God's Eye (46 page)

And her words were a bit of a shock. “How did you get your condo?”

“What?”

“How did you get your condo?”

He shrugged, not sure what she was asking. “I paid for it.”

Her mouth tightened. “I don’t care if you bartered with chickens or just made people believe it was yours.” Her arms tightened across her chest, too, showing her discomfort, whether she meant to or not. “This is an exclusive building. How did you get the unit?”

“It was open. I applied. They chose me. Humans like us. You’re naturally drawn to us.”
Damn it!
Where was she going with this?

“Why was the condo available, Zachary? Tell me that.”

Oh, he knew where she was headed now.

And she tried to head him off. “They died, Zachary. Did you do that? Did you?”

He shook his head. “They were old, Katie. They were just old.” “You have to admit, it looks suspicious.”

He shook his head again. “Just because it looks bad doesn’t mean that it is.”

“It still looks bad.” She turned to walk away, and he knew he couldn’t let her. She had to see.

“Katie!” His human eyes watered with emotion. “Katie!”

This time she turned back and looked at him.

“You’re going to have to choose. And it will likely be soon. I can’t keep you safe for too much longer. I just can’t.”

“Okay.” Though she said the word, she didn’t capitulate. “I’m going to go take a shower, and I expect you to be gone when I get out.”

There was really nothing he could say to that. She had dismissed him. And the way things stood, he wouldn’t be able to push her too hard. Katharine was still staring straight at him, so he nodded his agreement.

Only then did she turn to walk back into her room.

He had already started to pass back through the veil when she turned back to him. He ground his long teeth together and pushed hard to reincorporate so she wouldn’t have to see him phase through.

“Are you going to leave a message on my mirror while I’m in there?”

“What?” He shook his head. What was she talking about?

“Never mind.”

She closed the bedroom door behind her.

•  •  •

Katharine sighed with relief at Margot’s words.

“It’s not a problem. I’m not in until two today.”

Katharine wasn’t going in to work today either. What could they do about it? Fire her? Besides, she had a trust fund. Her mother had left her all the money from the Bariel side of the family. When Mariam’s father had left it to her, he had stipulated that it be solely for her and for her children. So there was plenty there that wasn’t tied up in Light & Geryon. Katharine just had to figure out what to do with it.

For the first time in her life, she felt free. Free to make her own errors, on her own time. She was getting to set her own standards and live by her own rules. She didn’t want to give up her life by making a bad choice. And she didn’t like her odds. She wanted–needed–to put as much into motion as she could to ensure her safety, to ensure that she got to live to see the things she wanted.

Margot didn’t show up at the condo until close to eleven. She’d slept in on her day off and done a little research of her own. “There’s another shop over in Hollywood, on Vine. I called and they have the binding spell tape in stock.”

Her friend looked down at the carpet, noting the blood spots Katharine had told her about. “This is nuts. I want to send it to a lab to be analyzed, but I don’t have mad forensic skills to even understand the results and I’m not all that sure I really want to know what’s in it.” Tentatively, Margot reached a finger out to touch a smear, but then she thought better of it and pulled back.

Katharine shook her head. “I feel really odd, driving all the way across town to get herb-infused tape for a spell, but …” She shrugged. “If it helps …”

“Anything that helps here is good. This stuff is too crazy to not take every precaution.” Margot stood and headed out the door. “If what’s been happening is half as crazy as you told me, then we need to do everything we can.”

Out in the hallway, she waited while Katharine locked the bolts, and then looked her friend in the eye when she turned around. “And I suspect a lot of it has been twice as crazy as you’ve said.”

Katharine only nodded. How was she supposed to tell Margot about all that Allistair had shown her? How was she supposed to describe how Zachary had cried this morning as he pleaded with her? He had looked and seemed so sincere, so worried. But she didn’t know what was real anymore.

She changed the subject. “Zachary said he hadn’t left me any messages.”

Margot frowned just as the elevator made its soft ding to let them know it was there.

“On my mirror,” she clarified.

