The Singer (13 page)

“He is very distrustful, isn’t he?”

“You have no idea,” Rhys muttered. “He’s paranoid. But then, since he’s been alive longer than either of us, I suppose there’s something to be said for that.”

Rhys was still checking things on the computer.

“What are you doing?”

“Just checking e-mail.”

“Electronic mail?” He’d heard Leo and Max talking about it and wondered, “Do I have any of these e-mails you talk about?”

The other scribe’s mouth lifted in the corner. “I doubt it. You hate e-mail because you say it’s impersonal. Though you text on your phone like a madman.”

Malachi pulled out the mobile phone Rhys had given him. Apparently, it was an exact replica of his old phone, including all the information and contacts on it, though Malachi had no idea how the man had accomplished that. He pushed a few buttons and scrolled through the texting conversations like Rhys had taught him.

“Texting seems to be a very efficient way to communicate.”

“It is.” Rhys kept typing.

Malachi touched Ava’s name, bringing up their conversation history. Scrolling up, his eyes widened, and he shifted in his seat. “That is… unexpected.”

“What is?”

He quickly turned off his phone while making a mental note to explore more of his very…
stimulating
texting history with Ava later. “Nothing. You had more books for me to read?”

“Yes.” Rhys reached over a hand and shoved a box toward Malachi. “More Chaldean. It’s a minor language now, but its similarity to the Irin language in grammar and morphology is startling.”

Malachi took a deep breath. “Sounds just fascinating.”

“It is.” Rhys ignored Malachi’s sarcasm, frowning at the computer screen. “Impossible.”

“What’s impossible?”

“There have to be records.” He scowled at the screen, obviously caught in his own thoughts. “There have to be. It’s the California foster-care system. There have to be records. There has to be… something.”

At the word “California,” Malachi’s head jerked up. “What are you talking about? What’s in California?” Ava was from California. According to Leo, she’d been born in Los Angeles.

Rhys waved a hand. “Just some leads I’ve been trying to follow regarding Ava’s background. We still don’t know how she’s Irina. According to everything we know about her, she can’t be.”

This was far more interesting than old manuscripts. Malachi shoved the box to the side. “I know it would be unheard of, but could an Irin have fathered her?”

“No.” Rhys seemed sure, but Malachi kept pressing.

“But is it possible? I know she is her mother’s daughter. I’ve seen the pictures of them together, but could her father—”

“No.”

“Some Grigori victims survive, Rhys. And biologically speaking—”

“Malachi, I’m telling you no.”

“Maybe artificial insemina—”

“That’s not possible either.” Then he cocked his head. “Well, I suppose it might be possible for an Irin male to… hmm… But in Ava’s case”—he looked back at Malachi—“no.”

Malachi let out a frustrated breath. “How can you be so sure? I know we’re not meant to touch human women, but we’re not perfect, either. You’re saying it’s not even possible that some Irin and Ava’s mother—”

“I’m saying in this case, it’s not possible.”

He glared at Rhys. “How can you know for sure?”

“Because—” He lowered his voice. “Because there was a paternity test, Malachi.”

He frowned. “A what?”

“A paternity test. To prove Jasper Reed was Ava’s father. She doesn’t know about it. The records were sealed, and her father and mother never wanted her to know.”

Malachi felt a flare of anger. “Why would he question it?”

Rhys sighed. “Reed regretted it, but there was a time when Ava was a baby, and his manager… His career had already taken off. He’d been successful before, but he was starting to attract worldwide attention. Awards were coming in. And—to be completely honest—Jasper Reed has always been a bit of a mess. Some of the
 
media suspect he’s bipolar. Some say he struggles with depression. He takes cocktails of drugs. There’s no doubt he’s incredibly talented, but I don’t know how
smart
he is. His manager at the time convinced him that Ava’s mother might be lying about the baby. Convinced him to ask for a paternity test. Her mother objected; it went to the courts. There’s a record of it, though I had to dig to find it.”

“There’s a record,” he repeated, furious at Ava’s biological father on her behalf. According to everything he could find out from Leo, the only support Ava had received from her father was financial in nature. Jasper Reed hadn’t held her when she cried or protected her in any way. Those jobs had belonged to Ava’s mother, and later, nannies and other household staff.

“Reed’s an ass, but the test proved he
is
her biological father. And Lena is her mother. They’re
human
, Malachi.”

“But she’s not.”

“Well, no. Clearly not.” Rhys took a deep breath. “We have no idea.”

Malachi frowned. “So what were you talking about earlier? Why were you looking at the foster-care system in California?”

Rhys frowned at the screen, then snapped the laptop closed. “It’s probably nothing, but I’m trying to find out more information about Ava’s parents. Her mother is fairly easy. Easily traceable history for over one hundred years. Her father, however…”

“What?” There it was again, that stirring in his gut. The awareness that there was something beneath the surface that he needed to find. It wasn’t unlike the feeling he had when looking at a blank piece of paper or clay tablet where he knew words had been. There was something on the edge of his mind that told him Jasper Reed, Ava’s do-nothing father, was the key to her identity.

“He’s a black hole, Malachi. He grew up in the foster-care system, but that’s as much as I can find.” Rhys crossed his arms. “And I can find a lot. But for him? Nothing. No records at all. It’s as if the man didn’t exist until he started waiting tables at a beach bar in Santa Monica when he was eighteen. No mother. No father. I can’t even find a record of the last foster home he was in.”

“No one just appears out of nowhere, Rhys.”

“You’re right.” He crossed his arms. “And Irina aren’t born to human parents. Irin magic always stems from the female line. And there are no human Irina, Malachi. Except…” He leaned forward. “There are.”

They fell silent as three scribes walked past, arguing in French.

