Darkness Splintered (DA 6) (9 page)

The madmen in my head went a little crazy with their knives, making my eyes water and my stomach twist alarmingly. But that was to be expected. Not only had I changed shape a fair bit so far today, but I’d yet to eat anything other than a few mouthfuls of bread. I waited until the ache eased and my stomach seemed less inclined to jump up my throat, then slowly rose. The chill air caressed my body, hardening my nipples and sending goose bumps skittering across my skin. But there was no sense of magic in its touch, nothing that suggested anything or anyone had been in here for some time.

“Jak? You there?”

“Right outside the loading bay door. You see anything?”

“No.” I spun around, my gaze sweeping the area. There was nothing here that prickled my psychic senses, either. “The place is empty.”

“The warehouse near Stane’s that we searched a few days ago looked empty,” he pointed out. “Until we fell through the damn floor and almost ended up a hellhound’s dinner.”

“Yeah, but we knew something
had
to be there because of the hellhound reports.”

“Lucian wouldn’t have hidden the coordinates of this place for no reason,” Jak said. “There
has
to be something – you just can’t see it.”

“Well, I certainly don’t want to find it by falling into it.”

But the truth was that might be the only way we would uncover what secrets this place might hold. I walked over and opened the window, but the bars were welded securely in place. As werewolves, we could have ripped them off easily enough, but again, that would only announce our presence to whoever owned this place. “How high can you jump?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Fairly high, especially with a run up.”

“Then go around the back. I’ll open that top window wider for you.”

He nodded, and disappeared. I ran back upstairs, and five seconds later he was scrambling in – sans my dress. I peered out the window. It was neatly folded next to the wall. “Why the hell did you leave it there?”

He grinned. “I may not be able to touch these days, but no wolf in his right mind is going to pass on the chance to look. Besides, we have to leave this place as we found it, and that means you closing the window and slipping back out in that other form of yours.”

“It’s bloody cold in this building, you know.”

He sighed dramatically, and proceeded to take off his cotton sweater. “You do spoil all my fun.”

“Sorry. But thanks.” I pulled it on. It was long enough to cover my butt, and was filled with the warm spicy scent of him. As I rolled up the sleeves, I added, “We do this the old-fashioned way – search every room carefully and see if we spring any traps.”

Which is precisely what we did. After more than an hour of walking up and down both levels of the building, we found precisely nothing.

“Damn it!” He thrust a hand through his dark hair. “There
has
to be a reason he hid the coordinates of this place.”

“Obviously.” I plonked down on the windowsill and rubbed my arms. “But maybe you need to be a sorcerer to find it.”

“Fat lot of good that does us when neither of us are.”

No, but Ilianna, while not a sorcerer, might be able to see what we could not. I hated the thought of dragging her here, but I really couldn’t see what other choice we had.

“Maybe we need to tackle this from another angle.” Jak crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall. “I could search public records, see who owns the place, and track them down. And in the meantime, we could keep a watch on the place.”

“A physical watch would be too noticeable. The area isn’t exactly a hive of activity.”

“What about Stane? He owns an electronics shop, doesn’t he? Couldn’t he get you a camera or something?”

Stane could get me a whole lot more than just a camera, thanks to the fact the shop was a cover for his black marketeering business.

“Good idea.” I glanced at my watch. We’d wasted a whole two hours and gained absolutely nothing – nothing except moving Mirri two hours closer to death. Frustration and anger surged anew, but there was little I could do but ignore it and keep on searching. I pushed myself off the sill and headed for the stairs. “Right now, I need to go home. I have to get to that damn meeting.”

He followed me. “You want me to drop you off, or are you going to get there under your own steam?”

“You can drive me, if you wouldn’t mind. Becoming Aedh drains the hell out of me.”

“Which probably explains why you’re so damn thin these days.” He held out a hand. “Sweater. Don’t want it wrecked.”

I hauled it off and handed it over. He studied me for several seconds, his gaze lingering on my breasts, then he sighed again. “Do you know how hard it is
not
to touch right now?”

