He rolled that last bit of information around in his thoughts as he nibbled on her ear. "I'm not going to lie. That's so freaking strange I don't even have words to describe it—" He stopped suddenly, shocked by the idea that popped into his head. He pulled back. "Could a Manasa read my mind and figure out who cursed me?"
Justine frowned. "Maybe, but what about everything else she would learn if she got into your mind? There's too much risk." She shook her head. "I can't do it."
Excitement began to race through him. "I'll buy the exclusive rights."
Her frown deepened, and she shook her head. "Do you have any idea how much a Manasa would charge for a pre-empt on information about Mona? It'd be astronomical."
"Perfect. I have tons of money. Ending the Curse seems a decent thing to spend it on." Hot damn. This could be the lead he'd been needing. "Do you know any Manasas?"
She hesitated. "No, not personally. I'd have no way of knowing whether it was reputable or not. It's too risky to let your knowledge of Mona get out into the open—"
The door burst open, and Theresa walked into the kitchen with her computer. "There's a bunch of Manasas listed on LinkedIn. Why don't I start messaging them?"
"Don't you have anything to do other than eavesdrop?" Justine asked, setting her hands on her hips.
Theresa looked up, surprised. "You know I don't. I have no life. I live vicariously through you." She turned to Derek. "By the way, don't give up on sex with Justine. I can tell she's totally into you, which hasn't happened in centuries. She needs you, so keep it up."
Justine's cheeks flushed. "What I need is for Derek to keep his mouth shut and not tell any Manasas about Mona—"
"Got one." Theresa grabbed a scrap of paper and started scribbling on it. "I found a Manasa that has a ton of endorsements and recommendations, plus a top rating on eBay. She's practically around the corner. She even takes credit cards, so you're golden." She handed the paper to Derek, fluttering her eyelashes at him. "Here you go. Make sure you read the fine print. They can be slippery little bastards, and Justine's not all that savvy with amoral, unethical assholes."
He grabbed the note. "Thanks. I got this." He looked over at Justine, who was still scowling. "I want to live more than three days. I want you to live more than three days. I want the happy ending, so let's go make this happen."
She hesitated, looking back and forth between him and the dragon. Finally, she sighed. "Promise me you won't let the Manasa read your mind until we have a contract she can't break, okay?"
He nodded. "Deal." He held out his hand. "Let's do it."
She paused, then put her hand in his, flashing him a wary smile. "Okay."
"Great." He pulled her in for a quick kiss, then started for the door before she could protest, holding tightly to her hand. As they reached the door, he stole a glance at the dragon over his shoulder, and she winked at him.
Forty-eight hours ago, having a dragon wink at him would have freaked him out.
Today, it made him feel like he'd finally gotten his shit together.
It made him feel like he finally had a chance…for more than he ever thought he could have.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Justine paused outside the ramshackle storefront, complete with bars on the windows. She checked the scrap of paper she held in her hand one last time, and looked back up. "Fast Cash," she read from the battered sign above the door. "It looks like one of those cash advance places that screws desperate people."
Derek peered over her shoulder, and she tried not to inhale his delicious scent. "It's the right address. You think she's closed down?"
"Maybe." She tucked the paper in her pocket. "Listen, this is a sign we're not supposed to visit a Manasa. I've heard lots of horror stories about them, and I think it's best if we don't..." He pulled open the door and stepped inside. "Derek! Just because you're almost immortal doesn't mean you can ignore me."
"I was perfectly capable of ignoring bad advice even when I was completely human." His voice faded as he disappeared from view.
Jerk.
With a sigh, she stalked into the ramshackle store. There was an old countertop with bars protecting the employees from customers. The carpet was smelly and tattered—it might have been green once. A few fluorescent lights dangled from the ceiling and one of them was flickering in a most annoying way. "For your information, Mr. Pretzel King, it wasn't bad advice, it was fantastic words of wisdom..." She stopped talking when a little old lady waddled out of the back room. The wrinkled woman looked familiar...
