Riley pulled her sleeves down over suddenly cold hands and wrapped her arms around herself. “You think that’s who sent this guy?”
Marley shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know, but it’s an awfully big coincidence.”
“What is?”
“He was an orphan. His mother died in childbirth, and he said his grandmother let them put him in foster care but stayed in contact with him. I’m pretty sure her last name was Millinger.”
Everything she’d been told about Anson paraded through Riley’s head. He’d gone through a lot to get power the first time. How far would he go now?
Knowledge was supposed to make things easier. Take away the fear, give you something to fight. But the more she learned, the bigger the picture became, the more she hated sitting around waiting to be targeted again.
Joining the goddess world hadn’t been all good, but she’d be damned if she let anyone take it away from her.
Riley stood and headed for the spare bedroom. “Pack a bag. We’re going to Georgia.”
“What?” Marley stopped in the doorway her eyes wide. “Now? The security team is coming!”
Riley tossed her bag onto the bed and shoved a stack of shirts into it. Over the past few months she had filed several police reports, learning quickly how little good it did. They were all overworked and had far more important things to worry about. Plus, this guy hadn’t touched them, not until Riley had knocked him off his bike and threatened him. Vern’s earlier threats echoed—a powerful person could turn this around on them. She could end up being arrested.
She grabbed a few more things from the dresser to stuff into the bag. “What’s a security team going to do?”
“Protect us.”
Riley shook her head. “All that does is give us a wall to hide behind while we wait for something else to happen. So I’m going to Atlanta.”
“Why?” Marley challenged.
“Because that’s where Millinger’s headquarters is.”
“What do you think you’re going to do there?”
“Find out what the hell he wants. Are you coming?”
“Who, Anson?” Marley dropped back a step and shook her head. “I can’t do that.”
Riley zipped the bag’s main section. “I’m tired of being a victim, Marley. My family, the Society, all these people who’ve been following me—this is my life, not theirs. I’m tired of running in the dark, and I won’t keep sitting inside some office building surrounded by protectors. I have to end this.”
Marley took a deep breath. “That sounds noble, but it’s not me. I’ve rebuilt my life after what Anson took, and I have no interest in revisiting that hell.”
Riley straightened and sighed. Marley had fought her battles already and earned her right to say no. She had to respect that. She carried her bag to the dresser to pack her toiletries in the side pocket. “I understand. It’s fine. I can go alone.”
“Is there any way I can stop you from charging down there? It’s dangerous.”
Riley had already done the calculations. “I’ll drive straight down and get to Millinger on Sunday. No one should be there, and all I have to do is search the office for evidence of what they’re trying to do. I promise I won’t do anything stupid.” Even if part of her wanted to confront Anson head on, she really did only need information. For now.
“You should have a protector with you, at least.”
Riley only wanted Sam. He was trained as a protector, and he had as much stake in this as she did. But what he was doing was important, too, and the sooner he was done in Mississippi, the sooner he’d be back at her side. All the better if she had something to give them a direction to look in or an action to take when he was.
“I can’t wait.” She finished stuffing the little bottles into her bag and dropped it on the bed. “I know what I’m capable of now. Protectors don’t cover goddesses in power, right?” Marley nodded reluctantly. “So I load up with metal. I have a pipe and a tire iron and some other things in the car.” But nothing she could easily wear or carry. “I can take…I don’t know, what do you have here?” She tried to think of something portable that wouldn’t call a lot of attention. They went into the kitchen and she tested the utensils, but they didn’t let her draw enough energy for what she might need. The pans were stainless steel and would be great if they weren’t so impractical.
“I’ll stop at a hardware store,” Riley decided. “Can I borrow your laptop? I need to print off directions. My car doesn’t have GPS.”
A few minutes later she paused at the door, her hand on the knob. She looked back at Marley. “Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?”
Marley bit her lip and shifted her weight from foot to foot. She glanced at the pipe and tire iron slung through the straps of Riley’s bag, then at the wall between the living room and kitchen, lined with amethyst and other crystals. Finally, she shook her head. “No. I’d be worthless. I’ll stay here and report to the security team, then see if I can learn any more about anything. Call me. And please, please be careful.” She hugged Riley, who hugged her back with a surge of warmth.
“Thank you,” Riley said. “For everything.”
Then she was out the door and on her way to her car in the parking garage, a little excited to have a mission. For the first time since she bounced off that big old Buick the day after her twenty-first birthday, Riley felt in control of something.
Chapter Eight
My foolishness should not have been rewarded, but my gratitude is endless. My debt will remain unpaid for the remainder of my life, but to become whole again, to embrace that which I lost through my own shortsightedness, has been the greatest joy of my life.
—Meandress Chronicles, compilation of family diaries
Sam spent his time on the plane and his layover in Chicago trying to nail down something, anything, on Millinger or Anson Tournado, but still came up agonizingly empty. He’d reactivated some old, not-entirely-legal methods of searching but still nothing. No financial records or leases or utilities in Anson’s name, which might mean he was operating on a cash basis since getting out of jail, but could also mean he was using aliases or fronts to hide his activities should anyone go looking.
