He stared at the floor of the cave for a minute before he said, “Ptellon blood. It most powerful protection but it only last one moon. Then you use again.”
I made a face. “Blood! You want me to give Nate blood?”
His raspy laughter filled the cave. “Not real blood. Ptellon is special flower from mountain in the Asia land. It have red nectar like blood.”
“Oh okay. I just didn’t want a repeat of the baktu – which was pretty gross by the way.” I rubbed my arms against the chill coming off the ocean. “How do I use it and what does it do?”
“Put it in drink or food. It make bad smell to demons and Peoples and they not go near him.”
“Won’t he smell it?”
“No smell for humans and animals.”
I gave him a wide smile. “That is brilliant! I’ll see if Malloy can get it. How much will it cost?”
“It very strong. Maybe many human dollars.”
Money meant little to Remy so when he said many dollars I knew he meant way more than I could come up with. I chewed my lip as I tried to figure out how to get the Ptellon blood.
“Bile worth many human dollars,” he offered and I shook my head vigorously.
“We can’t use your bile again or someone will find us.” It was scary just thinking of the bile we had stashed in this cave; enough for someone to kill for.”
Remy paced the cave a few more times then zipped to the mouth of the cave. “Wait here,” he called before he disappeared up the side of the cliff.
“Where do you think I am going to go?” I shouted after him. There was no answer.
I sat near the opening with my back against the smooth wall. The wind moaned through the cave, reminding me how lonely this place was without Remy. I peered down at the ocean churning around the rocks like a great frothing mouth full of sharp teeth. I loved the sea, the wide openness of it, the smells and sounds. It always seemed to call to me when I was near it. One of the old fishermen told me once that he had had saltwater in his veins and he would never be happy anywhere but on the ocean. At times like this I knew exactly what he meant.
Remy reappeared after a few minutes, bearing a small sack of what looked like sticks. I looked at him in confusion before he laid the sack on the floor of the cave and flashed a wide grin at me as he held out his hand. On his palm lay a dozen or more large sparkling diamonds and one small ruby. He pointed to the ruby. “That buy Ptellon blood.”
I peered at the ruby which didn’t look like it was more than half a carat. I didn’t know much about gems but I knew rubies weren’t worth a whole lot.
“A ruby? Is it like magic or something?” I asked him tentatively, trying not to hurt his feelings.
He shook his head like I should know better. “It not ruby. It diamond.”
A red diamond? “Oh. Are they expensive?” It looked like a ruby to me. But then what did I know?
“This enough to buy you plenty Ptellon blood for uncle.”
“That little thing? Seriously?” It didn’t look like much but if Remy said it was valuable I believed him. “Listen, if this is worth so much, are you sure you want to give it to me? Won’t you get in trouble?”
He showed his teeth when he grinned. “Clan have many pretty baubles. You take all diamonds. Save others for when you need them.”
I knew the trolls had great wealth but it occurred to me that their riches were way beyond my comprehension. “It’s like Smaug’s treasure,” I said, tucking the diamonds in the snug front pocket of my jeans. It wasn’t the first time Remy had given me precious stones to use as currency and I wasn’t as dazzled by them as I used to be.
“Smaug?”
It took me several minutes to explain the Hobbit and the dragon sleeping on a mountain of treasure. Remy shook his head when I finished. “Dragons not care about baubles. They only like to eat.”
“Good to know,” I muttered, hoping I never had the opportunity to witness that for myself. I pointed to the sack on the floor. “So what’s with the sticks?”
“This for warding house.” He explained what all the items in the sack were and how to use them to create a ward. It took me a good thirty minutes to memorize the phrases he gave me to recite during the spell and I figured I’d better do the ward as soon as I got home before I forgot something.
When it was time to go, Remy insisted on accompanying me back to town. He stuck to the woods as I rode my bike and every now and then I caught a flash of him in the trees. If he’d wanted to he could have stayed invisible the whole time, but he let me see him so I’d know he was there.
