Out of curiosity, I tried to find out who his mother was. I’d met quite a few succubi in the last few days and looked for their faces, but it was a no-go. Just as well. Propping him up against the wall, I clutched a hand to the paper shoved in my bra and tiptoed down the hall. Now if I could just avoid seeing anyone else…
Other than my acolyte guard, the place was deserted. The Serim were in their night-sleep, and Zane would be awakening. Any minute now, he’d be calling for me, shouting my name at the top of his lungs. Sick with fear for my safety.
Any
minute now.
Actually, it was kind of strange that we hadn’t heard anything from Sophie or Zane. I was starting to worry. What if Phryne had pounced on them while I’d been in here schmoozing the Serim? I’d never forgive myself. Anxiety clenched my stomach and I forced myself to calm down. Getting a copy of that design on the ceiling of the dining hall was the most important thing right now. Zane would understand.
I pushed open the doors to the dining hall and entered quietly, wincing at the creak of the door. No one sounded an alarm. Emboldened, I flipped the light switch and stared up at the mural in triumph.
How the eff had I gotten so lucky? Did they even know what they sat under every night? I stared up at it in awe, mentally comparing it to the page I’d had in my possession for so short a time. There it was, just like the last one. Seven haloes, each ring interrupted by ancient writing. Each one dotted with symbols for the sun, the moon, and other divine markings. There were subtle changes—the center of the ring was empty this time, and not a pyramid. The colors of the rings and the text on the edges of the mural looked different, but I’d worry about that later. And edging around the outermost halo was a three-pronged crown at each of the cardinal points—north, south, east, and west.
Those crowns meant something. I had no clue as to what.
I wasted no time in copying down the information. I didn’t know how long it’d be before someone came upon me here in the dining hall, so I’d make use of the time I had. With my pencil and paper in hand, I began to sketch, taking extra care with the strange, slashing writing that decorated the edges of the circles.
A few minutes later, the door behind me creaked open. I jumped and turned quickly, hiding the paper behind me.
Remy poked her head in, glancing around the room before her gaze landed on me. “There you are!”
I put a finger to my lips, motioning for silence even as I waved her forward with my other hand.
She tiptoed in, Ethan two steps behind her, their hands clasped together. Remy’s hair was disheveled and tumbling around her face, her eye color reset to a pale silver. Ethan had a dazed expression, and his long hair was even more snarled than Remy’s, his robes askew.
“Reunited?” I asked dryly.
“And it feels sooooo good,” Remy agreed, She leaned over and tugged at Ethan’s hair until he bent down, and she kissed him again. “My snuggums missed me terribly. We had to make all the bad memories go away fast.”
I rolled my eyes. “Have snuggums shut the door. I’m trying to do a sketch here.”
“What are you drawing?” Remy asked, pulling away from Ethan to come stand by my side. He gave her an adoring look before going to close the door to the dining hall, his eyes flashing with a good deed. Though created from a succubus and a Serim, Ethan’s kind seemed to get none of the drawbacks—they were immortal, healed fast, didn’t sleep, didn’t have the ravening need for sex. Instead, they fed off good deeds. A small favor might feed Ethan for a few hours. A big deed? For days. Helping Remy with her succubus curse? Kept him sated in more ways than just one.
Ethan clearly adored Remy—that much was obvious. My own lover should have been awake. He’d be hungry and needing to drink blood. It made me a bit anxious to think that he was out there, awake, and not looking for me. How codependent was that?
“So that symbol,” Remy said, turning down one corner of my paper. “What is that, like a vagina or something?”
I pulled the paper away from her, scowling. “It’s a series of circles.”
She tilted her head, staring at the picture, then at the ceiling. “Huh. You suck at drawing circles. I’m not kidding. It looks more like a vagina.”
“I’m in a hurry,” I said, resisting the urge to smack her in the back of the head. “This would be a lot easier if that jerk Phryne hadn’t messed things up for us.”
“So you’re drawing vaginas in her honor?”
I glared at her. “Can I work on this?”
“That’s fine,” she said, waving a hand at me. “I’ll just be over here, cranky pants.”
“Give me ten minutes,” I said, trying not to be too anxious. “I’ll finish this and then we’ll go get Zane. I’m worried that he’s so quiet out there.”
