my throat and said, “You're standing on bones. What were you going to tell me about chalkmen?”
“Them? There is not much to tell. They shed their bones the way lizards shed tails. The novelty wears thin very quickly.”
Thaimon went through Arthur's discarded clothes.
“How many of them are there?”
“They're dotted around here and there.”
“Why chalkmen?”
“Their bones decompose to chalk.”
“Oh.”
“Many a collector has opened his bone collection to find chalk powder instead of the bones he thought he had. The bone miners in particular hate chalkmen.”
“What did you want with him?” I asked.
“I desire what I desire,” Thaimon said. He grabbed the man's shirt and took a knife out of the jeans pocket. He proceeded to cut a section out of the shirt, analyzing me between slices. “Come here and I'll show you.”
My heart increased; I hesitated. At an arm's length away, I was plenty close.
Thaimon's smile changed to a not-quite-teasing one. “You're terribly close to me as it is. Approach. See what I have to show you.”
Butterflies flipping in my stomach, I sucked in a breath and squeezed in close to him. Drawing this close to anyone always sent my senses into overdrive, no matter who they were or why they were in my personal space. Usually I felt a measure of fear. But now, I felt every sense with an added tinge of anticipation. The beating heart, tight chest, and cool fingers were not entirely unwelcome.
He watched me closely, making up for the way I avoided looking at him. Even before I crossed an arm over my chest, I knew he'd noticed the way that I should have worn a padded bra today. He stooped slightly, his nose brushed my neck. Goosebumps formed along my arms, less from the cool of the bricks shielding the warmth of the sun and more from the proximity of a man's body.
“There,” he murmured in my ear. “That is what is different. Subtle. So very subtle, yet it changes things.”
My fierce blush made it hard to swallow. I asked, “What?”
“You smell of him.”
Every pulse of my heart sent me closer to dizziness, preparing me to launch away with all due speed—or to soften into his arms. Which was the appropriate response? I managed, “I should go.”
“You should.” He didn't drop his arm from around my hips.
Would he let me go if I pressed it? I thought so. But my task was and always had been to delay him. Delay him as long as I could.
“If I go, so will you,” I said.
“Yes. And it would be a tragic waste of perfection suspended temporarily in time.”
And so it was that I didn't go. He withdrew paper from the shredded shirt, glanced at it, put it in his back pocket.
I stayed with his arm around my hips, his lips occasionally brushing a feathery kiss against the slope of my neck. He gathered up my hair and nipped teeth against the lobe of my ear. I felt a tug on the mic cord hiding in my hair.
He chuckled.
I went rigid as Thaimon eased the earbud out of my ear. Between thumb and forefinger, he held it up to the sky, admiring it with a tight voice. “They make these things so small these days. Almost unnoticeable. You have intentionally distracted me?”
I nodded.
Warm fingertips traced my collarbone, withdrawing my shirt, exposing skin to the damp air of this tiny alley. The chord of my mic wrapped around his finger. It snapped. Both it and the earbud disappeared, replaced by his lips and testing fingers.
In my ear, he whispered, “I am easily distracted in this state. A fresh body owns me to a greater degree than I own it. Raw passions are quickly excited, but I have endured enough of these changes that I can direct my desires towards a pointed goal. And so I have.”
“What goal?” I asked.
A hand tightened in my hair, pulled my head back to expose my throat. “Do not ask. It is less pleasant than the task at hand.”
I swallowed. He kissed my throat, tipped my chin down, and kissed me. It was a hungry kiss, quick to turn rough in a way which would have frightened me before. Even with bruised lips, I knew his excitement was held in check. That worried me.
Still, it gave me the chance I needed. Casually as I could manage, I groped his butt. Specifically, I was after his pockets. Something stiff was in one—a folded square of paper. Pickpocketing had not been one of my talents, so I hoped I wasn't obvious about what I was doing.
Something clobbered Thaimon's shoulder. He withdrew with a snarl, glaring up at the roofline.
Wraithbane peered over the edge, half a brick in his hand. “Oi, Prince Charming! Is that how the chalkman got away?”
Thaimon withdrew, clearly looking forward to a scuffle with Wraithbane. He started to climb straight up between the walls at a very quick rate, leaving me behind on the ground.
