by S. L. Gray
She winked at him playfully, then held up her hands. "I give in. I get the message. I went too far. I'm sorry. You know I tease you in good fun, Mel. You know better than to take me seriously." She stood and came to the edge of the table, then leaned down and kissed Melanie's cheek. "I'll leave you alone now. You're welcome. Someone else can buy my next drink."
When she'd marched off toward the bar and not turned back, Melanie laughed and sagged against Kade's side. "That's one way to handle her."
"Is there another?"
"Oh, I'm sure, but I haven't found it yet. I'll let you know if I do." She paused and heaved a sigh, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear as she did. She straightened away from him, but only enough that their shoulders didn't touch. "You didn't have to do that, though. As a matter of fact, I should apologize to you." She managed not to blush again.
Kade was impressed. "Nothing to apologize for. Believe me, I've been teased a lot in my life and never with a woman like you beside me." That was the absolute truth, too much of a confession and at the same time, the very least she deserved. She was amazing. She was special. She was beautiful.
She could sidetrack him from his duties far too easily. This was why Garamendi questioned him, why he had to keep his guard up. Because she would look at him with the curious mix of surprise and hope she wore now. And he would probably do anything she asked.
He downed what remained of his beer.
"It's weird, you know, but I can't really read you," she said after a moment of silence. "I feel like I ought to be able. You say you're here to watch over me and I believe that. I have to. You saved my life. But every once in a while, you do something like that and I think you might actually like me. The way a man's attracted to a woman."
She winced and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Which sounds so juvenile. Like I'm asking you to make a checkmark in a box on a note asking whether you want to go out." She looked at him again, frowning. "But do you? If you didn't have to be here, if you hadn't been assigned, would you even have noticed me? Or is this really all about the job?"
The conversation was bound to happen. One way or another, they had to have this talk. If Kade had chosen the time and place, it certainly wouldn't be here. He'd have tried to explain himself gently, taken care to mind her feelings.
But she'd asked him a direct question and she was sharp enough to spot a hedge, he figured. He frowned now, too, his forehead wrinkling as he considered the beer bottle in his hands as if it could give the words for an honest answer.
"I don't like the word job," he started. "I have a duty to make sure you stay safe. I'm not a hired contractor. I don't punch hours on a time card."
"But you're still not here because you want to be."
He lifted a corner of his mouth, half a smile, but shook his head. "No. I'm not."
Her eyes went cool as he feared they would. She held his gaze for a moment, then hers flickered away and she nodded, almost too faintly for him to catch the movement. "Fine. That's all right." She tried to smile but it didn't last more than an instant. "Thanks for being honest. And not laughing at me."
He wanted another beer. He wouldn't ask for one, no matter how much easier it might make the words come out. "There's nothing to laugh at. Asking the question makes sense. And I'm not going to deny there's something between us. But that can't be my focus. It shouldn't be yours. You need to learn to control your powers. Fix the tablet. That comes first. Anything else..."
A laugh interrupted his explanation, making both of them look toward the bar where Noura now stood, wedged between two stools, the men on either side of her grinning along. As they watched, she chose the one with lighter hair, offering him a hand which he took and stood, following.
She tugged him to a booth at the back of the bar, sliding in next to him to sit shoulder-to-shoulder close. They shared only a moment's conversation before he slid his arm around her shoulders and they toasted one another, the sound of glass against glass faint but audible even this far away.
"You're frowning," Melanie said, stealing his attention back. She looked toward Noura's booth and back again. "Are you seeing something I'm not? Is something wrong?"
He studied them for another moment, waiting for the sense of wrongness to blossom into something more concrete, something that explained the warning at the back of his mind, but nothing materialized. They were flirting and enjoying one another. Maybe it was the contrast between them and the tension with Melanie that stood out. Another reason he had to remember why he was here. "Nah, there's nothing. I just don't understand why you admire her."
