I laughed and held his glass as he stepped into the bath and sat down at the opposite end, his long legs stretching out to either side of mine. I handed him back his champagne, and he took a sip.
“What,” he said, his eyes twinkling with devilry, “would you give me if I said I knew of a way to block whatever tracer magic the Raziq have placed on that book?”
“Ah,” I said, putting my glass down on the bath ledge. “For that, I might just be willing to be late for work.”
“How late?” he asked, the devilry vying with desire.
I shifted position and slid up his wet, warm body, my hands on either side of him. “Very, very late,” I murmured, as my lips met his.
For the longest time there was no more talking, only enjoying. When I finally straddled him, pushing him slowly—teasingly—deep into my body, we both groaned in delight. I began to move, slowly at first, then with mounting urgency, until desire burned, and all I wanted to do was reach that peak and shatter into a million pieces.
Then I did, and he did, and it was glorious. Oh, so glorious.
I rested my head against his shoulder for several minutes, breathing heavily and feeling completely—wonderfully—boneless.
Then he sighed, took my face between his palms, and kissed me gently. “You need to construct a void.”
I blinked. “What?”
“For the book,” he said patiently. “You will need to construct a magical void. It’s a zone that can be built around an object to render any outsourced magic emanating from that object useless.”
“How the hell am I supposed to do that?”
“You can’t, but Ilianna could. She is more powerful than you suspect.”
I looked at him. “You’ve only met her once, and then only for a couple of minutes.”
“Which is more than enough time to get a sense of her capabilities.” He paused. “Where is the book now?”
“Somewhere safe,” I said, frowning at his questions. For someone who professed to have no interest in the book, he sure wanted to know a lot about it.
He smiled and tucked a damp strand of hair behind my ear. “As much as I hate to say this, if you get out of this bath right now, you might still make it to work on time.”
“Only if I don’t take you home first. And I thought that was the whole point of me meeting you at the airport.”
“No, the whole point of you meeting me at the airport was me wanting to ravish you. And now I have.” He gave me another one of those devilish grins. “Of course, I wouldn’t complain if you did escort me home, but I rather suspect I’d drag you upstairs and make you even later.”
“A tempting prospect, but one I suspect would piss off Tao and Ilianna.”
“And Ilianna is not a woman I would like pissed off at me,” he agreed.
I laughed, kissed him quickly, then grabbed a towel and headed off to dry and dress.
I caught a cab to work, calling Ilianna in the process to ask if she’d drop in sometime during the shift. As it turned out, I was late for work, but only by a few minutes. The place was packed, so I slipped upstairs to dump my spare clothes and change into my work gear, then headed back down to once again help out where I was needed. By six the crowd had eased somewhat, so I headed up to the office to catch up on the paperwork.
Azriel found me there.
“The Raziq may know of this place,” he said, his arms crossed and his expression as stony as I’d ever seen it. “It is not wise to remain here for long.”
I leaned back in my chair and rubbed my temples wearily. Staring at the computer screen trying to make sense of the accounting was not a sensible thing to do after so little sleep. And the last thing I wanted was a confrontation with Azriel. “I can’t turn my life around just because they may or may not know about this place. I won’t go home, but I refuse to abandon everything and everyone in my life.”
He didn’t say anything. Just stared at me disapprovingly.
I sighed. “Look, if it’s true that the Raziq have placed a tracer signal on the book, Lucian has told me a way of getting around it.”
“How would he know?” Azriel’s voice held an edge that sounded a hell of a lot like contempt. “He is neither a priest nor a magic user, and he was stripped of any Aedh powers a long time ago.”
“He wasn’t stripped of all of them.” The annoyance surging through me hadn’t yet reached my voice—but I suspected it wouldn’t take that long. “And what does it matter whether he should or should not know? If it works, we’ll be able to read the book without the Raziq dropping in on us.”
“If it works,” he said.
“If it doesn’t, what have we lost?” I snapped my chair forward and leaned my forearms on the desk. “What the hell is your problem?”
He paused. “I have no—”
“Bullshit, Azriel,” I interrupted. “Every time I mention Lucian’s name you get all huffy and hostile.”
He shrugged. “I do not trust him.”
“But why? He’s done nothing to prove he’s untrustworthy.”
“And he’s done nothing to prove he is.”
“Meaning you’ll trust him if this idea of his works?”
“No.”
I snorted softly. “Then you’re just being unreasonable.”
He didn’t say anything. No surprise there. This reaper could make a clam seem chatty.
Footsteps clattered up the stairs, and I knew by the sound it was Ilianna. She might be fleet of foot, but she had a heavier step than most.
“Whoa,” she said, stopping abruptly in the doorway and glancing between Azriel and myself. “Tension, much?”
I grimaced. “It’s just a disagreement about trustworthiness. Nothing major.”
Ilianna’s gaze centered on Azriel. “So who don’t you trust?”
“Lucian,” he said, calmly.
“Why?”
“Good luck getting a real answer for that one,” I muttered, at the same time that Azriel said, “Because he is one of the fallen, and they should never be trusted.”
“Is this experience talking, or merely word of mouth?” Ilianna asked.