The motorcycle came up behind me as I passed the city limit sign. I did not turn around and the Ducati purred behind me like a big hungry cat all the way downtown. I considered making a run for the door when I got home but apparently Nikolas had anticipated that. When we hit the waterfront he went on ahead and by the time I reached home he was standing by the corner of the building with his arms crossed and wearing a scowl that made me want to turn around and ride the other way. His moods changed so fast it was hard to keep up with them. The angry man waiting for me now did not resemble the person who had given me his coat and watched over me while I slept two nights ago.
“Did you not learn anything the other night?” he demanded, taking a step toward me. “Are you
trying
to get yourself killed?”
Swallowing dryly, I got off my bike and walked it toward him. “Of course not.” There was no way I could tell him that I’d been quite safe with a troll who could handle any threat to me.
“No?” His eyes darkened. “Do you want to tell me where you had to sneak off to that was so important?”
“No,” I replied, ignoring the command in his voice.
His jaw clenched and I knew he was furious but I wasn’t going to cower to him. I did not have to explain my every move to him.
“There is nothing but woods for miles south of town. What were you doing out there?”
Instead of answering his question, I asked, “How did you find me anyway? Did you put one of those trackers on my bike too?”
“No, but maybe I should.”
“No, you should not!” I sputtered. I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not but right now I would not put it past him. “I’m not helpless, you know and I don’t need you guys following me around twenty-four seven. I took care of myself pretty well before you came along.”
Nikolas cocked his head and one corner of his mouth lifted arrogantly. “Yes, I can see how well you do on your own,” he drawled in an infuriatingly condescending tone. “I’m amazed you lived this long.”
It hurt that he thought so little of me but I refused to let him know that. More than that, it angered me that I should care about his opinion of me at all. “I’m sorry I’m such a
trial
to you but no one is asking you to stick around here. You can go back to doing your warrior thing, hunting vampires or whatever you do and forget all about me.”
I moved past him but he did that blurring thing again and I found my way blocked by a wide chest. A hand grabbed my handlebar when I tried to go around him and it felt like my bike was cemented to the ground. He leaned down and spoke with deadly softness into my ear. “If I was a vampire, you’d be dead – or worse.”
My breath hitched and for several seconds I was back in the alley, pressed against the brick wall, unable to move. Shaking off the memory, I glared up at him, hating him for reminding me how weak and helpless I’d felt with Eli. Our eyes met inches apart and the Mori in me shifted restlessly, sending a ripple of some foreign emotion through me. I tore my gaze from his, angry that he had the power to affect even a little part of me.
“Does it even matter?”
“What?”
“You said that day on the wharf that you can’t save every orphan. What difference does one more make?”
Nikolas stiffened and I realized I’d probably just insulted his warrior ego or something. I was tired of this overbearing, he-man routine and it felt good to know that he wasn’t as invincible as he let on.
“Do you mind letting go of my bike?” I asked when he did not respond to my question. “Nate will be home soon and it’s my turn to make dinner.” And I needed to get away from him because he made me feel angry and safe and afraid at the same time and I didn’t know why.
Instead of loosening his grip, he growled, “
Khristu!
Do you not understand the danger you are in? I know you want to believe you are safe here surrounded by your werewolf friends, but someone went to great lengths sending that pack of crocotta to find you. If it is that vampire, he won’t give up.”
His words made the back of my neck prickle and I remembered the hunger in Eli’s eyes when he had been forced to release me.
Nikolas saw me waver. “If you are honest with yourself, you’ll admit I am right.” He let go of the handlebar and laid a warm hand over one of mine. “I can protect you if you will let me.”
I tried to ignore the small tremble that went through me. How was it possible to dislike someone and feel fluttery inside at the same time? His nearness suddenly made it hard to think straight. Pulling my hand away, I stammered “I really need to go inside now.”
This time he did not try to stop me. He stepped aside and I pushed my bike past him. I hurried around to the back door and stood the bike against the wall while I searched for my keys. I did not realize he had followed me until he spoke.