“Does the council know about her?” Malachi asked Rhys when they had passed.

“No. I’ve been trying to keep it as quiet as I can while I dig through the online archives. I have a friend in Los Angeles who’s been making local inquiries for me. I’ve asked him to be discreet.”

“Is it just me? Why do I feel like the fewer people who know about her, the better?”

“It’s not just you.” Rhys leaned back but kept his voice low. “Because if there’s a way for some human women to become Irina, then that changes everything, doesn’t it?”

“It might not be just Ava.”

Rhys nodded. “Ava told you, and you told me and Leo before you… died, that Jaron had helped others with ‘her condition.’ Had helped other humans who heard voices. Malachi, if that’s correct, then—”

“There might be more human Irina out there.”

The idea of lost Irina living in the human world was shoved to the back of Malachi’s mind when he entered the ritual room with Leo. Both men wore nothing but the traditional linen wrap used during ceremonies. Malachi’s unmarked skin was stark in the shadowed room, which had been decorated with countless spells and enchantments dug into the soft rock. Some were scribed in different colors. Some surrounded intricate mosaics and paintings in vivid hues. The entire room, from the polished floor to the ceiling, was covered with Irin magic.

Evren followed them. He and Leo spoke words over the fire that was burning in the center of the room. Then Leo waved Malachi over, and the ritual began.

First, he prepared the ink, made from the ashes of the fire Evren tended every morning. Mixing the powdered ash with oil, he carefully poured the ink into an alabaster bowl that had been stained black from hundreds of years of use. Then he reached for the needle that Leo held out.

Leo was murmuring under his breath. “…and for the blessing of this power, handed down to us from our fathers. For the right use of our magic. For the balance of our race. We ask the Creator’s blessing on this scribe.”

Evren echoed Leo’s words with a few of his own, but Malachi heard little. There was only the ivory needle in his right hand. The ink in his left. He sat down on the stool with the small table before it and imagined in his mind the characters he would write. He closed his eyes and felt a slow curl of power building up from his chest, clearing his mind, and steadying the hand that had been shaking.
 

Then Malachi opened his eyes and began to write.

The first prick of the needle pierced the fog of magic that had covered his mind. It hurt. He dipped into the ink and made a few more rapid strikes the way Leo had shown him. It still hurt, but slowly he reached past it. The first character formed under his skin, glowing with a dull, pewter-like shine. Malachi started on the second. He felt the magic unfurling within as the pain reached a clarifying plateau.
 

By the fourth letter, his muscle memory awakened, and the magic took over.

Dipping from the ink to his hand, over and over again, Malachi steadily scribed the ancient words, calling on his angelic ancestors, his mother, his father, and the long line of Irin before them. He claimed his power in black ink as the spells circled the inside of his wrist, slowly curling like a snake around his forearm and crawling up his elbow. They twisted and shone as he marked himself, calling on the powers of Uriel, for longevity. On Rafael for swift healing. He harnessed Mikhael’s magic for swift hands in battle and Ariel’s for protection from blades.
 

Malachi focused on the oldest of the Irin spells, those given to the earliest scribes by the Forgiven. Other, more nuanced, magic could come in time. The power flowed over and through him. His skin was alive with it. His hand never wavered.
 

Behind him, he felt Leo’s hand on his shoulder, his brother sharing the magic and grounding him as he wrote. He took deep, steady breaths that Malachi copied when he realized he was holding his own breath, gritting his teeth against the constant pain.

And there
was
pain.

Through the endorphin rush and the magical high, Malachi could feel the sharp ache as his skin closed around the ink, red and angry from the ivory needle.

He didn’t stop.

Finally, Leo squeezed his shoulder and leaned down.

“Finish this spell, and then enough, brother.”

Malachi blinked, not halting in the repetitive tapping that dug the needle into his flesh. “Enough?”

“It’s been seven hours, Malachi. That’s enough.”

“Not finished…” He knew—an ancient, aching part of him knew that this magic only touched the edge of what he’d once owned. He wanted more.
 

More power.

More strength.

More.

“Enough.” Leo squeezed again, and Malachi finally paused. “Enough, brother.”

“Enough for now,” Malachi said, finishing the last character on a spell that he knew would help him see more clearly through deception.

“Fine.” Leo sounded amused. “Enough for now. And you better not eat anything for at least a day. You’ll be sick from it. It’s well past midnight. Go lie down and let your system even out.”

Malachi knew what he needed and, though his skin was still bloody and raw, he’d never wished more fervently that his mate was nearby.

Evren must have come back to the ritual room sometime in the previous hours. He took one look at Malachi’s expression and raised an eyebrow.

“Shower, then lie down. Leo’s right. You’re flush with magic. How do you feel?”

Malachi’s voice was rough. “Strong.”

And hungry. He’d never felt more hungry.

He rose and put one hand on the wall to steady himself. His left arm ached where his new
talesm
shone, glowing in the candlelight. The spells had reached halfway up his arm before Leo stopped him. He slowly walked toward the door, leaning against the wall for another moment to let a wave of dizziness pass.

Leo laughed and slapped his right shoulder before he hefted an arm around Malachi and led him toward his room.

“This, my brother, is as close to intoxicated as we get. Enjoy.”

All Malachi could think was he’d enjoy it a lot more with his soft mate under him.

He managed to make it into his room and get cleaned off before he fell into bed, exhausted, wired, and aching.

“Come to me,” he whispered before he fell into dreams.

She was there when he opened his eyes. The fog lifted just enough to reveal her form, standing on the edge of the dark wood. The misty air nipped at his bare skin as he ran to her. She must have heard him a moment before he reached her, because she was already turning and her mating marks gleamed gold in the low light.