“No changing your mind,” Sahvage murmured.
She looked back at him. “Never.”
The word had more vigor than she did. But it was like if she stood up to him, she was standing up to Fate, and that had to be her mindset . . . in spite of the fact that she didn’t have the Book yet. And she was taking what Tallah had told her on faith.
“All right,” he said finally.
“Are you leaving?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Mae closed her eyes and sagged with relief. “I promise, it’s going to be okay. Everything is going to be fine. We’re going to be fine.”
Yes, and then what, she wondered. Even though she knew the answer to that when it came to the two of them.
Sahvage would go on about his life. She would go on about hers. And it was in the nature of nothing-in-common that the pair of them would diverge. As they had no intersections to begin with, nothing was going to keep them together.
Getting to her feet, she gathered up the ice bags. “Let’s go back to the cottage.”
Funny how normal it felt to say that. Then again, a person could get used to anything—and unused to it, too.
As she stepped out of the bathroom, he moved his legs to the side and then stood up, too. And when she shut the door, it was firmly—except did that change anything? Like she could lock out the awkwardness? The lie of hers?
Nope.
“I’m going back to my place,” he said.
“Okay, you don’t have to stay. I mean, at the cottage, or with—”
“Yeah, I do. Now more than ever. But I need clothes.”
He didn’t look at her as he walked out toward the garage, and she rushed after him, grabbing her purse and her keys from the washer. As she locked the house up, he nodded at her and dematerialized through the gap in the shutter. Left alone, she glanced at the trash that had still not been taken out—and remembered the reason why.
On impulse, she got in her car and started the engine. Maybe they’d need a vehicle. Or maybe she just needed to drive around.
As she was backing out—because she’d been so distracted coming back from the Shell station that she’d broken her father’s parking rule again—she thought about how the Book was taking its own damn time . . . and tried not to see the lag for what it was:
A sign this was all a big folly. And she was a desperate fool.
K-turning in the street, she thought of Tallah, home alone at the cottage. With a curse, Mae hit the gas and headed out of her neighborhood, consumed by obsessions about shadows and brunettes and huge males naked in bathrooms—
Unable to stand the chaos in her head, she turned on the radio. She’d left the station on NPR, and some dulcet-voiced woman was droning on about public funding for libraries, so she switched to FM.
“—serial killer here in Caldwell. The CPD reported that another man and woman were found dead last night. The bodies were discovered at club Eight-Seven-Five, and both of their hearts had been removed—”
Mae’s eyes went to the radio, and she cranked up the volume.
“—just as the others’ had been. The identities of the newest victims are being withheld at this time, pending the notification of families. The count is now up to five couples, including the most recently identified pair, Ralph DeMellio and Michelle Caspari. Allegedly, DeMellio was involved in an underground fighting ring, and authorities believe that he was killed shortly after one such fight. Footage found on Instagram suggests he had faced an opponent with a distinctive tattoo covering his chest—”
Mae’s left foot stomped on the brake—
The blare of a horn behind her drowned out the rest of the report—and then the world exploded, the strike of the rear-end collision blowing Mae’s head against the rest as the airbag broke out from the steering wheel and her car careened off her lane with a scream of locked tires.
All momentum stopped with a furious impact, the Civic’s front grille striking something that had no give in it.
As the airbag deflated with a hiss, Mae drooped forward, her consciousness fuzzing out . . . and then returning in a fog. In her car’s headlights, through some kind of steam rising out of the busted hood, she read a sign mounted on a brick wall: Poplar Woods.
She’d run into the marker for the development next to her own.
Fumbling with her seat belt, she released the latch on her door and popped things open. On a loose list to the side, her body fell out, her arms and legs not listening to the commands she gave them, and with all the grace of dead weight, she spilled onto the ground, dirt going into her mouth, her nose. She flopped onto her back and took some deep breaths.
A frantic face entered her field of vision. It was a human man with rimless glasses, a receding hairline, and a cell phone up to his ear.
“I couldn’t stop in time!” he said. “You threw your brakes on so quick—I’m calling nine-one-one—”
“No, no—don’t call—” Mae put her hand up, like she could somehow take that phone from him. “No, no—”
“Hi? Yes, my name is Richard Karouk. I need to report a—”
With an abrupt gasp, Richard Karouk stopped talking, his eyes flaring wider behind those glasses. Then there was a clicking sound, and his mouth dropped open.
Blood flooded out onto his business shirt and his nice jacket, a bright red flush.
As he slumped to the ground in a heap, a figure in a bustier and a set of skintight black leather pants was revealed. The brunette.
And she had a long steel knife in her hand that was stained red . . . red as her lips, her nails.
“Hi, honey.” She smiled. “Looks like you hit your noggin and totaled your car. Thank God I’m here when you need a friend.”
