by Krista Walsh
She tried to acknowledge his levity with a smile of her own, but couldn’t manage the effort.
“I wish Percy could have been able to tell us what it is,” Gabe said, and frowned. “If the power is that old, you’d think someone would have heard of it, or at least these walking crypt keepers. A description, a photo — something. The internet knows more about our world than most of us do. A compilation of years of global knowledge and experience, and Percy is the best at putting all that information together. I’m sure he’ll find something, but if it’s taken him this long, either it doesn’t exist or —”
He cut himself off and shrugged, as though he were unable to come up with an alternative.
“Or it’s so old and powerful it knows how not to get caught,” Vera concluded.
Gabe grimaced, then thrust Vera against the wall behind the dumpster as headlights cut through the quiet street. He ducked down, but Vera peered over the edge as the car stopped just out of sight. A man in black with a strange hat passed by the opening. She dropped down and caught Gabe’s gaze through his sunglasses. He jerked his head toward the back of the alley, and she followed in a crouch, trailing after him as he guided her behind the restaurants and shops.
“They’ve got to be tracking my jumps,” he hissed, and Vera realized he was right. But maybe that wasn’t all they were tracking.
She cursed herself for not thinking of it earlier. Drawing in a deep breath to summon her strength, she shielded her mind against anyone that might be peering through her eyes. She hadn’t heard the voice in her head since her last dream, so she’d believed it had left her alone for a while. What if it had kept the connection open without her noticing?
“They’ve also been seeing us through me, I think,” she said. “They’re following me in my own head.”
The idea turned her stomach. Her vision and the magic of Gabe’s rifts would have left enough breadcrumbs to bring these strangers after them without difficulty.
“Then I guess from here, we move on foot.” Gabe offered his hand, and Vera only hesitated a moment before accepting. Although the seriousness of their situation was pressing her down, pushing her to acknowledge that she would have to choose between love and responsibility, she was happy to postpone the inevitable and cling to the warm comfort of his palm around hers.
The aroma of fresh-baked pizza followed them as they moved along the alley, and Vera’s stomach grumbled. How long had it been since dinner? Six hours? Seven? Her body wanted food as much as it wanted sleep, but her desire to remain hidden from those gaunt faces overcame both urges.
Gabe was obviously no stranger to the network of alleys that wound their way through the downtown core, and twenty minutes later, he guided them to a side street on the edge of an eastern suburb. People milled around outside the bars and restaurants, but he led her away from the crowds to a homey-looking cafe. The sign, a cheerful green and white, announced The Leaky Carafe, and Gabe ushered her inside without delay.
Vera chose a table near the back with a good view of the street, tucking the book between her and the wall to keep it out of sight. While Gabe ordered coffees, her thoughts centered on their current predicament. Every moment, she was braced to see another eerie trio walk by the window, their skeletal faces peering at her through the glass.
She wondered what they would do to her if they caught her. Rega had made it clear that he had no qualms about violence, and after hearing what Percy had learned about him, she had no doubt he would use whatever method got him what he wanted. But the power in her head was still too much of a mystery to guess what it would do next. Would it pin her down and press on her thoughts until her sanity snapped? As though her consciousness was nothing but a nut with a hard shell that needed to be cracked?
She shuddered and looked at Gabe in relief when he appeared with their coffees and a chocolate chip cookie on a plate.
“We can share,” he said. “Something to keep our energy up. Or a last meal. Either way, you can’t go wrong with chocolate.”
“You’ve never said anything more true,” she said, only half aware of the words coming out of her mouth.
“I can think of a few things,” he said. His low tone set off a flash of Vera’s desire at the same time as a band of pain wrapped around her heart. Regret was already closing in on her for her earlier actions. She should have spent more time thinking things over. Even a few hours of consideration would have made her recognize how impossible it was to have a relationship with this man. There was too much going on to make it work.
For the first time in her adult life, she had chosen to be spontaneous, and the decision was about to kick her in the ass.
She broke off a piece of the cookie and dunked it in her coffee before taking a bite. Despite the lateness of the hour, the cookie tasted like it had just come out of the oven. Although it was nothing more than sugar and fat, it went a long way to calm her rioting thoughts.
The strain of keeping the shield in place around her mind sent a sharp pain shooting into her left temple. Although she was doing nothing more strenuous than sitting at a table sipping coffee, she felt her energy oozing out of her muscles, eating away at her strength.
“We can’t keep running forever,” she said. In a rush, the same arguments that had made her oppose running in the first place swept over her, and she pressed her fingers to her brow to relieve the pain throbbing behind her left eye.
Gabe sipped his coffee and said nothing, letting her spin without interruption. While she appreciated the silence, she couldn’t make enough sense out of her thoughts to piece them together on her own.
“If each car was a different pack of these demons — or whatever they are — that means we have nine of them coming after the book, without any idea of what their intentions are or what they can do,” she said. “We also have Rega and Humphrey and who knows how many other people in his gang. They must know that if I wasn’t at home, the book wasn’t there either, which means they’ll either be waiting for me to come back, or they’ve also begun searching for me.”
