“You have to—”
“No,” I snapped, and this time my voice wasn’t so neutral. “I do not have to do anything, do you understand? I make my own choices and take my own jobs. Now, I’m very sorry about your sister, but I’m not jumping into this just yet. As Lara told you, I don’t generally do jobs that take me into the Otherworld. If I take this one, it’ll be after careful deliberation and question-asking. And if I don’t take it, then I don’t take it. End of story. Got it?”
He swallowed and nodded, cowed by the fierce tone in my voice. It was not unlike the one I used on spirits, but I felt only a little bit bad about scaring Wil with it. He had to prepare himself for the highly likely possibility that I would not do this for him, no matter how much we both wanted it.
On the way home, I swung by my mom’s place, wanting to talk to Roland. Sunset threw reddish-orange light onto their house, and the scent of her flower garden filled the air. It was the familiar smell of safety and childhood. When I walked into the kitchen, I didn’t see her anywhere, which was probably just as well. She tended to get upset when Roland and I talked shop.
He sat at the table working on a model airplane. I’d laughed when he picked up this hobby after retiring from shamanism, but it had recently occurred to me it wasn’t so different from working puzzles. God only knew what stuff I’d find to keep me busy when I retired. I had the uneasy feeling I’d make a good candidate for cross-stitching.
His face broke into a smile when he saw me, making laugh lines appear around the eyes of the weathered face I loved. His hair was a bright silver-white, and he’d managed to keep most of it. I was five-eight, and he was only a little taller than me. But despite that height, he was solidly built and hadn’t lost muscle with age. He might be pushing sixty, but I had a feeling he could still do some serious damage.
Roland took one look at my face and gestured me to a chair. “You’re not here to ask about Idaho.” I hadn’t really understood their recent vacation choice, but whatever.
Giving him a quick kiss, I held my arms around him for a moment. I didn’t love many people in this world—or any other—but him I would have died for. “No. I’m not. But how was it anyway?”
“Fine. It’s not important. What’s wrong?”
I smiled. That was Roland. Always ready for business. If my mom would have let him, I suspected he’d still be out there fighting, right by my side.
“Just got a job offer. A weird one.”
I proceeded to tell him all about Wil and Jasmine, about the evidence I’d found for her abduction. I also added in Wil’s bit of information about this Aeson guy.
“I’ve heard of him,” said Roland.
“What do you know?”
“Not a lot. Never met him, never fought him. But he’s strong, I know that much.”
“This gets better and better.”
He eyed me carefully. “Are you thinking about doing it?”
I eyed him back. “Maybe.”
“That’s a bad idea, Eugenie. A very bad idea.”
There was a dark tone in his voice that surprised me. I’d never known him to back down from any danger, especially one where an innocent was involved.
“She’s just a kid, Roland.”
“I know, and we both know that the gentry get away with taking women every year. Most don’t ever get recovered. The danger’s too high. That’s the way it is.”
I felt my ire rising. Funny how someone telling you not to do something can talk you into it. “Well, here’s one we can get back. We know where she is.”
He rubbed his eyes a little, flashing the tattoos that marked his arms. My tattoos depicted goddesses; his were of whirls, crosses, and fish. He had his own set of gods to appeal to—or in this case, God. We all invoked the divine differently.
“This isn’t a drop-in and drop-out thing,” he warned. “It’ll take you right into the heart of their society. You’ve never been that deep. You don’t know what it’s like.”
“And you do?” I asked sarcastically. When he didn’t answer, I felt my eyes widen. “When?”
He waved a hand of dismissal. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is that if you go over in body, you’ll get yourself killed or captured. I won’t let you do that.”
“You won’t let me? Come on. You can’t send me to my room anymore. Besides, I’ve gone over lots of times before.”
“In spirit. Your total time over in body’s probably been less than ten minutes.” He shook his head in a wise, condescending way. That irked me. “The young never realize how foolish something is.”
