Chapter Twenty-Seven
When I woke, the daylight was fading and I was alone. Memories of the night before filled my head, but I shoved them away as best I could and climbed out of bed. Someone had been kind enough to find clothes for me and leave them where I could find them. I carried them into the bathroom with me, and by the time I started dragging them on I was awake enough to realize that my nameless benefactor hadn’t bothered to include a bra. Not Dylan then. I frowned at my Medusa-like reflection and ran a brush—not mine, but I didn’t give a damn—through my hair. It didn’t help much, but at least I could say I tried.
I wandered into the living room where I found London and Ashe deep in conversation—conversation that halted as soon as I walked through the doorway. Ashe turned to see what had interrupted their discussion and gave me a smile.
“Come join us,” he said, and I crossed the room toward the couch where they were sitting.
As I moved past Ashe, he pulled me down to cuddle on his lap. It didn’t feel the least bit sexual or romantic, more like my vague memories of my dad holding me when I was little. London took my hand and leaned in to kiss me. They were treating me like I was fragile, and I wanted to be pissed about it but couldn’t summon the energy to care. I leaned against Ashe and closed my eyes, an action which I immediately regretted.
The nightmare images from the night before flooded back into my mind. Brian’s seizure, Adrian crumpled on the floor beneath a pile of rubble, the gaping hole in Quinn’s shoulder, his blood on my hands, and, most of all, the surprised look on Julia’s face and the wounds that had blossomed on her chest. I started shaking, and it only got worse when I remembered Peterson’s absence the night before and what it must mean.
“Ron’s dead, isn’t he?” I asked.
Ashe held me closer, like he could stop my shaking through sheer force of will, and London gripped my hand a little tighter.
“The medics say he never even knew what hit him,” Ashe said. “He didn’t suffer and he never had a chance to be afraid. It’s not much comfort, but we take what we can get.”
Tears blurred my vision and burned my nose. I hadn’t known Ron Peterson well, but he’d been a decent guy. He hadn’t deserved to die, for sure. I wondered if he had a family and said a silent prayer for everyone who would have to face life without him in it.
“Where’s everyone else?” I asked as London brushed tears from my cheek.
“Here and there,” Ashe said before London could answer. “Carmichael’s holed up in one of the bedrooms with a fifth of whiskey. He’s convinced that Ronnie knew what he was setting himself up for when they traded places. Hell, he might even be right. Ron had a knack for prescience. Might have been he knew the risk he was taking.”
“Everyone else is at the hospital,” London added. “They’re releasing Adrian today, and Quinn’s apparently flirting with all the nurses.”
“And Brian?”
“He’s not doing so great,” London said, looking away.
Ashe tightened the arm around my shoulders, giving me a little squeeze. “What your idiot boyfriend meant to say is that Brian’s got a long recovery ahead of him. He’s not in any danger. He’s gonna be all right.”
I leaned my head against the back of the couch, my face half-buried in Ashe’s hair. It was the first time I’d seen it down instead of tied back. Up this close it was more blond than grey and smelled like summertime.
“The doctors aren’t sure how ‘all right’ he’s going to be,” London added. “Right now, it’s not looking too good.”
“He’s still breathing, Stretch,” Ashe said. “And he’s got that pretty little blonde of his to play nurse for him. He could be doing a lot worse.”
“And he has hope,” another voice chimed in from somewhere. I lifted my head to smile at Adrian. He was moving slowly, like every step hurt, which it probably did, but he smiled back at me. “He’s getting better, London,” he added. “I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
“What are you guys not saying?” I asked.
Adrian eased himself down onto the sofa. He looked at Ashe and at London, studying their expressions, and then answered me.
“Whatever Julia did to him caused some neurological damage. His brain’s been pretty fuzzy, but that’s improved a lot.”
“That’s good,” London interrupted. “Last I heard, he wasn’t even recognizing anyone.”
“Yeah, that’s gone. His head’s clearing. And the rest of it...well he’s taking it in stride. He says he’s happy just to still be alive.”
“Rest of what?” I demanded.
Adrian took a deep breath, winced, and blew it out. “His fine motor control is shot to hell.”
And just like that my tears were back. I covered my face with one hand and buried it in Ashe’s hair. Brian, without the ability to play his guitar.
Music was his greatest love, next to Dylan. It was more than just a hobby or a job, it was how he dealt with his emotions, how he connected to the world, how he expressed himself. His music was the core of who he was. Without it, I wasn’t sure what would happen to him. I didn’t figure it could be anything good.
“He’s gonna be okay, princess,” Ashe said, stroking my hair. “One way or another, he’s gonna be just fine.”
