Renegade

by Nancy Northcott

  She recoiled, her eyes wide. She snatched her hand away from him, and his soul ached with the loss. “Venom,” she choked, “but only ghouls—”

  “Yes. Only ghouls have venom in their blood, and I’m teetering on the edge of becoming one.”

  Chapter 11

  Val stared at Griffin’s grim face. She must’ve misunderstood. He couldn’t have said—

  “Could you repeat that?” Her voice sounded tight, achy, like her chest suddenly felt.

  “You heard me.”

  “But that’s impossible. If you were about to—you were so rational last night, so gentle and strong. If you were a ghoul, you’d be…” Then she remembered, and the protest died.

  “Also as I was last night.” Wearily, he ran a hand through his hair. “I would give a year of my life for that not to have happened. When I’m tired, the venom in my blood goes up. The more I overexert, the faster it spikes.”

  “‘Overexert,’ as in flinging a loaded car six miles. Blowing yourself out.” Damn it, he’d gotten worse saving her.

  “Or when I draw power faster than I should. But yeah, looks like I did have a blowout.” He reached for her hand, but stopped, balling his fist on his knee instead. She couldn’t bring herself to wrap her fingers around his.

  “I meant to tell you this at the lake, then they came and—hell, it’s the story of our dealings, my meaning to tell you something and an emergency interrupting. I swear, if not for that, I would’ve told you before I let you throw in with me.”

  The man she’d had dinner with last night would’ve told her. The one who’d almost hit her, maybe not. “What brings the level back down?”

  “Rest. Frequent recharges.” He rubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “That’s why I was living near the swamp. In that kind of atmosphere, with so much life around me, the recharge became unconscious, almost constant and without hurting anything. That’s the healthiest I’ve been in a couple of years. Venom-wise, anyway.”

  “Except you’re tired a lot, aren’t you? Tired and discouraged.” She had no idea where that insight had come from, but it rang true. And made her heart ache for him. “Lonely, too. Why else would you kidnap the shire reeve to talk to?”

  Griffin shifted to face her, and his drawn expression confirmed her guess. “I hoped you could quietly help unmask the traitor, but the attack on my place screwed up my plans. I’m sorry I dragged you into this unholy mess.”

  “If you’re right about there being a traitor on the Council, the more people we can ‘drag in,’ the better.”

  She hesitated, hating this topic as he must, but she had to ask. “How close are you to turning? I didn’t realize the process could be tracked.”

  “I didn’t either, not until it happened to me. It started with battle wounds I had no one to heal.”

  Venom wounds were an occupational hazard of fighting ghouls, but there was always a medical team on hand to take care of the venom as well as the actual wounds.

  Unless you were a renegade.

  He must’ve suffered horribly, and she hated that. “So the venom was too much for your system to handle, and you had no one to purge it.”

  “Right.” He let out a heavy sigh. “Barring battle damage, I thought mages got venom in their blood from repeatedly working dark magic.” His frustrated gaze fell to the floor. “Hell of a way to find out you’re wrong.”

  “Yeah.” He had venom in his blood but was now, again, the man who’d kissed her so passionately and touched her so gently. The man who’d been willing to die for her. If he were more ghoul than mage, he would’ve abandoned Val to her fate last night. For that tender, thoughtful man, she bit back her revulsion about the venom and took his hand.

  He inhaled sharply, the muscle working in his jaw for a long moment. Then he raised her hand to his mouth and, still not looking at her, kissed it.

  The gesture stabbed into her soul. There was too much good in him for her to write him off.

  At least this morning Griffin’s hand, like his lips, felt warm, not cold and clammy. She laced her fingers through his, a silent offer of support. “You said you were teetering. What does that mean?”

  He turned the little gadget in front of him so she could read the green forty-four on the gauge. “The level has never been that high,” he said in a grim voice, “and after the way I treated you last night, and considering that sleep brings it down and I’ve slept several hours since, I was probably on the edge of tipping over, of being done.”

