Chapter Seventeen
A
ddy wavered, torn between her desire to run screaming out the door and the desperate urge to fling her arms around Brand and comfort him. He looked so shaken, so . . . so
desolate.
But, a minute ago he’d been ablaze, a demon of fiery retribution, a flaming Nemesis. Why couldn’t she fall for a normal guy, a nice Southern boy who loved God and country, football and hunting, his mama and her, not necessarily in that order? Oh, no, not her. She had to go for Mr. Complicated. An alpha male bounty hunter from another dimension who carried a big sword and burst into flames when he got provoked.
“Adara?” Brand fell to his knees.
“Brand!” Addy dropped to the floor and threw her arms around him. “I’m all right. I’m all right.”
“I saw blood. I thought you were dead.” He wrapped her in a crushing embrace. “I thought I was too late.” He ran his hands over her body as if to reassure himself that she was real. “I don’t remember anything else, only darkness and a terrible rage. I think I went mad.”
“Berserk,” Ansgar said, materializing beside them. He looked a little pale, and his eyes were bloodshot, but he otherwise seemed clearheaded. Chalk one up for the Dalvahni constitution. Dead-drunk and then sober again in a matter of minutes. He surveyed the damage to the shop, his cool, dispassionate expression back in place. “It happens sometimes in the heat of battle or when emotions run too high. Your emotions have been in extremis since we arrived here, brother. I warned you, did I not? You need a thrall.”
Addy scowled at him. Boy, he rubbed her the wrong way. So supercilious . . . so
annoying
. “What’s this junk about thralls, Blondy?”
“The Dalvahni’s sole purpose is to hunt the djegrali and return them to their proper plane of existence lest they wreak havoc on unsuspecting mortals,” Ansgar said.
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard the ‘we are the Dalvahni’ speech before. You’re super dudes sent to kick demon butt. Navy SEALS on acid. If the Terminator and Predator had a baby, it would be a Dalvahni warrior. I get it, so spare me. What’s that got to do with thralls?”
“The thralls serve the Dalvahni.” Ansgar spoke with that air of exaggerated patience that made her want to scream. “They rid us of excess emotion so we may better serve our purpose.”
“You mean they suck all the feelings out of you, like some kind of emotional vacuum cleaner? That’s horrible. What kind of way to live is that?”
“It is our way. Until you came along, Brand was very good at what he did. The best, a legend among legends. The Dalvahni are not mere warriors. We are the undying, the immortalis, created to maintain order and the delicate balance between good and evil. You have diverted Brand from his divine purpose.”
Brand stirred. “That is enough, Ansgar. This was not her doing.”
Ansgar raised his brows. “You seek to protect her, but she needs to know what we are, brother.” He looked at Addy with his usual arrogance and a hint of something else—fear? uncertainty?
Blondy?
—in his eyes. “The thralls do more than rid us of excess spleen. They serve as a receptacle for our lust. You have noticed our enormous appetite for food. Our appetite for other pleasures—
carnal
pleasures—is equally voracious, particularly in the wake of battle.”
An image of her and Brand making love, their damp bodies entwined, flashed through her mind. The thought made her heartbeat speed up and her skin tingle.
“So you get a little het up after a fight.” She shrugged, trying to act blasé when she was anything but. Then the import of Ansgar’s words sank in. “Wait a minute. Are you saying these ‘thralls’ are
sex slaves
? That’s disgusting.”
“Not slaves, Adara,” Brand said. He sounded weary, drained. “Thralls require emotion to survive. They give us the emptiness we seek so we may be better suited to our task. Emotion in combat is a dangerous thing. It is a fair exchange.”
He described a symbiotic relationship between the studly demon-chasing Dalvahni and a cosmic race of hoochie mamas. Two dissimilar organisms locked in an intimate association for survival. Allow some over-sexed female leech to get her suckers into Brand? No. Way. The very thought made Addy see red.
“Over my dead body,” she said.
Ansgar’s gaze sharpened. “What?”
