foreign voice in her head saying,
Tension screamed through Cathal’s grip on her shoulders. His touch lightened as he prepared to lunge for her wrists and jerk her clear of Momma Lee before she could do any damage, while Liam remained several feet away, a bored audience though she suspected he could move incredibly fast if he chose to act.
Etain didn’t flinch, but it was a near thing.
“I remember you doing beautiful work,” Momma Lee said. “Fourteen and using homemade ink and a sewing needle to start with, and already people coming around here, looking for you in particular so they could get tattooed. What you can do for me, for all those like me, is don’t do any work that supports gangs like the one Tyrone over there, trying to hush his mama, is so proud to be in, or clubs like the Curs, that only perpetuate the waste of a lot of lives.”
“The only time I touch that kind of work is to cover it up.”
Momma Lee squeezed Etain’s hands. “I’m glad.”
They left a short time later, stepping from the house into thinning grayness as the sun burned through the fog. “Shelter still?” Cathal asked.
Etain’s hand went to her pocket, habit taking it there to retrieve her phone with Anton’s number in it. The phone’s absence was a reminder of having been abducted by the Harlequin Rapist. She shivered, hastily blocking further thought of him, or their time together.
“Yeah, the shelter.”
Liam walked away, as if going to his car. Cathal grimaced. “I feel like my head could explode with all the weird shit.”
“Now there’s an image. I hope I’m not standing close to you when it happens.”
He cut her a look. “You want to tell me how he not only found us but seemed to arrive out of nowhere? I’m pretty sure I didn’t hear or see a car pulling in when we did.”
She distanced herself with a step to the side. He reeled her back by grabbing her hand.
“I’m afraid if I answer I’m going to witness the whole head-exploding thing.”
Cathal laughed, since meeting her he’d done a lot of it—that is, when he wasn’t consumed by lust or jealousy or fear for her life. “Funny, Etain.”
“I get that a lot.”
“Are you going to answer my question about Liam?”
“I think somehow he can travel between shadows.”
Cathal felt an immediate tightness in his chest. “Okay. I think we can leave it at that.”
She gave him a smile and he answered with a long, slow kiss before they pulled on helmets and made the trip to the shelter, parking in the back, to find Liam casually leaning next to the door.
Fuck, Cathal thought. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since yesterday, when he and Etain had arrived at the shelter for the fund-raiser, him to manage the music, her to manage the tattoo artists as well as to work as one.
The fog hadn’t come this far inland, and even if it had, it might not have mattered to the kids who now called this place home, along with their parents or in some cases, their grandparents—and were lucky to have a roof and beds rather than to be living in cars or split from their families and sent into foster care. There were some twenty boys and girls playing basketball or hopscotch or jumping rope on worn asphalt.
Many of those who sought shelter here were the working poor. That had been an eye-opener for him, this world so far away from the one he inhabited.
They entered the building, Liam a deadly shadow behind them. For a split second, Cathal considered asking him how he’d gotten there, to see if Etain was right—only to remember Liam stepping into the room and having all illusion of being human melt away.
Why bother? He was a fucking Elf.
Uneasiness slid into Cathal with a glance to the side at Etain. Because she was Elf too, already so fucking beautiful, and after the transition she would probably be more so, and able to do additional magic, or stronger magic. What if over time she became more and more like Eamon, and identified less and less with human concerns? Then what? Would she be the one with regrets, about him?
Fuck that. She needed him. And grudgingly, he could see she needed Eamon too.
He shook off doubts and dismissed Eamon from his mind. The shelter was crowded, because it was Sunday, he guessed, and the adults without childcare responsibilities weren’t required to spend the day either at jobs or out looking for work.
Justine was in her office. She rose from her chair at the sight of Etain, crossing the room with the brisk pace of a woman who could have been a drill sergeant.
Cigar smoke saturated the air around her. It made a bold statement about the woman who had to be in her sixties. It gave advance notice that she was more than capable of taking names and kicking ass.
She pulled Etain into a fierce hug and Cathal could swear he heard the sound of ribs cracking. “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”
Justine’s command was as rough as her embrace. Etain returned the hug, Cathal seeing the way she kept her hands curled, as if she feared even the contact of her palms with clothing.
Releasing Etain to give Cathal a bone-crushing hug, Justine said, “Your timing is perfect. I’ve been going over the numbers. The fund-raiser was a huge success thanks in large part to the two of you. If we do this again, maybe in six months, and have the same or better results, I think we could add more bed space. Can I count on you?”
“Etain is not in a position to offer such a promise,” Liam said, startling Justine as if she hadn’t been aware of him.
Cathal wondered if Liam could actually hide his presence altogether. It was not a pleasing thought.
Justine’s eyes narrowed as she took in Liam, the look in them making it obvious she didn’t care for what she was seeing. A glance at Etain, and Etain made the introduction, deflecting the confrontation his statement invited by saying, “Things are a little unsettled in my life right now. Okay if we talk about another fund-raiser in a week?”
A week, corresponding with Eamon’s deadline. Aggravation rushed into Cathal with the reminder, followed by amusement as he imagined Etain comparing him to one of Pavlov’s dogs, where thinking of Eamon or hearing his name took the place of ringing bells. He couldn’t believe Eamon had stayed away this long.
Etain plopped down in a chair, guiding the conversation to what had happened in Oakland with a mention of Kelvin. Justine returned to her seat behind the desk, settling into it with a weariness that held decades of failure and disappointment, and worse, grief over lives lost after they’d been turned around to become shining examples of hope and accomplishment.
Like she’d done with Momma Leeona, Etain worked back to her teen years, to the kids she hadn’t seen in a long time and didn’t know how they’d turned out. Not a request for a list as they’d set out to get when they left his place, but a subtle interrogation and collection of names because Liam’s presence changed the equation, and Cathal understood that Etain feared what might happen to those who wore her ink if Eamon were made aware of what they were up to and why.
Ultimately Etain worked Vontae’s name into the conversation as well as inquiring about those she’d tattooed at Justine’s request. Cathal made mental notes, but other than that moment of recognition they’d experienced in the dream, there wasn’t anything to identify the shooter.
He caught himself rubbing the back of his neck, anxious to come up with a list of names and turn that list over to Sean, to get back to some semblance of normalcy.
Cathal restrained himself from baring his teeth. Barely, and only because a glance from Etain had a little bell going off in his head.
On yeah, very Pavlovian.
Time to go, Etain thought, easing the conversation to a conclusion and saying goodbye to Justine with a hug, the mix of things she felt when she finally turned toward Eamon leaving her as jittery as a junkie in need of a