“Oh, so the messages all came from Allistair?” That seemed to surprise her.

“If
Zachary wasn’t lying.” Neither of them knew how big that
if
was. Or even if one or the other of the men would lie to her. Allistair had said he couldn’t. But what if that was a lie? Her head hurt from all the possibilities, and her chest ached from the strain of the constant hum of fear.

They climbed into the car and headed out into the perfect L.A. day, only to get mired in traffic. The surface streets were all clogged and so were the freeways. As they sat there, they tried to reason out some of what they had.

“I got the translation on that last message, too. It’s pretty interesting.”

“Oh.” Katharine wasn’t sure how any one of them could be more interesting than the others. They were all pretty weird. “How so?”

“Listen to this: I’m pretty sure it said, ‘I’m sorry, but I love you.’”

If she hadn’t already been stopped in bumper-to-bumper traffic, Katharine would have likely slammed on the brakes. She’d been afraid that it was something like that. “He loves me? Allistair? Loves me?”

Margot didn’t get a word in edgewise before Katharine’s brain took off with her mouth again. “Or is this just another lie? God, what am I supposed to do with that?”

“Deep breaths.” Margot’s hand touched her shoulder, and it did help, just that someone was there. “It may take us some time, but we’ll figure it out.”

Did she have enough time? The game was escalating. Zachary had told her she’d have to choose soon, and she did not want to end up like Mary Wayne.

Her thoughts must have shown on her face, because Margot spoke. She didn’t turn to look at Katharine, but she didn’t have to. “That’s what we’re headed across town for. We’re going to buy you some time.”

At least the thought made her want to laugh a little–the idea that buying a roll of some kind of infused and blessed fabric tape would actually buy her time. But if the binding worked, it just might gain her a while to figure a few more things out.

The store had the tape waiting, as Margot was just a common-sense genius and had put it on hold. They were in and out in less time than it had taken them to pay the parking meter and walk the block over to the store. In just a few minutes, they were sitting in traffic again.

There wasn’t enough time to go to Margot’s and do the binding spell, not if Margot was going to make it to work on time. So they decided to stop along the way and each lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen just a few blocks off their path.

While she sat and ate her pasta, Katharine took stock. She had on cute and comfy sneakers, no pinched toes. Her jeans were soft; there was a mild breeze and a blue sky. And in spite of the pollution she knew was there, the air seemed fresh. The restaurant was full of colors and the chatter of people talking about everything from jobs and babies to apartments and movies. It was so different from the sterile, stifling environment of the office.

She had been here before, had been to loud and boisterous parties, had walked barefoot on the beach. But somehow, she’d never really felt anything before. If she died from all this, at least she had learned to enjoy the taste of good food and the presence of a close friend.

While they ate, they chatted about Liam. They couldn’t talk about the rest of it in here. If someone overheard, they could be … well, they’d be thought clinically insane, that’s for sure. And the simplicity, the normalcy of the conversation was soothing in itself.

Her phone rang halfway through the meal, and Katharine picked it up to check the number. She held the phone up and showed Margot, then hit the button to ignore the call. “My father.”

“Oh.” Margot paused, her fork halfway to her mouth. “That’s gonna likely mean he got your resignation.”

Katharine nodded solemnly and sighed. “I’ll call him back when I get home. Then I’ll do the binding.”

“By yourself?”

“Yeah. I need to do it soon.” Doing the binding all alone would be a nuisance–she was used to having help–but the blood spots on her carpet said she needed to forgo the ease and get it done. Returning her father’s call could wait.

“Here. You need these.” Margot pulled a handful of small sheets of paper from her purse and handed them to Katharine. “I did a color copy of the painting and cut out two of each. I tried to get ones that were whole, where one body part wasn’t obscured by something else.”

In her hand, Katharine held two tiny demons and two tiny, evil-looking beasts the artist said were angels. There was a part of a foot missing on one and a hand missing on another. Margot kept talking.

“I read through the … instructions and it seemed like it might work better if they were stiff. So I laminated one of each.”

