“Yes.” His fingers gripped mine. I couldn’t help noticing the slight tremor in them. “Although I have to say, the view from this angle isn’t half bad.”
I glanced down as I hauled him upright. My sweater had not come through the second shift at all well. Not only had I lost a sleeve, but there was a gaping hole down my left side that exposed one breast. And my jeans weren’t in much better shape, hanging on my body in shredded bits.
“It’s nothing you haven’t seen before,” I commented. “And your clothes haven’t fared much better.”
“No,” he muttered, glancing down. “Although it does explain the sudden feeling of freedom.”
I half laughed – which I regretted the moment the madmen in my head sprang into action with their pokers – and released Jak’s hand. “I think you’d better stay here while I check —”
“No way on god’s green earth,” he cut in. “If I’d hung back last time, I’d be dust like those walls. Consider me your shadow until we get out of this place.”
I couldn’t exactly argue given it was totally true. I took a careful step. The air stirred, and the hairs at the back of my neck rose.
Something else was here.
I stopped and scanned the room again. The dangling electrical wires swayed lightly, even though the place was hushed and the air up here still.
The images of snakes rose again. I swore under my breath and drew Amaya. She began to hum with excitement and flames flickered down the edges of her steel.
“Drawing your sword is not a good sign,” Jak said. “What can you see that I can’t?”
“Moving electrical wires.”
“Electrical wires? Seriously?”
“I’m afraid so.”
I took another step. The swaying got stronger. It was almost as if they were attempting to grab us. My skin crawled and I quickly swiped at the nearest one. It plopped to the ground and didn’t move.
Not that it should. I mean, it was electrical wire.
“You don’t think you’re overreacting, do you?” Jak’s breath was warm against the back of my neck. He might not believe the wiring presented a threat, but he still wasn’t taking any chances.
“Can you feel a breeze?” I swung Amaya around as another piece of wiring snapped toward us. It retreated.
Definitely not the behavior of inert wiring.
“No, but —”
“Then tell me why the hell those wires are moving like they are.”
“I’m sure there’s a reasonable answer, but fucked if I can think of it right now.” He paused. “Maybe we should leave?”
“What makes you think whatever magic inhabits these wires doesn’t also inhabit the ones that control the elevator?”
“There are stairs —” He yelped and jumped, cannoning into me and sending me sprawling forward.
I caught my balance and swung around, Amaya ablaze in my hand. Jak was jumping around like a madman, frantically pulling at the piece of wire slithering up his leg. It was the piece I’d sliced moments earlier.
Amaya, destroy that thing – but don’t hurt Jak!
Won’t, she said, as flames leapt from her blade to Jak’s leg. He yelped again, and raised a hand to batter her away, but I grabbed it.
“She won’t burn you,” I said. “Just stay still.”
“There are flames near my nuts,” he shouted, his expression one of horror. “You stay still —”
“Jak,” I cut in harshly. “Trust me.”
His gaze flashed to mine; then he gulped and stopped moving. Sweat beaded his forehead as Amaya’s flames wrapped almost lovingly around the two-foot snake of wiring stretching from just below his knee up to his groin. When the last of the snake was covered, her flames flared briefly, then disappeared. The snake was gone, and there was little evidence of its presence on Jak other than a few scorch marks on his jeans.
Magic bitter, Amaya commented. Hate made.
Lauren for sure, then. I still had to wonder why, though. It made little sense for anyone to want me dead, even if Lauren did want revenge for Lucian’s death. Unless, of course, both she and the other sorcerer – if indeed there was another sorcerer; we still weren’t entirely sure about that, despite the fact it had definitely been a male who’d snatched the first key from me – had decided they were happy enough having two of the three hell gates open. I guess, if nothing else, it would make accessing hell’s minions a whole lot easier for them.
Although the effort-to-reward ratio seemed way out of whack to me. But then, we were talking about a pair of dark sorcerers. Maybe they planned to hold the world for ransom or something equally insane.
I released Jak’s hand. “You okay?”
He took a deep breath, then nodded. “What the hell are we going to do about the wiring? Severing it doesn’t stop it, and there’s too much hanging down for us to do a proper search of the room without risk.”
