Requiem (17 page)

“
Okay, Nina. Totally
unprofessional,” Sasha said, half laughing, half
surprised.

Beth watched the door for a moment in shock,
and then turned to me. “What the heck’s going on with you?” she
asked. “And what’s that smell? Have you been…camping?” she said,
sniffing once.

I puffed, blowing my bangs from my face.
“No. The loft is gone. Burned to the ground.”

“
What?” Beth
yelped.

“
Keep it down. I don’t need
a bunch of sympathetic well wishers in and out of my office all
day. Do me a favor?”

“
Sure, Honey,
anything.”

I pulled a black credit card from my purse
and handed it to her. “Go shopping for me. I need work clothes
mainly, and undergarments, and a new briefcase. Makeup. You know
what I use. And,” I looked down, “I want a pair of those,” I said,
nodding to her pink satin pumps. Even in my foul mood, I couldn’t
stop admiring the black lace collar and bow at the toe.

Beth smiled. “Yes Ma’am. You need a place to
stay?”

“
I’m back at
home.”

“
Yikes,” Beth said, her
mouth pulling to one side.

“
Tell me about it. And,
Beth? If you can find anything to get the smoke out of my hair…get
it. I don’t care how much it costs.”

“
Lemon juice,” she said.
“Then wash it out with shampoo. That’s what I do after I visit my
Uncle.”

I nodded. “Thanks.”

Beth shut the door, and then I heard a
scuffle.

“
I said
no
!” Beth said, stumbling back
against the door.

Sasha pushed her way through, and then
smiled, smoothing her blazer and hair. “Nina. I need to talk to
you.”

Beth stared at Sasha as if she’d gone
insane.

“
Nina,” Sasha said with a
smile, breathing hard from her scuffle with Beth. “It will just
take a minute.”

“
It’s okay, Beth,” I said,
motioning for Sasha to sit.

Beth narrowed her eyes. “Maybe for you, but
if I wasn’t at work I would have kicked her bony little ass,” she
said through her teeth, slamming the door.

“
Well,” Sasha said,
settling in the seat. “So much for southerners having
manners.

“
Keep in mind Beth holds
grudges,” I said, thumbing through papers on my desk.

“
What do you mean?
She’s...
southern.”
She said the word with disdain. I could see in her eyes that
at least five generations of Eastern audacity had blinded her to
how tacky she sounded.

I looked up. “Yes, well…they’re polite. That
doesn’t mean you can’t make an enemy out of them.”

“
Oh,” Sasha said, looking
back to the door nervously. “I…er…Grant wanted me to ask you about
the Christmas party.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I have faxes coming
out of my ears, and you’re shoving your way into my office to talk
about finger foods? Don’t waste my time.”

“
No, no….” she fidgeted. “I
wanted your permission to chair it this year. I was hoping we could
make it into more of a ball.”

“
A ball,” I
deadpanned.

Sasha smiled widely. “Yes.”

I waved her away. “Check with Jessica on the
second floor about the budget. Stay within parameters, and
personally, Sasha, I couldn’t care less.”

Sasha’s strained smile barely lasted until
she reached the hall.

The rest of the day passed without event, or
maybe it was because no one dared to approach with me with anything
less urgent than my office being on fire. The consequential spunk
the insufficient sleep had graced me with was working. I hadn’t
enjoyed Titan that much since I moved into Jack’s office.

By the time five o'clock rolled around, I
trudged to the elevator and welcomed Jared’s arm when he offered
it. The sluggish, heavy feeling over my body was familiar. I was
reverting back to my former zombie days.

“
No, you’re getting sleep
tonight. Bex will be there at seven.”

I wondered if I’d said anything aloud, but
didn’t have enough energy to ask. Just sitting in the passenger
seat, watching trees and pedestrians move past my window was
exhausting. If I was coherent, I would feel ridiculous for the
permanent shocked expression on my face as I tried to keep both
upper lids away from the lowers by pushing my eyebrows as high as
they would go—but I wasn’t.