“Lucian is fallen.” He said it like that one word explained it all.
“One mistake does not mean the man is pure evil,” Ilianna said reasonably, though it didn’t look like it was having much impact on Azriel. “Are you sure there’s no deeper reason?”
He lifted an eyebrow. “I do not understand the question.”
Ilianna snorted. “Sure you don’t.” She glanced at me. “You wanted to see me?”
“Would you happen to know how to create a magical void around an object?”
She blinked. “In theory, yes, although I’ve never actually created one. Why?”
“Because—according to Lucian—that’s the only way we can stop the locating spell the Raziq have more than likely placed on the book.”
She grunted, frowning a little. “It may take a day or so. I’ll have to brush up on the technique before I attempt it.”
“Do it. We need to find and destroy these damn keys so my life can return to normal.”
I glared at Azriel as I said it, but he returned it passively. And that was even more frustrating. Damn it, I wanted him to react, wanted him to … what? He was a reaper, for Christ’s sake. I had to stop applying human sensibilities to him.
“It does mean I’ll have to go back home,” Ilianna said. If she still sensed the tension riding between me and Azriel, she didn’t mention it. “Mirri doesn’t have the texts or the equipment I’ll need.”
I frowned. “I don’t like the thought of you going there alone …”
“I will accompany her,” Azriel said abruptly. At my surprised look, he added, “If Ilianna were captured, you would drop everything to rescue her, would you not?”
“Yes.”
“Then it is beneficial for my quest that she not get captured.”
“So glad my safety came into consideration,” Ilianna murmured with a wry grin at me. ?
??Oh, and I’ve found Adeline Greenfield for you. She said to pop in after you’ve finished work. She’ll be home all night.”
“Good.” I accepted the piece of paper she handed me and glanced briefly at the address. Toorak, not far from where Mom had lived. The protection-spell business was obviously booming. I tucked it into my jean pocket and added, “Where are you staying tonight? With Mirri?”
Ilianna nodded. “Although I miss the peace and quiet of our place. Her damn apartment always sounds like it’s in the middle of a battlefield.”
I snorted softly. Mirri lived in one of the old East Melbourne mansion blocks close to her work, and her apartment was on a middle floor, meaning it got noise from above and below. And the families living in the neighboring apartments had no qualms when it came to airing their grievances at the top of their lungs.
“Once we get the void in place around the book, it should be safer at home.”
“Well, I’d better get my ass into gear then, as I really don’t want to be at Mirri’s too long.”
If only, I thought with amusement, because Mirri didn’t have the latest and greatest in security as we did. Mirri might not have lived in Melbourne for as long as Ilianna, but she was infinitely more secure about being here.
“So where are you going to be staying?” Ilianna added.
“I’m not sure yet.” I flicked a glance at Azriel, and couldn’t help adding, “Maybe with Lucian.”
He didn’t react. Not that I could see, anyway. But that chill in the air got suddenly stronger, and a shiver ran down my spine.
Ilianna clicked her tongue. “You, Risa Jones, are positively evil.” She glanced at Azriel. “I’m heading home now. Are you coming?”
“Yes,” he answered. “I shall wait downstairs for you.”
He winked out of existence and, as far as I could tell, actually did leave the room.
“Ris, be careful,” Ilianna said, her gaze coming back to me.
“Is that a general be careful, or a there’s-shit-headed-your-way be careful?”
“General.” She paused, frowning. “I have no sense that Lucian is evil or that he ever intends you harm, but I don’t think you can entirely disregard Azriel’s misgivings. He may have reasons other than what he’s saying, but he’s a warrior—and, like any good warrior, he relies on instinct.”
“Lucian isn’t evil, and he’s shown absolutely no interest in the damn keys or my father.” And for that alone I would trust him. “He’s just an Aedh who’s been bound to earth and is doing his best to survive.”
She nodded. “I know, and I agree, but I’ve been wrong before and I’d hate for this to be one of those times. So just be careful.”
“I will. I am.” I gave her a crooked smile. “These days, the only people I truly trust are you, Tao, and the Jenson pack.”
“Well, you can’t go wrong there.” She hesitated again, then drew a paper-wrapped package out of her pocket. “Here, I bought you this.”
She offered me the package. Undoing it revealed a small, multipurpose hunting knife—the sort of knife that could cut wire as easily as it did throats. I glanced at her sharply. “You said you don’t see specific trouble in my future, so why hand me a knife?”
She grimaced. “My foresight is being decidedly ambiguous at the moment. I just felt the need to buy this for you. I’m hoping you don’t need it, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“I guess.” I tossed the knife lightly in my hand. It was very well balanced. “And at least it is small enough to keep hidden.”
“That’s the idea.” Then she gave me a sketchy salute and headed back down the stairs.
I considered the knife for a few seconds longer, then tucked it into my jacket pocket and tried to get back to the paperwork. Unfortunately, the figures refused to compute. After twenty minutes I gave up and rang the Langham Hotel, booking a suite for a couple of nights. I wasn’t able to go home, which gave me the perfect opportunity to indulge in a little pampering at one of my favorite five-star hotels. With that done, I headed back downstairs to help out until the end of my shift.
