“We won’t need to wrap her,” Kris said. “It’s warm enough here. And the others will be coming soon.”
“Others?” Adora asked.
“Yes. My nephew, Jack, and his wife, Io—and a doctor. His name is Zayn. Maybe others too.” Kris cocked his head as if listening. “Hm—it sounds like a veritable parade out there. Maybe they’re all coming.”
“Zayn? He’s the one you thought could help me.”
“Yes.” Kris got to his feet. He handled the baby easily, and Adora made no move to take the child back; she was okay with watching, and didn’t really want to touch the child now that she knew it had a bad rash that might hurt.
You have noticed that Kris likes babies? Children of all types and sizes? Joy asked.
Yes.
And you don’t, Joy reminded her.
No. At least, I don’t know if I like them. They scare me. And that was the truth. A child’s vulnerability terrified her.
Adora looked up to find Kris studying her with a slightly creased brow. “How . . .” he began, then shrugged. “Are you feeling better?”
“Yes. I feel good. I also feel . . .” How did she feel? Different—that was for sure. And it wasn’t just physical. Something else had changed.
Adora turned slowly, surveying the room. It really was as though she were looking at a world through a special telescope that let her see with more than her eyes; and the room was filled with sentient things— things that shouldn’t be alive but were. Rocks, water, even the mummies. From the corners of her eyes she could see something like movement where no one was. But no matter how quickly she turned, the flower or tree or stone had completed its transformation back into an inanimate object by the time she faced it. Surely it was some of that direct neural stimulation Kris talked about, but the effect was damned freaky.
“Kris . . . ?”
“Don’t worry. It’s just the others coming. They’re almost here, and it’s stirred the ghosts. Things will settle down after we’re gone.” He looked over her shoulder and his eyes widened. There was a sudden whoosh of sound and an explosion of voices. Adora turned quickly. . . .
And looked across the room at a dragon.
A dragon! Run! Joy screamed shrilly.
“Uhhhh—” But she couldn’t; Adora froze under the red-eyed stare as the creature leapt toward her with claws extended. She was certain that death was imminent but was unable to move from its path. Her only reaction was to close her eyes against its fiery gaze, and to give a small, screechy exhalation that might have been Kris’s name.
Surprisingly, the impact from their collision wasn’t as hard as expected. Her body was grabbed around the waist and she was toppled onto a patch of sand that she could have sworn hadn’t been there a moment before. She could feel a massive weight hovering above, but little was actually pressing down on her. Stranger still, there was the distinct sound of children’s laughter coming from all around.
“You caught her! You caught her! Look, Mommy— he got her.”
Children were laughing and clapping their hands. They sounded happy, playful. And “mommy” was there.
Okay, maybe she wasn’t going to die. Maybe she’d had a hallucination. Or maybe she hadn’t seen a dragon but just a very large dog that looked like a dragon.
Adora forced her eyes open and almost immediately regretted it, because all she could see was a long, reptilian snout filled with enormous yellowed fangs longer than her fingers. As she watched, the thin scaly lips rimming the giant teeth seemed to pull up into a grin. A long black tongue snaked out. Adora’s eyes crossed as she watched it descend inch by inch. It stopped right above her face and then slowly, teasingly, flicked her nose.
“Tag!” the creature said in a deep voice after the tongue retracted. Its breath was scented with petroleum. “You’re it.”
There was more childish laughter, and then the sound of footsteps. Kris’s voice interrupted the merriment. “Let her up. She’s probably terrified. I haven’t explained about you yet.”
“Oh . . . Sorry about that, young lady. No harm intended. I would introduce myself—but then I’d have to kill you.”
That’s a joke, right?
The dragon backed away carefully, and Kris’s worried face swam into view, upside-down from where she was sprawled. He still held the baby. And even upside down, it wasn’t cute. In fact, it had a smile only a greedy orthodontist could love. However, a smile was a good thing.
Even on a dragon? Joy asked.
