Dead Drop (9 page)

“My money’s not good enough for you?”

“No.”

“It’s the same as everyone else’s.”

She tipped her head back until it touched the window. Her chest was tight. She wished she’d stayed quiet. It wasn’t too late to take it all back and be safe. Except, damn it, he wouldn’t have asked her if there were anyone else. He wouldn’t. On his list of people to ask for help, she had to be near the bottom, if not dead last. “I mean, no, you are wrong. If you think for some insane reason you need my help with this, then all right. I’ll help you. But I won’t take money for something I’d do for anybody.” She looked at him, but it was dark, and all she could tell was that he was listening. “If you want to pay my expenses, fine. That’s fair. I’d be okay with that.”

He settled in his seat. “All right, then.”

Wallace touched his arm, and he flinched. Okay, well, she wouldn’t want him touching her either. That was fair, too. “When did it happen?”

He stared out the front window. “Winter 1505.”

“Five hundred years?”

His attention snapped to her. His lips thinned, and his eyes glowed enough that her spine turned to ice. “Fuck you, human.”

She held his gaze. “A year ago, I didn’t know demons existed. Or witches. So give me a break.”

“Why do you think it’s been that long?” He stared straight ahead again, and she got a sick feeling he was about to tell her something she didn’t want to know. There was only one reason for that, and it made her hollow and sick. Five hundred years. “You weren’t free.”

A mageheld demon was a slave. There wasn’t any other word for it. If you were mageheld, you did whatever the mage or witch told you to do. No matter what. You had no will of your own. No freedom. No control over what happened to you. How could she not help him?

One thing she’d learned early in her work with Maddy was that demons who’d been mageheld didn’t like to talk about it. They’d be fine, and something would happen to remind them, and it was like watching scars turn back to open wounds. She was watching that happen to Palla. There was no blood, but he was bleeding right in front of her.

“It’s been a year since dit Menart died, and I got my freedom. A year. But it took me until now to find out where she is. Sorry if that doesn’t meet your expectations.”

“That isn’t–” But she wasn’t going to argue with him about this. He didn’t need her giving him a hard time about something as horrific as this. “I said I’ll help you.”

He didn’t say anything for a while, but she did get another stink-eye from him. “You have to take the money.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yes.” He started the car, on this quiet side street where most everyone was home and if not in bed, then getting ready. They had no idea there was any such thing as demons.

“Why?”

“We do this, I don’t want you worrying about your fucking job or whether it’s going to take longer than whatever vacation you have coming. I’m not going to wait for your time off to get approved. I don’t want you stressing over paying your goddamned bills or taking the fucking bus home because you can’t afford a car with your bullshit job.”

She slouched on her seat. “Excuse me for not making enough money.”

He glared at her, and his glittering, unhuman eyes were hard. “I will have two million in an offshore account for you by morning.”

“I thought you said half now and half after.”

“Fuck that. If we fail, you won’t be around to spend it. And I won’t be around to be pissed off about it.”

“There’s a comforting thought.”

He made the turn onto the main road. “I don’t want to owe you any favors. When this is done, I walk away and we never have to see each other again.”

She waved a hand. “You’ll just make sure I get killed by the end.”

Palla went dead silent. She couldn’t tell if he was doing anything with his magic, but she could tell he was pissed off. She didn’t need a link with him to know that. If he’d said something like that to her, she’d be righteously pissed. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

He took the next right and parked in the first available spot.

“Now what?”

He turned off the car. Gold and yellow sparks shot through his eyes, tiny whirlwinds of color. “You think I’d kill you so I don’t have to pay you.” He delivered his judgment in a low voice, and she winced. “Even though I’m not allowed to harm the magekind.”

“You already tried once.”

“You know why I did that. Get over it.”

“No.”

“Like I’d accidentally on purpose not watch out for you.” His low voice filled the car. “Drive off without you. Let you take a bullet through that soft human heart of yours. Forget to tell you to watch out for the step off the cliff.”

