BROKEN BLADE (17 page)

He shrugged. “I was sort of thinking about hanging around. If any work comes in, I can help you with it.” His shoulders moved in a restless shrug and he added, “Not going to be doing anything with Banner for a while. Maybe never. Dunno yet. So I’m at loose ends.”

I studied him from under my lashes. “Just what sort of disciplinary action is this, Justin?”

A mean grin curled his lips. “The best kind.” Then he shrugged and looked away. “Don’t worry about it, Kit. They aren’t coming after me and I made my point clear. All’s well and good. I’m just sort of…jobless.”

“Well.” I turned and stared at the empty parking lot. “As you can see, I don’t exactly have a bunch of people storming down my door, Justin. I can’t really see how hanging out here is going to improve your job prospects.”

“Oh, things will turn around for you, Kitty.” He watched me. “They always do.”

“Whether things turn around for me or not, that doesn’t mean I’m looking to take on a partner.”

“Not even for old time’s sake?”

I gave him a baleful look as I started up toward the door to my office. Halfway up the walk, I felt the shimmer of something skitter along my flesh. I recognized the odd presence —strong and female, full of magic. I’d felt this person before. It was the same woman I’d sensed last night, only I hadn’t fully keyed into the fact that she was female.

I’d been in too much of a panic to realize it then.

It wasn’t the were I’d been sensing off and on, either.

One glance at Justin told me that he’d felt it, too. “Any idea who that is?” I asked.

“Nope.” He smiled. “Hey, this is your place of business. I’m just here to…”

“Look pretty?” I offered.

“Well, until you want to me to do something else, I guess that will work.” He pretended to smooth down his jacket. “She’s female…I can tell that much.”

I lifted a brow. “
I
can tell that much, Romeo.” I went about unlocking the doors and something about the familiarity of it soothed the jangled mess of nerves inside me. I was at my office. A smart-assed friend was with me. Somebody with magical blood was loitering far too close for comfort. This was all familiar territory. And it was daylight. I was safe as long as there was daylight.

But Jude can come out in the day
—

Stop it
, I told myself, shoving that fear down deep inside, so deep, so far, I couldn’t even feel it, couldn’t sense it. If I couldn’t, maybe Justin
wouldn’t
.

The wards whispered away under my touch and I moved inside, stepping away from the door long enough for Justin to move in behind me before I shut the door. I reactivated the wards before doing anything else.

I wasn’t sitting defenseless in my office with some sort of magic thing out there.

“You can’t exactly expect her to come in if you have the wards up,” Justin said, a wry smile on his face.

Absently, I stroked my sword, staring outside, trying to find whoever it was. She hadn’t come close for me to be able to see her yet. Not in the parking lot. Not on the street beyond. “I…”

“Kit. This isn’t how you work,” Justin said quietly.

I turned and stared at him. “I know how I work,” I snapped, jerking my chin up at him. If I wanted to stay in the office with the wards up, then…then…

Shouldering past him, I locked myself in the bathroom and pressed my back to the door. I could do this. I could. I was
here
, right? I’d come in here, I had a blade on me. I’d left Wolf Haven. I’d done a job already and I’d faced Damon.

Damon’s not the problem.

Of course you’re carrying a blade…you go grabbing at them in the night like a scared pussy.

You left Wolf Haven to shut TJ up. You didn’t do it because you
wanted
to
.

That voice kept nattering over and over in my head. Fisting my hands, I drilled them against my temples in an attempt to drown it out.
Shut up shut up shutupshutupshutUP!

A moment of silence passed.

Then…a whisper…
You’re stronger than this…we
made
you stronger…go out there and prove it
.

An icy shiver raced down my spine and I dropped my hands. Shoving away from the door, I looked around. Okay. That…that wasn’t right.

We
made you stronger
?

If
I
was stronger than this, then I was that way because
I
had made myself that way. Granted, I didn’t feel very strong right now.

Groaning, I tugged at my hair and shoved off the door. Maybe I was closer to losing it than I thought.

