show through that Zen exterior. I didn’t know exactly what he was angry about.
Terric paused, just a beat too long, before answering. “I’m sure you have somewhere else to be,” he said to Shame. “I know I do.” He took another swig of the beer, looked Shamus right in the eyes. “Thanks for the beer.”
Shame nodded. Looked easy. Casual about the whole thing. But that response was a slap in the face.
Terric turned to me. “I’m sorry I haven’t had the chance to meet you, Ms. Beckstrom. I hope to remedy that in the future.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I said.
Terric made brief eye contact with Zay. Something changed in his expression. Sort of like ice breaking under pressure. He turned back to Shame. “Don’t take me being here as anything other than it is. Authority business.”
“Wouldn’t think of it,” Shame said.
“We have an understanding, then?”
“Hatred, with a heaping side of grudge?”
Terric smiled, a fleeting thing that seemed to warm through the ice, flicked to life by Shame’s agreement. “That should cover it. Except for one thing. While I am here, you and I will not get in each other’s way.”
“You know me, Terric. I’d rather be almost anywhere than near you.”
“Shame-,” Zay said.
“No.” Terric held one hand toward Zayvion. Then to Shame, “We stay out of each other’s way. Tell me we’re clear on that.”
“Twenty-twenty,” Shame said.
Terric nodded. “Good. I’ll speak with you soon, Zay, Allie.” He strode off toward the front of the room where people were poring over Victor’s laptop and maps. I realized I’d been holding my fingers spread and ready to cast a spell. I closed my hand and stuck it in my pocket.
“You didn’t have to be an ass,” Zayvion said.
Shame tipped his beer up to his mouth again. Empty.
“You know I love you, Jones,” he said, “but stay the hell out of my business.” He didn’t wait for Zay’s reply. Didn’t have to. He’d known him long enough he could give himself whatever speech Zay had planned.
Shame turned and walked away, to the bar again. He slipped behind it, found another beer, then stormed out the doors there, patting his pockets for a smoke.
Zay leaned into me a little more, or maybe he pulled me back toward him.
“They’ll be okay.” I tried to say it as a statement, but it came out all question.
Probably because Zay’s doubt and concern washed through me. He hurt for Shame like a brother who knew there was nothing he could do to fix the pain Shame had gotten himself into.
“Terric won’t try to hurt him, will he?” I asked. “He’s a good guy, right?”
“We’re all good guys,” Zay said.
Yeah, he believed that as much as I did.
“Zayvion?” Victor was making his way across the room, looking like a man who knew how to wield a sword. And since he was one of my teachers, in magic and in physical defense, I actually knew he could swing a sword. Very well, as a matter of fact.
Zay pulled away so we no longer touched.
I’d never seen Victor looking so ragged. His eyes were bloodshot, and his usually clean-shaven face shadowed a beard.
“I’m going to go over the quadrants and coverage with the Closers now,” he said. “Would you join us, please?”
“What about Chase?” Zay asked.
“She’s here.”
Zay took a second to find her in the crowd. I did too, since I hadn’t seen her earlier. I spotted her walking in through the archway at the front of the room. Beyond that arch was the hall that led to sitting rooms and a stairway to the basement, where her ex-lover Greyson currently resided in a cage. She looked angry, shell-shocked, sick. Like she’d just seen something, or done something, very, very wrong.
Yeah, I didn’t think I’d be doing any better if it were Zay in that cage. Chase was handling this a lot better than I would, even if she hadn’t come to see Greyson before now. And it didn’t take a genius to know she had just come from seeing him.
The woman radiated a don’t-fuck-with-me vibe stronger than any Repel spell she could have cast. It worked like a charm. Everyone steered a wide berth around her and left her alone.
Another person detached from the shadows beyond the archway and walked in behind Chase.
I’d wondered when he was going to show up.
Jingo Jingo was a big man, not like Hayden, who had height to balance out his width. Jingo was just heavy. There was something about him that made him seem even bigger. He had an immensity that took up more room than his bulk justified. He radiated a dark presence as if shadows and other, haunting things clung to him. The light, pouring down from the high rafters, couldn’t clean the room of it.
He bothered me, even when he was laughing like he was everyone’s friend. I didn’t trust him. I didn’t like him.
He rambled over to Chase, right into her leave-me-alone zone.
Fire, meet oil.
I thought for sure Chase would give him hell. But when he neared, she seemed to cool down, her fire snuffed to ash, her anger suffocated, gone dead as he reached out and stroked her arm reassuringly. Her shoulders slumped, her head fell back to rest against the wall behind her, and she closed her eyes. She looked exhausted.
And when he spoke-a low rumble I couldn’t pull into words-she opened her eyes. She looked like a lost child, hopeful, maybe even desperate for his reassurance, his guidance. She did not look like the powerful, angry Closer I knew.
What was he doing to her? What was he telling her? What had they done down there with Greyson?
“Allie?” Zayvion said.
Right. He had been asked to do something. Look over Victor’s plans or something.
“See you soon,” I said.
Zay walked off with Victor, both heading toward Chase.
Even though Jingo Jingo did not turn around, as soon as Victor and Zayvion were on their way toward Chase, he dropped his hand off her arm.
Chase seemed to come to, and get her bitch back on. She scowled at Zay and Victor, and made it clear she didn’t like following them to one side of the room where Terric and a small group of other people-Nik and Joshua and maybe three others, probably all Closers-stood.
Closers. People who could reach into someone’s mind and take away their ability to use magic. People who took away memories.
Maybe I wanted to know what they were talking about. Especially if it had to do with the removal of memories-I had Hounds on the street I needed to look after.
Got halfway across the room too before Shame fell into step with me.
“Don’t know what’s stuck in your craw,” he said, his breath heavy with beer and cigarette smoke and that clove scent that was all his own, “but you got company.”
“What?”
I’d been so focused on studying the faces and body language of the group of Closers at the front of the room, I didn’t notice everyone was looking over at the main door.
And standing in the doorway was someone who most definitely should not be here.
Davy Silvers.
Chapter Nine
