Books by Maggie Shayne (331 page)

“Of course I can forgive you. Just... Gods, just tell me, where is he? Is he near?”

She pulled free of him, turning away. It was too painful to have him hold her so fiercely now, when he’d only moments ago admitted that his feelings for her were no longer what they had been once. “I don’t know for sure. But. . . that woman, Arianna, who came here looking for me, she is his wife. So if she is near, he must be as well. When you first mentioned her name, I was still disoriented. Confused by the drugs that were still polluting my blood and my mind. It was only much later, when I was clear headed that I remembered the rest. I didn’t tell you and I should have, Natum. I just—I don’t want them brought into this situation. I don’t want that bitch Puabi to have another chance to take my son from me.”

“She’d have to kill me first,” he muttered.

Nidaba stared up at him, and a flutter of doubt skittered through her mind. What if she was wrong? No. She wasn’t wrong. Eannatum would not let her down again. He would not harm her, or harm his son. Not deliberately, at any rate.

But he could still manage to break her heart. Because it was completely in his power to do so, all over again. She had been a fool then, hadn’t she? She had done such a thorough job of convincing herself that she hated him, that she had forgotten to stop loving him. And now that the hatred she’d tried to make real had fallen away—as any false notion had to do in time—all that remained was the love. The desperate, hopeless love of a woman who had vowed never to feel its power again.

The problem was, she had never stopped. Not really. She had become a woman of stone. Granite-hearted and cold. Fierce and frightening. She had nearly killed poor Arianna when she perceived the woman as a threat to her son. Because her Nicodimus was the only person Nidaba had allowed herself to love. And the only part of Eannatum she had left.

But Eannatum was here, alive and within her reach. She loved him in spite of her determination not to, and in spite of her certainty that they could never make it work. Her, with her love of freedom and her need to relish her immortality to the hilt. Him, with his need to hide what he was and live a make believe life as a make believe mortal.

She had never been more afraid in her life.

The dog stretched slowly, pushing her forepaws out in front and arching her back in a luxuriant manner. Then she turned and padded almost happily out of the room.

Sighing, Nathan looked at the portrait that hung above the mantel. “Four thousand years’ worth of secrets and revelations,” he said. “All in the space of the past few days. Gods, but I think it’s a bit much even for a once great king to deal with.”

“I feel we’ve been weathering a storm, Natum. A fury. And this is only the eye. I fear there’s far worse ahead.”

“This time,” he promised, “whatever comes, we’ll face it together. Openly and honestly. If nothing else, Nidaba, we owe each other that. Agreed?”

She nodded. “Agreed.”

“Good.” Then he glanced down at his watch and frowned. “Sheila should have called by now.”

“How did the dog get in here?” Natum asked a few minutes later.

Lifting her brows and her shoulders at once, Nidaba shivered. “She just... walked in before.” She smiled at the great beast, who had bounded back into the room and was dozing now near the hearth. She looked none the worse for wear.

“Or someone let her in.” Bending down to the animal, Natum scratched her head. “Who was it, girl? Hmm? Was someone here?” The dog opened her eyes, and appeared to arch the brown spots above them quizzically.

“Natum, really. If there had been anyone around, this beast would have torn out their throat. I didn’t hear so much as a growl.”

“Do you feel that?”

Blinking, Nidaba lifted her head, forced herself to be mindful of her senses, instead of just her emotions. “There’s... a draft.”

“Dammit,” Natum said, shooting to his feet. “Someone’s been here!” He grabbed Nidaba’s arm with one hand, drew his dagger with the other.

Nidaba yanked her torn skirt aside, and pulled her own dagger from its sheath with a deadly hiss.

“Stay behind me,” Natum said softly.

Together, they moved through the ground floor of the large house. It seemed utterly empty. Utterly silent. More empty and silent than it ever had, Nidaba thought. It was a heavy silence, a living one. Like a shroud, invisible, but weighty and covering the entire place.

