10
B
ack in EarthWorld, the late-afternoon skies were gray and looked ready to weep. Silvia wanted to weep as well for the suffering she now knew Michaela had undergone at Pontifex's hands. A fierce need to avenge her dearest friend fisted in her belly. But above all else, she wanted to find her, and hug her close and promise to protect her. Wanted to tell her she knew the awful truth that she'd hidden forâhow long? How long had this been going on?
Silvia stilled, listening carefully to the city around her. Having given up Rico's body, she would require another host within a day's time. But at the moment the voices of the near-dead were silent. It happened sometimes, these pauses in available bodies. So, in her invisible state, she rushed to Bastian's home in hopes of finding Michaela. Instead, she found only Sal inside, who no longer recognized her scent, but sensed her presence and chased her through the halls.
“Hush!” she called to him. Though her voice was imperceptible to mortals, animals were more cognizant of it, and the dog went silent at her command, cocking his head as she moved on.
She searched through the main floor, throwing open every door she passed and calling out for Michaela. In the study, she eventually found a note from her addressed to Bastian on his desk, beside the one she'd left for him about Sal. And without qualm, she scanned it, reading aloud: “She has changed their plans. She is to meet him in the
Suburra
just prior to the Calling.” She looked at Sal. “Whyever for?”
The
Suburra
, a suburb of the Monti district, was a disreputable area where one only went to gamble, secure a prostitute, or to engage in activities of a criminal sort. Though it made little sense that Michaela would venture there at night, Silvia dropped the letter and made for the door.
On her way from the room, she tripped over a decanter lying on the floor. The blood-red liquid it had contained had leaked out and stained a priceless carpet she recognized as having been woven on ElseWorld looms.
“How unlike the fastidious Lord Satyr,” she mused. Lifting the finely cut crystal bottle, she sniffed, naturally expecting wine, since the Satyr were well known to be vintners. “Damn.” She'd forgotten she couldn't scent anything. Quickly, she took her corporeal form and sniffed again. It was wine all right, yet its scent was like no liquor she'd ever come across before. It was bitter, more like the squeezings of unripe olives, blended with a variety of ElseWorld spices and something more indefinable. A hint of . . . Ogre? She wrinkled her nose, then realized that the latter scent was only on the surface of the crystal, not in the drink itself, which at its core was an alcoholic spirit of some kind. She shuddered. Who would drink such a concoction?
But this mystery was immediately forgotten when she heard the sounds of horses and carriage wheels; then the opening of the front door. She set the decanter back as she'd found it, and peeked from the study into the hall. Voices both male and female reached her ears. Moving stealthily to the staircase, she saw that Bastian's brothersâall three of themâand a single woman had arrived.
Sal bounded up to them. “When did Bastian get a dog?” she heard the brother she didn't recognize ask. Bending, he playfully rubbed Sal's ears. Silvia smiled to herself, knowing he'd just made a friend for life, for there were few things Sal enjoyed more. She'd never met this fourth brother, Dane, but this appeared to be he, and his wife must be this woman he held so tenderly.
Though Silvia wanted to stay and observe them, other matters pulled at her attention. Turning, she went to the back of the house, where she shut the door on them all and then proceeded toward Monti.
Her feet fairly flew past fountains, churches, storefronts, palazzos, up staircases, and over brick piazzas dotted with people scurrying to reach their destinations before the coming rain. If only she had her firestone. Occia had once let slip that with their aid, a firegate could be made to function within this world. If that were so, her travel would have been so much swifter! The moon would not rise for another hour and a half at least. Plenty of time to find Michaela before she became engaged with her lover for the night. Silvia wanted to be long gone before Bastian presented himself. To see them locked in yet another embrace would be more than she could bear in her current unsettled state.
Rounding the corner of a watchmaker's shop, Silvia skidded to a stop on the mist-slickened brick street. A pair of courtesans who'd been behind her kept walking and passed right through her on their way into the piazza, never realizing they'd just encountered an Ephemeral. Silvia hardly noticed them either. For her attention was riveted on the extremely tall, broad-shouldered gentleman who stood some fifteen feet aheadâher erstwhile employer, Lord Bastian Satyr himself!
Forgetting for a moment that he could not see her, she ducked out of sight into the recessed doorway of the shop. And for a moment, she indulged her pathetic desire to simply observe him. The courtesans eyed him as well, and why not? Men as handsome and appealing as he were a rare sight in either world.
His head was bent, gazing at something in his hand. It flashed in the lamplight, like . . . fire. Gods! Was it one of Vesta's stones? Before she could determine anything, he slipped it into his pocket.
Thinking only of possessing it, Silvia rushed toward him and plunged a hand into the pocket that contained it. But of course she was in wraith form and her hand sailed right through both fabric and flesh. And through stone, if indeed that's what he harbored.
Damnation!
Whatever it was he had, she couldn't retrieve it while she was invisible.
Desperately, she surveyed the piazza around her. She needed a host, and now. For the first time in her life, she found herself almost wishing someone would hurry up and die! That is, if they'd been destined to, anyway. Meeting Death was never something she looked forward to. For at best the assuming of another host was a poignant experience; at worst, it was ghoulish.
As she stood there with her head cocked, Bastian surprised her by making a clumsy two-armed grab in her direction. His arms passed through her, naturally, but she leaped away from the startling sensation. When they'd briefly coalesced, she'd felt the rush of his emotions. He was thinking of color. No, not just thinking of it. Longing for it. Craving it.
“Damned colors. Won't stay. Gods, my head.” He lumbered away to sit on a ledge, where he dropped his head to his hands, plowing his fingers through strands of ebony hair that glistened with the mist.