I resisted the urge to glance down and see for myself just how hard it was. “Will you just get out the window.”

He grinned and jumped down to the ground. I slid the window back into its original position, then changed form and followed him out. Once the knives and my stomach had again settled, I redressed and we headed to the car.

He dropped me off on the corner of Punt Road and Tanner Street, then zoomed off to begin his hunt for the warehouse owners. I walked down toward Lennox Street, half wishing I’d borrowed his sweater again. The bite in the air was getting stronger, and a dress, however pretty, wasn’t enough to keep me warm.

I swung left into Lennox, then stopped dead. There were cops, firemen, and others everywhere.

And the old building that was our home was a half-burned-out shell.

Chapter 4

For several heartbeats, I couldn’t move, couldn’t think, couldn’t even breathe.

My home was
destroyed
. While there were no flames, smoke drifted lazily from several sections of the building and the air was thick with its acrid scent. Firemen were rolling up long lengths of white hoses, and there were both firemen and cops picking their way through the remains of the kitchen end of the building. The other end of the building, which housed both the garage and the bedrooms, showed some evidence of scorching on the bricks and on the half-open roller door, but otherwise, it seemed to have escaped any major damage – at least from the fire. Whether it had escaped water damage was another matter entirely.

Oh, god.
Tao.
He’d been home. He could be hurt, injured…

I pushed through the gathered crowd, then ducked under the police tape that fenced off a wide area around our warehouse building. A cop caught me before I got three steps.

“Miss, you can’t go in there —”

“I fucking live there!” I yelled back, and brought my heel down on his foot as hard as I could. He cursed freely, but he didn’t release me. “Damn it, let me go! I need to find —”

Hands gripped me, shook me. “Ris, it’s okay. I’m okay.”

I blinked, staring up almost owlishly at the figure that held my arms so tightly. Then it registered that it was Tao, that he was here and whole, even if a little singed. I threw my arms around him and hugged him fiercely. “Oh, thank god,” I whispered. “For a moment I thought —”

“For a moment there, I almost was.” His voice was grim. He glanced at the man behind me, and added, “She’s my flatmate.”

“She’s damn lucky I don’t press assault charges,” the officer replied grimly. “Both of you, get back behind the tape and stay there until otherwise advised.”

Tao slipped his hand under my elbow and guided me across the road, finding us both a perch on the old brick fence five houses down from our place. He didn’t say anything, just sat beside me, a brooding figure that smelled of smoke and fire and fear. It was that last scent that had unease stirring through me.

I’m not sure how long we sat there, watching and not talking. Long enough that night came in, long enough for me to get colder than I’d ever thought possible, despite having a man of fire sitting beside me. Or maybe even because of it. Long enough for the fire marshals to finally declare the old building safe and the police to unwrap the tape and allow everyone back into their houses.

Even us.

Without comment, Tao rose and offered me his hand. I placed my fingers in his, and he tugged me upright. His flesh was hot, and it wasn’t the natural heat of a werewolf. It was the heat of a man who was barely controlling the fire elemental he’d consumed to save Ilianna’s life – an elemental he was now battling for control over his own body.

Of course, both he and Ilianna had been present at the sacred site where the elementals had been created only because I’d needed their help to uncover information from a book my father had left me. Which meant that the battle Tao faced now was very much
my
fault. I should have stopped them from coming… should have done a lot of things. But I couldn’t change the past. I could only change the future.

And hope like hell that Tao won his battle.

My gaze raked the black, broken end of our warehouse home. Was that what had happened here? Had the elemental tried to wrest control from him again?

I very much suspected it might be.

As we ducked under the scorched roller doors, I noted what looked suspiciously like a handprint melted into the side of his Ferrari. My motorbike was safely tucked away in the secure parking lot near RYT’s, our open-all-hours café, but my old SUV was here. Luckily, it appeared undamaged.

