“I have different gifts than my mom had, but that doesn’t make them any less powerful.” Although admittedly, being able to walk the gray fields—the unseen lands that divide this world from the next—talk to souls, and see the reapers who guided the souls on to the next life weren’t exactly the most usable psychic gifts in a normal, everyday life. But my life of late was as far from normal and everyday as you could get.
And those were far from the only gifts I had.
Jak raised an eyebrow. “Meaning you can use the ley lines?”
“I can’t even see them.”
“So why is it so important to you that the consortium be stopped?”
I picked up a spoon and scooped up some chocolate cake. It was a little dry, but I needed the sugary energy right then. The air-conditioning might be blasting every other scent away, but it didn’t seem to be doing a whole lot to erase his. And every intake of breath had the past stirring within me.
“These people attacked friends of mine. I want to find them.”
His gaze scanned mine again and a smile tugged at his lips. “The truth, but not the whole truth.”
I acknowledged that with a slight nod. “But the whole truth is a little out there.”
“I’m a reporter who investigates all things paranormal and occult, remember?” Sarcasm edged his voice. “You’d be surprised at just how ‘out there’ I’m willing to go.”
I was betting even he wouldn’t believe the real truth—that the intersection might well be tied up in a desperate scramble by at least four different parties to find the keys that would unlock the portals of heaven and hell. That one of those keys not only had been recently found, but had been used to open the first of the portals that protected our world from the hordes of hell.
I’d held that key in my hand. Held it, and lost it.
I didn’t want that to happen with the next two keys, and that meant finding out as much as we could about all the players involved in this race. Which meant digging up as much information about John Nadler—the consortium’s elusive third man—as we could get.
But computers could go only so far. Sometimes the only way to find out anything useful was to hit the streets. But the sort of people who would hold the information we needed weren’t likely to talk to someone like me, even if I could find them. They would talk to Jak, though. They always had. He had a talent for putting you at ease.
Or at least he did when he wasn’t sitting opposite the woman whose heart he’d shattered.
“An intersection as powerful as this one,” I said, “can be used to manipulate time, reality, or fate. If someone succeeds in controlling such an intersection, he could wreak havoc on the very fabric of our world.”
He briefly looked surprised. “The intersection is really that powerful?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, I guess finding the third man is something of a priority.” He leaned forward a little. “But why are you involved? And why come to me? Why not just leave it all to the Directorate? It seems to be more their line of business than yours or mine.”
“I’d leave it to the Directorate if I could, but that’s not an option.”
“Leading me to the next obvious question—why not?”
“Because I’m being blackmailed into the hunt.” Which was the truth—it just didn’t actually apply to the intersection.
Amusement flirted briefly with his mouth and something deep inside me twisted. It was a stupid and illogical response, and it made me want to scream at my inability to just forget what might have been.
“Did someone dig up some more dirty laundry on you or your family?” he said.
His article had been more than dirty laundry—he’d accused her of lying about her past. Which she had, but not for the reasons he’d suggested. There were no nefarious crimes or shady dealings, just her creation in a madman’s laboratory—a fact that she kept well guarded, and for good reason. Her extraordinary abilities had caused many to treat her as a freak—it would have been far worse if they’d learned the true nature of her birth. “No, they didn’t. They’re threatening my friends.”
That the man behind the threats was both an Aedh—who were creatures of light and shadows, an energy so fierce that their mere presence burned the very air around them—and my father was something I wasn’t about to explain.
Jak frowned. “If that’s the case, involving the Directorate seems even more logical.”
“They are involved, but their investigation is going nowhere and they can’t protect my friends forever.” They weren’t even trying, in fact, simply because they didn’t know about the threats. There was no point in telling them when they could never, ever protect us from the force that was my father.“So why do you think I’ll succeed where the Directorate are failing?” Jak asked.
“Because you not only have a knack for getting people to talk to you, but you seem able to uncover those who would rather remain hidden.”
