “You’re pretty religious. You’re not going to like me.”

  “What? No. ‘Judge not lest ye not be judged.’” Even Val could remember a few key parts of Scripture.

  Britt looked mollified. “But you promise not to tell anyone else?”

  She couldn’t promise that. “You think I’m going to tell any of these other girls?” she countered. “I don’t even know them.”

  “Okay.” She leaned over and whispered, “We had sex.”

  Oh, dear. How had she gotten in this conversation so quickly? Well, with the question about the crafts, she’d established rapport. And Britt might’ve felt some, anyway, from Val being in her psyche, even though the girl didn’t know it.

  “And now it’s like I don’t even mean anything to him.” Her voice wavered, and her despair wrapped around Val.

  “You’ll find someone else,” Val said. “Someone better.” For Goddess’s sake, the girl was only seventeen…but saying that wouldn’t make sense with her cover.

  And it would’ve been hypocritical. She’d loved Michael at that age.

  She glanced over at him again. He was now striding past the tables, scrutinizing the students, like a proper disciplinarian. The too-loose shirt camouflaged the raw strength of his body. The glasses and contacts concealed his vivid blue eyes. And nobody else could see his sense of humor or his sensuality, his compelling mixture of violence and vulnerability, his heartbreaking goodness.

  “I don’t know,” Britt said. “Don’t you believe in soul mates?”

  “No,” Val said. It was a lie.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  As Michael got to Val and Jacinto’s house, he tried to think of a casual way to bring up what he’d just done at a local bar and grill.

  He’d gone in for a sandwich and an iced tea—Knights weren’t supposed to touch alcohol during a mission—and had wound up knocking a guy flat and leaving before someone called the police. He was going to have to tell Nic about it. And Nic wasn’t going to like it.

  Although he had a key, he rang the doorbell twice, as he’d been told, so they’d know it was him. Then he let himself in.

  Val met him at the door in floral silk pajamas. “Hi there.”

  If he’d been Jonathan, she would’ve hugged him. She’d never touched him as much, and it had always bothered him. At the moment, he could hardly think of anything he’d like more than for her to wrap her arms around him. Her warmth and softness, that mixture of familiarity because he’d known her most of his life, and utter newness because they’d begun to be intimate…

  She might avoid hugging him forever, after all that had passed between them. He honestly wasn’t sure whether he regretted becoming intimate with her or regretted pulling away. Did it matter? Could one backtrack a backtrack?

  She said, “You took out your contacts.”

  “Yeah, they itch by the end of the day,” he said as they walked toward the living room. “I had to get out of the teacher clothes too.” Those didn’t itch, but they did irritate him.

  “I know. I take off my clothes as soon as I get in the door.”

  God, he could imagine that. He tried to think of something normal to say to her.

  “Salaam, Michael.” Jacinto, a stocky man with gray-streaked black hair pulled back into a ponytail, came into the living room. He wore a T-shirt and loose cotton pants and, like Val, he was barefoot. Neither looked like they were on a mission.

  The living room, likewise, was an incongruous place for conspiring to destroy one’s enemies. Tropical potted trees surrounded them, and bright abstract paintings in emerald and coral hung on the white walls.

  They sat down on the bright blue palm-patterned sofa and chairs. Jacinto asked Michael, “How’s teaching?”

  He smiled. “I hate it, thanks.” The other times he’d had a cover, he hadn’t needed to perform it consistently for hours at a time, with dozens of people staring at him. “How’s sitting around here all day?”

  He groaned. “I’m already so bored. I watched television for three hours straight today. Who does that?”

  “I don’t think you’re the first,” Michael said, his voice wry. “What was the show?”

  “I couldn’t find the movie I was looking for, and I wound up watching something about a baking contest?” He shook his head. “I wish someone would break in.” They both laughed.

  “Well, I don’t,” Val said.

  “You’d be fine if they did,” Michael told her, slouching ba
ck in his armchair. “Jacinto once strangled a dracae to death with her own hair.” The river monsters in Scotland would disguise themselves as floating golden objects and then enslave the women who tried to pick them up. In their true form, they looked like a cross between a mermaid and something out of a bad zombie movie.

  The older man shook his head. “Who told you about that?”

  “Gabi.”

  “That was twenty years ago. I had great fights on land too.”