  “Define ‘the edge.’” Odd, how steady her voice sounded when her breath wasn’t working quite right.

  If he turned ghoul, she could probably handle him. But losing him, seeing the ruin of all that strength, that courage and kindness…She couldn’t allow that to happen.

  “Fifty-six is the lowest blood venom level measured in any ghoul, so that’s probably the point of no return. At least as far as my doctor, who’s something of an expert, knows.”

  “Yes.” Val watched him closely. “Stefan Harper is the world’s foremost expert.”

  Griffin’s fingers tensed, but his blank expression didn’t change. Casually, he said, “Can’t argue with that, but it’s not as if I can consult him again.”

  Though she had expected him to stonewall, his evasion still hurt. Of course, her refusal to trust him fully until last night had to be rankling him.

  She couldn’t control what he saw in her eyes, but she kept her voice and gaze level. “The time for you to lie to me, Griffin, is over. If I’m going to help you, I need the truth. Always. In return, I’ll be honest with you. I’ll trust you completely.”

  The appraising look between them held until her neck felt tight. At last, he raised his eyebrows. “If you had any sense, you’d bolt out of here, turn me in, and try groveling as a path back into the Collegium. Valeria, if I tip without warning, I could kill you.”

  “If,” she repeated, shrugging. That clutch in her chest, that lift at the sudden, amazed light in his eyes, didn’t bode well for the state of her heart, but she couldn’t abandon him. “Besides, since this mostly happens when you’re tired, I’m pretty sure I can take you.”

  His expression turned grim. “You have to promise me something. If you ever look at me and you know I’m not myself anymore, that you’re looking at a ghoul, you won’t question me, won’t test me, won’t stall to consult anyone. You’ll take a kill shot without hesitating.”

  “I can’t just—”

  “You have to. Or else, I swear, I’ll leave you here.” When she shook her head, he added, “If that moment comes, you won’t be wrong, Valeria. You’ve seen enough ghouls. You’ll know. Hesitate, and I might kill you. Or worse.”

  “You wouldn’t.” Last night, he’d stopped himself.

  “I’d like to think not, but the numbers don’t lie.” He nodded down at the gauge. “Last night came way too close to violence to ignore. Promise me, Valeria.”

  “After you saved my life, risked your own to come tell me that a catastrophe was not my fault? You were willing to die to protect me if I refused to run with you last night. And don’t think I didn’t notice you set us up so only you fired at the Collegium mages. I can’t kill you. I owe you too much.”

  The mere thought of taking his life made her breath hitch, her soul flinch. Val swallowed hard. “There has to be another way.”

  “If there were, don’t you think I would’ve found some hint of it?” He shook his head. “Ghouls are a perversion of magic, an unnatural bane inflicted on us and on Mundanes. I’ve spent my adult life battling them. If you were in my shoes, would you want to live as that?”

  “No, but—”

  “There are no ‘buts.’ As the saying goes, you’d be doing me a favor.”

  Heart aching, she looked into his dark, agonized eyes. Behind his unhappiness lay resolve. He truly wanted this.

  “All right,” she said. “I promise.” But if that moment arrived and she had any other choice, she would not sacrifice him.


  “Okay, then.” His solemn stare seemed to pierce her soul, to see beyond the brave front she’d put on. “One way or another,” he said, “I’ll make things right for you with the Collegium. You’ll go home again.”

  “We will. Right now, though, you’ll call Stefan Harper about the fastest way to bring your blood levels down.”

  “Valeria—”

  “The truth, remember.” She explained about the identical salves from her stint in the infirmary and her stay at his place. “Before you point out that Harper could’ve shared what he mixed, recall how you always told reeve cadets not to trust coincidence.”

  His jaw tightened. He looked away, and she could almost hear the cursing going through his brain.

  Tapping his chin with one finger recaptured his attention. “I can keep secrets,” she said. “You brought me into this, so why can’t you trust me?”

  He threw her a frustrated look. “I told you not all my secrets are my own. I can’t reveal anyone else to you unless that person consents. I’ll call my doctor. My friends.”

