by Sierra Dean
Apparently that thing they say about absence making the heart grow fonder is legit. Except by heart they meant vagina.
My vagina was definitely fonder of him than the last time I’d been with him.
“I think you’ll like it. And neither of us will get in trouble.” He angled his chin up to the ceiling where a small security camera was mounted, then headed towards the elevator. Ah, yes, how could I forget? This was Ardra’s hotel, after all, so of course we’d be under a watchful eye whenever we were near each other. I hadn’t really factored that inevitability in when I’d decided to stay at the Lucky Star.
I shut my hotel room door and jogged down the hall to catch up to him. We were close in height, but he still took longer strides, moving with the kind of purpose that seems to guide powerful men through the world.
Inside the elevator I immediately regretted not taking a different car. If we were supposed to just be acting like old friends, I was going to need to stay at least fifty feet away from him at all times.
He smelled perfect, like bergamot and linen. The elevator car was lined top to bottom with mirrors, and I caught his eye in our reflection.
“I missed you.” His voice was so quiet it felt like he was sharing a secret with me.
“Shh.” How dare he say something so sweet and honest when I couldn’t touch him? There were limits to my self-control, and he seemed to be bent on testing all of them.
I pressed myself against the wall farthest from him and fixed my eyes on the elevator doors, taking calming, measured breaths until I could almost ignore his scent. Until I nearly believed I could stand next to him in public and not try to dry hump him.
Baby steps.
The elevator chimed, and the doors opened up into a dark corridor.
“Have you brought me up here to kill me?” I teased.
“No. The carpet is new. I’d have taken you to the basement for that. I can make whatever kind of mess I want down there.”
I don’t know if it was the implication of making a mess or the very subtle suggestion of violence, but either way the whole sentence made me dizzy with arousal.
Get a grip, woman.
Though we were obviously still in the hotel, this floor looked more like it belonged to an office building. There were names rather than numbers beside each card reader, and along one of the far walls I noticed a bulletin board and coffee maker.
We stopped in front of a door marked Cade Melpomene – External Relations.
I’d like to have some internal relations with him.
Gods I hoped this wasn’t his room. If there was a bed anywhere in sight, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from climbing him like a really, really sexy tree.
“That’s not your suite, right?” I asked, not sure how to word it without giving away what was going on in my head.
“No.”
“Okay.”
He leaned a little closer, pretending to pick a piece of lint off my shirt. A knot formed in my throat, making it hard for me to swallow. He casually, playfully tugged my ponytail and whispered, “Maybe I’ll show you that later.”
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Was it possible to get pregnant from hearing a sentence?
He held the door open for me, staying out of my way so he didn’t touch me. His attention seemed to be up at the ceiling again, as if he was telling the cameras, See, no funny business.
The interior of the room was lit only by one lamp sitting on a low bookshelf. He went over and turned it off, leaving us totally engulfed in darkness. Somehow this made me all the more aware of him. Each rustle of fabric as he moved, the way the air shifted to make way for him. I stayed absolutely still, wrapping my arms around myself.
A moment later the sound of blinds being raised drew my attention.
He pushed back heavy, dark curtains, revealing an enormous picture window that looked down over the strip. Evening had settled in, making the miles and miles of neon pop like feverish cartoon fantasies. It was all so bright and colorful I didn’t want to believe it could be real. How could something that beautiful have been crafted out of glass and chemicals?
I crossed the room and stood by his side, drinking in the view. Pedestrians clogged the sidewalks, moving like ants. Cars added their head- and taillights to the mix, with two red and white ribbons binding off the city as if it were a gift.
A scaled-down Eiffel tower was next to a hot air balloon. Across the way, the Bellagio fountain was making its ostentatious display. Everywhere I looked my eyes landed on something familiar but somehow different from this view.
Was this how the gods saw us? Small and inconsequential, the ugly machinery of an otherwise stunning world? Did they think of Earth like their own version of this adult playground, where everything was theirs to use, create, and destroy, whatever whim happened to be guiding them that day?
I pressed my fingertips against the cool glass, tracing the outline of one of the huge signs below. It was so easy to ignore the problems of everyone down there. If I couldn’t see their faces, then what did the trials and troubles of their lives matter?
But I felt lonely and isolated too, even with Cade standing next to me, knowing how badly I wanted to touch him and also how dangerous that could be for us both.
This sight was lovely, but it left me conflicted and a little cold.
I’m pretty sure his intention had been to dazzle me with a nice nighttime postcard glimpse of the city. I suspected he wanted me to react somehow, so I went with the first thing that came to my head. “It’s lovely. Don’t you find it distracting though?”
He shook his head. “No. I’m almost never here to see it.”
The wistful way he said it made me think of my view at home. It might as well have been a poster, for the amount of enjoyment I was able to get out of it. Yet on those few rare occasions I got to stand there long enough to drink in Rainier and the Space Needle, it felt like I was the heroine in a romantic comedy and this was my too-perfect-for-real-life apartment.
