Solatium (Emanations, an urban fantasy series Book 2)

by Becca Mills

  “Prosciutto and roasted zucchini with camembert and arugula.”

  I wasn’t the same small-town girl I’d been four months ago, but people still pretty regularly said things that sounded like Greek to me. Andy hardly ever made me feel like a rube, but when he did, it was always over a meal. The man was the world’s biggest foodie.

  I looked up and saw he was grinning at me.

  “Ham and cheese with veggies.”

  “Thanks for the translation. I know what zucchini is. Jerk.”

  “They have vegetables in Wisconsin, huh?”

  “Only at the best places.”

  There was a light knock. Theo opened the door and came in.

  “Hey, what’s the crisis?”

  Andy waved his brother toward the couch. “Want a sandwich?”

  “Naw, already ate.”

  I got up and pushed the couch in, so Andy’s sound-proof barrier wouldn’t have to be so big. His capacity was probably low from the attack in the sewer. Duncan’s healing wouldn’t have helped with that.

  We settled in, and Andy repeated the story we’d just told Yellin. Then he described Yellin’s reaction.

  By the time we were done, Theo looked worried.

  “So you think the thing that attacked you was a Thirsting Ground, whatever that is?”

  “Yeah,” Andy said. “A strong enough gravity-working could liquefy a human body, break it down to the molecular level, even.”

  Theo nodded, thoughtful.

  “So this is bad, right?” I asked. “Having this thing loose in the city? Yellin told me that killing is what these Thirsting Ground things do. Who knows what kind of body count it’s racking up. So why is he putting off doing something about it?”

  Theo shook his head. “Beth, I think you’re missing something.”

  Suddenly, I felt a lot more worried.

  “What? What am I missing?”

  “Sturluson gives you the info about the dead kid, and the very next day you encounter the entity that did it? Out of all the tens of millions of people in this area, it attacks you?”

  “She didn’t give me the info. She gave Yellin the info. I just happened to be there. And today in the tunnel, it was targeting all of us.”

  But even as I said it, I remembered Sturluson’s odd interest in me.

  “Shit,” Andy said. “I bet that’s why Yellin’s delaying. You’re Lord Cordus’s new prize. Yellin has to keep you safe. I mean, really has to. To do that, he needs to know what the hell is going on.”

  The rest of my sandwich wasn’t looking so appealing.

  “So this is about me?”

  “I think it’s got to be, at least in part,” Theo said. “Maybe it’s about something else, in the final analysis, but it has to have something to do with you.”

  “So what should I do?”

  Andy grinned. “You mean ‘what should we do,’ right?”

  Andy and Theo were the best.

  “It’s hard to know,” Theo said. “We’re really working in the dark, here.”

  “I know who could enlighten us,” Andy said.

  “Sturluson?”

  “Yup.”

  “But what if running to her is just what she wants Beth to do?”

  No one had an answer for that. Andy sat there pushing the crumbs around on his plate. Theo stared off into the distance and drummed his fingers on the back of the couch.

  “So we just wait. Wait and let Yellin figure it out,” I said.

  “I guess,” Andy said.

  “Gwen might have a better idea, when we get a chance to run all this by her,” Theo said.

  Maybe. I doubted it, though. If Theo was advising caution, Gwen would probably throw me down and sit on me.

  After the terror of my morning in the sewers, the afternoon was far more humdrum. I worked out with Justine, rode down to the southern meadow to photograph the purple asters, made my way through ten pages of my Baasha textbook, and then joined Andy and Theo for dinner.

  Afternoons like that weren’t bad: meals with the brute squad were always fun, and riding just couldn’t be beat. Admittedly, Baasha gave me a headache, and the workout had focused on strength-training, which I found tedious. But hey, batting .500 is pretty good — a lot of people spend a lot less of their time than that on stuff they enjoy.

  I particularly loved the riding. It had taken more than a month of pestering to convince the estate’s stable master, Patricia, to let me ride. She’d finally said I could use one of the “more manageable” mounts and directed me to a 14.3-hand appaloosa named Copper.