• • •
Sahvage did not go back to the shitty place he was crashing at. Instead he re-formed on the top of a rise in a public park, and as he stared across at a wide, sluggish river, he decided the lights of the houses at the opposite shore were like a galaxy fallen to ground. Twinkling, distant . . . untouchable.
Is there anything I can say to make you change your mind?
No.
That exchange with Mae replayed in his head a couple of hundred times, and of course, the repeat thing did not change her reply—even though he had some delusion that maybe the discourse would improve over time, the needle in the proverbial LP record finding a different groove, a better one.
With a curse, he took out his phone. And as he made a call, he knew that he was setting himself to as immutable a course as Mae was on. Then again, her intentions drove his. And it was what it was.
After a terse conversation, he ended the connection and put his phone away.
He was still standing where he’d planted his boots when a male materialized in front of him.
The Reverend was who he had been at the fight, an imposing figure in a full-length fur, his cropped Mohawk and amethyst eyes not the kind of thing you saw every night. Given the elegant bulk of that mink, it was not immediately apparent whether there were weapons under the duster, but a strange sense told Sahvage that the conventional stuff you could buy at your local click-click, bang-bang shop wasn’t going to be necessary for the guy’s protection.
There was something off about him.
And the fact that he was involved with the Book seemed right.
“Fancy hearing from you,” the Reverend drawled. Then he frowned. “This isn’t about the fight money, is it.”
“No.”
“How’s your female?”
“She’s not mine.” Sahvage ignored the chuckle. “But I need to find that Book she’s looking for.”
“Valentine’s Day isn’t for another ten months, and as romantic intentions go, you might have just as good a result with chocolates, only without the fucking hassle—”
“Where can I find it. And don’t tell me you didn’t lie to her. You know a helluva lot more than you’re saying.”
Abruptly, the jokey-jokey shit left the chat.
“I am under no obligation to humor your drama.” The Reverend smiled coldly, flashing long fangs. “And you’re not trying to get it for her, are you. No, no, you’ve got other plans for the Book.”
“Of course it’s for her.”
A dark eyebrow lifted. “You’re either lying to me or lying to yourself.”
On his side of the conversation, Sahvage was busy blocking every thought he had—and it was clearly not working. Which he took to mean he was definitely talking to the right male.
With a shrug, he said, “I’m just helping for a friend.”
“Yeah, ’cuz you’re the kind of male who does shit like that.” The Reverend put his hand in his pocket. Then grew still. “You’re not going to tell me to keep my palms in full view?”
“No.”
“So trusting. Another surprise. We keep this up and you’re going to tell me you’re turning into a pacifist next.”
“I don’t trust you at all. But you can’t hurt me.”
Those amethyst eyes narrowed. “That, my friend, is where you’re wrong.”
“No one can hurt me,” Sahvage countered grimly.
“You know”—the Reverend took his hand back out—“I’ve heard of toxic narcissism before, but you’re taking the cake. Here’s your money.”
“Keep it and tell me what you know about the Book.”
“No offense, this is couch change to me. So you’re not doing me any favors.”
“Keep it anyway. And tell me what you know.”
The Reverend disappeared the cash again. Then he just stared at Sahvage. “Where’s your lost family, fighter.”
“What?”
“I have this cute little knack for knowing what people hide.” He tapped the side of his head. “Such a handy thing out in the world, really. And you lost your people, your family, a long time ago, didn’t you.”
“I didn’t lose anybody, and I just want the Book.”
There was a long period of silence. Then the Reverend switched his cane from one hand to another. “As it turns out, I have someone you’re going to want to speak to. I don’t know where the fucking thing is, but a friend of mine does. You’ll want to ask him. He’s an absolute angel.”
“Fine. Tell me when and where.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
“Make it quick.”
“You are hardly in a position to make demands.”
Sahvage slowly shook his head. “You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
The Reverend open his mouth like he was going to make a snide comment. But the male didn’t follow through on the impulse.
As a calculating look came into those eyes, he smiled a little. “Fascinating.” Then he nodded with respect. “And I do believe you are right. I don’t know who I’m dealing with—but neither do you, fighter. You’ll be hearing from me.”
The Reverend bowed. And then he was off, disappearing into the night.
Left on his little lonesome, Sahvage went back to staring over the slow-moving water. The fact that he didn’t know the river’s name was a testament to how many places he had been over the last couple of centuries. From wandering the Old Country’s various nation-states to coming to the New World fifty years ago and traveling all around the South and the Midwest, the globe was a blur to him. Then again, he’d never used maps. Maps were for people with destinations. The sole direction he took was no daylight and veins only when he absolutely needed them.
Otherwise, he roamed in search of a moving target.
No, that was actually no longer true. He had come to this side of the big pond because he had finally given up on finding his cousin. Just as he had predicted the night he resealed his coffin full of oat flour, his “death” had freed him of any ties, and he had gone to ground, following up on leads, gossip, and tenuous stories of magic in hopes of finding Rahvyn.