AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Cross took my chin and raised my eyes back to his. “Hey, I’m worried about you. I tried to call to warn you, but you didn’t answer. You had some other messages, too, and maybe they were important.”
“I’ve been sick. What am I supposed to do, Cross, not get sick?”
“You never get sick when you don’t go hunting. I thought you gave up on that.”
I looked up at him and said a name that should mean nothing to him without context. “Jarzharad.”
His eyes widened, and he visibly flinched. “What?” He recovered quickly, but I knew all his tells.
I punched him, which was so pathetic that he didn’t even block. “You know who it is?”
He held up his hands. “You can’t chase that kind of demon. What would you do, summon him so you could kill him? How would you kill him? That kind of demon is worse than a dragon.”
“You withheld information about my father’s killer? How long, Cross? I swear, if you don’t tell me, I’ll cut a cross in your face!” I grabbed the nearest metal object, and it was a spoon.
He eyed the spoon, then gave me a look. “You’re sick, out of shape, and you think you can carve into my face?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Sure. I’ll just tell you how fun it will be.” I wiggled my eyebrows at him and took a threatening step forward while I summoned whatever it was.
He held up his hands and took a step back. “When you’re still sick from the last time? What did you use it on, anyway? If you really want to cut a cross in my face, then fine, but don’t overextend yourself.”
His words deflated me, as he knew they would. My water started screaming its boiling song, and I searched the fridge until I found a sad lemon in the back of a drawer and started making a cup of hot lemon water.
“How long have you known about my father’s killer and not told me?”
“Four years. I came to tell you, because I only figured it out after I studied your messy, fiery experiment, but then I saw you, and you said that you wanted out, and you looked…”
I’d avoided mirrors at the time, but I knew that it hadn’t been pretty. “I stayed in for thirty years because that was my motivation. I’m sure I would have summoned the strength to track his followers down.”
“I know that you would have, which is why I didn’t tell you. Angel, you’re too powerful. The next time, maybe it won’t be just a square that you burn, maybe it’ll be a city, and maybe it’ll be worse than burning. It took longer for you to recover every time, like now. How many days have you been sick, and all to compel your prey? I care about you, and I care about collateral damage. Both of those dictated that I keep what I knew to myself. I have been working on my own to track them, though.”
I gripped his wrist. “And…”
“And they’re hunting you. You must be aware of that much. Spider bots? Who uses those these days? I am pretty sure that they want what everyone wants right now. Where is your book?”
I took my cup of lemon water and held it against my chest so the warmth could spread into my lungs. He wasn’t wrong. I really wasn’t in prime shape to run around assassinating people ever since Song’s Square of Immolation. “It’s in the Laboratory’s vault, in Song. I work there now, because I got fired from the library for consorting with vampires.”
He snorted. “Nonsense. Where is it really?”
I glared at him. “They rendered me from my library. I wouldn’t joke about that. It’s really in the vault in the under city.”
“Huh. Why is it there? You’ve really been consorting with vampires? Do you guys have a thing? Would he protect you from whoever’s bending Mother Mercy’s ear?”
“No. I work for him temporarily. We don’t have a ‘thing.’” I scowled at him and stirred some honey into my cup.
“Then why is the person saved as ‘date’ leaving you so many messages? Morning, noon, and night, he’s called you for the last three days. The longer you go without calling him back, the more like a stalker he’ll appear.”
“And if he is a stalker? If he’s the worst, wickedest, awfullest baddy I’ve ever met?”
His mouth got tight. “Then maybe, just maybe, he can help you when they come for you.” His voice was soft, but the words cut through me like a knife through hot butter. No, like a hot knife through cold butter. Either way reminded me of buttery mushrooms and garlic potatoes.
“Maybe I want them to come for me. What better way to find the unfindable?”
“Sure. That went so well the last time.” He smirked, and I kicked at him fast enough to get him in the shin. He just stared at me and let me kick him. Ow. He didn’t have the softest shins.
I sighed. “Thanks for coming and warning me. You can tell Mother Mercy that my book is in the Scholar’s vault. That should make her give up.”
He snorted. “Did I mention that this book is also the key to bringing hell on earth? She wants the book as much to keep someone else from getting it as to have it herself, thus the interest of Jarzharad’s cult.”
