Revenant (25 page)

“I missed you . . .” I heard myself say. And I meant it. Oh God, how I meant it.

“Oh, Zoë . . .” His voice vibrated against my chest as he tucked his head under my chin. “I thought before . . . was a dream.”

I pulled him from me and put a finger to my lips as I moved to the shower and opened it. Inside this monstrosity were five shower-heads. With a grin, I turned all of them on, setting the temperature to something both of us could stand, and pulled him inside. Again we pressed together, marveling at each other’s bodies. Reaching down, I wrapped my hands around him, pulling and fondling, keeping him far enough away so that I could see his face. Again and again I pumped, caressed, and rubbed him against my thigh until it was obvious he could no longer take it.

Dags straightened and seemed to grow even with me as he turned me around in the multiple sprays of water. He pushed me forward, gently, until my hands were pressed against the tile and he was behind me. Then he reached around to caress each of my breasts, firm but with soft abandon. His left hand moved down over my stomach, and he eased his fingers so gently, so lovingly, where I needed him most. I moved my hips against him, feeling him against my backside, wanting him inside me.

As if he knew my mind, Dags gently pushed my upper back forward, forcing me to give him entry—and I moaned as he slid inside, wanting to hold him. With each thrust, he fondled my breasts, teased my clit, and pressed his lips against my back. As he moved faster, so did my own need, and I gasped as my orgasm caught me off guard—my muscles moving around him, pressing against him, and screaming as he pulled away.

Also so safe!

I turned then, nearly passing out at the rush of blood away from my head, and I held him as his body shuddered. His arms came around me, and I half held him up beneath the water as it bounced off our skins. I pulled him beneath my chin once more and kissed his face. His eyes were closed and his breathing heavy. Slowly, he opened those incredible gray eyes, flinching just a bit as the water sprayed against them.

“Zoë—”

I put a hand to his face. “I love you . . .”

I said it first. And for the first time in a long while, I meant it. From my heart and my soul. There was no doubt in my mind at that moment.

He smiled at me, that adorable smile. “I love you . . .” he said, and we held each other for a long time under the spray.

Okay,
that
brought me out of a dead sleep.

I recognized it as the voice of Mephistopheles.

Dags and I were asleep in his bed. He stirred and wiped at his face. “What the hell was that?”

So he’d heard the First Born as well.

“It’s Mephistopheles.” I kissed his lips before he was fully awake, then moved out of the bed. My clothes were still on the bathroom floor, as were his. I grabbed both, and the two of us got ready to look presentable.

We walked out, hand in hand, through the door, back out to the rumpus room.

Jason was there, as were Rhonda, Gunter, and Mom. They turned and looked at us, and I realized we might look a little . . . rumpus’d.

“What?” I said with my arms out. “Why did you scream like that?” I directed that to Jason.

“Because she’s insane,” Jason said, his phone still clutched in his hand.

“Who?” I said, looking from Jason to Rhonda and then to Gunter.

Rhonda nodded in Gunter’s direction, but she was looking at us.

Gunter gave me and Dags appraising looks but remained quiet.

Rhonda turned and nodded at Gunter. “Go ahead.”

He looked around at everyone.

“They can be trusted.”

He nodded. “A woman calling herself Lex wanted me to relay a message to the head of the Society of Ishmael that she and the others have Detective Joe Halloran. And if anyone wanted to see him alive again, then they are to turn over the Guardian within the hour.”

Rhonda tensed, and Jason continued to pace, and rant. Not verbally, but damn loudly in the astral. But now I understood his outburst. Lex had gone off the deep end.

“What will Lex do if we do not comply?” Dags asked.

Gunter fixed Dags with a harsh stare, and I could only assume he was accustomed to Detective Halloran being around, since Joe and Gunter’s boss were dating. “She and the others will drain him dry.”

No, he isn’t,
came Mephistopheles’ voice again, still angry but not so loud.
She’s let anger and fear cloud her reasoning—and turned on the only human that would have defended her.

Jason spoke up. “She’s convinced the others that the spell in its entirety is inside of the Grimoire in Dags. And she’s convinced them that all they have to do is reach in and take it.”

