Darkness Possessed (Order of the Blade) (4 page)

Zach had assumed they had been guarding the entrance to the nether-realm. What if they hadn't? What if they'd been waiting for them? But how would they have known—

Shit. With grim realization, he recalled Rohan's gift: the ability to see certain aspects of the future. Swearing under his breath, he looked at the man who he had once admired, and once almost murdered. "You knew I was going there, didn't you? You weren't guarding the entrance. You were waiting for me to show up, so you could trap me." Son of a bitch. Rohan didn't give a shit about Thano. He'd used Thano to get Zach to come with him. Now, he was going to use Thano to force Zach to do something for him, something that Zach suspected he would never do otherwise.

One nod was all he got in response.

But the acknowledgment that he was correct was enough.

Too late, Zach realized that he'd been played, and Thano's life was now at stake.

"What did you do?" The unexpected voice was like a shot, leaping out of the shadows at her.

Rhiannon froze, her fingers going still over the computer keys as her gaze snapped to the far side of the darkened office. Standing in the doorway of the overcrowded backroom of their counseling center was Jordyn Leahy, the director of the women's shelter Rhiannon had started working for six months earlier as an admin. Jordyn couldn't be more than a couple years older than Rhiannon, but she carried an air about her that made Rhiannon think she'd lived many more years than she looked. Maybe it was the business suits and pristine bun she always wore, the steady set to her jaw, or the dull brown frames of her reading glasses. Or maybe it was just the way she tended to observe silently before reacting to any situation.

Right now, however, she was wearing jeans and a pink tee shirt, with her blond hair up in a ponytail. She wasn't wearing glasses, and her eyes were big and blue, making her look like she was about twelve years old. She looked young, and Rhiannon realized she had no lines of age on her face. So, she was actually a woman who was young, but had a lifetime of experience behind her.

Like Rhiannon.

Despite her fresh-faced appearance, Jordyn's gaze was penetrating and unyielding, a startling departure from the warm, nurturing persona she used with the battered women who snuck in their front door. "Well?" she prompted. "It's after midnight, and you're skulking around our offices. What's going on?"

"Um..." Instinctively glancing at the open window and calculating how fast she could make it to that exit if the need arose, Rhiannon cleared her throat. Her pulse thundering, she casually leaned back in the folding chair, trying to give the impression that she had nothing to hide. She didn't want Jordyn on alert. If Jordyn thought Rhiannon wasn't going to bolt, it would take a split second longer for her to react if she fled. Those precious milliseconds delaying Jordyn's reaction could be the difference between Rhiannon getting away, and being trapped.

It was so late that she hadn't expected anyone else to be in the office. She hadn't wanted to go home tonight. She was still too shaken up by her reaction to the man in the pool, both the fact that she'd responded to him as a woman, and the fact that he'd gotten a jump on her with his gun. She felt vulnerable, and that scared her. Although she'd wanted desperately to retreat to the apartment that had become her sanctuary, going there had seemed like a poor choice, because if someone wanted to find her, home is where they would look. Instead, she'd come to the office, but it had taken only a few minutes before she'd begun to feel a creepy sensation down her spine as if someone was watching her.

Had it been Jordyn, before she'd presented herself? Or was someone else lurking in the shadows, waiting for the right moment? If there wasn't a threat right now, there would be soon.

There was no safe place now. She'd blown it.

Glancing again at the window, half-expecting to see an untamed warrior standing there, ready to grab her, she managed a nonchalant shrug in response to Jordyn's question. "What are you talking about?" She tried to keep her voice as calm as possible.

Jordyn's blue eyes were glittering with interest. "Do you remember that woman who came in earlier today? The one with the expensive suit?"

Rhiannon swallowed at the reference to the woman she'd been avenging tonight on that second floor balcony. "Sorry, I wasn't really paying attention." She swiveled the chair restlessly, unable to sit still. What did Jordyn know?

Jordyn slowly strolled into the makeshift office and eased into the folding chair in front of Rhiannon's desk. "Do you like plants? Like vines? Do you have an affinity for vines, Rhiannon?"