Melanie laughed. "Which part is difficult to understand? Her looks, her popularity, her sense of humor?"
"She throws herself at men and doesn't seem to worry about where she lands."
If she'd been tense before, now Melanie sat positively rigid beside him. "She's my friend, Kade."
He'd gone too far. He'd taken a half-step beyond commentary and into offense, but he couldn't take the words back. "I have to judge what I see around you. It's up to me to make sure she doesn't pose a threat."
"A threat. Noura? To who?"
"To you, who else?" He gestured toward the booth where the new acquaintances now happily snuggled. Noura had her chin on his shoulder and his hand dangled dangerously close to the plunging neckline of her blouse. "Anyone she meets could endanger you. I can't let that happen."
Melanie's eyebrows lowered and her eyes fairly sparked. "Have you warned her that you intend to supervise all her nights from now on?"
She hadn't laid a hand on him and Kade still felt as though he'd been slapped. He watched as she gathered herself, snatched her purse off the table and stood. Were it not for the short strap, she might have brained the waitress passing behind her with the heavy end. She glared at him briefly, but didn't say another word before she headed toward the door.
Kade was on his feet before she took a third step. He caught her wrist and turned her toward him. Her free hand slapped his chest before she pushed away. "Where are you going?"
"Home," she said, still struggling. He let her go and she backed up a step, chin lifting. "I'm going home. I think I've had enough of watching and being watched." When he took a breath to argue, she cut him off with a sharp gesture. "I mean it. Leave me alone tonight. Stay out of my apartment, Kade. You're not welcome."
Chapter Ten
She couldn't remember what the weatherman had predicted for the week, but Melanie felt sure it wasn't supposed to be this cold. She hadn't felt the bite in the wind the last time she'd left Dalton's pub. Then again, her heart had been pounding overtime and she'd had Kade to shield her from the worst. To protect her. To keep her safe.
To control her and tell her what to do.
A surge of heat thrummed through her, irritation stirred up by the memory.
She should have known they wouldn't make a match from the very beginning. He issued commands like giving orders to a dog, and like a dog, he expected she would obey. Faithful, loyal and unquestioning. It went completely against her scientific mind.
Her job all but relied on her natural curiosity. Noura and she worked as a team, each asking questions the other wouldn't. Pushing one another to explore all the options and come up with new approaches. She followed policy at work, but there she understood the need. A mistake with a collection piece might cost the museum thousands.
She couldn't put a price on her personal life and she wasn't about to start taking orders for fun. She could think for herself. She could make up her own mind.
She stopped on the corner and flagged down a passing taxi. She didn’t have to go home. No doubt Kade would expect her to be there, licking her wounds, which gave her all the more reason to be anywhere else.
Not that she had a long list of other places to go in mind. Noura was entertaining in the pub. Going for coffee this late would keep her awake, but would also subject her to uncertain company. She’d seen the peoples who haunted diner stools at night and wasn't at all comfortable with
rubbing elbows there.
The Sentinel was always an option. Even without Kade’s insistence that she finish the project, Melanie was curious about where the mystery of the tablet might lead. Besides, he'd kept her from getting to work on time and put the burden of the work on her partner's shoulders. Only fair, then, to go to the lab and pick up the slack. If she put in a few hours, they'd be on schedule by the day after tomorrow. The sooner the pieces were reassembled, the sooner Kade would be out of her hair.
There were still a few cars in the museum parking lot. She didn't recognize their plates, but that didn't mean much. She couldn't say for sure which one of her co-workers drove the pickup truck with halogen lights strapped to the bar in the bed, or who owned the hybrid with the "Whirled Peas" sticker. Both of them made her smile as she passed.
She used a side entrance rather than explaining herself to security guards who would shake their heads and smile indulgently. She'd come back after hours often enough to know them by name. She held the door to keep it from slamming shut, then jogged up two flights of stairs when she was sure the latch had clicked into place.
