Sweet Peril (8 page)

Dad closed his eyes. “Anna.”

“Yes?”

“How long’s it been since you saw the son of Pharzuph?”

Oh, crap. “Um . . . a day?”

Two giant brown eyes popped open.

“Just for a few minutes at a record store,” I clarified. “Pharzuph was out of town.”

He grumbled a muffled curse into his hand, then asked, “He called you?”

“No. He won’t talk to me. I found out about it from my friend Jay.”

Dad nodded. Where was he going with this?

“You still got a crush on him?” He linked his fingers on the table in front of him.

“It’s not a
crush
, Dad.”

He sighed. “And that’s
exactly
why it’s not a good idea for you to see him, Anna. He seems to understand that. Why don’t you?”

I bit down hard, not trusting myself to answer.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be harsh, but you still don’t have that killer instinct most Neph come to learn during childhood. You’re not cautious enough in your relationships. You can be mad at me all you want, but it’s my job to keep you out of danger. Over time your feelings for him will fade.”

“You of all people know it doesn’t work like that,” Patti said to him. “You spent hundreds of years looking for Anna’s mother.”

He sat back in his chair, regarding her with wary respect and I wanted to punch the air. He knew she was right. He’d
scoured the earth looking for Mariantha—my mother, a guardian angel whom he’d never stopped loving. Dad gave me a slow nod.

“The fact is, you’ll be less distracted with him out of the picture. So, for now, no trips to California, and I don’t want to hear anything else about him. Got it?”

Patti winked at me.

“Got it,” I whispered.

He’d said “for now.” It was a flimsy phrase to cling to, but still I clung.

F
ive weeks passed that summer without hearing from Dad. The good thing was, whisperers were checking on me only once every couple of weeks. The bad thing was, I hated being kept in the dark, and I was impatient. Summer was flying by and I’d been hoping to get some things accomplished before the start of senior year.

I sat on our balcony after my jog, wishing for a breeze in the stifling late morning air.

Patti came out and handed me a steaming mug of coffee.

“You work today?” Patti asked.

I shook my head. “Tomorrow.” I still had my job at the soft-serve stand.

She took a long drink of her coffee and grinned. “Wanna hear something weird? I feel like spending some of that demon loot.”

I almost choked on the sip I’d just taken. Patti never wanted to spend money, especially the haul Dad had given us. She laughed at my expression.

“Come on,” she said. “It’ll be fun. Let’s go crazy.”

“You don’t have to ask me twice,” I said.

We were worn out by the time we headed home. A good song came on the country station, and Patti cranked up the volume. We belted out the twangy chorus so loudly it’s a wonder I heard my cell phone ring. I turned down the radio and my heart hammered at the sight of Dad’s number.

“Where are you?” he grumbled.

“I’m on my way home with Patti.”

“From where?”

Biting my thumbnail, I mumbled, “Atlanta.”

“What the hell are you doing out there?”

I bristled at his tone. “We were just shopping.”

“Shopping?”

“Patti spent a ton of money. It was awesome.” I giggled and Patti popped my leg.

Dad growled something incoherent, then said, “Well, hurry up. I’m at your place.”

Yes! News! I smiled, part smug that he’d have to wait on me for once.

“Tell him to hold his horses,” Patti said. “We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

When we got to the apartment, I stopped in the doorway, surprised to see someone standing at Dad’s side.

“Kope!” I hadn’t meant to sprint across the small room
to hug him around the neck, but I did. Had he always been this tall? I felt his frame rumble with light laughter. He pulled away from the embrace first, giving me a shy grin that showed off the single dimple in his cheek. The black badge of Wrath rested at his sternum.

Kope had never seemed very young to begin with. Too much wisdom lived in those hazel eyes. But he looked even more mature these days with a bit of facial hair on his chin. His black hair was trimmed really short, and his coffee skin was as smooth as ever. He met my gaze full-on and I couldn’t stop smiling. Seeing one of my Neph friends after all this time was empowering.

“You are looking well, Anna,” he said. He didn’t often use contractions, but the end sounds of some words were clipped off and smoothed together in a languid, slippery sort of way, like verbal cursive.

“Thanks, Kope,” I told him. “So are you.”

I turned my attention to Dad.

“So? What are we doing? Where are we going?”

His chuckle was dry, and he reached up to scratch his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” I said, remembering my manners. “You guys sit down and then we can talk.”

I went into the kitchen, where Patti was already filling four tall glasses with iced tea. The guys took seats around our small dining table.

Dad pulled a large manila envelope from his jacket and opened it, setting a few pictures facedown, as Patti and I sat across from them.

“It’s still important to keep a low profile after that bout of interest in you, but I think it’s safe to move forward. It’ll be best not to give you all the details about my intel, but I have several trusted humans and spirits who have been gathering information about Neph worldwide. This is the first one I can say for certain does not have a heart for her father’s work and may be willing to help us.”

I smiled and bit my lip, excited and anxious. He flipped over a picture, showing an Arab girl in full garb with a head covering. Only an oval of her olive-toned face showed. In the next picture she was crouching in front of a child with a skinned knee who had fallen. It was obvious she was going to help him, but the picture had been taken at the perfect moment to capture her eyes giving the area a stealthy scan, as if making certain her act of kindness would not be witnessed.

“Her name is Zania,” Dad explained. “She lives in Damascus, Syria, with her father, Sonellion, the Duke of Hatred.” A chill shot up my spine at the name of her father. “They moved to Syria two years ago from the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Syria’s had some civil unrest, but the area she lives in is still safe for the most part.”

“How long has Duke Sonellion been in the Middle East?” I asked.