Vern Nurnan and Sharla Cannalunis turned up a little more, but none of it was helpful. Both had small-time criminal records, had bounced from job to job, and used their credit and debit cards for meaningless purchases. He couldn’t find an employment record for Millinger, despite the business cards, but they had said consultant, so they probably weren’t on any official payroll.
He’d texted Riley a couple of times and talked to her once. She’d sounded distracted and ended the call quickly, leaving him to wonder how upset she was, after all, that he’d left her. It made him more determined to get this done quickly and get back.
Once he’d landed in Jackson, Mississippi, and driven to the hotel where he was meeting Nick and Quinn, it was late, and he was exhausted and cranky after being folded into an economy seat for too many hours. He texted Nick his room number and got a response that they were still en route and would see him in the morning. It was too late to try to call Riley, but he fell asleep thinking of how he could make it up to her, and tested a few of those in his dreams.
He woke to Nick pounding on the motel room door at what seemed like only a couple of hours after he’d fallen asleep. He groggily dragged on jeans and manipulated the locks to let him in.
“What are you doing here so early?” he griped.
Nick looked way too chipper after driving twelve hours, but he was probably thrilled to be back on the road. He’d been stuck in one place for three years after fifteen as a protector, moving from one goddess assignment to the next.
He closed the door behind him and leaned against the wall. “Dude, it’s almost noon. We’ve been waiting for you to drag your lazy ass out of bed and call us. You missed breakfast.”
Sam rubbed his eyes and headed for the bathroom. “I’ll be out in a minute.” He left N
ick sighing in mock annoyance and picking up the remote for the TV bolted to the wall.
Sam brushed his teeth and took a fast-and-dirty shower that managed to give him a measure of alertness. But he’d been so groggy he hadn’t grabbed clean clothes. He wrapped in a threadbare towel and went back out into the room.
Nick was sitting on the end of the bed, boots planted flat on the floor in front of him. “So?”
“So, what?” Sam pulled clothes out of his duffel bag and started getting dressed.
“So, who’s the chick?”
Sam narrowed his eyes at him for a second before yanking a Henley over his head. “What are you talking about?”
Nick flipped off the TV. “The reason you put me off the other day and are in such a hurry to get back to Boston.”
“It’s about a lot more than just a chick.”
“Yeah, I talked to John.” He stood and went to the chipboard dresser, flipping a few pages in the info book while he re-rolled the sleeve of the flannel shirt he wore over a T-shirt. “Believe me, I’m as eager to wipe Tournado off the face of the earth as you are. But you’ve got squat to go on, right?”
Sam grunted and sat to put on his socks and boots.
“So the only reason you’d be in a hurry to get back there must be this new goddess you’ve discovered.”
“I didn’t discover her.” He didn’t know why he was reluctant to tell Nick about Riley, except that he wasn’t in the mood for brotherly ribbing or Nick’s brand of smugness when he thought he knew it all, which was almost always. “She’s vulnerable and a potential target of Anson’s.”
“And hot?” Nick waggled his eyebrows, and Sam couldn’t help laughing.
“Yeah. But that’s not why I like her,” he defended. But when Nick hooked one finger into the side of the curtain and peeked out into the parking lot, and then scrubbed a hand in his shorter-than-usual spiky blond hair, Sam began to suspect there was something Nick wasn’t saying. He wasn’t normally this antsy.
“What’s going on? Why were you in such an all-fired hurry to get me down here so quickly?”
Nick shot him a sideways look. “I told you. Quinn’s sick. She’s hurting.”
And Nick would never let that go on a second longer than necessary, Sam knew. “But there’s something more than that.” He thought about conversations he’d had with both of them over the last few months. “You’re not very happy, are you?”
Nick’s expression closed up, his eyes darkening. He’d hit a nerve. Sam knew Nick would die before ever admitting it to Quinn. But he also knew Nick. He waited him out, and after Nick tested the durability of the bar lock on the door and kicked the platform under the bed, he finally caved.
“I’m going crazy, man,” he admitted. “I’m so freakin’ bored, I catch myself hoping someone will attack her.”
Sam laughed. “That would be entertainment, not action.”
“Tell me about it. The woman needs nothing. She can flick her finger and knock a bad guy into next week. Her stamina is incredible, and she even pulls beer faster than anyone in the bar.” He shook his head sadly. “I am definitely not needed.”
Sam smirked. “Feeling a little inadequate?”
Nick jerked forward and poked his finger at Sam. “No. She doesn’t need me for that stuff. She still needs me for—you know—other stuff.”
Sam sobered. “So, tired of feeling unnecessary. Is that a deal breaker?”
“What do you mean, deal breaker?” Nick stared at him for a second. “You mean, am I done with Quinn?” His eyes blazed with a combination of love and torment. “Hell, no. I want to get married.”
Sam was too startled to have anything but a genuine reaction, and that was to grin and start heading over to give Nick a congratulatory man-hug. But Nick warded him off with upraised hands.
“Don’t congratulate me too soon. Quinn’s balking until we get this transfer thing done. I think she’s afraid I’ll change my mind afterward, or that something will happen to her and she doesn’t want to tie me or something.” He threw up his hands and paced as much as the confined area would let him. “I don’t know. We both avoided communicating for so many years, I’m not sure we have the skills.”
