Dead Drop Read online

  “What is your deal?” she said.

  “You took the bus here?”

  That got him a look even he could tell was not a happy one. “Usually I just hop in my magic car, but today I took the bus. Bummer for you.”

  “Where do you live?” He paid as little attention to the humans as possible when it was his turn to babysit at Maddy’s, other than deciding if he wanted to sleep with any of the witches who made it clear they wouldn’t mind. Like Randi. Not like Wallace. But once he’d pinned Wallace as the source of some truly fucked up power, he’d asked a few careful questions. “Berkeley, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  He stared at the sky, what he could see of it anyway, what with the trees and the ambient light. He missed seeing the stars at night. “I’ll drive you home.”

  “No.” A short, sharp denial.

  “I’ll drive you to the bus stop.”

  She frowned. “Look, I appreciate what you did tonight. I do. Helping out.” She slowed down, and so did he. “That doesn’t make us friends, and it doesn’t mean I want to be around you.”

  “Hell, no.”

  She kept heading downhill. “I don’t want any favors from you.”

  He blew out a breath. “I don’t know why you’re pissed at me.”

  She stopped walking so she could count off on her fingers. “You tried to kill me. You never say anything nice, and I’m pretty damned sure you would have tried something disgusting tonight if Maddy hadn’t come in when she did.”

  He took a step back because she was getting that peaceful look-and-feel again, and that, he’d learned, was a signal that whatever it was she could do was bubbling up. “I told you. I was ninety-five percent sure I wouldn’t kill you.”

  “If that bottle had hit me, it would have cracked open my head.”

  “It didn’t.”

  She rocked onto her toes, all riled up. Like she thought she could make him sorry with the power of her anger. “What if you’d been wrong?”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “You didn’t know that.”

  “Sure, I did. Mostly.”

  She clenched her jaw. “Okay. Fine. How about you ask your question and then promise you’ll leave me alone?”

  “It’s complicated.” He reminded himself that his problem was not her problem. She didn’t owe him a thing. Maybe he should have waited to ask his favor. Maybe what the hell and fuck it. Every minute he waited for her to get over whatever her human deal was, was a minute too long. “Will you let me drive you home?”

  Stone cold stare. He had to hand it to her, that look of venom got through even to him. So. Not good. Not when he needed her.

  “Please?”

  Just when he was sure he’d blown it completely, she sighed.

  “What does that mean?”

  She shook her head and said, “Okay.”

  How did that make any sense? Shaking her head like that meant no. ‘Okay,’ meant yes. “Okay, what?”

  “Okay, I’ll talk to you.” She was still shaking her head no. Since she wasn’t walking away from him, he decided to go with the words, but he was prepared to find out he’d picked wrong.

  “This way.” If he was wrong about okay, she’d head down the hill, right? He’d driven one of Nikodemus’s cars tonight, the one nearest the garage door had been a cream Mercedes sedan. A nice enough ride currently parked about ten feet from Maddy’s driveway. They walked back up the hill, and he unlocked the door for her. When he got in the driver’s side, she was staring out the front window.

  “You’ve been taking the bus all this time?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Just making conversation.”

  “Well, don’t.”

  He thought several words uncomplimentary to human females. He knew better than to say them out loud.

  “I’m tired,” she said. “I have to get up early. Ask me your favor, and let’s get this over with.”

  He put his hands on the steering wheel. “I’ll drive you home no matter what you say, all right?”

  “Fine.” She stared out the passenger window.

  “I was a blood-twin once.” The void of his loss welled up. He made sure nothing gave away his state. This was business. You didn’t screw up business by letting others see where you were weak.

  She huffed. But it wasn’t a complete dismissal. He was pretty sure.

  Maddy didn’t always cover the subject with her street witches so he didn’t know how much she knew. “Blood-twins are a pair of demons with a permanent bond.” He checked her. Since she was still staring out the window, he continued. “Some kin are born to it—sometimes with a sibling, sometimes between kin unrelated by human parents. Same sex, opposite sex, doesn’t matter. Others enter into the bond, which is what we did.” He spoke carefully. “The bond makes the pair essentially the same being. They share everything.”

  She looked at him for the first time since he got in the car. Without the benefit of even a low level link with her, he had to watch and listen hard to be sure he was getting her reactions right. “I thought you said it was permanent.”

  “It’s supposed to be.” The quiet in the car got deeper. He hadn’t told anyone this. No one. Nikodemus knew, but that was a side-effect of his oath of fealty. Nikodemus wasn’t talking, and until now neither had he. “Things happen.”

  “Like what?”

  There was nothing out there but a bunch of sleeping or sleepy humans. No magekind except Maddy. And Wallace. He tightened his fingers on the steering wheel then let go. “Ritual murder.”

  More quiet ensued because Maddy made sure her street witches understood what the magekind had done in the past and still did today. Rules or no rules. To be fair, she also covered what the demonkind had done to human and magekind alike, and, yeah, sometimes still did. Nobody was entirely in the right. All of them needed to know what Nikodemus was doing and why it mattered. Say what you want about a warlord making nice with the magekind, the fact was, Nikodemus was stopping the abuses on both sides.