Jared wrapped his arm around my waist,
leading me into the house. When the old, heavy door closed behind
us, Jared stopped.

“
Nina,” Cynthia called,
appearing from the hallway. “You have a guest waiting for you in
the Great Room.”

I puffed.

“
Let me take your things,
Love,” Agatha said, pulling my make-shift brief case from my
hand.

“
Thank you,” I mumbled. I
walked down the main hall, into the Great Room, blinking to focus
once I recognized that it was Kim sitting alone on our large, green
sofa. She sat on the edge of her seat; her hands balled tightly
together atop her knees. I sat across from her in my mother’s
favorite Italian occasional chair.

It was then that I noticed Jared hadn’t
joined us, but had gone upstairs to prepare for a night away,
instead.

“
Kim,” I said, blinking
slowly.

“
Looks like you need a
nap,” she said.

“
Nightmares.”

Kim looked to the floor, nodding. “Nigh, you
don’t get to hate me. I would understand if the demonic voodoo
stuff gave you the heebie-jeebies, but you’re just mad because you
think I lied to you.”

The rankling produced a second wind. “You
did lie to me. I don’t even know you.”

Her head popped up. “And I know you? Jared’s
half-angel, and you’re not exactly your run-of-the-mill Brown co-ed
yourself, Miss Merovingian. Have they told you what that
means?”

“
They told me,” I
grumbled.

“
So, I just came to tell
you that we’re still friends. And you can like it, and let me piss
you off like I used to without worrying if you’re really pissed.
Got it?”

“
Whatever, I’m pooped,” I
said, pushing myself from the chair.

“
Really? We’re good?” she
asked.

I turned, and seeing her expectant eyes, I
smiled. “Yeah, Kim. We’re good.”

Kim stood, and then held out both of her
arms, jutting her lip out. “Hugs?”

“
Quit it.”

She let her hands fall to her thighs with a
slap. “Well, thought I’d try.”

I walked her to the door, and she leaned
close to my ear. “I’m going with Jared tonight. I’ll try not to
make out with him while we’re hunting down your book.”

“
You’re a good friend,” I
said.

“
Kiss noise,” Kim said,
jogging down the drive to her Sentra. How had I missed that horrid
thing? I was more tired than I thought.

Jared met me at the bottom of the staircase.
He held my arm for a few steps, and then gave up, lifting me in his
arms, and carrying me up the stairs.

“
Shower,” I
said.

Jared lowered me to the overstuffed mattress
in my room. “In the morning. Bex is here. Sleep.”

I'm not sure when I fell asleep, or how long
Jared stayed, because I was unconscious the moment my head hit the
pillow. The nightmares stayed away, even after my previous
nightmare of Shax being in that very room. I was so tired, and
slept so hard, that I didn’t dream at all.

I peeled my eyes open to see Bex standing at
the end of the bed. “Just so you know, that’s creepy,” I said,
rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

“
Not as scary as your
hair,” he frowned.

“
Wow, you’re grumpy this
morning.”

“
Cynthia doesn’t trust me
in the kitchen.”

Three knocks at the door, and Cynthia backed
in to my room, a tray in her hands. “Good morning. I thought I
would bring you breakfast.”

“
Does Agatha have the day
off?” I asked.

“
No, she’s downstairs.
Why?” Cynthia asked.

I watched my mother for a moment in
disbelief, and then shook my head. “Nothing. Thank you.”

Cynthia left as quickly as she came in.
“Mind the coffee, Dear, it’s hot,” she called back as her heels
clicked down the hall.

Bex’s eyebrows were nearly touching as his
frown deepened. He had never been to my parents’ home, to my
knowledge, and he wasn’t enjoying it at all.

“
She warms up,” I
said.

“
That’s not what I’ve
heard,” he grumbled.

“
I’m going to hop in the
shower. Has Jared called?”

“
No,” he said, picking up
the remote control, switching on the television. “But he’s on his
way.”

I thought about that for a moment, and
decided I already knew the answer. They could sense each other, and
Bex was the most in-tune out of the three Hybrid siblings.

