Lore vs. The Summoning

by Anya Breton

  My mouth dropped open. That had once been a car, a blue car.

  Gently I pushed at him. He made a kind of whimpering noise and clung tighter. I could feel his breath on my shoulder and the heat of his body beneath the drenched silk shirt. I might as well have been naked for all of the protection it gave me. Gray breathed in my scent in a ragged breath and whispered something I couldn't hear for all of the screams and sirens around us.

  "Let go," I demanded sharply.

  Thankfully he listened. But the anguish that had been in his eyes before was replaced with anger. I didn't have time to deal with that right now.

  I marched over the sidewalk to grab hold of Morrígan's white cotton sleeve so that I could drag her around the corner where there were fewer witnesses. She managed to keep up with my hurried pace in her designer shoes. I wasn't quite sure why she was letting me do this to her. If she wanted me to stop all she'd had to do was burn me, a simple feat for a novice Fire witch. She even let me shove her against the stone wall without so much as warming the skin below my hand.

  I brought my face in close to hers so that I could lower my voice. "Why did you do that?"

  "Hmm."

  Furious that she was making me spell it out, I hissed, "Why did you kill the Water witch? I needed him!"

  "He tried to hurt you," Morrígan answered simply.

  I was mildly shocked that she'd admitted to causing the explosion. "But he didn't hurt me. I just got a little wet."

  "Because he is merely a novice Water witch," she said with a disgusted sniff. "This was a message to those that would tangle with you."

  "I needed him alive, Morrígan!"

  Her massive blue eyes blinked at me slowly. She was attempting to appear guileless. Oh, gods. What if she'd killed him to keep him from telling me who was behind this?

  "You did this on purpose," I accused in a gritty voice that was coming from the back of my throat. "You don't want me to know who sent him."

  Those brilliant blue eye crinkled inward. "Lore..."

  "No," I snapped. "Don't call me that anymore."

  Morrígan grabbed the hand that wasn't holding my flute. She used it to tug me forward and then slid it beneath her jacket to glide over her smooth breast. My breath caught in my throat when the heat instantly bloomed within me.

  "Stop," I cried.

  She let go of me but my hand remained where it was, feeling the firmness of the nipple teasing my fingers. I yanked my arm back like she'd burnt me. The quick gesture split the jacket wide. My knees nearly gave at the sight of her staring at me from beneath heavy lids, chest bared in front of the entire street. She was making no move to cover herself up.

  The thoughts going through my head were far from concerned about whether or not she was betraying me. Even when I thought she could be the mastermind behind the kidnappings, the damage to my dad and the imminent demon summoning, my body still begged me to touch her. I couldn't decide if I wanted to suck myself dry of all of my foolish hormones or give in to their delicious whispers.

  Someone whistled behind me. "Heya, sweetheart, let Papa lick those for you!"

  My teeth set on edge because I had the very sharp urge to tear the man's tongue out so I could stuff it down his throat. I didn't know what I was doing until it was finished. A minute later Morrígan's jacket was pulled around her and every button was fastened. What I'd done, buttoning each and every plastic circle on her costly coat, had felt far more intimate than it ought to.

  "Stay with me," she said in an unsteady voice that belied the calmness in her eyes.

  The muscles in my neck felt heavy and tight as if it were a chore to shake my head. "I can't. I have a priestess of Water witches to see."

  Morrígan opened her mouth to speak. I prayed to the gods that she wouldn't beg me. I didn't think I could say no if she actually swallowed her enormous pride enough to beg me.

  "I need to go." I'd muttered the words as my feet hurried me away before she could say another word.

  I pretended not to see Morrígan's figure pushing off the wall in my peripheral vision. I ignored Gray's questioning, heated gaze. I grabbed my purse and flute case and then speed-walked toward the parking lot with my heart hammering in my chest.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I had some serious frustration to work out which was why I wasn't too upset to hear the priestess of Water witches regularly visited the Dungeon on Saturday nights. The only Underground-club-worthy clothing I owned now was Morrígan's fetish outfit with the secret surprise. I figured the chances of meeting up with her there, with the remote control in her possession, were next to slim.

