Dead Drop (5 page)

“Palla.” Wallace this time. Doing that trick where she could turn a goddamned lion into a pussy cat. He didn’t like it. More, he didn’t like that he was the only one who could feel what she was doing. The others recognized the effect, but they didn’t react the way he did. And he did react.

He was right about her. She had some weird, twisted power that wasn’t like anything he’d encountered in the last millennium at least.

“Palla.” She was so, so calm. “Please stop this.”

He sucked in air, and Telos had the balls to ramp down his power even though Palla had enough on tap to melt metal. Wallace was working him hard, but he didn’t take his eyes off Telos. “You okay, Maddy? Wallace?”

“We’re fine.” Maddy sounded like she thought he was crazy to ask. Well, he wasn’t. Telos was new to Nikodemus and still something of a loner. Demons who liked being alone tended to have a loose hold on their sanity. Not to mention Telos lived with a human witch he’d knocked up, so he didn’t have much sense either.

“It is a necessary question before I let him go.” He kept eye-contact with Telos and knew he was spinning out of control. Control was an issue for him. He knew that. His years of enslavement to dit Menart had masked a lot of the damage done when he lost Avitas, but he was plenty fucked up regardless. “Telos Khunbish is a monster, don’t you forget it. He may look human, but he’s not. The reason he hasn’t tried to fuck you over is he knows I’ll kill him if he tries.”

Telos put a palm on the outside of Palla’s elbow and braced his other hand on the inside. “If you don’t let go of me in the next two seconds, I will break your arm. The old fashioned way.”

“You’re overreacting, Palla,” Maddy said.

She was right, but he wanted to punch someone. Needed to punch someone. He had enough sanity to know that if he gave in to the impulse he’d never get anywhere near Wallace, and he’d have to find someone else. He pushed away, hands fisted. Leonidas, maybe. Or Kynan. He didn’t want to involve anyone sworn to Nikodemus, but he might have no choice.

“I came here as a favor.” Telos was Nepalese or Tibetan, or something like that, and though Palla knew close to nothing about demons from that region, he sure as hell knew Telos wasn’t someone to mess with. “I said I’d come over and work with your witch even though it’s not my turn on duty, and you’re all bent about it?” He glanced from Maddy to him.

“Not a favor to me, demon.”

“Not cool. I’m telling you right now, you need to get yourself straightened out.” Telos’s human form said a lot about what he was. Big. Deliberately rough around the edges, Telos worked the look to his advantage.

Palla lifted his hands and took a step back. That weird vibe from Wallace increased to the point were it was making him itch. As per usual, he had no idea what caused it and why she wasn’t setting off Maddy or Telos. He just knew they were all way too settled down given that two minutes ago he and Telos had been ready to go at it.

“You should have warned me Palla had the hots for her.” Telos looked past him to Wallace. “Congratulations. I’m sure you’ll be very happy.”

“I’m thinking a June wedding.” Since they’d started working with her outside the group sessions, she’d relaxed a lot, let some of her personality shine through enough for even him to notice. Wallace had wandered over to one of the chairs and was sitting on the very edge, smiling at Telos while she controlled them all with whatever the hell it was she could do. “You’ll be my Maid of Honor, right, Maddy?”

With fake seriousness, Maddy said, “I’m there for you.”

“Yeah, that’s so fucking funny.” Palla stepped farther away. Maddy picked up the picture that had fallen off the wall. The glass was badly cracked.

“When you leave his sorry ass, you can stay at my place.” Telos headed for the couch. “Lys would love the company.”

“Thanks.” Wallace laughed like she thought the guy was genuinely funny. As if. Telos was the unfunniest asshole in history. She fluttered her eyes at Palla. “But ours is a forever love.”

Palla scowled. He knew he ought to be laughing, too. But he just couldn’t. “Fuck all of you.”

“See how much he loves me?” Wallace blew him a kiss. “He’s going to look so good in that purple tux.” Her magic, if that’s even what it was, pulsed through the room. Subtle as hell, but after all this time working with her, he recognized the pull. He saw no sign that Telos or Maddy felt what she was doing.

“Do not work me, Wallace.” He glared at her. “How the hell are any of us supposed help you if you keep interfering?”

