Love Is in the Air (20 page)

Sal looked at the white linen splashed with red stains. Her eyes strayed to Tyr’s chest. In truth, his flesh was better healed than the shirt. The angry rake marks had paled to a cool pink and were half the size they had been just a few minutes ago. The pain had clearly diminished as well, for Tyr’s arm moved without hesitation.

“Got it,” she said absently.

His eyes squinted as he pointed to the garment. “Speak to me then of what lies before you.”

Feeling like she had back in anatomy lab when she was asked to identify the major suture lines of the skull when she’d spent the evening bowling rather than studying, Sal froze. Sure, she’d known there were multiple fissures between the skull bones, but to name them? It had been beyond her reach then, just as describing the specifics of this wounded shirt were now.

Tyr frowned. “Let your lips not utter words your heart does not understand.”

Blushing, she had to look away as he expanded on his point. “To ask, or even command, you must know of a thing’s intent. No matter your blood or skill, you can get no item to work against its inherent nature.”

“I’m sorry. You lost me.”

It looked like Tyr tried hard not to sigh, but failed. “Would you think to ask this garment to boil water?”

“No,” she answered firmly. Even to her, that would be ridiculous.

“Why?”

Now that was a more difficult question. The answer just seemed so obvious that it was hard to find the words to explain.

“That’s not what clothes do.”

Tyr nodded sharply. “They have no intent but to clothe.”

Sal took it in, slowly. “So even though everything has an essence that can be tapped into, you can only get them to do what they ordinarily were created to do?”

“And slightly beyond, with much skill and patience. But yes, you spoke the right of it.”

Getting more into it, Sal looked to the shirt with a new perspective. “The cloth was torn, so now we ask it to sew itself back together?”

“Does wool thread itself? Pierce its own texture?”

She shook her head. Of course not. But how would the shirt fix itself? “I want to say that it should heal, but that doesn’t sound correct either.”

A smile played at the edge of his lips, but he squashed the grin before it fully formed. “You sooth more than you know… ponder how flesh becomes whole.”

“Well, damaged tissue releases chemotactic hormones that attract fibrocytes that—”

Tyr put a hand on her arm, startling her. He gave a light squeeze. “Not as a healer, but as a woman.”

He removed his hand, but she could still feel his touch, the warmth now permanently recorded in her brain so that she might forever remember it. That small piece of their history tucked away safely amongst all the rest.

That was it!

“It mends because the parts wish to be made whole again.”

A slow nod of his head. “Think of the threads as a flock that has been scattered across a pond. What would the birds do?”

“Fly to one another,” Sal followed his logic, but still didn’t buy it. “But like you said, threads don’t sew. So isn’t asking them to mend going against their intent?”

“They might not darn, but do they not move? Do they not flow? Is silk not the happiest when caught by a gentle breeze, fluttering?”

Sal had never thought of fabric like that before, but yeah, her pink ruffled top certainly seemed to enjoy the breeze. It didn’t seem like that much of a stretch of the imagination that wool would feel uncomfortable in the tropical heat. It wanted to be in the cold. It wanted to keep someone warm.

“But the silk doesn’t move itself. The wind does.”

Tyr indicated the shirt. “Pick it up.”

She did as instructed, with a new appreciation for the thread under her fingers. Butterflies unsettled her stomach. Even though it was only a shirt in her hands, Sal could sense the greater mystery within the weave.

“Flick the garment as if unsettling a wrinkle as you ask it to mend.”

“I thought I couldn’t work with essence without corrupting myself?”

CHAPTER 63

Tyr gritted his teeth. Sal realized that he hadn’t done that in a while. Up until her question, he’d actually been relaxed. Well, maybe not relaxed, but not balled up into a fretting knot, either.

“Do you have trust in me?” he asked with an urgency that rattled her.

Her instinct was to reassure him immediately that she did, then she remembered him forcing her down onto her seat with an edict in the residents’ room, not caring that he took away her free will. Then in the museum. His deception. The beast’s tongue on her breast. Wanting to trust and actually trusting were two different things.