“Why wouldn’t you when you were willing to be wrong about what would happen that night at Maddy’s?”

He punched one of the buttons for the interior lights. “I can fix that.”

“I don’t see how.”

He grabbed her near arm, and she pushed herself straight on her seat, stomach nothing but a black hole of emptiness. He growled. “Stop it.”

Her heart about flew out of her chest. This time he was going to kill her. He would. She yanked on her arm. “Let go of me.”

His fingers tightened on the back of her elbow, not hard, but not gentle enough for her to break free. “Relax.” The word was ice-cold. “I’m going to make it so you believe me.”

“No.” She fought for calm. “Don’t do this.”

“I’m not going to hurt you, so stop that shit.” With his free hand, he slashed the side of a finger at a diagonal just below the crook of her elbow. She didn’t feel anything at first, and by the time it registered that he’d opened a nick in her skin and that she was bleeding, he’d swept a finger through the blood.

Her skin prickled with some bizarre rolling reaction from head to toe. The world narrowed to just them. “What are you doing?”

“I will protect you with my life, Wallace Jackson.” Slowly, he licked her blood off his finger. The back of her head went cold and then hot because Palla had just made her a promise bound by her blood. Their gazes locked, and she felt the power there, and it scared the hell out of her. He released her arm like the contact was poison to him. He sat back. “Problem solved.”

“What the hell,” she whispered.

His eyes flickered with more colors. “In or out of Nikodemus’s territory, now I can’t let you die.”

“I didn’t mean it. Jesus.” The horror and finality of what he’d just done came home. “No. You can’t do that.”

“Stop me, how about.”

“You’re insane if you think I meant any of that. You didn’t have to do that.”

“You have no say in who I swear to protect.” He curled his fingers into a circle. “Zero.”

“You can’t go around making oaths like that.”

“Too late.”

“I don’t want you to die for me. No.”

“Get off it, Wallace.” He started the car again. “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for her.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you back. Twice as fucking hard.”

Palla parked in the driveway she pointed to and tried to settle himself. He hadn’t been blood-sworn since before running afoul of Christophe dit Menart. Five hundred plus years later, and he still didn’t like being sworn to a human. His oath to Wallace, so new it felt raw, rasped along his nerves when he took stock of the house and its surroundings.

Her house wasn’t secure. Not one single ward was set to warn off potential attackers. To his left, a chain-link fence surrounded a yard that was dirt and weeds. There was a window-box, though, with a blooming plant in it. White and pink whatever it was. He didn’t like it. There was no way she’d be safe here, past, present, or future.

“This is your house?”

“No. I live two streets over. I just want the drug dealers here to shoot you.” She pushed open the car door and got out before he had time to turn off the engine. He did that quick and jumped out.

“Are you insane?” He cast a wide psychic net. If there were any magekind or free kin here, he wanted to know. He didn’t get anything that made him freak out. A couple of dabblers was all. That didn’t make her safe, though. She needed some level of magic in place to protect her house and there was nothing here. Nothing.

Wallace stared at him over the top of the car. “If you ask me if it’s safe to park here, you can just please go away.”

He patted the roof. “I’m sure your drug dealer neighbors will take good care of it.”

“They’re not drug dealers.”

He made sure his expression didn’t change. “Aren’t you all drug dealers here?”

“Go away.”

“You’re the one who brought up drug dealers, not me.”

“How long has your irony detector been broken?”

“Half a century at least.” Fine with him if he ended up waiting outside. He could set some wards and get the place at least minimally secure. Maybe he should have Kynan come by, too. Kynan could make sure the house was as safe as possible. “I’m happy to wait here and protect my car while you pack your things.”

“Pack my things.” She frowned. “What for?”

