EdgeofEcstasy (8 page)

Ryder sighed heavily, his black eyes going from one to the
other until he finally nodded and let his chin fall to his chest as he mumbled,
“About two months or so ago, Isacar called me up. He was agitated, really
upset, totally unlike himself. We met and he clearly had something deep
weighing on his mind and soul. He said he needed to make a judgment call,
something he didn’t want to take to the Tribunal until he was certain. He
thought someone had accessed the manuscripts, but he couldn’t tell who—he
wanted me to look into it.”

“Which you did,” Daniel prompted when Ryder paused and
looked behind them, as if staring back in time and not at the people passing up
and down the busy streets.

“No,” Ryder replied softly. “I’d just been put onto an
excellent contract, a really good chance to work with some people out on the
east coast. I explained it to Isacar—I was genuinely apologetic. Under any
other circumstances I’d have done it. Isacar was fine, said he’d talk to
Falconn instead, that the other wizard wasn’t very busy just now.”

Melissa felt ill for a moment and drew in deep, cleansing
breaths to still her roiling stomach. For a moment or two she genuinely thought
she’d have to make a run for the ladies restroom to be sick, but she swallowed
hard and got herself under control.

“Why didn’t Falconn call me when he got in over his head?”
she asked. The wobble in her voice made it crack brokenly. She struggled to
beat back the tears that threatened to break from her eyes.

Daniel squeezed her hand again and, breathing deeply through
her nose, she squeezed back hard. For the first time in decades she leaned on
someone else, soaked up Daniel’s strength as best she could, and could only
feel overwhelmed that she didn’t have to do this alone right now.

Silence fell between them as she managed to get herself back
under control. As composed as she could be, Melissa lifted her eyes and gazed
at Ryder. With a single nod, she indicated that he should go on—that she would
be okay.

“Honestly, Melissa, I would have thought if he had any idea
how much trouble he was in, Falconn would have called you,” Ryder insisted
gently. “Or at the very least I would have thought he would have contacted
Isacar, let him know the situation was a lot worse than he’d understood. That’s
why I didn’t mention it up-front. For all I know, Isacar picked up on some
rogue playing a prank or one of the Tribunal elders getting in over their head,
and none of this is connected to the murderer at all. It could be completely
unrelated.”

Melissa nodded, understanding.

“I don’t think we should cut off other options,” she agreed,
“but I do think it’s something we should look into further. I really think we
should call Isacar, find out what mission, precisely, Falconn had been sent on
and what he had reported.”

“I can call Isacar from my apartment,” Daniel offered.

Melissa murmured her thanks.

“I didn’t mean to imply that I can’t chase it up,” Ryder
replied firmly. “It’s the least I owe you, man. And look—I know a lot more of
the people Isacar might have talked to. He has connections all over the place.
Let me reach out to a few people first. There are a few of Isacar’s other
protégés who owe me favors, wizards who aren’t strictly Assassins. Let me see
if I can get a firm line on what Isacar and Falconn were chasing up, see if
anyone else has heard anything important. I’ll contact you first thing in the
morning with what I’ve unearthed. If you want to call Isacar after that, be my
guest. Just let me see if I can be of some real help first.”

“You have been a real help, Ryder,” Melissa insisted gently.
“But I certainly won’t turn down your running a few leads to ground in the
meantime. See if anyone has noticed an Assassin or Sharp Shooter acting funny
lately. A lot of us can be odd at the best of times, but generally we’re all
cool and calm. We’re a close enough bunch that someone should have heard
something
.”

Ryder nodded.

“I have a couple of friends of friends in Special Ops too,”
Ryder said. “If I don’t hear anything interesting or have any luck with the Shooters
and Assassins, I might try a gamble over in that quarter. I’ll have to see how
I go.”

“I felt his essence,” Melissa remarked. She surprised
herself by broaching the subject, but Ryder looked at her with his dark eyes,
listening intently to what she said. Taking a gamble, she decided to continue.

“If this person is in contact with others, it would be
almost impossible to miss it. His essence…” She paused and shook her head. “He
hasn’t assimilated the other essences properly. It’s like someone stitching up
a cut on their own. It’s sloppy, haphazard, messy. This man is not sane, not in
any understandable sense. He’ll reek of abomination to anyone who opens their
senses to see.”

Ryder nodded. “Truly?” he asked. “You don’t think that word
is too strong? Abomination?”

