Mist (33 page)

“Murder?” Mist laughed grimly. “You have no idea what you saw.”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

All at once his voice had gone soft, almost sympathetic, as if he hoped to lull her into some kind of confession. She knew better than to fall into that trap.

“Those men attacked the loft,” she said. “They tried to kill us. Dainn protected the kids and defended himself.”

“Protected them?” the stranger said, losing his brief calm. “You let him—”

“I tried to get the kids away,” Mist interrupted, “but they got back into the gym.”

“Are they yours?”

“I don’t intend to be interrogated by you or anyone else,” she said.

“You do realize that your friend threatened the boy before you interfered?”

“I told you he’d never harm them.”

“You made it clear you thought he’d kill
me.
”

“I wasn’t going to take any chances.”

“Then you told him to go, even though you knew he could hurt others.”

His accusation was painfully close to the truth. “I couldn’t control him,” Mist said with complete honesty. “I did calm him down for a little while. But I don’t believe he’d hurt innocent people. Just the ones who attack him and his friends.” She glanced at his swollen nose. “I’d say you got off easy.”

The stranger’s hand flew to his face. “You think that’s funny?”

“I’m deadly serious.” She held his hostile gaze. “Now you can tell me who you are, and what you’re doing here.”

“Who are
you
?” he demanded.

“This is my house. You’re as much an intruder as the men who tried to kill us.”

“Koji Tashiro,” he said shortly.

“And what are you, Koji Tashiro? A Good Samaritan who just happened to be walking by at eight in the morning?”

He must have heard the sarcasm in her voice, but his demeanor didn’t change. “I was here looking for someone,” he said. “But that’s not the issue now, is it?”

“It is to me.” She rose to her feet, taking full advantage of the potential threat her looming height presented.

“I asked you if those kids were yours,” he said, staring up at her calmly.

“They’re street kids,” she said. “They were hungry and scared, and I gave them food and a place to sleep.”

“They’d have been safer on the streets,” he said.

He was right, and for that she had no excuse. “I didn’t expect someone to attack my home.”

“But you obviously have some idea who those men were,” he said.

“I didn’t know them,” she said. “As I told you, they were trying to kill us.”

“Very few people, even hardened criminals, just burst into a house and start killing. Do you have any enemies?”

Only the worst,
Mist thought. “None that I know of,” she said.

He weighed her words and frowned. “Then it must be your violent friend. Did he get on the wrong side of some drug lord?” His expression softened to one of earnest concern. “If he’s involved in trafficking, he could bring more violence down on you and anyone close to you. Do you really want that?”

“He isn’t on drugs,” she said.

“Do you know how many people say that about their loved ones?”

Loved one. How wrong he was. “It’s my turn,” she said. “What did you mean when you said you were looking for someone?”

He seemed to realize he wouldn’t get anything more out of her unless he gave her something in return. “I was looking for a boy named Ryan Starling,” he said.

16

Mist’s immediate thought was that he’d been sent by Loki along with the Jotunar to get Ryan. If one method didn’t work, try another.

“What do you want with him?” she asked.

“I’m a lawyer representing his aunt’s estate. He’s the boy in there, isn’t he?”

A lawyer. She wasn’t sure it could get much worse. If he was telling the truth.

“How is it that you happened to come looking for Ryan just in time to witness all this?” she asked, shrugging out of her torn jacket.

“Are you accusing
me
of something?” Tashiro asked.

“It can work both ways, Mr. Tashiro. I don’t know you, and you’re making pronouncements on things you know nothing about. Why should I trust anything you tell me?”

He began to stand up again, and this time Mist let him. They stared at each other. She noticed that Tashiro was fidgeting, clenching and unclenching his fingers as if he was aware of some danger he hadn’t anticipated. His hand trembled as he lifted it to brush dark, sweaty hair away from his forehead.

It wasn’t fear, at least not of violence. She saw it in his eyes: the awakening of desire, the heat, the sudden awareness that she was not only an antagonist.

She hadn’t even begun to push her “glamour,” but he was beginning to feel it anyway. Even if he was Loki’s agent, he was still susceptible to Freya’s influence.

And she had to take full advantage of his weakness.

She undid the top two buttons of her shirt. “Did someone send you to look for Ryan?” she asked softly.

He blinked. “I told you. His aunt asked me to find him. She left him substantial assets in her will.”

“How
did
you find him?”

“I have contacts all over the city. I asked around.” He sucked in a sharp breath. “Why does that matter?”

Mist knew she couldn’t put it off any longer. Holding her self- disgust at bay, she remembered again how it had felt to “become” Freya that moment in Asbrew . . . golden honey-mead warmth and the scent of primroses, the peace and love—and naked lust— that had so completely enveloped her and overwhelmed Loki Laufeyson. She began to fashion a new image of herself as she had shaped the Rune-staves in the gym—a figure of surpassing beauty, perfection of skin and hair, full of hip and breast. An illustration drawn solely for the pleasure of men.

She leaned very close and undid the rest of the buttons one by one, pulling the shirt open to reveal the thin T-shirt underneath. “Tell me the truth, Koji.”

His eyes focused just where she wanted them to. “I don’t . . . know what you’re talking about. No one else sent me.”

Mist knew he was telling the truth. She heard it in his voice, saw it in his body, felt it in his soul.

“Whatever business you have with Ryan,” she said, “you’re not going near him until he’s safe in the hospital.” She moved closer still, her chest almost touching his. “Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

“You . . . have to tell the police everything you know.” He hesitated, swallowing several times. “You must see that your friend needs help.”

“Is that your judgment as a lawyer, Mr. Tashiro?”

“It’s the only choice you have.”

“And what do plan to tell the police?”