“And the old never realize when they need to step aside and let the younger and stronger do their jobs.” The words came out before I could stop them, and I immediately felt mean. Roland merely regarded me with a level look.
“You think you’re stronger than me now?”
I didn’t even hesitate. “We both know I am.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “But that doesn’t give you the right to go get yourself killed over a girl you don’t even know.”
I stared at him in surprise. We weren’t exactly fighting, but this attitude was weird for him. He’d married my mom when I was three and adopted me shortly thereafter. The father-daughter bond burned in both of us, obliterating any longing I might have had for the birth father I’d never known. My mom almost never spoke about him. They’d had some sort of whirlwind romance, I knew, but in the end, he didn’t want to stick it out—not for her, not for me.
Roland would have done anything for me, kept me away from any harm that he could—except when it came to my job. When he’d realized I could walk worlds and cast out spirits, he’d started training me, and my mother hated him for it. They were the most loving couple I’d ever met, but that choice had nearly broken them apart. They’d stayed together in the end, but she’d never been happy about what I did. Roland, however, saw it as a duty. Destiny, even. I wasn’t like one of those silly people in the movies who could “see dead people” and go crazy from it. I easily could have ignored my abilities. But as far as Roland was concerned, that was a sin. To neglect one’s calling was a waste, especially when it meant others would suffer. So he tried to treat me as objectively as he would any other apprentice, fighting his personal feelings.
Yet, for some reason now, he wanted to hold me back. Weird. I’d come here for strategy and ended up on the defensive.
I changed the subject abruptly, telling him about how the keres had known my name. He cut me a look, not wanting to drop the Jasmine topic. My mom’s car pulled in just then, giving me a temporary victory. With a sigh and a look of warning, he told me not to worry about the name. It happened sometimes. His had eventually gotten out too, and little had come of it.
My mom came into the kitchen, and shamanic business disappeared. Her face—so like mine, down to the shape and high cheekbones—put on a smile as warm as Roland’s. Only hers was tinged with something a little different. She always carried a perpetual concern for me. Sometimes I thought it simply had to do with what I did for a living. Yet, she’d had that worry ever since I was little, like I might disappear on her at any moment. Maybe it was just a mom thing.
She placed a paper bag on the counter and began putting away groceries. I knew she knew what I was doing there, but she chose to ignore it.
“You going to stay for dinner?” she asked. “I think you’ve lost weight.”
“She has not,” said Roland.
“She’s too skinny,” complained my mom. “Not that I’d mind a little of that.”
I smiled. My mom looked amazing.
“You need to eat more,” she continued.
“I eat, like, three candy bars a day. I’m not depriving myself of calories.” I walked over and poked her in the arm. “Watch it, you’re being all momlike. Smart, professional moms aren’t supposed to be that way.”
She cut me a look. “I’m a therapist. I have to be twice as momlike.”
In the end, I stayed for dinner. Tim was a grea
t cook, but nothing could ever really replace my mom’s food. While we ate, we talked about their vacation in Idaho. Neither Jasmine nor the keres ever came up.
When I finally got back home, I found Tim getting ready to go out with a gaggle of giggling girls. He was in full pseudo-Indian regalia, complete with a beaded head wrap and buckskin vest.
“Greetings, Sister Eugenie,” he said, holding up a palm like he was in some sort of Old West movie. “Join us. We’re going to a concert over in Davidson Park, so that we may commune with the Great Spirit’s gift of springtime whilst letting the sacred beat of the music course through our souls.”
“No thanks,” I said, brushing past him and going straight to my room.
A moment later, he followed sans girls.
“Oh, come on, Eug. It’s gonna be a blast. We’ve got a cooler of beer and everything.”
“Sorry, Tim. I don’t really feel like being a squaw tonight.”
“That’s a derogatory term.”
“I know it is. Very much so. But your bleach-blond posse out there doesn’t deserve much better.” I eyed him askance. “Don’t even think about bringing any of them back here tonight.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know the rules.” He flounced into my wicker chair. “So what are you going to do instead? Shop on the Internet? Work puzzles?”