Dad paused. “Going on thirty years, so his term’s about up. Being the epicenter of three major religions means tensions are already running high. Makes easy work for Dukes.”

“Have you worked out there?” Patti asked him.

“Not permanently. Only odd jobs here and there. They call me the traveling Duke.”

“Sounds like a bad country song,” I said.

He frowned when Patti giggled, and the corner of Kope’s mouth twitched.

“Just teasing,” I said, biting my lip.

He glared at me, but his eyes held way too much affection to pull it off.

“All right. Enough chitchat,” he said. “Back to business.”

We leaned in as he laid out a small map of the Middle East and pointed to the country of Syria on the Mediterranean Sea. “She recently turned twenty-five, and I believe they left Saudi Arabia when her identity was leaked as one of the girls in an illegal photo shoot. I have two of the less racy pictures here. Apparently they sparked a national outrage.” He flipped over a picture, which at first glance seemed innocent enough. And then I really looked and thought about them in context of the culture. In the first photo, taken in a nondescript room, she was completely draped in the traditional black burka, head and face covered with a thin slat for her eyes. But in one hand she pulled up the garment to reveal her knees, slim brown calves, and slender feet in black high heels. Her eyes glittered with rebellion.

I glanced at Kope, whose gaze darted around the walls of our apartment. It seemed like he was going to great efforts not to look at the picture.

I turned the first picture over and flipped the next one, which was slightly more revealing. This one was Zania from behind, still standing in the high heels, but the burka was lifted in both hands to the back of her thighs, her head and face coverings had been removed, and she was leaning backward.
Her long ebony hair flowed seductively down her arched back. Her eyes were closed, and even though the top half of her face showed, it was not enough to give away her identity.

I saw more skin than that at my school on a normal basis, but there was something incredibly sexy about the small amount of skin she showed, and the way she posed, knowing it was a culture that valued modesty and sexual purity. I pushed the picture toward Kope, who glanced at it and nodded. I watched him for a moment, wondering if the pictures offended him, but he gave nothing away. Until he once again caught me staring. His light eyes seemed to dance with heat as they gripped mine. A blush crept up my neck into my cheeks until he lowered his lids back to the map. The pictures made him feel something, all right. Underneath all that self-control, Kope was still just a guy.

“There’s something else you should know about her,” Dad said, pulling out another photo. I took a drink, hoping to cool myself of the embarrassment. “You can’t see it in the pictures, just like badges can’t be captured on film, but Zania is an alcoholic. It seems she’s barely trying to control it. This is a month ago at a nightclub in Damascus.”

I leaned in at the picture of her sitting at a bar, wearing designer jeans and a tasteful short-sleeved blouse with her hair down. In the next picture the photographer had zoomed in and brightened the part that showed her pouring a bottle of something from her purse into her drink on the sly. My heart quickened, and I inspected the picture more closely.

“She’s not wearing a headscarf,” I pointed out.

Dad said, “Not all the women in Damascus wear them.”

“She’s supposed to be promoting hate?” Patti asked.

“Yep,” Dad answered. “Sonellion, her father, uses her to help further the cause of violence and hatred against women. Misogyny’s one of his favorites, but it’s more and more of a challenge these days.”

Patti
tsk-tsk
ed and shook her head.

“Anyhow, the girl was beaten and arrested for drunkenness in Saudi Arabia, which led to linking her to the photographs.” Dad leaned back in the chair, making it creak, and crossed his arms against his husky chest. “Sonellion managed to get her out of there, but trust me when I say he spares no love for her. She’s an asset and an amusement. When she stops being those, he’ll get rid of her.”

“She’s given up, hasn’t she?” I asked, and he nodded, solemn. I looked back down at the bar picture. She needed hope. She needed to know about the prophecy. Determination revved inside me.

“Duke Sonellion is traveling to central Africa to try and expand interest in a certain archaic act against women, one he hopes to bring into greater popularity in the Middle East if he can get them to embrace it for religious purposes.”

He put a hand up when I opened my mouth to ask about it. “Don’t ask,” he said gruffly. “He left yesterday and he plans to be gone three to four weeks.”

“So, when do we leave?” I asked.

“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you there’s a lot of danger in the Middle East, Anna,” he said. I nodded.

“Do you know any Arabic?” he asked Kope.

“Yes, sir. My father often spoke it, and we frequented the
Middle East in our travels.”

Dad looked at me. “I’ve considered asking Kopano to do this one solo.”

I sucked in a shocked breath and sat up straighter as a burst of angry indignance lashed through me.

“Don’t even think about it! I am
so
going.”

“It’s not what you’re used to,” he replied.

I bit back a retort of “Well, duh.” I needed to state my case without turning it into a battle of wills. I’d point out that it was his idea to have me scouting the world for Neph in the first place. Now, faced with a dangerous situation, he wanted to become a protective dad and throw Kope to the wolves all by himself.

“Look.” I spoke calmly. “I’ll research the culture before I go. I’ll dress however the women there dress. Plus, Kope will be looking out for me.” I looked across at Kope and he nodded, deciding to finally speak up.

“Damascus is liberal, as far as Arab cities are concerned, is it not?” He faced my father, who cleared his throat, realizing he was losing ground.

“It’s a bubble of liberalism in a conservative country, yes. But there will still be scattered hard-core conservatives and radicals who frown on Westerners. Not everyone in the city approves of men and women mingling.” He closed his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger.

Patti patted the table in front of her. “I know exactly how you feel, John. I’m scared for her, too. But . . .” She stopped long enough to let out a breath of reluctance before facing Dad
again. “You know as well as I do that she can handle this.” He grunted. “She needs to be active, and it sounds like she might be able to help this girl in Syria.”