Enigma (18 page)

A chill slithered down his spine. “You saw his ghost. That’s enough to give anyone nightmares.”

“Maybe. And maybe this job’s getting to me.”

Patrick smoothed a strand of her hair back from her forehead. “At least there’s a bright side. If you’re dreaming about Oscar, then Michelle broke the spell in time. We have a chance to
finish
this job.”

Anna stared at him, her eyes wide and unblinking. “It won’t bring him back. So there’s still a kid out there with no dad.”

There always would be, whether their fathers died or simply deserted them. Julio and his siblings were proof enough of that. And Patrick’s own older half-brother, the one who’d vanished as surely as his wolf father had.

Even Anna had ended up abandoned, and her parents had no excuse beyond selfish weakness. “Sometimes life just sucks,” he whispered. “And then you and me? We kill the people who make it suck. And it sucks a little less.”

“Does it?” She sat up. “I mean, I’m not saying it’s better to do nothing, but does it ever really change?”

He wanted to lie to her—but if killing bad guys could change the world, Ben might still be alive. “I don’t know.”

“Neither do I.”

“Does that make you want to stop?”

“No.” She slipped her hand into his. “But sometimes it makes me so tired.”

Patrick tugged her back down, and it was impossible not to savor the way she came willingly, pressing herself to his side like she belonged there.

Just like the night Ben had died.

His emotions snarled like a mishandled ball of yarn. The only thing that broke through Anna’s defenses was his pain. Vulnerability, weakness—they hit her right in the instincts, and she was as helpless against them as any alpha shifter was. She was probably half-drunk on the need to protect and soothe him.

All well and good, except for the part where it would get them both killed.

And yet…it was tempting. So tempting to let that hint of vulnerability linger, even when the weakness had faded. He wasn’t a wolf, with his poor manly ego tied up in meaningless posturing. It wouldn’t take much of a lie to keep Anna soft and sweet against him.

But it’d take a lie, all the same. Exhaling softly, he cupped the back of her head and told her the truth. “I’m tired too.”

“We do the job first. And after—” Her voice cracked.

He had no intention of letting her go there. “I say we camp out in Alec’s living room until we’ve irritated him as much as this job is irritating me.”

At that, she smiled. “Should take about forty-five seconds.”

“Then I’ll stay another two weeks. Let the message really sink in.”

“If we get this done, he’ll let you.”

He chuckled and kissed her forehead. “So let’s get out of bed and get to work, Lenoir. Or stay in bed and test if everything’s still working. One or the other.”

“If? Why would that—” The ringing of the old rotary phone on the nightstand interrupted her words, and she snagged it with an apologetic look. “Hello? Okay, yeah. We’re on our way.”

Patrick swung his legs over the side of the bed, ignoring the ache in his muscles. “No rest for the wicked?”

“Luciano. He said Michelle needs to see us.” Anna reached for her clothes, which were draped over a straight-backed chair beside the bed. “It could be a fresh lead.”

Or Michelle could be ready to spill the beans to Anna about the truth of his sorry magical state. The fact that he wanted to grope for excuses to avoid the Seer was embarrassing. He
was
as bad as an alpha wolf, arrogantly brooding over whether he should fake vulnerability when his magical protections were shredding around him. He couldn’t even tell the truth to himself.

He
was
weak. Defenseless.

And Anna was going to find out, whether he wanted her to or not. The only thing left to do was to face it with some fucking dignity, so he dragged himself from bed in search of his clothes. “Then we shouldn’t keep her waiting.”

The eastern sky was pink, but the sun hadn’t yet crested the horizon, and the air held a biting chill that had them both snuggling deeper inside their jackets. Wind whipped down from the mountains that rose high beyond the rolling flatlands of the valley, whistling and moaning through the eaves.

Anna closed the distance between the guest cottage and the main house at a near run. This time, no one greeted them at the door, and she cocked her head for a moment before nodding down the hall.

