Alphas Unleashed (22 page)

At first Wallace thought Maddy meant Palla, but she didn’t. Maddy meant her. “I can’t. I have work tomorrow.”

Palla walked to the broken glass and pushed at the remains with the toe of his shoe. “We need to do something about that.”

Wallace remained in her state of unnatural calm. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Maddy spoke at the same time. “Really, I think you’ve done enough.”

He cocked one eyebrow. “It means what I said.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that I have a job and need to keep it.”

“Why?”

“Must be nice to have a life where you can ask a question like that. Student loans don’t pay themselves. And the refrigerator doesn’t get stocked by magic.”

“That’s not my fault.”

Maddy sighed. “I mean it, Palla. You need to leave. I am not prepared to deal with you right now, and I don’t think Wallace is either.”

Palla fished a set of car keys from his pocket. “See you, Maddy.” Then he pointed at her, and she despised his smug grin. “Later, Angel.”

Wallace waved at him with a fake smile. He’d get that she didn’t mean it, and he did. He replied with, “Fuck you, too.”

When the door closed after him, Maddy collapsed on a chair. “That—I don’t even—I apologize on Palla’s behalf.”

“Don’t bother.”

“He chose the wrong way to find out what you can do.”

“Which is nothing.” She hadn’t done anything. She couldn’t have. She wasn’t capable. “It’s late. I need to go.”

Maddy steepled her fingers and stared at her over the tops. “Are you sure you won’t stay the night?”

“I can’t.”

“That was extraordinary, what you did. You do realize that?”

“No.” Other than her overall tremble, she didn’t feel any different than any other time.

Maddy rubbed her arms. “I was convinced one of you was going to end up dead.”

“It wouldn’t have been him.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“I don’t believe in violence. It’s wrong, and I don’t want anything to do with hurting anyone ever.” She pushed to her feet. “I have to get home.”

“It’s no trouble if you stay here. I’m happy to have you.”

“I have an early day.” She didn’t know the morning bus schedules or how early she’d have to get up in order to get home to change for work. Mostly she wanted to be at home. Safe. Alone. Stewing, for sure, about what had happened here.

“I have a guest room. You’d have your own shower. Doesn’t matter how late or early you need to get up.”

“Thanks. Another time maybe.”

Maddy sat forward. “I’m going to talk to Nikodemus about bringing you on staff.”

“To do what?” She stood. If she didn’t go now, she was walking home.

“Palla is right about you needing a better job.” Maddy got up, too, and walked with her to the door. She glanced up and down the street. This was a quiet neighborhood. “Where you’d park?”

“Not far.” She shrugged on her jacket and slung her purse crossways over her chest. Her bus pass was safe in her back pocket. She pointed up the street a ways.

“Text me when you make it home?”

“Sure thing.” Which she would do when she made the transfer in Berkeley. Otherwise, Maddy would worry about how long it took her to get home.

With a wave, she headed downhill and even took out her house keys as if her hypothetical car was just a few feet away. She stuck her keys between her clenched fingers, Wolverine style, and headed down the hill toward North Berkeley and the nearest bus stop that would take her downtown.

She well out of sight of Maddy’s house when someone stepped out of the shadows.

Chapter 4

Palla didn’t have to make a link with the human to know he’d scared the shit out of her. She didn’t have the slightest ability to sense his kind. She was also quick to assume the worst of him. Couldn’t blame her for that. “Hey. It’s cool. It’s me.”

“What the fuck!”

He saw plenty well in the dark. Well enough to know her big brown eyes were wide open.

“Why would you even do that? Jumping out at me like that?”

“What?” He spread his arms to either side of him.

“Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”

“No.” He wanted to return that attitude full force, but since he was about to ask her for a favor, that wasn’t the best idea. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

“You are not.”

Better not answer that, because he wasn’t. Much. He’d done the needful. “I want to talk to you.”

Like a lot of Northern Californians who refused to admit it got cold at night—for them—she wasn’t wearing a decent coat. Just a sweater that was more for show than warmth. Fine with him. She looked great in a sweater.

“You could have talked to me at Maddy’s.”

“It’s private.”

She gave him one of those looks humans did when they were staring over the tops of a pair of glasses. Skeptical, if he was right about the contexts in which he’d seen that expression from others. No glasses in this case. If she’d put any magic behind that glare, he’d be hurting.

He lifted his hands. “Can we sit in your car and talk?”

“No, we can’t.”

