by Faith Hunter
As the kylen stepped into the store, a gale of lavender light raked through my mind like a hurricane wind. Mage-sight glared and my skin blazed alive without my consent. I gripped my amulets, my flesh aching as energies lashed me.
All I wanted in life was below—the kylen and the amethyst. My knees weakened, breasts tightened as the lavender power merged with erotic heat, doubling it, tripling it. Oh, sweet seraph. Gasping, I dropped to the floor and forced my liquid bones into a meditative posture, sitting, knees bent, spine almost straight. My hands clenched the amulets tied beneath my work shirt as I attempted to slow my breathing, dampen my libido.
But employing the amulets had a peculiar effect. The amethyst stone sought to blend with the creation power I was drawing on, attempted to whirl into the energy currents established and stored in my amulets. I had never heard of this, yet instinctively, I understood what was happening. As if with intelligence of its own, the amethyst was piggybacking, bolstering each amulet's incantation. I had handled the amethyst and my mage-sense had recognized its power. As a result, the amethyst was trying to combine with my energies, trying to bond my blood to itself. My amulets were focal points, lenses of convergence, concentrating the effect of the kylen. Demanding that I utilize the power or mate. One or the other, if not both at the same time.
Though I was only half trained, I knew that using a new source of power would come with a price. Probably a price I wouldn't want to pay, especially if the cost was tied to sex. But it would be really, really, really great sex… I broke contact with my amulets, releasing them in a single negation, as if they burned. But I was the one who burned. For the kylen. For the amethyst.
I slid prone, pressing my body against the tile, my cheek against the cold glaze. Desperate, I chanted a child's mantra, one taught to all neomage children, almost the first words we learned in the Enclave version of nursery school. "Stone and fire, water and air, blood and kin prevail. Wings and shield, dagger and sword, blood and kin prevail."
I said the phrases over and over, breathing deeply with each repetition. The incantation drew on the oldest, most holy protection of the neomages, the defense offered by the High Host when they set my ancestors apart. The power for the liturgy resided deep in the earth below the Enclave where I was born, and I drew on it in times of extremis, of danger. The link was stored in the figure of an arctic seal carved from white onyx, tied around my waist. My fingers found the seal and held it, a lifeline.
Minutes dripped, slowed, frozen, as I fought the tides of need and heat. Finally, I could breathe easily again, could feel the muscles as my ribs expanded and contracted, could feel my skin, though it ached, could see reality, rather than a haze of energy and desire. "Wrath of angels," I swore under my breath, wiping my mouth. I had never believed the old tales about neomages and our reactions to certain bloodlines. Never really believed that a female in the presence of a seraph or a kylen went into heat like a mare in a field, demanding to be mounted by the nearest randy stallion.
I pulled myself upright and to my knees. A wave of nausea rushed over me, dizzying weakness. I fought that too. Little by little, I won.
When I could stand, I considered the food on the table, ripe, succulent fruit. In the wake of the sensual mistrial, the peaches in the stoneware bowl lost all enticement. I placed the bowl in the refrigerator and closed it up in the dark, drinking a quart of icy spring water before applying lipstick. Again, I didn't look too closely at why I used cosmetics. Desire for the kylen still surged, muted by the protection of the childhood incantation and by the stored power of the arctic seal. I stuck huge gold and silver hoops in my ears, and a wide cuff on one wrist.
The metal was Rupert's signature Mokume Gane. Before I left the apartment to join my friends, I plucked up an arm sheath and strapped on the kris, sliding the curvy shortsword on. Lipstick and a blade. I was in trouble. Oh, yeah.
Thaddeus Bartholomew was not beautiful like Lucas. Where Lucas was lissome and lithe with hair as black as night, Thaddeus was kylen tall, broad shouldered, and muscular, his hair bright with reddish tints from the glint of outside light. He moved with the grace of the kylen, and when he extended an arm, I could almost see vestigial wings move beneath his jacket.
