He used his senses to track her, but it was difficult. Renata had been evading fallen angels, Grigori, and Irin scribes for centuries. She knew these tunnels like the back of her hand. She also had a knee-jerk reaction to Grigori. If she found the man in the pictures, she would stab first and ask questions later, possibly traumatizing the very child she was trying to help.
He came to a halt when the passage dead-ended. Max turned and faced the darkness, knowing he had no hope of catching her before she found the man she was hunting.
“Renata!”
Max walked back down the tunnel, sweeping his headlamp back and forth, trying to hear anything familiar.
“Renata, he is not your enemy.” Max couldn’t know that for sure, but he was hoping that a man who carried a little girl on his shoulders, bought her a purple balloon, and made her mother smile was not an enemy. Was the mother human or Grigori? The child had too much magic to be only a quarter angelic. “It’s a family, Renata. A man and a woman. A little girl.” He saw a dark tunnel entrance to the left that he’d missed the first time. he walked through it, hoping that this was the direction she’d gone.
“They lived in a city, Reni. They had a little dog. They went to the park together. He carried her on his shoulders.”
Max started running when he heard her. It wasn’t Renata, but it was a child. And that child was crying.
He ran full speed down the passageway, using her cries to guide him. He turned right at a fork, hoping that the strange acoustics in the mountain weren’t playing tricks on his senses. When the crying grew louder, he ran faster.
He almost missed them in his desperate search. He passed a long section of rock and heard the little girl’s breath catch. Backing up slowly, Max crouched down and looked into a crevice.
His headlamp caught a flash of blue. He took off the bright light and shone it at the floor. The woman in the blue head scarf was hiding in the crevice, her amber-gold eyes wide and frightened, her hand pressed over the mouth of the little girl who squinted at the light. Taking a guess, he spoke in Arabic.
“My name is Max.” He held out his hand. “I’m not here to hurt you. I promise.”
Both the woman’s and the little girl’s eyes were bright gold. The woman, like the man, was angelic offspring. Was the child their own? The little girl didn’t look like the woman. They might have been sisters of the same angelic father, not mother and daughter. It wouldn’t be the first time siblings had protected younger children from the Fallen.
“I don’t want to hurt you, but I’m afraid my friend thinks the man with you is dangerous.”
The woman in the blue head scarf shook her head violently. No!
The little girl pried the woman’s hand away from her mouth. “Mama?”
The woman kept shaking her head. She curled into herself, trying to move farther away from Max.
“He doesn’t have knives, Mama.”
The woman shook her head again.
“I promise you”—Max looked at the woman—“I promise you I mean you no harm. I know there are Grigori like you. I know you’re trying to live quietly. I saw your room. I saw your daughter’s paintings.”
The woman stared at him but didn’t speak.
“You live up here to get away from the voices, don’t you? So she won’t have them in her head.” He nodded at the little girl. “You’re a good mother.”
Mother, mother, mother. This was a kareshta with a magical child. A kareshta in the company of a Grigori with a child pointed to one obvious conclusion. “You’re a family, aren’t you? The man, he’s your mate.”
The woman frowned but still didn’t speak.
“We like it here,” the little girl said. “I don’t hear anyone up here except Mama and Baba. And sometimes there are a few people in the summer. But they don’t bother me too much. They usually have happy thoughts because they’re on holiday.”
“Is it better in the library?”
“There’s magic there,” she whispered. “Do you feel it too? It feels so nice.”
Max smiled. “I do.”
“I like playing in the library.” She looked at her mother with guilty eyes. “I’m not supposed to, but I do.”
Just like Renata, the little girl had ventured into the forbidden. “I often did things I wasn’t allowed to when I was your age.”
“Did your mother get angry with you?”
My mother is dead, he thought. Killed by brothers of the man who fathered you.
It was all too twisted and heartbreaking to share. The child was an innocent. Looking at the woman, Max knew that she—unlike her daughter—knew the truth. Their races were at war, and if Max didn’t find Renata quickly, there might be another casualty that night.
“I’ll find them,” he told the woman. “Which way did he go?”
The woman pointed to the right.
Max said, “Stay here. Stay hidden. I’ll come back for you.”
Following the passageway as it sloped down, Max felt the air grow colder and drier. He was leaving the warmth of the hot springs and entering the heart of the mountain. Limestone glittered around him and stalactites glittered from the ceiling above. He paused where the passage branched and listened.
There. Finally.
There was muffled scuffling in the distance and labored breathing. Max ran in the direction of the fight, almost running over Renata as she charged the man holding a silver dagger, crouched across from her in fighting position. Blood marked his cheek and one eye was turning black. Renata’s shirt was torn and she was leaning heavily on her left knee.
“Stop!”
“He’s Grigori.”
“He’s a father,” Max said, trying to move between Renata and the man she was fighting. “The child we saw? She’s his.”
The Grigori swept a leg out and tried to trip Max.
“I’m trying to help you!” Max shouted. “Both of you need to listen. Do you want your daughter to be an orphan?”
“She’s better off an orphan than under the thumb of a monster like him!” Renata said.
“Will you listen to yourself!” Max shouted, his arms up, still trying to defuse the two combatants. “Renata, this is a father protecting his mate and child. Would you kill him for protecting his child?”
“She’s kareshta,” Renata said. “She’s not his.”
“I’ve seen her. Seen the mother. Seen him. The girl looks exactly like him. Her mother may be kareshta, but that child isn’t kareshta. She’s a free Grigori child, born of free Grigori parents. They are not our enemy.”
“I am free of my sire.” The man’s voice came out rough, speaking in heavily accented English. “Thawra is not free. That is part of why we are in hiding.”
Max muttered, “Not helping.”
Renata had lost the furious rage and looked more confused than murderous. “What are you talking about?”
“I am free,” the Grigori said. He kept his knife up, but his posture relaxed incrementally. “My sire, Jaron, is dead. I was living in Damascus when I felt him die.”
“But your mate,” Max said. “She is not free?”
“No. I agreed to help her brothers for safety in their city. She’s the daughter of Melek. Many of her brothers have tried to kill their father, but they have failed.”