Darkness Splintered (DA 6) (8 page)

Besides, it was something I should have thought about
before
I’d banished Azriel – and it was yet another reason to call him back. I added, “I just want to know he’s okay.”

“He lives. Anything more you have no need nor right to know.”

The urge to smack
this
particular reaper was strong enough that I actually clenched my fists. But I very much suspected that would
not
be a good move. He was angry enough to stab me with his swords and claim provocation to higher powers. “Why the attitude, reaper? What the hell have I done to you?”

“What have you done?” He shook his head, as if in disbelief. “Duty is all to those of us who guard, and duty unfinished is a crime against all.”

Meaning
my
Azriel was in trouble. Serious trouble. My gut twisted at the thought, but even so, anger flared. “What of the way he failed
me
? He forced me —”

I cut the rest of the sentence off. I was talking to air anyway. The reaper had disappeared.

“You could at least have the decency to hear me out, you bastard.”

The reaper no doubt heard, but he was unlikely to care one way or another. And to be honest, no amount of lashing out – whether verbally or physically – was going to make me feel any better.

Only getting Azriel back in my life was ever going to do that.

I swore again and stalked out of the building. Jak’s red Honda pulled up a heartbeat later, and I quickly climbed in.

He glanced at me as he pulled away from the curb. “You look like a woman with a problem.”

“Yeah, and it’s a universal one called men.”

He grinned. “May I point out that we males think much the same about you females?”

“When you’re not trying to get into our pants, you mean?”

His grin grew. “Even
when
we’re trying to get into them. So who’s trying to get into yours?”

I crossed my arms. “No one.”

“That is a problem, I agree.”

I snorted and whacked his arm. “That’s not what I’m annoyed about.”

“Then what’s upset you? You were fine when I left to get the car. What happened in the five minutes it took me to get back here? Did the wiring attack again?” He hesitated, his brief glance shrewd. “It’s to do with your reaper, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. I banished him – justifiably, I might add – but I wish I hadn’t.”

“Then unbanish him.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Why not?”

Why not indeed. I hesitated. “What he did – it was bad, and it’s something that can’t be undone.”

“Was it worse than me starting a relationship with you to get a story? Worse than Lucian killing your mother, then bedding you for information?”

I opened my mouth to say yes, then stopped. Put like that, the answer was actually no. Even if Azriel had a tendency to keep secrets, he’d
never
been anything less than honest about his intentions or his priorities – and his priority had always been, first and foremost, his duty to secure the keys for the reapers. All else was secondary.

I might be furious with him, might feel betrayed by his actions, but he’d
always
warned me he would do whatever he deemed necessary to get those keys. Or die trying.

Why would he think my life – or rather, all my future lives – were any less expendable?

He wouldn’t. As the hostile reaper had pointed out, duty was all to a reaper. It rose above everything, even family and love. He might care for me, but that would not have stopped him from doing what needed to be done in order to finish his mission.

The only thing that
had
stopped him was me. I’d sent him away, thereby forcing another to take his place. I’d made him fail, and he was now paying the price.

I scrubbed a hand across suddenly stinging eyes and swore yet again.

“So,” Jak murmured. “Not as bad.”

“No.” I hesitated. It felt a little weird discussing this with Jak, of all people. And yet, he was also the one person who would understand betrayal, even if from the other side. “But I don’t know if I can move past —”

“Relationships are hard work,” he interrupted. “They’re all about give and take. If Azriel did the latter rather than the former, the question you have to ask yourself is, are you willing to walk away? Or is whatever lay between you special enough to work on a fix?”

Yes, it is.
I stared at Jak for several heartbeats. “When the hell did you start doling out such astute relationship advice?”

He smiled. “I’ve had more than my fair share of broken relationships, remember. And you didn’t answer my question.”

“That’s because I haven’t actually got one.” A lie, but I wasn’t about to admit my feelings to Jak before I admitted them to Azriel.

“Then I suggest you do so – and before the gulf between you gets too wide to traverse. Besides, running away from a problem is never a good idea.”