“No.” The fallen look on his face forced her to rush on. “I mean, you’ve kept me in the dark this whole time. I understand why you did it, but you did
trick
me into that circle—”

Tyr raised his hand abruptly. “Your confidence is yours to give or keep.” He took the shirt from her and snapped his wrist as he said, “Mend.”

When the shirt settled onto the table, back from its brief flight, Sal couldn’t tell where the cuts had been. The fabric was as smooth as the day it was woven together. Even the stain was completely gone. Tyr’s shirt glistened white, seemingly happy to be whole again.

Sal touched the surface, amazed at the simple genius of it. She turned to ask Tyr how she could have safely mended the shirt’s essence when he turned away abruptly, seeming suddenly shy of his naked torso. Rapidly he donned the healed shirt, only turning back to her once the garment was fully buttoned.

“It is time to seek this house of Physics.”

CHAPTER 64

Sal trotted up the bus steps and scanned her ride pass twice. She turned to find Tyr still at the curb. “Come on.”

Still he stood, shifting awkwardly in his boots.

Motioning to the driver to give her a second, she joined him. “This is the fastest way to the university.”

“We must keep to the shadows.”

She grabbed the sleeve of his coat and pulled him along. “If you want to get there before…” Sal lowered her voice, “ ‘him,’ then we need to get moving.”

Reluctantly, Tyr followed her up the bus steps, his eyes darting to the myriad of strangers, his discomfort palpable. Sal had to keep a grip on his sleeve to keep Tyr from finding his blade.

As they made their way down the aisle, glances were cast their way, but it wasn’t Tyr in leather pants, corseted white shirt, and floor-length overcoat that turned heads. Hell, in San Francisco, everyone just assumed he was gay and heading to a bondage bar. No, people were trying to figure out what she was doing with him.

Sal had changed into a pair of nondescript jeans and a T-shirt, but it was apparent that if she’d dressed like a drag queen, they would’ve gotten less attention.

They passed by several empty seats, yet Tyr urged her forward. It wasn’t until they reached the back of the bus that he allowed them to settle in. His back was rigid against the vehicle’s frame, his eyes scanning the passengers.

She’d let him worry about them as she booted up her laptop. The irony that her vow to never use the computer again had been broken within hours of making it was not lost on her as the hard drive sparked to life.

Instead of the screen instantly being filled with information on the university’s physics department, as Sal assumed it would be, the computer launched normally. Which meant slowly. She’d almost forgotten how long ninety seconds felt like.

When the laptop was finally ready to use, it couldn’t connect to the Internet. She clicked on the error message to find that there weren’t any wireless networks in range.

“You’re kidding me.”

Sal clicked on the Internet link again as she said, “Connect.”

The same error message popped up.

“Why are you doing this?” she hissed.

Tyr leaned over to the blank screen. “Why are you not scrying?”

“Good question.” Another error window. “It won’t connect.” Then another.

“Have you angered him in some way?”

Sal scoffed at the concept, and then remembered the night before. Clearly, it had tried to contact her through Richard’s computer, and she had ignored it.

Could laptops really pout?

As the screen filled with error messages, she guessed that they could. “What am I supposed to do?”

Tyr gave her that “How dumb are you?” look that he had perfected through frequent use. “Give voice to your sorrows?”

“I’ve never heard
you
apologize to an object before,” Sal snapped, and then realized a greater truth. “In fact, you usually demand things.”

“Of simple objects to follow their intent? For certain. But an intricate contrivance such as a scrying box? Had I been able to press one to do my bidding, I would not have required your aid.”

Sal struggled to answer as two revelations struck her. The first was that she might actually be better at something than Tyr. The second she gave voice to.

“You mean the more complex the object, the more difficult it is to make it do what you want?”

Tyr indicated around them. “Could I press this carriage into service?”

CHAPTER 65

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly.

Sal was half expecting a snort or sneer, but Tyr simply leaned back.

“Neither do I, but to attempt such a feat would take a grand purpose of intent and require vials upon vials of blood to accomplish.”

“So blood amplifies your intent?”

“The art of Praxis requires the weaving of many elements. The essence of the blood must complement the form of the object, how closely the task aligns itself with the object’s intended use, and then, of course, the intent of the asker.”

