Promises to Keep

had been about to leave wasn’t going to work.

Hello, this is Jay Marinitch. Xeke and I met last night at a party.

Given the way Xeke liked to flirt, that probably applied to a lot of people. The club wasn’t likely to give out Xeke’s number to every person who called, or to even bother to pass on a message. Jay tried to think quickly. What would actually seem important enough to get them to bother Xeke with it?

“Hi, this is Jay Marinitch.” Instead of referring to the party, he said, “I’m in the hospital, and I need to get in touch with Xeke, but I don’t have his number with me. He can call me at …” He looked over and read out the number posted next to the phone. Hospital was a bit of an exaggeration for Haven #2’s clinic, but if anyone looked up the number, at least it would come up as a medical facility.

Jay hung up the phone, discovering in the process that his arm was incredibly heavy. He was exhausted. It was time for some good old-fashioned non-coma-style sleep.

He closed his eyes. What should he be? Kitten? Squirrels and bats slept well, too.

Jay couldn’t find the energy to shift his mental state to anything other than “bed-bound, injured human- shaped person.”

And so as such, he drifted back to sleep.

Not here again.

The brambles and branches menaced, grabbing at him with their needlelike fingers. As he struggled to focus, to become something that would be safe in this hell, the world around him went soft, like a video blurring out of focus.

This is just an echo, he thought. He was in his own mind. That meant he could control it, explore it. Understand it.

He slipped through the brambles like a shadow, drawing no attention, and at last found himself outside a tall black fence with iron ravens on the top. He should have been able to see through the gaps in the fence, but there was nothing but darkness.

He walked the length of the fence, trying to find an opening, but there were no corners or gates, no matter how far he walked. He turned around, but instead of the forest, the fence was behind him as well. No matter how he turned, he faced cold iron, blocking his way.

He woke to find Xeke sitting in the chair by his bed, reading a celebrity gossip magazine dedicated to the most ludicrous lies imaginable. Xeke didn’t give the tabloids a lot of credit for accuracy, but they certainly were entertaining.

Oh, good. Jay’s empathy was starting to come back.

“Good to see you awake,” Xeke said. “I was surprised when my secretary passed on your message.”

“You have a secretary?”

“I have several.”

“I can’t remember the name of the town where Kendra’s gala and your apartment were,” Jay said. “Or how I got back.”

“How odd,” Xeke said, in a tone that made it clear it wasn’t odd at all.

His mind told Jay why. The town was spelled. Not all of it; normal humans lived in enough of the town that it would be terribly awkward if they couldn’t remember how to get home or to work or how to give people directions to visit them. But crossing certain boundaries would trigger the spell, which was powerful.

“You seem like an interesting guy,” Xeke said, “but I’m surprised it didn’t give you even a moment’s pause that I would willingly bring a hunter to a place where I routinely work and sleep. You were on your best behavior at Kendra’s, and I know we’re safe here in SingleEarth, but I don’t know where you draw your lines.”

Fair enough.

“So the spell is to keep people from finding your homes?”

“More or less,” Xeke answered. There was a lot more to that “more or less,” but Xeke’s mind skipped over it, not forming the images clearly enough for Jay to pick them out. “So tell me: Should I be flattered you were looking for me, or nervous?”

Oh, right. He had a reason for wanting to find Xeke.

“I went into the woods, behind your apartment.”

The words triggered something in Xeke, but again, Jay couldn’t focus well enough to pick up on all of it. There was something about an arrangement. Politics, and a disgust of politics. Walking a tightrope.

“Did you have a nice walk?” Xeke asked.

“I found a woman, a shapeshifter, unconscious,” Jay answered. “She still hasn’t woken. We’re not sure what’s wrong with her. The doctors here think that maybe if—”

“You want to stop talking now,” Xeke interrupted, with a spike of nervousness.

“Could you look at her, and let me know if—”

“I’m leaving.”

“But—”

“Call me if you’re interested in a night out on the town,” Xeke said. “I’ll leave my phone number at the front desk. But I’m not having this conversation with you.” With that, he disappeared, too wary to even take the time to leave his number in person.

Jay scowled. He didn’t like mysteries. He really didn’t like it when people kept things from him.

He had never had an adolescent’s panic over what other people were thinking, or whether they were thinking of him, or that sheer certainty that everyone was thinking about him all the time that most young teens had. No, from the start he had known when they lied; when they were pretending to be macho while scared; when it wasn’t quite true when a mother said, “No, of course I’m not mad,” when her young child accidentally broke an heirloom piece of china; and when people weren’t thinking of him at all, even when they were in the middle of a conversation with him.

He understood. Everyone needed little lies to get them through the day, false courage to make them find real courage, and false comfort when something couldn’t be repaired. Their minds were so complicated and their lives so intense that who could blame them that most of the time they weren’t thinking about anything but themselves?

People were fascinating to Jay, but they weren’t mysteries. That was why Xeke had fled. For some reason, he needed to be a mystery.

Jay could spend lazy hours as a cat basking in the sun, or as a lizard on a rock, or as a sparrow singing for the pure joy of the day. Others of his line used their empathy to become powerful healers of the body and mind, or to help them mediate conflict. Those who chose to go into human businesses made staggering amounts of money as psychotherapists, lawyers, marriage counselors, or industrial psychologists.

Jay had chosen the path of a hunter because whether he was a songbird or a kitten or a koi in a pool, there was one thing that could always pull him back: the challenge of a hunt.

He had been challenged, and like a bloodhound, he was now committed to this mystery. Damn you, Xeke.

CHAPTER 9

FIRST, HE HAD to get out of bed. He had recovered enough of his power that he could start focusing it on healing his wounds. Whatever foreign magic had kept Caryn from healing him while he was unconscious gave him no problems now.

He stood, and again sought the kitchen. He needed protein to make up for the power burned, and the blood lost.

Leftover fried chicken was a good start. He ate it cold, enjoying the grease, the crunch of the skin, and the softness of the meat beneath. He carried a leg bone with him as he walked through the parking lot to get a not- blood-covered shirt from the car. He also hoped he could find the directions he had used the night before.