I’d actually been thinking of doing both those things, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
“Hey, I’ve got stuff to do.”
“Fuck, Eugenie. You’re becoming a hermit. I almost miss Dean. He was an asshole, but at least he got you out of the house.”
I made a face. Dean was my last boyfriend; we’d broken up six months ago. The split had been kind of unexpected for both of us. I hadn’t expected to find him screwing his real estate agent, and he hadn’t expected to get caught. I knew now I was better off without him, but some niggling part always wondered what about me had made him lose interest. Not exciting enough? Pretty enough? Good enough in bed?
“Some things are worse than staying home alone,” I muttered. “Dean is one of them.”
“Timothy?” one of the girls called from the living room. “Are you coming?”
“One moment, gentle flower,” he hollered back. To me he said, “You sure you wanna hole up here all night? It isn’t really healthy to be away from people so much.”
“I’m fine. Go enjoy your flowers.”
He shrugged and left. Once by myself, I fixed a sandwich and shopped on the Internet, exactly as he’d predicted. It was followed by a puzzle depicting an M. C. Escher drawing. A bit harder than the kitten.
Halfway through, I found myself staring at the puzzle pieces without seeing them. Roland’s quiet, fierce words played over in my head. Let Jasmine Delaney go. Everything he’d told me had been true. Dropping this was the smart thing to do. The safe thing to do. I knew I should listen to him…yet some part of me kept thinking of the young, smiling face Wil had shown me. Angrily, I shoved some of the puzzle pieces aside. This job wasn’t supposed to be about gray moral decisions. It was black and white. Find the bad guys. Kill or banish. Go home at the end of the day.
I stood up, suddenly no longer wanting to be alone. I didn’t want to be left with my own thoughts. I wanted to be out with people. Clarification: I didn’t want to talk to people, I just wanted to be around them. Lost in the crowd. I needed to see my own kind—warm, living and breathing humans, not undead spirits or magic-infused gentry. I wanted to remember which side of the fence I was on. More important, I wanted to forget Jasmine Delaney. At least for tonight
I threw on some jeans and the first bra and shirt I could find. My rings and bracelets always stayed on me, but I added a moonstone necklace that hung low in the shirt’s V-neck. I brushed my long hair into a high ponytail, missing a few strands. A dab of lipstick, and I was ready to go. Ready to lose myself. Ready to forget.
Chapter Three
I’d been people-watching for almost an hour, so I saw him as soon as he walked in. It was hard not to. The eyes of a few other women in the bar showed that I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, nicely muscled but not over the top in some crazy Arnold Schwarzenegger way. He wore khakis with a navy blue T-shirt tucked into them. His black hair was not quite to his chin, and he had it tucked behind his ears. His eyes were large and dark, set in a smoothly chiseled face with perfect, golden-tanned skin. There was some mix of ethnicities going on there, I suspected, but none I could discern. Whatever the combo, it worked. Extremely well.
“Hey, is anyone sitting here?” He nodded at the chair beside me. It was the only empty one at the bar.
I shook my head, and he sat down. He didn’t say anything else, and the only other time I heard him speak was to order a margarita. After that, he seemed content just to people-watch, like me. And honestly, it was a great place to do it. Alejandro’s was right next to a midlevel hotel and drew in patrons and tourists from all sides of the socioeconomic scale. TVs showed sporting events or news or whatever the bartender felt like putting on. A few trivia machines sat at the other end of the bar. Music—sometimes live, but not tonight—forced the TVs to have closed-captioning, and dancing people crowded the small space among the tables.
It was humanity at its best. Teeming with life, alcohol, mindless entertainment, and bad pick-up lines. I liked to come here when I wanted to be alone without being alone. I liked it better when drunk, stupid guys left me alone. I wasn’t sure about articulate, good-looking ones. One nice thing I soon discovered was that with Tall, Dark, and Handsome sitting next to me, no losers dared approach.