“I won’t pull anything.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She caught up quick. “You have
got
to be kidding. No. Just don’t even.”

“Even if it was allowed, I wouldn’t do anything to you.” From her disgust, which he got loud and clear, he could tell that had come out all wrong. Well, roll with it, right? They weren’t going to be friends anyway. “I would like to talk to you. Please.”

She gave him a long look, and he didn’t like it much. She had that bizarre, freaky power and, of all the witches who worked with Maddy, she was the hardest for him to read. Some of the rules against making links with humans were annoying as hell. “Make it quick, would you?”

“It’s cold. Let’s sit in your car.” The usual evening fog chilled the air. She had to be cold. Her thin sweater was not up to the task of keeping her warm.

She started walking again so he followed along. He scanned the parked vehicles, trying to guess which car was hers. Something cheap, for sure. She went past several candidate junkers. Maybe she’d surprise him and be driving something racy. She kept walking.

“How far away did you park?”

She kept her hands clenched around the strap of her purse. “My car is called AC Transit.”

He grabbed her elbow, and she whipped around, but he’d already let go because touching her made his fingers go numb. She was ramping up, and Jesus, he did not want to get hit again, after her just having turned his magic into a gaping void. “You took the bus here?”

“Every Monday and Tuesday.”

“Where do you live? Berkeley, right?”

“Yeah.”

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

“No.”

“I’ll drive you to the bus stop, then.” He was getting the sense that his action tonight, while a strategic success, had been a tactical error.

“I don’t want any favors from you.”

Being what she was, she’d had a rough life. That was a given. He put his hands on his hips. In the normal course of things, he didn’t deal with humans. His lack of practice at reading them without a link made this harder. Survivors like her were tough as nails. They often isolated themselves and something like seventy percent of them either killed their magic entirely or were left with insignificant residue. If they didn’t cope one way or another, their untrained, unchanneled powers got them sent to institutions, medicated, jailed, or left barely holding on to their sanity. All things considered, Wallace Jackson was highly functional.

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

“You tried to kill me.”

“I did not.” He took a step back because she was getting that peaceful look about her again, and that, he’d learned, was a signal that whatever it was she could do was bubbling up.

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

“I was ninety-five percent sure that wouldn’t happen.”

She rocked up on her toes, all riled up. She was cute when she was mad. 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.”

She clenched her jaw. “Ok. Fine. How about you ask your question and then leave me alone forever?”

“It’s complicated.” He reminded himself that his problem was not her problem. She didn’t owe him a damn thing. Maybe he should have waited to ask his favor. Except every minute that he waited was a minute too long. “Will you fucking let me drive you home?”

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

He’d driven one of Nikodemus’s cars tonight, the one nearest the garage door had been a green 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, she was staring out the front window.

“Have you been taking the bus all this time?”

“What do you think?”

“Just making conversation.”

“Don’t. I’m tired, and 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.”

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

Maddy would have taught this batch of street witches what he meant. Blood-twins were a pair of demons with a magical, permanent bond. Some demons were born to it—sometimes with a sibling, sometimes with a demon unrelated by human parents; same sex, opposite sex, didn’t matter. Others deliberately entered into the bond, which he had done. The blood-twin bond made the pair essentially the same being. They shared everything.

She frowned. He hoped that was curiosity he saw. 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 that was a permanent thing.”

“It’s supposed to be.” He hadn’t been whole since she died. 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.

“What happened?”

There was nothing out there but a bunch of sleeping or sleepy humans. No magekind except Maddy. He had no idea what the one next to him thought about any thing. “A witch murdered her to make a talisman.”

More quiet because Maddy made sure all the street witches she worked with understood what the magekind had done in the past and now. To be fair, she also covered what the demonkind had done, to human and magekind and sometimes still did. All of them needed to know what Nikodemus was doing, and understand why it mattered, and that nobody was entirely in the right.

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

“I found the witch who killed her.” 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 her life force trapped in a talisman. A living death.

“So.” She sounded thoughtful. 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.” He could take possession of her will and compel her compliance with whatever he wanted he to do. Assuming that whatever power she had going wouldn’t neutralize an attempt to indwell. In the old days he might have just done it. 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 didn’t kill him.

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. She had the kind of round face that went well with short hair. Strong cheekbones. Killer mouth. “What do you need?”

“I don’t want to make trouble for Nikodemus.”

“Understandable.” She laughed to herself, and he took that as a hopeful sign.