They walked through the dining room, stepping lightly, searching every corner, every shadow as they moved into the kitchen beyond. Nidaba sent a nervous glance toward the cellar door, recalling what had happened there so recently. But it was closed tight. Not gaping wide as it had been before.

As she turned and started forward again, though, she saw that the back door, which led outside, stood wide open. The cool autumn breeze blew in, bringing scents of the ocean, of decaying leaves on its crisp biting air.

Pulling her behind him, Natum stepped into that open doorway and looked outside. And then he went still.

“Please,” he whispered. “Not this . . .”

His words jolted her, and she peered past him ... and saw Sheila, lying on the walkway just beyond the door, a spiderweb of blood on her forehead.

“Sheila!” Nidaba shouldered past Natum, racing forward, falling to her knees beside the woman. Gently, she lifted Sheila’s head and stared down at her face.

“Damn you, Puabi!” Natum roared behind her. “Damn you to hell! First my son, now my friends! What the hell do you want from me!” He was shouting at the sky, fists clenched until his knuckles were white. “I’ll kill you for this, by the Gods, you know I will!” The wind picked up, and gnarled, dark cloud fingers reached in to claw at the face of the moon.

“Natum—”

“How could she have found them, Nidaba?” he shouted, slamming one of his fists into the side of his house so hard that the brick he hit crumbled with the force of the blow. “How could she have found them?”

“Natum.”

“And George! Jesus, Nidaba, where the hell is George?”

“Natum! ”

He looked down at her, his face tortured.

“She’s alive, Natum. We need to get her to a hospital. The rest—we can figure the rest out on the way.”

Natum scrambled down the steps, leaned over Sheila, and pressed his fingers to her throat, sighing in relief first at the warmth of her skin and then at the thrumming beat he felt beneath it.

Her eyes fluttered open. “Sheila,” Natum whispered, his voice tight and hoarse. “Sheila? Can you hear me?”

“She ... she ... she ...”

“All right, all right.” He held her shoulders gently as Sheila struggled to sit up. “Be still now. Just relax and take a breath. Where are you hurt? Can you tell me that?”

Blinking him into focus, Sheila stared up at him. “Nathan?”

“Yes. It’s me. You’re safe now. Just tell me—”

“Put me... into the sea, Nathan,” she whispered, a tear squeezing from the corner of her eye, “with Lisette.”

“Sheila, no. Don’t talk like that. Come on, you’re going to be fine, I promise you,” Natum said desperately. “Just tell me where you’re hurt. And... and where is George?”

Sheila’s eyes widened, and she sucked in a sharp, painful breath. “George! Oh, God,
George!”

“Calm down. It’s all right. Just—”

Sheila’s hand closed tight around Natum’s, and she pulled herself up a few inches from the concrete walk. “She ... went after ... George!” She managed to force the words out, each one seeming to cost her dearly. Then she let go, fell back again, exhausted.

Nidaba pressed her palm to her mouth to stop herself from crying out. Gods, not that! Not George in the hands of that horrible, cruel woman! A child. He was only a little boy, no matter what he looked like. A mere child.

And Nidaba knew how little regard Puabi had for the innocence of a child.

“Save him.”
Sheila’s words came on a long, slow breath. Her eyes fell closed, and she didn’t draw another.

“Sheila?
Sheila?”
Natum’s voice broke. He felt for her pulse again, searched her neck, then her wrist, then lowered his head to her chest to listen there, but the look on his face told Nidaba he heard no answering beat. “Sheila, dammit, no!” Lifting her, he held her gently to his chest, bowing over her, rocking her in his arms.

Nidaba closed her hand on his shoulder. “There’s no time for this now, Natum.” Her own voice was thick with tears. “She’s gone. She’s gone now. Let her go.”

Sheila’s hand had fallen open, and a slip of paper lay within it. Nidaba picked it up, and read the line written there.

“Everything you love,” was all it said.

