Again, he moved quickly. He slid to the side and turned his head in time with her blow so that the impact softened and glanced off his cheekbone instead of sending shards of bone and cartilage up into his sinus cavities. Before Lilli could follow through with the other hand, the man in front of her stepped back and began to mutter something under his breath.
Again with the magic. Lilli did not intend to stand around and let someone cast spells on her, no matter what job she was here to do and no matter how much his glasses made her contemplate what it would be like to try to fog over the lenses. Quickly, she looked from the magician to the manuscript and calculated a few angles in her head.
Several things happened in the next moment: the sorcerer in front of her raised his right hand and aimed his open palm at Lilli’s chest; Lilli bent her knees, gathered her strength, and threw herself into a flying somersault in the direction of the desk; and the open manuscript of the
“What the hell?” she heard the man—now behind her—roar as she landed hard where a wheeled desk chair had been sitting, sending the seat spinning and the entire chair rolling crazily into the far wall.
Not bothering to look around, Lilli made a grab for the book and gave a breathless cry of frustration when a body slammed into her back and pinned her to the surface of the short filing cabinet beside the desk. She tried to scramble forward, her fingers stretching toward the book, but a large, masculine hand attached to an arm with much greater reach shot past hers and shoved the manuscript off the other side of the desk. She cursed as she heard it thud to the ground.
Ironically, so did the man on top of her.
“I. Need. That. Book!” she grunted and shot her elbow back into her attacker’s ribcage.
She heard the dull thunk of the impact and his hoarse shout of pain, but the bastard didn’t move. That pissed her off. Gritting her teeth, Lilli pushed her hands into the top of the cabinet and tried to gauge her amount of wiggle room. With his hips pinning hers and his abdomen pressing down on her lower back, she didn’t have much.
Still, a girl always had options. Letting him take her weight, Lilli lifted her feet off the floor, spread her legs, and hooked her feet around the backs of her opponent’s knees. At the same time, she arched backward, raised her hands off the cabinet, reached back, and boxed his ears firmly.
The man behind her roared in pain, surprise jerking him backward. Unfortunately, with Lilli’s feet hooked around his knees, he couldn’t step back. He lost his balance and toppled onto his ass, curses ripe enough to peel paint coloring the air around him. Lilli tried to untangle her legs from his before he hit the ground, but gravity moved faster than she did. She landed on top of him and rolled off immediately.
Tucking her knees under her body, she attempted to hurry to her feet, her hands reaching automatically for her second misericorde when the magician’s fingers shot out and shackled her left wrist, pinning it to the floor. His other hand pressed against the center of her chest while the tip of her sharp, narrow blade pressed hard against his, directly above his heart.
Stalemate.
“You might be able to stick that knife in my heart before I can stop you,” he panted, his breathing as hard and rough as hers, “but I’m not sure you want to bet on it.”
Lilli hesitated. Was speed really the question here? She had no desire to kill this man for the sake of a damned book, even less when she thought about who had sent her after the book in the first place. She had taken this job as a way to free herself from Samael once and for all; if she killed for him, he’d own a piece of her for eternity.
Still, that didn’t mean she couldn’t bluff.
“I like to gamble,” she said, deliberately stripping her voice of all emotion, making it hard and cold and deadly. “People tell me I have the devil’s own luck.”
“Go for it then. If you think you can beat me to the punch, why don’t you demonstrate?”
Lilli frowned. “You want me to kill you?”
“I already said I’m not sure you can.”
His voice sounded taunting, but his eyes were deep and serious. There was something in them that tugged at her. Lilli had been a hunter for years; she’d been in situations once or twice where she’d had to kill something, so she’d seen what eyes looked like when the light went out of them. She didn’t want to see his eyes that way.
“What are you waiting for?” he demanded. “If you think you’re that fast, prove it. Try to kill me.”
Cursing, she turned aside her blade so that the flat of it pressed against the man’s faded black t-shirt. From behind the desk nearby, she almost thought she heard a rumble of discontent.
“You first,” she snapped, jerking her wrist free of his surprised grip.
Slowly, cautiously, the man took his hand away from his threatening position over her heart and pushed himself into a sitting position. “How about you answer a few questions for me before I make up my mind?”
“Name, rank, and serial number?”
He shook his head. “Maybe later. But first, why don’t you tell me what you want with the
FOUR
Aaron watched the woman’s face as he pushed to his feet and took careful note of the emotions expressed there.
“Personally?” she asked. “Not a damned thing.”
She didn’t appear to be lying, but that didn’t make sense. “I saw you make a grab for it, and I assume that’s why you’re here. Are you a professional thief?”