My morning routine finished without event,
including Jared's return home. “I thought you said he was coming,”
I said, tightening my robe.

“
He is,” Bex said, his eyes
stationary on the screen.

“
Nina, Love?” Agatha called
from the hall.

“
Yes?” I said, opening the
door. Agatha was holding several bags, and Beth stood behind her,
her arms full of bags as well.

“
You said you lost
everything,” Beth said, brushing past me to the closet. She
disappeared into my walk in, hanging the plastic-covered clothing
on the nearly-empty iron rods.

I opened the door, watching her pull shoes
boxes from one of the large sacks. Once she was finished, she
looked at her watch. “Crap! I gotta go.”

“
Beth.”

“
Yes?” she said, whipping
around.

“
Thank you.”

She smiled. “Don’t thank me. That was so
fun. I think I went a little overboard.”

She waved, and then rushed back the way she
came, her legs moving a thousand miles per hour. I shut the closet
door behind me, and pulled the first outfit I touched off its
hanger. When I walked out into the bedroom, I froze in my
tracks.

Jared stood in the center of my room,
covered in dirt, blood, and his was face scraped and blotchy.

“
Oh my…oh my God!” I
yelled, rushing over to him. “What happened?”

Kim walked in behind Jared, untouched. “I
told him not to go without me, but he’s faster than I am.”

I touched Jared’s face. “What did you
do?”

He grimaced. “The book was in my hand. I had
it.”

“
Where were you?” I said,
helping him pull off his jacket. He was stiff, and cringed with
pain.

Kim’s usually stoic expression twisted as
she watched me pull his t-shirt up and over his head. “Warwick,”
she said. “We got the book, but Donovan was there.”

Six raw, bloody and swollen bullet holes
dotted different areas of Jared’s torso, accompanied by a large
gash along his shoulder blade.

“
Jared!” I
screamed.

Bex left without a word.

“
Where are you going?” I
called after him.

“
He’s going to find
something to pull the fragments out.”

I helped him to the bed, and then took a
deep breath. It didn’t help. Tears welled up in my eyes. “You’re
going to be okay, right?”

Jared managed a smile. “Yes. I’ll be good as
new this time tomorrow.”

Bex returned with a towel full of different
items. “Isaac too much for you, huh?”

“
Isaac.” Jared scoffed,
rolling his eyes. Donovan and his Glock. And I plowed through
approximately eighty demons before I got to them.”

“
If you would have waited
for me to catch up with you, you wouldn’t have had to waste your
time with them,” Kim snapped. She looked to me, “The second he
learned the location of the book, he took off. I was twenty minutes
behind him.”

I glared at Jared. “That’s not like you to
be so impulsive and reckless. What were you thinking?”

Jared sighed. “That I wanted this to
end.”

Jared cringed, and then I
heard a
plink
from behind him as Bex dropped bullet remnants into a
bowl.

“
I can’t watch,” I said,
covering my eyes.

“
You can’t go anywhere
until we’re finished here. Then I’ll take you to work,” Bex said,
pulling out another bullet.

“
Watch the blood. Don’t get
any on her sheets,” Jared said, cringing again.

“
I’ll get new sheets,” I
moaned. I took Jared’s hand in both of mine.

“
It’s okay,” he said.
“We’ll try again.”

“
And hopefully not be so
stupid about it this time,” Kim said from the door way.

“
Do you think I care about
that? I don’t want you near that book ever again!” I said, my voice
higher with each word.

“
Okay…okay,” Jared said.
“Don’t get upset.”

“
Why would I be upset? My
boyfriend comes home looking like he just escaped from a horror
movie.” I took one of the wet cloths Bex had brought upstairs and
used it to wipe a deep cut above his eye. “Tell me
everything.”

“
The details aren’t
important,” Kim said.

“
The bottom line is, I
failed,” Jared said, his teeth clinched.

Kim shrugged. “We know who’s guarding it,
what they’re capable of, and every angle of their defense, Jared. I
wouldn’t call that failure.”