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“She’s got a sword!” he shouted. “She stabbed my wife Marielle. Look, she’s hiding it. The sword is in her hand!”
I grimaced, realizing the game was up. But when I glanced at my hand it was empty. The sword was gone. It had vanished without a trace. There was no need for me to cover up my dismay. All I had to do was pretend it was distress at Rodrigge’s horrid accusation. I lifted up my empty hand to show the officers, making a woebegone face at having been accused of such a thing.
Rorigge scowled. He shoved Finch aside and dashed into the room to check if I had dropped the sword behind the door. When he saw it was not there, he dropped on his hands and knees to check beneath the bed.
Audriett Ronin chose that moment to arrive with a folded sheet of paper in her hand. She saw her son on his hands and knees and she looked disgusted. “What are you doing, Roddrigge?” she snapped. “Get up at once!”
Rodrigge bounced upright so fast that I was surprised he didn’t ricochet up and hit the ceiling. If he wasn’t a vampire his face would have been red.
Audriett flapped her hand at the Agency officers as if they were gnats. “Shoo!” she said. Both officers hastily stepped backwards.
She handed me the slip of paper. “I found it. Joshua Ashbeck was her brother’s name. But the man’s been dead for nine years. I doubt this will get you anywhere.”
Chapter 13
STORM
It was 3:00 am and Storm was pacing in his lounge telling himself that Saskia would be home at any moment and that he would only regret it if he threw his phone at the wall in frustration. He had already called her four times. The calls had again gone straight to her answerphone and he had finally left a voice mail.
Where the hell was she? Had she lost her phone? What if someone had taken it from her? What if she was in trouble? He was seriously considering attempting to trace her phone.
Storm clenched his fists as he prowled up and down the room. He had told himself that driving around town looking for her would be futile — London was too big and it was not like she had any favorite haunts given that she was new to town. And even if he did find her, she would be furious at him for coming to get her. She wasn’t a child any more, as she liked to remind him. She was twenty-one and able to take care of herself.
The problem was that she wasn’t able to take care of herself, as she had proved when he’d tracked her down in Las Vegas a few days ago, drunk out of her mind and shacking up with some older guy that she had insisted was a fantastic new-age lifestyle guru whose ‘homestead community’ she intended to move into instead of going back to university to finish the final year of her degree. She had been furious at Storm for frightening the guy off, but what was Storm supposed to have done? Leave her there to begin the slippery slide down towards ruining her life? Storm had been in that place himself once. He knew how all too easy it was for things to spiral out of control.
An hour of pacing later Storm finally decided that he would call again. There could be no harm in leaving just one more voice mail. She couldn't accuse him that that was unacceptable big-brother behavior right? Storm dialed her number again, preparing in his head the very reasonable message he would leave in a very reasonable tone requesting for her to please call him back to let him know that she was safe.
On the third ring Saskia answered the call. “What do you want?” she snapped.
“Er, hi,” he said, taken by surprise and unprepared for this. “Where are you?” Despite himself, his voice rose accusingly at the last part.
“None of your business,” she snapped. Look, I’m fine, okay? I’m with friends. So stop calling me!” She abruptly hung up the phone.
Storm was utterly relieved. And furious. What friends? She didn’t have any friends in London that he knew of. But then again, he hardly knew Saskia at all. Their father had died when Saskia had been nine and Storm fifteen. Their older sister Evie had been just seventeen. Given that their world famous actress mother was already dead — having been murdered some years earlier — Storm and Evie had been sent to live with a relative, but a judge had put Saskia into foster care for her safety. All because the press had speculated that their famous father — actor Avan Storm — had not taken his own life, but had had a helping hand. From a family member, they’d speculated. Saskia had been so angry to have to live with strangers. She was still angry.
But that had been so long ago. She was twenty-one years old now. Storm and Evie had both had to grow up fast so why couldn't Saskia? Why the hell couldn't she behave like a reasonable adult for once? Why couldn’t she have just told him that she planned to be out so that he didn’t have to spend half the goddamn night worrying?
Storm grimaced, remembering his own juvenile behavior a few days ago. That he had gotten blind-drunk and belligerent was bad enough, but that Diana had caught him at it was just typical. He was thankful that Saskia had not seen him like that. It had been the first time he’d lost control and let himself slip into a dark place since he was twenty — not that Saskia would ever have believed it. She would have called him a hypocrite. And maybe he was. He never felt himself around her. He felt endlessly guilty, for all the things she had never had, the things he couldn't make up for.
She had been just five when mom had died. Their remarkable angelus mother, Inaya Ashara. Too young to even remember how wonderful mom had been, how loving, how kind, how much fun. How dark when the mood took her but he didn't like to think about that. It had been the good memories of her, of which there had been so many, that had got him the hardest times. But Saskia had been too little to have those memories to guide her in her tough times. He should have done more for her back then, when she had been so little. It was too late now.
Storm looked at his cloak and groaned. It was past 4:00 am. He had to be in at work in four hours. What he wouldn’t give to have a stress free life. Someone to come home to who wasn’t his angry troublesome little sister. Someone to go to bed with and wake up with every day. And he could have that. But there would be a sacrifice. One he had been running from his whole life. There was no point thinking about that now. He had enough to deal with.
So he went to bed and woke what felt like just minutes later, alone in his bed, his eyes gritty and his head thumping with a headache. It was like a loud bass was crashing around inside his skull. It took him some moments to realize that a loud bass was crashing, but not in his skull.
He winced as he hauled himself out of bed and went to investigate. The music was coming from the lounge, accompanied by shrieks of laughter. He opened the door and was at first relieved by what he saw. It was only Saskia and Jenny, her foster sister, dancing around the lounge. Better here than elsewhere, he thought. And better Jenny than someone else. He hadn’t seen Jenny in years. He had thought she was living back in California. He smiled and was about to greet her when he caught sight of what was spilled onto the
glass top of the coffee table.
His smile faded. He went into the room to take a closer look and Saskia caught sight of him and said, “Oh shit.”
She moved to put herself between Storm and the table, as if hoping he hadn’t seen what was on there.
“Storm!” Jenny said, the word a cry of delight. He barely knew her but she flung herself bodily at him, landing with a thump against his chest. He had to catch her before she fell over. He let her go immediately. She did not.
“Your brother is soooo hot,” she said to Saskia very loudly, her words emerging slurred. Storm saw that her pupils were abnormally dilated. She was high.
He firmly pushed her away from him, and grabbed the little bag of pink powder from the tabletop and turned to Saskia. “What the hell are you playing at?” he demanded.