Nicole Gabriel met them at the end of it, a blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms. “You look like hell.” She glanced up at Patrick, and her frown turned into a scowl. “You don’t, though. If you tell me you actually slept last night, I swear to God…”

Patrick looked from one woman to the other, his stomach sinking. “Bad dreams?” he asked, hoping she’d berate him for plunging into her household in the middle of the night and upsetting her newborn instead.

“Hardly. I had a psychic baby screaming in one ear, and a dead guy in the other. All. Night. Long.” Nick studied him again. “You look well-rested. Here.”

She thrust the kid at him, giving him the choice of taking the baby or dropping it.
Her
, he corrected himself, awkwardly holding the tiny bundle of blanket and sleepy infant. No one had ever handed him a newborn before, but he hoped to have time to get used to the idea before Julio and Sera’s firstborn appeared.

He’d thought a baby would be bigger. If he’d been a little less terrified of accidentally hurting her, he could have held Nick’s kid in one hand.

Anna didn’t seem to notice his discomfort as she rubbed both hands over her face. “I thought I was having nightmares.”

Nick snorted. “Not even close. Though you might have, if Oscar had let you sleep.” She raised her voice. “You always were a jackass, you know.”

“Oh my God, Nick.” Patrick turned to find a rumpled, disheveled Kat clutching a cup of coffee. She had dark circles beneath her eyes and a wild edge to her voice. “Stop taunting the dead guy. Have you ever seen a horror movie? Like,
ever
?”

“Oscar couldn’t take me when he was alive. He’s got zero chance now that he’s noncorporeal.” But Nick relented with a shrug. “I’ll accept that it’s crass, though.”

It was also naive, which Patrick was more than willing to point out, and not just in the hopes that Nick would snatch her kid back. “He managed to possess me in New Mexico.”

She squinted up at him. “You weren’t in the Seer’s house then, were you?”

Anna lifted the baby from his arms. “If Oscar was bound to the fetish, why didn’t destroying it send him on to wherever he’s supposed to be?”

“Unfinished business?” Nick suggested.

Anna seemed more comfortable with the kid, a fact that stirred to life enough vague anxiety to force Patrick to look away. “Or maybe something to do with how he was killed.”

“That too.” Nick gestured for them to follow her. “Whatever the reason, Oscar’s stuck here now. Michelle’s been in her workroom for over an hour already. She even tried to banish him, but that didn’t work, either.”

Patrick had been in Michelle’s workroom the previous night, but he hadn’t remembered much beyond how many twists and turns it had taken them to get back to the front door. After pausing in the entryway so Patrick could duck out to retrieve the case files, Nick led them down a series of hallways, most lined with family photos or black-and-white pictures of beautiful horses.

They found Michelle in a spacious, finished basement area dominated by an enormous wooden table in the shape of a boxy-horseshoe. She sat at one end, a laptop at her elbow and an array of books spread out in front of her. She stiffened slightly when her gaze fell on Patrick, but she looked past him to smile ruefully at Anna. “Should I assume Oscar visited you as well?”

“Loudly.” Anna passed the baby back to her mother and circled the table. “Find anything yet?”

“Nothing specific. I’ve learned more about ritual flaying than I ever hoped to know.” Michelle closed her current book with a delicate shudder. “I left a message for Mahalia, but she’s with our father in Spain. We may be stuck with our new guest in the short term, though I’ve managed to contain him, at least.”

“Any chance someone here has enough mediumistic ability to have a nice chat with him?” Anna asked. “He’s pretty much the perfect eyewitness to his own murder.”

Michelle shook her head. “No such luck. I tried to communicate with him through spells and a basic séance, but he’s either beyond reach or uninterested in discussion.”

Loath as he was to suggest it, the answer seemed obvious to Patrick. “He was happy to jump into my body. We could let him do it again.”

“Hold the fuck up.” Anna glared at him. “Bad idea. Or have you forgotten that your magic abilities are still unstable?”