  The man I did expect to see there didn't fail me. When I hopped off the last step onto the club's dull black dance floor I spotted Aiden Bruce across the room beside an iron maiden, sipping on something crimson that could have been fancy wine or human blood, neither would have surprised me. He'd been watching the entrance as if he were waiting for someone to arrive.

  The vampire set his half-finished glass in the hands of a passing woman who might not even work there and then he started forward without taking his eyes from me. His kind of attention, that intent warmth in his silver eyes powerful enough to wake things that were usually dormant, made me hesitate in the entrance for a second longer than I should have. I used the gently swirling energy he'd awoken to propel myself forward and tear my gaze from him.

  I didn't know if he'd jumped over everyone, faded into mist and coiled between them or if he'd merely shoved his way through, but Aiden was in front of me before I'd moved two steps. I'd been about to engage in avoidance tactics when his unchanged facial features captured my attention. How many nights was this now? Four? Five? I wanted to ask him why he'd settled on this beautiful face but was afraid of the answer.

  Tonight he wasn't clad in business casual. That would have made him stand out more than he already did. No, tonight he had on a black leather outfit worthy of Morrígan's Adepts. The pants fit him like a second skin around his impressive thighs. His long sleeve shirt had muscle definition I wasn't certain he could actually claim, but since I'd never seen him shirtless, I couldn't truly say. Aiden's long chestnut hair looked Asian tonight. It was pulled up in a partial ponytail with much of it left free down his back.

  He leaned forward so that I could hear him. It put his gloriously vanilla and cinnamon scented body a bit too close to me. "You're brave to wear that again."

  My cheeks flushed upon recalling that he'd been there to witness Morrígan trying out her gift. "Everything else was ruined in the flood," I reminded him.

  In a blank tone he said, "You're here to see the Water priestess no doubt."

  That irritated me enough to get snippy. "Should I just assume that you know everything I'm going to do before I do it?"

  "If I knew everything you did before you did it we'd have a rather stale relationship, wouldn't we?"

  My cheeks warmed at the word relationship from his lips. My quick, sharp retort was, "Yeah, which is why it's damn good we don't have one."

  "Hmm," he said in contemplation. "She is near the waterfall, of course."

  "Oh, of course," I said sarcastically because I hadn't known there was a waterfall in the seedy club. There was also the issue of being more than a little uncomfortable with how close he was and how much I wanted to kiss his exposed neck.

  "It's there, through that door. I would offer to show you but...as you know, we're to keep out of this." He jabbed his chin toward the right so that I could see the direction he'd meant.

  I almost made a comment about how he hadn't done a very good job of keeping out of it thus far but I decided I didn't want to debate with him. He smelled good enough to lick. I needed to get the hell away from him before I decided to test that out.

  I took a step to the right then turned back. "Um, stupid question, what does she look like?"

  "She looks blue," he said simply. "You won't be able to miss her."

  Blue. I didn't know what that meant. But I was going to find out.<
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  It took me ten minutes to move a distance across the club that would have taken thirty-seconds had the place been empty. I'd had to squeeze in between people because I didn't have supernatural strength to make them move. Once or twice I'd considered plaguing someone simply to get their attention. Being an unknown in the Underground did have its drawbacks.

  The room off to the right was partially shielded from the pounding techno beat the DJ spun out front. This new room had a surprisingly serene feeling. It was measurably cooler, had soft blue lighting running along the top and bottom of the walls and calming trance music piped in overhead.

  In the far corner was a rushing waterfall that extended from the top of the fifteen-foot ceiling to cascade down into a shimmering pool on the floor. The pool was large enough to seat four people. I knew that because there were four people in it. Three bare-chested men surrounded a nude woman who was...blue.

