The Isis Collar

student ID out of my purse and held it up, but I think it was Rizzoli’s official badge that did the trick because wow, did the guard leap back inside the booth fast to raise the bar across the drive. “I decided to go to your office. I didn’t have any real idea why, but over the years, I’ve learned to go with my gut—more than most cops. Got in trouble more than once, too. The nice part is that once intuition became an official talent, about two years ago, my supervisors started taking off my bridle.” We reached the administration building. Rizzoli kept talking. “The Bureau is actually pretty good at nurturing talents. So they’re using me as a sort of guinea pig, to see whether intuition can be trained to respond on command. That gives me a lot of freedom.” He pulled into a parking space and turned off the car. “Like when I gave credentials to an untrained newbie siren.”

“And like playing chauffeur right now?”

He shrugged as he unbuckled his belt. “That decision was a combination of intuition and common sense. I’ve learned that you wander off if I don’t keep an eye on you, and I need you handy in case my team turns up anything new at your office. But there’s probably another reason I’m here and it’ll come when it comes. I’ve heard vampires have terrific intuition, which is why it’s so hard to catch and kill them. Maybe you have it, too. It’s a talent that can be honed, you know. I’m a lot better at following my gut now that I’ve started to analyze the whys.”

I wanted to be annoyed that he accused me of wandering off, but it was sort of true. And what he said about intuition was interesting. “I’ve always been told I’ve lived a charmed life, despite the things that have happened to me. I was kidnapped and survived. I had a death curse put on me and survived. A vampire bite … survived. I’ve been told it’s my siren blood and good training and equipment.”

“Possibly. But you also have a knack for stumbling into situations, and having the right person on hand at the right time to help you out. That’s intuition.”

He was making me really think about things from a different point of view. “I was tested for everything in school. Failed miserably. And the sirens told me why. Siren abilities don’t coexist with other strong talents. So, I’m guessing no empathy, no intuition. Or at least not much.”

We walked up the sidewalk to the science building, listening to the birds and catching the scent of rich, wet soil and sweet bedding flowers. “Hmpf. That’s a shame. The government put together some tests when they split it out into its own category.” Rizzoli held the door for me to enter ahead of him. “One test is pretty good because it’s physical—open pits with mattresses at the bottom, things that will catch your ankles and trip you into padded walls, doorknobs that give a mild electric shock. Lots of stuff like that. It provides your brain with the concept of danger but without significant consequences. It really makes your talent kick in.”

We walked down a dim hallway. Classes were over for the day. We really should have called to make sure Dr. Sloan was still there. “I would’ve sworn you had the talent. I’ve thought for a while we had something in common —something that made me seek you out.”

“Why does that worry me?” I said it with a smile, but I was serious. We turned a corner and he stayed right beside me. Interesting—he knew which way to turn. “Have you visited Dr. Sloan before?’

Rizzoli smiled. “Nope. I’ve never met him. Just thought that was the right way to turn.” The smile seemed to peel several years and about a half a ton of worry off his face.

I was going to respond with something mildly sarcastic when I heard voices at the end of the hall. Aaron Sloan has a very distinctive voice, probably from years of speaking in lecture halls.

I could also smell a distinctive cologne that had scented my clothing for two years, feel the press of magic that reached for me all the way down the hall.

Bruno DeLuca.

Part of me was anxious to see him and I found myself quickening my steps. The other part of me was terrified to see him in person again—because seeing his smile, his amazing body, would remind me of the woman who’d nearly stolen him away. Eirene, a royal siren, had been Bruno’s lover. She’d convinced him she was pregnant and … he chose her over me, without a second thought, without discussing it with me.

That doesn’t make for a good long-term relationship. Despite what I’d thought in Levy’s, and a few warm phone conversations, there was a big hurdle to get over before I could be happy with Bruno. With anyone, really.

Rizzoli matched me step for step until we neared the room. As I reached the doorway, the conversation inside the room stopped as if a switch had been thrown.

“Celia.” Bruno’s voice was warm and his eyes … wow. Those big brown eyes said so many things with just a glance. Hi. Miss you. Love you. Sorry. He was always really good at conveying entire sentences with a single look, so much so that we could carry on whole conversations across a college classroom without the teacher knowing.

He looked good. Better than good, actually. He’d dropped a few pounds and in the right places. And if I didn’t know better, I’d swear he’d had a face-lift. So much tension had vanished from his face that he looked like a new man. Of course, the last time we’d seen each other, we’d just closed the demonic rift and we were both exhausted. “Bruno.”

Rizzoli shoved past me through the doorway just then, his hand out toward Bruno. “Bruno DeLuca. Good to finally meet you. Special Agent Dominic Rizzoli, FBI. I’ve heard a lot about you. Hey, could we talk?” Bruno had put out his hand automatically, as most men do when someone offers theirs, and found himself being propelled, with a second hand on his mid-back, through a second door before he could do much more than open his mouth.

I was speechless at Rizzoli’s lack of tact. Even Dr. Sloan was surprised. He stared after the two men for a moment before turning his attention to me. I raised an embarrassed hand. “Um, well. Hi, Dr. Sloan. Sorry about all that.”

The professor’s confusion made him frown, but he recovered in a second and his expression turned to one of excitement. “May I see your palm again? Anything new?”

Dr. Sloan is fascinated by the manifestation of my curse. He’s the one who first explained it to me. I sighed and held out my hand. He pulled his glasses down from his forehead and moved forward eagerly. Lifting my hand with near reverence, he peered at the mark. It was an angry red today, but there was no pain. He let out an appreciative, “Ooh! You’ve been a busy girl, Ms. Graves.”

It was so weird he could know that by looking at my palm. “I know you said the curse reacts when I come close to death. But why is it still happening? The person who cursed me is dead. Shouldn’t that have stopped it?”

His head cocked and he blinked repeatedly, as though processing the information. “Did the caster revoke or remove the spell?”

I shook my head.

“Did you kill the caster?”

Crap. I realized where he was going with this. “I was there when she died. But that doesn’t count, does it?” Magic is like that sometimes. It takes a specific, narrow event to change things.

Sloan’s face showed his uncertainty. “Yes. No. Maybe. The scar is still manifesting. Perhaps it’ll stop at some point. But the curse has been part of your psyche since you were a child. We can’t expect that it will suddenly just cease to be. You’ve incorporated it into your personality. You could no more not throw yourself in the way of danger as a bodyguard than you could not blink for the rest of your life. The threat of death may no longer have anything to do with the curse. Or it may.” His shoulder went up and down again.

Fair enough. “Have you developed any idea why it gets darker after I’ve been in danger?”

He nodded but didn’t look up. “I have a working theory on that, actually. I believe it’s not so much your eminent death so much as the rush of near-death adrenaline that causes the scar to manifest.”

I felt my brow furrow and I looked down at dark liver spots on his aging scalp through a drape of my tangled blonde hair. I really needed to find a mirror and a comb. Soon. “Is near-death adrenaline somehow different than … well, the normal kind?”

He looked up then, so suddenly he nearly smacked his head into my chin. “Oh my, yes! The adrenaline produced in a fight-or-flight situation is much more diluted than the concentrated sort produced when the subject has accepted the true possibility of death.”

“The possibility, not certainty?”

He smiled now, a brilliant flash of teeth that told me I’d gotten it. “Exactly! Near-death adrenaline is how mothers lift cars off their children or people pull victims out of rubble before the rest of a building collapses. It makes muscles supernatural for a few split seconds.” He looked at me for a moment with something approaching