* * * *

A few minutes later, I slipped out of the bathroom.

Without looking at Justin, I deactivated the wards.

Without looking at Justin, I settled behind my desk.

Without looking at Justin, I reached for the pile of mail that had built up.

Normal. I’d just pretend to be nice and normal and do nice and normal things. That’s the ticket.

That’s…

The shimmer of magic hit me stronger.

Rubbing my fingers together, I glanced up toward the window and mentally braced myself. “I don’t like this already.”

Justin had settled down on the busted-up couch and out of the corner of my eye, I saw him pull out his tattered deck of cards. “A job’s a job, right, Kitty?”

Grunting, I pulled out a knife and starting opening mail. Most bills had gone electronic decades ago, but the United States Postal Service wasn’t totally defunct. A lot of high magic users didn’t totally trust E-shit of any kind so they stuck to traditional methods, like mail or courier—that wasn’t a bad thing. Courier work had kept me fed for quite a while.

Another business enterprise that still relied on the USPS? Junk mail. A couple of flyers, a request for my presence at a very important seminar for small business types. Junk, junk and more junk.

Then something that burned when I touched it.

High magic in the mail wasn’t an unusual thing. Since you had to be human to work in most government jobs outside of Banner, sending stuff like this wouldn’t even catch the attention of a postal worker, but it seemed a little weird to waste a spell of this caliber when a courier would have gotten it to me quicker and made the spell unnecessary.

“What’s that?”

Justin had caught the magic coming off it already, moving my way as I leaned back to study it. The envelope looked like something out of another century—like two or three of them past. The handwriting was a broad, elegant scroll and totally unfamiliar. Tapping the edge of it against my desk, I met his gaze.

“It would appear to be an envelope,” I said.

“Ha-ha.” He held out a hand.

“I know how to handle my own mail.” I reached inside a drawer and pulled out a thin strip of leather. On it were a series of beads. It was one of the charms I’d bought from Green Road over the years and like most of the inactive spells, it didn’t do anything until it sensed my touch. Magic lasted longer when it wasn’t constantly wasting its energies. Colleen crafted most of the spells and charms I used and she keyed them all to my touch. Once I touched it, the magic in it hummed to life.

“Too much magic in that thing to rely on a charm,” Justin said.

I shot him a look. “Justin…this isn’t how I work…letting you do the job for me.” I waited until he backed off before I did anything else.

If I was getting a bad vibe from it, I’d let him handle it, but I wasn’t.

There was plenty of power pulsing from the thing, but it was neither malevolent nor harmless. It just…
was
. Odd as it seemed, the thing just pulsed with power, like it wanted nothing more than to get my attention.

I placed the charm over it and waited.

The beads on it glowed as the magic within flared. Finally, the beads flashed green, signaling it should be safe to proceed. If magic of the nasty, dark kind had been sensed, the beads would have gone black. Scooping up the charm, I dumped it back in the drawer and reached for the envelope.

Justin stood close by and I could feel the tension crawling off him. “Tone it down,” I muttered. He was freaking
me
out and wasn’t I messed up enough already?

Slipping my knife under the top edge, I broke the seal. Then waited.

Nothing but that steady pulse of magic. Okay. I sliced it open and set my knife aside, blowing out a breath. “I feel like an—” I started to say as I reached inside to pull out the document inside.

I never managed to finish the sentence because magic shrieked, splitting the relative quiet of the morning with a wail like a dying banshee.

Hurling the thing down, I shoved back from my desk and braced myself. Magic built around us, harder, higher, hotter. 
Tighter
—somehow, the feel of the magic grew
tighter
, wrapping around us like a bubble. Oh, hell, I hope that bubble didn’t pop with us inside.

I put myself at Justin’s side, noting yet again that the silver on his sleeves had started to spark. His dreads whipped around in an unseen wind. “What the hell is this?” I asked, but my voice was lost in the magic maelstrom.

“Old magic,” he shouted. “Not felt anything like it in a while. Just stay by me.”

