Dead Drop (10 page)

Both her hands gripped the pillow. Looked to him like she was trying to kill it. “Fair enough. Quitting my job is a big deal. It’s like jumping out of a plane with no parachute.”

Palla studied her. Anxiety, maybe. He understood money and that Wallace didn’t have much. “Two million is a damn nice parachute.”

“It’s not that. It’s the change. Everything’s different and I don’t know– Look. This scares me. Not knowing what tomorrow’s going to be like.”

“You’ll be two million richer, that’s what your tomorrow will be like. Wallace. Wallace, pay attention.” He ignored the face she made at him. “No matter what, I won’t let anything happen to you. I can’t. But this will be safer for us both if you do what I say, when I say it. You need to trust me.”

“You seem to be under the impression that I don’t understand it’s dangerous. That I won’t take this seriously.”

“My guess is you don’t.”

She was radiating calm again, and that made him wary. “You’re talking about going into the home of a powerful witch and taking something from her that she doesn’t want to give up. Right?”

He gave a curt nod.

“I assume she has magehelds to keep things like that from happening.”

“Yeah.” He hadn’t ever needed to be square with a human. He’d never cared about anything with them besides not breaking the rules. This business with Wallace was different. They weren’t negotiating the boundaries of what they’d do in bed and who got to use magic when.

She sighed. “Let’s agree I might not know the details, but that I get that it won’t be easy or safe.”

“I don’t want any misunderstandings.”

“Agreed.”

“Help me out here. I need the words you use with me to be clear.” He clasped his hands over his head and looked for some internal calm. There wasn’t any. There rarely was. “I need you to understand and accept the risks. I need you to tell me if you don’t understand. Tell me what you think I’m saying to you.”

“Okay. You be as clear as you feel you need to be, and I’ll listen and let you know.”

He went over what he’d already told her before he went into more detail. The risks of going into the home of a hostile witch in an area where Nikodemus’s rules weren’t in force. That once they found Avitas, Wallace would have to dead drop the talisman and then get the hell out. She repeated that and some of what she’d said before, and the best he could figure was if he was alive after all this and Nikodemus wanted an explanation, at least he couldn’t be accused of not trying.

“You have to get the talisman to Nikodemus. He’ll free her.” The correct word was
assimilate
but he saw no reason for that disclosure. Nikodemus or maybe one of the other warlords sworn to him would crack the talisman and assimilate with what was left of Avitas, meaning absorb what remained of her life and in so doing give her peace. The process was by no means safe, but the kin considered an assimilation a sacred duty. An honor. Nikodemus, whose strength was multiplied by the thousands of kin sworn to him, would do everything possible to see that Avitas found peace. “You give Avitas to Nikodemus. The talisman. You give him the talisman, and then you’re done.”

Her forehead creased, and she leaned forward. “You think you aren’t coming back.”

No way did she care what happened to him. Why would she? “Understand this. Please. I will die to save her. I will die to save you.”

“That’s not your only plan, right? To die. It better not be.”

“No, it’s not.” This had to be as straightforward as possible. When, if, they came to a final
yes,
he wanted to be sure she said the word without ambiguity. If he had to lie to do that, no problem.

“Just making sure.”

Since she seemed to think it mattered, he sketched out the basics of a plan where they both lived. “You can do this. I know you can. I’ve watched you settle people down without them knowing what you’re doing. Dead dropping me. What you did tonight–the way your magic works–” He looked her straight in the eye, as honest as he knew how to be with words. “You’re the difference between me dying without saving her and one of us getting out alive with the talisman.”

She clenched her hands on her lap. Tense as hell, even he could figure that out. “Okay, then.”

“Whatever I say is necessary to make this come off, you’ll do that?”

She licked her lips. “I can’t promise that.”

“Explain.” He had to know they were agreeing to the same thing. He paced the tiny living room. He needed parameters. Boundaries.

“I won’t kill anyone. I won’t try to kill anyone, either. I can’t.”

He stopped walking. There weren’t enough wards here. Not by half. “Angel, sometimes it’s kill or be killed. Simple as that.”

“If you believe violence is an option, killing always looks like a solution.”

“It is a solution.”

“Maybe it is for you. But not for me.”

He rubbed a hand across his face. “Doesn’t matter.”

“It does.”

“I can do all the killing we need.”

“I don’t approve.”

He gave her a hard look. “I don’t need your approval.”

“As long as you’re clear that isn’t an option for me.”

“Your whole deal is making sure no one gets angry enough to want to off someone. I guess you better make sure you can do that.” A smile pulled at his mouth. He couldn’t help himself. “But, Wallace, get serious. I already know you’re no killer.”

“All right, then.”

“Use your words, Wallace. You know the one I need.”

One word. That’s all it took to change her life forever. When she’d gotten up this morning, she hadn’t thought for a second her day would end like this, with Palla in her living room, a malign presence who had, nevertheless, sworn to protect her life with his. While she tried to fit this into a comfortable box, Palla took out his phone and made a call. Whoever he was calling answered.

“C’est moi,” he said, perfectly comfortable in the language. “Oui.”

Her language in high school and college had been Spanish. Obviously fluent, he spoke too fast for her to do more than guess at what he was saying. In the middle of his conversation, he speared her with a look.

“Social?”

“What?”

“Your social. So I can get the money transferred where you can get to it.”

Since she didn’t have any money to steal, she gave him the number. He repeated the digits in French. There was more rapid conversation from him with a few silences punctuated by words like
alors, oui
or other words she didn’t understand. “What’s your cell?” She gave that to him, too. He texted that to whoever he was talking to and there was more discussion, and then he disconnected his call. “My guy in Geneva will text you his contact info. By tomorrow he’ll have everything taken care of.”