“Definitely not,” Melissa shook her head. “It’s been well
over a week since I sensed it and I still feel strongly about that. It isn’t
something you could gloss over or build up in your head. If anything I might
have become somewhat dulled toward it. Trust me. Anyone else who has sensed it—they’d
know.”

Ryder nodded and drained his glass of water.

“I’ll make some calls,” he promised, “see what I can come up
with. I can’t swear I’ll get anything, or that what I do turn up will be
helpful, though.”

“All you can do is try,” Daniel replied, holding out his
palm out. The two men shook hands. Melissa held out her hand and they shook warmly.

“Falconn always spoke highly of you,” Ryder said to Melissa
with a charming grin. “Said you were the best friend he’d ever have and there
was no one he’d rather trust his ass to. Don’t let this eat you up—he wouldn’t
want that.”

“I’m okay,” Melissa said with a smile. She looked at Daniel,
noticed the faint smile in his eyes and the tiny twitch at the corner of his
mouth.

She spread her lips into an answering grin.

“Indeed, I’m getting better by the day,” she said, and cast
a glance back at Ryder. He looked from her to Daniel and his grin spread wider.

“Aw, don’t tell anyone my patented sexy smile didn’t work on
you,” he said. “I’ll never live it down.”

Melissa threw her head back and laughed. “I promise,” she
swore. “I won’t tell anyone.”

Melissa snickered as Ryder walked away from their table and
disappeared into the growing crowd of people heading home after a long day’s
work.

“Do you really believe some old manuscript that’s been
stolen or passed around that lays out a ritual of dark magic has caused all
this?” Daniel queried Melissa.

She couldn’t tell from the inflection of his voice or his
impassive face whether he was merely asking rhetorically or whether he
genuinely wanted to know.

“I think anything is possible, really,” she replied. “It’s
not as if it’s unheard-of for wizards to write out intricate castings and
rituals. I know of a number of people who keep castings they don’t regularly
perform in a journal. Especially when a wizard is creating a ritual, writing it
down is the only way to keep a record of what variation works and what
doesn’t.”

Daniel nodded.

After a sip of water, Melissa continued.

“It also makes sense that something dark, something powerful
like that, would be written down and seized when the inevitable happens and the
wizard gets caught and brought before the Tribunal,” she added. “I could easily
see the Special Ops division ransacking a dark wizard’s home and annihilating
anything not nailed down. They’re a bit gung-ho like that sometimes.”

“That’s a fair point,” Daniel conceded with a brisk nod.
“Like you, I’m just a bit stunned by the notion that the Tribunal might have
kept such dangerous documents instead of destroying them.”

“They need their heads read,” Melissa replied with a shake
of her head. Her long curls fell over her eyes and she pushed the tendrils
behind her ears before continuing.

“But do you think Falconn got mixed up in this?” she asked,
her voice small. “I’m not saying we told each other everything—I know very well
that we didn’t. We were best friends, could trust each other implicitly, but we
didn’t live in each other’s pockets or answer to one another. I just…”

Melissa trailed off and shrugged, slightly embarrassed and
not too sure she wanted to finish the sentence. Daniel dipped a hand into his
pocket, brought out a few crumpled notes and left them on the table with a tip
to cover their bill. They stood and Daniel wrapped an arm around Melissa’s
waist as they joined the growing crowd of peak-hour pedestrian traffic.

“You just what, love?” Daniel questioned gently. “Just wish
he’d asked you for help? Told you what was going on? Not had this tragedy
happen to him?”

Melissa sighed, sadness and regret in the puff of air.
Finally, though, her grief for her friend seemed to be less painful than it had
been.

“All of them, I guess,” she admitted.

Daniel gently squeezed her side and pressed a kiss to her
cheek.

“He might have been protecting you,” Daniel pointed out.

Melissa threw her lover a smile and leaned in to the warmth
of his solid body, feeling safe.

“Maybe,” she said, “but it’s just as likely he thought he
could handle whatever it was he had fallen into and was surprised when he
discovered himself in over his head. I don’t think he could possibly have known
how dangerous this wizard is. More and more it seems like just too great a
coincidence to be anything but related. First Falconn being told about the
manuscript, then searching for it. The wizard who stole it using the powers and
ritual described within and Falconn being murdered in such a similar manner.
It’s all just too simple to follow.”