So much for secrets and ego. All the gory truth was going to spill out like this, ugly and angry and in front of an audience. He gritted his teeth. “I’m sure a Seer can keep Oscar Ochoa from throwing lightning bolts with my body.”

“You were out of it last night, okay? You don’t know how much power that fetish was drawing from you.” She cast a pleading look at Michelle. “Tell him.”

Michelle pressed her lips together and exhaled. “Controlled possession isn’t a terrible idea, if I have time to come up with the proper safeguards…but no, Patrick. I don’t believe it should be you. You’re…”

She trailed off so delicately, so apologetically, that Patrick found himself providing the harshest interpretation just to get it out there. “Falling the fuck apart?”

She didn’t waver. “You’re wounded. And I don’t mean what’s happened to you recently. You’re wounded to your soul. Your magic twisted in on you when it emerged, and under most circumstances you would have met the same fate turned wolves do when they go rogue.”

Anna stared at Michelle, her breathing rough but even, her tension betrayed by the clenched fists at her sides. “He’s holding together. He just needs a little help, that’s all.”

Michelle met his eyes, and he knew she saw it all. That she understood, and had compassion for him. Of course she did. Her life had been defined by having too much power. “I was never holding it together,” he said, mostly for Anna, even if he couldn’t bring himself to look at her. “I was held together.”

“By the ink?” Michelle guessed, waiting only for his nod before she pieced the rest together. “And you were injured when Kat was kidnapped. The tattoos were damaged, which weakened the spells binding your power.”

“But you can
fix it
.” Anna’s voice was fierce now, with the slightest trembling edge of panic. “Forget the Ink Shrink, forget everyone else. You’re the damned Seer. You can help him.”

Her pain shredded Patrick, made him feel like a fucking fool. His weakness might lure Anna, but his pain? The bitter reality of his situation? Those would break her heart. “Anna, she can’t—”

“I can,” Michelle interrupted, voice firm. “I can’t return you to what you were. But I can find a way to bind your power. I can give you a focus.”

A what? “I don’t understand.”

“A focus,” Michelle repeated, rising to circle the table. “The problem with spell casters who go rogue is that when their magic spins out of control, it’s almost impossible to recover it consciously. But you can’t simply ward them against their own power, either. Magic is alive. It renews, it grows. Trap it under pressure, and it will explode. But give it an outlet, one tied to instinct instead of intellect…” She tapped his chest, just above his heart. “A focus.”

“You should listen to her.” Nick hummed as she rocked the infant in her arms. “Michelle’s kind of a big deal.”

Patrick felt the ghost of the Seer’s touch long after she pulled away, a buzzing, electric power humming across his skin. “I still don’t understand. Will I be able to cast spells with it?”

“Not exactly. But it can become an instrument of your will, for good or ill.” Michelle eyed him solemnly. “If we do this, you’ll have a very hard time lying about what’s in your heart.”

Patrick clenched his hands and did
not
look at Anna. The last time his magic had had free rein, it had followed his heart, all right—and his heart had been set on patricide. God knew what sorts of dark scars the intervening years had burned into his soul. “And if we don’t?”

Michelle shrugged. “I wrap you in wards to prevent you from hurting anyone by mistake, and you wait for your power to consume you from within.”

“That’s not really an option, is it?” Anna asked. When he didn’t answer, she took his arm and pulled him aside. “
Patrick.
”

It was the discomfort of her fingers digging into his arm that shook him free of his shock. “I’m just trying to wrap my head around it,” he said, catching her hand in his. “I’m not sure I trust my instincts that much.”

“I trust you,” she whispered.

Maybe that could be enough. If it wasn’t, he’d be damned if he forced Anna to live out the alternative with him. He could see the terror in her eyes, the memory of that wolf whose life she’d ended in the swamp, the horror of imagining Patrick in his place.

If it came down to that, he’d make sure he was far, far away from Anna when it all went to hell. “All right. Let’s do this.”

But Anna’s fingers tightened on his arm. “I
trust
you. Maybe it’s not fair, but that means you have to trust me too. I mean it.”