The porch light flared with sudden warmth as good as a hug, and when I straightened, I noticed the curtains in all the windows shooing me toward Linus.
I took the hint and met him in the grass, cringing at his sleek Tumi carry-on in black. Mine was also Tumi, an older model, but still serviceable, despite its custom purple shell being spackled over with Lisa Frank stickers that shouted tween me’s eye-gouging taste for all to see.
“Now I know how Maud felt when she left me behind with a sitter.” I toyed with the telescoping handle. “I never thought of myself as particularly maternal but…”
“They’ll be fine,” a voice promised from the darkness.
“Taz?” I jogged toward her as she stepped from the shadows, only the twinge in my jaw reminding me why it was never smart to rush Taslima. “Hey.” I stopped six feet away. “It’s good to see you.”
“I owe you an apology.” Head bowed, she planted her feet at parade rest and pinned her arms behind her back. “I assured Boaz I could handle this assignment, but I failed you.” Unable to glimpse the fire in her eyes, I didn’t recognize her. “I have trouble separating the past from the present sometimes. It’s why I had to leave the army and go sentinel. Only my own kind understands the switch that gets flipped in my head.”
Slowly, I approached her. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No.” She shook her head once. “It’s not you, it’s me.”
“You hang out with Boaz too much if you’re spouting his favorite lines.”
The laugh I expected never came, and she raised her chin to look at me. Measure me, more like it.
“My baby brother was all mouth and not willing to bow to his betters.” Lingering fondness curved her lips in a bitter smile. “He sassed the wrong boy and was killed by a High Society punk when he was eleven. That boy used magic to trap him one day on his way home from school so he couldn’t run away, and then the punk beat Rajib to death. I almost returned the favor. I would have if my father hadn’t peeled me off him.”
A sour taste clogged my throat. “I had no idea.”
“It was a long time ago.” She peered up at me. “I like you, Grier. You’re different. You’re like us, not like them.” She cut her eyes to Linus. “But I can’t spar in your gardens, in front of your talking house, with the Grande Dame’s son playing referee, and pretend you’re one of us when you’re not.” A thread of anger wove through her voice. “You’re the farthest thing from it.”
“Why would Boaz do this?” Pairing us up to fail. “He had to know how hard this would be for you.”
“See?” She laughed, a crazed sound. “You don’t think the way they do. You care about others.” She tugged on her earlobe. “Boaz thought that goodness might fix me, that you might—I don’t know—heal me.”
Never in a million years had I expected her to say that. As often as I had to peel him off the ceiling when I did something he disagreed with, I had no idea he thought I was capable of more than getting in trouble.
“I’m going to take some basic self-defense classes for a while,” I found myself telling her, “but I’d like to train with you again when I’m ready. You’re amazing, and I want to learn to move the way you do.” To flow like water and kick like a freaking mule. “We can rent space in a dojo if meeting here is too hard.”
“I’ll think on it.” Her posture relaxed, and she squinted up at me. “What about Boaz?”
I packed as much defiance into my smile as it would hold. “What about him?”
Cackling, she bared her teeth in a sharp smile. “You’ll do, Grier. You’ll do.” She saluted me as she faded back into the shadows. “Call me when you’re ready. We’ll see what you’ve learned.”
Feeling smug over my minor rebellion, I strolled to Linus, who shook his head at me. “What?”
“I still don’t understand.” He jerked his chin toward Taz and started walking down the driveway.
“She doesn’t go easy on me because of who I am.” There was more, but it was hard to put into words. “She’s angry.” Until tonight, I hadn’t understood that anger was the well she was drawing her water from, but looking back, I should have guessed. “So am I.” Lost family, lost time, lost hope. “We might be good for each other.”
“Perhaps,” he allowed without pushing. “Would you like to meet your new instructor while we’re in Atlanta?”
Dread started creeping up on me in anticipation of the crimson Lincoln that ferried Linus around town, the model identical to the one Volkov had favored. “He’s not local?”
“Most of my contacts are in my city.”
Until that moment, I couldn’t have told you if Linus had ever referred to Atlanta as his, but I heard the possessive edge, the anticipation, like being parted from it was a physical ache. Proving once again I was a crap friend, I had never asked if he was magically bound to his city. Was his anticipation homesickness or a magically fueled compulsion?
He wasn’t meant to stay in Savannah forever. Only long enough to help me get my feet under me.
The sudden tick-tock of a countdown rang in my ears, and I shook my head to clear the noise.
“You’ll like Mathew.” After frowning at his watch, he scanned the road. “He offers basic self-defense classes at Strophalos twice a year, that’s how we met, but he travels all over the state.”
The suspicious part of me perked its ears at a resume befitting a spy for the potentate. But, to be fair, that’s exactly what Taz had been. The only difference being she reported to Boaz. Using that logic, I couldn’t strike Mathew from the list of potential replacements without meeting him first.
“You took classes from him?” Lessons would be a perfect cover to disguise any covert meetings.
“No.” He fiddled with the zipper on his bag. “But we spar on occasion.”
Linus sparring.
Linus.
Sparring.
While I understood he had hunted the dybbuk, which meant he must work in the field in Atlanta, I had trouble picturing him in the role. Even with Cletus for backup, I had difficulty wrapping my mind around him being the defender of a city. Atlanta’s own Bruce Wayne/Batman. Unreal. Picturing him in a mayoral role came easy, but down in the streets? Fighting? His elegant hands used as weapons?
No, that I couldn’t imagine.
“How are you going to entice him down to Savannah?” That must be his plan. “How long will he stay?”
“His home base is in Atlanta, but he doesn’t live there. He couch-surfs or stays in hotels. He hoards his money like a dragon.” He reached for his suitcase. “Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him pay for anything.”
I wanted one thing clear upfront. “He’s not a dragon, though, right?”
“No.” Linus shook his head, amused. “He’s not a dragon. Those all live on the West Coast.”
The taste of dirt filled my mouth, which probably had something to do with my chin scraping the grass. “Dragons are real?”
“Most everything is real if you know where to look.” He grasped my wrist, turned it over, then traced the crease bisecting my palm. “We hold the balance of life and death in our hands. We can make, unmake, and remake humanity, and you can do so much more.” His thumb pressed over my pulse point. “Your blood is proof that all things are possible.”
The cold of his touch spiked chills up my arm. “I spent too much time with one foot in the human world. There’s so much I don’t know, so much Maud kept from me.”
Muted pop music blared at the same time an engine revved, the noise unheard of in this neighborhood of the quietly wealthy. A horn honked at the gate leading onto my property, and I gawked at the nerve. But Linus was on the move, so I followed him.
This couldn’t be our ride. The driver must be lost, and Linus wanted to hurry him on his way.
Beyond the glare of the headlights, I spotted a familiar white van coated in dust with profanity written across the hood and windows.
A young man with greasy hair popped his head out the driver’s side window and waved to us with a folded slice of pizza. “You guys call for a lift?”
I choked on a laugh. “Are you serious?”