The Dark Gate (23 page)

Chanting, Jack thrust the small flame against the bare flesh of Baleris's arm. Instantly the fire rose in a perfect circle around the Esri, engulfing him.

Harrison leaped back.

Larsen's soft hand slid into his as she stepped up beside him and picked up on the words of his chant, adding her voice to his. Jack squeezed her hand, clinging to her, feeling the power that flowed between them. A power less of magic than of something far more basic. Emotion. Caring.

Love.

Through the fire, the Esri began to sparkle with colored lights, as David had done. The lights gathered, moving like a million iridescent lightning bugs. They rose from his body to hover for a single perfect moment above him. Then in a rainbow burst, like the best fireworks display, they erupted.

The Esri's body fell to the ground and disintegrated into a pile of ash. The fire evaporated as if it had never been.

As one, they stared at the ash, then one another.

“Is it really over?” Larsen breathed.

Jack looked around them at the unconscious bodies littering the small park. “How are we ever going to explain all this?”

“We don't have to explain it, if no one knows we were here,” Harrison said. “Let's get gone.”

Charlie grunted and pulled the small archer off his shoulder and set her on the ground in front of him, holding her pinned against his hip. “What are we going to do with this one?”

Tarrys's frightened gaze moved from one to the other, like a doe caught in a hunter's trap.

“We can't let her go back,” Jack said. “We can't let them know this gate is here.”

The girl watched him with an odd mixture of fear and hope.

“I would stay. I would serve the humans instead of the Esri.”

“Serve? Hell, yeah.” Charlie laughed, drawing the girl's gaze. “You can start by teaching me to shoot like that. You're bloody well amazing!”

The girl smiled, a shy, uncertain bending of the mouth. But when she turned her gaze forward again, she froze.

“Yuillin!”

Jack saw the movement out of the corner of his eye and whirled around, but he was too far—and too late—to do anything more than watch as the small archer leaped onto the fountain's edge and disappeared.

“What in the hell?” Jack said. “I shot him!”

Tarrys began to struggle in Charlie's hold. “You must release me. I must go after him. I must stop him or he'll bring others!”

Charlie's helpless gaze locked on Jack's, but Jack didn't know what to do any more than he did. His gut said trust her. So he did.

“Let her go.”

Charlie released her and the small woman took off, flying barefoot across the grass and the paved walk to leap onto the fountain's ledge…and into the water.

Tarrys turned slowly, the soaked hem of her gown clinging to her legs, her gaze startled and dismayed.

“The gate has closed.”

“Now what do we do?” Larsen asked.

Jack sighed. “What we were going to have to do anyway. Guard this place every full moon.”

Charlie chuckled without humor. “With a blowtorch.”

“W
ho wants champagne?” Charlie called as they piled into his apartment a short while later.

Larsen's head spun. The Esri was dead. All the pain and suffering he'd caused, all the terror, were gone. Over.

She sat on one of the bar stools as Charlie pulled the bottle out of the grocery bag.

Knowing she'd soon be able to walk the streets again, the courtroom, the marina, without fear of being gunned down was a heady thing. But the greater miracle was that Jack and the others knew of her curse and didn't seem to care. Her
gift.
Without the warning from her visions, they all would have died.

It was Jack who had helped her understand that. Jack who had helped lift the weight of that terrible secret, of the dark shadow that had trailed her all her life. How was she ever going to live without him?

A deep sadness spread through her chest. He'd needed her before, to quiet the voices that were ripping apart his mind. But his voices were silent now, unless he asked for them. He didn't need her anymore. The larger-than-life events that had drawn them together were over. Their relationship was done.

Except she'd somehow gone and fallen in love with the man.

She'd never tell him that. It wouldn't be fair. He deserved to be happy, truly happy, with a woman he could love as much as she loved him.

And she was afraid she wasn't that woman.

Charlie popped the cork on the champagne, liquid spilling out as Jack walked in the door. He'd stayed behind at the park to watch over things until the cops and the girls started to wake up.

Larsen drank in the sight of him, relief flowing warmly through her that he'd made it back safely. “Did everything go okay?”

“Henry's going to handle things. He doesn't remember trying to strangle me, or anything later, but he remembers Baleris well enough to piece together all that's happened this week. We'll have to explain it to the captain, then let him decide how to spin it. The M.P.D. has been on a rampage the past few days. It's going to be tricky as hell. But, ultimately, it's all politics. We'll handle it.”

“Let's see that stone,” Charlie said. “I want to see what all the fuss was about.” Jack pulled the blue amulet out of his pocket and handed it to him.

“What's this engraved on it?” Charlie asked.

“A seven-pointed star,” Larsen told him, remembering the news report she'd pulled up online.

“A seven-pointed star,” Myrtle exclaimed from the living room behind her. They'd checked on her at the neighbors' when they got back and found her awake and waiting for them. She'd followed them back to Charlie's and was now lounging in the upholstered chair. “Why, that's an elf star!”

Charlie tossed it back to Jack. “What do we do with it now?”

“Hide it,” Jack murmured, slipping it back into his pocket. “In a locked vault where no Esri can ever get his hands on it again.”

“It must remain with the Sitheen.” Tarrys's soft voice carried from where she sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, a sharp reminder to Larsen that everything had not returned to normal. Tarrys was of that world, yet here she sat in Charlie's apartment. “Only the Sitheen can protect it. Only to their Esri blood will it answer.”

An odd silence descended over the group.

“What do you mean, our Esri blood?” Jack demanded, voicing Larsen's thoughts. He turned to lean against the counter beside her, his warm, beloved scent wrapping around her, filling her with a longing that tore at her heart. He wasn't hers.

