“Sure.” Becki double-clicked on a window, closing it and bringing the larger map back up.
“Interesting.” Rhys cocked his head, trying to make sense of the negative space he was seeing. “Can I see a satellite map overlay of this area?”
“Sure.”
There it was.
Once the satellite image was up, Rhys could see the pattern. The yellow dots were fairly regularly placed along the major waterways in the area, but they avoided the small towns and hamlets tucked into the swamps. Rhys could see peaks of roofs through the trees, and boats on the water. In the denser parts of the uninhabited area, the bird researchers had set up listening stations at regular intervals to provide the most coverage. There were little yellow dots scattered all over the swamp.
Except for one area.
“This area here.” Rhys pointed to the screen. “Is there a reason you don’t have any listening stations there?”
Meera’s eyes lit up, but she said nothing.
Becki frowned. “You know… I don’t know. I don’t know that area well, but it’s possible we just haven’t seen much activity there, so it’s not a high priority. Or it might be really hard to get to. That’s pretty dense forest right there.”
I bet it is.
“Okay.” He nodded. “That is very good to know.”
Meera pulled out her notebook and jotted down numbers as Rhys made small talk to distract Becki and keep her from closing the map. He could feel Meera’s excitement vibrating through the room.
“Would it be possible to get a printout of this map? Even just a rough one would give us some guideline about how many pieces of equipment we’re going to need funding for.”
“Of course.” Becki turned back to her computer and clicked the Print icon in the corner. “Give me just a minute and you’ll have it in your hands.”
“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.”
Rhys had never seen Meera do a happy dance before, but he immediately decided he wanted to see it again and as often as possible. Especially from the rear.
Roch grabbed the printout from Rhys’s hand and turned it to the side. “Yeah, that narrows it down for sure. Every inch of that basin was covered except for this area. Some serious magic keeping them out. Did you notice that scientist didn’t even question it? This singer is powerful.” He pointed at a small town not far from the unscanned area. “I know this place. It’s a hunting camp more than a town, but we’ll be able to rent a boat there.” He glanced at Rhys up and down. “Why don’t you let me do that part?”
“I bow to your drawl and your plaid flannel wardrobe,” Rhys said graciously. “How far is it?”
Roch shrugged. “A couple of hours.”
“Why don’t we try to find a hotel nearby? Meera and I will gather provisions while you secure a boat. We won’t want to start until morning.”
“Sounds like a plan, except we both need the same truck for that. I’ll stay here until we get all the food, then I’ll take off. We need any more camping gear?”
“No, but we probably need more bug spray.” Rhys glanced over his shoulder. Meera was still dancing. “Do we have any kind of bucket shower for her?”
“Hell yeah, I got a camping shower. Nobody spends a week in the swamp without wanting to get clean, my friend.”
“Good.”
They drove together to Walmart where they bought the few miscellaneous things they hadn’t brought from Havre Hélène, along with enough dried food to last a week and fishing gear for Rhys and Meera.
Roch dropped them off at the hotel before he took off to find a boat.
Meera turned to Rhys. “Do you like biscuits and gravy?”
“I don’t like them, I love them.”
She held out her hand. “Come with me.”
Rhys licked his fingers. “I don’t understand why this is so good.”
“It’s the flakiness of the biscuits, don’t you think?”
“It can’t be. I’ve had flaky pastry before. It’s the gravy.”
Meera shook her head. “We shall have to agree to disagree.”
“How did you know about this place?” Rhys looked around at the tiny diner in the strip mall where Meera had led him. It was on the highway a few blocks from their hotel, and Rhys had been more than doubtful until he walked inside and smelled whatever was cooking in the kitchen.
“I was in Lafayette for research last year,” she said. “Someone recommended this place—I can’t remember who—but I came. I ate. The rest is history. You have to try the boudin after this.”
“Good?”
“So good. The best I’ve had anywhere.”
Rhys sat back and watched Meera devour her food. It was as delicious to watch her as it was to eat. She relished every bite. She smiled and hummed as she ate, chattering about the spices between long drinks of cold beer.
“What?” She paused. “Why are you staring at me?”
“Because you’re… darling.” Did you actually say darling?
She blinked. “What?” Meera frowned and set down her beer. “Is this a princess thing again, because I really don’t appreciate—”
“Meera.”
“What?”
Don’t do it. Don’t lay yourself bare. Remember the baggage, Rhys. Remember your mission. Remember all the reasons you left England.
Or… fuck it.
Rhys leaned forward. “You are darling. You’re funny and beautiful and you shine so brightly I think I could watch you cut your toenails and still be fascinated. I want you. Very much. I want to learn more about you. I want to show you my favorite places. I want to know yours. I want to pick your mind about everything. And I want to absolutely ravish you.”
Meera set down her beer. She opened her mouth, but she didn’t say anything.
“And I think you’re reluctant because you don’t want to give in to your parents and their ideas about your future mate, but I know you’re attracted to me. I know you are. You kissed me, not the other way round.”
“You kissed me back,” she said quietly.