I was drunk with the amethyst's power. Distressed, despairing, and if I was perfectly honest, horny as a bunny rabbit, I walked past them to the icebox in the workroom and opened a beer, downing it in one long swallow. On my empty stomach, the alcohol hit like a freight train, and the attraction for the kylen dulled. Great. I'd have to stay drunk to keep from tearing off his clothes and having my way with him in the middle of the display floor.
Laughter at my predicament, at the absurdity of my being in heat—with a cop—bubbled up, and I returned to the group carrying bottles of Black Bear Brew and wearing a grin that made Jacey and Audric do double takes before glancing at each other, one of those significant looks passed by people who have recently been talking about you. A lot. In the central sitting area of the shop, I set drinks on a table and toasted them before I sat down.
There had been conversation while I was gone to the back, and it had left eddies of emotional strife swirling in the room. I didn't know what had been said, but Audric was tense and watchful; Jacey, quiet. Rupert was tight-lipped with restrained wrath. His hostility helped stabilize my unsteady emotions and further dull my reaction to the kylen as I curled into an oversized wingback with velvet upholstery, my left knee bent up to hold my elbow while I drank. Overhead, the video of Lucas being attacked was still rolling.
"Why do you think they knew what he was carrying?" Audric asked Thaddeus, folding his muscled arms across his chest, cradling the beer, looking like an African prince.
"SNN agreed not to show it, but one of the men came back for the knapsack exactly seven minutes and fourteen seconds after they dragged Lucas off. At seven minutes and twenty seconds, the camera went dead. Local cops are using that time frame for determining the search for Lucas." The kylen, his tone curt, spread a city map on the low table in front of the gas-log fire, bent, and pointed. "The theory isn't bad. If the subjects were on foot, then the assumed range is accurate. If they had horses, they could have reached the second circle."
Mineral City was a divided town, the religious and commercial half on the north bank of the Toe River, the residential and civic half on the south. A suspension footbridge connected the two halves. The map was marked with a yellow circle enclosing the north half, a radius from the point of attack indicating foot traffic. The second circle, marking the radius the attackers could have reached if they had horses, was blue, enclosing areas both south and north of the Toe. There was no third circle for mechanical transport, El-cars, or trucks.
"Cars?" I asked.
"No vehicle tracks." Thaddeus turned those odd blue-green eyes on me, and my belly did a little dip and curl that I felt all the way down to my toes. I managed not to moan. The cop seemed unaffected.
Audric was watching me and I didn't want to meet his eyes, not knowing whether I would see speculation there or humor. I'd be ticked off if he was grinning. "And you discovered shattered rocks at the scene?" Audric asked, his tone asking for clarification.
I sat up straighter. "Rocks? What kind?"
Thaddeus shrugged. He moved as seraphs move, the shrug a curl of shoulder blades rather than a lift of collarbone and ball and socket. When seraphs are uncertain, and their wings are folded out of the way, they raise them, touching what—in arms—would be the wrist bones together. It's a strangely unemotional gesture, as if being uncertain doesn't bother them. "Does it matter?" he asked.
I dragged my thoughts away from his muscled back and what it might look like naked if he lifted a bale of hay overhead. In summer. After a hard workout. I wondered what he was talking about for a moment before I realized he was responding to my question. Jacey looked back and forth from the cop to me, a slight tug on her lips telling me my attraction wasn't a secret. Great. Just great. I drank the rest of the beer and took another bef
ore speaking. "Because if it's purple stone, we may have some info," I said. "Lucas mailed some amethyst rough to Rupert before he was attacked. Rough from his grandfather's estate."
Thaddeus straightened to his full height, flipped open a small notebook, and poised a pencil on the first page. "What's rough?"
"Was it purple?" I bargained.
Thaddeus' attention settled on me and he waited a beat before answering. "Yes."
"It's stone before it's cut, shaped, and polished," Jacey said, as she watched the cop watch me. And watched me flush. Just a hint of color, but that was enough for my best gal pal. She had a definite "well, well, well," look on her face. "And the stone he sent Rupert is probably gem quality, which he claimed to have found on… around here somewhere."