The security door at the top of the stairs was open but undamaged, and water trickled out, a steady stream that tumbled down the metal steps like a mini waterfall. I followed Tao through the door, then stopped. The main living room was a goddamn mess. The walls, floors, and furniture had all sustained both smoke and water damage. Even the industrial fans situated high in the vaulted ceiling were damaged, the big blades bent and twisted by the heat of the blaze. The ceiling itself, though scorched, appeared relatively intact overall. It was in the kitchen where the fire had obviously started, because even from where I stood, it was easy to see that there was very little left except a twisted and blackened mess of wood and metal.

Thankfully, the fire hadn’t gotten anywhere near the bedrooms, although I had no doubt that even with all the thick doors closed, everything inside would reek of smoke.

“What the hell happened, Tao?” I said softly.

He wearily scrubbed his eyes with a soot-grimed hand. “What do you think happened? I lost fucking control again.”

“How?”

I rubbed my arms in a vague attempt to warm up. The wind blustered through the broken windows, stirring the ash and making paper remnants pirouette across the floor. The room was cold, wet, and stunk to high heaven, but there was nothing more miserable in the room than the wolf who stood before me.

“I don’t really know.” He moved across to the kitchen; a long, angular figure that was far too skinny these days, even for a wolf. Even his warm brown hair looked lank and unhealthy. It was as if his body was using everything it could to fight the monster that resided within. “One minute I was getting a roast ready for our dinner, the next I was standing in the middle of an inferno.”

I picked my way through the puddles and stopped beside him. “You had no warning of any kind?”

“Not this time.” His gaze came to mine. The fear and desperation in his warm brown eyes had my stomach flip-flopping. He wasn’t only losing the battle, but very near giving up. “It’s stronger than before. Stronger than —”

“Don’t say it,” I said fiercely. “Because it’s
not
true. You’re the strongest man I know, and the mere fact that you’re still here, still fighting this thing, proves it.”

He snorted. “You’ve known a lot of people who’ve consumed a fire spirit, have you?”

“No, and that’s the fucking point.” I glared at him. “If it
has
happened before, then those people obviously haven’t survived the merger, because there’s no record of it anywhere. But you’ve not only survived, you’ve retained control. Most of the time, anyway.”

“Yeah, but it’s the times I
don’t
that worry me. They’re starting to happen more and more, Ris.” He waved a hand at the ruined kitchen. “I don’t want to do this to either you or Ilianna, or anyone else for that matter.”

“But even when the elemental has taken over, you’ve never hurt anyone —”

“I hurt you,” he cut in. “And if not for Azriel, you’d have lost use of your damn hand.”

“That happened because I grabbed you. My fault, not yours.” I squeezed his arm gently. “And the minute I did touch you, you regained control.” And I’d do it again in a heartbeat, even if Azriel wasn’t around to heal me. What was a ruined hand when it came to saving a friend’s life?

“Next time it may not make a difference.” He took a deep breath, then blew it out. It was a heavy, frustrated sound. “I guess I’d better ring Ilianna and tell her what happened.”

“Good idea.” I glanced around the sodden living area. “There doesn’t seem to be much in here worth salvaging.”

“No. But hopefully the bedrooms will be relatively untouched.”

Hopefully. The doors still being closed was a good sign, at least. “You planning to stay the night?”

“Yeah. The fire burned out the security system, so I’ll keep watch until we can get it fixed.” He studied me for a moment. “What about you?”

“I’ve got a key to hunt down, and a deadline to beat.”

He frowned. “What deadline?”

I briefly explained what my father had done, and he swore softly. “Shit, we can’t seem to catch a break, can we? Not from fucking anything.”

“It would certainly appear that way.”

He hesitated, then said, “You can’t do this on your own, Ris. You need help – of the reaper kind.”

“I know.” I’d known it since I’d woken up earlier this morning. It had just taken me a whole lot of angst and arguing with myself to come to the conclusion everyone else had already reached. “I’m just not sure what to say, given the way we parted.”

“It’s simple. You need to explain why you were so angry, and he needs to explain why he did what he did. And then you both need to apologize and move on.” He half smiled. “There’s a world of people who are relying on you both, even if they don’t know it.”