“And I wanted to do more.” He looked at her mouth. “I want to take your lower lip between my teeth and bite it. I want to get my mouth on your breasts, get my hands on your ass and just—”
Meera slapped a hand over his mouth. “We are in public,” she hissed.
He grabbed her hand, turned her palm over, and sank his teeth into the soft swell of flesh at the base of her thumb. He bit down just hard enough to make Meera gasp, then he kissed the center of her palm and gripped her hand with his as he hooked her ankles between his under the table.
“My attraction to you has nothing to do with your role in the Irin hierarchy,” Rhys said in a low voice. “It has nothing to do with the power you will have. I can’t say it has nothing to do with your magic, because your magic is intoxicating to me and it’s part of who you are. And I want who you are.” He took a shuddering breath. “I want you… far more than is comfortable or well-mannered.”
Her mouth was hanging open. “You bit me.”
He shifted in his seat. “Yes. I like to bite you. Apparently.” He was uncomfortably aroused just thinking about the other parts of her he wanted to bite. “Say something very boring.”
“What?”
“Boring, Meera.” He glared at her. “Otherwise walking to the car might be very awkward.”
“Shall I start reciting from Chomsky’s Aspects of the Theory of Syntax? I always found transformational grammar theory to be a mood killer in past relationships.”
Rhys covered his eyes. “Gabriel’s fist, that just made it worse.”
“You are a very strange man.”
Rhys’s phone rang. “What?”
“Who pissed in your cornflakes, brother?” It was Roch. “Are you two back at the hotel?”
“No.”
“Well, get back. I just talked to a local scribe. There’s some Grigori in Lafayette, and we need to take care of them. Tonight.”
Chapter Twelve
“How do we know they’re not free Grigori?” Meera asked. “Just trying to live their lives quietly? You said they were living in the swamp. Do we know that they’re hunting?”
Roch glanced over his shoulder as he drove. “This scribe isn’t the kind to start shit for the sake of starting shit. He’s a quiet guy. If he says they’re a problem, they’re a problem.”
“So we’re possibly killing a group of Grigori on the word of a single person?”
“Yeah, Meera, we are.”
She stared at the passing green blur of the darkening bayou. “I don’t agree with this.”
Roch’s voice was low. “This isn’t something you have a say over.”
I should. Meera pressed her mouth shut and tried to rein in the quiet rage that simmered in her chest. She knew Roch was correct. She knew that in matters of Grigori, not even elders were consulted in the field. Warriors had to make quick decisions to save lives. She even agreed with that philosophy. To a point. The Elder Council laid down protocols. The scribe houses followed them. It was the only way to retain any kind of order in their world.
Meera didn’t deny that the Irin were at war, she just questioned the lack of any power other than a warrior’s hand.
Rhys turned around and looked at her. “What would you do?”
“Roch is correct. I don’t have a say.”
“You do to me. What would you do?” He glanced at Roch. “Do you have a… method for talking to the Grigori that we should know about?”
It was clear from Rhys’s expression that he hadn’t forgotten what happened to the Grigori at Meera’s house or the conversation they’d had after.
Does Roch know? his expression asked.
Meera shook her head. No.
“I would talk to them,” she said. “Find out who they are. Find out who their father is and why they’re living alone.”
“They’re living alone because it’s easier to make their victims disappear that way,” Roch said. “People go missing in the swamps. People aren’t found. You pick up someone that no one is going to miss, they won’t even leave a ripple in the water.”
Meera turned her head. Roch would ignore her. She cared for Roch, but he was like most scribes, convinced that violence was the only way to deal with Grigori.
“What would you do?” Rhys asked again. “After you talked to them. What if they weren’t free? What then? Would you kill them? You know the violence bound Grigori are capable of.”
“I know.”
“So…?”
Meera looked Rhys in the eye. “Keep Roch from killing them, and I’ll show you what I would do.”
He looked wary. “You expect me to let you get that close to these Grigori?”
“Yes.” She kept her eyes on Rhys. Would he challenge her abilities?
“Roch”—Rhys didn’t look away—“we’re going to let Meera try talking to them.”
“What?” Roch did not sound pleased. “You can’t be serious. These aren’t children or untried soldiers. The scribe who called me—”
“We’ll be with her, and I’ve experienced a touch of her offensive magic,” Rhys said, finally turning back to face the front. “I have confidence that she’ll be able to deter them with us protecting her.”
Roch’s voice was a growl. “Someone put you in charge and I didn’t hear about it?”
“Two votes against one,” Meera said. “Give me a chance, Roch.”
The scribe was silent. She could feel his ire radiating when she lowered her mental shields, though the smooth timbre of Rhys’s soul voice mitigated the effect on her senses.
They turned off the paved road and rolled onto a smaller track. Roch touched his talesm prim and cut the lights in the car. The spells he’d scribed for night vision would be enough for him to navigate through the rougher terrain.
“How far?” Meera asked quietly.
“A few miles.”
She could make them come to her. That would be better.
“Find an easily defensible position,” she said, “and stop there.”
Roch asked, “Why—?”
“Do it,” Rhys said. “Trust me.”