“Mmm,” Remy said.
I lifted my head from the paper again. “What’s that mean?”
“Hmm? Nothing.”
“You mmmed. That’s not nothing. That’s an ‘I’m deliberately being quiet but I know something Jackie doesn’t’ sort of mmm.”
“No it’s not.”
I sighed and bent back over my paper again. Goddamn it, it did look like a vagina. My concentric circles were not so concentric. I picked up the pencil again.
“I was just going to say,” Remy began, distracting me all over again. I looked up to see her trailing a finger over the table. “He’s probably being quiet because of Sophie.”
My heart slammed into my throat, pounding so hard that I couldn’t breathe. “You think she would hurt him?”
Now Remy looked confused. “Huh? No. Not at all.”
“Then what? I don’t understand.”
She chewed on her lip, clearly torn. “We’re BFFs and all, girlfriend, but some shit is not mine to spill, you know? Zane and Sophie just have a… history.” She gave me a meaningful look.
Oh. Was that all? I shook my head. “If they had history, it’s in the past. I trust Zane.”
“That wasn’t quite what I meant,” she said, then waved a hand. “Never mind. Finish drawing your vagina.”
I gritted my teeth and went back to sketching, trying to be as accurate as I could. The light in the room was low, and I wasn’t gifted with super vision. Couple that in with Remy and Ethan nearby, and Remy’s soft giggles as she played “tickle monster” with Ethan, well. It was making me think about Zane more and more.
A sudden flash of bright light caught my attention. I looked up sharply, only to see Remy with a phone in her hand. She took a picture of the ceiling, then squinted at the phone.
“Where did you get that?” I reached for it, and she snatched it back out of my hands.
“From my lover.” She made a kissy face at Ethan. “He promised to sext me while he was gone and he never did.”
“I sent you pictures as you requested,” Ethan said in his stuffy tone.
“Yeah, but you were clothed, babe. Ain’t the same.” She winked at him and lifted the phone to take another picture.
“Can I borrow that?” I put my hand out.
Remy tossed it in my direction. I caught it and folded up my drawing with a sigh. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you had a phone.”
“It is a penis move,” Ethan agreed in a stiff voice.
“
Dick
move, baby,” Remy corrected, then grinned over at me. “I’m teaching him street slang. Isn’t it cute?”
“Word,” Ethan said, then looked to Remy for approval.
Oh lord. “It’s something, all right.”
~*~
We finished recording the ceiling with some grainy pictures on Ethan’s phone. I figured between that and my sketches, we’d have it covered. With that, we tied up the teen Enforcer that I’d knocked out, left him in my bed, and then woke him up before we made our getaway. We quickly left the monastery, heading for the gate. Now I was really worried about Zane and Sophie. They’d been utterly silent. Not one call for us? Not even one shout? One attempt to bust down the front doors?
I didn’t know what to make of that.
There, out at the front gate of the monastery where we’d left it, sat our rental car. Sophie sat on the hood of the car, cross-legged in a meditation pose. Leaning against the car, Zane smoked a cigarette, his gaze flicking back at the house, and then at Sophie, and then back at the house.
“We’re here,” I announced as we raced down the steps of the monastery. “Let’s get going.”
Zane threw down his cigarette, relief lighting his features. “Good. Let’s ditch this joint.”
You didn’t have to tell me twice. I moved to his side and lifted my arms to wrap around his neck, raising my mouth for a kiss.
“We need to talk,” Zane rasped before slanting his mouth over mine in a hard, possessive kiss. “Later, when we’re alone.”
A shiver of foreboding crept through me. “Can we talk now?”
My heart thudded slowly as Zane looked over at Sophie, who sat, serenely ignoring us. Her eyes, I noticed, were bleached silver. So Noah
had
been out here. If that was the case, why was Zane acting so odd? I immediately turned to look to him, but his eyes were still red with hunger.
Waiting for me. I relaxed. God, how silly of me to worry about such a thing. Zane loved me. Had given up everything for me. He’d never look at another woman. It was just me being neurotic.
But when he gave Sophie another black scowl, I couldn’t help but worry. Something was off.
“All aboard,” Remy said, pumping her arm in a mimic of a train whistle. “Let’s get this party started.”
Zane looked at me. “Where are we going?”