The half smile appeared again. “That was almost a compliment.”
“It’s the truth,” I said flatly. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Huh.” He finished his coffee, then leaned back in his chair again. “How do you expect me to find someone the Directorate—with all its resources—cannot? They have some of the strongest telepaths in Melbourne in their employ. What could I get that they can’t?”
“They’re tackling the situation from a criminal angle. I have people tackling it from a computer angle. What we need is someone on the street.” I paused, and my smile held only the slightest trace of bitterness. “And we both know just how much you love digging the dirt in the street.”
“You should do that more often,” he said. “It suits you.”
I stared at him for a heartbeat, totally confused. “Do what?”
“Smile.”
Something twisted inside again. Old pain, old love, churning together, one fighting the other. Bastard, I thought. It was hard enough fighting the memories without him muddying the water by throwing compliments.
“I may want your help, Jak, but I don’t want anything else from you. I don’t like the way you treat your lovers.”
He shrugged. “It was only a comment, not a flirtation.”
“Well, keep such comments to yourself. I don’t need them. I just need your help.”
“Which I can’t give if I don’t actually have a starting point—other than the name of a man no one can find.”
I reached into my purse and pulled out my phone. “You still have the same number?” When he nodded, I attached a file and sent it to him. His phone beeped from the depths of his pockets. “That’s all the information we have, on both the consortium and the three men.”
“What about the people they were threatening?”
“Also there.” I hesitated. “If you talk to Fay and Steven Kingston—the parents of the little girl—don’t mention the soul stealer. They don’t know the truth about their daughter’s death. They don’t know that the threats and Hanna’s death are connected.”
“Really?”
His gaze seemed to intensify, as if he were trying to get inside my head. Which he had no chance of doing, thanks to the super-strong nano microcells that had been inserted into my earlobe and heel. Nanowires—the predecessor of the microcells—were powered by body heat, but for the wires to be active, both ends had to be connected so that a circuit was formed. Microcells were also powered by body heat, but they were contradictory forces that didn’t need a physical connection. Once fully activated, the push-pull of their interaction provided a shield that was ten times stronger than any wire yet created.
With them in place, no one was getting inside my head. Well, almost no one. The reaper who’d been assigned by the powers above him—powers he refused to name—to follow me around seemed to have no problem accessing my thoughts, and neither did Lucian, although at least Lucian was hit-and-miss.
The one test the microcells hadn’t yet passed was Madeline Hunter, who was not only one of the strongest vampire telepaths around and the woman in charge of the Directorate, but also—technically—my boss. Which wasn’t a situation I was happy about, but then, that’s what I got for agreeing to work for the high vampire council.
Of course, working for them and actually helping them find the keys—which they wanted not only so they could maintain power, but also so they could use hell itself as some sort of prison—were two entirely different things. But it was a precarious balancing act, simply because half of the high council thought it would be better to kill me than use me. All that stood between me and them was Hunter herself. Which meant that, like it or not, I would do what I had to do to keep her happy.
Jak blinked, suggesting that he’d given up attempting to squirrel into my thoughts. “So why didn’t you tell them the truth about their daughter’s death?”
“It was bad enough that their little girl died. They didn’t need to know that it wasn’t just her flesh that had passed.” I eyed him warily. “And if you tell them, I shall beat you to a pulp.”
He laughed softly. The sound shivered down my spine, warm and tingly. “You’ve gotten a little aggressive since we parted. Hope it’s not my fault.”
I snorted. “Don’t give yourself any credit, Jak. I’ve had far worse traumas in my life than you using me to get a story on my mother.”
And given that she’d been torn apart by an unknown assailant, that was the understatement of the year, to say the least.
Jak didn’t say the obvious—Sorry about your mother’s death—and I was glad. I might just have given in to the temptation to hit him if he had.
“So, I track down any and all information about this consortium and the man no one else can find—then what?”