“At the moment, what I am is damned sore.” The woman rose—her five feet and six inches looking much more impressively feminine when they weren’t concentrating on breaking his bones— and slapped her hands against her flanks, sending a cloud of dust flying from the seat of her pants. “You might not look like a linebacker, but you pack a hell of a punch when you’ve got gravity on your side.”
Aaron fought back a surge of pride at that. He’d never been a terribly physical guy, and he’d been afraid that he was the only one who felt like he’d just failed to outrun the bulls in Pamplona.
“Don’t try to change the subject,” he said. “Are you some kind of professional burglar, or is breaking and entering a hobby of yours?”
She appeared to consider that for a minute before she answered. “No, more of an occupational hazard.”
“In what occupation?” he demanded, attempting to mask his confusion with impatience. “What exactly is it that you do?”
“I’m an authorized Appearance Enforcement Agent.”
“A what?”
She sighed as if she’d expected the question and yet had been hoping not to hear it. “I’m a bounty hunter.”
“A bounty hunter?” he repeated incredulously. When in God’s name had he entered a surreal parallel universe? “I’m obviously missing something. How about we start again? I’m Aaron Bullard, and this is my uncle’s house. Who the hell are you and why did you break in and try to steal the
“Lilli Corbin.” She gestured to the knife she’d dropped in their earlier struggle and raised an eyebrow. “Do you mind if I pick that up?”
“That depends on what you’re planning to do with it.”
“Just put it away. I promise. The blade is warded, and I’d hate to lose it.”
Aaron couldn’t say he felt completely reassured, but he nodded his permission and only twitched a little when she picked up the misericorde. Sliding it into the sheath along her leg, she even went so far as to resnap the hilt guard. How much more could a guy ask?
“Now what about question number two?” he prompted when she seemed content to keep quiet.
Lilli frowned. “What?”
“You never answered my second question,” he said, folding his arms over his chest and fixing her with his fiercest stare. “Why did you break in and try to steal the
Damn, he had a good memory.
Lilli took a good look at the man in front of her and weighed her options. In her experience, people often reacted negatively to hearing you were working for a Prince of Hell, and she really had no desire to tussle with this guy again. He might look like a bit of a wimp, but he was surprisingly wiry. And intriguingly hard. She’d hate to tell him the truth and then have to knock him upside the head and steal the book while he was unconscious. Not to mention that, given the demonstrations he’d offered earlier, she thought she’d do well not to underestimate his magical abilities. A power blast to the head would not improve her mood for the remainder of the evening.
On the other hand, she was disinclined to lie. Telling the truth made her life easier, so Lilli always tried to stick to it where possible. It kept her from forgetting which lie she’d told earlier, and given the sort of company she tended to keep when she was on a job, a secret part of her had always assumed she had less wiggle room than the next guy when it came to keeping a pure soul. She also just flat-out revolted at the idea of lying for Samael, which was what this would feel like since he’d been the one who sent her here in the first place.
Maybe, this time, omission was the better part of valor.
Actually, the last thing she wanted was for there to be a next time. Her new mantra was “Get it over with!” She might even work it into a tattoo, one that featured an hourglass that seemed to run faster the closer she got to her goal.
Time to lay the tarot cards on the table.
“I was hired to retrieve the book by a client who claims that it was stolen from him.”
Aaron barked out a laugh. “You’re trying to tell me that you think Uncle Alistair was a thief? Lady, I don’t know who your ‘client’ is, but you need to go back and explain to him that my uncle wasn’t the type to cheat on his taxes, let alone steal from someone. You’ve come to the wrong place.”
Lilli watched his face as he spoke. He clearly believed what he said. In fact, his expression so clearly telegraphed his thoughts, she had a fleeting hope that he never acquired a taste for gambling. He’d suck at poker.
“Actually, I don’t think I have,” she said steadily. “I’m not a take-his-word-for-it kind of girl. I did a little research before I came out here, and from what I hear, Alistair Carruthers was asking some pretty detailed questions in the last couple of weeks before he died. The kind that wouldn’t just tell him what the manuscript was and where to find it, but the kind that could help him decide what to do with it if he happened to have it in his possession.”
Aaron shrugged, but a crease had appeared between his brows. It gave him an intent and worried sort of look. “So what? Asking questions about something has nothing to do with owning it. I can ask questions about the Book of Kells, but I think Trinity College and the Irish government would have something to say if I claimed to have it in my basement.”
Hm, he had books on his mind, did he? Maybe that was a sign. “Oh, and did you visit Dublin just a few days before they noticed the book was missing?”
He stilled. He hadn’t been moving, but stillness suddenly gripped him like a fist, tightening before her eyes. “What are you talking about?”
Lilli hesitated only a second before she laid it all out. No guts, no glory. “My client claims that he has evidence that Alistair Carruthers was on his property a few weeks before his death. He