A few more turns and there was a wide spot in the road next to a clearing. The trees had been hacked back, and an old shack was crumbling to pieces on the edge of the woods.
Meera got out of the truck as soon as Roch stopped. A slow-moving creek flowed behind the shack, and the moon reflected off the water. She could hear night birds calling with the high screech of insects a constant cacophony in the darkness.
Where are you?
Meera opened her senses and tried to ignore the voices of the two men with her as they took veiled positions, Roch near the road and Rhys in the trees behind her. She could smell the bite of both their magic in the air. One by one, the birds left. The insects fell silent.
Predators were hunting in the forest.
With her shields down, Meera felt a tug in the pit of her belly. Where are you?
Coming closer.
She sat on a fallen log in the middle of the clearing and tucked her trouser legs into her socks to keep bugs and brambles away from her skin. The Grigori would be there shortly.
How many?
She held up a hand with three fingers when she caught a hint of their voices. She heard three. Four? No, just three. They were confused. Drawn to her. They were always drawn to her.
Anamitra told her it was the weight of memory that drew them. Grigori were empty creatures, children who had killed their own mothers with their birth. They were used or discarded by their Fallen fathers. They were empty inside, though not soulless. They were soul hungry.
And Meera carried the weight of a thousand generations.
“They will always be drawn to you; that is why the Tomir were bound to the heir of heaven’s wisdom so many centuries ago. The Grigori hunger for the souls of everything they have been denied. We are everything they need and yet cannot have.”
The Grigori could not have her. Or they could not have all of her. But perhaps just a little of heaven’s light could be granted to them. Could make them see reason. After all, they were no different from the Irin. If Forgiven children were abandoned for a millennia, what would they become?
Closer. They were almost to the clearing. She couldn’t feel Roch or Rhys in the trees, but she could hear them. Especially Rhys. The sound of his voice…
I could become addicted to him. Even the thought of never hearing it again made her stomach hurt. But he would leave eventually. His life wasn’t with her. Even if he was interested in Meera as a lover, no one wanted the weight of responsibility that followed her position. Heaven knew she would never have chosen if for herself.
“I want you far more than is comfortable or well-mannered.”
He didn’t even know why he felt that way. Only an Irina knew when she found her reshon. There was no way for a scribe to know unless she told him. Rhys would never know what Meera heard from his soul unless she chose to reveal it.
The first Grigori entered the clearing from the shadowed alley of the road between the trees. He was young and beautiful, his dark brown skin glowing near blue in the full moon. He walked to Meera in a trance, but she didn’t move from her spot on the fallen log.
“Who are you?” He fell to his knees a few yards from her. “You’re Irina, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Not like the others. You’re more.”
Meera’s heart fell. “When have you met other Irina?”
“Our father caught one for us,” he murmured, his eyes fixed on her face. “She fed three of us before she died.”
Meera was sick to her stomach, but she didn’t move. Didn’t react.
Two identical Grigori entered from the road. They were the opposite in looks to their brother—their pale blond hair shone like silver—but their smell and energy was the same. They were three brothers, though they’d come from different human mothers.
Meera could feel Rhys and Roch’s magic stirri
ng the air, but the Grigori didn’t notice. They were fixed on her. She drew them closer until all three were staring wordlessly at her.
She closed her eyes and reached into the well of power within her. “Vashah ya.”
The Grigori surrendered their will to her. She could ask them to dance and they would dance. She could ask them to drown themselves in the river and they would do it. As long as their Fallen father remained at a distance, they belonged to her. Most Irina could only command this magic with skin contact.
Meera could control a crowd.
“Who is your father?” she asked them.
“Bozidar,” they said in unison.
Sons of the most powerful Fallen in North America were hiding in a swamp in Louisiana?
“Why are you here?”
“He told us to come,” one of the blond Grigori said. “We came.”
“Why here?”
“There will be more.” The other pale Grigori sat next to his brother. “He said there will be many more.”
“More what?”
“Irina,” they said in unison.
They’re going after the havens. There was no way Rhys and Roch were letting these three Grigori leave the forest that night. She wouldn’t have let them leave either. As much as she hated to admit defeat, she wasn’t going to be able to turn any of these Grigori against their father. Their energy was ravenous, and she felt no light in them. The darkness enveloped them completely.
Meera’s stomach twisted as she asked the next question. “How have you been feeding?”
“We find prostitutes,” one of them said. “They come with us willingly.”
Not to die. Not to disappear. Meera’s heart ached, and she felt the tears on her cheeks. The shields she had lowered threatened to rise instinctually, but she forced them down even as the rasping soul voices of the men in front of her grew louder and louder.
“Don’t cry,” one of the Grigori said. “No one misses them.”
“I do.”
“Did we make you sad?” The first Grigori cocked his head. “I don’t like that feeling.”
“I know you don’t.”
“Make it stop.”
Their voices were calm on the outside, but their interior voices grew louder every minute that passed. Meera pressed her fingers to her temples, raised her voice, and asked, “Is there anything else you want to know?”
The Seeker Page 15