That gave him a jolt, that she hadn’t figured out that she wasn’t going to be staying here. With humans, words changed with context, with expressions, with inflection. He hoped he hadn’t mistaken her words and bound himself to her for nothing. “Did you mean what you said, or was that all hot air, and I have to find out if Nikodemus can break my bond to you?”

“I meant what I said.” A light went on in the house next door and she sighed. “Come inside so we can get clear without everyone listening to my business.”

He followed her in. For a house that wasn’t very big and could have used an exterior paint job, it was not a broken down dump. Her landlord wasn’t a deadbeat. The inside was in good shape, and the floors were high-quality hardwood. While she put down her purse and locked the door, he made a quick ward over one of the windows. In the process of forming the medallion from the substructure of the window casement, in this case a combination of metal, plastic, and wood, he added two of the nasty tricks Kynan used with his wards. That ought to give an intruder pause.

“Have a seat.” She pointed to a bright blue sofa. “Can I get you something to drink? I have water and cheap beer, your pick.”

Palla looked around, appalled. “This is a girly place.”

“I am a girl, in case you didn’t notice.” She smiled hard enough for him to wonder if she meant something else besides being in a good mood. “Beer or water?”

“Nothing.” Everywhere he looked there was a picture, statuette, or object to provide a splash of color. Lots of pink and yellow and green. Bright colors.

“I’ll be right back.”

“Sure.”

While she was off doing whatever, he went to the front door and each of the widows in turn and set protective wards. There wasn’t time to do a proper job, but it was enough that he’d have some warning if magehelds tried to get in. He wouldn’t know they were here until it was too late, so he needed something that would slow them down. If it came to that.

By the time she returned, he was slouched on a chair that was actually comfortable. He threw the green-and-orange pillows on the couch and stayed slouched. “Hey.”

“Hey.” She’d changed into a pair of faded jeans, a gold shirt with blue flowers, and yellow socks that reminded him of that bikini he’d seen her wearing. She sat on the couch and pulled a girly pink pillow onto her lap. Her fingers smoothed one of the tassels on the pillow. Anxiety, maybe? He wasn’t sure.

He limited his private interactions with humans to highly recreational, non-procreative sex. Beyond that, he paid as little attention to his human partners as possible. Even with his general fucked-up-ness and the fact that he wasn’t good with humans, he got that Wallace didn’t have to help him. She wasn’t sworn to Nikodemus, with all that an oath would mean about where her loyalties would be. She wasn’t a full-on witch. Other than what she’d learned from her work with Maddy, she was a complete newbie to the world he lived in. She’d said herself that a year ago, she’d hadn’t even known demons existed. She had no blood ties to him. Fact was, she owed him nothing. “Thank you.”

“Sure.” There was no mistaking her skepticism.

“I mean it.” The words weren’t as hard to give up as he’d thought and once he’d said them, he realized he meant them. “You have no duty to help me. I know that. So, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

He leaned forward, forearms on his thighs. He needed this to work, what they were going to do. When he looked at her straight on, he did his best to modulate his words so he didn’t sound pissed off or impatient. Maddy had explained to him several times that humans generally didn’t like that. Wallace, being human and all, wouldn’t like that. “Now you have to commit.”

“I meant what I said about helping.”

“I know you did. And I meant what I said about you quitting your job.” He sat straight.

“Just like that.”

Palla let out a breath and tried to remember some of Maddy’s advice about dealing with humans. Like most blood-twins, he and Avitas hadn’t interacted much with them. “Help me out here. I don’t know what you mean.” He got to his feet. He owed her. “Five hundred years. My life wasn’t my own. I’m free now, but half of me is still gone. Gone.” Wallace’s eyes were on him, big and wide. “She’s suffering. Dying. In agony every second. And there was nothing I could do about it for five hundred fucking years.” He pushed away the madness that constantly threatened him and focused on her. “I don’t understand humans without a link. You sit there with expressions on your face and you say words and half the time I’m guessing what any of it means. So tell me. Tell what you mean. Or give me a link so I know.”