  “I know you miss sparring with Knights,” Val said.

  Jacinto gave her an indulgent smile. “I’m glad I’m here to look after you.” He touched a button on the remote, and the large computer screen, flush mounted to the wall, turned bright blue.

  Nic appeared on the screen. He sat alone at the meeting room in Anantara. “Salaam.”

  “Salaam, Dominic,” Jacinto said, as Nic suppressed a yawn. “Got to love these late-night calls.”

  “I’ve been up a while,” Nic said. “We’re recruiting a new Knight for Chengdu. There were some complications, but he’s joining.”

  “Oh, that’s great.” Michael and Val both nodded. Chengdu, China was the location of their newest guarída, established several years before, and it was chronically understaffed. The government posed special challenges for operating there, but the anti-surveillance tech the Diviners had developed in the past few years had helped.

  Nic rubbed his eyes. “Michael, did you talk with Padilla?” The principal, their main suspect, had set up a meeting with Michael as the new long-term substitute teacher.

  “Only for a short time. He didn’t say anything weird.”

  Nic nodded. “Val, how was your first day of school?”

  “Fine. I Read all the teachers in my classrooms. They were clean.”

  “And I take it Padilla didn’t make an appearance at the cafeteria.”

  Val shook her head again. “But I’m already starting to think there’s nothing here.”

  “It always feels like that when you don’t find anything right away,” Jacinto said.

  “Yeah,” Nic agreed. “You’ve only Read six teachers out of forty-nine faculty and staff members.”

  Val’s shoulders sagged. Michael felt for her. She’d successfully stayed undercover while Reading six strangers in one day—something a lot of people with the ability, including his brother, couldn’t have done. Reading took a lot of psychic strength. Most would’ve gotten too exhausted.

  “You did a great job today,” Michael said. An understatement, given his admiration for her.

  “Yeah, absolutely,” Nic said. “We’ll check them off. You’re feeling okay?”

  “I am. But it’s intense there,” she admitted. “The cafeteria, especially.”

  “Sure. Do you need a sick day tomorrow before the assembly? That’s going to be an even bigger crowd.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll hang in there. But do you think we could fix the hot water here?”

  “You don’t have hot water?” Jacinto looked over at her, frowning.

  “No, we do. But when I take a bath, it’s not really hot.”

  Michael relished the look of incredulity on his friend’s face. Well, he’d tried to warn him about Val being spoiled. She truly had no idea that she was even being unreasonable.

  “I don’t have time to deal with a water heater,” Nic said. “You’re there for two weeks at most.”

  Once, Nic had told him about his time in basic training in South Korea. Michael couldn’t recall the name of the elite military corps, but it was harder than the regular army. Sometimes in the winter, the men would be woken up in the middle of the night, forced to exercise outside in their underwear until dawn, and then sprayed with a hose. Given his friend’s history, and the fact that he’d been working overtime, he was showing remarkable restraint.

  Val cast her gaze downward. “Sorry.” And just like that, Michael felt bad for her again. She was so far out of her comfort zone she couldn’t even see it from here.

  “Okay,” Nic said. “Any problems with your covers? You’re both lying low?”

  Michael winced inwardly. “I uh, kind of punched a guy at a restaurant.”

  “What?” Nic and Jacinto said at the same time. Val’s eyebrows rose.

  “When was this?” Nic asked.

  “About an hour ago.” He sighed. “I was eating at the bar.” He always hated sitting at a table by himself. “This drunk guy started talking to me, I said what I did for a living, he said something gross about Catholic girls, and I punched him.” And someone had let out a little scream, and Michael had left a hundred-dollar bill on the counter and left without finishing his meal.

  Nic was silent for a moment. “Is he seriously injured?”

  “I knocked him off the stool. I don’t think I broke anything. I could’ve hit him way harder.”

  “He’ll think twice before saying anything like that again,” Val said. Michael’s spirits rose at her support.

  “Text me the address of the bar,” Nic said. “If he filed a police report, or if you’re on security cameras, we’ll need to do some tampering. But you need to be careful. Mahmoud Barroso just got sent to Solemore for attacking another Knight.”

  Val’s eyes widened. The Barrosos were one of the founding families. Michael had already heard about the incident in Haifa. It had been ugly, but it hadn’t surprised Michael at all. He’d known Mahmoud in Cairo.