She amended the location on the fly at an almost invisible tightening of Rupert's face. I had a feeling Thaddeus caught the exchange. He didn't miss much, to my chagrin. On the heels of her words, questions rose, like, why Rupert didn't want him to know where the stone had been found. And what caused the animosity flowing between my friends and the cop? Rupert hadn't said a word since I came down the stairs, and there was a part of him that thrived on conflict. A quiet Rupert was very unusual.
"How much of this rough did he send? When, from where, and by what post? And is it valuable?" the kylen asked.
Speaking slowly, taking cues from Rupert's body language in my peripheral vision, I said, "A lot, a week before he was kidnapped, postmarked Linville, where his gramma lives, sent by mule train. And yes, pretty valuable, unless I miss my guess." Pretty valuable, all right—the most powerful stone I'd ever heard of, even in legends.
"So someone found the stone around here," Thaddeus placed a faint emphasis on the last two words to show he had caught the previous hesitation, "carted it off to Linville, only to have Lucas ship it back here. And Grandma knew all about this."
"Oh," I said. Put that way, it didn't make sense.
"Gramma," Rupert corrected, sounding surly. "Not Grandma. And Thaddeus knows about Gramma." Rupert's eyes were on the cop, his tone rancorous. "All about her. And he's decided that if I'm not behind Lucas' disappearance, you are."
"We discussed his 'woman scorned' theory last night. I'm on his list of suspects. So is every other woman Lucas has been with in the last few years. Right?" I asked the cop. "And how does he know about your gramma?"
Rupert said, "He neglected to mention we're cousins. His mother is my aunt, long lost and all, found by the investigators Lucas hired for probate. Gramma sent him up here to pry." His tone was insulting, claiming there was nothing worse than a busybody.
The malice in the room suddenly made sense. Gramma was the paternal grandmother to Rupert, Lucas, and Jason. She lived along the Linville River, in the same house where the Stanhope patriarch had died last fall. She was a sour woman, full of old anger and unfulfilled hopes that had turned her soul bitter. She also kept secrets. Forbidden knowledge floated in her eyes. Being a keeper of secrets myself, I had spotted it. On top of all that, she was a snoop, a meddler, a woman who delighted in creating animosity among her own family, pitting one grandchild against the other. The old hag.
"Mrs. Stanhope sent you up here? Not the state police?" I asked.
Bartholomew seemed to realize he'd made an error in judgment at some point. His face went through a fast series of emotions, ending with uncertainty. "I had just discovered the Stanhope branch of my family, so I was killing two birds—looking at an opening with local law enforcement, and taking the opportunity to meet my relatives, starting with Gramma." The word sounded curious on his tongue, as if he'd never said it before. "Then Lucas was attacked, and because I'm on the scene, I accepted a temporary liaison position with the local cops." He looked back and forth between us.
"Which you didn't bother to explain when you were questioning me as if I was a fugitive from some hellhole," Rupert accused, both fists on his hips, head thrown back. "Thanks. It's great to meet you too."
Thaddeus sighed, flipped the little notebook closed, and sat down, choosing a small, pink tapestry chair with delicate, turned legs. Each move, from the chair choice to the sigh to his posture after he sat, was calculated to bring down the level of animosity. He went from interrogating bad cop to nonthreatening, just-one-of-the-guys good cop in a heartbeat. "I can see I handled this all wrong. I'm sorry."
That was a nice surprise, I thought, liking him against my better judgment.
"I should have just come to see you and introduced myself. Should have told you who I was up front. Get acquainted the usual way." He dropped his elbows to his knees and laced his hands together. I pulled my eyes away from his long, limber fingers, Stanhope hands, I realized, set off by the impressive ring. His body language was honest and sincere, but I didn't quite buy it. Neither did Jacey or Rupert, but Audric seemed complacent. Odd.
"Gramma acted like I was the savior of the family. Said her other grandsons were quarreling, fighting about the inheritance. She claimed you'd never accept me as anything but a money-grubbing interloper—her words, not mine—if I just came to visit. With the kidnapping, I figured being a cop might give me an entree I might not get otherwise."
"The old bat set him up," Audric said, with a bark of laughter.
"She set us up too," Jacey said. "Why?"
"It's her nature. Like scorpions sting and lions eat their prey," Audric said, lifting a brow at Rupert.