Melissa sighed again and was comforted by the steady, warm
presence of Daniel and his solid muscles pressed tightly against her. They
slowly ambled along the footpath, oblivious to the others around them.

“If Falconn was only aware of part of the problem…” Melissa
said. She paused for a moment, then continued, “I mean if he didn’t have the
whole picture, then he might not have understood just how dangerous this entire
situation had become.”

“So Ryder will hunt around a little,” Daniel reminded her
with a short pat to her ass. Melissa lifted her head with a grin and cast the
sexy man a quick, amused look.

Daniel returned her glance with one of such blank innocence that
she couldn’t help but laugh.

“Which gives us the rest of the evening to do one of two
things,” Daniel finished before she could come up with a suitable retort to the
grope.

Melissa laughed.

“Only two?” she teased happily.

Daniel bent his head and nipped the lobe of her ear and mock-growled
at her.

“Well, we could continue to talk ourselves in circles over
this knotty problem,” Daniel said with a perfectly straight face. He tilted his
head to the side and watched her, his gaze burning and intense. “If that’s what
you want to do, I’m happy to keep trying to pull it apart. But since Ryder will
be researching for us and making all those calls, I thought the other option
open to us is for you to come back to my apartment, share some dinner with me
and maybe stay for the evening.”

Melissa had been about to make a playful retort to Daniel’s
somewhat teasing comment, but then the ramifications and serious nature of his suggestion
penetrated her mind. Almost missing a step, she caught herself before stumbling
and looked up, utterly astonished, at Daniel.

The home of any Assassin was his sanctuary—his lair. It was
the one place in the world where he could relax and lower his guard. Depending
on the Assassin, some did their planning and strategizing there, working out
the nitty-gritty details of their kills. Others kept their home a true haven
and allowed the other aspects of their personality to flourish where they did
not have to be paranoid or keep their defensive mechanisms uppermost in mind.

Assassins rarely took others back to their true home. Once
the location was known, it was less secure. Even with the most discreet and
trusted of friends, a secret told too many times soon became common knowledge.
Despite the fact that most publicly known Assassins worked with the authorities,
and those who didn’t and weren’t as well known, like Melissa, held proper,
regular jobs, many witches and wizards still feared those who could and would
kill without guilt or regret.

Early on in her career, Melissa had needed to make a
decision whether to let her sideline become common knowledge and shadow her
home life, or whether to keep her contracted kills secret and remain outwardly
“normal”. After much thought she had decided that, while still an important
part of her magic and her being, her skills and work as an Assassin was not the
entirety of her life. She decided to maintain a public persona—that of a
liquidations asset manager—and keep her Assassin talents private.

Daniel, on the other hand, had chosen to align himself with
the authorities. She knew without even asking that this required him to keep
the rest of his life secret and utterly out of the public eye. Inviting her to
his home was not as simple as wishing to bring her into his personal space and
open up a side of him they had not yet fully explored. It proved the depth of
his commitment to the mission they were on and, far more importantly to her, showed
that this was not some causal fling that would be easily set aside when they
had discovered their answers—either sexually or in regard to the forbidden
manuscript and the murderer.

Effectively, Daniel was not only putting a weapon in her
hand should she choose to use it as such, but opening his safe harbor to her
and showing her a vulnerability she could not take lightly. It was akin to
exposing his throat to a hungry, wild beast in the hope it would not take a
bite out of it. Melissa let the silence between them stretch out for a moment
as she licked her lips and tried to think of an appropriate way to respond to
let Daniel know that she understood exactly what it was he was offering.

She leaned her head on his shoulder. Their pace had slowed
to a stroll, both of them happy to take their time and enjoy each other’s
company.

“You’re really comfortable with that?” she checked. “Taking
me back to your place? We could always go to mine if you prefer. I might have a
slightly excessive security system, but many people know where I live. I
wouldn’t want you to feel like you need to rush into this just to prove
something. I don’t want you to regret any of your actions with me—I can be
patient.”

They paused on a corner and waited for a set of lights.
Melissa lifted her head from his shoulder so she could watch as Daniel surveyed
those who stood around them. The calculation in his gaze and also her deep
understanding of his psyche let her know he was weighing them all until he was
satisfied that no one was paying undue attention to them or following them too
closely. Daniel placed two fingers under her chin and tilted her head until
they were staring fully into each other’s eyes.

