the ship.”
I kicked my heels against the side of his car. “Gee, I don’t know if I can take much more flattery.”
“I’m sorry, Edie. I wanted to say something to you so badly. Every single day. Seeing you struggle to find answers hurt me more than you could know.” He looked solemn and sad and worn out. Despite all the lies before, I knew he was now too tired to tell me anything but the truth. “I just didn’t want to drag you down with me. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.”
If I was going to split moral infinitives tonight, I needed some guarantees. “From here on out, I want to go with you. I don’t want you doing anything without me.”
At this, his face lightened a degree. “Good. I want you there.” He inhaled and exhaled deeply, all the while staring at me like he might not see me again. I couldn’t imagine being forgotten—or being forced to forget everyone I ever knew. “Living like this,” he said slowly, “knowing what’s coming for me—it’s been so lonely.”
I nodded to agree. Being shunned was bad, but his fate was so much worse. “Can you give me a ride home?”
He shook himself, as if coming back to the present, and backed up to give me room to hop off his car. “Of course.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I was quiet in his car while he drove us. The car, which I hadn’t noticed much of before, was a Datsun from last century. I watched his face in the rearview and his hands, one on the wheel, one on the stick shift beside me. I reached out and laced my fingers through his for old times’ sake. Who knew if we would ever get to make new memories? He nodded, though he didn’t turn his head.
“So why Hector?” I asked him, when the silence had gone on too long.
“I’ve spent most of my life being either a dick or a rogue. I figured it was time to give something back. I saved up a lot of money—my bank account can coast.”
I watched Port Cavell pass by outside in the night. “How old will you be on the seventeenth?”
“Thirty-three. Assuming I can remember that.” We made a left-hand turn onto the highway. “What Dren said back there—was it really Ti?”
“Yeah. And speaking of forgetting—” I blew air through half-parted lips. “I don’t know what he was. He didn’t know me, and he wasn’t acting like him.”
“How long has he been like that?”
“I don’t know. He came over to see me the other night, and he was normal then.” His grip tensed slightly—if I hadn’t been holding his hand I might not have felt it. Or maybe I was reading too much into things; maybe it was just another gear change.
“What happened to him?”
“He said he was in town because someone here could cure him and give him back the other half of his soul so he could finally die. A great magician,” I said more slowly, adding two and two. “Shit.”
“Yeah.” Asher merged into the fast lane of the highway, and then we didn’t have anything to say at all.
He pulled into the parking lot of my new place, and I tried to pull my hand back casually. He caught it. “Wait.”
“Okay.” I turned to face him. My brain was still having a hard time merging Asher’s personality with Hector’s body. Was this the first time this had happened, us in a car together, or the fortieth? He swallowed before speaking to me.
“It’s just really good to see you again is all, Edie. I’ve been wanting to tell you that for a while.”
“It’s good to see you too, Asher,” I said, because it was. “No matter who you look like.” I leaned back against the closed car door. “I’m going to call the clinic and leave Catrina a message to call me—and when she does, I’ll tell her everything.”
“That’s fair. Don’t tell her about me, though—or this. And call me Hector. It’s easier on me.”
“When I talk to Catrina this morning—doesn’t Luz deserve to know what she’s up against?”
“Luz already knows Maldonado’s a shapeshifter. It’s how they captured Adriana in the first place, I think. He went as someone she knew—Catrina, Luz, or me. Who knows. And the Three Crosses wouldn’t be freaked out by him showing off his powers. They already know he’s magical.”
“Don’t you think she would have searched his current home first?”
“You saw how weak Maldonado made Dren … maybe she couldn’t get close enough to see?”
Which brought up a good point. “If Maldonado is so strong he scares vampires, and he’s trying to control the saint of death, how can we succeed?”
Asher shrugged. “You’re not asking me anything I haven’t already asked myself. There’s a chance I could get in with him, but there’s no guarantees.”
I tried to think out different scenarios, pushing players around on a chessboard inside my mind. “Luz might get killed if she goes in alone. Us going with her isn’t much better, but there’s a chance.”
“I could get us in the door, get his guard down—maybe,” Asher offered.
I nodded. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was better than Luz running in to replace Dren on Maldonado’s cutting board.
“Just get her to wait for the rest of us, once she finds out. Tell Catrina it’s vital to keep Luz at the Reina’s fortress after sundown tonight until we get there. Tell her you’re bringing Jorgen if you have to. I’ll act surprised when she tells me at work, and then agree to go along with it, and that way we can both encourage Luz to accept our help.”
Encouraging and convincing vampires. Wow. I didn’t know if either of those things was possible. “I feel so much better now that there’s only a fifty–fifty chance she’ll go off and get killed during a rampage.”
Asher snorted. “Me too.” He glanced over my shoulder at the apartments behind me. “I still have to get to work. See you at sundown?”
I smiled softly at him. “I wouldn’t dream of being anywhere else.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
I called the clinic and left a message for Catrina—I hoped by the time she called back I’d still have some tact. It’d been a long night and I was going down.
I got a call shortly after eight A.M. “Well? What?”
I’d been dozing on my couch. It took me a second to remember who it was on the other end of the line.
“Was she there? What did you find?” Catrina’s voice rose, taking my silence for bad news.
“She’s there. She’s alive.”
Catrina whooped on the far end of the line. “Where is she? Is she okay? Did you get her out?”
“Go into a closet, will you?” I told her, and I heard doors open and slam in her path. “Okay. You need to promise me something before I say anything else.”
“Anything. What?”
“I couldn’t get her out, Catrina. She was caged. But she’s alive—she saw me. I told her I’d be coming back.”
“You? Pffft. Reina will have her back tonight!”
“No no no. That’s what you have to promise me. Maldonado’s a
“But we’re going in—we’re getting her.”
“We are. I just want you to tell her to wait for us. So she’s not alone.” I could feel her weighing my advice
