****
Two hours later, I was still awake and pacing in the tiny space between my bed and dresser. Despite having the window open, the air was too hot and thick; it felt as if I were breathing through River’s pea soup. My stomach churned and my skin crawled with nervous energy. I looked over at my bed. There was no way I could lay down feeling like this. I needed to get out. I needed some fresh air. I needed to walk, no run, off some of this energy.
When I came up, I had changed out of Anya’s outfit into a thin, cotton tank top and shorts. I pulled on and laced up my comfortable old boots, my feet welcoming the way the soft leather and sole shaped around them. So much better than my earlier footwear. I quickly plaited my hair into a crooked, haphazard braid and tied it with a length of twine.
I slipped out of my room. The apartment was quiet. River was likely asleep already, and Anya was probably still down in the bar. I went out into the hall and stood at the top of the front stairs. I could hear voices, a male and female. I paused. If it were Pinky, he’d be able to hear me and would never let me go out alone after what had gone down tonight. Damn vampire hearing.
I took a moment to mutter a sound-deafening spell that would cover me until I got outside. I took a couple of tentative, normal steps. When no one reacted, I hurried down the hall and down the back stairs. I paused at the back door, my ears alert. The voices from the bar were soft, in easy conversation, though I could now hear that the male voice talking to Anya wasn’t Pinky. It was Jarrett. I froze for a moment, listening and wondering if something had happened. Then I realized he and Anya were having the same problem with going to sleep as I was, though for entirely different reasons. While my schedule was as flexible as they come, Jarrett was a vampire, so he mostly worked at night and Anya worked in a vampire bar. Two in the morning was barely midafternoon for them.
I relaxed. Nothing was out of place and from the easy flow of their conversation, they hadn’t heard me. Without another thought for them, I slipped out the back door. In the alley, I breathed the cool night air deep into my lungs and started running. I ran through the city, avoiding major streets that would be full of nighttime workers, shoppers, and partiers.
Having a little residual energy after a magical fight was normal for me. Under normal circumstances, and for most mages, a mage worked magic by using concentration and energy to manipulate the energy of the universe in one way or another. I had always worked magic differently, by pulling it into my body then dispelling it in different patterns to do what I need. This used up my own energy as well, but my battle magic worked very differently. Pulling energy into my body, and then dispelling it to create short bursts of energy as a weapon doesn’t normally use up my own energy. Instead, a little bit of the energy lingers. Mixed with the adrenaline that starts pumping during a battle, I am always a bit edgy afterwards.
Usually, a run would dispel the energy enough for me to sleep, but it didn’t seem to be working tonight. But then, my nervous energy had nothing to do with magical battle. I hadn’t been able to pull any energy tonight.
My boots pounded the ground as I ran as hard as I could, winding my way through the back streets of the city. I tried to concentrate on my breathing and the movement of my body, but it was no use.
I had seen a lot of death in the years since I graduated from the Academy. A lot of senseless, wasteful death. I had even dealt some of it out in the course of my duties as a Blade. Death was always senseless and wasteful, even when the person deserved to die for their crimes. I’d killed criminals, and I’d held their victims in my arms as the life seeped from them. Yet tonight, something had been different. Probably because the man, the completely innocent man whose body had been used, hadn’t been sick or injured. He’d been full of life, if a bit pale and stiff moving, one moment, and then the life energy had gone out of him, leaving his body dry and slumping against me.
The worst part was the sadness and hope I had seen in York Reeder’s husband’s face and radiating off him in waves earlier today. Gray Reeder had been holding on to faith that he would see his husband again. But he wouldn’t. That hope and the life-loving exuberance I had seen in the paintings of York had been wiped from his life forever, and I felt responsible. Had there been anything I could have done?
Probably not. York Reeder had no control over his body, if his consciousness had even been in there. Perhaps it hadn’t been in his body for days or weeks. I had to accept that there had been nothing I could have done. There was no way I could have saved York Reeder. But that was worse than taking the blame. It made me feel powerless. And I hated that more than anything in the world.
I’d been running for nearly an hour, but my skin was still jumping and I hadn’t even started to tire. I needed something more than a run to help me dispel the energy surging through me. As the thought occurred to me, I stopped running and looked around to see where I was. I recognized the area immediately. I stood a few steps from the riverfront entrance to the Necromancer’s Guild headquarters building. Though I’d started running in the opposite direction and taken the long way around via back alleys and little used roads, I had unconsciously headed straight for where I wanted to be.
The wards that had protected the city from the destructive storms had not been able to prevent the swelling of the Cumberland River. Whole streets and buildings had sunk deep into the mud and yards, and even miles, in places beyond the city walls, had been lost to the river. During the reconstruction a hundred years ago, most of the buildings that sunk and were half covered in water were torn down and a barrier wall and walkway had been constructed along the new borders of the river.
The building was a squat four-story that took up half a block, dated back to a decade or two before the Cataclysm. It was situated on the riverfront, just a few yards from the water, though when it was built it had likely been three or four blocks away. A guard stood just inside the glass door. The room behind him was lit with blue-tinted crystal lamps that cast a shadow over his face, so I couldn’t tell if he saw me or not.
When he stepped away, I gathered he must not have seen me standing there watching the building, or he would have stayed by the door. I stood another moment trying to decide whether to go up knock. Of course, it was stupid. Undoubtedly, Ian was asleep already. And even if he wasn’t, what did I think I was doing? Was I ready for what would happen if I went up there? Ian had promised we would visit the topic of the sexual tension between us after this case was over. I shivered at the memory of that knee-melting kiss. Perhaps it was just best to wait until then, until I could think more clearly.
Did I really want to think clearly? Did I really want to wait any longer? Forget my need to push tonight out of my mind; the clear, undeniable truth was that I wanted Ian Barroes so bad that I could taste it. We had been dancing around each other with sniping and baiting for years. I was getting tired, I wanted to give in, despite the pure fear that coursed through my blood at the thought of doing so. I wasn’t afraid of Ian, but of myself. Of the feelings being with Ian would open up.
I stood there for several minutes silently arguing with myself and was no closer to a decision when the matter was taken out of my hands. The glass door of the building swung open, and the guard strode across the street to me. “Agent Moon, Master Barroes asks that you join him upstairs for a drink.”