“You can run away from me but you can’t run from the truth. The werewolves can’t protect you forever and eventually, you’ll have to leave New Hastings. What will you do then?”
My hand stilled on the door knob. “When that happens it’ll be my problem, not yours,” I replied without looking at him. I opened the door and pushed my bike inside. “I don’t want you following me around anymore.”
“And I don’t want you to keep putting yourself in danger. Seems like neither of us will get what we want.”
I didn’t reply, I just let the heavy door close behind me.
I pulled the
cloth sack Remy had given me from my backpack and dumped the contents on the storeroom floor. Looking over the two small bundles of ash and elder twigs, the paper packet, the stone bowl and something that looked like a crude artist’s brush, it was hard to believe that these simple items could ward off something like a vampire. But I trusted Remy and the trolls’ magic. If he said this was the best way to protect Nate then I believed him.
I arranged the twigs in a crisscross pattern in the bowl exactly as Remy had instructed then sprinkled the contents of the packet over the twigs.
“Il vekk’it zuhh ymen,”
I whispered in a poor imitation of Remy’s guttural troll tongue. It was close enough because the twigs burst into flame just as Remy had said they would. The small fire burned quickly, the flames going from white to blue to green before collapsing in a pile of ashes that smelled of burnt sage and basil and charred wood.
Picking up the bowl and brush, I stood and went to the back door. I laid the bowl on the floor and dipped the brush in the ashes then traced the outline of my left hand in the center of the door, softly reciting the words,
“Atal’al il, atal’ak
.” Loosely translated, it means ‘protect me, protect mine’. I stood back and waited. Seconds later the ash outline of my hand sank into the steel and vanished. There! As long as I called this building home, nothing or no one with harmful intent could come through this door.
Now I just needed to do the same with every door and window in the whole building.
* * *
The confrontation with Nikolas bothered me more than I wanted to admit. I hated how weak and vulnerable I felt when he had grabbed my bike and I couldn’t stand being followed and watched out of some misplaced sense of obligation. It didn’t help that the stupid demon in me always knew when he was around, stirring restlessly every time his presence brushed against my mind. If this was how Mori demons connected, it must be absolute sensory overload living among Nikolas’s people. How did the Mohiri live with it?
By the end of the week, I was ready to scream every time I spotted Nikolas or Chris. They were everywhere I went: outside the school, the grocery store, the library, the waterfront. They did not approach me and I pretended to ignore them, but their constant presence meant I was no longer free to come and go as I pleased. I wracked my brain for days to come up with a way to meet with NightWatcher but so far it looked impossible. The Mohiri were going to protect me into insanity.
I started hiding out at home when I wasn’t at school because it was the only place I could avoid them, or more specifically, another run in with Nikolas. The only problem with my self-imposed confinement was the fact that I was going stir crazy after a few days. The last time I hid at home it was because I was dealing with the trauma of the vampire attack and the discovery that I was not quite as mortal as I’d believed – valid reasons in anyone’s book. This time it was pure cowardice and I hated myself for it.
The only high point in my week was when Malloy sent me a message saying that he knew a guy who dealt mainly in exotic plants and he was working on getting the Ptellon blood for me as soon as possible. When I’d told Malloy how I would pay he got almost as excited as he did about the troll bile. I immediately did an online search and discovered that red diamonds are one of the rarest gemstones in the world. I wished I’d known that before I took it from Remy and offered it up as payment. It could draw too much attention to me when I was trying to keep a low profile. I pushed my worries aside. I had to protect Nate first then deal with the rest if anything came of it. Besides it was unlikely that someone would make a connection between troll bile and diamonds, no matter how rare they were.
When my cell phone rang on Saturday afternoon, I assumed at first that it was Roland because he always called me on Saturdays and he was one of the few people who had my number. The number on the screen was unfamiliar and I answered the call gingerly. “Hello?”
“Sara, hi. It’s Samson Long. We met at the party last weekend.”