Gabe continued to say nothing, staring at her through his dark, empty lenses.
“Running won’t do anything. This block I’m creating around my thoughts takes too much effort to maintain long term, which means no matter where I go, the voice in my head will find me eventually. And somehow Humphrey knew where I kept the book in the first place, which suggests they’ll be able to track me as well, if they haven’t already. They could be halfway to Boston by now.” She shook her head. “No, I’m done running. Now it’s time to fight back.”
Gabe set down his mug. “I know these guys have you freaked out, but let’s not rush into anything. Percy’s still searching for what that voice might be, and he could learn more about Rega and these skeleton guys, too. If you barge in and try to fight them too soon, there’s no guarantee you’ll win.”
Vera sipped her coffee to wet her dry lips and felt her fingers trembling on the handle. All these years, she’d believed she’d done her best to keep The Fettered Wolf safe, but in a matter of weeks, two independent groups had proved that her best was no longer enough. Maybe it never had been and she’d been deluding herself the entire time. The heat of frustration flowed through her.
“We’re too few against too many,” she said. “If they get the book, our entire world could crumble around us. And that’s just the effect on the otherworld. Without us, how much of the human infrastructure will collapse as well? There’s too much at stake to keep putting this off.” She broke off another piece of cookie, but didn’t eat it. “You might be right that I’m not in a place to face them directly, but that doesn’t mean we can’t put a solid plan into action right now. Tonight.”
“What are you thinking?”
The glimmer of an idea took shape in Vera’s mind, and she began teasing it into a more solid form. She couldn’t fight them all. With her body vulnerable against Rega and her mind against the ancient power, there was no way she could take them all down without lo
sses.
Ara and Gabe had recommended she go to the farmhouse to buy time. It had been the start of an effective idea, but it hadn’t bought them enough. Too many people knew she carried the book with her.
But if she could somehow divide and conquer…
In one solid blow, the idea landed in Vera’s lap. What if there was a way to make one of these groups think they’d won?
She didn’t know if it would work. But it was the best she could come up with, and she was determined to try.
Neither Gabe nor Ara would like her plan, she was sure of it, but she was past the point of taking suggestions from other people. None of their tactics had worked. Just like everything else in her life, she had to do this on her own.
“We need to call Ara,” she said, and Gabe’s eyebrows rose. “Then we need a safe place to work. We’re going to get these assholes off my back.”
10
Lights flashed in Vera’s eyes as the cab drove through the late-night streets of New Haven. At each bump in the road, she checked over her shoulder to make sure no one had rammed them from behind, and she scanned each person they passed for strange square hats or demon eyes.
“Relax,” Gabe said, taking her hand. He wrapped his fingers through hers and gave them a tight squeeze. “We’re ahead of them now. We have time to breathe.”
She glanced at the driver, but he was on the phone, too caught up in his own conversation to pay attention to theirs. He hadn’t even raised an eyebrow at their lack of shoes when he’d picked them up.
“I can’t believe I didn’t sense that voice in my head,” she said.
“You kind of had a lot going on.”
At first she thought he was teasing her, thinking only of the fire and their hours of distraction, but when she took in the gentle upturn of the corner of his mouth and the soft wrinkle on his brow, she understood he meant more than that.
Whatever came next, it warmed her to know he wasn’t making jokes about their night together. It had meant something to him, even if her practical mind wished it hadn’t.
“Do you still feel it in there?” he asked.
Vera rubbed her temples. “There’s pressure, like it’s trying to worm its way in, but not aggressively. So far, I’ve been able to block it out.”
He frowned. “Can you hold that up for much longer?”
“I’ve never had to test it. It’s already wearing me down, but I won’t make it easy. I’ll keep it up as long as I have to. I just need to concentrate.”
Gabe fell silent, and she appreciated that he understood how talking would only make things more difficult for her.
Although that wasn’t the only reason she felt relieved to crawl back into her thoughts. Decisions had to be made, and she couldn’t assess the pros and cons objectively with the distraction of Gabe’s handsome face weighing down the balance sheet.
She forced herself to think of the idea that had come to her in the coffee shop. Too many of the details were shaky, and she wanted to have as many of them worked out as possible before they arrived at Gabe’s office.
She knew both the ancient power and Rega’s gang were after the book, but that didn’t mean they knew everything about it. They might know what it looked like, what it was called, maybe even have an idea of the information it contained, but the text had been hidden for so long that she doubted they would recognize it at first glance.
And if they didn’t know for certain what they were holding, then maybe they wouldn’t recognize a copy if it was placed in front of them.
A tightness grew around her head, and she squeezed her eyes shut, focusing on the shield to keep it firm. She felt invisible fingers crawling around the edges of her brain, searching for weaknesses, but she was determined they wouldn’t find any.