“Do you want to come back to my place?” he asked steadily.
Yet again there was no inflection in his tone that would indicate one way or
the other the answer he sought. No hint of his private thoughts shone through
behind those pale-blue eyes. Melissa promptly decided to reply with the bare,
honest truth.

“Yes,” she answered simply. “I want to get to know you,
spend more time with you. I’m honored to be invited and didn’t mean to appear
as if I was unenthusiastic. I just know and understand what a big deal this is
and I didn’t want you to feel rushed in offering the invitation.”

Daniel smiled slightly. The thin crook of his mouth was—for
him—the equivalent of a broad grin.

“Well then,” he murmured in a low tone. Without any further
talk they came together, kissing tenderly, hungrily and passionately.

Someone bumped into Melissa, pushed her closer to Daniel.
They reacted instinctively and immediately. Daniel displayed a remarkable, lithe
grace and speed Melissa still found astounding but a testament to the level of
his skills. Within the space of a heartbeat, their positions were reversed,
Daniel standing between her and the large stranger who had knocked into her.

Both she and Daniel had crouched slightly, lowering their
centers of gravity and balancing themselves. Decades of training had them reverting
in a brief second directly into combat mode, ready to struggle and fight
against whatever faced them. Melissa moved her hand to the base of her back,
where she habitually kept her gun, but she had not thought she would need it
today.

The stranger, a tall, dark, curly-haired man, looked
startled and frightened.

“I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to bump into your girlfriend,” he
said. “But the lights changed and I assumed you’d both move forward. I didn’t
realize you were…um, busy.”

With that, the man ducked around them and crossed the road
with a group of other people. Melissa grinned, feeling faintly foolish.

“Well, aren’t we both a little on edge?” She huffed out a
laugh, poking fun more at herself than her lover. Daniel, however, shook his
head and made a small sound of humor.

“That would be embarrassing if it weren’t so sad,” he
agreed. “And I only just now realized my handgun is so very safely locked away
at my apartment. Do you want to pick up some stuff and meet me at my place?”

Melissa thought for a moment as they crossed the street and
returned in the direction of the Enforcer headquarters, where she had parked
her car.

“Do you have a ride here?” she asked. “Or do you want to
come back with me and wait for a few moments while I collect some things? It would
be no hassle at all to drive us both to yours.”

Melissa watched Daniel’s gaze wander the street around them
as he thought. After a moment he looked at her, caught her in that sharp, pale
stare before smiling again.

“I’m tempted,” he admitted, “but if we go to your place we
won’t make it back to mine. And Ryder will call on my home line to update us
with whatever he discovers. So regretfully, I’ll ask for a rain check on that
invitation. My car is safely parked in the underground park, so I think it
wiser if we go our separate ways and you meet me back at my apartment.”

Melissa chuckled and pressed a quick kiss to Daniel’s cheek.

“You’re going to madly rush home and do the dishes in the
sink, clear and wipe down the benches and run a vacuum over the carpet, aren’t
you?” she teased him. Her laughter deepened as Daniel drew himself up to his
full height and attempted to stare down his nose at her in disdain.

“I’ll have you know I vacuum every weekend,” he said
proudly. “I don’t need to rush and vacuum my floors.”

Melissa pressed her lips together to try to stop the
laughter. Deciding she’d made her point and it had been in genuine fun, she
kept silent.

Daniel used his security pass to unlock the garage door that
led underneath the building where the Enforcers and a number of other magical
agencies were located. A dozen underground levels of car park housed hundreds
of cars. They entered the lift and pressed the buttons for their respective
levels, Daniel using his security card once again to activate the lift.

They were alone in the lift and Daniel drew Melissa into his
arms. She went willingly. They kissed, Melissa immediately opening her lips to
taste his tongue, and shared a brief, intimate moment together as the lift
descended. As Daniel pulled back he recited an address and Melissa had to focus
her mind to memorize it. Usually such things occurred naturally for her, but
her brain had become muddled as she reacted to Daniel’s nearness and the
passion in his kiss that seared her to her soul.

After a second she repeated the address huskily back to him,
pleased that she could do so and not make a fool of herself in the process. The
elevator came to a jarring halt on the visitor’s level where Melissa had parked
her car. The doors opened and they both stepped forward to hold out a hand and
keep the lift from moving on.

“I only live twenty minutes away,” she said, “and you’re
probably no more than a ten-minute drive from me, though it’s difficult to
gauge at peak hour. Regardless, I should be at your place promptly.”