Forsaken: The World of Nightwalkers (20 page)

“I need to walk,” he said, his voice sounding rough to his own ears. He moved away from her, looking quickly around the room for an exit. He’d not seen one as yet, but maybe…maybe he had missed it. He needed to get out of there. He needed silence and solitude…just for a few minutes. Just long enough for him to wrap his mind around all of this and come up with…something. A new answer? An altered version of plotting Chatha’s death? Chatha still had to die to set Andy’s soul free. To give him peace.

And part of the problem was that he knew…he had always known that, as a simple mortal human being, there was no way he could have gone up against a being as powerful as Chatha. Not if he expected victory. It would be just like being mauled by a lion, and then getting up and walking into the lion’s den. It was madness. Suicide. Asking for more defeat and more horrifying agony.

“Leo.”

He looked at her and saw her pointing to the back wall. A door made of stained glass with an elegant brass handle stood where no door had been just moments ago. It told him that, while he was not present physically, Grey was watching them closely. He had heard Leo’s need and had provided for it.

Leo didn’t have the focus needed to be angry about that. He just walked to the door, opened it and stepped out into…

Sunshine. Although it had been full night a moment ago inside of the library, the moment he opened the door he was looking at a vast sunshine filled garden. It was tranquil, peaceful and, Leo thought as he began to walk along the garden path, it was a place where no Nightwalkers would be.

Leo sat outside for what felt like a very long period of time, but it was not time wasted. The sunlight seemed to sear a kind of strength into him, a kind of quietude that softened the raging thoughts and emotions inside of him. He was so tired, he realized. Tired of being so angry so much of the time. He had never been the bitter sort, though he had been known to hold a grudge. But he never let those grudges fester. He went after the source with a vengeance, satisfying it however it needed to be satisfied. What quickly came to mind was Benitio Montalbano. He’d been a powerful man, living on the Mediterranean coastline in the town of Cinque-Terre, Italy. But his home in that idyllic setting belied the monster that Benitio was. He was wealthy and powerful and he had been one of the most notorious pedophiles ever to walk free in Italy. But his power and position had kept him free of the long arm of the law and he had continued to traffic in little girls, both for himself and for others, destroying their psyche’s thoroughly before discarding them when they grew too old or developed things like breasts and other accents of adulthood.

Benitio had captured the daughter of a woman, thewidow of David Rabinowitz, one of Leo’s best buddies from back in his army Ranger days. She had come to him, beside herself looking for her missing child, begging him to help her and get her daughter back…by any means necessary. Leo had known David’s daughter since the day she’d been born. She had been nine when she had disappeared from her very own street in the bright light of day.

It had taken every resource he’d had, every favor he could think of. He’d been stunned to learn she’d been not only kidnapped but sold and shipped out of the country. Eventually he had traced her to Italy, and then to Montalbano’s home.

To say he had exacted revenge had been an understatement. But it had taken time and very careful planning. He had needed to remove his emotional attachment to the situation in order to see David’s daughter safely retrieved…and to see to it Montalbano would never touch another little girl again.

And that, he realized, was what he needed to do now. He needed to excise the emotion connected to the way he felt toward Chatha. No easy feat that, but he satisfied himself with knowing the time for emotion
would
come. There would be satisfaction one day. He didn’t know yet what method or face it would have, but it would be done. He and Faith would see to Jackson’s safety and then together they would find a way to make Chatha pay—

Wait. What?
When had Faith become a part of his fantasy of dealing with Chatha?

When she had made you see there would be more to it than just vengeance against a psychopath.

She had robbed him of the rage he’d been wallowing in, robbed him of the single-minded revenge he’d been fixated on. Why would he want to include her in his plans?

Because she can see things you can’t. Because she will keep you honest. Because she will make certain your rage doesn’t make victims of innocent collateral damage.

And because he somehow felt more centered when she was around. He felt calmer and stronger now. Sure, it was likely because of Grey’s manipulations, but he knew that there was a vein of truthfulness to the whole thing. Not so much that they would end up lovers, but that they each had new insights into the other and could understand each other on a more visceral level.

