Solatium (Emanations, an urban fantasy series Book 2) (9 page)

“Then how do you know about it?”

“I have my ways.”

“You have a spy in Lord Cordus’s household?”

“A spy?” She laughed. “Such a quaint term — so Cold War, don’t you think? Such a silly concept, really, as though loyalties were black and white, and so forth.”

A lot of words, I noticed, but no “no.”

I was getting over my initial surprise at the call and was starting to feel angry. Clearly, Sturluson was playing at something. I didn’t like it. I was still smarting from the last time someone played me.

“I appreciate your concern, but really, I’m fine.” I put a wrapping-things-up note into my voice. “Thank you for calling, Miss Sturluson.”

“Just a moment, young lady. I didn’t say that was the only reason I was calling.”

“Okay. What else?”

“To be frank, my dear, I think you need some advice on dealing with what you encountered this morning. I believe I’m the only person who can give you that advice.”

“I’m happy to take down any advice you have to offer and pass it along to Mr. Yellin.”

“Leave him out of this,” she said, sounding momentarily cold. Then she laughed. “At any rate, this isn’t something to discuss over the phone, Miss Ryder. You’ll need to come to me, so I can make sure of my own protections.”

I almost laughed. She must think I was born yesterday.

“Miss Sturluson, I’m not going to come to your house alone in the middle of the night. Especially not after the experience I had this morning.”

“You’ll be safe with me. I give you my word of honor.”

“Thank you, but it’s not possible.”

Her voice took on a dangerous undertone. “Miss Ryder, I hope you’re not calling me a liar.”

“Not in the least, ma’am.”

Rather than trying to explain myself, I just let it hang there. Sturluson was presenting this as something I needed from her, but I was pretty sure she actually needed something from me. I couldn’t imagine what that might be, and I figured I wouldn’t like it when I found out, but I had a feeling I was going to find out whether I wanted to or not, so there was no reason to let her dictate the terms.

After a long pause, she said, “I suppose it’d be all right if you brought a friend.”

“How about two friends?”

“Yes, yes, fine,” she said, annoyed.

“Okay. No guarantees, but let me speak to my friends and see if they’ll agree to come. If so, I’ll call you back.”

She grunted something that might charitably have been called an assent.

“When would you like to meet?” I asked.

“Tonight.”

“Okay.”

“Do try to convince your friends, Miss Ryder. Quite a bit may hang in the balance.”

Theo leaned back, frowning. “I don’t like it. We should call Gwen and talk it over with her.”

“Why?” said Andy. “You know what she’s going to say.”

“Yeah, I do, and I think you two need to hear it.”

We were gathered on the couches in Andy’s suite, where the guys had been watching a Yankees-Red Sox game that had gone into extra innings.

“Look,” I said, “I know this is dangerous, but doing nothing is dangerous too. You know Yellin’s not going to bring me when you guys go after the sewer thing, even though I’m your best power source. You need to find out now what you’re going to be facing.”

“And what makes you think anything Sturluson says will be true? For all we know, that was her in the sewer this morning — and her that killed that kid, too.”

The kid. Well, if she hadn’t killed him, she’d killed many others. So far as I understood, anyway. Yellin had said killing was what she did. That seemed pretty clear to me.

I pushed the dead child out of my mind. I couldn’t help him, but maybe I could help keep more kids from ending up dead.

“I’m not saying we have to believe what she says,” I said, “but I think we should hear it. I mean, you can go in totally cold, or you can get what might turn out to be useful info ahead of time. And if you do it now, you’ll have handy-dandy battery girl along with you.”

Andy frowned. “You’re not a battery.”

“Yeah, I know, I’m so much more than that, blah, blah, et cetera.”

“You know, sarcasm’s really not your best look.”

Darn it all. I hurt his feelings
.

“Sorry.” There was an awkward silence. I looked down at my hands, annoyed and embarrassed. “Hey, I’d rather be a battery for you than have to burn things alive myself, you know?”

Andy scooted over, put his arm around me, and kissed the top of my head. “I know, sweetie. Don’t worry about it. I just hated hurting you like that.”

Theo drummed his fingers on the back of the couch. “How about no burning alive, no battery, no nothing, because she’s a trainee, and she doesn’t go on these sorts of missions?”

Andy sighed. “Look, I don’t like it, but I think Beth has a point. I don’t want to leave this in Yellin’s hands. Especially after what Gwen said about his strength. If I’m the strongest one on that mission, we’re screwed — that thing had me overpowered by a mile. And,” he added, “I really don’t think Sturluson’s going to see us without her.”

“Yeah,” Theo said. “That’s because helping us isn’t the point. Getting to Beth is the point.”

He looked down, frowning. Despite his words, I could see he was torn. He didn’t like the idea of endangering me, but recon that might make him and his brother safer would be a big plus.

“With more info, maybe we could convince Yellin to call in Williams,” Andy said.

Theo grunted and nodded. I suppressed a grimace. John Williams was far enough down my “favorite persons” list to be trimming its toenails. While standing on a ladder.

“Was the thing weaker than Beth?” Theo asked after a minute.

Andy shook his head. “Hard to say. They’re both so much stronger than me it’s hard to tell the difference. Maybe it was weaker than her, or maybe it just wasn’t putting all its strength into breaking my working.”

I shifted uncomfortably. I didn’t like hearing about my vast potential. It made me awfully nervous about the things I was going to be asked to do, once my gift became useable. I really would rather play battery forever, even if it hurt like hell. I hadn’t been exaggerating when I mentioned being able to burn things alive.

