The Hero Strikes Back (9 page)

I could feel it again, that oddness, though I couldn't pinpoint it at all. “There it is again. Can you feel it?” A part of me was frustrated that I couldn't just reach out a hand and show him.

“I feel nothing,” he answered. “Well, no, that's not quite right. I'm not you, after all. Let's just say I feel nothing out of the ordinary.”

And what had I done to deserve that shot? Prat. “It's there.”

“What's there?”

Well, if I could tell him that, the problem would be solved, wouldn't it? “It's just off, somewhere in there.”

He rolled his eyes. “That helps a lot. Thanks.”

“Like listening to an orchestra, and it's a good symphony, but the second bassoon is flat.” Aye, that nailed it.

But not, however, according to Karish. “Care to use a different analogy for the tone-deaf partner in this Pair?”

Picky, picky. “Like looking at a painting, and while red was a good choice, the artist used orange red instead of blue red and so the whole picture looks off.” See? Right there. Only don't look with your eyes. Look with your mind.

Karish let his hand fall to the table, flesh slapping against wood. “For Zaire's sake, Lee!”

“What?” Was he claiming to be colorblind, too?

He snapped his shields back into place. As they weren't actual physical entities, he shouldn't have been able to raise or lower them with any kind of variety, but if
my
shields had been fingers, I would have yanked them back and sucked on their stinging tips. “What's wrong with you today?” Sometimes his artistic moods were so tiring.

“There's nothing out there, Lee,” he snapped.

“So, what, you think I'm lying?”

Karish, being an intelligent lad, stepped around that. His voice slid into a tone of annoying, condescending patience. “I think you're very anxious to find a solution and are therefore seeing things that aren't there.”

Ah. Delusional. So much better. “There is something there, Taro.”

“Then why can't I feel it?”

“I don't know.” Maybe he didn't want to see anything. Maybe he didn't want anything to be wrong. And that was understandable. The last time things had been unnatural it had resulted in a series of nightmares for Karish. To come home to learn things were once more odd was probably more than he needed to hear, especially with the other things going on in his life. So he agreed to a search of the forces to shut me up, but saw nothing because he didn't want to see anything.

I couldn't very well tell him any of that, though. He would feel insulted. “All right, then.”

He raised an eyebrow. “All right?”

“Aye.”

“That's it?”

“What else is there?”

“Oh, no, no, no. I'm not buying that. No way would you just drop everything so easily. Tell me what's going on in that dense, mysterious brain of yours.”

I thought about that. Dense was definitely an insult, yet mysterious was alluring and therefore flattering. I wondered which I was supposed to feel. “Nothing more than usual.” I was wondering if I might have better luck with another Source, one who wasn't experiencing some kind of mental block. Except none of the other Sources in High Scape were as talented as Karish. And my bond with Karish impaired my ability to work with other Sources. What I gained in working with a more openminded Source might be lost through the diminished talent and compatibility. “We'll try it again next watch.”

Karish groaned. “Lovely.”

“If you want me to claim we're working on it, we'd better be working on it.” He was the one who said it first, he was the one who had made the deal, and I was going to make him stick to it.

“I
knew
that was going to come back on me.” He dug a coin out of his purse and spun it on the table.

“Because you're such a bright boy.”

“Shut up, Lee.”

“And in such a fine mood, too.” Should I ask him, should I not? Should I borrow the coin? Ah, what the hell. “What is wrong with you?”

Hands through the hair again. “Her Grace is here.”

Oh. All was forgiven. “When?”

“Yesterday.”

“How did she even know you were back here and not in Erstwhile?”

“I don't know. Magic. I don't care.” His shoulders slumped.

“Where is she staying?”

“The Imperial,” he said, naming a boarding house like the one my mother was staying at, only for the risto crowd.

“You don't actually have to see her, if you don't want to.”

A short exhalation through his nose, a sound of disgust. “I have to see her.”

Find me the law that said that. “No, you don't.”

The muscles along his jaw clenched. “Leave it, Lee.”

Fine. Make yourself miserable. I only have to work with you while you do it.

I watched Karish wander over to the wall and poke around the shelves. He came up with a deck of cards. “Want to cheat at slider?”

I didn't bother to protest the accusation. No need to get too predictable. “Can you afford to fall any further into debt? You already owe me your first six born.”

“I guess I'll have to figure out some way to work it off.” He winked.

I rolled my eyes.

The rest of the watch passed without incident. No surprises there. I spent some time wondering if High Scape had turned into a cold site. It had been known to happen. Sites constantly rattled by natural events suddenly went still, for decades, while sites that had been calm suddenly went hot. Maybe Creol had been the only reason High Scape had ever been hot in the first place.

Firth and Stone came to relieve us, something I always looked forward to. I loved Firth.

“Karish, my beautiful, my one, my only,” she crowed, as she always did.

Karish, who had risen to his feet as the ladies entered, scooped up Firth's hand. As he always did. “Claire, my lovely,” he said in a voice as smooth as sanded wood. “It is a treasure to see you, as always.”

“You liar,” she retorted. “You're such a tease.”

That was a little blunter than usual. Fun to see Karish gape like a fish, though. “I never am,” he protested.

“Sure you are, lad. All heat and promises and just when you get a girl all worked up you slither out of it.”

Karish blushed. I cackled. Stone smirked.

Granted, I wouldn't want a man as old as Firth drooling all over me, but Karish asked for it. He was something of a slut and wore the reputation almost proudly. From what I understood, Firth was a slut, too, and she'd had many more years to practise it. She knew how to make the elegant, confident, suave Lord Shintaro Karish blush in a way no one else could, and it delighted me every time I saw it. He should have learned to back off by then. On the other hand, he might have forgotten after all that time spent away from High Scape. For certain he beat a hasty retreat out of there, taking me with him.