But he wasn’t talking to me either, and after a while, I realized I’d kind of like him to—not that I’d have any clue what to say back. With the glances he kept giving me, I think he felt the same way. I didn’t know. A sort of tension built up between us as I nursed my Corona, each of us waiting for something.
When it finally came, he started it.
“You’re edible.”
Not the opening I’d been expecting.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your perfume. It’s like…like violets and sugar. And vanilla. I suppose it’s weird to think violets are edible, huh?”
“Not so weird as a guy actually knowing what violets smell like.” It was also weird that he could even smell it. I’d put it on about twelve hours ago. With all the smoke and sweat around here, it was a surprise anyone’s olfactory senses could function.
He shot me a crooked grin, favoring me with a look that could only be described as smoky. I felt my pulse quicken a little. “It’s good to know what flowers are what. Makes it easier to send them. And impress women.”
I eyed him and then swirled the beer in my bottle. “Are you trying to impress me?”
He shrugged. “Mostly I’m just trying to make conversation.”
I pondered that, deciding if I wanted to play this game or not. Wondering if I could. I smiled a little.
“What?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Just thinking about flowers. And impressing people. I mean, how strange is that we bring plant sex organs to people we’re attracted to? What’s up with that? It’s a weird sign of affection.”
His dark eyes lit up, like he’d just discovered something surprising and delightful. “Is it any weirder than giving chocolate, which is supposed to be an aphrodisiac? Or what about wine? A ‘romantic’ drink that really just succeeds in lowering the other person’s inhibitions.”
“Hmm. It’s like people are trying to be both subtle and blatant at the same time. Like, they won’t actually go up and say, ‘Hey, I like you, let’s get together.’ Instead, they’re like, ‘Here, have some plant genitalia and aphrodisiacs.’” I took a drink of the beer and propped my chin in my hand, surprised to hear myself going on. “I mean, I don’t have a problem with men or relationships or sex, but sometimes I just get so frustrated with games of human attraction.”
“How so?”
“It
’s all masked in posturing and ploys. There’s no honesty. People can’t just come up and express their attraction. It’s got to be cleverly obscured with some stupid pick-up line or not-so-subtle gift, and I don’t really know how to play those games so well. We’re taught that it’s wrong to be honest, like there’s some kind of social stigma with it.”
“Well,” he considered, “it can come out pretty crass sometimes. And let’s not forget about rejection too. I think that adds to it. There’s a fear there.”
“Yeah, I guess. But being turned down isn’t the worst thing in the world. And wouldn’t that be easier than wasting an evening or—God forbid—months of dating? We should state our feelings and intentions openly. If the other person says ‘fuck off,’ well, then, deal. Move on.”
I suddenly eyed my beer bottle suspiciously.
“What’s wrong?”
“Just wondering if I’m drunk. This is my first beer, but I think I’m sounding a little unhinged. I don’t usually talk this much.”
He laughed. “I don’t think you’re unhinged. I actually agree with you.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded and looked remarkably wise as he contemplated his answer. It made him even sexier. “I agree, but I don’t think most people take honesty well. They prefer the games. They want to believe the pretty lies.”
I finished off the last of the Corona. “Not me. Give me honesty anytime.”
“You mean that?”
“Yes.” I set the bottle down and looked at him. He was watching me intently now, and his look was smoky again, all darkness and sex and heat. I fell into that gaze, feeling the response of nerves in my lower body that I’d thought were dormant.
He leaned slightly forward. “Well, then, here’s honesty. I was really happy when I saw the empty seat by you. I think you’re beautiful. I think seeing the bra underneath your shirt is dead sexy. I like the shape of your neck and the way those strands of hair lay against it. I think you’re funny, and I think you’re smart too. After just five minutes, I already know you don’t let people screw around with you—which I also like. You’re pretty fun to talk to, and I think you’d be just as much fun to have sex with.” He sat back in his chair again.