Which was an echo of what Aunt Riley had said to me when I’d first woken in hospital after being dragged back from death.

I hadn’t wanted to listen to her back then. Hadn’t really wanted to listen to anyone – not even when my own intuition had suggested that banishing Azriel was the worst possible move I could ever make. I’d been far too angry.

But somewhere between waking this morning and now, my brain cells had finally started functioning again. The truth of the matter was, despite the pain and the hurt, despite the sense of betrayal, I needed Azriel in my life. I just had to hope that it wasn’t already too late to get him back.

I grabbed a quick shower at Jak’s in the vague hope that it’d wash away all the bits of fluff and debris that were both on and
in
my skin – the Aedh magic didn’t always re-form clothing as precisely as it deformed it, and it wasn’t unusual for me to have annoying bits of fiber sticking out of my flesh for days after becoming Aedh – then went in search of clothes. I found a pretty, knee-length dress at the back of the wardrobe in the spare bedroom, but had no such luck when it came to underwear – for which I was kind of glad. It would have been a little too weird if he’d kept any of that after all these years.

But just as I was about to pull on the dress, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror behind me, and froze. Because my reflection now bore a series of tattoos that ran up the back of my neck and disappeared into my hairline. They were a mix of patterns that sometimes resembled the known – one looked vaguely like a rose, another like an eye with a comet’s tail – and at other times looked nothing more than random swirls. But these weren’t any old tats. They were a tribal signature – Azriel’s tribal signature.

Obviously, when he’d leashed our energy beings and bound us together forever, I’d become part of his tribe. His family. The one he was apparently refusing to see because of his shame at being a dark angel.

And for the first time since I’d woken up in the hospital, I had to wonder – at what cost to himself had he made me one?

He’d once said that if we’d assimilated – if we’d become so attuned to each other that our life forces merged – his reaper powers would become muted, and he would never again be able to function as a soul bearer. So in saving me, had he sacrificed his own desire to once again escort souls?

As much as I hated that he’d taken away my right to die as I was destined, it seemed very wrong that he’d also suffer the loss of his own dreams. Becoming a Mijai had been a punishment for him, and it wasn’t something he’d wanted to spend eternity doing.

So when he’d put the mission first and dragged me back to life, had the cost been as great to him as it had been for me?

God, I hope not.
I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep, shuddery breath. It was time, I thought, I not only started
acting
like a rational adult, but thinking like one.

And that meant putting on my big girl knickers to not only confront the man I’d banished, but sit down to discuss where the hell we now went relationship-wise.

Or even if we
had
a relationship.

But I couldn’t do that here. It would have to wait until later, after I’d gotten home and contacted Hunter.

I tugged on the dress, finger-combed my hair, then went in search of Jak. I found him in the study.

“Did you find out where those coordinates were?” I asked.

His gaze skimmed my body as he swiveled around in his chair. “Always did like you in that dress. The lilac matches your eyes. And yeah, it’s smack bang in the middle of an old Department of Defense site in Maribyrnong. They sold it off thirty years ago for development.”

I frowned. “That’s nowhere near the other warehouse.”

“No, but it
is
on a ley line.”

My eyebrows rose. “Since when did you become an expert on ley-line location?”

“Since you dragged me into this goddamn quest. I thought it might benefit the story if I actually knew what I was writing about.” His expression was somewhat wry. “That’s presuming I’m actually allowed to write about it once it’s all over.”

“Uncle Rhoan said you could.”

“Yeah, but I’m betting they’ll vet it before it goes to print.”

Undoubtedly. “Being on a ley line could suggest it’s hiding another transport gate.”

The first one certainly had – we’d witnessed a Razan using it, right before hellhounds had attacked us. What it
wasn’t
was the gate they were using to get onto the gray fields. But that
had
to be somewhere near the first warehouse, because that was where the intersection was. I guess it wasn’t all that surprising we were having trouble finding it, though – it wasn’t like they’d want anyone accidentally stumbling onto it.

