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“And yet you do not think it is there.”
“No, but I’ve been known to be wrong before.”
“I think it best I not say anything about that particular point.”
I grinned and wrapped my arms loosely around his neck. “Wise man.”
He smiled as his hand came around my waist again, but he didn’t say anything, just swept us across to the Eureka Centre. Which was also closed—for renovations, this time.
“Well, shit,” I said, staring at the sign on the door.
“Which leaves us with Sovereign Hill, I believe.”
“And that’s too big to check right now.” I briefly glanced at my watch. “We’ve got only an hour and a half before we have to be at Hallowed Ground.”
“Then what do you wish to do?”
I hesitated and stared up at the huge blue flag with its famous five eight-point stars that formed a cross in the middle of it. Though it was now a symbol of democracy and protest, it had originally been designed as a flag of war, and it was that symbol that spoke to me now. In very many ways I was in the middle of a war myself and, like the men who had fought under her on this very hill, my war was one I suspected could not be won. Not by me, anyway.
I pushed the rather gloomy thought away and swung around to look at Ballarat. “I don’t know. Maybe we should wander down to the Visitors Center, on the off chance there’s something the search missed.”
“You wish to walk?”
I hesitated, then nodded and headed down the hill. He fell in step beside me, his arm brushing against mine and sending little slithers of desire skittering through me. It was, I thought with amusement, an almost normal moment in a life that had become insane.
With a little help from Google Maps, we found the Visitors Center and headed inside. It was, as was usual with these sorts of places, filled to the brim with information and souvenirs as well as local food and clothing. The thick jackets, I noted with amusement, seemed to be particularly popular today.
I walked across to the wall of information about local events, and almost immediately a brochure caught my eye. I picked it up and showed Azriel. “Well, looky here—an Arms and Militaria Exhibition.”
“That is the one place we are certain to find military daggers. Whether it is the right place is another question.”
“And one we won’t answer until we go see it.” I flicked the brochure around. “It doesn’t open until tomorrow and runs until Sunday. At least that gives us plenty of time to check it out.”
He nodded. “And plenty of time for your father to come up with a way of keeping the sorcerer and the Raziq out.”
“Yeah.” I tucked the brochure into my pocket and glanced at the time. “I guess we can head to Hallowed Ground. Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll start her set early.”
“Luck has not been particularly favorable to us as yet,” Azriel commented, as he caught my hand and drew me closer. There was something in the way he looked at me that had my pulse racing. “And I can think of other, more pleasurable ways to fill in our time.”
A smile teased my lips. “Can you, now? And what about the snit you were in not so long ago?”
“Would you rather talk yet again about the reasons for the snit?” he said, voice soft as he slid an arm around my waist. “Or perhaps explore the possibilities of a rather quaint human expression that goes something along the lines of makeup sex being the best kind?”
“Hard choice,” I murmured, pressing myself against the warm, hard planes of his body. “But I’ve never really had the chance to test that expression out.”
“Then perhaps we should.”
“What, here?” I raised an eyebrow and glanced around the Visitors Center. “I might have werewolf blood in me, but I’m not that much of an exhibitionist.”
He smiled and touched my cheek gently. “I meant in your bed.”
“Perfect—”
His energy swept around me even before I could finish my sentence.
And I have to say, that old saying was right. Makeup sex was the best kind.
Needless to say, we did not arrive at Hallowed Ground on time. In fact, we were a good twenty minutes late. The club was situated on the corner of Wellington Parade and Simpson Street, not far away from what most Melbournians considered hallowed ground—the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The club was situated in a rather unusual two-story, redbrick building that had an old-fashioned concrete turret on one corner and small sash windows at regularly spaced intervals. The entrance was nondescript, and it would have been easy to pass by and think it was nothing more than an apartment entrance. Certainly, the small, discreet sign above the door did little to give it away.