That they could trust each other.

The thought calmed him. Come what may, Faith was the only Nightwalker he knew of that could be considered an ally.

Except for Jackson.

The thought leapt into his brain before he could stop it, before he could force it down with his newfound prejudices. Leo sighed and rubbed at his temples. Jackson. What was he supposed to make of all of it? And Marissa…capable of becoming a murderer? How could that be? The woman he had been coming to know had not seemed anything like the monster he had seen.

But it wasn’t until he had lived a future where there was no Jackson in his life that he really felt fear of losing him, whatever he might be. He’d been around him for over two weeks and everything had seemed so…Jackson, but was that a truth or was it a facsimile? Jackson or just something that wore his face?

Jackson. It was Jackson. Leo realized it so suddenly and so sharply that he felt wetness in his eyes and tightness in his chest. He
had
to be Jackson because Leo couldn’t imagine life without him. He was everything good that Leo was not. He was Leo’s anchor and moral true north. Jackson kept him honest, and he needed to be kept honest. He walked the edge too often to run around without that anchor.

It was a leap of faith. Believe or don’t believe. Like Santa Claus. Only Jackson wasn’t a myth. He was real. And Leo had been pissing on what had been the deepest relationship he had ever had.

And how had he come to realize this?

Faith. His ally. A trustworthy ally. And he would need that ally not only for dealing with this Jackson thing, but when dealing with his mode of recourse against Chatha. He would need her power…and her levelheadedness. He would need her to keep him honest and on the right side of good. Just like Jackson.

Leo was not an evil man and he would not allow Chatha to make him one. He would much rather have Faith and his friend to keep him from becoming one.

Leo exhaled, soft and long.

Good,
he thought.

Good.

By the time Leo returned to the library, Faith had finished constructing the wish she was going to make. It had taken a few drafts and a lot of careful thinking, but eventually she had come up with something she could tell herself was reasonably satisfactory. A Djynn as clever as Grey could find a loophole in any wish, she was sure, no matter how careful she tried to be. She just hoped that the Djynn was a man of his word and that he was above such petty amusements. But she did worry, just the same. Usually the older a Djynn was, the more powerful he was,
and
the more easily bored he was. If Grey was looking for a way to divert himself, Faith could very well be making herself the perfect entertainment.

All she could do was pray that, for all their sakes, this was not the case. Leo was struggling enough as it was with trust and his understanding of the world around him. He didn’t need a Djynn reinforcing his mistrust of all things Nightwalker.

Leo looked significantly more settled, having had the time and the peace to put himself back together. She had known that he had been putting a lot of energy into fantasies of how he would take his revenge out on Chatha. For all he was human, he was a man of action and deeds, and if he was imagining doing it…then it would most likely get done. The problem had been that he was thinking in linear human terms, totally disregarding that there was a great deal more complexity involved than what met his unpracticed eye.

She had not wanted to be the one to rob him of his illusions, but neither had she wanted him to throw his life away without seriously thinking about what he was doing. In a way, Leo was going through a massive grieving. He was grieving the loss of himself. The loss of the man he had thought himself to be and the power and control he had once thought he had. In the blink of an eye he had gone from being a badass mercenary to a victimized, insignificant, mortal man. That couldn’t be an easy thing to cope with. And on top of it the trauma itself? She couldn’t begin to imagine what it must have been like, what he must have suffered. All she had was the scrawling, fiery words that had streaked across his scroll in a wild, acidic jumble as he had struggled with her earlier.

“Are you ready?” Leo asked her. He was absently running a hand over the scarf still tied at his belt loop. Watching him get comfort from it, she found herself hiding a feeling of…it was hard to explain what the feeling was. Intimacy? A part of her realized that she and he and their pseudo relationship was tied tightly into the silk making up that scarf. Just looking at it reminded her of…

“Yes,” she said, shaking off the thought and trying to stay focused on the moment.