Red-faced, I yelled up at Wraithbane, “How long have you been up there?”
Thaimon laughed and answered. “Since you asked about the chalkman. Isn't that right, Nicholas?”
Wraithbane shrugged, a very long way from denying the comment. In fact, he seemed to be dismissing it.
Well.
At least I hadn't been as endangered as I'd thought I was.
And at least Wraithbane wasn't the jealous type. Though it would have given me a bit of an ego boost if he had been envious or protective. Oh well. At least I had one of the things Thaimon had looted off the chalkman's clothes.
I unfolded it. It was one of those long, narrow grocery list-style stationery embellished with a stylized silver poppy with its stem curled into a circle. Two words were written: Kayla Mattison.
I shivered. What was my housemate involved in now?
A two-tone whistle came from the opening of the tiny alley. From the rectangular silhoutte at the other end, it was Jay. He waved at me to get moving.
Glad to not shimmy the walls like a suburban spiderwoman, I forced myself through the alley again. Outside, fresh air cut through my hair and enlivened the damp spot on my lower back. Sun baked my scalp and prompted the apple tree Jay waited under to open up its blooms. He had several petals misting his black leather jacket, and his beard was an assortment of pinks, whites, twigs, and street dust.
“Bane's having to pursue. He'll meet us at the rendezvous point,” Jay said.
“Fine. Let's go.”
Jay didn't move. The tail end of Wraithbane's green Harley caught my eye, Willow's pumpkin spice perfume still drifting on the air. Jay held the keys to the van, clearly waiting for something.
“We going?”
“It'll get here.”
What will get here? I was just about to ask when the Kettle van turned down the street, completely driverless. It parallel parked right next to us, turned off the engine, and unlocked the doors.
“This thing has autopilot?” I asked as I buckled myself in.
“Yeah,” Jay said and started it up. “We don't use it often.”
“Why not?”
Jay shook his head. “It drives like a safety officer's pet student and none of us can sort out how to up the aggressiveness level.”
“Would that be safe?”
“It's the safest car on the road, so long as the program doesn't glitch.”
I didn't know what to say to that, so I joked, “Who is riding the deathtrap then, us or Willow?”
“Bane's bike is fine,” Jay snapped.
“Oo-kay.” I waited until we made our turn past a blind corner. The padded seat between us seemed both a gulf unpassable and barely enough space to breathe. He stared determinedly at the lines on the road ahead. “What's this about?”
“Break his heart and I'll send you to the most arid outer reaches the Kettle has access to.”
“Who?”
“You know who,” Jay said, pointing a finger at the top of a bank building. The angle was wrong for me to see the two men running over rooftops unless they were on the edge of the building.
Shadows on the street showed the
skyline of false-fronted buildings where two opponents fought hand-to-hand on flat roofs. It was the only way I could see what was going on. Soon we were beyond the contestants.
“I saw you come downstairs with him this morning.”
I crossed my arms. “That doesn't mean anything.”
“Look who knows Bane so well. What's his last name?”
“It's—” I realized: Nicholas Wraithbane had not been what his parents had put on the birth certificate. “It's not originally Wraithbane.”
“No, Silver, not even close.”
“Stop being so smug, Jay.” I huffed, annoyed to think that Jay knew what his real name was and I didn't. “It doesn't change who he is.”
“Exactly. He keeps his affairs downstairs. Last person to go upstairs uninvited got a concussion and Lyle's Black Throat Choke.”
“That seems overly aggressive.”
Jay shook a finger at me. “That's why you don't wake him up by pouncing on him and screaming 'Boo'.”
“Aw, was that you?”
“That was Crystal Paris. They'd worked together months before the incident, too.”
I felt as if I were slowly being squeezed in a vise. “Well, he invited me, and I don't see why he'd do that if he thought he was going to spaz out on me in the middle of the night.”
“He won't. He trusts you. That's the point.”
“You don't trust me. That's your point.”
Jay didn't deny the accusation. “Brandy, there is so much about you that—”
A flicker caught my eye. A symbol I recognized. Heat seared through me. “Stop the car! Back up.” There was reluctance written all over Jay's manner. I clawed at the door. “I saw something—just let me out.”
My feet hit the concrete sidewalk before the van finished stopping, the landing twisting pain up my ankle. I ran