  She was probably laughing up her sleeve when she did it — Copper wasn’t all that manageable. Actually, I’d have put him in the “evil-genius” category, myself. He was lazy, stubborn, and deeply in love with his stall. I had a terrible time keeping him from taking off on me. Plus, he bit.

  If Graham Ryzik had been right about my having a gift for taming animals, Copper was my kryptonite.

  The second time I had to walk back to the stable after he dumped me down near the bottom of the property, it occurred to me that Patricia was probably testing me. After my fifth walk-back, I’d realized she was looking for humbleness, not tenacity, and had asked her for help. Now I didn’t just take Copper out on the estate’s trails. I also circled a ring as Patricia helped me learn to use tools I hadn’t needed as a kid bopping around my friend Janie’s place on placid old farm horses — things like spurs and a curb bit.

  The lessons were a revelation. Once I got Copper to listen to me, I discovered he’d been well schooled and was quite able. Soon I was pestering Patricia to teach me more often. She grumbled but agreed to three lessons a week.

  After I got to know Patricia better, I started seeing through her gruffness and realized she actually looked forward to our meetings. I seemed to be the only other Nolander on the estate who used the horses, and I’m sure the Seconds wouldn’t have stooped to lessons from a Nolander, even if they needed them. Maybe Patricia liked having someone around who appreciated her expertise.

  After dinner, I declined Andy and Theo’s invitation to hang out and drink. I just couldn’t indulge as often as they did and still feel good during the day.

  Instead, I headed back to my suite and watched the original King Kong.

  The estate’s lending library had a big collection of DVDs, and I’d been on a classic-film kick for the last few weeks. If I had the time and energy, I’d go get something in the evening — something I’d heard of but never seen.

  After watching Bullitt, I’d watched a bunch of Steve McQueen movies. There was just something about him, a bad-boy magnetism. You couldn’t look away from him. Andy had declared McQueen “strangely hot” and had joined me for a few of those, but when I moved on to a string of Bogart films, Andy had rolled his eyes and gone back to knocking back beers with his brother.

  After Casablanca and Key Largo, King Kong was a real change of pace. It might’ve been the oldest movie I’d ever seen. It held up pretty well, all in all, but it made me sad. To the very end, the woman didn’t seem to have any empathy for the ape. She was horrified by and terrified of him from start to finish.

  I’d just extracted the DVD and gone to the bathroom to brush my teeth when my phone rang.

  My brand new phone.

  It had to be one of the guys — no one else had the number yet. But they never called me so late.

  I touched the screen to answer. “Hello?”

  “Well hello, Miss Ryder, how are you this evening?”

  The voice was female. I stood there for several seconds, quite at a loss. Then it clicked.

  “Miss Sturluson?”

  “That’s right, my dear. How are you?”

  What the hell?

  I sat down on the side of the tub, shocked and befuddled.

  “I’m fine, thank you. And you?”

  “I’m doing just fine. Thanks for asking.”

  I let the silence stretch for a few seconds, trying to figure out how to proceed. Nothi
ng really came to mind.

  “Miss Sturluson, it’s certainly nice to hear from you, but I’m not sure why you’re calling. Is there something I can do for you?”

  “Now, I’m sure you’ve been told not to make offers like that to people like me. Haven’t you, Miss Ryder?”

  God, what was wrong with me? The grandma voice was so good that I’d been in talking-to-a-human mode. You don’t offer to do things for Seconds.

  “Yes ma’am, I have. What is it you want?”

  “Oh, not much. I was concerned after what happened this morning. I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  Every hair on my body seemed to stand straight up at once.

  “Was that you?”

  “Good heavens, no! I would never do such a thing. Honestly, it’s hard not to feel offended at the suggestion, Miss Ryder.”

  “Then how do you know about it?”

  “I have my ways.”

  “You have a spy in Lord Cordus’s household?”

  “A spy?” She laughed. “Such a quaint term — so Cold War, don’t you think? Such a silly concept, really, as though loyalties were black and white, and so forth.”