Sal had gotten lost halfway through the list. Tyr had always made Praxis look so simple. A drop of blood and “boom,” something amazing happened. To think in those life-and-death moments that he was taking into account all those variables, and somehow to still be able to save their lives was damn close to a miracle.

“Could we use blood to make the laptop connect?”

Again, the “Why did I pick her out of all the people in this city to help me?” frown. “Would you waste blood when kindness could accomplish the identical task?”

Even though she felt more than a little silly apologizing to her laptop, Sal grasped Tyr’s point, especially after the disaster of spilling his HeartsBlood.

She poised her fingers over the keyboard. “Sorry,” she said as she hit the ‘Enter’ key, but still no Internet connection.

Frustrated, Sal looked at Tyr, whose frown deepened. “That was your sorrow given form?”

“I thought I was supposed to use a single word filled with my intent?”

“Is what you ask a simple matter?”

Since Sal wasn’t even sure what Wi-Fi was in practical terms, she guessed it would be pretty complex for her laptop to generate on its own.

Sal looked down at her laptop. “Look, I’m really sorry for—”

Tyr put his hand upon her arm, as the guy from across the aisle gave her a funny look. “It must only
feel
your intent when the command is spoken.”

He placed her fingers upon the keyboard again. Closing her eyes, Sal let her fingers linger on the keys as she thought of the night before. Her refusal to acknowledge her laptop. Her vow to chuck it in the garbage and buy a new Mac. She knew now how wrong she had been. How much she needed her laptop and their special bond.

“Connect,” she said tenderly.

Sal wasn’t at all surprised when she opened her eyes that not only was she surfing the Internet, but her laptop had seven different windows open, all vital to their intercepting the beast.

Trusting the laptop to prioritize, Sal focused on the uppermost window. Painfully, it was a new autopsy report. The deceased had died last night. Killed several hours before the museum massacre. In addition, the poor soul hadn’t died of bloody wounds, but of a mild anemia and more pronounced encephalitis.

The work of the beast when he needed information.

The deceased was Mika Ankaportia, a grad student at the San Francisco State physics department. More importantly, the young woman had been a very specific professor’s assistant. A Dr. Lionel Hing.

Moving on, Sal found the next window to be the doctor’s Facebook page. The bespectacled Asian looked barely out of his teens, yet had three doctorates. And his list of publications went on and on, down three full pages. There was almost too much information. It would take her hours to sort through his work to determine why the beast was so interested in him.

However, her laptop already knew that, didn’t he? She scrolled back up to the top of the page, and noticed that an “office hours” link was underlined. In red. Sal hit the link and smiled.

She turned to Tyr. “I know who the beast’s next victim is and exactly where he’s going to be.”

CHAPTER 66

Tyr set a hard pace as they climbed the winding path through the university’s campus. They angled toward the Atkins-Levine Physical Science Research Wing. Even though the hot afternoon sun had mellowed as the sun sank lower on the horizon, it was still warm, given they were practically running straight up one of San Francisco’s infamously steep hills.

The professor’s office hours, held in his lab, weren’t until seven o’clock, and the sun didn’t fully set until eight, when the beast would begin his hunt, but try telling that to Tyr.

Finally hitting a patch of level ground, they were slowed by a cluster of other pedestrians. Sal repositioned her laptop bag and caught her breath.

Tyr also paused to survey the tree lined, park like setting around them.

“You have certainty that this is Physics’ home?”

Given the pace that Tyr had kept them at since exiting the bus, they hadn’t exactly had the opportunity to discuss the finer points of the quantitative sciences. So as not to be conspicuous, they continued at a much slower pace as they headed to the building.

“Quantum physics isn’t a place, but a discipline. A science,” Sal clarified. “It attempts to explain… well, the unexplainable.”

“Why then, does the beast quest for such knowledge?”

Sal sighed. He wanted an answer which she wasn’t qualified to give. Granted, she had taken physics in college, but it had been the “physics for poets” edition. The easy-on-the-eyes version where you calculated the stress point for a lever or the volume of a champagne glass. There had been nothing theoretical about it. They built simple circuit boards and demonstrated why ice skaters who pulled their arms in spun faster.