She went to stand a few feet in front of him and then craned closer, perplexed and a little worried. “What's wrong with you?” she murmured, not expecting an answer.
He heaved a disgusted sigh. “I don't know.”
“What do you mean you don'tâ” Wait a minute! He could
hear
her? She tested him. “Bastian, can you hear me?”
No answer. She straightened. Of course he couldn't hear her. The fact that his reply fit her question had only been coincidental. Nevertheless, something
was
different between them now. Abruptly, she realized what it was. She craned her neck forward and sniffed. She could
scent
him! Although she detected only the faintest hint of alcohol on him, it was obvious from his demeanor that he'd drunk heavily before coming out tonight.
But this was neither here nor there. She looked at his pocket longingly. Unable to resist another attempt, she dipped her fingers into it. This time, the sensation of passing her flesh through fabric and flesh was akin to that of moving her hand through something viscous, as if she were swimming through pudding.
His dark head whipped up. Strong fingers wrapped around her wrist. And this time, their flesh held! “No!” she breathed. “How is this possible?” She was
invisible
.
Intangible
. He couldn't
grab
her! But apparently Lord Bastian Satyr no longer heeded the properties of physics, for he next proceeded to twist her arm. In a flash, her back was to him and she sat on his lap, her knees securely trapped between the vise of his own, and her bottom cushioned against hisâ
“Your thieving skills leave something to be desired.” Warm breath tickled her nape, teasing tendrils of her hair. She shivered and ducked her head forward. Her heart pounded hard enough to leap out of her chest. What was going on? How was it that they were now interacting as solid beings? How was it that his breath could stir her hair?
She glanced back at him. “C-can you see me?” Oh Gods, had she somehow rendered herself mortal without intending to?
He shook his head. She felt his fingers toying with her unbound hair. It felt . . . nice. Intimate. “Sunset,” he murmured.
She stiffened and turned back to stare unseeing across the piazza. “I thought you couldn't see me!”
Behind her, she felt him nod. “Can't.”
“Then how is it you know the color of my hair?”
“How is it you know my name?” he returned, and she realized she'd let it slip earlier. “What are you? Why don't you show yourself to me?” he coaxed in a low, velvet voice. His hands moved over her as if to determine her shape, and she smacked at them.
Thinking he was speaking to her, a comely prostitute ventured closer and sent him a rather quizzical look. It was obvious that the woman couldn't see her, and that she wondered at the odd gestures he was making. “I'll be whatever you need tonight, signor,” she offered in a flirtatious voice. “Just tell me what you like.” He brushed her off with a casual hand, and reluctantly she went.
Silvia peered over her shoulder at him again. “Can't you guess?” she asked in belated response to his question. “I thought the Satyr were bloodhounds.”
“Something has clouded my senses at the moment,” he admitted grudgingly. “But you're female. I know that much.” The hand that secured her moved up the curve of her waist and across her body, covering her breast and pulling her back against him. Closing his eyes, he let his head fall back against the brick wall, and he sighed with pleasure.
Silvia exhaled harshly on a sound that was an odd blend of delight and distress, and covered his hand with her own. And they sat there a moment. Him half-lying indolently against the wall. Her sprawled over him. Their mutual attention focused on the current position of his hand. On her breast.
Then his fingers flexed in a slow caress, shaping her in a series of gentle squeezes as if testing the ripeness of a fruit. A thumb brushed her nipple through her shift, and a delicious thrill curled through her system, coursing hot, swift need to her pulse at her core. At her bottom, his cock swelled and twitched within his trousers.
“Michaela,” she whispered. The name fell from her lips and tumbled between them, a wedge. Straightening, she pushed at his hand and struggled fully upright, her glance sweeping over the piazza. No Michaela. “Where is she, Bastian?”
“Esquiline. My bed. And how is it that you know of her?”
She turned sideways and his hand slipped to rest on her upper thigh. There was nothing particularly erotic about the nature of his touch now, yet she had never been more aware of contact with another being in her life. Of the heat of his thighs under hers. Of his hand.
Ignoring his question, she said, “Her note. I thought she was to meet you here?”
“Hmm?” The hand slid up her thigh.
She slapped it away. “I have to find her; have to go.” She slid from his lap and he let her.
But at the last minute, he staggered to his feet and pulled her back to him. “I'd like nothing better. But you won't go.” His hands hooked her hips, lifting her to stand facing him on a squat ledge that ran along the façade of the adjacent building. The stone wall at her back was cool and damp with mist. He stood with one of his forearms braced high on the wall to her left, and his other hand at her waist, his head bent close. “It was you that morning a month ago in my library, wasn't it? You, in my thoughts, night and day.” He was rambling.
“You're intoxicated,” she accused.
“Wrong. I don't drink.” He leaned in, his silver eyes on her mouth.
She drew up, flattening herself against the wall. “You're a Satyr, yet you don't drink?”
He tapped her nose with one finger as if to say she'd hit it on the nose.
“But why not?”
Wandering his lips down the line of her throat, he told her, “Let's just say that spirits have an unfortunate effect upon me.”
Her brow wrinkled over the puzzle of him, even as she succumbed to the caress of his mouth. No! She would not betray Michaela in this way. She tried to dislodge him with a hard shake of her shoulders, which availed her little. She turned her head from his lips and breathlessly pressed on, sensing a chink in his armor. “I don't understand. Your family's vineyards grow the grapes that are the lifeblood of all ElseWorld kind. You and your brothers are the descendants of Bacchusâgifted with the ability to imbibe freely without becoming inebriated.”
“All true. However, I'm the exception.”