  A lot of words, I noticed, but no “no.”

  I was getting over my initial surprise at the call and was starting to feel angry. Clearly, Sturluson was playing at something. I didn’t like it. I was still smarting from the last time someone played me.

  “I appreciate your concern, but really, I’m fine.” I put a wrapping-things-up note into my voice. “Thank you for calling, Miss Sturluson.”

  “Just a moment, young lady. I didn’t say that was the only reason I was calling.”

  “Okay. What else?”

  “To be frank, my dear, I think you need some advice on dealing with what you encountered this morning. I believe I’m the only person who can give you that advice.”

  “I’m happy to take down any advice you have to offer and pass it along to Mr. Yellin.”

  “Leave him out of this,” she said, sounding momentarily cold. Then she laughed. “At any rate, this isn’t something to discuss over the phone, Miss Ryder. You’ll need to come to me, so I can make sure of my own protections.”

  I almost laughed. She must think I was born yesterday.

  “Miss Sturluson, I’m not going to come to your house alone in the middle of the night. Especially not after the experience I had this morning.”

  “You’ll be safe with me. I give you my word of honor.”

  “Thank you, but it’s not possible.”

  Her voice took on a dangerous undertone. “Miss Ryder, I hope you’re not calling me a liar.”

  “Not in the least, ma’am.”

  Rather than trying to explain myself, I just let it hang there. Sturluson was presenting this as something I needed from her, but I was pretty sure she actually needed something from me. I couldn’t imagine what that might be, and I figured I wouldn’t like it when I found out, but I had a feeling I was going to find out whether I wanted to or not, so there was no reason to let her dictate the terms.

  After a long pause, she said, “I suppose it’d be all right if you brought a friend.”

  “How about two friends?”

  “Yes, yes, fine,” she said, annoyed.

  “Okay. No guarantees, but let me speak to my friends and see if they’ll agree to come. If so, I’ll call you back.”

  She grunted something that might charitably have been called an assent.

  “When would you like to meet?” I asked.

  “Tonight.”

  “Okay.”

  “Do try to convince your friends, Miss Ryder. Quite a bit may hang in the balance.”

  Theo leaned back, frowning. “I don’t like it. We should call Gwen and talk it over with her.”

  “Why?” said Andy. “You know what she’s going to say.”

  “Yeah, I do, and I think you two need to hear it.”

  We were gathered on the couches in Andy’s suite, where the guys had been watching a Yankees-Red Sox game that had gone into extra innings.

  “Look,” I said, “I know this is dangerous, but doing nothing is dangerous too. You know Yellin’s not going to bring me when you guys go after the sewer thing, even though I’m your best power source. You need to find out now what you’re going to be facing.”

  “And what makes you think anything Sturluson says will be true? For all we know, that was her in the sewer this morning — and her that killed that kid, too.”

  The kid. Well, if she hadn’t killed him, she’d killed many others. So far as I understood, anyway. Yellin had said killing was what she did. That seemed pretty clear to me.

  I pushed the dead child out of my mind. I couldn’t help him, but maybe I could help keep more kids from ending up dead.

  “I’m not saying we have to believe what she says,” I said, “but I think we should hear it. I mean, you can go in totally cold, or you can get what might turn out to be useful info ahead of time. And if you do it now, you’ll have handy-dandy battery girl along with you.”

  Andy frowned. “You’re not a battery.”

  “Yeah, I know, I’m so much more than that, blah, blah, et cetera.”

  “You know, sarcasm’s really not your best look.”

  Darn it all. I hurt his feelings.

  “Sorry.” There was an awkward silence. I looked down at my hands, annoyed and embarrassed. “Hey, I’d rather be a battery for you than have to burn things alive myself, you know?”

  Andy scooted over, put his arm around me, and kissed the top of my head. “I know, sweetie. Don’t worry about it. I just hated hurting you like that.”

  Theo drummed his fingers on the back of the couch. “How about no burning alive, no battery, no nothing, because she’s a trainee, and she doesn’t go on these sorts of missions?”