Rhiannon went still, trying to keep her face expressionless. How on earth did Jordyn know what had happened? The fear that had been circling restlessly in her mind all evening suddenly congealed in her stomach. If word got out, she might be found. Dammit. For five years she'd never tapped into her powers. She had played it straight, hiding who she was, knowing it was her only chance to survive. One night, one mistake, and the safe crevices she'd managed to crawl into had been exposed.

"Vines?" she echoed blankly, keeping her voice neutral. "What do you mean?" Even as she spoke, she eased her finger to the delete key. Flashing on the screen was her personnel file, the only remaining information on the computer that related to her. Once she deleted it, all evidence that she'd ever existed here would be gone. How many times had she erased her footprints in the last five years? She didn't want to be erased anymore...but she wanted to be found even less.

"I mean," Jordyn said evenly, "that the police got a 911 call from that woman's house tonight. She had put me on the notification list in case her husband became abusive, so I showed up, thinking she was being attacked. But the police got a very strange story from her husband."

Rhiannon swallowed as a frisson of fear shivered down her back. Had he really told someone the truth? Why would he have risked it? Everyone would deem him insane. Women like her didn't exist. Yes, sure, most humans accepted that Calydons existed, but that was about it as far as supernatural beliefs went, other than the standard woo woo about vampires and werewolves. Certainly no one would believe that someone like her existed, someone who could manipulate vegetation and the earth itself. He would never have told anyone that vines attacked him...would he? "Really?" She kept her voice neutral. "What was the story?"

Jordyn waved her hand dismissively. "It was all very unusual. He was babbling about a witch who showed up with a ruby dagger. Weirdly, he said that she was able to make the plants in his yard attack him. He had red lines all over his body, which he said were from the vines wrapping around him like ropes and dragging him underwater." She was watching Rhiannon with a steady gaze.

Rhiannon forced herself to meet Jordyn's stare, taking comfort in Jordyn's dismissive wave. "Doing drugs, was he?"

"That was the general consensus, until…"

She didn't want to ask, but she knew she had to know. "Until what?"

"Until we watched the security video."

Oh, shit.
Rhiannon felt her stomach drop. She hadn't even thought of that.

Jordyn leaned forward. "I think," she said softly, "you may not want to wear that amulet in public for a little while."

Rhiannon's hand instinctively went to the glittering jewel strapped around her neck. Without it, she would probably not be alive, and if she were alive, she would wish she were dead.

"Your makeup was very dramatic and obscured your identity quite well, but the amulet was very visible on the security video. Every last detail of it." Jordyn raised her brows. "I always thought it was quite striking, so I noticed it right away." She winked. "Of course, not everyone has my incredible powers of observation, so it's possible you could staple it to your forehead and march into the police station, and no one would notice. Then again, it's possible that maybe I'm not the only one with an eye for unusual, ancient artifacts worn around a woman's neck. We don't really know, do we?"

Rhiannon felt the blood drain from her face as she instinctively covered the necklace in a gesture that was meaningless now. She tried to come up with some sort of plausible explanation for the moving vines, but the fear hammering at her obliterated all strategic thought. She'd been compromised,
truly compromised.
She'd been caught on video, and the police would be sharing the information with other agencies to try to identify her. It would not take long until José's minions found her, and if José were still alive...

No. She couldn't let him find her.
She couldn't go back.

Jordyn leaned back in her chair, apparently oblivious to Rhiannon's rising panic. "The police have named the mysterious woman Poison Ivy. She's considered dangerous. They're looking for her. They're investigating everyone his wife knows. Poison Ivy interests them. A sexy woman who is armed and dangerous, willing to attack one of the wealthiest men in the entire city, who appears to have a magical connection to plants, is going to be headlining all the police scanners tonight." She rolled her eyes in apparent disgust. "Such a typical male thought process, isn't it? They see one sexy woman with the power to knock them on their butts, and they drop everything to find her, even though you didn't actually hurt anyone. Heaven forbid they go after the idiots running around with shotguns and drugs, right?"