Rupert pursed his lips, clearly making a judgment. Finally he stood, walked over, and extended his hand. "Let's start over. I'm Rupert Stanhope, your long-lost cousin. I'm a metal smith, a partner in Thorn's Gems. My associates and I design and make jewelry. My brother Lucas is missing. Jason, my other brother, is probably drunk, and if he knew you were here, he'd be trying to borrow money."
Thaddeus stood and took Rupert's proffered hand, his face slightly wry. "I'm Thaddeus Bartholomew, Hand of the Law of the state police. Good to meet you, cousin. Call me Thadd. I'd like to meet your ne'er-do-well brother and offer my services to find Lucas." Instantly the ambience in the room mellowed.
"Okay, Thadd. And Gramma?" Rupert asked, his hand still clasping Thaddeus' as the men measured each other.
"Gramma appears to be a poor judge of character. And a… contentious woman."
"Didn't like me much?" Rupert asked.
"She didn't like anyone much."
"Bingo."
I thought about the stone in the back room, the pull it had on me. And about the stone Lucas had been carrying. Over my head the scene of Lucas being attacked still played, and I watched it again, focusing on the dark smear on the alley floor. Without exactly knowing why, I asked, "The alley where Lucas was taken. "Was there any blood left when the cops got there?"
The kylen froze and turned penetrating eyes to me, his face a cop mask. I had asked something important. Suddenly I knew that something had happened to Lucas' blood at the scene of the attack. Something bad.
Thadd's eyes narrowed, holding mine. "Why do you ask that?"
Oops. I had just moved back up a notch in the list of potential bad guys. Choosing my words carefully, I said, "Yeah, I thought so. And you found a shattered piece of amethyst in the alley, didn't you? And the other cops don't know about it."
His eyes narrowed farther and he moved slowly closer, to tower over me.
I craned my neck up at him. "You took it from the scene because you knew it had to be important. Can I look at it?"
"Why don't you have the stone Lucas sent evaluated by a geologist?" he deflected.
"I can do that. I have a friend here in town and another in Boone."
"I'll bet you do." His tone was bland, obscuring a measured note of satisfaction.
"Now, wait a minute—" Rupert said.
"I'm a lapidary," I interrupted with a vulpine smile. "A maker of, and dealer in, stone jewelry and sculpture. I have to know people who evaluate its quality."
"Convenient. But if we can come to terms, I'll see about letting you have access to a bit of the s
tone from the alley. For comparison purposes."
My smile widened, showing teeth.
"What terms?" Audric asked.
"Our strange little friend here introduces me to her Lolo," the kylen said.
I was thrown off base. In this convoluted conversation, that was one subject I hadn't expected at all.
"What's a lolo?" Jacey asked.
Thadd answered without taking his eyes from me. "A difficult old woman who somehow found out where I was staying. She called my room about ten times. And then she found my secure police sat number, which I was furnished only last week, and she's calling that. She's an annoying, irate old woman who keeps calling, and whom I can't seem to block, though I've tried twice. And she keeps telling me I have to help Thorn."
"My adopted grandmother. Sorta," I said.
"What's a sat?" Jacey asked.
"Well?" he asked, ignoring Jacey.
I couldn't tell him Lolo lived at Enclave, not without going to die there myself. So I lied. More or less. "She lives in southeast Louisiana. You want to visit a licensed witchy-woman, I'll give you her address." He didn't seem to read the partial omission.
His eyes considered. "I was born in Natchez. Maybe my mother knows her."
"Stranger things have happened," I said. Like the confluence of events that resulted in a kylen being related to Rupert, having family in spitting distance of my Enclave, and arriving in Mineral City near the time his cousin was kidnapped. Then coming to Thorn's Gems and interrogating me. I didn't believe in coincidences. Either Thadd orchestrated it, or it all was Lolo's machinations.
"What's a sat?" Jacey asked again. "Wait. You mean a portable phone? Like a Pre-Ap satellite phone? Can I see it?"
Ignoring Jacey, he said, "May I look at the stone? Or do I need to get a subpoena?"