by R. L. Naquin
Merle was the least interesting person I’d ever spied on. And I’d done my share of spying. Back in the ’60s, I’d worked at a huge movie studio as a secretary. A rival studio had sent me there to find out what scripts were being considered for production and what stars were attached to them. I was amazing at it. Spying was a great gig. Unfortunately, I got caught after a few weeks—by the Master, not the studio. If I hadn’t been on the run, I could have worked my way up and become a huge star.
After a few minutes, Merle pulled himself from the couch and crossed to a table by the window. He opened a small wooden box and dropped something into it. Was it the missing ring? I hadn’t seen it closely enough. Maybe it was a cigarette lighter or a rosary.
There was no way of knowing, not from out there.
I took a step back when Merle held his hand up over his eyes, as if shielding himself from the sun. When I moved, I hit something behind me and let out an involuntary squeak. The thing I tripped on caught me and stuck a hand over my mouth.
“Don’t move or make a sound.” The voice in my ear was deep, even as a whisper.
I froze, caught between Merle looking out the window almost right at me, and someone behind me trying to cut off my air supply. Merle finally moved away from the window and returned to sitting on the sofa, and the man behind me let me go.
I swung around, my hands in tight fists, ready to defend myself. Lucas stood behind me, one hand up in the stop position, the other holding up a finger in front of his lips indicating shh.
He would have been great in a game of charades.
Scowling, I glanced at Merle to be sure he was still seated, then swung myself down from the fire escape. I crossed the alley to be out of Lucas’s way and waited by the far wall.
Lucas climbed down behind me, slower and quieter than I’d been, then strode to face me. His voice was strained in an attempt to keep his anger from getting loud. “What the hell are you doing here? Are you crazy?”
“Obviously, I’m here to check out a lead. I assume you’re doing the same.”
His face was pinched as if it pained him to accept that I had as much reason to be there as he did. “You’re clanking around up there like a kid on playground equipment. You almost got us caught.”
“I didn’t even know you were there! How was I supposed to know you were lurking right behind me?”
“That’s exactly my point. You didn’t even look! You bumped right into me. You shouldn’t be doing this.”
I folded my arms across my chest and scowled. “Oh, I suppose you’re a highly trained superspy, and I should just let you handle everything.”
“Well, I’m better at it than you are, apparently. You’re about as stealthy as an elephant wearing army boots.”
I opened my mouth to respond, feeling vaguely insulted by the comparison, but snapped it shut when a window opened across the alley.
Merle stuck his head out. “Who’s there?”
For a split second, I was sure he made eye contact and recognized me.
Lucas shoved me out of the light and pinned me against the wall. I was still angry, but the entire length of his body was pressed against mine to keep me from moving. His face was so close to mine, his breath blew against my cheek. This close, his soap or aftershave—whatever I’d smelled a hint of before in passing—filled my nostrils and made my head feel fuzzy.
With my wrists pinned on each side of my head and my hips held in place by his, I couldn’t help feeling two things. One, that he’d planned this entire thing, and two, that we were both wearing entirely too many clothes. Okay, three. Number three was sensing just how pleased he was to be squashed against me like that. Very pleased. Pleased like a dog with a rawhide bone. Bone. Oh, why did I have to think about that?
My breath quickened, and he lifted his chest away from mine. That drove our hips together tighter, so it didn’t help my breathing one bit. And that bone analogy was far too close to the truth and all I could think about.
My knees went weak, and I was glad he held me so tightly or I might not have been able to stand as straight as I was. My insides tightened like an overwound clock, tense and ready to spring.
We held that position, fitting our bodies into the sliver of darkness Lucas had driven us into, until Merle shut the window, muttering to himself. A moment later, he turned off the light, leaving only the ambient blue of the television flickering through the window.
Lucas’s muscles relaxed, and he blew out a breath that tickled my neck.
I squirmed, not sure if I was hoping he’d tighten his grip or let me go. “Dude, you’d better either kiss me or serve me with papers, because this isn’t a sustainable position without something happening.”
To my disappointment, he let me go. “Sorry.” He stepped away from me as if I might snap my teeth and take a chunk out of his face.
I pushed from the wall and brushed myself off, embarrassed at how close I’d come to instigating a make-out session in a back alley while on a murder investigation with a guy I wasn’t positive I liked.
I was positive I wanted to touch his abs and lick his neck, though.
I cleared my throat. “I guess I’ll head back now. I saw what I came to see.” I turned to go.
“Kam?” His voice sounded breathless.
“Yeah.” I didn’t turn around.
“You wouldn’t...uh.” He paused and waited for me to turn around. “You wouldn’t be interested in dinner tomorrow night, would you? We could, you know, compare notes.” He rubbed the back of his head and shifted his feet.
I gave him a slow smile. “I guess it’s about time.”
Chapter Nineteen
I stood in the middle of our motel room in a long red velvet gown, hair up, dripping in costume jewelry, my hands and arms encased in full-length gloves.