But she understood.

She crumpled the note in her fist, imagining it was Puabi’s heart she was crushing.

Running back up the steps and into the house, Nidaba searched the kitchen and finally spied Sheila’s old raincoat hanging from a peg near the back door. She took it, and walked outside. Natum was just as he had been before. Sitting on the walkway, holding Sheila in his arms, rocking her.

“Lay her down, Natum. We must take care of her. We don’t want George to come upon her here, like this.”

Nodding, Natum got to his feet, lifting Sheila’s body up with him. Nidaba gently covered her with the raincoat. And side by side, they began walking, each of them knowing instinctively where they were going.

Sheila was an illegal alien with no family. Questions would be asked. It would be best for all concerned if they simply honored her final request. And that was what they did.

Her body between them in the small boat, they rowed out among the gentle swells of the sea. “Just a sheila from Down Under,” Natum muttered, leaning down, kissing her cheek. “Born in the bush, and raised with the joeys.”

Nidaba pressed her knuckle to her lips, but the sob escaped all the same. “You were so good, Sheila. Such a rare, and precious person. Go now, to the light. Find your peace, your friend, your purpose.”

Each of them at one end, they lifted the woman’s body, and lowered it gently into the water. They let go, and Sheila sank slowly out of sight.

Natum reached out, wrapped his arms tightly around Nidaba, and held her hard. She cried unashamedly, silent tears that fell softly for the sake of his pain, and for the loss of a woman she’d cared for in spite of herself. She felt Eannatum’s shoulders shuddering with emotion. He held her so hard she thought if she were an ordinary woman, he would have crushed her bones.

Then he let her go, all at once, and turning, rowed rapidly back to shore. She’d never seen him look so angry. No tears. He was too furious to shed them, she thought. Perhaps they would come later. But now there was only rage. And she pitied Puabi if Natum could get his hands on her now. Because he wasn’t the quaint mortal New Englander Nathan King anymore. He was King Eannatum at his most dangerous.

He held her hand as they climbed out of the boat, and even as they started toward the house, he began calling for George.

Nidaba raced along beside him, determined not to leave his side even for an instant. She wouldn’t give Puabi the chance to murder him as well.

“Everything you love,” the note had said.

It could have been directed at Natum. But Nidaba didn’t think so. Puabi must have been watching them, somehow, when they put George and Sheila into the car, and then she followed them, just waiting for her chance. She must have seen the affection between Nidaba and Sheila when they’d exchanged that emotional good-bye. And she wanted to destroy everything Nidaba cared about.

Everything.

She intended to take away everything Nidaba loved. And she had only begun.

Something brushed Nidaba’s skirt as she tramped through the woods beside Natum, and she looked down to see the big dog, loping along and looking almost concerned, if a dog could manage such a thing. Nidaba bent down and rubbed her head. The dog whined softly and nudged Nidaba’s hand.

“Find George,” Nidaba whispered. “I know you can do it. You find him, Queenie. Go on. Find George!”

With a soft woof the dog ran ahead.

Midnight.

Nathan was exhausted, filthy, damp with sweat, and chilled to the bone. His legs were scratched and bleeding, and Nidaba was in worse shape than he was. And yet they’d found no sign of George.

The dog paced the house, inconsolable, it seemed. She kept wandering from room to room as if looking for her beloved friend but unable to find him. Whining in a deep, plaintive tone, she would look from Nathan to Nidaba, as if asking what they planned to do about this. It was heartbreaking. The Rottweiler finally lay down near the fire, likely as exhausted as Nidaba and Nathan were.

“There’s nothing more we can do,” Nidaba told him for the tenth time. “Nothing mundane, at least. By the Gods, Natum, have you nothing in this house that we can use for divining? No cards, no board, no crystal balls?”

“No.” He said it softly. “I never was much for scrying or... divination.”

