My Immortal Assassin (13 page)

CHAPTER 14

G
ray heard several soft pops from the other room. The medallions, she realized. The sound rocketed around inside her head. Every nerve in her body sizzled. Every muscle tensed. Durian remained completely calm. She forced herself to relax. Whoever had come in wasn’t kidding, and he wasn’t welcome, either. In the bedroom, the faces in the medallions along the walls shifted, and unless she was losing her mind, the colors intensified. Most of the ones she could see from where she stood contorted, as if the faces inside the circles of carved wood were shrieking.

Durian muttered something under his breath and the magic icing up her back and spine melted away, but did not vanish. Not by any means. The tracings on her arm and temple whipped into a frenzy of motion. This time, she didn’t ignore it. Durian might not care, but she was bound to protect him. She pulled.

The fiend who walked into the bedroom looked like a college student. He probably got carded a lot, Gray thought. The way he dressed didn’t help much. He had on faded jeans that hit low on his hips, a ratty T-shirt and a pair of leather flip-flops. His light brown eyes were, at the moment, focused entirely on her. Because she had put herself in front of Durian.

She was ready to kill the guy if she had to. More likely she’d die trying.

The fiend gave her a good long up and down, without once looking at her face. With his hands turned palm up at either side of his waist and a predatory grin in Durian’s direction, he said, “What the hell?”

“Gray,” Durian said. Was he ever anything but cool and collected? His fingers curled tightly around the top of her shoulder, sliding over to the nape of her neck. “Allow me to introduce Kynan Aijan. Kynan, this is Gray Spencer. She is—”

“I know what she is.” He stalked toward them. He stopped about a foot from her and looked her up and down again. Twice. Like she was naked. Gray had a lot of practice hiding her emotions, and she hid hers now. There wasn’t anything for him to get from her.

He was too close, but with Durian behind her, she couldn’t back up, not that she would have given him the satisfaction. A trickle of fear slid down her spine, but she cut that off. The guy was trying his damnedest to provoke a response. “Like I said, Big Dog, what the hell? Have you taken her to Nikodemus yet?”

Durian’s fingers stroked over the back of her neck. Kynan’s attention focused on that with a gaze that looked like it could melt stone. Pressure built up in her head. It was a light touch, but if it weren’t for Durian’s hands on her, she’d have said something very rude about keeping the hell out of her head.

The fiend let out breath and at last turned his attention fully to Durian. His lip curled. “Assassin. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“Back off.” Gray put a finger on his shoulder and pushed. Not very hard. She didn’t have a hope of getting him to move if he didn’t want to. Then again, she had a lot of magic at hand right now. Kynan took a deliberate step back. She wasn’t dumb enough to think he was worried at all.

“Human.” He said the word like it tasted bad in his mouth.

Kynan Aijan had the kind of power that reached out and grabbed you by the throat. The kind that could control you before you knew it was happening. “You’re a warlord, aren’t you.”

The fiend gazed into her face. “Mind if I ask whose heart you took?”

“It wasn’t me,” she said. “I didn’t kill anyone,” she said. Except she had. Just today. “Not for the magic.”

Durian’s fingers tightened on her. That was the only sign she got that he was tense. Psychically, his state was unchanged. “If she had done such a thing, Kynan, I would have killed her. You know that.”

“That’s a real comfort,” he said. He didn’t mean it.

Kynan looked her straight in the eye and just like that, he was a part of the connection between her and Durian. The impact took her breath away. Durian was cool and dark, fathomless. Kynan Aijan rocked her like he was nothing but heat. The initial flare up settled into something less than a bonfire, and it was just the three of them sharing the same top-level consciousness. She knew without any doubt that if he wanted anything more he could make it happen. At the moment she didn’t get any sense that he intended harm. Not immediately anyway. Durian’s hand on her shoulder relaxed.

Durian’s reaction helped her settle down. A little.

The warlord’s mouth twitched into a smile. “Look who you’re hanging with, human. He touch you with those hands of his? He kills with them, honey.”

“Kynan—” Durian said.

“You sure you want him touching you with his killing hands?”

“There is no need to be offensive.”

“The way I see it, Big Dog, it’s my only virtue.” The warlord walked over to the table and picked up one of the beers. He examined the label. “Someone needs the balls to tell it like it is.”