“Rrrrr,” Karish growled, once I closed the door behind us. “You have too much fun with her.”

Hey, it wasn't my fault. He'd started it the year before by oozing all over Firth when they met. “I have nothing to do with it.”

“No, you just sit back and laugh.” He sounded almost bitter about it.

“Poor boy.” My feigned sympathy couldn't have sounded more false. “Can dish it out but you can't take it.”

He appeared scandalized. “I never behave like that.” He pointed a thumb back over his shoulder at the Stall.

“No, you're a little more subtle, but give it time.”

He huffed. “I will never act that way.”

“All right.” We'd wait and see. When his looks began to fade a little. In twenty years or so.

“Brat.” He took my hand, and we trudged through the snow back towards the city. “Come out for a drink with me?”

“Sure.”

His hand squeezed mine a little with his surprise. “Really?”

We'd never gone out for a drink together before. “Aye.”

He smiled. “Good girl.”

“Aye, you'd think so.” Karish was a real fan of debauchery. Not that that was where I was headed. I'd just watch him for a while. From what I'd heard, he put on quite a show when he was enjoying himself in a tavern.

“Lord Shintaro!”

He jumped. I didn't. Score for me. I did want to scowl at the interloper, though. But I didn't, because Karish was doing it for me. “You've got the wrong number,” he snapped.

The man halted his jog and stared at Karish, nonplussed.

I looked up and stared at Karish, nonplussed.

“Lord Shintaro Karish?” the man tried again.

Karish gave up on the not-a-lord issue. “What do you want?”

The tone was not at all friendly, but the man bowed. “William Smith, at your service.” I thought that if he truly wanted to be polite, he might pull his scarf away from his face a little so we could get a good look at him. It wasn't that cold. “I am a member of the Raiborn, and we're recruiting members. We were hoping you might be interested in joining us.”

Karish's fine black brows drew together in a frown. “Uh, what?”

I stifled a giggle. Good retort.

“A club, my lord. A kind of gentlemen's club.”

“What kind of gentlemen's club recruits members on the street?” Karish demanded with scorn.

“Our kind of club, my lord.”

As statements of the obvious went, the delivery of that one had admirable panache.

“Didn't one of you people already send me a letter inviting me to this club of yours?”

“We very well may have. You are exactly the kind of—”

“And if I recall I sent you a response saying no thanks.”

That didn't slow the man down for a moment. “It was no doubt an open invitation, my lord. Should you change your mind.”

“Well, I haven't,” Karish declared with exquisite hauteur. “And I won't. I don't like gentlemen's clubs. They always let in the wrong sort.”

“I can assure you, my lord, we seek out only the—”

“Leave now.” Karish pulled me away and started us down the street.

Listen to him. So used to being invited into exclusive high society clubs that the very invitations themselves irritated him. Must be nice to be so sought after.

“My lord!”

“Don't call us,” Karish muttered.

“Maybe we'll have a better opportunity to speak another time, my lord!” the man shouted after us. Didn't follow us, though. Smart man.

“What was that about?” I asked.

“You heard him.”

“But your refusal was a little harsh.” And not like Karish. Karish, in my experience, was usually quite polite.

“He came up to me on the
street.
”

“Aye, I wouldn't have thought that was the way they did it.”

“It's not. At least, I've never had anyone ask me like that before.”

“So you have been asked to a gentlemen's club before?” He really did live in a different world. One I couldn't understand. Which, considering I was his partner, was rather sad.

He shrugged. “I was Lord Westsea's younger brother. Then people thought I was going to be Lord Westsea myself.”

“And you turned them down?” I would have joined, out of curiosity if nothing else.

He snorted. “Why would I want to lock myself away with a collection of self-important asses who obviously have no real appreciation for women?” Ah, but think of all the fun he could have had with the men. “Besides, I'm not married. What do I need a gentlemen's club for?”

The thought of Karish married was enough to make me choke on nothing but air and saliva. Good thing I was a Shield, with unsurpassed control over my reactions. Else I might laugh.

Karish was looking down at me. “What? No derogatory comments?”

“I have nothing to say.”

“You always have something to say. You just choose not to.” Happy with that little comment, he released my hand and tucked it into the crook of his arm.

Damn all perceptive men.

Chapter Six

Music came pouring out through the windows and the door. A fiddle racing over octaves. A pipe emitting a plaintive haunting tone even as it danced over arpeggios. And a flat drum with a rolling syncopated beat. My heart sped up and I bit my lower lip. Images clashed in my mind. Waves crashing against rocks. A window shattering in the intense heat of fire. Standing at the edge of a cliff and wanting to dive over just to feel the air rushing over my skin as I fell. I pulled back on Karish's arm. “Not in there.”

Karish had been leading me. He had picked this tavern. He turned back to me, a corner of his mouth turned up in a dangerous smile. Dangerous to me, anyway. His eyes were glowing. “Do you like this music?”

Was he insane? “Of course.” A person would have to be dead not to like this music. It was glorious. It lit the air. It moved.

“Do you want to go in? Not—” he cut off my answer with a raised hand, “should you go in. But do you want to? If you had nothing at all to worry about, would you go in?”

There was a bit of a breeze winding its way through the night. It played with his hair. One dark strand was fluttering along his cheek. I wanted to brush it back. Then I wanted to sink my hands into that black mass.

My blood was practically dancing through my veins. My heart was pounding so hard I felt the pulse in my throat. My muscles were tense with the effort it took not to start running or jumping around like an idiot.

I licked my dry lips and nodded.