Especially on a dragon. Holy shit! That’s really a dragon.
Adora moved her head to get another look as the living legend retreated toward the far wall. It was huge, but apparently harmless. Glowing children were crawling on it, though not near its twitching tail.
Hmph! Harmless like a heart attack. Joy was clearly still shaken. Kris should have warned you.
No harm, no foul, Adora answered, though she wasn’t entirely certain what it meant. She thought it had something to do with basketball.
“Are you ready to get up now and meet people?” Kris asked kindly.
She rolled her head toward him. He was surrounded in a halo of light that glowed like the moon.
“Hello,” Adora said, proud that her voice didn’t squeak.
“Hello,” he answered, smiling down at her. “I can give you a hand up, if you like.”
“Yes, thanks. I seemed to have misplaced my knees. And my spine. And all my muscles.”
“Then let us offer all the help you need.”
And then there were a dozen faces suddenly peering at her. Hands reached for her, setting her back on her feet. It might have been frightening to be so pressed in by strangers, but they all wore smiles of welcome. There was something else too, something she couldn’t quite identify at first.
What’s wrong with them? Why are they staring at me like that?
I think . . . I think they’re nervous. Joy sounded surprised. Maybe even a little afraid.
Of me? But why?
They may not be afraid Of you, so much as for you.
What do you mean?
But Joy said nothing. This, like babies, was apparently new to her too.
Then the Goddess spoke. “Sit at my right hand. Let us feast together while you tell me of the state of the Sons of Man. The light has gone out in Rome, and I can no longer see them.”
—Niklas 10:12
The moonlight spoke to him in a voice he knew well.
“Take her, Niklas. Accept what she offers.” The shadows pulled back, revealing the offering. She was young, beautiful, eager to be given to a god. He knelt between her legs, cradling her face in his left hand. Power waited on his lips, hungry, excited, ready to devour.
Too much power. Too much hunger.
“No,” he said in the old language, and drew back. “If I touch her, I’ll kill her. This one wants to die.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Adora was given introductions to everyone before they ventured back into the tunnels and headed for Cadalach proper. All except the dark man called Abrial, who went to deal with the body in the trunk of the Jaguar. He was scary, but Adora liked his wife Nyssa.
Two of the other men also appealed to her, but for a different reason. The one called Thomas was very quiet and serious, and she suspected him inclined to deep thought. The other was Roman, a theatrical producer and . . . something odd. Thomas’s wife, Cyra, was also a bit . . . well, fey. But none looked more otherworldly than Jack’s wife. As strange as Io appeared, Adora felt an instant kinship with her.
Jack Frost himself was another matter. He sent trills of alarm—and maybe something else—down her nerves. There was a strong resemblance to Kris, but he wore his . . . his magic . . . much more openly. Adora wanted to like him, and perhaps eventually would, but he made her very uneasy. Was this what Kris was truly like?
Finally, there was Farrar. It was Adora’s general— though admittedly not terribly thought-out— opinion that the dead should be neither seen nor heard. Not that
she was prejudiced or anything, but natural laws—the ones that assured her of gravity and an eastern sunrise—said the dead were . . . well, dead. She’d never even believed in ghosts. And yet, here was Abrial’s uncle, looking far more animated than many of her living friends. He was one of the noncorporeal feys Kris had mentioned, one so advanced psychically that he no longer needed to interact with the living to draw power to sustain himself—at least not inside this faerie mound.
Yeah, the freak show is in town.
Cadalach and its inhabitants were certainly challenging her many assumptions, but she felt too stoned to rally any counterarguments. Adora just nodded every time someone said they were a pooka or a siren or a selkie, and made a note to ask Kris what they were talking about.
Everyone made polite noises about feeding her and showing her around, but Kris overruled them, insisting that what she needed more than anything was sleep. Adora was exhausted. Her encounter with the dragon had used up the last of her energy in fear. But she wasn’t so far gone that she didn’t think to ask about the baby they had found. The child was gone, whisked away by someone called Chloe, who apparently was Zayn’s wife, neither of whom she recalled meeting.