  “What happened?”

  Don’t show any reaction. None. But inside, the familiar howl of isolation consumed him. “A witch murdered her to make a talisman.”

  “I’m sorry.” Her voice got soft. “Really sorry.”

  “I found the witch who did it.” He didn’t expect Wallace to give a shit about that, but whatever. It mattered to the whole point of his favor. He was counting on her focusing on what mattered; that his blood-twin had been murdered, and that her life force was now trapped in a talisman. A living death. He hated that he didn’t have a hook into her mind. It would make this a lot easier because he’d know what he needed to say to persuade her.

  “She still has the talisman, is that what you’re saying?”

  “Yeah.” In the old days, he could and would have taken possession of her will and compelled her compliance. If he hadn’t sworn fealty to Nikodemus, a demon’s ability to compel a human would have been damned convenient. Something like that was worth his life now. Nikodemus would sanction him ten seconds after he found out. That is, if breaking his oath of fealty like that didn’t kill him. So he couldn’t just make her do what he wanted. He had to persuade her with words when he wasn’t remotely eloquent.

  She bit her lower lip. He focused on the tip of her tongue when it darted out to touch the dent she’d made. “I’m sorry.” She looked like she meant it, but he could never be certain with humans when he didn’t have a link. With her, though, he thought she was paying close attention. “I’m not sure I understand what that has to do with me.”

  “She’s in Santa Cruz.” Santa Cruz was a beach and college town about an hour and half south, depending on traffic.

  “Okay.” Her eyebrows drew together. That meant she was confused, right? Not clear about something.

  “Not Nikodemus’s territory,” he said.

  “Outside the rules, then.” She was fast. She shifted on the seat, facing him, and he hoped he was right that she was interested. She
ran a hand over her hair. “What exactly do you need?”

  He took her question as a hopeful sign. “Your help getting the talisman away from the witch who murdered her.”

  She cocked her head and studied him, and he decided the smart thing was to wait her out. After a long silence, she said, “Why me? Why not ask Maddy or, hell, anyone else?”

  “Because you can dead drop me.”

  “Is it that big a deal?”

  “Yes. I think you can do something similar to the talisman.” He squeezed the steering wheel hard. It would work. What she could do, that had to work for what he was thinking. “After all this time, the talisman is going to be unstable, and that makes it dangerous. You can dead drop the magic and give me time to stop her suffering.”

  “No.” She whispered the word, but he heard her fine. “I don’t think I can do anything like that.”

  He looked sideways at her. “I have been watching you for weeks. You dead dropped me. More than once. There’s five, maybe six of the magekind strong enough to do that to me. If you can learn to control it, you could neutralize an entire fucking household. Magekind and kin.”

  The woman blinked several times, and he took a deep breath to keep his disappointment under control. “What if you’re wrong?”

  “I’m not wrong.”

  “About me. What if you’re wrong about me?”

  “I’m not wrong about that, either.” He used the best weapon for the fight he was in. “I will pay you two million dollars. Half now. Half afterward, whether I get the talisman or not.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Two million dollars added up to a lot of desperation. Whatever what happened next, her life had just changed. That fact hit hard because she hadn’t seen it coming. Palla wasn’t playing around, and that was scary. The transformation of her reality sank in, deeper and deeper. From this moment forward, their barely civil interactions would be colored by his personal disclosures and by him putting two million dollars in front of her.

  A talisman was an evil thing. If there was anything worse than the magekind enslaving demons, this had to be it. She understood his impatience now, however much she wished she didn’t. Two months was too long to wait when he knew his blood-twin was trapped and dying forever. Wallace sat in the car wishing the horror of Palla’s situation didn’t make her want to help. Didn’t matter, though.

  Two million. She didn’t have ten thousand in her 401K. After taxes on two million, what was left over would pay off her student loans, erase her credit card debt, and let her keep a job she loved even though she’d never make money at it. She wouldn’t need to scrimp and make do or take the bus even when it wasn’t convenient.

  She stretched her legs as far as they would go in the front seat. Nothing but silence from Palla. That wasn’t unusual for him. She didn’t like him, and maybe she didn’t entirely get the blood-twin thing, but what he’d told her was plain enough. Someone he loved was suffering.

  He started the car just as she said, “I don’t want your money.”

  His jaw flexed as he put the car in gear. “Your choice.”

  She put a hand on his arm, and he froze. “I’ve spent all this time failing at magic, and just like that, you think I can do what you want? Well, I can’t.”

  “Sure. Whatever.” Slowly, he turned his head, not bothering to hide that he did not have normal eyes.

  “I touched my magic for the first time today. It’s not like I’m an expert now.”

  “Let go of me.”

  She did and felt like the worst person ever. If she left matters between them like this, nothing bad would happen. He’d still hate her, and she’d still dislike him. There was safety in this outcome. Demon, human, whatever the hell he was, he was an asshole and a jerk, and he didn’t have the slightest notion of what it meant to be kind, so why should she help someone she didn’t like, and who didn’t like her any better?