A drop of sweat ran down Vera’s spine, and the muscles in her neck strained as she clenched her teeth. Gabe’s hand tightened around hers, and she used his calmness to find her own. The attack passed, and she released a breath.
In the intermittent light that shot through the cab, she opened The Fettered Wolf and ran her fingers over the text. The ink had faded with time, but not as much as one might have expected for its age. The drawings were inked in black, mostly crude line sketches of symbols long forgotten, with none of the richness of color she often saw in other classic collections. She thanked the gods for its simplicity, as it would make her work that much easier.
The words themselves were lost to time, written in a language that had been wiped off the earth, if it had ever existed beyond the people who created it. The alphabet seemed to consist of sharp lines and squiggles, with a few characters that only vaguely resembled modern letters.
If the pages had been full of dyed inks and gold leaf, she would have considered her idea impossible, but as it stood, she believed it would only be a moderate challenge to replicate it. Or at least make it look real enough to fool a passing eye. If she copied the text into a tangle of nonsense pages, no one would be able to interpret it in a way that would do any damage.
She had no doubt that whoever got the book first would figure out the truth sooner or later. Her hope, and the second part of her plan, was that by the time they did, she would be far from New Haven. The ancient power could come for her, but she would keep her mind blocked and never stay in one place for long. She had a decent amount of savings hidden away in various accounts and investments thanks to her father’s advice. It wasn’t enough to settle down without working another day in her life, but it would keep her going from place to place until she gained enough information to face her enemies.
When Gabe and Ara had recommended she leave town, she’d been reluctant to walk away because of everything she would be leaving behind, but now she saw that she’d been selfish. If she wanted to protect everything and everyone she cared about, she had to take their advice.
Just not in the way they intended.
It would take cleverness and a sharp eye, but she would find a way to stay ahead of those who were coming after her. She had contacts at bookstores and libraries around the world, an entire network of knowledge collectors who knew much more about the otherworld than people gave them credit for. As long as she kept her head down and avoided any unwanted attention, she could use those connections to discover who was after this book — and hopefully even before the thieves realized their prize was a fake.
She exhaled slowly and curled her fingers around the boards hidden beneath the stretched leather as she closed the cover. Ara would be furious with her for leaving under such uncertain circumstances, but Vera was sure she could make her understand. Ara had always known her well, even better than she knew herself sometimes.
Leaving wouldn’t be easy for Vera, either. She would have so many goodbyes to make. Ara, her shop, her dogs.
Gabe.
His name popped into her head before she could prevent it. Saying goodbye to him would be one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do, and a small part of her regretted that she’d gone to him in the first place. If she hadn’t asked him for help, if he hadn’t had the chance to admit his feelings for her and make her realize that she felt the same for him, she could have run without feeling like she was leaving her whole world behind.
In walking away from him, she would have to put everything they might have had on hold — and that was if he was willing to wait for her to come back. The concern that he would move on created a buzz of anxiety in her stomach, but she pressed it down. Her heart would be fine. If Rega or the strange trios got their hands on the book, she couldn’t be so certain about the rest of her.
Unless he chose to come with me. The idea dropped so suddenly into her head she sucked in a sharp breath. Gabe squeezed her hand again, likely thinking she was suffering another attack on her mind. Which, in a way, she was. It hadn’t occurred to her until now that it was possible he might run with her. His PI skills and ability to jump from place to place would certainly help them keep ahead of the enemy.
But it would mean
he’d have a lot to give up as well: the business he’d worked so hard to build, his apartment, and his beautiful farmhouse. He would be on the run, and that would put a lot of pressure on whatever was growing between them.
It was a lot to expect, and she couldn’t hang her decision on the possibility.
She couldn’t even be sure it would be smart to allow him to come with her even if she wanted him to. She was a different person when he was around — more relaxed, less sure of herself — and she couldn’t allow those weaknesses to lead her down the wrong path. Her responsibilities had always been her strengths, and right now she needed that discipline more than ever.
Even before she’d kissed Gabe and turned her life upside down, she’d known there would be complications. She just hadn’t thought they would rise up so quickly.
Confusion tearing at her heart as well as her mind, she rested her forehead against the cool glass of the window. She would have to take this one step at a time, starting with the book. The answers to the rest would come to her as she moved closer to the next stage. She hoped.
With that resolution in mind, she turned her thoughts back to the recreation of The Fettered Wolf. Finishing the replica quickly would require patience and a steady hand. At the moment, she didn’t think she possessed either, but she was determined to get it done. Tonight, if she could. The book was a little over a hundred pages. Long enough, but she thanked the gods it wasn’t an epic.
Her stomach grumbled, and she conceded that she’d also have to include time for eating if she wanted to make it to morning without fainting.
The taxi pulled up in front of Gabe’s office building, and Vera scanned the street before getting out of the car. No other vehicles were parked at the side of the road. No trios with black coats and strange hats were in sight.
Gabe made a pass of his own. “I think we’re clear.”
“For now.” Vera didn’t put it past the people chasing them to pull up around the corner as soon as they reached the street.