She stood and pulled Brand to his feet. “Come on, big guy. I’m taking you home.” She felt a moment’s anxiety when Brand swayed. “Do you think you can make it?”
“Yes.”
“He needs to eat,” Ansgar said. “The berserker rage has depleted his strength.”
“Of course he needs to eat. It’s been thirty minutes since he ate a hog and a whole flock of chickens. Don’t worry. I’ll fix him something at my place. I’m no Miss Vi, but I make a heck of a grilled cheese.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Ansgar asked. “You could get hurt.”
“Making a grilled cheese sandwich? If it makes you feel any better, I promise not to use a sharp knife.”
“You are a most annoying female, Adara. You know that is not what I meant.”
Yeah, she knew what he meant. He wasn’t talking about physical injury. If she gave herself to Brand, she’d be stepping off a cliff and into the great unknown. Hadn’t she been wrestling with that very dilemma all day, telling herself to run the other way? She was going to get her heart broken before this was over. She knew it, and Ansgar knew it. With a sudden flash of insight, she realized the source of the odd disquiet she sensed in him. She’d seen the way he looked at Evie, like he wanted to whisk her away to some desert island and keep her all to himself. Sweet little Evie rocked his world. Calm, cool, collected, ain’t-no-flies-on-me Ansgar was afraid of getting his heart broken, too.
“What choice do we have, Blondy? Are you going to cut and run because things might get a little rough?”
For a moment, he blinked at her, and then he gave her a slow, dazzling smile. “That is not the Dalvahni way.”
“It’s not the Corwin way, either.” She gave him a warning look. “By the way, Slick, that’s my best friend you’re messing with. Hurt her, and you’ll have
me
to deal with.”
“I would cut off my own arm before I hurt Evangeline.”
“It’s not your arm you should be worrying about.”
Taking Brand by the arm, Addy started toward the back door. He pulled away from her and staggered back.
“The corpse, your shop,” he said, panting with the effort. “We cannot leave things as they are. There will be questions.”
Questions? That was the understatement of the year. Good God, she’d been so concerned about Brand that she’d forgotten all about the dead guy in her shop. The flambéed decapitated dead guy. The dead guy with a wacky wife, a floozy girlfriend, and a whole passel of mullet-wearing relatives waiting to stick him in the ground, mumble a few words over him, and get pounded. And then there was her mother’s new boyfriend, the chief of police. She tried to picture herself explaining this to Carl E. Davis, and gave up.
“Shep can fix Mr. Farris. He’s a genius at that sort of thing,” she said, thinking quickly. “If we can keep the widow and the girlfriend from getting too cozy with the stiff once he’s back in the casket . . .” She glanced at the hunk of meat that had been Mr. Farris, and shuddered. “No one will know.”
“Who is this Shep?” Ansgar said.
“My brother. He runs the local funeral home.” At Ansgar’s look of confusion, she added, “Prepares the dead for burial.”
Ansgar’s expression became distant. “Ah, yes, I see him. He is in some sort of building, pacing the floor. He seems . . . agitated.”
“He’s normally a pretty cool guy. Not in permanent deep freeze like you, but it usually takes a lot to rattle him. But he’s had a bad day. First time he ever lost a body. It’s kind of a big deal in the mortuary business to misplace a client.”
“Then no doubt he will be delighted when I return the Farris man to his care. I will take the body to him and explain what happened. When I have arranged matters there, I will come back here and return your shop to its former state.”
“That’s nice, Blondy, but I don’t think—”
He was gone, and so was Dwight.
“Oh, dear, poor Shep,” Addy said. “He is so earthbound. He’s going to have a hard time with this.”
She stumbled as Brand lurched against her. “I regret the distress the djegrali have caused you and your family.”
His speech was slurred. Poor guy; he was going to crash and burn any minute. Addy slid her arm around his waist and started for the door. “Forget it. Let’s get you to my house and get some food down you. My car is right out back.”
“No time. Must rest.” He grabbed her, and they reeled into a stand of shelves. A carton split open, showering them with floral foam. His arms tightened around her. “Hold on.”
