Promises to Keep

He realized he had walked out on Jeremy without a word of explanation or apology. Jeremy probably wouldn’t take it personally.

A voice answered the phone, “Lydia’s Candy Shop, please hold.”

Was there was some kind of code he was supposed to give? For all he knew he had dialed a wrong number and this actually was a candy shop.

Maybe he should go back to the secretary and check on how to handle this, or even go through official channels. Better safe than sorry? But which was safer—going through official channels and possibly dragging SingleEarth into the mess he might have made, or trying to do this on his own so at the worst he was the only one likely to end up sold into slavery?

By the time someone came back on the line, Jay had decided it didn’t hurt to try.

“Thank you for holding. How can I help you?”

“This is Jay Marinitch. I’m calling from SingleEarth, and I—”

“Is this the best number to reach you?” the voice asked, interrupting.

“Um … yes,” he replied. “It’s my cell phone.”

“I’ll have someone call you back.”

The line went dead.

It could still be a rude candy shop, but the likelihood he had reached Frost was high. Jay left his room and scavenged the kitchen while he waited. The breakfast pickings were pretty slim. He picked up a stale donut, and then his phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Jay Marinitch?”

“Yes?”

Candy or mercenaries?

“I was told you called. What can I do for you?”

This was why he hated phones. “May I ask who’s calling?” he asked.

The voice on the other side of the line laughed and said, “No. You called us. What do you need?”

Not a candy shop. He might still make an ass of himself, but at this point, who could blame him?

“I need some information,” he said, “or a contact who can get me that information. Someone familiar with a culture that went extinct around the fall of Midnight but who isn’t allied with Midnight.”

A slight pause from the other side of the line—man or woman? Jay couldn’t tell.

“What culture?”

“The Shantel. I want to know about their magic, and their spirit-witch, the … sakkri.”

“Aah.” A short pause, and then, “I’ll call you back.”

The phone beeped, and the screen announced, Call Lost.

Weird.

Jay wasn’t used to cloak-and-dagger, at least in the metaphorical sense. Cover businesses and cryptic, androgynous phone voices made him antsy.

He wanted to hunt, the way a cheetah hunts, just for the pure joy of tearing into something and bringing it down. He needed to take on Midnight; it was a cancer in the free world, run by vicious, evil creatures who didn’t hesitate to violate any natural law in their quest for domination. But that hunt required careful planning, and coordination with other hunters. Caution. Patience. And now, wandering, waiting for someone else to give him information.

The winter morning was crisp and freeze-the-bones cold, so even with his heavy jacket on Jay had to use a thread of power to keep himself from shivering.

You all right?

The faint mental touch from Lynx made him smile. Restless, he answered, but not hurt. Where are you?

Not far. Lynx liked Haven #2. There were just enough big-predator shapeshifters for their scents to scare away coyotes, the only local predator that could be a danger to him. Also, Caryn knew Lynx, and always kept a stash of turkey jerky on hand. Do you need me?

I’m okay, Jay answered, just as his phone started vibrating. It was the same voice as before.

“If you’re sure you want to meet with her, I can set you up with someone who specializes in archaic magic. But I’ll warn you, she might eat you alive.”

“Literally or figuratively?”

“That depends on whether or not she likes you.”

“Fantastic. How do I set up the meeting?”

The individual on the other side of the line took information about Jay’s location and means of transportation, then gave him an address and the instruction to, “leave within the hour if you don’t want to be late.” Then the caller hung up, without saying whether Jay was looking for a short balding woman with a rose between her teeth or a giant ferret.

Going hunting? Lynx asked in response to Jay’s increased excitement.

Going talking first, he replied. But hopefully we’ll hunt soon.

CHAPTER 13

JAY COULDN’T BEGIN to recall where he had left his gloves, though he wished he did when he set his hands to the steering wheel. He half expected his GPS to swear at him for waking it up when it was so cold.

He programmed in the address from the mysterious telephone voice and let out a whine when he realized it was almost three hours away. He wouldn’t get there until noon, if he didn’t hit traffic.

After an hour on the highway, he turned on to progressively smaller, more winding roads. Midday became early afternoon, and he hadn’t yet arrived, because he had needed to drop his speed to avoid spinning out on the increasingly common patches of black ice on the badly plowed, poorly marked back roads.

Whoever he was visiting, she didn’t like visitors. Jay missed the unmarked driveway the first time and had to turn around. His tires got a beating as he bumped his way across potholes big enough to bury a body in.

Finally he reached the house, which was overhung by several bare maple trees.

I hope this is the right place, Jay thought as he walked up the narrow, recently shoveled path. There didn’t seem to be a bell, so he knocked on the door.

The person who answered the door was a young woman, maybe twenty years old at most, whose brown eyes had dark circles beneath them. She exuded no particular thoughts but a sense of bone-deep weariness that made Jay want to curl up and sleep for a month just looking at her.

“Are you the person I’m supposed to meet?” he asked.

She stared at him for long, silent moments before saying, “I doubt it. Rikai’s in her study. I think she’s expecting someone.”

Rikai!

The phone caller’s warning made sense now; like vampires, Tristes needed to feed, but they did so by absorbing raw power instead of by taking blood. Of the three Wild Cards, Jay had been excited to meet Xeke but hadn’t ever wanted to meet Rikai.

Nervously, Jay followed his guide to the study.

The walls in the hallway were painted a cool gray-rose color above wood paneling that had been stained