I just held on to Ashe and cried until I couldn’t anymore, grateful for his and London’s efforts to comfort me even though they didn’t do a damn bit of good. Maybe later I would be able to believe that Brian would be all right, but just then I didn’t think anything would be okay ever again.
After I’d cried myself out and washed away the tears, I felt more in control. I marched back into the living room, ready to demand to be taken up to the hospital, but the sight of Martine sitting on the sofa next to Adrian stopped me.
“Where did you come from?” I asked instead.
A smile curved her lips ever so slightly. “The hospital,” she said. “I brought Adrian home, but I stopped to talk to the investigations team.”
“The what?”
Her eyes flickered to Ashe and then back to me, her smile fading.
“We hadn’t gotten that far,” Ashe said. He held out his hand to me, and I took it, but I slid down into the tiny space between him and London rather than curling up in Ashe’s lap again.
“This place has been crawling with agents,” London said.
“So much for staying under the radar, huh?” I snuggled against London, and he hugged me to him.
Martine’s smile was back. “I can make sure any file on London mysteriously disappears.”
“What has your team found out?” Ashe interrupted. “They won’t tell me a damn thing.”
“Did you think they would?”
She launched into a detailed recap of everything that the army of agents had learned, and I managed to dig the pertinent information out of the avalanche of data: the explosion had been caused by good old-fashioned explosives rather than magic; Quinn and Peterson had been shot by rounds from some sort of high-powered, long-range sniper rifle; between logic and what Vanessa had told Martine, she’d determined that the two agents had been targeted because they presented a double threat, wielding both martial magic and mundane weaponry; and Julia wasn’t working alone, but with a man who seemed to be her lover or boyfriend or maybe something more.
“Wait, whoa,” I said. “Vanessa? When did you talk to Vanessa?”
“She was waiting for the field team last night,” Ashe explained. “It was her, not Julia, that they spotted. One hell of a glamour enchantment laid on her, but it didn’t fool Carmichael for a second.”
“We took Vanessa into custody,” Martine added. “I questioned her. It was difficult to sort out the facts from the fantasy, but I don’t believe that the man she mentioned—the co-conspirator—is a figment of her deluded mind.”
“What’s going to happen to her?” I asked, pressing closer to London.
“Likely she will spend a long time in a mental facility. Perhaps they can even help her.??
?
London tried to speak, but his voice cracked. A moment later, he tried again. “Do you have any idea who the man she mentioned might be?”
“None at all,” Martine said with a slight shake of her head. “But if he exists—”
“Then this isn’t over,” I said, my voice little more than a whisper.
“That may not be true,” Martine said. “From what Vanessa said—which may not be entirely accurate—calling out London was all Julia. The man in question helped her, but only because he thought London might be a useful part of a larger plan. Essentially, he didn’t care whether London was on board.”
“So, what? We spend the rest of our lives looking over one shoulder?”
“It’s that or live with a guard detail from the agency,” Ashe said. “It’s your choice, but I’d choose a little healthy paranoia.”
“I’m okay with that,” Adrian said.
I thought about it for a moment and then nodded. “Me, too.”
Martine looked pleased. I guess she agreed with Ashe that paranoia beat hell out of an agency detail.
“If you guys are done heaping bad news on my head, I’d really like to go to the hospital. I need to see Dylan and the boys. And I’m sure Dylan needs me, too.”
Adrian nodded. “She’s been missing you.”
Ashe took my hand again and gave it a little squeeze. “Actually, princess, we’re not quite done here.”
Martine looked puzzled, and Adrian concerned. Neither of them knew what was going on either, but that didn’t make me feel any better. I felt even worse when London inched away from me to sit on the opposite end of the sofa. I looked over at him, but he was staring at his clasped hands where they hung between his knees.
London just looked at his hands for a minute, then moistened his lips and ran his hands up and down the thighs of his jeans. He opened his mouth to speak a couple of times, but he couldn’t seem to find any words. Finally he shook his head and went back to staring at his hands.
“Right there at the end,” Ashe said, his voice hushed in the quiet room, “Julia sent London another projection. Another threat.”
“There was a little girl,” London said. “She said I wouldn’t like the consequences if I didn’t cooperate. I couldn’t—”
“She threatened violence against a child?” Martine snapped.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what she was threatening. But...she...” He broke off, repeating the nervous thigh-rubbing gesture before sitting back and tilting his head so that he was staring up at the ceiling. “The sending sort of implied that the little girl is mine. Mine and Julia’s.”
Ashe’s arms wrapped around me, maybe to comfort me, maybe to keep me from bolting. “If she even exists,” he said.
“I know, I know. I was listening. But I have to know the truth. I have to try to find her.”
Adrian and Martine both agreed at once. I agreed, too, but I was too much in shock to say it aloud, and by the time the world finally righted itself, the moment was long gone.