Jamie slid into the bed beside me, and I curled up into his arms. He lay there for a long time stroking my arms, but I could tell his mind was preoccupied.
“What is it?” I finally asked him.
He stroked my upper arm where I had been tattooed. The tattoo of the shashka was intermixed with a variety of other symbols and images, things that once were important to me.
“Ian never told us what the tattoo meant. I didn’t know it was so personal to the two of you,” he whispered.
“Jamie--”
“I feel like I have stolen my brother’s life from him just as he is dying,” Jamie said, despair filling his voice.
I rolled over and looked at him. How handsome but pained he looked in the candle-light. “I love my shashka ink, but otherwise the tattoos are just romantic nonsense. I want you to remember something. Ian abandoned me. Ian chose another life over a life with me. I moved on and changed. I can’t help Ian never did, that he clung to the past. It was his doing that the dream ended. It was his choice. I’m not the same girl he loved.”
“No,” he said, stroking my hair away from my face, “you’re better than that girl, Ms. Katana.”
I laughed wryly. “I almost thought she was going to call me apocalypse girl.”
Jamie smiled but then turned serious. “What did she say to that doctor? You understood her?”
I nodded. “She told him to fix Ian.”
“That’s a good thing, right?”
“I’m not sure. She said, ‘I want this one.’ That doesn’t sound like a good thing.”
Jamie looked at me. “There was something else?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. In the ballroom she said something. I’m not sure what I heard.”
“So far all we know for sure is she hates your guns but likes Ian,” Jamie said.
“They don’t cast a reflection. Buddie noticed it in the ballroom. They have no reflection—there is only a shadow,” I replied.
Jamie wrapped his arms around me. “Even if they are not what they seem that doesn’t necessarily mean they want to do us harm.”
“We’ll see,” I replied. “We’ll see.”
Chapter 27
To say it had been a long day would be an understatement. Jamie fell asleep right away, but I could not rest. I gazed down on Jamie. He was beautiful. My eyes roved over every inch and curve of his body. Desire swelled in me. I also noticed how little he resembled Ian in either personality or looks. Jamie’s sweetness lived on the surface. Ian’s sweet side was buried deep under layers of darker elements I used to find so dangerously attractive.
As the night wore on, I lay staring at the ceiling. Heavy spring rain had begun to fall. It pounded against the windows. I felt like we were sleeping in a bear’s den. I was just waiting for the bear to wake up. The moon had traveled most of the night’s sky when I started to hear strange noises coming from the floor above ours. I could hear heavy footsteps, thudding sounds, and a sound like windows opening and closing.
I rose quietly so not to wake Jamie. Snubbing the candle, I looked out the window. I saw someone walking on the roof of the porch that ran along the front of the hotel. It was a man; his movements and appearance told me it was one of them. He seemed to be looking at the upper floors. Then, crouching low at first, he jumped. He landed on one of the third floor balconies.
I felt like my heart stopped. I unbolted the window and looked out. The rain came splashing in. Apparently he heard the noise. Catching sight of me, he smiled as he leapt from one balcony to another, peeking in the windows. I knew at once who he was looking for. He grinned at me.
“Dammit,” I whispered.
I cast one look back at Jamie and was about to go back in to grab my gear when someone grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out the window. It happened so fast that I did not have a chance to call out. I landed with a thud on the balcony outside the room a floor below. Intense pain shot across my back, but every instinct inside me told me to get up.
I rose to my feet to find myself standing face to face with one of them. It was a woman; I had seen her earlier in Rumor’s entourage. She was undoubtedly beautiful with long hair and large eyes. She was drenched with rain water. She grinned then lunged. She was incredibly fast. I ducked and she missed. She swung at me again; I blocked. We exchanged blows, me ducking and weaving. For a flicker of a moment I was thankful my co-worker Josephine had asked me to take ju-jitsu classes with her. My opponent, however, was much better at unarmed combat. With a strong side kick, she knocked me off balance. I fell backward over the balcony railing and onto the porch roof. Pain shot from one side of my head to the other. I looked up to see the man peering into what I guessed was Frenchie’s room.