  Because. Because Palla’s blood-twin would remain trapped and suffering. Because she’d know she had done nothing to stop a very great evil.

  He maneuvered the car out of the parking spot and got them headed downhill. “What part of Berkeley?”

  “Near San Pablo Avenue. I’ll tell you when you’re close.” Maddy had described the broad outlines of the killing ritual used to create a talisman. The demon was immobilized, drugged, poisoned, really, and its beating heart removed, with the demon fully conscious the entire time. In the seconds that followed, the demon’s life force was imprisoned in whatever container the mage or witch had elected to use. Something small since a talisman was used to boost the magekind’s power and so needed to be easily carried.

  There wasn’t any question that Palla’s bonded partner had died a brutal physical death. How could anyone live knowing that had been done to someone you loved? Knowing every day they were still suffering? She shuddered.

  Palla turned up the heater.

  She looked out the window, devastated by his throwaway gesture. Why? Why did he have to do something thoughtful like that? Doing nothing was impossible. Thoughtful gestures had no bearing on her decision. It didn’t matter what he’d done. What mattered was someone else’s suffering. “I said I didn’t want your money. I didn’t say I wouldn’t help you.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “God, I do not like you.”

  “Feeling’s mutual.”

  “I’m shocked.” She glanced at him, and saw nothing but the same cold profile as always. He wasn’t someone she could like. Not ever. They had nothing in common. “I don’t know why you want me involved in anything to do with you.”

  He took the next right and pulled over. The tension between them got worse, and she reached for her center of calm when he turned toward her. “First you say no, then you say yes. Make up your mind instead of jerking me around.”

  “I am not jerking you around.”

  Palla opened his mouth then didn’t say anything. Not right away. He leaned over her. “Explain. Explain so I understand what the hell is wrong with you.”

  “I don’t have to like you to help you.” She leaned away until her back was against the door. “Just like you don’t have to like me to ask for my help. I think you’re asking the wrong person, but that’s not the point. You asked me. So, yes, I will help you.”

  Yellow flecks snaked through his eyes. “What do you mean about the money, then?”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “My money’s not good enough for you?”

  “No.”

  “It’s the same as everyone else’s.”

  She tipped her head back until it touched the window. Her chest was tight. She wished she’d stayed quiet. It wasn’t too late to take it all back and be safe. Except, damn it, he wouldn’t have asked her if there were anyone else. He wouldn’t. On his list of people to ask for help, she had to be near the bottom, if not dead last. “I mean, no, you are wrong. If you think for some insane reason you need my help with this, then all right. I’ll help you. But I won’t take money for something I’d do for anybody.” She looked at him, but it was dark, and all she could tell was that he was listening. “If you want to pay my expenses, fine. That’s fair. I’d be okay with that.”

  He settled in his seat. “All right, then.”

  Wallace touched his arm, and he flinched. Okay, well, she wouldn’t want him touching her either. That was fair, too. “When did it happen?”

  He stared out the front window. “Winter 1505.”

  “Five hundred years?”

  His attention snapped to her. His lips thinned, and his eyes glowed enough that her spine turned to ice. “Fuck you, human.”

  She held his gaze. “A year ago, I didn’t know demons existed. Or witches. So give me a break.”

  “Why do you think it’s been that long?” He stared straight ahead again, and she got a sick feeling he was about to tell her something she didn’t want to know. There was only one reason for that, and it made her hollow and sick. Five hundred years. “You weren’t
free.”

  A mageheld demon was a slave. There wasn’t any other word for it. If you were mageheld, you did whatever the mage or witch told you to do. No matter what. You had no will of your own. No freedom. No control over what happened to you. Centuries of her own history had been lost through the same evil. How could she not help him?

  One thing she’d learned early in her work with Maddy was that demons who’d been mageheld didn’t like to talk about it. They’d be fine, and something would happen to remind them, and it was like watching scars turn back to open wounds. She was watching that happen to Palla. There was no blood, but he was bleeding right in front of her.

  “It’s been a year since dit Menart died, and I got my freedom. A year. But it took me until now to find out where she is. Sorry if that doesn’t meet your expectations.”

  “That isn’t—” But she wasn’t going to argue with him about this. He didn’t need her giving him a hard time about something as horrific as this. “I said I’ll help you.”

  He didn’t say anything for a while, but she did get another stink-eye from him. “You have to take the money.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Yes.” He started the car, on this quiet side street where most everyone was home and if not in bed, then getting ready. They had no idea there was any such thing as demons.

  “Why?”

  “We do this, I don’t want you worrying about your fucking job or whether it’s going to take longer than whatever vacation you have coming. I’m not going to wait for your time off to get approved. I don’t want you stressing over paying your goddamned bills or taking the fucking bus home because you can’t afford a car with your bullshit job.”

  She slouched on her seat. “Excuse me for not making enough money.”

  He glared at her, and his glittering, unhuman eyes were hard. “I will have two million in an offshore account for you by morning.”

  “I thought you said half now and half after.”

  “Fuck that. If we fail, you won’t be around to spend it. And I won’t be around to be pissed off about it.”