Telos, on the couch now, sprawled out like he was at his own house, scratched his goatee. “What are you talking about? Can I ask that?”

His first instinct was
hell no
. But the question was in-bounds. The whole point of any of them being here was to find out what her deal was and to get her in touch with her ability. Maybe Telos was a better choice for making that happen given their weeks of failure. Whether Maddy cut him off from contact with Wallace or not, the woman needed to be in control of her magic.

Palla took stock of his state. All normal and fully fucked up, and this was one of his better days. Boo-yah. Fine, so Wallace was calming him down. That wasn’t a bad thing when he needed to seem normal. “Check it,” he told Telos. Psychically, he opened himself to the other demon and hoped he’d managed to get enough control over himself that he wasn’t in danger of getting set off again.

Telos reciprocated. Cautious to start, as he should be when he was sharing mental space with someone known to be unstable. Maddy knew better than to get in on the link. There was a lot a demon could do to a human without breaking the rules–Kynan Aijan being a master at skirting the rules. Since the demon had been here and left his handiwork behind, doubtless Maddy had personal experience with one of the kin fucking you up while coloring inside the lines.

Per usual, Wallace couldn’t tell what was going on. Without a blood link with one of the kin, she might never be able to make and sustain a connection like this, that was a possibility. The connection he had going with Telos meant now he
knew
the other demon didn’t intend any harm. A good thing, too, because Palla wouldn’t hesitate to thoroughly mess him up if he made even the slightest move against the two witches. Telos’s oaths to Nikodemus were in place and solid, along with a blood oath to the woman he’d hooked up with. Oh, and Telos was having full on no limits sex with the witch.

After they settled the issue of relative abilities and willingness to commit mayhem, he let Telos feel what he did where Wallace was concerned; that bizarre sense of
something is off
that he got from her when her magic kicked on.

Telos shot a look at Wallace. “The hell?”

“Exactly.”

“She’s doing that?” Telos said.

“What?” Wallace left the chair for the couch and sat on the opposite end from Telos. “What are you talking about?”

“You, angel.”

“Thank you so much. It’s all so clear now.” She opened herself to a connection with him. All credit to her, she was better at it than she had been the first time he’d been there when she tried. One hundred percent improvement, and she was still on the edge of giving up her stomach inside of five seconds of him bringing her in. He let go.

Wallace bent over, arms dangling between her legs. Since he was a lowlife, he wished she was in that yellow bikini. Telos, on account of being fully hooked in, shared the appreciation and the images of her by the pool, if not Palla’s lack of concern about being an asshole.

“Do it to Telos,” Palla said. “Make him feel like there’s nothing to worry about.”

With her head still between her knees, she said, “Nobody’s arguing.”

“Easy to fix.” Palla dropped out of his link. He got in Telos’s face again and popped him hard in the shoulder.

Telos shot to his feet, hands clenched. “You think I won’t take you on? Think again, asshole.”

Palla stayed in his face. “Eat shit.”

“Palla,” Maddy said sharply. “Enough.”

He gave Telos a look into the kind of mayhem he’d be happy to deal out and then, yeah, there it was. His sense of something being wrong with Wallace increased, and then came the now-familiar easing of his reaction to Telos. Through their link, he felt a similar reaction in the other demon.

Wallace couldn’t do jack shit for magic except for this, and after all this time working with her, he still had no idea how she did it. He just knew she was better at it now than she had been when they started working with her one-on-one.

He backed away from Telos, hands lifted, magic dampened. No sense pissing off Telos more than necessary. He faced the other demon. “See what I mean?”

Telos retied the ponytail of his long, dark hair and took his time answering. “Lady, that’s a seriously wacked ability you have going there.”

Wallace looked between them. “Am I supposed to say thank you?”

“If you want.” Telos shrugged. “It’s a fact.”

“Thank you, then.” Her smiles, the real ones, were part shy, part lit with joy, and always unexpectedly hot. Whatever. She wasn’t Palla’s type. He knew what he liked, and nicely put together as Wallace was, she wasn’t it. He went for flashy in his women. Though, come to think of it, she’d looked plenty flashy out at the pool.

He hadn’t cut his link with Telos soon enough because Telos gave him a shit-eating grin, and said, “Right. You just tell yourself that.”

“What?” Maddy said.