  “Come on, this was different,” Michael said. “This guy was basically a pervert.”

  Nic sighed. “You always talk too much to people.”

  It was true. But he’d craved interaction. At El Dédalo, he was so used to being able to see people he knew, whenever he wanted. Day or night, he could go to the cantina, the gym, or the shooting range and strike up a friendly conversation.

  He always felt uneasy when he was in the same room as Val, like now, but being alone in his stupid apartment was worse. With nothing else to distract him, the memories from the not-time, when he’d been dust, kept coming back to him. Abandoned and utterly abased, coming further apart with every breath of wind.

  Val asked quietly, “Michael, do you feel okay?” Of course she’d picked up on the lostness inside him.

  “I’m fine.”

  Nic’s mouth twisted in sympathy. “Don’t go near that neighborhood again, and from now on, no conversations with strangers. All right? How are you behaving at the school?”

  Val said, “The girls are scared of him.”

  “Did you punch a teacher too?” Jacinto asked, and Nic smiled.

  “I don’t think it’s a bad thing,” Val clarified. “He threatened to send a girl to the principal. Because he doesn’t allow any talking.”

  “That’s ironic,” Nic commented with a hint of a smile. “But it’s fine. As long as you don’t actually send any girls to him.”

  *

  Val listened intently as Nic gave her more instructions about Reading the principal. She’d been out of line in asking about the hot water, but she could make up for it by following directions to the letter. At least she hadn’t made any dire mistakes as she pretended to be a sonámbula teenager. Despite her embarrassment, she still felt proud of that.

  After the call ended, Jacinto got up and said, “I’m going to bed.” The retired Knight usually went to bed earlier than this and rose well before dawn. He came over to Val to give her a quick hug. “Buenos noches.” It made Val feel almost like Jacinto really was her uncle. “Good night, Michael.”

  “Good night,” he replied to Jacinto. Once he’d retreated to her bedroom, Michael said to Val, “I should let you get to bed too.”

  “I’m not tired.” She didn’t want to say goodbye to him. “I’m going to sit on the deck and have some tea.”

  He nodded, started to move toward the door, and then stopped. “Can I join you?”

  It cast a small ray of happiness in her heart. It didn’t necessarily mean anything, of course. He’d always hated being alone.

  She fixed
them both cups of mint tea with a hint of lavender. On their way out, she picked up the bright fringed blanket that had been folded and draped over the back of the couch and wrapped it around herself. It wasn’t terribly cold, even in the winter—mid-sixties, maybe. They settled in chairs on the deck overlooking the turquoise water of the pool, illuminated at night. It looked somehow more solid than water, like a glowing gel.

  “It smells like lemongrass out here,” Michael said.

  She pointed to pear-shaped bamboo box hanging from a nearby tree. “The diffusers keep the mosquitos away. It’s a mix of lemon and eucalyptus or something.”

  He frowned. “Does it kill bees?”

  She shook her head. “I asked Jacinto the same thing. Apparently, it doesn’t even kill mosquitos. They just don’t like it.”

  “Nice.” He stretched his legs out in front of him. “What do you think of school?”

  She couldn’t say she was impressed. “Is it like the ones you went to as a kid?”

  “Totally different from the schools in Cairo. Pretty much like the one in Saint Augustine, but they didn’t have as much technology then. And that was both girls and boys.” He shrugged. “What were lessons like for you then?”

  “In Florida? I didn’t have tutors yet. I was too little.”

  “I know, but you had lessons with your mom, right? Because you could Read people even then.”

  She nodded. “No one ever had to teach me how to do that. I’m the only one in my generation to do it naturally.”

  “Not that you’re bragging,” he teased.

  “I’m not!” Why would she be proud of that? “If you have to practice a lot to develop an ability, I think that’s more impressive.”

  Michael shook his head. “Jonathan would work so hard, trying to do it. He was, what, twelve or thirteen then? And there you were, this little kid, and you couldn’t understand what his problem was. You’d say, ‘Just close your eyes and do it!’” They both laughed. “I think that was the only time he ever got mad at you.”

  “It definitely wasn’t.” Her voice came out wry. “He was angry with me not too long ago, while you were gone.”