Long pause. Big breath on Shelby’s end. “Jaz, your dad’s been in an accident.” When I didn’t immediately reply, he added, “He’s alive. But he’s in critical condition.”
I kept strolling down the street as if part of my head hadn’t just floated off into the stratosphere and my heart hadn’t just burst. I didn’t cry or call out, because that would have brought attention to me, and I was on the job. Such the professional.
Yo, Pete, I didn’t blow it when my dad’s nurse told me he was near to death. Give me a fucking bonus, will ya
?
“What —” I cleared the croak out of my throat. “What happened?”
“He was riding his motorcycle down the street not two blocks from here when a woman hit him from behind. He flew back into her windshield; then he rolled forward onto the pavement. Luckily there was a cop right on the scene. He had somebody pulled over, giving them a traffic ticket. So he nailed the driver right away. Had an ambulance on the spot within three minutes. It probably saved his life.”
“But he’s still bad?”
I could hardly bear the sympathy in Shelby’s voice. I wanted him to growl like Albert. That would make me mad. Then I wouldn’t want to cry. “He’s a sixty-one-year-old diabetic. Admittedly he’s in better shape since I started taking care of him, but he has multiple fractures, including a couple in his back that may be very serious. They won’t know for sure until the swelling goes down. There may also be issues with his kidneys. A young, healthy guy is going to heal up pretty fast. Your dad does have a couple of strikes against him. But he’s also the most stubborn, mule-headed bastard I’ve ever met.”
We laughed. “Me too,” I said.
“If anybody’s going to beat this, it’ll be him,” Shelby assured me.
“Shelby.” I swallowed a sob.
Breathe, Jaz, breathe
. “I can’t come home. I’m overseas.”
“They told me.”
“Have you been in touch with Evie?”
“She’s at the hospital right now.”
“Okay. Tell her I’ll call as soon as I can and I’m sorry I’m not there.”
I’m sorry I’m never there
.
I walked the rest of the way back to the house in a stupor. Since my mind kept shying away from Albert’s situation, all I could think was,
Who am I going to call now? Who’s going to tell me what to do now that the mahghul are stalking Vayl
?
When I got back to base the door was locked. Too tired to retrieve the key from my pocket, I reached through the nonexistent side pane, unlocked it from the inside, and went in. Cassandra and Bergman had moved their research to the living room. They’d taken over the love seat and were nearly bumping heads as they whispered over the Enkyklios. Though the marbles kept moving, forming myriad shapes, the pictures that projected from them made little sense to me, probably because they were so small.
I shucked my shoes, climbed over the back of the couch, and sank down into the cushions, wishing desperately for a comfort I’d never again experience. Still, I pulled my old card deck out of my pocket and ran my thumb across the tops.
Thrum
. What a beautiful sound.
Cassandra came to sit beside me, leaving the Enkyklios to wind down on its own. “What happened?”
“You want the bad news or the worse news?”
That got Bergman’s attention. He eyed the cards. “Maybe you should pick up another habit, Jaz. I heard about these ball bearings —”
“Naw. I think I’m just going to start drinking.”
Long silence while Bergman and Cassandra tried to decide whether or not I was joking. Why does nobody get me? Finally Cassandra said, “Tell us everything.”
So I did. And when I was done, I’ll admit it, I was glad our consultants had come along. No matter what else they contributed to the mission, they didn’t make fun of me when I cried for the dad I barely got along with and only loved because I had no other choice. And they didn’t protest when I declared I was going to stop Vayl’s lame-ass turning-the-Seer scheme if it killed me. Which, to be honest, it very well might. But they didn’t want to help me plan how. They had something else on their minds.
“We think we’ve figured out how to detect the shield,” said Bergman, jerking his thumb toward the Enkyklios with barely checked excitement.
“Yes,” Cassandra agreed. “And it has to do with your acquaintance, the Amanha Szeya.”
I thought of sad-eyed Asha and actually felt some remorse at nosing into his business. But not much. When a guy keeps me from taking out a reaver, he’d better expect some payback. “So, you have a record of his kind?” I asked.
Cassandra nodded. “He is a Nruug Stalker.”