“Kindly put that down.”

He stared at Durian over the top of the bottle. “What for?”

“That is Gray’s.”

Kynan stopped with the bottle half way to his mouth. “Arrogant Bastard.”

Silence fell. The connection between them remained open. Kynan wasn’t even trying to hide that he was thinking about her body, him and rough sex. About Durian, too. In the same way.

“Nevertheless, warlord,” Durian said.

“I’m sure as hell not going to drink yours. No offense.” Kynan smiled. He looked adorably boyish when he smiled. He lowered the bottle and stroked the neck. “You were all over her. If I’d been five minutes later, I’d have walked in on you two doing the nasty. How’s she going to save your sorry ass after you get her knocked up and she’s seven or eight months along?”

“You misunderstand,” Durian said.

“I don’t think so. I felt your reactions from all the way downstairs. I get here and she’s this far from naked.” With one hand, he held his thumb and index finger a quarter inch apart. “Your hands were heading for her ass. What’s to misunderstand?”

Gray walked to Kynan. He stared down at her the whole time. The color of his eyes changed from light brown to bronze, and with that came a stronger rush of his magic. Her pulse thudded in her ears, but she didn’t back away. Neither did he. His level of sexual interest ratcheted up. Without saying a word, she held out a hand. He handed over the beer, and she took a slow drink from it. She played it for all it was worth. Savoring the taste, indulging herself in the sensations and making sure he felt them all.

She handed the bottle back with her awareness of Durian and Kynan crackling around her. “You can have that, Kynan. But that’s all you’re getting.”

Behind her, Durian laughed.

Kynan put down the beer. For half a second she thought he wanted both hands free for physical retaliation. She braced herself. But he faced them both again and moved way too close to her. He tipped his head to one side, exposing the side of his neck. Then he reached up with one hand and drew a finger down the side of his throat. A thin crimson line appeared on his skin.

Bright, bright crimson. Despite herself, she breathed in. The scent made her hungry deep in her belly.

The tension in the room went through the ceiling. Kynan reached out psychically as he snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her toward him. She pushed up on her toes and curled her palm on the opposite side of his neck to bring them closer at that point of contact between them. Behind her, Durian came close enough that his torso pressed against her back. His hand brushed over her neck and then she felt cool air on her shoulders, her torso exposed, the sharp coldness of Durian’s teeth sliding through her upper layer of skin. There. Just there. Her thoughts wrapped around his, following the darkness.

One of Kynan’s hands slipped between them and the next thing she knew her robe parted and his fingers were gliding down her body. The odd thing was, the warlord wasn’t thinking about sex as much as he was about the physical contact. He stroked her with both hands now, along the sides of her rib cage, her hips. She took in a long, slow, breath, drugged with the sense that she belonged here. At last. Home. Her hand fell away from Kynan’s neck.

Durian lifted his head, too, and warmed the tops of her shoulders with his palms. The touch sent her further into a catlike pleasure. With a quick motion, Durian grabbed the back of Kynan’s wrist and bit hard on the tender inside surface. Gray smelled blood.

A growl rumbled up from the warlord’s chest, but he didn’t move. The arm he had around Gray’s waist tightened. The image of another woman came to her. Petite with dark brown hair and skin darker than his golden brown. A witch. Sexual desire, but something else, too, that was at one and the same time twisted up with a longing to lash out and hurt and the need to be touched without violence.

When Durian lifted his head, Kynan said, “I’m too fucked up for her.”

This time it was Durian who pressed a palm to Kynan’s cheek. “She doesn’t hate you.”

Kynan pushed away from them both and dropped out of the connection without warning. He didn’t say anything for too long. Too long. “Not yet.”

He turned on his heel and headed for the door. He stopped before he got there. “Take my advice.” Kynan looked over his shoulder at them. “Go see Nikodemus before he calls you in.”

Durian nodded, pressing his fingertips to his forehead. “Thank you.”

The warlord nodded and left.

In the quiet afterward, Durian dropped his head to her shoulders. His lips moved softly across her skin. He, too, dropped out of their connection. “I am no longer in control of myself tonight.”

He left her there, standing in the bedroom with her robe untied, alone. She wondered if she would be able to sleep.