Rhiannon stared at her boss. "You're not mad?"

"Mad?" Jordyn chuckled as she pulled out her hair elastic and redid her ponytail. It was a little crooked, which actually made her look even prettier and more approachable. "The only thing I might be a little mad about is that you didn't actually hurt him, but I suppose he probably begged and screamed for mercy, right?"

Rhiannon nodded slowly, still trying to figure out exactly what Jordyn's response to this was. "He did get a little desperate," she admitted.

"Fantastic." Jordyn grinned, looking decidedly more cheerful than when she'd first walked in. "I love making bullies scared. Nice work, Rhee." She raised her brows, a thoughtful look suddenly on her face. "By the way, you looked really good in that outfit. Why do you hide that body under those baggy jeans and sweaters?"

That was much too long of a story, too long to tell when she needed to be out of the city within minutes, or risk being found. Rhiannon shook her head, still keeping her hand covering the amulet. "I need to leave." But where would she go? This was the first place she'd found to settle in five years.

"No, you most certainly do not need to leave," Jordyn snapped. "What kind of remark is that?"

Rhiannon stared at her, startled by the vehemence of her boss. "What?"

Jordyn was studying her intensely, keen intelligence glittering in her brilliant eyes. "I hate that man," Jordyn said calmly. "He's evil. His wife has no chance to defend herself against him, even though she has money. His power is too strong, and his reach is too far. There are a lot of men like him in the city.
Lots
of men who need a visit from a woman who makes them understand fear for the first time in their lives."

The unspoken message hung in the silence between them: Jordyn wanted Rhiannon to engage in a repeat of what had happened tonight.

She realized that Jordyn wasn't asking who she was, or how she controlled the plants, or where she was from. Either she didn't care, or she knew so much more than she was letting on. Alarm trickled down Rhiannon's spine, like frigid ice water oozing into each vertebra like the fingers of death. "I can't do it."

Jordyn gave her a grim smile. "You have to do it. Again, and again, and again. As long as it takes until I have no more clients who walk in the door. You can help, so it's your duty."

"No." Rhiannon sat up, rebelling against the same words that her mother had tried so hard to drum into her. Words she'd lived by until they had destroyed her. Duty had almost taken her life, and her soul was nothing more than a dried-out shadow of what she had once been. She lived minute-by-minute now, always on edge, always on the run. All because she had tried to do her
duty.
"You don't understand. I can't do it. I can't stay now." She looked down at the computer and jammed her finger onto the delete button. A message box came up asking if she was certain she wanted to delete the personnel file.
Yes.
One more click, and then she was gone.

Her throat tightened unexpectedly at the sudden surge of loss, but she resolutely pushed back from the computer. She had no time to grieve the loss of a life or an identity. It had to be this way. When she disappeared tonight, there would be no evidence that she had ever existed, or ever even set foot in this city.

Except for the security videos. Dammit. What was she going to do about those? "Did the police keep the videos?" She stood up and strode across the room for her jacket, focusing on her exit strategy instead of throwing herself across the desk and bawling that she never wanted to leave.

Jordyn leaned back in her chair, watching her gather her belongings. "Of course they did."

For a split second, Rhiannon considered trying to break into the police station to get them, but quickly dismissed it. She would have no idea where to look, and it would waste valuable time. She knew she had no choice but to simply disappear. It was the only way to ensure she stayed alive…and free. She shrugged her jacket on, and picked up the small duffel bag that contained her leather outfit from earlier in the evening. "I have to leave town tonight. I can't come back—"

"It's you," Jordyn said suddenly. "I can't believe I didn't realize it."

Rhiannon went still, then looked at her boss. "What's me?" She had a feeling Jordyn wasn't talking about Poison Ivy. Jordyn had already come to a definitive conclusion about that one, and Rhiannon had been too shocked to figure out how to deny it quickly enough. So what was she talking about now?