Most of Cadalach was a blur. They did pass through the underground city’s amazing garden, filled with flowers of shapes and scents Adora had never known. She might have lingered there, listening to watery music, but Kris took her arm and gently propelled her down another long hall.
For some reason it didn’t surprise Adora when she was informed that she would be using Kris’s room. Perhaps she was beyond being surprised. Or maybe there was something about this place that made all things seem acceptable and possible.
It might be that. Though tired, she still felt a bit giddy.
And it might not. Joy wasn’t giddy.
The last of their escort, Kris’s nephew, said good-bye to them at a dark door carved in a pattern of roses and mystical beasts. Kris promised to be along to see Jack in a short while. The nephew cocked an eyebrow at this assurance, but Kris only shook his head and opened the door.
“I suppose it is a bit . . . untidy,” Kris said finally, looking about the room with a creased brow. “I was trying to relearn everything all at once, and I went on a bit of a reading binge.”
The smell of old books rolled out at Adora.
“I see that.” She walked over to the edge of the room and ran a finger along the spine of an ancient folio inscribed with a phrase in Latin. “You speak a lot of foreign languages?” she asked.
“Yes—too many.”
The room seemed at first glance to be built of books. There were no shelves, just stacks of old tomes piled from obsidian floor to glassy blue ceiling. The books weren’t arranged in any pattern that she could see—no ABCs, no grouping by theme or color or size. This didn’t dismay her. Adora’s own library refused conventional organization. Figuring out the pattern would be one more step in understanding who Kris was.
It was telling that the room had none of the trappings of wealth she associated with Kris in his persona of Bishop S. Nicholas. She had the distinct feeling that Bishop Nicholas was another construct created purely for human edification. He was the new Santa Claus.
“Mugshottz will be here soon. He has your luggage with him.” Kris seemed to be waiting for something from her.
“And your other employees?”
Kris shook his head. “They had to go on to San Francisco. We can’t let a little thing like bloody revolution get in the way of our plan.”
“I had almost forgotten that,” she said slowly. “I mean, what happened in L.A. I think my brain is drugged with fatigue.”
“It’s been a long night,” Kris agreed.
“Are they okay? They weren’t hurt?”
“Yes, they’re all okay. They’ve been in touch with Thomas.”
“I’m relieved to hear it.” Adora almost asked if they’d had any reports of the numbers killed, but she decided against it. Tomorrow would be soon enough to hear the grim details. “What happened to your plane, do you know yet? Did your friends get it?”
Kris nodded. “Yes, but not until someone had a go at it. The autopsy suggests death by bludgeoning,” he answered sadly. “Fortunately, Jack has a knack for resurrecting old machines. She may fly again.”
Adora didn’t want to think about that. Instead, she continued her slow inspection of the chamber. She found the books she’d written at the top of a precarious pile, and felt a rush of warmth. He had read her after all!
“They say you can tell a lot about a person by what they read,” she said.
“And what can you tell about me?” Kris asked.
Adora picked up a roll of parchment covered in writing she could not identify. She smiled a little. “It means that I don’t understand you—and may not be bright enough to ever do so. This isn’t Greek, is it?”
“No.” Kris looked a bit stiff.
“Don’t worry. It’s good to be a bit of an enigma. Simplicity can be boring.”
The next item to catch her eye was a painting. She stood in front of the old portrait that leaned against the wall, and marveled. It was undoubtedly Kris who had posed, but a Kris very different from the man she knew. The colors of the portrait were rich— too rich, given Kris’s present preferred severity of dress. The man in the painting wore a green velvet ruffled coat, embroidered in gold thread and draped with an emerald-studded chain. That wasn’t the only thing that was different, though. The Kris in the painting was happy and more than a little amused as he smiled down at her. Her Kris was more focused inward; whatever he saw or heard these days, it was a lot more serious than anything this Kris had known.