Ash sat on the bed, legs crossed, regarding me as if I’d escaped a freak show. “Have you lost your mind? Is that...” She frowned. “Is that the Pretty Woman dress Julia Roberts wore?”
“Too much?” I did a slow twirl and touched my gloved hand to my throat.
She grunted. “Try again. Something a little more casual.”
I closed my eyes and tapped into my magic. The dress—which had started life as a tank top and cutoff shorts—shrank and altered until it was a tight black dress with a slit up the side. I glanced down at my new nosebleed black sandals with crisscrossing straps. My hair was now curled and cascading down my back.
“How about this?” I held my arms out.
“Dinner, right? He just said dinner. Why are you dressed for a proposal?”
My face felt hot. “I don’t know. I haven’t been on a lot of dates lately. What do people wear for dinner these days?”
“Well, not that.” She waved her hand at me. “That’s a cocktail dress. You went from a ball gown to a cocktail dress. You’re on the right track. Keep going.”
I groaned and tried again. The next one was a sundress, totally inappropriate for the weather, then a sweater set that looked too much like I was somebody’s mom. Three outfits later, I grew frustrated and found myself in jeans and a dark green cotton shirt that skimmed above the waist enough to flash the slightest bit of skin.
“There,” Ash said, clapping. “Now add a pair of medium-heeled sandals and tasteful jewelry.”
I closed my eyes and made adjustments. “How’s that?”
“Perfect.” She frowned. “How much magic have you got left?”
I moved my gold bangle and took a look. Both gems were dark. “I think I overdid it.” I hated when my magic was tapped out. It made me feel vulnerable somehow. I had no self-discipline. “Dried up.”
She gave me a wary look. “After this, maybe we should shop for clothes instead of changing one thing into another.”
I shrugged it off. Never in
my life had my magic helped me out of a truly bad situation. I always managed that with my brain or a good kick in the nuts. Magic was fun and occasionally useful, but being a djinn had mostly gotten me into trouble in life, not helped.
Ash scratched her bandaged wrist. “Is it wrong that I’m hoping I’ll have the ability to change my wardrobe after my birthday?”
I smiled. “Not wrong at all.”
Her expression grew thoughtful. “So, how does this date tonight fit in with the fact that you have a fiancé?”
I waved a dismissive hand. “It doesn’t matter. Eventually, Tahm will catch up to me, and we’ll have to come to an agreement about this arranged marriage thing. I can’t get out of it, and he’s too honest and upstanding to try. But if he’s expecting a virgin bride, that ship sailed a long time ago.” I ran my palm down my ponytail, making sure there were no stray frizzies. “And tonight with Lucas is just for fun. I deserve some fun before being shackled in a loveless marriage, right?”
“Half.”
“What?”
“Half-loveless.” Her smile was filled with pity.
I ignored it. My fate was not today. Today was a date with a guy who in the long run wouldn’t matter a bit, but who mattered a great deal tonight. “This night is going to be epic.”
“I won’t wait up for you.” She winked.
I laughed. “Don’t be silly. I want to be the first to wish you a happy birthday. I’ll be home before midnight.” I spun one last time. “I think I’m ready.”
“Yeah.” She smiled. “I think you are.”
* * *
For the first time since we’d arrived in Overland Park, I neither walked nor drove a food truck to my destination. I requested an Uber ride and rode the couple of miles to Lucas’s place like a regular adult person. Lucas had offered to come pick me up, but I still felt a little out of control. I needed to recapture some of that control before my brain started making soup-bone and rawhide analogies again.
I thanked the driver—a nice guy named Ken who did not, in fact, know what a binturong smelled like—and stepped out on the sidewalk. Lucas had been in town and undercover for longer than I had, but even if I’d been there for two months, I’d still have been holed up in a cheap motel. Apparently, Lucas was a grown-up. He’d rented an actual house. It wasn’t huge, but it was in a decent enough neighborhood. Most of the yards were mowed, and only a few looked neglected.
Way better than a cheap motel.
I made my way up the walkway, admiring the way his yard gnomes were a classy gray stone instead of brightly painted plastic. The porch light was on, though it wouldn’t be dark for another hour. I knocked on the door, and Lucas opened it immediately, as if he’d been waiting on the other side.
“Hi. Welcome.” He grinned and stepped aside, waving me in. “Let me hang up your coat.”
I slipped out of the leather jacket I’d added at the last minute and watched as he hung it on a hook behind the door.
The inside of the house was all hardwood floors and old-fashioned crown moldings.
I wandered into the living room to examine the photos displayed on the mantel. “Are you renting?”
He nodded. “None of this is mine. I rented it fully furnished.”
I peered at a photo of a pretty blonde with twin girls. “So, this isn’t your family?”
He laughed. “No. Can I get you a drink?”
I followed him into the kitchen, and he poured us each a glass of wine.
“So.” He took a gulp. “Shall we get right to it?”
I stepped back, startled. “What?” I’d never met anybody so blunt. Well, other than myself. And even I liked a little warm-up before jumping into bed.