“Why, Jack, dear,” Myrtle said, fluttering a single hand as she tilted her champagne glass to her lips with the other. “I did tell you we had an elven ancestor.”

Jack stared at his aunt, his jaw working silently.

“'Tis what the Sitheen are,” Tarrys added quietly. “What all of you are. The descendants of a long-ago union between an Esri and a human.”

“Like hell,” Harrison swore.

Larsen's eyes widened with disbelief…and wonder.

“'Tis what makes you immune to the Esri's tricks and makes you a danger to them. 'Tis why you have gifts. Sitheen oft possess at least one of the gifts of their Esri ancestor.”

Jack's gaze swung to Larsen, the weight of a thousand questions heavy in his eyes.

“So that's why the elf was so determined to kill anyone he couldn't enchant,” Charlie murmured.

“Aye. Only you could stop him.” She smiled, her cheeks tinting pink as she gazed at Charlie. “And you did.”

“Damn,” Charlie said, delight rippling through his voice. “I've got elf blood.”

Harrison glowered at his brother, a sound of disgust rumbling in his throat.

“I'm not sure why you didn't believe me, nephew,” Myrtle said, then giggled and lifted her empty champagne glass.

Jack gave Larsen a bemused look and turned to his aunt. “Didn't you also say something about witches and Gypsies?”

Myrtle waved her hand. “Oh, I may have exaggerated a
little.
” She burst into a fit of giggles, drawing laughter from all but Harrison.

The full realization hit Larsen in a blinding moment of understanding. “My visions,” she breathed. “They were always of relatives or people the elf couldn't enchant. They were all people with Ersi blood.”

Jack laid his hand on her shoulder as she met his gaze in a shower of wonder and relief. “And the voices in my head. Never the curses we believed, just true faerie gifts.”

“Anyone for more champagne?” Charlie called.

Jack slid his hand off her shoulder and held it out to her, palm up. “Come with me?”

His eyes burned with an intensity she'd come to know. He wanted sex. Something contracted painfully inside her. And she wanted so much more.

“No, Jack. I…”

“We need to talk.”

“Just talk?”

“I promise.”

Larsen's heart sank. Suddenly she wished he
had
been looking for a quick roll in the sheets because a talk could only mean one thing. He wanted a clean break. And he wanted it now.

With a sigh, she nodded and hopped off the stool.

“We'll be back in a little while,” Jack told the others, then ushered her out the front door.

“Where are we going?” Larsen asked as they walked down the empty corridor.

“The roof.”

They took the elevator to the top floor, then climbed the single flight of stairs to the door that led to the night sky. Together they walked to the railing that rimmed the building and looked out over the nation's capital, the lights of the city shining in a bright display.

Jack didn't touch her as they stood there, which was unlike him. With a heaviness, she remembered that his touch had never been the result of natural affection. He'd only ever touched her for the relief she provided him.

Jack rested his forearms on the rail, his face turned to the D.C. skyline. “What are you going to do now?” he asked her.

The last flicker of hope that she'd meant more to him than a cure to his voices sputtered and died in her chest. “I need to get back to work. And to try to get my houseboat repaired so I can live there again.”

“I want you to lay low for a couple more days until that APB on us is canceled.” He looked up at the stars, then tilted his face toward her. “I was wondering if…do you think…?”

Oddly, he sounded nervous.

“What, Jack?”

“I'd like to see you again. Maybe we could go out on an actual date.” His tone was almost…
hopeful.

Her pulse kicked up and she turned to him. “Why?”

He dipped his head, for a moment looking like a man with the weight of the world resting on his shoulders. Slowly he raised his face and met her gaze. “I'm not going to push you, Larsen. If you'd rather end it here, we'll do that. But I'd like to spend more time with you.” His mouth kicked up in a regretful smile. “I owe you. I used you.”

A pity date.

“Jack…don't. I understand why you used me. If I'd had that riot in my head, I'd have touched you every chance I got, too.” She'd have touched him anyway, but that was because her feelings for him had sparked and grown and turned to love. “I get it that you never really had feelings for me. It's okay. But I don't…”

His hands gripped her shoulders and he turned her to face him in the moonlit dark. “I never said I didn't have feelings for you.”

“You're offering me a pity date.”

“A pity…” He made a strangled sound that was half laughter, half groan. “Larsen…it's not a pity date. It's a desperate attempt to try to charm you, to try to win your affection. To try to get you to care for me even a fraction of the way I care for you.”

Larsen gaped at him. “What are you saying?”

His expression turned pained, then softened into the most beautiful sight she'd ever seen.

“I love you, Larsen Vale. I know that probably scares the hell out of you, which is why I was trying to take it slowly, but dammit, I need you.” He squeezed her shoulders, telegraphing the emotion that had him suddenly as tense as a bow string. “Give me a chance.
Please.
”

Larsen stared into his worried eyes as joy flooded her heart and tears blurred her vision. She reached for him, cupping his strong, prickly jaw with her hands. “You don't need any chances with me. I already love you, Jack Hallihan.”

He didn't move. Only the steadily increasing pressure on her shoulders told her he'd heard her at all.

“Are you sure?”

A tear-filled laugh escaped her throat. “I've never been more sure of anything in my life.”

“Marry me?”

“Oh, Jack. If
you're
sure, then yes. A thousand times yes.” Then he pulled her hard against him and kissed her with so much passion, so much love, the tears rolled down her cheeks.

He knew everything about her.
Everything.
And he loved her anyway.

At last, her heart and spirit soared free.