The floors had already been polished for the night, the few lights left on reflected back in expensive tile. Her footsteps echoed as she headed toward the lab, making her look back over her shoulder. "Nothing," she murmured as she swiped her ID through the reader. Kade would probably be pleased that his lectures were sticking and she was aware of everything around her. Maybe too much so. Then again, the bad guys really were after her. But the moment the lab door clicked shut, all her worries evaporated. Inside this room, she could call the shots. She knew the rules, she controlled the environment, and nothing came in or out without her knowledge.
The musty scent of ancient things combined with the tang of cleaning fluids and too-clean air filtered through the room, familiar and comforting. Melanie shrugged off the last few notches of tension, slipped into her lab coat and settled in to work.
It might have been determination that guided her hands to the right pieces. It might just as easily have been fate. Whatever the reason, she found the corners and angles she needed, fitting broken shards of ancient clay together to form the beginnings of a whole.
She still didn't know why the tablet had been made in the first place, but it had been painstakingly decorated, both with paint and engravings. She hadn't expected it to be so large. The one corner she'd managed to put back together would barely fit in the crook of her thumb and forefinger when the cracks had all been filled and the pieces repaired. The whole thing, then, must be at least twelve inches to a side. Important, indeed.
With the hieroglyphics still fractured, scattered and no doubt out of order, the writing made little sense. Soon, though, she promised the voice of curiosity in her mind. Soon she'd have more of the tablet in order. Noura would be a great help in figuring out the right meaning, but Melanie couldn't keep herself from wondering now. What mystery was she about to uncover? What could be so important Kade wanted it protected? What about the tablet mattered so much to Dr. Moore?
She reached for another piece, this one with jagged edges all around and no noticeable corner. That would make it harder to place. Perhaps she could set it aside until the framework had come together.
She'd just closed her fingers on it, lifting it to carefully move it out of the way, when the phone in the room rang, startling her. Instinct made her tighten her grip. Too much: the fragment sliced into her palm before it snapped in two.
The man stepped forward with inhuman grace. The movement looked too fluid, too flowing. His sandals hardly seemed to touch the stone between his feet. The hair on Zahret's arms stood on end. The skin at the nape of her neck tingled and her legs began to tremble. She tried to back away and found she couldn't budge. She could do nothing but watch as he approached.
"If you wish to be shadows, shadows you shall be." He slapped one hand against her chest, the other on Mahmoud's stomach. Searing heat spread out from his palm, blazing through her body. She tried to scream but the sound lodged in her throat, choking off her breath.
"I curse you, all of you, until the end of time. From mother to brother to son, so shall it be. Walk in shadow. Fear the day."
He tore his hands away, taking cloth and skin with them. He dusted it from his palms and it fell to the floor like ash. He plucked the cloth from Mahmoud's motionless hand and wadded it in his own. A curl of smoke issued from between his fingers, then he opened his palm and smiled as the cloth burst into flame.
When the last glowing fragments drifted to the floor, he passed between Zahret and Mahmoud, murmuring: "The pharaoh dies tonight."
Melanie gasped and the tablet pieces clattered to the table, reminding her of what she'd done and where she sat. The lab. She'd been working before...another dream? A murder. No, two, but they hadn't died, had they? They'd been cursed, instead. Cursed forever to be shadows. Like the men at Hannadays.
The phone rang again. During the day, it sometimes rang only once. Melanie assumed someone had dialed a wrong number and caught themselves, hanging up before they could disturb whoever might answer the phone. A third ring though, this late at night, and she couldn't call it a careless mistake. Maybe the distraction was for the best. Getting away from the table would keep her from breaking any other pieces of the sought-after relic.
It would keep her from dreaming.
She grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser and tucked the handset under her cheek as she dabbed at the oozing wound on her palm. "Second floor lab."
"You need a life," Noura shouted over the music in the background.
