but I’m going to get back.”
“Are you?”
Ben’s tone said it all. He didn’t believe she had any intention of leaving.
“Be serious. I need to get back and take Mario off Pascal’s hands. And try to settle my nerves about tomorrow—if that’s possible. It’s going to be weird and long.”
Ben pulled her into the sitting room and sat on a couch. He patted the seat next to him. “Come be with me.”
With her purse in both hands, she moved her weight from one leg to the other.
“Still determined to cart the gun around,” he said. “Maybe it’s not such a bad idea.” He patted the couch again and she went slowly to sit on the edge.
“It’s really late, Ben.”
“You just said it wasn’t that late.”
She kept her voice even. “You can’t take me prisoner.”
Standing beside him and looking down accentuated his penetrating eyes, his high cheekbones and the shine on his long, black hair—worn tied back tonight. “You’d only be a prisoner if you didn’t want to stay. But you do know I won’t let you leave alone.”
“I can’t spend the rest of my life handcuffed to you, Ben.”
He smiled, and she came close to smiling back.
“This won’t last forever,” Ben said. “You’ve heard what Nat had to say. I agree with him. So does Sykes. And Gray and Marley. So does Pascal. You heard what was said earlier. Sykes and I both feel we’re close to a crisis. You see how Marley is—almost like she’s sick. Her senses are wide-open, and she’s getting messages she doesn’t like. Then there’s Nat. He’s got every reason to want to debunk our theories, but he’s too smart. And he’s got guts.”
“I couldn’t believe it when Nat said Fabio was missing,” Willow said. “Zinnia told me he’d called and said he’d be at the Brandts’ later in the day.”
“She was covering for him,” Ben pointed out. “You can’t hold that against her.”
“I never would. But I’ve got to get back to the courtyard. I heard Chris there.” She turned toward Ben. “I
“Willow, I want us to stay here tonight. We’ll go back as soon as it gets light and I feel okay about asking some of the others to help out.”
She hugged herself.
He continued, “I honestly believe we’ve hit it—the Embran want New Orleans, but particularly the French Quarter, as some sort of kingdom. For some reason it feels right to them—and the Millets are there. You’ve brought them here. You’ve been causing them to pop up in different places around the world for centuries. They’ve followed you and now you’re in their nirvana. What we still have to find out is exactly what they want from you.”
“We’re not running away again,” she said, growing angry. “We’ll fight.”
“Sykes and I decided this was a good place for tonight. You and I have been at the Court the last couple of days, and he’ll make it look as if we’re there tonight. So far I haven’t seen any sign of Embran being psychic. If I’m right, they aren’t going to pick up on us here.”
“You can’t be sure. They found me before—and Marley before that.”
“They knew where the Millets were. They knew where to look for you, then. They followed you around.”
“They could have come after me tonight.”
He caught her chin between his finger and thumb. “They didn’t.”
She stared at him. “Has Pascal put a shield around me? I know he can do that, and then you can only be seen by those he wants to see you.”
Ben’s eyebrows rose. “For someone who didn’t believe in any powers until a few days ago, you’ve come a long way.”
Ben got up and offered her his hand.
He had her off balance. “What now?” she asked, although she knew and willingly put her hand in his.
They climbed the stairs slowly, never taking their eyes off each other.
Willow wanted to lose herself in him, but she was edgy. “You and Sykes and Nat, I guess, you’ve decided we’re definitely close to a big crisis?”
He nodded. “We can’t be sure how many of them may be here by now—and we do know they’re ruthless. I know all about the theory that there was just the one around—and his two half-human offspring when Marley got involved. But even if it was true then, seeing evidence of their return proves nothing was solved.
“It doesn’t help that no one is talking about what happened to Sidney and Eric Fournier after they were arrested. Then there’s Bolivar, Marley’s dragon. Poof, and he was gone from the jail. But I can’t find out the sequence—what happened and when.”
“The killings have been different this time,” Willow said. “From one victim to the next. Billy Baker and Surry Green were very similar, but Chloe wasn’t.”
“In a way it was all the same—they were scared to death, weakened and driven to collapse by horror, but we don’t believe they were attacked by the same thing. And we want to know why we haven’t found any of these missing people.”
Willow thought of Chris and the woman she didn’t know, both groveling around among colored granules inside glass and so scared. Without knowing what was planned for them or where they were, she felt helpless. And now there was Fabio—she had to assume he was probably in the same position as the others.
A churning wave of terror gripped her. “What if they can multiply quickly?” She caught at Ben’s waist. “There could be… Ben, there could be dozens of them waiting and watching. Hundreds of them.”
They reached the top of the stairs.
His expression closed. He gathered her against him, but she knew the answer was yes, and he didn’t want to tell her that.
“I will never let anything hurt you, Willow.”
“How can you see that bat thing when it shows up?” she asked, not expecting a straight answer.
Ben studied her from beneath half-lowered lids. “Have you ever heard of the Third Eye?”
She frowned and shook her head.
“Some of us have it,” Ben said. “A very small number. It allows us to see what others can’t see.”
“What sort of things?”
He took his time again, and she figured he was deciding how much to say. “Things that want to hide from human sight and things that don’t care about human sight because they never consider they’ll be detected.”
“Like what?”
Shaking his head, he said, “You’re relentless. Like those who have passed beyond this life, but haven’t entered the next.”
“You see ghosts,” she said flatly, with a flip of her stomach. “Can you see any now?”
“No,” he told her promptly, walking with her toward the bedroom.
“And you would if they were here?”
“I would if they were here and I wanted to see them.”
“Oh.” Her turn to think. “So they’re probably all around us. Sitting over there watching us, talking about us.”
“No. They’ve passed beyond that. Unless we catch their attention for some reason, they don’t notice us.”
“That’s comforting.”
“And you feel moods,” Ben said. “Sadness, happiness, pain, hope, and then you figure out what caused the moods. That’s pretty specialized stuff, Willow.”
“I don’t feel it all the time.”
“That’s because you don’t work at it,” Ben said. “But you will as you learn how valuable your gifts are.”
She gave him a skeptical look.
His fingertips, circling on the small of her back, shortened her breath. Closing in, holding him as tightly as she could, she absorbed shock after shock fanning from his touch. When he stiffened, his body hard all over, she let