CHAPTER 15

About 1:00
P.M
.
A few days later. Octavia near Jackson Street

T
racking, Durian had told her, was an art consisting of equal parts instinct, experience, and deduction. Oh, and luck. Which he claimed came only after mastery of the first three. He seemed to be right. The easy assignment of the moment was tracking Christophe since she was familiar with both the mage and his magehelds.

Tracking involved getting herself into a meditative state and then following remnants of stale magic from Point A to wherever the end point might be. The specific task Durian had put to Gray was straightforward enough. Find all the places frequented by Christophe dit Menart without anyone knowing what she was doing. So far, she sucked at this. Durian had to help her a lot.

It was hard. Really hard. She kept losing the trail and picking up some other set of magical remains. She was getting better at reaching the state of mind-altered consciousness that let her find the wisps of magic, but only because she lost her way so often and had to reset herself. She was getting a lot of practice.

They weren’t going to do anything if she managed to find the mage. Too bad. She suspected, and hoped, that Durian wanted to know all the places Christophe holed up so they’d be prepared if they ever got authorization to take him down.

Meanwhile she was stuck learning something she wasn’t good at. It had, for example, taken her three days to end up at Octavia Street where Christophe, if she had guessed right, and probably she hadn’t, owned a condo. Somewhere around here. Or knew someone who owned or rented out here and liked to visit. Her first thought was that if he owned or rented here, then, what with the parking nightmare of most San Francisco neighborhoods, he’d have parking in the building. So. Her brilliant idea was to find him by checking the parking garages of the various buildings on the street.

So far, not one single trail led to the garage of any of the buildings on the section of Octavia Street she thought was most likely. Or, rather, not one single garage entrance yielded even the faintest evidence of Christophe. Not one single building entrance either.

Durian wasn’t helping her. Not that he should be. But still. She was frustrated by her lack of progress.

At the moment, she and Durian were standing near the corner of Jackson and Octavia. He was leaning against a large tree, arms crossed over his chest, the sole of one shiny loafer against the trunk. “What does this tell you?”

“That I’m wrong about him coming to Octavia Street, wrong about where he’d park if he did come here, or just heinously unable to pick out the evidence.” She blew out a breath. “Or all of the above.”

His mouth twitched, and she was so frustrated by her lack of success that she narrowed her eyes at him and glared. “You’re correct. Christophe has been here.”

Gray circled her index finger in the air. “Whoop de doo. We knew that. It’s a long street.”

“You’ve ended up here, though. Not several blocks away. Consider that.”

She scuffed her shoe on the sidewalk, knocking aside bits of debris shed from the tree. “Christophe is paranoid. Knowing him, he parks someplace different every time. There’s a limited area for him to park.” She looked up and met Durian’s steady gaze. “In which case,” she said, “I am an idiot.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Because I’ve only succeeded in finding one of the places he parked. He walked to wherever he was headed.”

“Ah.”

“He’d hide his trail. Take a different way every time. There has to be overlap.” She speared Durian with another glare. “If you call me ‘grasshopper,’ I’ll stab you, I swear.”

He laughed, and when she got over her shock, she still had time to see it did great things to his face.

“Oh, all right,” she said. “Let’s go trolling again. Find the perimeter and work our way inward.”

Durian pushed off the tree while she struggled to get herself into the meditative state required for her to pick up traces of old magic. This time, of course, she would also be looking for magic a trained mage had been deliberately obscuring. Fun.

Someone came out of one of the buildings about halfway down Jackson Street from where they stood, and that distracted her. The door banged closed behind the woman and the tall man with her. Not that it was so surprising that someone would come outside. It was a nice day. Not everyone had a day job at a remote office, after all. There were lots of parents around here and two parks within walking distance.

“Concentrate, Gray—”

Durian reacted first. He went vanilla and gestured for Gray to do the same. If he thought he needed to pass for human, then so did she, no questions asked. The woman walking toward them was a witch; Gray felt the shiver of reaction only shortly after Durian. The man with her didn’t resonate the same way. He reminded her of the magehelds who had attacked them at Muir Woods. “That’s a mageheld with her,” she said softly.

Gray stared as the woman continued down the sidewalk. She was close enough now that you could tell she was pregnant, but also beautiful, with long, straight black hair.