  “Fair enough. I’ll even take a shower and give you privacy for that. Then, unless Dr. Harper says otherwise, we’re going in search of food—the refuel part of blowout recovery.”

  “Sounds good.” He stood with her and remained standing as she walked toward the bathroom.

  “Valeria,” he said as she reached the door, “there’s something that might make you feel better about your promise, something you have a right to know anyway.”

  His face was set in grim, purposeful lines. “I check my blood level faithfully, and I won’t let it reach fifty-six. If it ever hits fifty-five, I’ll commit suicide.”

  Hard to believe, Val thought, as she watched Griffin drive down the winding road an hour later, that he’d so calmly said, I’ll commit suicide. How unfair that he had to face this venom problem along with everything else.

  She knew as well as anyone, of course, that fair wasn’t a standard the universe particularly noticed. Yet he seemed to cope amazingly well.

  To his credit, he’d always been resolute. Focused. He couldn’t have survived this long on the run if either of those traits had changed.

  Everyone had a breaking point, though.

  He glanced at her. “What’re you thinking?”

  “Considering various problems. What you said last night about the ghouls and dark magic is scary as hell. If I’d known, I would’ve put deputies on it. You’ve found nothing?”

  “Nothing specific. If you’d put people on it, depending on where their true loyalties lay, they might’ve covered it up.”

  “Or killed any witnesses. God, I hope that isn’t what happened to Tina and this latest man, Jim Barcan. His tip led to my raid two weeks ago, but now he’s vanished.”

  “After we eat and recharge, I’ll see if I can track them.” He turned onto a side road and glanced at her. “In his message last night, Stefan confirmed that your moonstone pendant let the Council scry us. It’s good you didn’t bring it.”

  For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. Gene trusted her even less than she’d thought. “It was a gift,” she managed at last. “From Gene. I swear I didn’t mean to lead them to you.”

  “Easier ways to do that if you’d wanted to.” Shaking his head, he added, “I’m sorry, Valeria. I know he and his wife are important to you.”

  More important than she was to Gene, apparently, and the knowledge burned deep in her soul. “If his trust is so easily lost, I never truly had it.”

  They drove another mile or so in silence. At last, she turned in the seat to look at him. “I hate to say this, I really, really do, but I think someone on the High Council, not just one of the department heads, must be involved. They subverted my department. That points to someone doing it who outranks me as department head. Only the High Council members hold that power.”

  “Could be someone else, but my gut says you’re right.” Griffin nodded to a green highway sign. “Carson, Georgia, population three hundred. It’s a little after eight. Probably not much open besides breakfast places.”

  Around the curve lay a typical little Southern town. One-story shops with large front windows lined the highway—mostly brick, a few wood, many with aluminum awnings in front.

  At the far end of the street, the road forked. A small patch of parched, brown grass in the fork held a statue of a Confederate soldier with the Stars and Bars on the pedestal. Above him hung the only traffic light in sight. As Griffin had predicted, the shops weren’t open, but a few cars sat by the curb a couple of blocks down.

  “This place looks familiar,” he said, staring down the street. “I think I came through here a couple of years ago.” He pulled up to the curb behind the other cars.

  LOU’S, read the sign hanging under the flat aluminum awning two doors down. A painting of a BLT on white bread sitting by a glass of iced tea brightened the blue-on-white sign. That had to be the diner the motel clerk had recommended.

  Here and there, straggly tufts of grass grew in the sidewalk cracks. Some of the shop windows bore smudges and streaks, as though no one had washed them lately.

  “It looks like the kind of place people go mostly through, not to,” she said.

  “Yeah, it does.”

  Val let her fingertips brush the screened hunting knife she’d strapped to her belt. His dagger lay at the small of his back, also screened. They probably wouldn’t need weapons for breakfast among Mundanes, but you never knew when you might encounter a supernatural menace.

  She climbed out of the car and waited for him. Looking at his tall, strong frame and his confident stance, she never would’ve guessed he carried potentially fatal venom in his veins.