Sam would have snickered at the macho protector talking about communication skills if the implication that Quinn might die hadn’t struck him so hard.
“It’s that serious?” he asked in a low voice.
Nick settled against the cinderblock wall and folded his arms. “Yeah, I’m afraid it is. And it happened fast. For all this time, she’s handled the power fine. Most people would have gone overboard with it. Quinn’s kept it low-key, not compromising her ethics or getting greedy. And she has complete control over using it.”
There was an obvious but coming. Sam quirked an eyebrow.
Nick sighed. “The moon lust is gone, which hasn’t been a bad thing, believe me. She’s happy to have it all happen naturally. So she gets tired faster but recharges faster, with a short rest, and she hasn’t needed to wait for full moon to have peak power.”
“Has any of that changed?”
Nick shook his head. “It’s just taken a toll. I thought at first it was guilt and sympathy for her friends, but it’s deeper than that. She has nightmares. She said a couple of times she feels like something’s pulling at her, almost like the power is trying to get back to its original owners, and that’s gotten stronger.”
Sam didn’t like the images that evoked. “That’s kind of weird, Nick.”
“Of course it is, but hell, Sam, it’s magic. As scientific as we try to get with it, we don’t really understand how it works in anything more than a basic sense. All I know is that it’s doing her harm.” He took a deep breath. “Tanda and Chloe live on opposite coasts,” he reminded him.
Horror dawned as Sam understood what Nick meant. “It’s ripping her apart?”
“Maybe.” He paced again. “I don’t know. And I don’t know if she can transfer it, or if transferring it will make a difference. She could end up worse.”
He glanced at Sam, then away. “Come on. Quinn’s waiting. We might as well have the rest of this conversation together.”
Sam followed him with a much greater sense of foreboding than he’d had when he left Boston.
…
Nick and Quinn had gotten a much nicer room than Sam had, in a newer section of the hotel. He’d been so tired the night before he hadn’t even noticed there was a difference. He accepted a hug and a cup of coffee from Quinn, and the three of them settled in the comfortable sitting area to talk.
Quinn looked a little better than Sam had expected. Thinner than when he’d seen her last, and brittle in a way he’d never have described her or thought would even be possible. Her dark hair was shorter and had less body. But her color was good, and her eyes bright. Still, Nick hovered as if he thought she’d keel over, and Sam was surprised he’d left the room long enough to come get Sam.
“So tell me how this works,” he said. “How is it different from the way Marley gave power to Anson?”
Quinn folded her legs, engulfed in loose yoga pants, up onto the love seat and leaned against Nick, cradling her coffee in both hands. “He’d never had any power to begin with. We know he was able to receive it because he’s the son of a goddess, so there’s a genetic factor there, and he wasn’t altered before the power was bestowed. Tanda and Chloe had the ability, and it was ripped out of them.” She sipped her coffee. “I tried to give Marley’s back right after we caught Anson, and I couldn’t. She was broken and couldn’t accept it. I thought it was because of the way things had happened, but when I tried again with Chloe, it still didn’t work. It’s not a simple matter of reverse siphoning. I figured I have to fix the vessel before it can accept the power. That’s not the hard part.”
“The hard part is that the power of four goddesses is mixed together in you,” Sam guessed.
“Right. Because it’s all comingled, I need a secondary conduit to filter it through. Separate it. I
t has to be someone we can trust, but it can’t be a goddess. Someone with no power, but who is blood relative to a goddess. That rules out a lot of people. It basically means—”
“The son of a goddess.” Now he knew why they needed him in particular. He was the only one with the full combination of prerequisites.
He studied them, déjà vu hitting him despite the change in venue. Three years ago, they’d pow-wowed in Quinn’s bar about a major threat and how to stop it. “This conversation sounds familiar.”
Quinn took a shaky breath. “Yeah, it does. It’s the same conditions that create a leech.”
Fuck was pretty much the only response to that, so he let it go for now and asked, “How did you figure out how to do the transfers?”
Nick threw his feet up onto the coffee table and crossed his ankles. “We’ve been doing research since it happened. Some goddesses have family diaries and records of their entire ancestry. We just had to find the right one.”
Quinn shoved Nick’s feet down and rested her hand on a large, old book on the table. Its leather binding was worn at the edges, the black faded to a dirty gray. “It’s happened at least once before, around a hundred years ago, and they were able to transfer the power back. Only one goddess got leeched, though. She gave some power to the man she worked for, and he leeched the rest from her. So that’s different, obviously.”
“How did she get it back?”
“Her mother retrieved the power from the leech. I don’t know how she knew how. Maybe legends or stories told through the generations or something. Maybe she just tried, or guessed.” She lifted the book and opened it to a bookmarked page. “Then she used her son, the leeched goddess’s brother, as a conduit to filter his sister’s power out of her own. He ended up with some residual power, enough to do what Nick calls magic tricks.” She smiled at her fiancé with fondness and exasperation. He grinned unrepentantly. “It worked, and the goddess says here that she felt whole again.”
“What does she say about her brother?”
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