Across the room, her cell phone beeped.

“Take care of what?”

“The money. You have bill pay, right?”

“Yes.” The back of her skull kept tingling. She’d wondered if his oath to her was the reason she could feel his magic when before she couldn’t. Now, she was certain of it. Whenever the flecks of color in his eyes showed up, she got that shiver of cold through her head and down her back.

“Follow his instructions for getting him your account info, and he’ll make sure your bills are paid while you’re busy with me. He’s not going to rip you off, but if he does, I’ll make it good. If I’m not around to do that, then tell Nikodemus, and he’ll make it good.” He tapped his phone some more. “Here’s the contact info to reach Nikodemus. Call or just go right to his house. Whatever works.”

Her phone beeped again.

“Let Maddy know you’re going to miss the next couple of Mondays. To be safe, a month. Six weeks maybe.” He slid his phone into his pocket. “We need a week to ten days of practice, maybe a little longer, but I can’t see this going much past that. I’d fucking kill you.” He stopped and if the circumstances had been different she might have laughed. “Metaphorically speaking.”

“Sure.” She was having trouble getting her mind around all this. It didn’t seem real that Palla was in her home. Why not one of the kin she could get along with? Why not Tau? “I’m trying to remember why I agreed to help you.”

He snorted, but then he got serious in a way she didn’t care for. “Angel.” He sounded smug and amused. “You always do the right thing.”

Maybe this wasn’t happening. Maybe it was all a dream. “For all you know, I cheat and lie every day.”

“Everybody lies and cheats.” He sat and stretched out on the chair, long legs crossed at the ankles, fingers laced behind his head. Muscles bulged up and down his arms. The more powerful the demon, the more perfect the human form. Better for her not to forget that. Her stomach dived for her toes. She was no match for him, and now there was nothing she could do but pray she didn’t fall too far behind. Palla continued. “You. Me. Everyone. But I’ve never seen you lie or cheat about the things that matter. You work at a charity, for fuck’s sake.”

“People steal from charities.”

“Humans are worthless shit.”

“Don’t you forget it.”

In one smooth motion, he pulled his legs back and sat forward, forearms on his thighs again. He was way too intense, and about now she’d be happy if he was just not here. She’d made a mistake, a terrible, terrible mistake. He’d eat her alive.

“You’d never let someone suffer. Not if you had the power to stop it.” For a nanosecond, his grief filled the room and her heart twisted up. Then he sealed the crack in his psychic state. “I don’t need in your head to know you don’t like me and that you’re afraid of me.”

“I’m not afraid of you.” A lie, and he knew it.

His eyes stayed on her, and he spoke with chilling calm. “You should be afraid of me. You should dislike me. I don’t like humans, and I like the magekind even less. I don’t want to be nice to your kind, and I don’t want to be friends with any of you.”

Wallace swallowed hard. His eyes were a normal green, but she didn’t feel right. Nothing felt right. The back of her head was a block of ice, and she kept thinking that any minute he would transform himself from human to one of his monstrous forms. Palla was too much. Too everything. On top of that, she couldn’t shake the persistent and unsettling sense of him as foreign. Not of this world, and it was freaking her out. If this was what it was like to sense the demonkind, then she was glad she’d never been able to before. How did anyone react like that to someone and not flip out?

His smirk disappeared. “I’ll say this once. Even without the oath, I’d let a mage take my heart if it meant keeping you alive.”

Her pillow wasn’t going to survive this; she was going to crush it into nothing. “Don’t say that.”

He glared at her, and she considered throwing the pillow at him. The corner of his mouth curled. “Truth, witch. Truth.”

She gripped the pillow instead. “Why’d you make that oath, then? If it wasn’t necessary? If you’d die anyway.”

“You wouldn’t have believed me otherwise.”

She dug her fingers into the pillow. “I would have helped you without any oath.”

“Are you listening to me?”

“Do you practice being an asshole?”

“With me blood-bound to protect you, where I stand is fact. There’s no debate. You humans talk everything to death, and then you don’t even get anything done.” He stood, and she had this moment where all she could think was
Palla is in my house.
“Go pack.”

“We’re going to Santa Cruz now?” Her heart lurched. He wasn’t kidding about this being dangerous, and there was no way she could do this. She wasn’t ready.

“Santa Cruz isn’t safe territory for me. The less time I’m there upsetting the locals, the better. It’s not safe for you either. Someone might notice there’s something wrong with you, and that would fuck up everything.”

“If you think that, then you have the wrong person for this.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Maddy had you working with her for a reason. There’s a reason she wouldn’t let you quit when you wanted to give up.” His delivery was pure business, and it brought home just how serious this was. “You’re not one of the magekind who got trained up from the start. But you’re not the usual street witch, either. I got that from you from day one, and if I did, it stands to reason there are others who’ll know, too. Whatever’s different about you is subtle, I’ll give you that, but it’s there. Jeanne is going to have at least one mageheld strong enough to notice. Probably more.”

“Jeanne? Is that the witch we’re going after?”

“Would you pack already?” He looked over his shoulder at the door. “I’m worried about my car.”

He was trying to start something, and she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. “Can’t we practice here?”

“I don’t want to waste time making this house safe.”

“Yeah, there’s a criminal at the door every five minutes.” She looked at her watch. “We’re overdue for the eleven-ten burglary.”

“If your neighbors see me around a lot, they’re going to wonder what’s up. I don’t need a bunch of curious humans asking questions about your new boyfriend.”

“That is disgusting.”

“Why? Do they know you prefer girls?”

“I like men just fine. Not that it matters. There’s nothing wrong with liking girls.”