I pulled the crinkling paper out of my pocket and handed it to him. “I was hoping you could tell us. This is like the book, but the symbols aren’t all the same. Check it out. The crowns are on the outside this time.”
He peered at the drawing, then back at me. “You said this is the same?”
I nodded enthusiastically.
He tilted the paper, studying it. “It looks like a vagina.”
I snatched the paper back from him. “You suck.”
He clicked his teeth at me with a fanged grin, and my heart fluttered at the flirty move.
I pushed the drawing at him. “Can you decipher this? Does it tell what we’re looking for?”
He shook his head at me. “I can’t read it.”
I grimaced. “Is it my drawing? I took pictures of it, if those will help.”
“No, it’s not the drawing. It’s the language. I think it’s Phoenician.” He held the page out to Sophie. “Can you read this?”
I wanted to snatch it back and tell him she could look at it later. But I bit my tongue, glancing over at Remy. She was whispering something in Ethan’s ear, and his eyes widened, his gaze moving to Sophie and then to Zane.
Goddamn it.
As graceful as a ballerina, Sophie got up from her seated position and moved to Zane’s side, taking the page between her thumb and forefinger. Her fingers flexed on the paper, long, elegant brown fingers covered in swirling tattoos. She looked down at the page, then raised her silver gaze back to my face. “It’s an ancient Scythian dialect. I can read it.” Her voice was smooth, melodious.
I wondered if Noah had enjoyed his “duty” with her. Ugh. Then I hated that I’d even thought about it. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the whole thing. I didn’t want Noah, right? So why did I have this “Don’t play with my toys” sort of mentality around Sophie? Was it because she was an unknown quantity, and I’d learned not to trust those?
“Well?” Zane said, impatient.
With a bored sigh, Sophie tilted the paper. “In the stone crown of the sun, only one shall bear the kiss of the eternal. He must first pass the madman’s way and the measure of the unknowing before finding the truth deep in the belly of the lake. Those who push to succeed shall end up with the spoils, or with none.”
Remy jingled the car keys. “What is that, some sort of shitty haiku?”
“It’s a puzzle,” Zane said grimly. “A key to where a halo is, but only part of the message. The other page was written in angelic script.
That,
I could read.”
“And this was in Scythian,” I said thoughtfully, taking the page from Sophie when she held it back out to me. The Scythians were an ancient race that had lived in what was now Iran. Nowhere close to here, yet the entire thing looked so familiar that it was driving me crazy. Where had I seen it before?
“The crown of the sun,” Ethan repeated. “And the picture is of a sun. If we find that symbol, will we find the halo?”
Good, helpful Ethan. I thought hard. “Maybe. It would have to be someplace old. As old as the Scythians,” I said, looking over at Sophie. Was she Scythian? Her lovely oval face and tall, lean body could have been from any time, any place, but her coloring and thick, lush black curls could be Middle Eastern—or the predecessor to it.
“Do you know of any sun crowns, Sophie?” Remy asked helpfully.
“I do not,” Sophie said. “I have no use for kings, alive or dead.”
Sun crowns. The words rattled in my mind, trying to jar something loose. I stared at the picture and the writing. Sun. A crown of the sun. I didn’t know what that was. I stared at the crowns surrounding the circle of haloes. It looked so damn familiar. I knew I’d seen that somewhere before. I knew—
My stomach sank like a rock as I recognized the symbol. I tilted the picture. Those weren’t crowns around the circle. Those were flames surrounding the circle of haloes. The entire picture was one big sun symbol, and I knew exactly where I’d seen that same symbol before. “Oh, damn.”
“What?” asked Remy. “What is it?”
I groaned. “I’ll explain on the way to the airport.”
~*~
“So?” I asked, keeping my voice light as I flipped through a rack of sweaters at an all-night Target. I grabbed a green one and tossed it into the cart, along with a few dark tank tops and some shorts and travel toiletries.
Zane picked a red bra from a nearby table, eyed it, and then dropped it into my basket.
I plucked it back out again and gave him a frustrated look. “Are we going to talk about this?”
“Out here?” He gestured at the store. At three in the morning, it was nearly empty of all shoppers. The circular racks of clothing in the clothing section were currently being replenished by an old woman in a red smock who stood fifty feet away, hanging sweaters and yawning.