• • •
“So you were telling me about this Book thing.”
Over at Tallah’s kitchen counter, Mae closed her eyes and swore to herself that the coffee she was pouring was going to stay in its ceramic delivery device. She was not going to toss it across the table at the male who’d put in his order like he was at a 24-hour diner.
How they’d managed to make it downstairs in one piece was a miracle of sorts. And not because they were being chased by anything.
Oil and water. They were oil and water together.
“Well?” Sahvage prompted as he put his leather jacket over the weapons he’d taken off his torso. Leaning back in his chair, he regarded her with a steady stare.
“I wasn’t talking about the Book,” she said as she carried the mug across to him.
“Thanks for this.” He smiled as he palmed what she’d made for him. “It’s perfect.”
“You haven’t tried it yet.”
“You made it for me. That’s all perfection requires.”
With a frown, she sat on the other side of the table. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what.”
“Try to be charming.” She rubbed her aching eyes and wondered whether there was any Motrin in her purse. “It doesn’t work.”
“I’ve never been charming.”
“Well, what do you know. We’re going to put self-awareness on your short list of positive attributes.”
“Someday, you’re going to like me.” There was a siiiipping sound. Then an ahhhhhh. “See? I told you this is perfect. Now talk to me about the Book. And yes, I’ll stop being a smartass.”
“Not possible.”
“Give me a chance.” Sahvage grew serious. “I want to know whatever you do about it.”
As the fighter went silent and seemed prepared to wait, Mae felt herself recede into her mind—but it was not back to her brother, to that ice-cube-filled tub, to the terrible mission she’d set herself on. Instead, she was once again out on the front porch of this previously peaceful cottage, shooting a heavy gun that, Sahvage was right, she couldn’t have held steady on her own.
“I didn’t have two hands,” she muttered. “With two hands, I could have done it.”
“What?” he said. “Oh, you’re thinking about my Glock. Yeah, it’s a big one.”
Mae narrowed her eyes. “You can stop with the double entendres. Anytime.”
“You’re going there, not me.” He shifted to the side and put the gun on the table between them. “The name’s right there on the weapon.”
“What is it about males wanting to show off their guns.”
“You can’t give me an opening like that—”
“What did I say about the entendres—”
“You mean these guns?” he said as he curled up two huge biceps. “Oh, and now she shoots me the death glare. Like anyone wouldn’t flex on that stage.”
As Mae tried to not smile, she watched him tilt and reholster the weapon—and when she noticed how muscular his shoulders were under that skintight t-shirt of his, she couldn’t stay sitting. Up on her feet again, she took the two teacups with her and Tallah’s loads of cold Earl Grey to the sink. Then she came back for the sugar pot and the creamer pitcher. As well as the crushed lemon carcass.
“You take vinegar with your tea?” He picked up the bottle and inspected the label. “Strange palate.”
“I’ll take that.”
When she went to grab the stuff from him, he didn’t let go. “Talk to me, Mae. I know you don’t like me and you sure as hell don’t appreciate me barging in here. But that guy with the Mohawk is right. I owe you my life—and I may be a piece of shit, but I do have a code of honor. Besides, you’ve just seen how handy I am in a fight, haven’t you.”
Now he released his hold. He didn’t stop staring up at her, though.
So as she turned away and put the vinegar back in the cupboard, she could feel his eyes on her.
“I promise to be good,” he murmured. Then he chuckled. “Fine, I promise to be better. And make it last this time.”
Leaning back against the countertop, Mae considered her options. Which didn’t seem to include kicking him out of the house—and not just because she couldn’t possibly have carried him to the door.
With a sense of defeat, she returned to the chair she’d been in. Putting her hands on the table, she linked her fingers and took a deep breath.
“Whatever it is,” he said, “I’m going to believe you.”
“What an odd thing to say.”
She glanced at him. He was looming there in that seat, his huge body overflowing the chair, the table . . . the cottage. Yet he was still, and silent. Ready to hear her out.
“But this is all so crazy.” Mae shook her head. “Really nuts.”
“Life is crazy. The foolish thing is thinking it isn’t.”
“If you had to take a guess, what was that shadow thing outside?”
“Tell me about the Book. I have a feeling that’s going to answer your question—and it’s what you believe as well, don’t you.”
“Stop reading my mind.”
“I’m not mind-reading.” More with the sipping. “It’s intuition.”
“Isn’t that for females?”
“Traditional sex roles are sexist.”
Mae didn’t want to laugh. So she covered her mouth with her hand to muffle the sound, hide the expression.
“You should do that more often,” he said softly.
Flushing, Mae smoothed the flyaways from her face. Funny. Even though her clothes were on right and her hair still in a ponytail, she felt completely disheveled. Like someone had put her in a wind tunnel.