Durian leaned over to speak in her ear. “We should not stay.”

Her heart pounded so hard she couldn’t breathe. Gray took a step toward the woman. She was familiar, but that had to be impossible.

She didn’t recognize the mageheld with the woman. He had a hand to the back of the woman’s elbow, as if he were a boyfriend, not a bodyguard. Gray didn’t doubt for a minute that he was mageheld. She felt it. His eyes were aware, scanning the environment the way a good mageheld would do for the mage he was bound to protect. Besides the short hair, he was tall and good-looking. Strikingly so, and that meant power. He wore jeans, a blue button-down shirt, and a casual jacket, but then not all mages insisted their magehelds adhere to a dress code.

The witch’s black hair, fastened into a ponytail, hung over one shoulder, and when Gray looked into her face, her pounding heart drowned out everything except her disbelief about what she was seeing. She trembled. “No. It can’t be.”

“What?” Durian asked.

“Tigran lied to me.”
Emily.
“That’s my sister. She’s alive.” She shook off Durian’s hand and headed for the woman. She wanted to run, but she had just enough sense not to do that. Though she was vaguely aware Durian was following her, she paid no attention. “He told me she was dead.”

“Gray?” That was Durian’s voice. His magic was in her head again, but she shut him out.

Emily was as breathtakingly beautiful as ever. She slowed as Gray approached, and then stopped, watching her with a puzzled expression in her light blue eyes. Gray stared, trying to find a way for this to be real. Emily was alive. And she was pregnant.

So far, her sister hadn’t given any sign she recognized her but maybe she wasn’t close enough yet. And then her hair was red, for Christ’s sake. The last time they’d seen each other, Gray’s hair had been black and almost as long as Emily’s was now. The mageheld leaned in to whisper something to Emily.

Durian grabbed Gray’s arm, but she shook him off and kept going. In the back of her head she felt Durian using his magic to hide what they were. Good. Good, she thought, because Emily didn’t know what had happened to her. She stopped about five feet from her sister, wary, for the moment, of the mageheld.

“Emily?”

Gray’s sister cocked her head, a puzzled look on her face. The mageheld took a step forward, keeping himself enough in front of Emily that he could quickly act if needed. Even Gray, in her current overwrought state, knew better than to get too close.

“It’s really you.” She extended her arms but then let them fall to her sides. Durian took Gray’s hand and physically prevented her from getting any closer. Her voice shook but she didn’t care. “I thought you were dead, Emily. Oh my God, I thought you were dead. They told me you were dead.”

“I’m sorry,” her sister said, her smile slowly fading. “Do I know you?”

“It’s me. Anna.” For a moment, she was baffled by Emily’s lack of reaction. She touched her hair. “God, I know, I’ve done a number on myself, haven’t I?”

Emily’s smile returned, but it was tentative. Her fingers tightened around the orange leather bag on her shoulder. A diamond flashed on the fourth finger of her left hand, along with a matching gold band. She was married. The sister she’d thought brutally murdered was married and about to have a baby.

“I guess you never thought I’d ever be a redhead.” What the hell was wrong with Emily?

“I’m so sorry.” Emily took a step back, closer to her mageheld. “Anna, did you say your name was?”

“It’s me.” She searched Emily’s face. There wasn’t any doubt that this was her sister. “So much has happened. I hardly know where to start.”

“Obviously, you know me.” She shook her head, frowning. “But I’m afraid I’m drawing a blank. Where did we meet?”

“Where did we meet. What do you mean?” The past rushed back, rolling over her, drowning her in memories she’d kept locked away over the last year and a half of her life. Durian tugged on her arm, but Gray ignored him. “Emily?” Was she faking? Pretending she didn’t know her own sister? “I don’t look that different, do I? How can you not recognize your own sister?”

Emily put a restraining hand on the mageheld’s arm. “It’s all right.” The mageheld relaxed, but kept his attention on Durian and her. “I’m so sorry, Anna. But you’ve mistaken me for someone else. My name is Erin, not Emily, and I haven’t got a sister.”

Durian was holding a lot of magic, and he’d linked with her without holding back much. The markings on her arm and temple burned until Gray managed to shut down again. “Dammit, Gray,” Durian murmured.