“You should hang this,” she said, glancing back at him. “The likeness is . . . flattering.”
Kris shrugged.
“It isn’t really me. Not anymore. I don’t need reminders of what I was.”
There were pieces of furniture in the room, she discovered after a second look, but all were buried under books, only their general outlines showing. The bed was visible, but it was partly obscured with scatterings of files, which Kris was gathering with great care.
Though the scene was chaotic, Adora felt immediately at home. She was with one of her own kind, another bibliophile.
“I’m going to leave you to nap,” Kris said, straightening. He moved around her, being conspicuously careful not to touch—which was thoughtful of him, since she might have been feeling somewhat awkward.
However, she wasn’t feeling awkward at all. In fact, she was feeling . . . Well, she was feeling more awake by the minute, and more drawn to Kris than she ever had been. She wouldn’t mind at all if he stayed.
Stop. I . . . I don’t like this. We’re . . . something is going on, Joy said.
What? What’s wrong? Adora asked.
I . . . I don’t know. There’s something in here with us.
They weren’t alone? That was important, but Adora couldn’t seem to care.
She watched as Kris backed to the door. A part of her wanted to throw herself at him. She suddenly wanted to know what he would be like in bed. Even more, she wanted to know who she would be with him.
“Kris?” She swallowed, unsure what to say. She touched her cheeks. She was feeling very warm.
“We’ll talk soon,” he promised. If she hadn’t known better, she would have said he was nervous at being alone with her. “Just . . . try to get some rest.”
Rest. She certainly needed it. But . . .
Kris disappeared behind a heavy door, carved on the inside with serpentine bodies and blackened with age and perhaps actual fire.
She was alone. In Kris’s room—and she knew it was his room. She could be blind and still know he lived there. Her senses recalled Kris clearly, even when he wasn’t beside her. Her hands knew the feel of him. She knew his scent, his taste, though they had never kissed. They permeated this room, but she wanted more.
What the hell? she whispered, alarmed.
I don�
��t know, Joy said. I feel very strange.
She hadn’t known that Joy could feel strange.
“I can’t quite take this in. To believe in this—all of this—you’d have to have a screw loose. Maybe more than one,” Adora said aloud.
I think your screws are tight enough. You just have them in some odd places.
Adora started looking for a bathroom. That need, at least, hadn’t changed.
Kris had to talk to Jack and Thomas about what had happened in L.A., but his first stop was to see his niece by marriage. It took him a while to explain everything that had happened with Adora, including her reaction to the baby. Afterward, instead of feeling relieved at unburdening himself, he found his body bracing for bad news.
“Of course she’s resisting you. She’s part siren, Kris. She isn’t Welsh. I think maybe she’s a grandchild of Bar and Ogir. She has the Norse look about her. I think she may be part fire-starter, too. And perhaps there’s some demon blood,” Io said. “Thomas would be the one to ask about this.”
Kris grimaced. “I don’t think I’ll mention it just now. If Adora has anything to go on, she’s likely to do some research, and I don’t want her finding out who Granny was just yet.”
“Fair enough. The thing is, with sirens, whatever our origin, we—she—has to be careful with men. We can get so easily ensnared. And with a death fey . . .” Io exhaled.
She went on; “It’s not your fault, but it’s like your breed implant in us a death wish, a need to be subsumed, obliterated even. You bring out something dark and fatalistic. And she does have darkness inside; Cyra and I both saw it. We don’t know the details, but I’m betting that she was attacked as a child. I also strongly suspect a lot of parental neglect. She probably senses all of this even if she has no clear memories, and is terrified that she’ll end up like her suicidal mother. I know that fear haunted me all of my adult life until I met Jack. My mother was a goblin-fruit addict and a sex addict as well.” Io cleared her throat. “Someone has to talk to her about this. We can’t let her walk about ignorant of the dangers around her.”
“And?” Kris asked, his face tight. “There’s more, isn’t there?”
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