She took one look at Derek and snorted. "Drug addict. I don't deal in that nonsense. Get out."
Justine snapped her fingers in recognition. "You live in my building."
The crone eyed Justine, then her face brightened. "Of course, you're that gal from the top floor. What are you doing with the drug addict who brought gang warfare to my building? He threw our nice doorman out in the street. Is he pimping for you?"
Derek grinned. "Yes, she's my best gal. My clients love her."
"Shut up." Justine elbowed him aside. "He's not a drug addict, though if he was, he'd at least have an excuse for his behavior. We're looking for a tenant who used to be here."
The woman's forehead wrinkled even more, if that was possible. "I've been here for fifty-seven years, dearie. I'm afraid the previous tenant is long gone."
Justine frowned "So, are you the Manasa?"
The woman suddenly stood taller and the wrinkles seemed to melt off her face as she whipped out a handheld PDA and typed into it. "Buying or selling?" Even her clothes seemed to take on fresh life.
"Buying my own information," Derek said.
She thrust her hand toward him. "Let me see the cash, please."
"I plan to pay for it with a credit card," Derek said.
"If it's a credit card, payment must be made before I give you the information."
"Fine."
She beamed at them and opened a black door. "Come to the back. The cash-n-go business is a front to keep the undesirables from stalking me."
"But you list yourself in LinkedIn," Justine pointed out.
"Of course. How else am I going to get business?"
"But if you're trying to hide, why advertise?"
The Manasa rolled her eyes at her. "You aren't a business expert, are you?"
Justine made a face at the Manasa as she led them into a green room. Kelly green actually. Floor, walls, ceiling, carpet, furniture, framed paintings that blended into the wall, and curtains. All of it green. Nothing but green. "You're a green Manasa, I take it?"
"No, I just like the challenge of working in an anti-stim environment."
Green and sarcastic. This was going to be fun.
"What does anti-stim mean?" Derek asked.
"It means working in an environment that isn't conducive to my powers. One that does the opposite of stimulate. Anti-stim. It's really not that difficult to understand, even for a human." The Manasa went to a green closet and pulled out a green jumpsuit and a green wig. "Every Manasa has a color that opens their mind for reception. Mine's green." She began putting on her outfit. "As a youth, all I needed was to be wearing a green stone in my earrings, but now that I'm older, it takes a little more." She picked up a makeup jar and began spreading green face paint on.
Derek frowned. "I don't mean to insult you, but the information we need is buried deeply. Even I don't know what it is. If your power is fading—"
"Silence!" She snapped her fingers sharply. "You obviously know nothing about Manasas. I'm very insulted. Are you sure you're not a drug addict?"
Justine touched his arm. "A Manasa grows in power with age, which is why they need more of their stimulant color. If she needs this much green, it means she draws on a tremendous amount of power." She smiled at the Manasa. "I've never been in the presence of such power. I'm very honored you will see us."
The Manasa harrumphed. "The man is annoying in his ignorance of Manasa. Can we leave him outside? I don't like to work
in the presence of annoying people."
Justine grinned at the startled expression on Derek's face. "He's the one with information and money."
She grunted. "I'll have to charge a hardship fee, then." She held out her hand. "Credit card please."
Derek kept it in his pocket. "Not until I see what you can do."
The Manasa narrowed her eyes. "Then I don't help."
"Fine." Derek turned to leave, grabbing Justine's wrist. "I heard blue Manasas are better anyway."
She had to stifle a grin as the Manasa leapt over the green couch and flattened herself across the door. "Fine. We'll negotiate the fee after the information is on the table. Come, come. Sit, sit."
"We negotiate the fee, now," Derek said. "This isn't a carte blanche."
The Manasa tilted her head, her arms still spread across the door. "So, what do you want?"
"I would like you to uncover some information buried inside my mind, and I want to buy the exclusive rights immediately," Derek said.