“Only . . . what I witnessed.”

She raised her hand to brush his cheek with her fingertips. “Just facts? No speculation?”

His head jerked. “I—”

“Why don’t you remind me exactly what happened?”

Confusion crossed his face. “You
know
what happened,” he stammered.

“Do I?” She ran one fingernail along his jaw.

His gaze dropped to her parted lips. “I . . . they—”

“It was self- defense, wasn’t it?”

“I . . .” His eyes met hers, and his expression told her he was slipping out of her grasp. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Mist.”

“Ms. Mist, I’ll only report what I saw. The kids can make their statements when they’re able to. There’ll be someone there to—”

“Koji,” she said, stroking his hair. “You don’t have to make this so difficult.”

His eyes began to glaze over again. “I know you’re hiding something,” he said, glancing away.

“Look at me, Koji. What could I be hiding?”

Sweat trickled down his temple. He was still fighting her. “You know . . . who those guys were,” he said, “but you’re afraid to . . . identify them.”

“What would I be afraid of?” Mist purred.

“Like I said,” Koji whispered, gulping audibly, “it’ll be better if you . . .” He drifted into silence and closed his eyes.

Mist dropped her hand from his face and listened. Still no sirens. Gabi must have called off the ambulance.

Norns will she knows what she’s doing,
Mist thought. Pushing that worry out of her mind, she leaned so close that her lips nearly touched Tashiro’s. “I’m sorry we had to meet under such unfortunate circumstances,” she said. “But everything will be all right now, won’t it?”

He opened his eyes. “I’m sorry, too, but—”

“Look at me, Koji.”

He obeyed her, though his head jerked in a last- ditch attempt to resist. In his brown eyes she saw the reflection of the beast
she
had created. A beast of beauty, as hungry as any wolf.

“What . . . what do you want?” Koji asked, his breath coming faster.

What did she want? Mist thought with amusement. Everything, of course.

“Let’s go over what happened one more time,” she said, “just so there isn’t any misunderstanding. You wouldn’t want to get anyone into trouble, would you? That would make me so unhappy.”

“Yes,” he murmured.

She told him what she wanted to say. His lips parted, revealing even white teeth. “I— Yes. That’s how it happened.”

“Wonderful.” She took his hand in hers. “Now I want you to go into the kitchen and sit quietly for a little while. I promise I’ll be back very soon.”

“No,” he said, clasping her hand more tightly. There was strength in those hands. She liked that. She liked the way he gazed at her like a puppy hoping that a delicious scrap would fall from the table.

Vaguely she remembered there was something else she needed to be doing. Something she should be worried about. But she couldn’t quite remember what it was, and it didn’t really matter. She wondered why she’d bothered to go through this ridiculous business at all.

She worked her hand free of Koji’s and strolled into the kitchen. What in the world had she been thinking? This was no fit hall for Freya’s daughter. She opened the refrigerator and wrinkled her nose in disgust. Nothing worth so much as tasting. And her clothes . . . It would not do. She would go shopping as soon as possible and find suitable garments to adorn her body.

“Mist?”

She turned to Koji. The skin around his eyes was turning dark with bruises, and dried blood caked the bottom of his nose. He smiled, hopeful and pathetic.

“Tell me what I can do for you,” he said, pulling a chair out from the table. “Do you want something to eat?”

She sighed. How could she have thought, even for a moment, that he was worthy of her interest? He was going to become very annoying soon. Perhaps if she sent him out for a suitable meal, she could get rid of him for a while. But that wouldn’t take care of him for good.

There was only one way to make sure he stayed away. She would have to become plain, ordinary, boring Mist again just long enough to break the spell.

“Come here, Koji,” she said, taking the offered chair. He knelt before the chair, his eyes fixed on her face. “You’re so beautiful,” he murmured.

She wondered vaguely if he would suffer any damage from being abruptly separated from the object of his affection.

That really wasn’t her concern. He was only a mortal. There were many more where he came from. Perhaps she would let him kiss her, just once.

Freya’s daughter smiled and held out her arms. Koji rose and leaned over her, bracing one hand on the tabletop. She tilted her face up, and his lips touched hers. She permitted the slightest pressure and then began to undo the spell, deconstructing the image she had made in her mind, erasing the glamour. Koji put his arms around her, deepening the kiss. She banished the primroses and the honey and the joy that had borne her up since the seduction began.

“Mist,” he murmured.

She bounced back, nearly upsetting her chair, and pushed Koji away. Her heart slammed under her ribs, resisting the pull of the vast, black emptiness yawning beneath.

Mist. That was her name. She looked down at her unbuttoned shirt and pulled it closed with a shaking hand.

“Mist?” Koji said, turning his head this way and that as if he couldn’t see her. “Where are you?”

She stared at him in horror. He was looking for the other. The one she had become in her need to protect Dainn and the children from the consequences of the Jotunar’s attack.

Her spell of seduction had worked perfectly. She had deceived not only Koji, but herself.

What in Odin’s name had she done? If she let go now, would Tashiro remember?

Gods curse her, she couldn’t let him.

“She’s not here,” Mist said, easing out of her chair. “But she’ll be back soon. She wants you to wait right here until she returns.”

His gaze met hers, and there was something like panic in his eyes.

“Are you sure she’s coming back?”

“Yes. Very soon.”

“Then I’ll wait.”

“That’s right,” Mist said. “Don’t move until she comes. In fact, maybe you should rest. You’ve had a rough day.”

“Rest,” he echoed. He crossed his arms on the table and laid his cheek on his wrists. In a matter of seconds he was asleep.

Mist backed away and stumbled against the stove, jarring her arm. The glamour was still working. Even though she knew who she was now, who she really was, she could still make him do what she wanted.