After grabbing something to eat from the kitchen, I caught a cab to the address Ilianna had given me. Adeline Greenfield lived in one of those beautiful old Victorian houses filled with character—the type of house all too often torn down and replaced by sterile concrete boxes. As the cab took off, I stood on the curb, admiring the graceful old elms that dominated her front lawn, and the thick carpet of moss growing across the tiled roof. There was an air of graceful age that hung over the place. And as I opened the old wrought-iron gate and walked through, it felt very welcoming.
The front garden was so lush with flowers that, even at night, they filled the air with a riot of perfume. And though it should have overwhelmed my olfactory senses, it didn’t.
I climbed the red-tiled steps and walked across to the front door. A little gold bell sat on the right edge of the door frame, its cord swaying gently in the breeze. I rang it a couple of times, and the joyous sound leapt across the night, making me smile.
Footsteps echoed inside, then the door opened, revealing a short, gray haired woman with lined, leathery features and the brightest blue eyes I’d ever seen.
“You’d be Risa Jones?” she said, looking me up and down before her gaze went briefly past me. If her expression was anything to go by, I wasn’t what she was expecting.
“Yes, I am. I hope I’m not too late. Ilianna did say to pop over after I finished work …”
“No, no, that’s fine,” she said, unlocking the security door then stepping aside for me to enter. “It’s just that I wasn’t expecting you to come alone.”
I paused. “Why’s that?”
“Ilianna mentioned you had a reaper following you about, but that I shouldn’t worry about it.” She snorted as she snipped the door closed then led the way down the long, shadow-filled hallway. The air smelled of ginger and some other spices I couldn’t name. It was tantalizing and pleasant. “Not that I would. I’ve seen more than my fair share of them buggers, and they don’t scare me.”
She led the way into a cozy sitting room that was dominated by a log fire. Two well-padded armchairs sat in front of it and, in between them, a small coffee table on which sat a tea pot and two china cups.
“Would you like a cup?” she asked, motioning me to sit on the chair to the left.
“Thanks,” I said, even though tea wasn’t high on my must-have list. “So you can see the reapers?”
“Well, technically, no. Not like I see you, for instance. But sometimes when I’m dream walking, I cross their paths. As I said, they don’t scare me. They seem to be mostly benevolent beings.”
I supposed they generally were—even the moody ones who carried swords. I watched her pour the tea, then nodded when she mentioned the sugar. She stirred in several spoons, then offered me the cup. I took it gingerly—I was a mug girl at heart, and bone china always seemed too delicate for me. “By dream walking, do you mean astral traveling?”
She nodded. “I find it beneficial when it comes to dealing with some clients’ problems. It is human nature not to be entirely honest, but there are no lies on the astral plane.”
“So do you watch them go through their daily lives or do you walk through their dreams?”
“Mostly the latter. Dreams can be interesting—and sometimes dangerous—places.” She studied me for a moment. “But you know that. You’ve walked the astral planes yourself.”
“What you call the astral planes, I call the gray fields. But I’ve never walked through anyone’s dreams.”
“You could. You have many more of your mother’s gifts than you think.”
I did? That was certainly news. I took a sip of tea, then said, “Did Ilianna mention why I wanted to see you?”
She nodded. “Catherine Alston ordered the protection spell three years ago. She mentioned that there was some nasty business going down in the council, and she wanted to be sure she was safe at home.”
&nbs
p; I hadn’t thought to ask Alston why she’d wanted such strong magic guarding her. “I guess she didn’t clarify what the nasty business was?”
Adeline shook her head. “Vampires of her vintage usually work on a need-to-know basis. I didn’t need to know. I just needed to make the spell work.”
“So what sort of spell was it?”
She took a sip from her cup, then said, “Full protection. It should stop anything or anyone wearing flesh who intended her harm.”
“What about Maniae?”
She peered at me. “What about them?”
“Well, they’re considered spirits—or daemones. So should your spell have stopped them?”
“No, because Maniae don’t wear flesh. They’re also deities rather than spirits—a different type of being altogether. I don’t think Alston ever imagined someone would hate her enough to raise a daemon against her, let alone the curse of the Maniae. And that makes her situation extremely tricky.”
“Why?”
“Because the Maniae can usually be summoned only by great injustice. Alston must have cocked up pretty badly for the Maniae to be after her.”
“Meaning the event three years ago is unlikely to be the cause, because the attacks have only just begun.”
“Not necessarily. It could have simply taken that long to perform the summoning correctly. It is not a well-known spell, and it is not one that is well recorded.”
“Would the Brindle have it within their archives?”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Meaning it’s the sort of spell that any witch could perform?”
“It’s the type of spell anyone who feels they’re the victim of a grave injustice could perform if they can find the full version. However, the only people who would get access to the spell are witches connected to the Brindle.”
“So maybe all I have to do is go to the Brindle and ask who had access to that spell recently.”
“It is worth a try, though I honestly doubt a witch would be involved in such a summoning—even if it is only to supply the text of the spell.”
“Why?”
“Because of the threefold rule. And because one person’s great injustice can be another’s minor annoyance. It is a very gray area for a witch to be involved in.”