Sometimes, I actually felt very lucky.
I wondered if that was a sensation Cade had ever had in his entire life.
I also wondered if the reason he’d brought me here was because he wanted to pretend, however briefly, that he was a normal man and I was a normal woman, and this was something we could share together.
That was so simple it made my chest hurt.
I didn’t dare take his hand, even in the darkness, not trusting either myself or the plethora of cameras that were likely following his every move. Instead I took a half step closer and let my pinky finger graze the side of his.
He jerked slightly at my touch, as if a shock had woken him from a long slumber. I worried he might pull away, but he bumped my shoulder lightly with his.
“Thank you for showing me this,” I whispered.
“Sparky?”
I wondered how I could have ever hated hearing him call me that.
“Hmm?”
“I’m glad you’re here.”
That made two of us.
Chapter Seventeen
My sense of peace was not meant to last long.
I should have known.
Cade brought me back to my room, and before I even had a chance to unlock my door, I heard my phone ringing inside. That probably wasn’t a great sign.
Normally all my instructions from the temple came via text or through the iTithe app, so if someone was calling me, it wasn’t for a friendly chat. I doubted it would be Yvonne, because Sawyer had called her while we were checking into the hotel to give her the room number and a little extra peace of mind.
No, I had a good feeling whoever was on the other end of that call, I wasn’t going to be happy about it.
I pushed my way through the door and found the phone where I’d left it on my bed. Cade, who must have been curious about my sudden hurry, had followed me into the suite and was looking around the place like he’d never seen one of these rooms before.
Maybe he was just trying to
pretend he wasn’t listening.
“Hello?” I didn’t recognize the number.
“Tell me something, Rain Chaser, do you think twelve is enough?” The voice on the other end of the phone was distorted, crackling. It sounded like it was being augmented by a computer somehow, making it eerily deep and slow.
Of course, that also made it impossible to recognize, if I might have known the person on the other end of the line.
“What?”
“Twelve. Do you think twelve is enough? Or should I go bigger? A baker’s dozen, that’s thirteen isn’t it? Thirteen is considered unlucky in some cultures. Some people are even afraid of it. Imagine. Being afraid of a number.”
I sat on the end of my bed, suddenly not able to trust my legs to keep me standing.
Do you think twelve is enough?
He was talking about the dead kids.
Cade stood in the doorway, leaning against the wall that divided the living room from the bedroom. He couldn’t hear what I was hearing, but something in my face told him it wasn’t good. His brows had knit together in the middle, forming a furrow of worry between his eyes.
I couldn’t comfort him right now.
“I think twelve is too many,” I replied, trying to keep my voice as measured as the robotic one on the phone. Turns out if I made the effort, I could sound pretty calm while talking to a serial killer.
“Can’t undo what’s been done,” he said.
“You can stop then.”
“I could stop, but I don’t want to. Don’t want to.” A small chuckle that sounded like static. “You see, the gods were meant to serve man, not the other way around. The gods were supposed to be there for us. Giving us what we need. Making our lives easier, better. Now we bend over backwards to sacrifice our children to them. We drop babies on their doorsteps and give them all our money. And what do we get in return?”
The question hung there, unanswered, so he added, “Nothing.”
I was shaking my head.
“They give us nothing,” he snarled.
“They give us everything.”
That staticky inhuman chuckle again. It was like someone who’d heard about laughter secondhand trying to imitate the sound. Creepy.
“What do you want?” I asked. There had to be something this unhinged lunatic was after. Something that might give me some clue where to start looking for him, or at least narrow down who he might be.
“I want them to suffer like they make us suffer. If they don’t understand pain, maybe they’ll understand loss.”
How to even begin to explain to this guy how wrong he was? The gods didn’t care if he was killing initiates. Well, Macha cared, but I think that had more to do with her pride and the lack of viable clerics she’d received over the last seventy years. Would the others really miss the children destined to serve them?
Probably not.
But if I explained that to this guy, it would just prove his insane theory. That the gods didn’t give two shits about us, and he would likely keep killing initiates until someone paid attention to him.
I sighed. “What do you want from me, then? You had to pick me for a reason.”
“You’re the only one who noticed.”
“What?”
“You’re the only cleric who went to see the body. You’re the only one who talked to the police. I’ve been watching. It was only you. Everyone else simply made the problem disappear, but not you. I think you’re different.”
“No.”
“I think you might be special.”
“I think you might be out of your fucking mind,” I snapped, unable to restrain myself any longer.
Cade hadn’t had much to go on, but now he came into the room, standing mere feet from me, looking for all the world like he wanted to punch someone for pissing me off this much. Who was he going to hit, though? The phone?
“I’m not crazy. I see everything with perfect clarity. I saved those kids.”
“You murdered them.”
“I set them free. Don’t you wish someone had set you free, Rain Chaser? Wouldn’t a painless death have been preferable to the life you’ve been forced to lead?”
“No,” I said adamantly. “And I think those kids would rather be alive today than to have proved some point for you. They were children, godsdammit.”