The Manasa was shaking her head before he could finish speaking. "I cannot set a price until I know the information. Then I assess what I could get on eBay and I let you pre-empt. The recipe for chocolate cookies would not go for the same price as the instructions on how to break into the World Bank. You see?"
Justine touched Derek's arm. "It's how they do it. You have no choice. See why I didn't want to come?"
"That's why I'm very rich." She beamed at them. "You stay?"
Justine caught his arm and pulled him aside, lowering her voice. "Derek, you can't do this unless you're prepared to pay whatever price she asks. There's no way we can afford to have her put it on eBay."
"What price do you think she'll charge?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. A couple million dollars at least. Not for the Curse, but for the information on Mona that she'll inadvertently run across."
He rubbed his chin. "I'll block it, then."
"You can't block a Manasa! A pink one maybe, but a pink one would never be able to get to the Curse."
The Manasa clapped her hands. "Come, come. I have an enema in an hour. No time to waste."
"Fine." He turned to face the Manasa. "I'll offer you one hundred thousand dollars for any information you find. If it's valueless, you still get the money. If it's worth more than that, you can't raise the price."
The Manasa's eyes widened. "Must be valuable."
"To me. I don't want you raising the price if you decide I really need the information. One hundred grand or we go to..." He pulled Theresa's note out and scanned it. "...to Manasas-R-Us."
"No! They are trying to put me out of business! I will not let you go to them. One hundred it is." She ran to a green desk, pulled out a green sheet of paper, filled in the blanks, then handed it to Derek. "That's the contract. You must allow me to access the information, and you must pay me one hundred thousand dollars for exclusive rights. My grandson is a Wall Street attorney and he wrote a most excellent contract. Iron clad, he says. Sign."
Derek signed, then handed over his credit card.
"That's some kind of pretzel business," Justine observed as his card went through for the agreed-upon amount.
Derek grinned. "Chicks love rich guys, right?"
"Not enough to let them live if they should be killed."
"A woman who can't be bribed." He brushed his hand down her arm and gave her hand an affectionate squeeze.
She frowned at the tingle in her arm and stepped away from him.
The Manasa tucked the credit card receipt in her pocket and patted it several times. "Sit. We begin."
Derek sat, and Justine stood off to the right. "Will this put me out of your range?"
"Yes, you'll be fine there," the Manasa said. "Why? Does the lady have secrets?"
"Everyone has secrets." Justine ignored the sympathetic look on Derek's face. "I've kept Manasas out of my mind so far and I'd like to keep it that way." She folded her arms over her chest and scooted a few more feet to the right.
"I'm a professional. I don't read uninvited. Usually." The Manasa sat across from Derek. "Ready?" At his nod, her eyes went really wide, and then the sound of bubbling water filled the room. Then her eyes turned kelly green and began flashing alternately, like Christmas lights.
Derek, to his credit, didn't even move. The man was adapting to his Otherworld experiences with impressive aplomb. Not bad for a mortal...er...almost mortal.
"You have a crooked penis."
Derek choked. "What?"
"Chill, Derek. I won't tell anyone," Justine said, but she couldn't keep the laughter out of her voice. "Does it still work okay?"
"Of course it works! And it's not crooked. What kind of scam is this? We want to know about the Curse," he snarled at the Manasa.
"You lost your virginity to a prostitute," the Manasa continued.
Justine's nose wrinkled. "A prostitute? But that's...gross."
Derek spun to face Justine, his face so white he looked like he might pass out. "I didn't know she was a prostitute, I swear. My cousin Les paid her off and I swear I didn't know until later. I was fifteen! I didn't even know what a prostitute was."
The panic on his face convinced her. "I believe you." He relaxed slightly. "But you should know, sex with me is free. So you might not be interested in me..."
"This is over." He stood up and headed for the door.
She grabbed his arm as he tried to storm past her. "The Curse, Derek. You need this info."
"Then you need to leave." He wouldn't even look at her, and his cheeks were tinged pink.