“Nothing.”

Telos laughed. “You are doomed, friend. Doomed.”

So what if Wallace was good looking? Nothing was going to happen. He wasn’t going to sleep with her because he only fucked humans who wouldn’t complicate his life. Wallace Jackson was nothing but a complication. “Anyone want a beer? Do you mind, Maddy?”

“We could use a break, I think.”

“Sure,” Telos said.

He could feel himself disassociating. When he linked with the kin the way he had with Telos, in tight like that, he always ended up worse off. Feeling the loss of Avitas like it was yesterday.

“I have Lagunitas IPA,” Maddy said to Telos. “And Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye. Any preference?”

“I’ll have the Hop Rod,” Wallace said. Palla snorted, and she returned his look. “Don’t. Okay? I am not in the mood.”

“I’m not curing your hangover later.” He pushed away from the wall where he’d been about to pound Telos into a pulp.

“Did I ask you to?”

He shifted his attention to Maddy. “That’s some serious sucking up there. Stocking Kynan Aijan’s favorite.”

Maddy’s mouth tensed. “I know you like the IPA, and I’m sure as hell not sucking up to you. Telos?”

“Lagunitas,” he said.

When Maddy came back with the beers, Telos reached for his and Wallace’s and handed hers to her like they were best friends. Palla sat across from the couch after taking one of the IPAs from Maddy. He tuned out the conversation, but if he wasn’t feeling the screaming horror of his loss, then he was fixated on Wallace and her magic. She had to learn. Had to. Had to. He was fucked if she didn’t.

She had power. He knew it like he knew his own name. She’d managed to dead drop him twice more since Maddy had started working with her like this. It wasn’t a fluke. But he needed her to be reliable. Maybe someone like Kynan should come in. That mofo would crack her right open and tell them what she was. The problem with that idea was they might never get her put together again.

“Palla?”

He looked up and died a little from the desolation of being alone. Maddy stood before him, hands on her hips. “What?”

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

He lifted his beer and found he hadn’t touched it. Alone. Alone. No one but him. Without Avitas, half of him was missing. “Why are you bothering me about nothing?”

“I’m walking Telos to the door. I need to talk with him about taking your place with Wallace.”

“You do that.”

“It doesn’t work with you two.” She let out a long breath. “You know it doesn’t.”

Fuck this shit.

“Can I trust you to behave while I’m gone?”

He leaned to one side so he could stare at Wallace. He got a rise out of her and Maddy both. “No.”

“Ten minutes. That’s all I ask.”

“I’ll try not to kill her.”

“Really, Palla.”

He stood and gathered the empties. This did not include Wallace’s Hop Rod since she wasn’t done with hers. He took the rest into the kitchen and set his untouched IPA on the counter and the empties in the recycling. He concentrated on getting himself straightened out. He could hear Maddy and Telos talking. Friendly but serious. Working out the details of doing extra duty with Maddy and Wallace. Maybe Telos would do better.

He put his hands on the counter and leaned over and fought–everything. Everything back to the way it was when he just didn’t care. He could deal with being alone. He had to, so he would.

“Hey.”

“What?” He didn’t look up.

“Can we talk?”

“No.”

Wallace joined him at the counter and reached for his untouched Lagunitas.

“That’s mine.” He liked women in dresses. Fucking Randi loved to wear dresses. Lots of women did. Wallace never wore dresses. Besides that neon yellow bikini, he’d never seen her in anything but jeans and a tee-shirt. She wasn’t dressy the way he liked. He liked women with long hair, too, and hers was short.

“Not any more.” She took a long drink that was full of
fuck you
. “I’ll get you another one if you want.”

“I want mine.” He met her eyes, and that river of quiet that ran through her flipped him upside down worse than ever.

She handed him his beer, and he took a drink, too, without wiping the mouth first. “Telos said some interesting things while you were busy ignoring us.”

“Like what?”

“Like maybe I’m trying too hard.”

“Yeah?”

She shrugged. “Yeah.”

He drank more beer and handed her the bottle. “Take the rest of the day off.”

She took the beer and drank. Without wiping the mouth of the bottle. “I don’t think that’s what he meant.”

“Why are you bothering me with this?”

She shrugged and handed back his beer. “I don’t know. Because even though you hate me–”