“Um, hi,” I replied, trying to hide my shock.
How on earth did he get my number?
“I hope you don’t mind, I got your number from Roland. He said it was cool.”
Note to self: kill best friend
. “No, it’s fine.”
Samson cleared his throat. “I know it’s kind of short notice, but would you like to do something tonight?”
“Do something?” I repeated dumbly.
“Yes, like a movie or dinner… or whatever you like to do.”
“I –” I stammered, not sure how to respond. Samson Long was asking me out on a date. Heat flooded my face. A boy was calling to ask me out for the first time in my life and all I could do was stand there like an idiot.
“Or we could just go for coffee now if you want to do that,” he offered quickly.
“Okay,” I heard myself saying. I liked Samson and I’d enjoyed talking to him at the party before Nikolas had shown up to ruin my mood. “Coffee sounds nice.”
I heard the smile in his voice. “Great. How about I pick you up in half an hour?”
“Okay,” I said again. I gave him my address and hung up in a daze. Shaking myself out of it, I went to change and do something with my hair. With a few minutes to spare, I sent Roland a text:
UR so dead.
I expected Samson to be in the white van from the party, but he showed up in a yellow Jeep Wrangler that suited him somehow. He smiled broadly when I got in and said he was glad I said yes. I ducked my head so he couldn’t see the heat in my face and occupied myself with buckling my seat belt. I was around boys all the time but this was my first time alone with one who was not shy about letting me know he liked me.
As we drove away, I looked out my window and saw Chris sitting in his normal spot. He pulled out a cell phone and spoke to someone and I had no doubt he was talking to Nikolas, probably passing me off like a baton in a relay race. I turned away, determined to have a good time today and not let them ruin this for me.
Samson said he was taking me to his favorite coffee place and on the way we talked about the party and how it was too bad it had gotten rained out. “Next time, we’ll have to hold it inside so rain doesn’t drive everyone away,” he said with quiet meaning.
The coffee shop was called The Hub. I had seen it in passing plenty of times but today was my first time inside. It was more of a hangout for the college crowd and I could see the appeal in the cozy ambience created by a large fireplace and comfortable couches. Samson bought us two mochas and we weaved through the couches to a pair of big chairs near one of the windows. It was obvious how often he came here by the number people who waved or said hello to him as we passed. It took me a few minutes to realize why it seemed so different than the places I normally went to. If I walked into one of those other places with Samson, all the kids there would have watched us and started whispering right away. Here, people looked up and went back to whatever they were doing. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the two of us and I found it a refreshing change.
“I have a confession to make,” he announced after we had settled into the comfy chairs. “I asked around about you this week.”
“Oh.” I took a sip of coffee to hide the flush creeping up my neck again. “What did you find out?”
His laugh was nice and easy and I noticed that his eyes were a beautiful leaf green. “Not much. Everyone knows who you are but no one seems to really
know
you except Roland and he said I’d have to ask you. You are a woman of mystery.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Maybe they had nothing to say because there is nothing
to
say.”
“I don’t believe that. I think there is a lot more to you than you show people.” He took a drink from his cup. “You said you live with your uncle. How did that happen, if you don’t mind me asking?”
I had never talked to anyone except Roland and Peter about my dad and how I came to live with Nate. It felt strange telling another person now. I gave him a very abbreviated version of the story. “My dad died when I was eight. It was just the two of us and his younger brother took guardianship of me. Nate’s a writer so it made it easy for him to stay home and take care of me.”
“You and your father were very close, weren’t you? I can hear it in your voice.”
I nodded, expecting the tears to come but to my surprise they stayed away. “My mother left when I was two and my dad raised me alone.” In my mind I saw my dad’s face and for a moment I was with him again. “He was… the kindest, funniest person I ever knew. And smart. He loved books and music and he found pleasure in the simplest things: like having pancakes for dinner or listening to a thunderstorm. He always said you could learn a lot about a person by the things they valued. I didn’t know what he meant then. I do now.”