She couldn't suppress a smile, and she gently patted his shoulder. "That's fine. I'll wait outside."
"I require a witness," the Manasa said. "Too many cheaters. Especially since he's a drug addict."
"I'm not a drug addict," he growled. "Surely you can see that."
The Manasa had followed him across the room, her green eyes still flashing. "You gave up the woman you loved because you are overly moral and protective. Afraid you would die on her, and you felt that was selfish. But you cried when she married someone else."
Derek's mouth dropped open and he pulled away from Justine. "I didn't cry. I don't cry. Hell, I didn't even cry when Justine shot me."
The Manasa leaned closer, until the light from her eyes cast a greenish glow on Derek's skin. "You cried for three weeks when your father died. His death is why you refuse to get serious with a woman. But you crave intimacy and want to fall in love. You are jealous of your brother that he is with a woman who loves him. Angry that he can rise above this Curse."
"I'm not jealous, and I never cry, and I don't want to fall in love. I'm too busy to fall in love. I just want to stay alive! Why can't you see that?"
Justine couldn't suppress a chuckle and she lightly slugged him in the upper arm as he pushed past her to go back to the couch. "You're such a softie. I thought real men didn't cry."
He slammed himself down on the sofa. "I'm not soft."
She sat next to him and tucked her arm through his, leaning her head on his shoulder. "You could be my big, strong man. Kicking ass and writing poetry for me later that day."
He tried to extricate his arm. "I don't write poetry."
"You wrote a poem to a girl in your ninth-grade class." The Manasa returned to her kelly-green chair across from him. "Then you cried when she said she didn't love you and was nice to you only because she had a crush on your brother."
Justine burst out laughing at the look of agony on Derek's face. "Don't look so worried, Softie. We all have our secrets." She tightened her grip on him and leaned against him.
His shoulder relaxed under her cheek and he touched her face briefly before he focused on the Manasa. "Can you please get to the point with the Curse?"
"As you wish." Silence. Then, "The Goblet of Eternal Youth. You have drunk from it." The Manasa sounded shocked. "It is real. You know where it is."
Justine's amusement vanished, and she dug her fingers into Derek's arm.
"The Curse," he said. "That's what I want to know. Please focus."
The Manasa leaned forward, her eyes flashing even faster. "The Guardian. You know her. She is..." The Manasa let out a squawk and the light in her eyes stuttered. "The woman who is with you! The Goblet is in my building!"
Justine's heart seized up and a cold chill swept over her. "Derek," she whispered in a strangled voice. "This was such a mistake."
He said nothing, but he flexed his biceps under her hand. A reassuring gesture the Manasa would never be able to see. "The Curse, please." His voice was calm, firm. In control.
Did he truly understand how bad this would be if it got out? They had to kill the Manasa. No other choice. Qualifying Incident failure, she was so sure. She was going in the Chamber, her mom to hell, and—
Derek set his hand on her inner thigh and slid it north until his little finger was almost touching one particular seam in her jeans. He began rubbing his thumb in leisurely circles on the denim, drawing heat to her nether regions in about a millisecond.
As distractions went, this was one of the better ones.
And it worked, too. She realized there was no sense in freaking out about unspeakable horrors and moms in hell. The info was already out and they'd deal with it in a moment, when the Manasa was finished.
"So, the Curse," he repeated.
The Manasa's lips curved back into a twisted smile, her eyes practically vibrating with flashes of green light. "The Curse was set many years ago, but the magic is strong within your body. A complex pattern. Very complex. Encrypted? Yes, encrypted. No one but the creator would be able to undo it."
Justine watched Derek's face. As much as it sucked to be tied to a self-absorbed Goblet, being cursed might be worse. The guy had even denied his true love because he didn't want to die on her. But it was probably for the best. Seriously, it clearly wasn't his true love or he wouldn't have been able to walk away.
The Manasa let out a high-pitched squeal and a green laser beam shot from her left eye and burned a hole through the wall. "You have been cursed by evil! The ultimate evil!"
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