Kissed by Ice(42)

"Damn." I had hoped for more.

"I couldn't have said it better myself," Eddie said, selecting a cookie from the plate. He held up the teapot. "More tea?" he asked before sloshing coppery liquid into my cup.

I thanked him and dropped in another lump of sugar. There was nothing else we could do right now, so why not have tea?

"Well, Jack is still looking for leads," I said, taking a sip of the biscuity goodness. I'm more of a coffee person, but I do love a good Assam. "Maybe he'll come up with something."

"We can only hope," Eddie said, clinking his cup against mine. "If we don't get hold of that book soon, very bad things could happen. And there will be nothing I or anyone else can do to stop them." His tone was beyond grim.

He wasn't kidding. If what we had discovered about the grimoire was correct, Alister could use it to wreak all kinds of havoc. We had to stop him before it was too late for everyone.





After I left Eddie's, I stopped by the office to let Kabita know I was in town, and the results of our consulting the sentient book. She was sitting behind her desk, calmly sharpening one of her many blades. She took the news of Eddie's true nature surprisingly well. But then that was Kabita for you. She took everything surprisingly well. For all I knew, she'd known who he was long before I had. She was sneaky like that.

"Have you heard from Jack?" She asked, as if that were somehow more important than the fact that one of our dear friends was an ancient Titan masquerading as an ordinary human obsessed with steampunk

"Nope," I said. "Not since Scotland. I've tried calling him a couple times, but he doesn't answer. Talk about worst Guardian ever."

That made her chuckle. "No kidding. So we've got no leads on Alister's location."

"Not a one." I paused. "Unless…"

"Yes?" She glanced up from her whetstone.

"Unless," I said. "What about Jade?"

"What about Jade?" Kabita asked, laying the stone on her desk and carefully sliding her knife back into its sheath. "You're not seriously thinking of consulting that freak are you?"

"Watch who you're calling a freak," I said. "She's not that different than me."

"You're kidding, right? That girl is as different from you as night from day. For one thing, she's mad as a March hare. For another she's completely homicidal."

"It's not her fault she's crazy and homicidal," I reminded her. "Darroch and the freaking Fairy Queen messed with her brain. There's no way of knowing what she would have been if they hadn't screwed things up. There's no telling what I would have been if someone had done the same to me. I lucked out. You found me first."

That was the real question. Who was the monster here? The girl who'd had magic screw with her brain? Or the one who just naturally liked to kill things? Granted it was the Darkness that enjoyed the killing, not me. But the Darkness was part of me, and that I couldn't change even if I wanted to. Did that mean I was a monster?

"You're nothing like her, Morgan." Kabita shook her head. "Anyway, what makes you think she can help? She's been locked up for months. She's had no contact with Alister. She couldn't possibly know where he is any more than I do."

Gods, it must suck to find out your father was a bigger bastard than you could have ever imagined. "Jade spent a lot of time with him at one point. Maybe she knows something, someplace he likes to go. Somewhere that's important to him. Maybe he told her about his plans. I need to try. I have to talk to her. We can't leave any stone unturned. This is far too important."

Kabita shook her head. "Fine. But don't blame me if she tries to shank you."

"Trevor will be there to protect me." I couldn't help the sarcasm.

She snorted and started shuffling through a stack of paperwork. As I left the office, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called Trevor. If I was going to talk to Jade, I was going to need his help.





Chapter Sixteen



For the second time in as many months, I found myself bouncing over the rough terrain of the Nevada desert. The road, if it could be called that, seriously needed a new pave job, although I doubted the government would let any road workers near the place. They probably had more than enough gossip to deal with as it was without a road crew telling tales of an escaped vampire snacking on their boss. Made the alien conspiracy seem like small potatoes.

I glanced at Trevor, who was unusually stoic, hiding behind dark tinted glasses. "Thanks for this," I said. "I know you had to pull a lot of strings to get me in again."

"You have no idea." He gave me a sideways glance. "The things I do for you."