Noura. Melanie curled her fingers around the handset tighter, clinging to the sound of her voice. "I'm not sure I want the one I have. Think there's a place that'll take it in trade?"
"Not unless you do some serious bribing. You left without saying goodbye."
"I was in a hurry." Melanie frowned, Kade's warning echoing in her mind. "And you were busy. Are you all right? I can come back if you need me." She glanced at the clock. "Ten minutes and I'll be there."
"No, no, I'm fine." Someone with a lower voice murmured something by the phone. Melanie couldn't make out words, but she heard him laugh and then the very distinctive sounds of a thorough kiss.
She rolled her eyes. "I guess you are. Am I interrupting?"
Noura laughed this time, a brighter, energetic sound. "Not for long. I just wanted to let you know I'm taking a page from your book and having a sleepover. So if I'm a little late tomorrow, you'll understand, won't you?"
"I'll try not to rub it in." She remembered Kade's narrow-eyed scrutiny of the stranger Noura'd met and couldn't help saying, "Just be careful, okay? Don't let him get too handsy, and if he tries to take advantage—"
"I think I'll let him," her friend interrupted with wicked glee. "I know the drill. I know how to say no. And if you really thought I was in trouble, you'd be lecturing me face-to-face." There was another murmur of low conversation. Noura said, "I'm trying to talk."
"Don't talk," Melanie countered, shaking her head as she smiled. "Go on and have fun. I give you permission."
"No. Don't hang up. One sec." A door opened and closed and the noise in the background quieted enough that neither woman had to shout. "Stepped outside. Look, are you all right?"
For one surreal moment, Melanie wanted to confess. She wanted Noura to know every crazy detail of the dream, the attack, everything, but how could she say it? She lifted her hand to inspect the cut. It still seeped blood, but she felt no pain. No, Noura couldn't possibly know, and she'd made a promise to Kade. No matter how she felt about him at the moment. "Why wouldn't I be all right?"
"Mel. You don't have to button up for me. I saw Kade not two minutes ago."
"Was he alone?" The question came out before she could stop her mouth. Guilt tightened her shoulders and a pang of longing crept in, chasing the last haze of anger away. She needed to talk to him. He'd want to know she’d had another vision, wouldn't he?
She made a low so
und of disgust at herself. They'd been apart an hour, at most, and she'd already turned into a clingy woman, exactly the sort of person she'd vowed never to be. "Never mind, I don't want to know."
"He was alone," Noura answered anyway. "You guys must have had some kind of blowout fight. I'm kind of sorry I missed it. You've been so doe-eyed, I thought that was it. I expected to be taking measurements for my bridesmaid dress."
Melanie snorted. "Sorry to disappoint. There aren't any wedding bells ringing. Not tonight, or ever. It wasn't that kind of relationship."
"It was something," Noura argued. The noise level rose in the background again and Noura made a frustrated sound. "All right, I've got to go. He's getting antsy and I don't want to miss out on this one. We'll talk tomorrow, okay? Chin up, Mel. He'll be back on his knees with a dozen roses, I guarantee it."
She laughed. "I said I'm fine, and I meant it. Go on, before he gets bored and I have to listen to you mope. I'll see you in the morning." She waited for the other end of the line to go silent, then hung up and slumped against the wall. At least one of them would have a good evening. Noura could have her tall, fair-haired stranger. Melanie would keep herself company with work.
She wadded up the paper towel in her hand and lobbed it toward the can in the corner. It arced and dropped, but bounced off the rim. The rebound and rejection summed up her night perfectly.
"Please tell me you didn't actually say that." Sylvie stared at him, brow furrowed. "Come on," she prompted and lowered her voice. "I'm just doing it to protect you, babe." She snorted. "Lie to me if you have to, Kade. You didn't."
Kade frowned in answer. "Are you going to tell me why that's a big no-no or just laugh at me?" He folded his arms and leaned a shoulder against the frame of her open office door.