“Surely, being First Borns, they have to realize it’s not that easy,” Rhonda said. “It exists on the astral plane—and it’s a part of Dags’s astral being.”

“I know that!” Jason held up his hands. “Sorry—I’m just pissed off. I can’t believe she’d do this. It’s irrational.”

“She’s hurting,” Mom said quietly. “Mialani’s gone, and the spell is the reason. Or a botched version of it. She’s alone, and she wants revenge. I don’t care how old you grow, or how wise, the heart is a delicate thing, and sometimes we don’t know how to . . . ignore it.”

I watched Mom and realized right then that she understood Lex’s grief more than anyone. What must it have been like suddenly to be alone with a four-year-old? No one in the world to turn to who didn’t want to take your daughter and experiment on her? And no one to lean on, no one to share the good and the bad.

Just . . . alone.

I felt awful for Lex. But there was no way in hell she was going to drain Joe or rip Dags’s heart out. Not without coming through me.

“That isn’t an excuse for stupidity,” Jason said. “We don’t know that the spell is in that book. From what Dags has seen, I’d say no. What worries me most are the blank pages.”

“What worries me are the copied pages that one Revenant stole.” Rhonda’s eyes widened. “Jason, you don’t think the Revenant that stole those pages gave them to Lex, do you?”

“And you think maybe she saw something that reinforces her belief that she can take this spell and use it on the Phantasm?”

Mom frowned. “Is that what she said, Jason?”

“Yes. And she’s a fool. They’re all fools.”

Dags ran a hand through his hair. “Are they all with her? All the remaining Revenants?”

“Most of them. There were several who, when I contacted them, told me in no uncertain terms to fuck off. I don’t know who’s in town and who isn’t. But if Inanna did take the copies and give them to Lex—Lex is no magician. Magic is something she’s never fully comprehended. That would be Morgan, and if Morgan is here, that means Hermes is here as well.”

I raised my hand. “What is with these names? I’m assuming you mean Morgan as in Le Fay? And Hermes as in Trismegistus?”

Rhonda’s gasp was a bit irritating. “I’m amazed you knew those names.”

There was a twinkle in Jason’s eyes. “The myths had to come from somewhere.” With that he turned to Rhonda. “I’m going to need help if I’m going to do this.”

“Do what?” Dags and I said at the same time.

Rhonda looked at us. And I mean she
looked
at us. And I wasn’t very happy with the look on her face. “Jason has challenged Lex for leadership.”

“Leadership.” I shook my head. “I didn’t know Lex was the leader.”

“She’s taken on that role with Aether gone. Usually it would fall to the next-oldest Revenant, but apparently Lex had usurped that role. So I challenge her to a battle, and the winner is king. Then I can save Joe and get them to listen to me.”

I shook my head. “What about the loser?”

Jason’s jaw set. “The loser dies.”

 

 

 

APPARENTLY
even though they’ve lived for all these centuries, the Revenant troop as a whole hasn’t made it past the Dark Ages in group dynamics. They still elect a king, so to speak. A leader. And they usually do this by way of power, which is assessed through age. Which I find to be just bogus. Since, as Jason told me, the power of the First Born itself increases with age, but every time they take a new body—that body has to catch up to where they are.

And Aether was reported to be the first to become Revenant.

Which made me think back to that book and the passage I’d read . . . “And he named him Aether to light the way . . .”
Is it some kind of diary? Or journal? Ah, hell, I wish I’d brought it.

But now, with Aether gone (released by yours truly and with no thanks for that), apparently they’d decided to go with who had the strongest host. And hands down, that was Lex. Though—whoever that was who attacked us at the shop certainly had a body capable of physical exertion. He’d been hard to hit, and strong.

Jason could only guess at how many had answered the call. Who really knew how many Revenants were now in the city? But we could only assume that those who were here were with Lex in her bid to retrieve the book from Dags with the hope the complete spell was in there. What rattled me was how—if these creatures really did believe in protecting the physical plane as well as their existence—they would do this, put an innocent man’s life at risk, for an uncertain goal?