“Well,” Jak said, rising. “There’s only one way we’re going to find out what’s out there.”

“As long as it doesn’t take all day. I have to be back home by five.” It was just after two, so that gave me a couple of free hours before I had to contact Hunter. “And you might want to grab that knife Ilianna gave you, just in case.”

“It’s stashed in the car.” He hesitated. “I haven’t heard any whispers about weird things happening out that way. No reports of dogs with red eyes, like the first one.”

He touched my back, guiding me out of the house and into his car.

“That doesn’t mean they’re not there,” I said, once he’d climbed into the driver’s seat.

“I know. It would be nice, however, if just once we could enter a building without getting attacked.”

“Amen to that,” I muttered. Hell, it would be nice if just once we caught a decent break. Maybe even a decent clue or two.

Mirri’s life might just depend on it.

It took us just over half an hour to scoot across to Maribyrnong. The old defense site was easy enough to find, although much of it was now warehouses in various states of ill repair. Jak wound his way through the estate until we’d reached the coordinates, and parked up the road from a line of boxlike concrete buildings. There were no cars other than Jak’s in this immediate area, and all the warehouses seemed empty of movement or life.

“It’s the unmarked one in the middle.” Jak crossed his arms on the steering wheel and studied the building through the windshield. “It looks harmless.”

“So did the first one.”

“True that.”

I opened the door and climbed out of the car. The air swirled around me, rich with the scent of humanity. There was no one close, though. These warehouses were definitely as empty as they looked.

Jak came around the back of the car and halted beside me, the sheathed knife gripped firmly in his right hand. “The lady with the psychic skills may lead the way.”

I smiled and walked down to the warehouse. It was a two-story structure, with small, evenly spaced windows lining both levels. The bottom ones were protected by metal bars, but not the top. I couldn’t see anything unusual or out of place, yet tension crawled through me. Maybe it was just the expectation of trouble rather than the sense that anything lay in wait.

The double gates were padlocked but there didn’t seem to be any other security measures in place. No cameras or sensors, anyway. Amaya could have dealt with the padlock easily enough, but that would tell whoever owned the building someone had been here.

“Looks like we’re climbing over,” I said. “And no looking up the dress.”

His grin was decidedly cheeky. “Would I do something like that?”

“In a heartbeat.”

“I’m mortified you think me so uncouth.”

I rolled my eyes. “Will you just get over the fucking gate?”

He grinned and leapt up, grabbing the top of the gate and hauling himself over. I was right on his tail, landing beside him in a half crouch as I scanned the building again. Still no sense of anything untoward.

I rose and padded forward. There were pigeons strutting about on the roof, but little else moved.

The main entrance was on the side of the building, near the large loading bay. The door was locked, as were the bay doors.

“Now what?” Jak said.

I studied the side of the building, then said, “Maybe we should check the windows around the back.”

He frowned. “The windows are barred, and not even you’re skinny enough to squeeze through them.”

“The top ones aren’t. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find one open.”

He snorted. “Since when has luck been on our side?”

There was that. We checked anyway and, as it turned out, lady luck had obviously decided to throw us a small morsel. One of the rear top windows was open an inch or so.

Jak eyed it dubiously. “I’m gathering you’re going to use your magic trick to get up there?”

“Yeah.” I hauled off my dress and handed it to him. I’d already destroyed one set of clothes today – I wasn’t about to destroy another. “I’ll get you in if I can.”

His gaze skimmed me; then he sighed. “As lovely as ever. I really am an idiot, aren’t I?”

I grinned, but didn’t answer. I simply called to the Aedh, then whisked upward, slipping in through the small gap and cautiously looking around. The room appeared to be some sort of storeroom – metal shelving lined the walls, but there was little else here other than dust. I scooted under the small gap between the door and the concrete floor, then checked out the various rooms – all of which were empty – before making my way downstairs. Other than the offices that lined the road side of the building, it was a vast, empty space. Once I’d checked there were no hidden security cams, I shifted back to human form.