The mageheld’s eyes widened, and Emily frowned. He pulled a phone from his jacket pocket and started pushing buttons.

“Put that away,” Emily said. She covered the mageheld’s phone with her hand, gently pushing down. “That’s not necessary.”

Gray’s heart shriveled to ash. She wracked her mind for an explanation that made sense. Emily had survived an horrific attack that day. Was it possible she didn’t remember who she was? “There was an…” Durian’s hand tightened on her. “An accident. We were both hurt and I had to… go away to… recover. Don’t you remember?”

Durian squeezed her hand hard enough to hurt. “I beg your pardon,” he said to Emily. “It’s a misunderstanding.”

“Your name is Emily Spencer,” Gray said. “We grew up across the Bay in Piedmont. Our mother’s a judge. Dad teaches medieval history at Cal.” She held out her arms again. “I’m your baby sister, Anna.”

Emily gave a breathtaking smile. “No,” she said. “I’m sorry, but that’s just not right.” Her eyes, worried, darted to Durian, who by now had an arm around Gray and was holding her tight. “I was born in Boston. I’m afraid my parents are dead, and I never had any siblings. I’m sorry.”

“Emmy.” Gray used the nickname she’d had for her sister. “Emmy, what’s happened to you?”

Emily touched her temple and grimaced. “I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “What did you call me?”

“I’m Andres,” Durian said before Gray could answer. “Andres Aguirre. So sorry for the misunderstanding.” He gave Emily’s belly a significant look. “My wife, it’s been hard for her.”

He squeezed her tighter when Gray twisted to look at him. His wife? Who the hell was Andres Aguirre supposed to be?

“Oh.” Emily darted a glance at Gray. “Yes. I see. I understand. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.” Durian kept a firm grip on Gray as he stuck out his free hand. He was doing a damned good imitation of a human.

“I’m Erin… well—” She gave another of her breathtaking smiles as she and Durian briefly clasped hands. The mageheld was a shade too late to stop the contact. Not that he would necessarily have dared. “I suppose you know that. It’s Erin dit Menart.”

Durian’s hand clamped down hard on Gray’s shoulder. He was fully in her head now, preventing her from saying anything. She had just enough of her wits left to understand the enormity of the blunder she’d made. She let Durian draw her away. He restored his psychic hold on her. God. Emily thought she was married to Christophe. She stared at her sister’s belly, and then the mageheld and felt sick.

Worse, she knew she’d endangered her sister’s life. This was going to get back to Christophe, if not from Emily then when the mageheld told him.

“You must think I’m crazy,” she said. “It’s just… the resemblance is just uncanny. You look so much like her. I can see now that you’re not.”

Emily’s shoulders relaxed, and she smiled again. The familiar sight broke Gray’s heart. “It’s quite all right.”

The mageheld still had his phone out, and he was watching Durian very carefully. If he called someone, Gray realized, it was going to be either one of Christophe’s bodyguards, all of which knew her on sight, or Christophe himself. Her mouth went dry at the thought of what that might mean for Emily.

“Let’s go, honey,” Gray said. She was cold inside.

Durian gave her a squeeze. “Sorry to have bothered you, Mrs. dit Menart.”

“It’s quite all right.”

They walked away, continuing past the building Emily had exited. At the next street, they walked toward downtown for several blocks before Durian hailed a cab. He pushed her inside and slid in next to her while he gave the driver an address in Tiburon. Tiburon was a city on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge from where they were now.

“I’m sorry,” she said as the taxi pulled into traffic.

He pulled her against him. At first, she was shocked he’d do something so… humane, but the contact felt good and she decided not to question it. “I understand it was a shock.”

“I thought she was dead. All this time.” She looked at him and actually took comfort in his stern face. “Tigran lied to me.” Tears burned hot in her eyes. She swiped at her face. No breaking down. She wouldn’t. “He told me she was dead, Durian, and I believed him.”

“Christophe surely told him to lie.”

“Of course he did.” She grabbed Durian’s wrist. She’d known all along she could never completely trust Tigran. She didn’t blame him for that. That day, she’d seen Emily lying in a pool of blood, and she’d assumed the worst. “She wasn’t pretending. She really doesn’t know who I am.”