I felt the odd, static warmth of his magic wrap around me—it had a strange, metallic sort of feel and made me think of blades clashing, shields flashing in the morning sun.

The two magics built and built—that foreign presence that I didn’t like at
all
and Justin’s familiar magic, like a giant warrior mantling over us, shield lifted and ready.

And then, as abruptly as it had started, it died. It didn’t
fade
; it just
ended
.

Justin cut a dark look my way and snapped, “Next time I tell you there’s too much magic to trust to a charm, will you
listen
? You know blades.
I
know magic and—”

I put a hand on his arm.

Somebody was coming.

I could hear her.

Felt each footstep like an echo on my soul.

“Not now,” I said, keeping my voice low as I shifted my attention to the door.

As one, as though we’d rehearsed it a hundred times, we moved back to where we’d been. Justin’s protections didn’t lower, though—that strange, mantling sort of shield stayed up and ready and I was damn thankful as I settled behind my desk and pretended to study the sheet of parchment in front of me.

The note on it was simple. It filled me with an odd sort of revulsion and curiosity.

Glad to see you’re still open for business. I’ll be there shortly to discuss a job.

I.

That was all.

I
.

Okay.

Who is
I
.?

The door opened and I looked up. Guess it was time to find out.

Chapter Thirteen

The woman standing there was nobody I’d ever met before and the power I’d sensed in her wasn’t even the tip of the iceberg. If she’d turned around and walked right out, I would have been just fine with that, too. She made my teeth ache.

Plucking up the piece of parchment, I held it aloft and met her gaze. “Your handiwork?”

“It is.” She glanced around and lifted a hand, touching it the door jam. “May I enter?”

The question bothered me. She wasn’t a vampire, but most people didn’t ask to enter a place of business…not if they weren’t vamp or vamp-affiliated.

Leaning back, I kept my hands on the arms of the chair, trying to get a better read on her. I couldn’t. All I could get was
old
and
powerful
. “You got a name…something other than
I
?”

A smile flirted with the corners of her mouth as she continued to stand there, just outside the door. “I do. You can call me Isidore.”

Her accent was strange. Okay,
everything
about her was strange. My gut was twitchy, tight. It wasn’t exactly screaming,
Don’t do this job
, but I was definitely getting the
proceed with all caution
flag.

“Well, Isidore,” I said slowly, keeping my eyes on her. “If you want to talk business, I guess you’d do better coming inside.”

The smile on her face widened and she slipped inside, closing the door at her back.

Her gaze moved to Justin.

I could see him from the corner of my eye. He was sitting on the couch, that worn-out deck of cards in his hands. Never play cards with a witch. Especially Justin. The card tricks are just the least of it. He flipped one into the air and it spun around, hovering lazily in the air for a good twenty seconds before drifting down and settling into place. Solitaire. His version of it. I’d seen him use similar tricks to cheat at poker and any other game. Nobody ever beat Justin.

He looked over at me, his gaze bouncing off Isidore as if she wasn’t there. With a sly wink, he nodded and then went back to his game.

“Is this a…business associate?” she asked, looking at me and canting her head to the side.

“Of a sort.” I pushed my chair back from the desk a little more and slouched a bit, lacing my hands over my belly. The pose might have looked lazy and careless, but it put my hands in very close proximity to the gun and K-bar I’d strapped into place earlier. I liked having them in very close proximity. Especially when she sauntered closer, her movements just a little too graceful to be human. The typical human didn’t move like that. They just weren’t that comfortable in their skin.

I wondered if the silver-charged ammo in the Eagle would be enough to hurt her. Silver wouldn’t kill a witch, but since I didn’t know what this woman was…

“Do you always study those who wish to hire you like that?”

I blinked. “Like what?”

“As though you’re trying to decide if you can kill them or not?” An amused smile curved her lips.

Surprised, and unsettled, I straightened in my chair, taking her in with even more caution. I was good at summing people up without them realizing it. I’d been doing it for years, but she’d just made me in two seconds flat. Was I
that
much off my game? Or was she just that good?