Panic gripped her. He was going to try and teleport them, and in his condition. What if it didn’t work? What if they ended up a pile of unrecognizable goo or got splinched?
“Brand, wait, I don’t think that’s such a good—”
Her ears popped, and she felt a strange stretching sensation. They landed—with all their parts intact and in the proper order, thank God—in the middle of her living room. Brand released her and toppled like a downed pine tree face first onto the couch.
“Brand?”
He did not move.
She shook her head. “Down for the count. Probably won’t last long. Guess I’d better make that sandwich before he wakes up.”
“Addy, Addy, Addy!”
Startled, Addy spun around. Dooley had her nose pressed to the French doors that opened onto the back lawn. She wagged her tail when Addy looked at her.
“Dooley in. Dooley in
NOW
!”
“Shh.” Addy hurried to open the door. “Do you want the neighbors to hear? How am I supposed to explain Dooley the Remarkable Talking Dog?”
A talking dog was strange, but no stranger than anything else that had happened since last night. She figured she had two choices. Accept the reality of what was happening or end up in a rubber room.
Dooley rushed inside, tail wagging.
“Addy home! Dooley love A—”
The Lab spied Brand’s supine form on the couch and sprang across the room to investigate. Her tail thumped against the coffee table.
“Brand man! Dooley like Brand man.”
She gave Brand a curious sniff.
“Asleep? Brand man asleep?”
She nudged the back of his neck with her nose.
“Wake up. Dooley play, Brand man.”
Brand moaned and turned over on his back. Tongue out, Dooley went for his face.
“No, Dooley, leave him alone.” Addy grabbed the dog by the collar and dragged her away from the couch. “Brand man doesn’t feel well.”
She kicked off her ruined sandals and threw them in the trash. Looking down at her blood-splattered blouse, she wrinkled her nose in disgust. She remembered the bump on the head and gingerly felt her scalp. The bump was gone, but her hair was matted with blood. Gross. She tiptoed back into the living room to check on Brand. Out like a light. Good. Maybe she had time for a quick shower and a change of clothes.
She shook her finger at the dog. “You leave him alone, young lady. I mean it. Be a good dog and I will give you cheese when I get out of the shower.”
“Cheese? Dooley get dog cheese?”
“Only if you’re good.”
“Dooley be good. Watch Brand man. No lick.”
Addy showered in record time and threw on a pair of loose shorts and a T-shirt. After towel-drying her hair, she padded barefoot back into the kitchen. Dooley’s eyes lit up when she saw her.
“Cheese? Dooley get dog cheese?”
“Oh, good grief. Yes, Dooley can have dog cheese.”
Dooley danced around Addy’s feet.
“Dooley like cheese! Cheese. Cheese. Cheese!”
“All right, all right, calm down.”
Muddy’s house had an airy, open floor plan. All that separated the kitchen from the living room were a couple of decorative columns and a big island that served as a combination work space and table, with chairs along one side. Addy kept one eye on Brand as she retrieved the block of cheddar cheese from the refrigerator door. She sliced off a hunk and broke it into pieces in the dog’s bowl. “There, desist already.”
Dooley slurped up the cheese and rolled her brown eyes at Addy.
“More?”
“No, ma’am. You’ll ruin your supper.” She dumped two cups of dry dog food in Dooley’s bowl. “Here, eat.”
Dooley gave the bowl a disinterested sniff and sauntered out of the kitchen to flump on the floor next to the couch.
“Brand man?”
she whined, nosing Brand on the arm.
“No, Dooley, leave him alone!”
Chastened, Dooley put her head on her paws.
Addy glopped a can of tomato soup into a saucepan and added milk. While the soup warmed, she heated a frying pan and made three grilled cheese sandwiches. Sliding the grilled cheese sandwiches onto a plate, she sliced them in two, then poured the tomato soup into an over-sized mug. She arranged the plate and mug on a wooden tray, and added a glass of milk, salt and pepper shakers, a soup spoon, and a napkin.