“What does it matter?” I asked. “Even if the thing in the sewer was weaker than me, it doesn’t mean Sturluson is.”

“Actually, it might matter,” Theo said. “I got a little information about the Thirsting Ground from Kristin.”

Kristin was one of the estate staff. I didn’t know much about her except that she had a scholarly bent. I’d tried talking to her a few times, but she hadn’t seemed friendly.

“Sexing Kristin up for info?” Andy shook his head. “A new low, bro.”

“What’s that?” Theo cupped his hand around his ear. “The forlorn call of the I’m-not-getting-any bird?”

“I’m not getting any ’cause I’m not trying to get any right now.”

Theo snorted. “Like I haven’t seen you checking out Koji’s ass, dude.”

Andy shrugged. “Whatever. At least I’m not like, ‘Nice ass. Now let me rifle your library.’”

“Guys, please, can we stay a tiny bit on topic, here?”

Andy shrugged. “Man’s gotta defend his reputation in such matters. Some things cannot be let slid — that’s all I’m saying.”

Theo arched an eyebrow. “‘Let slid’? Is that English?”

“Guys!”

Honestly, they were more like ping-pong balls than people, sometimes.

“Yeah, yeah,” Theo said. “Kristin didn’t know much. She said the Thirsting Ground is a place in the S-Em where the dirt itself is alive — and isn’t, you know, all that nice. People don’t go near it. That’s all she knew.”

“I could’ve guessed that much myself,” Andy grumbled. “The thing in the sewer looked like dirt.”

“It matters,” Theo said. “Don’t you get it? She thought it was just one thing — one entity. “If that’s the case, then any two pieces of it are probably about the same, strengthwise.”

Huh. That
was
helpful.

Andy’s brows drew together in confusion. “So why are you objecting to visiting Sturluson? I know we don’t
know
it’s safe, but it seems like a reasonably good bet, so long as we have Beth with us.”

Theo gave Andy a hard look. Andy looked from Theo to me and back, then seemed to catch on. “Oh, right. I forgot. I mean, I guess there probably are too many unknowns.”

Frustration welled up. Having people literally exchanging silent wink-wink looks over my head was really a bit much.

“Did Lord Cordus give you two special instructions about me?”

“Well, sort of,” Andy said.

“What? What did he say?”

“That you’re not supposed to use your capacity.”

“I know that already. He told me that himself.”

Theo rubbed his forehead as though it ached. “Beth, for all we know, the capacity thing also applies to other people drawing on it, like Andy did this morning. The last thing we want to do is make your problem worse.”

“Did Lord Cordus say that, specifically? That no one should draw on me?”

“I guess not,” Theo admitted.

“It’s not just about following his orders,” Andy said. “We don’t want to damage you.”

“I’m his latest big prize. If drawing on my capacity would damage me, he would’ve warned you not to.”

“I don’t know,” Andy said. “Maybe, maybe not. He had a lot going on at the time.”

“What did he say, exactly?”

Andy looked at his brother, brow furrowed. “Did he actually talk to us, or did he talk to Gwen, and Gwen talked to us?”

“Um … I don’t really remember. We heard it somehow or other.”

“Oh my god, this is like trying to carry a bag of squirrels. You guys don’t know who said what, what they said, or what they meant.”

They looked sheepish.

“Well, jeez, Beth. It was months ago,” Theo said.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

Sure, I thought we needed to hear what Sturluson had to say, but Andy and Theo were my friends. They were trying to do right by me. Furthermore, they were old hands, compared to me. Their opinions should count for more than my gut reactions. I settled deeper into the couch, prepared to listen.

“Damn,” Andy said. “This conversation is a pain in the ass. Let’s just go.”

My resolution evaporated. “Two to one — we’re going!”

Theo pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re just a trainee, Beth. You don’t get an equal vote.”

“So what do I get? Half a vote?”

“A quarter, tops.”

“Fine. One and a quarter to one — we’re going.”

Theo looked up at the ceiling, as though asking god for patience. “No.”

No one said anything for a bit.

I toyed with the fringe on a couch pillow. “What do you guys think would happen if I tried to go through the estate barrier? On my own, I mean.”

The silence turned leaden.

Andy looked at Theo.

Theo looked at me.

“Beth. Do not do that.”

I stared at his chin for a count of five and then met his gaze. It was hard to do. I’d never seen Theo genuinely angry at me before. The look on his face was the one he wore when Cordus made him do bad shit. I teared up.

“Jesus, T.,” Andy stage-whispered. “You’re making her cry.”

Theo put his head in his hands and made a sound of pure frustration. When he straightened up, he looked resigned.

“Fine. All right. The annoying moron brigade wins. We’ll go.”

“More sugar, dear?”

“No thank you, Miss Sturluson.”

The old woman carefully set the porcelain sugar bowl down with the rest of her tea service, then straightened up.

Theo stirred his tea with a demitasse spoon that looked absurdly small in his big hand. The spoon clinked against the cup. It seemed inordinately loud.

It was almost 1:00 in the morning, and I was sitting in a small, oppressively cluttered parlor drinking store-brand English breakfast with two large men and a killer granny.

I’d had weirder experiences.

Theo and Andy had settled on the biggest piece of furniture in the room — a loveseat — and I’d squeezed in between them, where Andy could easily include me in his barrier and both men could reach me, should we need to share capacity.

Theo shifted, and the loveseat squealed alarmingly. I hoped it was up to the six hundred–pound task we’d imposed on it.