His face colored. “To compare notes. You know. About the investigation. Dinner won’t be ready for another forty-five minutes or so.”
I took a long swig from my glass. “Yes. Let’s do that.”
A half hour later, we’d opened a second bottle of wine.
“Wait, you honestly thought I might be the killer?” Lucas sat across from me, his glass held in midair. “Are you insane? I was doing my best to keep you from getting killed. I kept seeing you disappear into the alley and talking to homeless people.”
“Those people are very nice. They just need a hand so they can start over.”
“I don’t care how scantily clad you’ve been, you can’t have been making enough to feed all those people and still stay afloat.”
I shifted in my seat. “Well, we make enough to feed ourselves, keep from getting kicked out of our room and buy supplies for the next day. We don’t need a whole lot more.”
“But how can you get ahead?”
“Why do we need to get ahead? This is temporary. Running a food truck is only for right now.”
He frowned. “Do you live your whole life in the right now?”
I tilted my head. “Do you always live your life in the tomorrow?”
He drained his glass. “I can see we view life in completely different ways.”
“I guess we do.” I watched him refill his glass and top off mine. “You’re an Aegis, right?”
“Yes. Most people haven’t heard of them.”
I chuckled. “One of my best friends is the Aegis. The Last Aegis who changed the world and became the First Aegis.”
He sat straighter in his chair. “You know Zoey Donovan?”
“We’re practically sisters. So, yeah. I know what an Aegis is. What’s your superpower?”
Zoey was an empath, feeling the emotions of people around her. Every Aegis had a power, some more useful than others. Zoey’s mother, for example, had been able to hold back death. Our friend Andrew, who’d recently become an Aegis under the new world order, could see and analyze auras.
He stared at me for a long moment, and I had the feeling he wanted to know more about Zoey. She was kind of a star in the Hidden world. I forgot that sometimes. “My gift is the ability to see what’s broken.”
“What, like in a car engine?”
“Sure. Or in people.”
I squirmed a little, wondering what he would see in me. “Isn’t that a little personal? You can’t just barge into people’s personal baggage.”
“Yes. It’s very personal.” He reached out and took my hand. “Which is why I don’t do it with my friends unless they give me permission.”
I bit my lip. “Are you asking me for permission?”
“How else can I demonstrate what I can do?” He squeezed my hand. “So, can I give it a try?”
Would he see why I’d run away from the djinn world? Would he see how much I hated being alone? Would he see that I thought Brussels sprouts were a creation of the demon world and should be banished from this world forever?
I gave him a slow nod. “Okay. Show me.”
He stared into my eyes, then shifted his gaze to my wrist. “Your magic is broken. Someone...cut it out of you.” His expression mixed horror with pity. “Who would do something so horrible?”
I pulled my hand away and wouldn’t meet his gaze. This was more than a party trick to determine my vegetable preferences. “It’s a long story. I’m okay.” I was a little disturbed that his vision saw me as broken. I hadn’t thought of myself that way before. Altered, yes. But broken? I changed the subject to try to erase the look of pity on his face. “What about you? As an Aegis, shouldn’t you have a regional assignment? You should be taking care of Hidden in some remote cabin or something, right?”
A buzzer went off, and Lucas stood and crossed to the oven to take dinner out. “I’m a floater. Apparently, they didn’t have nearly as many of us before as they have now, so some of us are sent on random assignments. For now, my job is to take care of the Hidden in the Food Truck Posse of Overland Park, Kansas.”
He set a s
teaming dish of lasagna on a rubber mat on the table, then turned to slice up the fresh garlic bread he’d also pulled out. I’d seen the look on his face. He wasn’t pleased with having lost so many of his flock. I wasn’t pleased, either. I’d been trying to protect them, too. Neither of us had been doing such a great job.
“Do you like it?” I stole a piece of bread as he set the basket on the table. “Being a floater, I mean.”
He took a bowl of salad out of the fridge and placed it next to the bread. He set out plates and silverware for us, then sat down to pile lasagna onto our plates. “I guess I’d rather have a permanent spot. I thought maybe...” He trailed off and sipped his wine.
“You thought you’d earn a permanent spot by finding Pete.”
He frowned. “Yeah. But it’s not turning out that way.”
“It’s not done yet. I don’t lose. And that stone has to get back to a drop-off point in the next few days, so we have to find it.”
We ate in silence for a couple of minutes, other than my occasional yummy noises and compliments about the food. He was a pretty good cook. I was impressed.
In our time together before dinner, we’d compared notes and found we’d reached the same conclusion—Merle had to be doing this. Either that or one of his waitresses, though neither of us could see such nice women killing people for simple job security.
I shoved a bite of salad into my mouth and chewed while I thought about it. “You’ve met Merle, right?”
“Yeah. Really sad guy. He didn’t look angry. Just sad.”
“Right. He seems like he’s given up. That doesn’t match the attitude of a guy killing off his competition.”
“Maybe one of the waitresses is supposed to inherit the café when he’s gone.”
“Maybe. Does he have any kids?”
Lucas shook his head. “Not that I know of.”