Samson smiled wistfully. “I think I would have liked your father. I grew up with both parents but we aren’t what you’d call close. My father owns an engineering company and they work oversees a lot. My mother is a math teacher.”
“Wow, an engineer and a teacher. I bet you weren’t allowed to get less than an A in school.”
He toyed with the plastic lid on his cup. “You could say that.”
“Any brothers or sisters?”
“I have a younger brother in junior high and an older sister who lives in New York.”
I swirled my coffee slowly. “Must be nice to have siblings. Roland’s the closest I have to a brother.”
“I gathered that you two were pretty close. When I talked to him he dropped a not too subtle hint that he takes your welfare and happiness to heart. I take it as a good sign that he gave me your number at all.”
I couldn’t suppress my grin. “He’s been like that since we were little kids. I used to have to beat him up to get him to stop treating me like I was breakable.” In hindsight, I must have looked so fragile to my werewolf friends back then.
Samson’s eyes sparkled. “I bet you were a real tomboy.”
“Totally. I could climb trees with the best of them.”
“You said you liked to draw too. What do you draw?”
“Whatever comes to mind? It’s just a hobby, not something I show people.”
“Will you draw something for me?” he asked earnestly.
I shook my head. “I’m really not that good and I have nothing to draw on anyway.”
He was already standing. “One minute.” He went to the counter and came back with a plain notepad and a wooden pencil which he laid on the small table beside me. “No pressure. Draw anything you want.”
I thought about it for a minute before I picked up the pencil and pad and began to draw. As I worked, Samson went to get us two more mochas and we kept up a steady stream of conversation about school, hobbies, friends and his band. He lived in Portland and I asked him how he met up with Dylan and his friends here in New Hastings. He told me he grew up in New Hastings and he still knew a lot of people here. A mutual friend knew Samson and Dylan both wanted to start a band and got them together.
I finished my drawing and signed it with a flourish before turning the pad so he would see what I’d drawn. His eyes widened as he studied the sketch I’d drawn from memory of him playing his drums at the Attic. Without my good pencils it wasn’t my best work but I thought I’d captured him pretty well.
“This is incredible! How can you say you aren’t any good?”
I flushed with pleasure from his praise. “Thanks. Maybe I should keep this one. One day when you’re a famous rock star I can sell it on eBay for a lot of money.”
“You should keep it.” His eyes darkened to a moss green and his voice warmed. “So you don’t forget about me.”
The meaning in his gaze was unmistakable and I looked down at my hands nervously. I was in foreign waters and I had no idea what to say or do next. I’d faced vampires and a pack of crocotta, but put me in front of a cute boy and I had no idea what to do.
Samson laughed softly. “You have no idea how adorable you look right now.”
I turned my heated face away from him to look out the window. “That’s not exactly the look I was going for –”
The words stuck in my throat when I felt the all-too familiar fluttering in my mind. It wasn’t like I hadn’t known one of them would be following us, but for a little while I’d put it out of my mind and I was just a normal girl out having coffee with a nice boy.
I scanned the street looking for my tail. There was no sign of them but my senses told me that either Nikolas or Chris was here. Seriously, what did they think was going to happen to me in a coffee shop in the middle of the day? Caffeine overdose? Hot coffee burn?
Well they were nowhere in sight unless… I turned my searching gaze on the room behind me.
They wouldn’t.
Please tell me they did not follow me in here.
The thought of being chaperoned by Nikolas or Chris as I fumbled through my date was beyond mortifying. Chris, I could almost stand. He was more amiable than judgmental. Nikolas was another story with his moody temperament and his overbearing attitude. If it had to be one of them, please let it be Chris.
My stomach dropped when I found him sitting alone at the far side of the shop, his eyes so dark they were almost black as they glowered at my date. His gaze shifted and I met it defiantly, lifting my chin to let him know how I felt about this invasion of my personal space. His eyes softened and he arched an eyebrow at me.