  Her pale skin glowed with an eerie icy sheen. The shoulder-length hair she sported in a spiky style was white as the driven snow. If I hadn't seen her eyes blink I might have thought her a corpse.

  She looked up at the opposite corner while one of the men kissed her upturned neck. His hand disappeared between her legs beneath the water, moving rhythmically with the music's beat. Her lips were parted, a pale tongue just barely visible within. The others in the pool, two strapping young men, were too busy necking each other hungrily to note the heavy petting going on beside them.

  It was quite a sensual scene. I doubted anyone in the room could claim to be unaffected by it. I almost hated to break it up. But this woman could be responsible for Jim's near-death experience. And she surely knew the bastard that had flooded my apartment and had tried to drown me on the sidewalk.

  I boldly walked across the room to stop at the edge of the pool. Now that I was closer I could see that the water overflowed into two channels that curled back around to disappear beneath the wall beside the waterfall. A self-sustaining water feature that was as attractive as it was functional. I'd never have thought of putting a combination hot tub and waterfall into a nightclub, probably because state inspectors would have a heart attack over it in an ordinary club. But as usual, the Dungeon didn't have to comply with state inspections. The state didn't know it existed.

  The blue woman glanced up at me with a sigh. "You're in my light," she called out sharply.

  "I'll move as soon as you give me the information I came for," I replied. I was feeling a bit braver now that I knew I had only to tangle with the people in the smaller room rather than the entire club were things to go south.

  "This is my day off," she glared daggers at me. "You want info, you make a fuckin' appointment like everyone else."

  "Wrong answer," I said with a quick pull of the pistol my rain coat had been hiding. It was aimed at her head before any of the guys in the pool realized what had happened. I held a palm up to still them. "One of yours tried to kill me this afternoon. You're going to tell me who or I'm going to return the favor."

  "My Water witches don't kill," she answered with what sounded like certainty in her Dorchester accent but her twisted lips and glare made it difficult to believe her.

  "He had blonde hair and he drove a blue Ford Escort."

  Her eyes rounded just before she shot out of the pool toward me while screaming, "You killed Escobar!"

  Apollo's Warning kicked in. I saw that not only did she intend to claw me in the face with her dangerously sharp fingernails but that a man behind me had a knife, a long, deadly hunting instrument, and he planned to stab me with it. I stepped out of the way to avoid both.

  What occurred after was mass confusion, screaming and a steadily reddening pool of water. The man, whoever he was, had continued on his mission to stab me but had instead gored the priestess straight through the chest. I might never find out who he was because someone snapped his neck in the scuffle without my seeing it. The priestess fell back into the arms of her brawny lover with a shuddering cry, her sightless eyes stared up into the cool blue lights above her.

  Now, I wish I could say that I hadn't been pleased with the opportunity her wound afforded me, but it would have been a lie. I knew there was no hope of the woman surviving without my intervention. And since it was probably my fault she was in this position, it was my duty to fix her.

  I dashed forward, jumping straight into the pool's surprisingly frigid water and then shoved my pistol in between her lover's angry eyes. "Pull the knife out of her if you want her to live."

  He gave me a glare that could have frozen my toes off if the water weren't already doing the trick. But like a good little boy he tore the instrument from the priestess's chest. Blood rushed out of her mouth with each of her quick, choking breaths. I wrenched her body out of his grip into my lap. She was nude, still, which meant I'd have little trouble finding skin to touch.

  My arm curled around her belly so that I could press my left palm to the wound that was just under her rib cage. I pushed against the one at her back with my right hand. Silently I willed the Healing energy to flow into her and make her good as new.

  A network of veins, muscle and organs lit up in front of my eyes. The golden light of my power shot from around my heart down into my hands and into the delicate network that made up the Water priestess. It converged in the center of her to Heal the mortal damage the knife had done to her liver, kidney, and stomach.

  The only sounds I heard were the roaring of the power moving through me, the beating of her heart, the rushing of her blood and her labored breaths. I knew there were people nearby, that a waterfall was falling at my back and that music was playing but my every sense was focused completely on her.