“Sorry excuse for a Witch then, aren’t you?” She tried to make her tone teasing, light, he knew, but there was no lightening his mood. He sat in a chair by the fire, slumped and miserable. “If she had intended to kill him, Natum, we would have stumbled upon his body by now. Or found it awaiting us at the door. She is attacking us, trying to cause us as much pain as she possibly can. She would have made sure we knew it if George were dead.”

He nodded slowly. “Exactly. And she knows that hurting him, making him suffer, will cause us even more pain.”

“No. She’s using him, Natum. She wants something. And all we can do is wait for her to tell us what it is.”

“I dislike waiting.”

“You always did.”

He looked at her and realized he was being an ass. She had come to love George too, in the short time she’d known him. And Sheila as well. He stretched out a hand to touch her cheek where a long, curving scratch marred its perfection. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, Natum. This is not your fault. It’s me she wants.”

But it
was
his fault, and he knew that with sudden clarity. Nidaba was right, and had been all along. He couldn’t live a lie, pretend to be a mortal to escape the violence of his existence. It didn’t work that way. What he was ... followed him. And brought its violence to those he loved.

“We should shower,” Nidaba said. “Clean up. Eat a solid meal. We can’t sleep. It wouldn’t be safe, not even one at a time. But we need to be strong. To be ready. And we need to keep busy if we’re to stay awake.”

“I agree.”

“Then?”

He nodded and got to his feet. Taking her hand, he led her up the stairs.

There was no time for passion, nor could he think of pleasure when George was out there somewhere. Alone and probably terrified. He stood watch while Nidaba washed the briars and thistles from her hair. Then she got dressed while he took his turn in the shower. The door remained open the entire time, neither of them willing to risk the other being out of sight for a moment.

By the time they finished, their many scrapes and wounds were nearly all healed. The natural regenerative processes that were a part of their immortality had done their work. Nathan looked at the fading scratches on his arm, the one on Nidaba’s cheek, now only a pale pink streak, and shook his head. “It never stops amazing me, though I should be long used to it by now.”

“Being used to it doesn’t make it any less amazing,” she said softly as he toweled off and began to dress. “You never told me, though. How did you first discover the truth ... of what we are?”

He hesitated for a moment. He’d pulled on a clean pair of jeans and was in the process of sliding his belt, with the dagger and sheath attached, through the loops. Nidaba had curled catlike on the foot of his bed, and a distant sadness shadowed her eyes.

“It was Puabi.”

“Of course it was.”

“You must understand, she was not an immortal. But she had learned about our existence.” He finished lacing the belt and reached for a shirt.

“Even when we ourselves didn’t know what we were,” Nidaba muttered, shaking her head.

“Yes, even then. It all came out a year after your... your death—” He closed his eyes briefly, experiencing a stab of pain even now at the memory. “After your death was reported to me,” he said, completing the sentence this time. “I had been angry at you for leaving me. I’d thrown myself into my rule, my duty, almost lashing out at you in the process. But this was different. Believing you dead was a far, far different thing.”

She nodded. “You hated me for a time, or tried to. Just as I tried to hate you.”

“Yes, I guess I did. But when they told me you’d burned in that fire ... I fell into a deep melancholia. Instead of eating the meals that were served me I stared at them and felt ill. Instead of sleeping, I haunted the palace halls at night. Sometimes I would even slip away from the palace, without guards or escorts, and go to our secret oasis on the far side of the river and just sit in silence for hours.”

He tucked his shirt in, fastened his jeans, buckled his belt.

She turned halfway, her face in profile, moonlit on one side and shadowed on the other. “I’m sorry you suffered because of me.”

“I didn’t suffer a tenth what you did, Nidaba. But I did suffer. I knew you’d had a boy with you, that he had been killed as well. And though I couldn’t be certain, I suspected he was my own son. I... I wanted him to be. And I spent all my waking hours dreaming of how things might have been had I married you instead of Puabi. How the palace’s grim halls would have been filled with the laughter of my son and my beautiful wife.”