Katharine turned them over; the un-laminated copies were already beginning to curl. She’d read the spell, too, and it didn’t say anything about whether the drawing should be on paper or cardboard, or even how it was done. It had suggested a photo, but there was no way Katharine was going to get that. The pictures should work as well as anything. The backs were plain white paper, but that wasn’t addressed anywhere either as far as she knew. “It makes sense. We’ll just see if it works.”

Katharine tucked the little drawings into her purse as the server came up to give them the check. They paid the bill and made their way back to Katharine’s, where Margot gave her a brief hug before climbing into her car and heading into work.

Katharine didn’t see Zachary on the way up to her apartment, but now she knew to be just as wary opening the door. Clearly, either of them could get in at any time they wanted.

Her living room was clear. No men, no beasts, no new soot. Her mirror was empty, too. So she took a deep breath, sank down on her couch, and called her father.

Sharon put her straight through–not a good sign. She barely got a hello out before he steamrolled her. “Katharine, is this a joke?”

“No, Dad. It’s not. I’m resigning.”

“Why on earth would you do something like that?”

Her mouth quirked up at the edge.

This was why she had lived the way she had. She could have chosen her own friends, her own job, felt all the things around her. But before she could really do it, there would be hell to pay. She was starting her payments now.

It was all there in his voice, the implied idea that “why would she do something so
stupid?”
There was only his way, and he saw nothing beyond the borders of his own vision. As she was learning, there was much beyond his borders, beyond hers, beyond any she had known. And he was right too in asking “Why on earth?” Because she was on earth, and she needed to really be here, in a way she had never been before. She needed to belong to herself.

But there was no way to say any of that to him. He would never understand. “Because I need to build my own career. I need to make my name in my own right.”

There was silence. No, he didn’t understand that either.

At least she’d tried.

“You’re convinced of this?”

“Yes, Dad.” It wasn’t like they were going to miss her at Light & Geryon. She only did everything … and nothing.

He was muttering. “You’re just like your mother. Stubborn as hell sometimes.”

That statement nearly made her head snap back, and she thought maybe it was a shame she hadn’t done this in person, where he could see her. “Mom was less stubborn than a piece of silk, Dad. What are you talking about?”

“Every once in a while she got some idea … and she just wouldn’t let it go.” He was clearly still miffed about these perceived slights by a dead woman, and by Katharine continuing the tradition.

“You mean that once out of a hundred times she wanted something done her way?” Her heart hurt. Maybe she’d never been anything to the man other than a chess piece. She suddenly realized something, and she spoke it before it got away. “I want you to be proud of me, Dad.”

“Well, I …”

“I need to make my own way. I think you’d appreciate that if I were your son, Dad.”

“But you’re not!”

Clearly. “No, Dad, I’m just me.”

“Well, you can leave any time you need. You don’t have to worry about staying the two weeks.”

She wanted to believe the gruff tone in his voice meant he thought he was being helpful. But it didn’t help her at all to know that he thought she was as expendable as she did. Katharine said good-bye and hung up the phone.

Part of her wanted to curl up into a ball and cry for a while, but a bigger part of her realized she didn’t have that luxury. So she dried her eyes, rolled her shoulders, and worked the kinks out of her neck, then rummaged through her purse for the little cutouts Margot had made for the binding spell.

She took the special tape out of her purse and peeled off the paper wrapper it had come in. She turned the little spool over in her hands for a moment. It looked like normal silk ribbon, in a near blinding shade of white. She’d probably been ripped off. On a hunch she smelled it, and her eyes instantly began to water. It was potent, so maybe she hadn’t been totally ripped off. She unwound the whole spool and cut it in half, laying the two pieces aside.

She pulled out her white pillar candle and the paper Margot had photocopied with the chant on it. After setting it all out on her table, she closed all the blinds in the room. In the back of her mind, she wondered if the spell would work if the names she used weren’t their real names, but there was nothing she could do about it now. And the spell was too simple not to give it a try.