“You need to get Reese settled and then get some food and rest yourself,” Nate interrupted. He gripped Dez’s shoulder. “We’ve got your back.” Behind him, several of the others nodded, including Sasha, who for a change wasn’t looking at him with trepidation.
It seemed that for all that he’d worked his ass off to earn their trust, it had taken him stepping up for Reese to win them over. And, oddly, he was okay with that. He nodded. “All right, I’m going. But first, what was with the coyote?” When he got blank stares, he briefly recounted the strange incident, which he would’ve been tempted to think he had imagined, only he hadn’t. “It took off right as you guys got there. Big son of a bitch.”
“We’ll check it out,” Nate promised.
“And remind Lucius there’s still one more artifact out there. If we can—”
“Go.” Sasha pushed him toward the door. “Turn it off for a few hours. We’ve got this, and you’ll be useless until you recharge.”
This was part of being a member of a team, he realized suddenly—not just having the others trust him, but trusting them in return. Which he hadn’t done before. He nodded slowly, letting the others see that he got it. “Okay. Thanks.”
Sasha followed him to the residential wing, ostensibly to make sure Reese’s condition stayed stable but also, he suspected, to call for help if he went down flat on his face. He stayed on his feet, but just barely, hesitating at his own door and then continuing down the hall to the apartment Reese had claimed for herself.
Their suites had the same footprint, with a main room, small attached kitchen, two blocky bedrooms and one bath, but she had given hers more character in a handful of days than he had in more than a year. She would probably call the maps tacked to the wall “research” and the huge bulletin board and the smaller wipe board “practical necessities,” but to him they were, quite simply, Reese. So, too, was the fat pottery jar in the kitchen, which he would lay money contained cookies. The air was lightly tinted with a spicy floral scent he suspected was her chosen shampoo—as opposed to the No-Tell Motel’s finest they had been sporting the past few days—and a hint of coffee.
He carried Reese into the main bedroom. There was a pile of research books on the nightstand, a pair of silver-toed cowboy boots in the corner, and a trio of potted cactuses on the windowsill. One was blooming.
“Do you want me to get her cleaned up and changed?” Sasha asked from the doorway. But what she was really asking was: Do you want to take care of her yourself? How close are the two of you?
“Yeah,” he said. “Thanks.” Because he didn’t dare put his hands on her while his defenses were shot.
So he set her down on the bed and retreated to the main room to raid a kitchen that was high on carbs, low on protein. She had Diet Mountain Dew, though, which surprised him because it had been his drink, not hers.
A few minutes later, Sasha appeared in the bedroom doorway. “All set. And her vitals are looking good.” As she crossed the main room, headed for the hallway, she shot a look at the half-eaten cookie in his hand. “I’ll have the winikin bring you some protein.”
“I’d appreciate it. Carlos and Tomas know what I like.”
She rolled her eyes. “I don’t know how a guy with amplified senses can eat what you do.”
“It’s a guy thing?”
“It’s a you thing.” But her expression softened, just a hint. “Get some rest, Mendez. You did good back there with her.”
“So did you. I owe you one.” He could have left it at that, but when she made an “I’ll take off now” gesture, he said, “So, we’re cool? You and me, I mean?”
He kept it vague so she could duck if she wanted. But she winced. “Shit. Sorry. I thought I was hiding it.”
“I’m sensitive to vibes. And the one between you and me has always been off.”
She hesitated, then nodded. “At first I told myself it was because you remind me of Michael when I first met him, back before he got control of the death magic. But that’s not it, really. It?s . . .” She shrugged apologetically. “To be honest, you make me a little nervous. Not in an ‘I’m in danger’ sense, but in a ‘this guy is going to shake things up’ kind of way.” Crossing to him, she stretched up to squeeze his shoulder. It was probably the first spontaneous reach-out between them. “Seeing you with her . . . it helps.”
It shouldn’t, he thought but didn’t say, because a cold, hard knot had formed in his gut at her words . . . because Sasha was Strike and Anna’s little sister, and prescience ran in the royal jaguar bloodline. “Are you a seer?”
“Gods, no. My talent is tough enough to manage, I wouldn’t want to be an itza’at. I’ll leave that to . . .” She trailed off, then shook her head. “No. You just weirded me out, probably because all I knew about you beforehand was that you’d been in jail and your winikin disappeared right around the time you got out.”
He relaxed a little. “My reputation precedes me.” It wasn’t a vision, then. Nothing he needed to worry about.
“I’m over it. And I’m sorry that I’ve been flinchy around you.”
“Don’t be. I’m a scary guy.”
“Terrifying. So much so that I’m leaving you here with Reese, who I consider a friend.” She patted his shoulder. “Eat. Rest. And don’t stay uplinked for too long. There’s too much shit going down for you to be drained hollow.”
It was a given that he would be linking with Reese to feed her as much energy as he could. She was over the worst of the makol poisoning, and Sasha’s healing had helped close the wounds on her shoulder and lower back, but she would need his help to recover. The magi could make do with IVs of saline and glucose; humans needed more. He shrugged. “She can have whatever she needs from me.”
“Don’t drain yourself,” she repeated. “King’s orders.” But they both knew that Dez would make the call himself. Although the ancient writs placed the needs of the gods, the king, and the end-time war far above those of lovers and friends, the modern magi tended to put their mates and families first, starting with Strike’s decision to break the thirteenth prophecy to save Leah. And although Reese wasn’t Dez’s mate, she was his lover. Or at least she had been, for one perfect night.
Chest tightening, he took Sasha’s hand, gave it a squeeze. “Thanks for being there tonight. If you hadn’t been . . . well. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Now get some rest.”
Later, showered, changed, and fed, Dez lay down beside Reese in a darkness that was lit by outdoor floods, warning that all was not well at Skywatch. He had his .44 on the nightstand, an autopistol on the floor, and felt the subsensory hum that said the others were sacrificing blood to strengthen the ward surrounding the compound. He and Reese were safer in the mansion than they would be outside, he told himself. And that would have to be good enough.
When he took her hand and folded it into his, aligning his palm scar with the scabbed-over slash on hers to form a touch-link that let his energy wash into her, she shifted and turned toward him, murmuring, “That helps. Don’t let go.”
“I won’t.” He tightened his grip. But as he let her warmth seep into him and relax him one muscle group at a time, he found himself thinking that he hadn’t planned to let go of her the last time, either. Yet he had. As he went under, he heard himself whisper, as he had done to bring her back, “Think about Montana . . .”
And he slipped into a dream, taking her warmth with him.
After nearly an hour zigzagging through the tunnels and backtracking to make sure the Cobras weren’t still after them, Mendez led the girl to his current flop: a one-roomer in a condemned apartment building that had been boarded up a couple of years ago and scheduled for demolition, but had then apparently been forgotten by the wrecking ball.
Squatting rights were held by a foul-mouthed weasel of a man, nearly albino, who ran girls, drugs, and whatever-the-fuck else out of the first floor, and “rented” the other rooms. Dez wouldn’t be able to make rent another week unless he did something drastic—which didn’t matter because the Cobras would be gunning for his ass now. But he was probably okay there for the night, at least. Or rather, they would be okay. Because suddenly it wasn’t just him anymore.
In the light of the smoky lantern he had made out of an old soup can and fueled with leftover cooking grease that smelled like apples this week, the girl was thin and dirty, but he could see why she had caught Hood’s eye.