“I haven’t had much cause to laugh lately,” she heard herself say.
“Talk to me.”
Mae’s eyes went to the empty silver dish, nothing but the residue of her blood and the other ingredients of the spell left. “I’ve lost a lot of loved ones recently. And I’m not going to lose another.”
“Who died. Or is dying.” When she didn’t reply, he shrugged. “Let me guess. Prayers haven’t been working—or you don’t feel like they go far enough. So you’re taking things into your own hands.”
“Do you believe in magic?”
When he didn’t answer, she lifted her eyes to his. He was staring at her with a remote expression.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” he said softly.
Mae had to look away—on account of a second warm flush that went up her throat and into her face. But surely she was reading . . . everything . . . wrong. A male like him? He was going to go for one of those fight-club women or females, the ones who belonged in the wait line with the others at the parking garage, the ones with the hips and the boobs and the outfits to show those kinds of assets off.
“What would you do to keep someone you loved alive?” she asked to get herself back on track.
No hesitation: “I’d kill anybody. Anything.”
She eyed his jacket, and thought of what was underneath it. “I believe that. But I’m not talking about defending them. What if you could . . . make them live again? What if you had the ability to bring them back, change destiny, take fate into your own hands. Take control of a wrong result.”
There was a long pause, and then his eyes left her. “You’re talking about resurrection.”
“See,” she said. “I told you it’s crazy.”
“It’s not crazy.” His obsidian stare returned to hers. “Unbelievable, maybe, but not crazy.”
“Aren’t those the same thing?”
“What exactly are we talking about here, Mae.”
It was a while before she could answer, before she could choose the right words. And then she lied. “Tallah is all I have left. She’s coming to the end of her life. I can’t let her die. I just . . . you have to understand. I have no one else in this world, and I’m not losing her, too.”
Mae burst up from the chair again. Given that there was nothing left of the tea to tidy, no reason other than her anxiety to move around, she reached across to the silver dish. Picking it up, she went to the sink and rinsed the basin off.
“Sometimes you have to let people go,” Sahvage said softly.
She glanced back at him. “Well, I don’t want to.”
“And you think this Book is your answer. She lives forever after you do what? Wave a wand over her forehead?”
“That’s not funny.”
“It wasn’t intended to be. What’s in the Book.”
As Mae didn’t have a solid answer for that, the flimsiness of her plan, or solution, seemed rickety to a house-of-cards degree.
“It’s going to tell me what to do. To save her.”
“Spells, huh.” He took another drink from the mug. “God, I haven’t heard of shit like this since the Old Country. And as for the immortality stuff, be careful what you wish for. Sometimes, you actually get it.”
“Exactly. I don’t want her to die and she’ll be alive.”
“People aren’t supposed to live forever.”
“I don’t care.”
He laughed in a short rush. “You know, I have a lot of respect for your kind of arrogant aggression. And on that note, how’re you going to find this Book?”
Pulling a dish towel free of the stove handle, she dried the little silver basin. “We already did what you’re supposed to do.”
“Which is?” He held up his forefinger. “Wait, let me guess. Go to a bare-knuckle fight and try to get a guy killed by distracting him as a blood sacrifice. Great plan, and it’s worked so well.”
“You were going to murder that human.”
“No, I wasn’t.” After a moment, he made a meh motion with his free hand. “Okay, fine, maybe I was. But it wasn’t murder. He asked for it, and I’ve always said that other people’s stupid decisions are not my problem. Now what did you do to get the Book. Search Amazon under Hocus-Pocus for Dummies?”
“It was a summoning spell. And I’m quite intelligent, thank you very much.”
Although she felt like she hadn’t been winning many IQ prizes lately.
His eyes narrowed. “So the Book is here.”
“Not yet.”
“When did you do the spell?”
“Right before . . .” She cleared her throat. “Right before you came.”
There was a period of silence. Then he muttered, “And I’ll say it again—you wonder why that shadow showed up?”
Actually, she didn’t. “I think we should double-check your wounds. Just make sure you’re okay.”
“Changing the subject, are we.”
“Not at all.”
Sahvage put his mug to his lips and tilted his head back, finishing the coffee. When he set the empty down on the table, he smiled at her in that way he did—one side of his mouth lifting up, a knowing look in those glossy black eyes.
Like he had all the answers and every time he opened his piehole was an opportunity to man-splain things.
“FYI, I know what you’re doing,” he said.
Bingo. “What’s that. And should I take notes, or is this going to be another statement of the obvious—”
“As you hear yourself talk, you realize how insane you’re behaving, but your heart isn’t going to let it rest, so you have to divert things. It’s fine. We can look at my injuries again. But I don’t think we should ignore what’s actually happening here.”
“You don’t know a damn thing about me.”