He paused. “You’re right.”
A chill went straight down my spine, making me sit bolt upright. If the crazy man was agreeing with me, that probably wasn’t great.
“So stop killing them,” I told him again.
He chuckled.
“No, no.” He let out a dreamy little sigh, which sounded extra weird through the voice-augmenting software he was using. “I think I’ll move onto adults instead. Wonderful idea, thank you.”
“Wait, I—”
“See you soon, Tallulah.”
Click.
I lowered the phone and held it in my trembling hand, unable to look up at Cade. All I could do was stare at the blinking Call Disconnected screen.
Finally I said, “I think I really fucked up.”
Chapter Eighteen
I continued to stare at the phone, disbelief rooting me in place.
Suddenly I desperately wanted Sawyer back in the room. With her out of sight the only thing I could think was that this monster was out there, following her, waiting for his moment to strike.
My blood went cold.
Cade left the room and returned a moment later with a glass of water and a small bottle of whiskey from the minibar. If he was trying to distract me, that was the right move.
“Not the twelve-dollar whiskey,” I whined.
He ignored me and cracked open the little bottle, handing it to me. “It’s fine.”
“Sido is going to kill me.” I pictured her going over the credit card statements in front of me, line by line, her frown deepening with every expense she thought was too much. We did this financial dance monthly, and frankly I doubted she was going to be too sympathetic about my emotional state. She didn’t really think of things in those terms.
“It’s fine,” Cade repeated. “Plus it’s already open, so just take it.”
I did as I was told and took a swig from the bottle. At least it tasted like a nice twelve-dollar whiskey. No cheapness from the Lucky Star on that end. As the booze warmed its way down my throat and into my stomach, Cade crouched and braced one hand on either side of my legs.
Not that long ago, this move would have sent me into a senseless sex blur, and I’d be dragging him into bed with me. Now I was just letting his presence act like a soothing balm to keep me tethered to reality. I took another sip of whiskey and grimaced.
I still couldn’t quite believe the phone call had been real.
“Tell me everything,” Cade coaxed.
And I did. The story fell out of me in one rapid succession of sentences, each running into the one that followed as I laid out the details of the twelve dead initiates and how I’d questioned Prescott. I even told him about the guy who’d attacked me in the alley, which now seemed like a dream from a very long time ago.
Throughout my story, Cade said nothing. He nodded occasionally, or he’d press his thumb against my thigh as a way to calm me when the story started to get a little loopy, but at no point did he interrupt me.
When I was done, I polished off the last of the bottle and chased it with the water he’d brought along. Then I looked at him as if he might have all the answers I’d been searching for this whole time.
“Huh,” was all he said.
“That’s not helping.”
He raised one brow, almost as if to scold me. “You just told me a lot. Give me a minute to process it all.” He rose to a standing position and moved back into the other room. I heard the minibar open again and the sound of the couch sighing under his weight.
It took me a second to realize he wasn’t coming back into the bedroom, so I got up and followed him into the living room. Sitting area? Lounge?
&
nbsp; I plopped down beside him on the couch, and we stared at the blank television set.
“I’ll tell you this, Tallulah.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t think I’m ever going to get bored spending time with you.” He smiled faintly, in a way that suggested he didn’t really find this situation funny but was maybe just trying to make me feel better. It worked. Sort of.
Sitting here on the couch with him felt so…normal. In spite of the fact we were talking about a serial killer. Or that our weird jobs meant we never saw each other. This was the most normal I’d felt in ages. Being with him gave me the sense I belonged somewhere, in spite of the fact we were breaking about a dozen temple rules whenever we were in the same room.
We shouldn’t be together, and yet here we were.
I wanted to hold his hand, but that seemed wrong at the moment.
Cade spoke after a length of silence. “So, we have a guy killing kids to get the attention of the gods, who has now implied he plans to move on to adults? That’s the real cut-and-dry basics of this?” He glanced over at me and caught me staring at him. I probably should have looked away, but I didn’t.
“Yes.”
“And in three days the largest group of clerics will be gathered here, in Las Vegas, for a well-publicized convention.” He didn’t look away either, staring at me like there were answers in my eyes to questions neither of us were asking.
“Yeah, that seems to be the case.”
“Sounds to me like there’s a good chance this guy will come right to us, if we wait.”
I must have made a face because he actually smiled for real this time. “Unless you have a better idea about how we can figure out who this person is, I think that’s all we’re really left with.”
I chewed thoughtfully on my thumbnail. “Just sit around and wait until he kills someone else? That’s not really a plan so much, is it?”
“Until he tries to kill someone else. You have to remember this will be a lot different than what he’s used to. Up until now he’s been killing kids who no one knew about, who weren’t being watched. Now he’s coming here, where the world press has its eyes on us, where we have more security than any other event on the planet, and where every single person in the room has some sort of gods-given powers. I mean, you could deep-fry him. Prescott could just give him a poke in the ribs and he’d be dead. The people he’s coming after aren’t helpless.”