  Her head curled up until our eyes met. Hers fixed on me with undisguised awe. The warmth of my Healing power seemed to bleed the blue right off her skin and the white off her hair. She quickly regained a healthy ruddy glow across her body beginning at her stomach. The muscle knit itself back together from the inside out toward my hands. I tore my attention away from her eyes to supervise the wound.

  Before I could progress to sealing her wound shut I noticed something deep within her that wasn't right. There was dark matter attached to her uterus. It was bad enough that she probably couldn't have children.

  I hated this. I hated being faced with something that probably wasn't supernaturally related. It was always an ethical question. Could I live with myself for failing to Heal it simply because it would be screwing with Fate to do otherwise? The answer was almost always no

  "Priestess," I whispered in an effort to keep the others from hearing me while meeting her gaze once again. Her attention was still locked on me. "Do you want me to fix your uterus?"

  Her eyes somehow went larger. They were massive like those on young girls in Japanese animation. "You...you can do that? Yes! Yes, oh god! Yes, please!"

  Her answer had sounded orgasmic. Had I not been distracted by the power flowing into her I'd probably have been a little embarrassed. Once the wound had finished knitting itself together I sent the power lower to wipe away the benign tissue that probably caused her all manner of monthly problems.

  The priestess grabbed me by the cheeks as soon as I'd pulled my hands back. She'd twisted around in my lap so she could shove me back into the spray of the waterfall. I flailed, thinking she was trying to drown me, when I realized none of the water was actually hitting me. It flowed around me instead as if there were an invisible umbrella overhead. The priestess stood in front of me, naked as the day she was born with the water flowing behind her like a curtain.

  There was intent in her eyes, intent I'd seen on other faces before, she wanted to kiss me. I held my palms up in front of me. "I'm sorry that you were hurt," I said hastily. "Someone obviously wants me dead."

  "It isn't me," she said calmly. No, she definitely didn't want me dead. I saw that clearly in the way her gaze had settled on my lips. "You wanted information. You've earned the right to get it. Hell, you've earned the right to whatever the fuck you want f
rom me." And that gaze lowered to take me in.

  This felt very strange, holding a conference with a naked woman behind a curtain of water in a crowded club. I should be used to messed up things like this by now. But I wasn't. That was probably a good thing.

  I focused on the task at hand to avoid the discomfort of the situation. Calmly I told her, "Someone flooded my apartment yesterday and then today tried to kill me with an out of control fire hydrant in front of Symphony Hall. Unfortunately someone else killed him before I could find out who sent him or why. I really, really need to know who is behind this."

  For the first time since I'd started healing her she glanced away. It was an abrupt and almost fearful move. I held up both hands, made a waving gesture and nodded at her. She couldn't talk here, which made sense. I could handle that. But she hadn't said she wouldn't talk.

  The priestess surprised the hell out of my by pouncing forward and shoving me against the wall. Her face was a kissing distance from mine. "This isn't about information. You obviously want me," she said in a low voice. "I could tell in the first glance at you."

  I'd been about to argue with her that she was crazy until she'd said that. Her first glance had been at me ready to shoot her. This wasn't her trying to come on to me. This was a diversion tactic.

  She ran a finger over my jaw line. "Let's go to my place."

  "Yes," I played along.

  She took my hand and tugged me out of the waterfall. This time the water did hit me. I shivered as the cold liquid sluiced over my lofty hair onto the trench coat, that was doing little to keep the leather cat suit dry, and down into my stupid knee-high boots. It was going to be nearly impossible to walk out of there with any dignity in squeaking shoes and hair plastered to my skull.

  Her brawny lover had a broad white garment ready for her when she stepped out of the pool. She gracefully pushed her arms into the bell sleeves then waited with an arched eyebrow as her lover gawked at the unblemished skin beneath her rib cage. He glanced between the smooth skin and my face in a mixture of confusion and irritation.