But it was hard to stay focused when, every time he slid the scarf against his palm she was remembering the feel of his hands on her body as she’d lain there tied and helpless, unable to do anything but feel the pleasure he was giving her.

Faith gasped softly and turned away from him, giving herself a mental shake. Now was not the time or place for such thoughts. And knowing how he felt about Nightwalkers, there would never be a time and place. Not involving him, in any event.

“Are you all right?” he asked, laying a hand on her back, moving it in soothing circles. “You can still back out of this before it’s too late. I don’t care what Grey says. There’s nothing for me to wish for other than…anyway, I’ll do it instead of you.”

“Other than?” she repeated back to him, unable to keep her curiosity from devouring her self-control. What was it, she wondered, that he would wish for? Revenge? A power with which to fight the Nightwalkers? A way of protecting himself against them?

He was silent a long minute, long enough for her to think he wasn’t going to answer her. Then he looked at her and reached for her nearby hand, giving it a squeeze.

“I would wish to forget it all. It sounds cowardly to my own ears when I say it, but there it is. I’d wipe myself clean of remembering what Chatha did to me. I…I wouldn’t want to forget there were Nightwalkers and such out there in the world, I can’t protect myself with that kind of ignorance. But my wish…my wish is to cleanse myself of these memories and of the paralyzing terror that it causes to run through me.”

“I can grant you that wish. All you need do is ask.”

Faith and Leo turned to face Grey, who had apparently materialized on one of the couches, his long legs crossed while he picked a microscopic piece of lint from his pants, then brushed the area smooth.

“Thanks, but I’d rather swallow a bucketful of hot needles.”

That made Grey chuckle. “That’s fine,” he said with an amused expression. “But should you change your mind, all you need to do is find some sand and write my name in it. I am allowing you the ability to summon me.”

“Gee, you’re a real peach,” Leo said dryly. “But I wouldn’t hold your breath. You’d die of asphyxiation.”

“Leo,” Faith warned softly.

“No,” Grey lifted a conciliatory hand, “he’s perfectly entitled to have his opinion. I won’t take it personally. So your wish?”

Faith cleared her throat and, holding the paper she had written the wish on in her hand, she recited it very carefully, word for word.

“I wish for Jackson’s and Menes’s souls to be retethered into Jackson’s body, as they were right before Apep’s attack on him.”

Grey relaxed even farther back into the couch, his mouth curving into a smile. “I’m really quite impressed. It was detailed yet succinct. And, as you know, left little room for creative interpretation.”

“You mean trickery,” Faith said with a dark frown.

“Yes. But I assured you I wouldn’t do that and I’m a man of my word. But I am also to be taken seriously when I say there is a price to pay for this wish. There is always a price to be paid, however small the wish might be. But this one is quite complex and will require a great deal of magical expenditure.” He paused for a thoughtful moment. “I believe I am going to require payment for your wish immediately.”

Leo stiffened so hard and so fast that Faith could feel the energy of it hit her like a shove. She hastily reached out to catch his hand in hers, squeezing it tightly in warning, a reminder that he wasn’t dealing with a mortal person here. This was a being of great power and his mood might turn on a dime if he was mishandled.

“What kind of payment?”

Grey smiled again, meeting Leo’s angry gaze.

“I am going to need you to retrieve a certain item for me.”

Faith narrowed her eyes on him. “You mean you want us to get a nik for you,” she said, her tone sharp. Leo turned to look at her, a mixture of surprise and tension swirling over and through him.

“Yes. I’d like for you to nick a nik.” He chuckled and leaned forward. “Steal it, to be blunt.”

“All right,” Leo said carefully, outrage crawling across the light of his scroll, belying the calm tone of his voice. “Let me get this straight. You want us, a Night Angel and a simple mortal, to steal a nik from what I’m assuming is a very powerful Djynn, even though you are reputed to be the most powerful Marid Djynn in North America?”