  Andy sighed. “Look, I don’t like it, but I think Beth has a point. I don’t want to leave this in Yellin’s hands. Especially after what Gwen said about his strength. If I’m the strongest one on that mission, we’re screwed — that thing had me overpowered by a mile. And,” he added, “I really don’t think Sturluson’s going to see us without her.”

  “Yeah,” Theo said. “That’s because helping us isn’t the point. Getting to Beth is the point.”

  He looked down, frowning. Despite his words, I could see he was torn. He didn’t like the idea of endangering me, but recon that might make him and his brother safer would be a big plus.

  “With more info, maybe we could convince Yellin to call in Williams,” Andy said.

  Theo grunted and nodded. I suppressed a grimace. John Williams was far enough down my “favorite persons” list to be trimming its toenails. While standing on a ladder.

  “Was the thing weaker than Beth?” Theo asked after a minute.

  Andy shook his head. “Hard to say. They’re both so much stronger than me it’s hard to tell the difference. Maybe it was weaker than her, or maybe it just wasn’t putting all its strength into breaking my working.”

  I shifted uncomfortably. I didn’t like hearing about my vast potential. It made me awfully nervous about the things I was going to be asked to do, once my gift became useable. I really would rather play battery forever, even if it hurt like hell. I hadn’t been exaggerating when I mentioned being able to burn things alive.

  “What does it matter?” I asked. “Even if the thing in the sewer was weaker than me, it doesn’t mean Sturluson is.”

  “Actually, it might matter,” Theo said. “I got a little information about the Thirsting Ground from Kristin.”

  Kristin was one of the estate staff. I didn’t know much about her except that she had a scholarly bent. I’d tried talking to her a few times, but she hadn’t seemed friendly.

  “Sexing Kristin up for info?” Andy shook his head. “A new low, bro.”

  “What’s that?” Theo cupped his hand around his ear. “The forlorn call of the I’m-not-getting-any bird?”

  “I’m not getting any ’cause I
’m not trying to get any right now.”

  Theo snorted. “Like I haven’t seen you checking out Koji’s ass, dude.”

  Andy shrugged. “Whatever. At least I’m not like, ‘Nice ass. Now let me rifle your library.’”

  “Guys, please, can we stay a tiny bit on topic, here?”

  Andy shrugged. “Man’s gotta defend his reputation in such matters. Some things cannot be let slid — that’s all I’m saying.”

  Theo arched an eyebrow. “‘Let slid’? Is that English?”

  “Guys!”

  Honestly, they were more like ping-pong balls than people, sometimes.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Theo said. “Kristin didn’t know much. She said the Thirsting Ground is a place in the S-Em where the dirt itself is alive — and isn’t, you know, all that nice. People don’t go near it. That’s all she knew.”

  “I could’ve guessed that much myself,” Andy grumbled. “The thing in the sewer looked like dirt.”

  “It matters,” Theo said. “Don’t you get it? She thought it was just one thing — one entity. “If that’s the case, then any two pieces of it are probably about the same, strengthwise.”

  Huh. That was helpful.

  Andy’s brows drew together in confusion. “So why are you objecting to visiting Sturluson? I know we don’t know it’s safe, but it seems like a reasonably good bet, so long as we have Beth with us.”

  Theo gave Andy a hard look. Andy looked from Theo to me and back, then seemed to catch on. “Oh, right. I forgot. I mean, I guess there probably are too many unknowns.”

  Frustration welled up. Having people literally exchanging silent wink-wink looks over my head was really a bit much.

  “Did Lord Cordus give you two special instructions about me?”

  “Well, sort of,” Andy said.

  “What? What did he say?”

  “That you’re not supposed to use your capacity.”

  “I know that already. He told me that himself.”

  Theo rubbed his forehead as though it ached. “Beth, for all we know, the capacity thing also applies to other people drawing on it, like Andy did this morning. The last thing we want to do is make your problem worse.”

  “Did Lord Cordus say that, specifically? That no one should draw on me?”