  He smiled at her, giving her pulse a giddy hop, as she fell into step beside him. Their shoulders bumped, and her face warmed.

  He inhaled sharply. The glance he flicked her was hot, and Val’s mouth went dry. Good thing they were about to be among people.

  When Griffin pushed the two-panel, glass door open, a bell jangled above it. The smells of bacon, toast, and coffee tickled her nose, and her stomach growled.

  He held the door for her but edged inside in front of her. Val resisted the urge to poke him. She didn’t need him to protect her. When she stepped around him, she noticed what he must’ve already caught, a vague, disquieting sense of something not quite right.

  His raised eyebrows offered her the choice, retreat or stay and investigate. She hesitated, but they needed food, had no other options nearby. Once they’d finished recharging, they could pin down the problem here. She walked farther inside, and the bell jangled again as he closed the door behind her.

  Four empty booths ran along the plate-glass window to their left. The place was only about twenty feet square, with a pass-through for the kitchen behind the counter on their right. Opposite the booths stood a blue laminate counter with a cash register at the end near the door. Half a dozen stools covered in cracked, red vinyl offered counter seating. Three men sat on the middle stools, one in worn blue coveralls with faded grease stains, two in jeans and denim work shirts.

  “Mornin’, folks.” A thin woman with fading reddish hair sauntered up to them. She seemed normal enough, complete with a welcoming smile. “Y’all want the counter today?”

  “A booth, please.” Just enough power laced Griffin’s words to defy argument.

  Smart of him. With the weirdness in the air, sitting with their backs to the room was too risky.

  For a heartbeat, the woman’s eyes narrowed. Darkened. Cold like the winter wind prickled along Val’s neck, and she eased a hand toward her knife.

  The woman’s face resumed its bored look. With a shrug, she grabbed two menus from a stack by the register and led the way to the booth farthest from the door.

  Griffin slid onto the seat facing the entry. He would be the one to see and counter any approaching threat. Protecting her again. They really had to talk about that.

  The waitress laid down the menus. “Two coffees?” />
  Griffin waited for Val’s nod before he said, “Sure. Thanks.”

  The waitress strolled away. One of the men at the counter, a lanky ash-blond, gave them a hard, speculative look.

  Maybe he didn’t like outsiders. Maybe he was just in a bad mood. Or maybe he was trouble. She gave him her sunniest smile. He stared through her, but she held the look until he turned away.

  “Problem?” Griffin murmured. He laid his hand over hers on the table.

  Power of the dyad, she remembered, lacing her fingers with his, letting their power touch and entwine. The contact reinforced their power. It would also let them hear each other’s thoughts, if his weren’t closed to her now.

  “Yes, but I’m not sure what,” she whispered.

  The waitress brought their coffee, and the two leaned back breaking their connection. “Haven’t seen you through here before. You folks going into the state park for a hike?” Her face smiled, but her watchful eyes didn’t.

  Griffin gave the waitress a relaxed smile. “My girl and I thought we’d find a romantic spot to camp. Any suggestions?”

  “You want to be careful,” the hard-eyed man in coveralls at the counter said, “in the park.” His gaze also held a snake’s warmth and raised that brief, nasty chill. “Get a map so’s you don’t lose your way.” His gaze ran over Val, not lecherous but assessing.

  She tried for perky and clueless with her smile this time, and that seemed to satisfy him. He turned back to his meal.

  Val fought back a shudder. The vibes in this place felt like tiny spiders crawling over her skin.

  Griffin sipped his coffee and frowned.

  “The breakfast special’s good,” the waitress said.

  He reached for a menu. “We need a minute.”

  The waitress shrugged and walked back behind the counter.

  Staring at the window, at the faint reflections of the men at the counter, Griffin breathed, “There’s blood in the coffee.”

  Val nodded, but wanted to check for herself since she knew the venom in his system might affect his taste buds. She tipped her cup until coffee touched her lips. An acrid, coppery taste lay under the standard diner brew. Crap. Lowering the cup, she asked him, “Now what?”