And then another of those alien, brainy moments struck me.

We were sitting out on the back deck . . . or one of them. There was a full buffet of roast beef, salmon, asparagus, Caesar salad, and garlic new potatoes. I wasn’t eating because I was worried about Joe. So were Rhonda and Dags. Only Jason seemed not to be concerned and ate salmon and bread with abandon.

After he was finished, Jason moved a crystal chess set into the center of the table where we sat. They sat. I’d started pacing. I watched him move pieces here and there while on the phone. Which was often. That BlackBerry of his was getting a work-out. He hung up. “I’ve gotten hold of Re and Sigyn. They know about what Lex is doing, and they said they’d be there and stay neutral.”

The deck looked onto a maze, and I noticed several dead ends from my vantage point. “What does that mean?”

“Means”—Jason started pressing buttons on his phone with his thumbs—“that they’ll be waiting in the wings at the event, just on the outside. Not a part of the audience.”

“Where is that?”

He looked up at me. “Zoë, if I tell you now, you’ll run off and try to save Joe.”

“Why is that a bad thing?”

“You’ll nullify this entire game.”

“Game?” Nona said with a lift of her chest. “Jason, this is no game. And no matter how much you trust Lex, I don’t.”

Nodding, Jason said, “Which is why I arranged the rules to include Detective Halloran’s return regardless.”

“I’m sorry, Jason,” I said, folding my arms in front of me. “But I don’t trust them or her as much as you do. I’d prefer to have him back
now
. With none of this fighting-to-the-death bullshit.”

Mom stood. “I agree. This is ridiculous. Mephistopheles told me himself he never wanted any kind of leadership role. For you to play with Joe’s life as well as Dags’s—”

“I’m not playing here,” Jason said, and motioned for her to sit. “And Mr. McConnell is under no compulsion to go along with this. He can bow out anytime he wishes.” He held up a finger. “But—we have
been
played. Therefore, it is time to play the player.”

Me, Mom, Dags, and Rhonda glanced at each other and sat back down.

Jason pointed to the chessboard. “This contest, this challenge, is a way for me to root out the one playing the strings. To expose them.” When we all gave him MEGO looks, he sighed. “Since the beginning of this, someone or
thing
has been manipulating our movements. It somehow got hold of an ancient spell known only to First Borns and the Phantasm. Anything else that might have had knowledge of this has long since vanished from the physical or Abysmal plane.”

I nodded. So did Mom. Dags’s hand found my knee. I didn’t put my hand with his, but I didn’t move his either.

“It then uses this spell—or most of it—to kill two humans in a very specific and ritualistic way that only First Borns would recognize.” He moved two pawns onto the board, one square. “Then it kills a ghoul. Not just any ghoul but the longest-lived ghoul. Lex’s companion. One that would garner instant attention.” He moved a rook from its place and put it in direct line of the king. “Now, we have two Revenants gone, one of them was the first of us, first Revenant.” He moved a knight from either side and set them all in a row across the board. “One of our own turns on us—capturing a helpless human, demanding the Grimoire in exchange for his release.” Jason moved another pawn out in front between the front line and the enemy.

Dags jumped in. “You think all this has been engineered so that we’d eventually put me”—he put his hand on his chest—“the Grimoire—in the open.”

“I do.” Jason chewed on his lower lip. “Once that happens, and if that spell is indeed inside, it would make it easier to take. So, if we add a bit of a kink into their plans—say put in a Right of Challenge—it will delay their ultimate goal.”

Yeah. But . . .
“Jason—this is something all the Revenants who are around will attend, right? So—that’s putting all of them in the same place.”

He gave me a very oily, uncomfortable smile. “Yes. It is.”

I shivered. Obviously he knew something I didn’t. “But wouldn’t that be bad? I mean—it makes them vulnerable.”

“Actually,” Rhonda spoke up, “it gives them an advantage.”

“Say that again?”

“Revenants have a link to one another—kinda like a Borgmind thing,” Rhonda said as she looked at me. “Pretty much like when Mephistopheles wants to talk to one of us.”