“True.” I turned around. Amaya, are you able to burn a path between here and the bed?
She didn’t answer, but flames leapt from her blade, shooting forward, creating a six-foot-wide avenue between us and the bed. The remaining wiring shivered and snapped, as if in anger or frustration.
Another chill ran down my spine. There was no way in hell I was going to use the elevator to get out of this place.
With our path clear, we moved forward. The bed had borne the brunt of the explosion, and was little more than a blackened, twisted mass of frame, springs, and fabric remnants. If there had been something hidden within it, it was unlikely to have survived.
I checked the remnants anyway, and found precisely what I’d expected – nothing.
I bit back a frustrated curse and looked around the rest of the room. Where would Lucian have hidden something if not in the bed?
“If I’d wanted to secure something,” Jak commented, “I would have chosen the loo.”
I shot him a glance. “Why?”
He shrugged. “It’s the last place anyone thinks to look.”
It was certainly a place that would have appealed to Lucian’s warped sense of humor. I cleared more wiring snakes, then walked across to the remnants of the bathroom. Surprisingly, the glass wall had held up well, as had the toilet, which had been positioned behind it.
“Try the tank first,” Jak said. “It’s been plumbed in, so anywhere else would have caused an obstruction.”
I unscrewed the flush button, then lifted the lid off the tank. And there, attached to the plunger, was a small plastic-wrapped envelope.
“Bingo,” I said softly, and pulled it free. I handed Jak the lid, then unwrapped the envelope, slicing it open with a fingertip, then carefully unfolding the piece of paper inside.
It read “-37.76759373693766, 144.88306045532227.”
“Coordinates,” Jak said, looking over my shoulder. “Latitude and longitude, I’d guess.”
“If you’re right, then for what? is the next big question.” I flipped the bit of paper over, but there was nothing else written on it.
“Why don’t I Google it and find out?” He reached into his pocket and frowned. “What the hell…?”
He drew out his hand and held it out, palm up. A collection of broken bits of metal and plastic sat within it. The remains of his phone, I knew without asking. I closed my eyes and cursed again. In the rush to get out of the way of the blast, I’d totally forgotten anything metal not touching flesh would be shredded. Which meant not only his phone, but mine too and my keys.
“Sorry, that’s my fault.”
His gaze jumped to mine, and after a moment, he said, “That change thing?”
“Yeah. Metal not touching flesh doesn’t get re-formed.”
“Meaning we’ll have to go somewhere else to decipher the clue.” He paused, and a sudden, somewhat cheeky smile touched his lips. “My place is nice and close. And I probably still have some of your clothes hanging around.”
I blinked. “Why the hell would you still have those?”
He shrugged. “Couldn’t be bothered throwing them out. And it wasn’t like they were taking up a whole lot of space.”
“I bet that must have pleased the hell out of the girlfriends that followed me.”
“It wasn’t a problem because there weren’t any. Only bed partners.”
I snorted. “You seriously expect me to believe —”
“Yes, because it’s true.” His gaze held mine. “My work may be the most important thing in my life, then and now, but you were, believe it or not, the next best thing.”
“Being the next best isn’t exactly a compliment,” I noted dryly. “And it doesn’t exactly explain why you’ve had no girlfriends since.”
“Ours wasn’t the first relationship I wrecked over a story, but it was the last. I decided it was better for everyone if I just didn’t go there.”
I stared at him for a minute. “Good god, was that a touch of remorse in your voice?”
“More an acknowledgment that forming attachments to get a story probably isn’t the best way to go about things.”
Which was probably as close to a sorry as I was ever likely to get. I folded the piece of paper and slipped it into my pocket. “You could have decided that before you printed the story about my mom and destroyed what we had.”
“No, I couldn’t have.”
Because it had taken that destruction for him to see the light – although I had no doubt the threats from Uncle Rhoan, Aunt Riley, and Ilianna had also played a part. They’d certainly prevented him from printing the remaining part of the story. “I can see you becoming a very lonely old man.”
“Not lonely, because there has never been a lack of partners. Just alone.”
Meaning he’d faired better in the after-relationship sex stakes than I had. At least until Lucian and Azriel had come along to liven things up.