Wanted: Undead or Alive

Love Hurts

No one could accuse me of half measures.

When nothing was left, I looked around my apartment.

Nothing had changed.

Maybe it was a trick.

I emailed Hawwa from my laptop which had, somehow, made it back to the apartment with me.

Ten minutes later, when she knocked on the door, I'd already changed into a clean shirt and put on my shoes and jacket. Braced for powerful revelation, I yanked the door open and faced her.

She held her hands clasped in front of her. Her green pantsuit brought out a glimmer of green I'd never before noticed in her eyes. The always-flawless braids hung around her shoulders. A rather pleasant scent that reminded me of wet clay rose from her skin. She looked exactly as she'd always looked and I knew, deep in my gut with a certainty that couldn't be rivaled, I knew that she'd reached a calm, content resignation with her lot. There were many things she couldn't change. What purpose would it serve to wring her hands over them? What she could do was love and be loved, and she loved me. She loved me for loving her son, but also because I was a foolish, bright-eyed child who bumbled through the world with more enthusiasm than wisdom.

She reached up and pressed her warm, soft hand to my cheek. "Now, I will take you to him."

We went to The Agency.

Mx. Landry watched us emerge from the elevator with all the emotive expression of a wrinkled potato. When we paused in front of the window, they met my gaze. "This is dangerous."

Fear, deeper and more horrible than any I'd ever known, shown in their eyes. Unfathomable pain held them in an iron fist. Love as immense as the ocean rippled across their skin like djinn tattoos.

If they'd let me, I'd hold them and rock them and kiss the top of their head and tell them lies about how everything would be okay, but they'd never consent to such human nonsense, so I just said, "I know."

The door buzzed.

Hawwa and I walked past Nick's office and the conference room to a door I'd never seen opened. She turned the knob and held it for me. We entered a small elevator lobby. A single button was set in a steel panel beside the elevator door. I pressed it and we waited.

Hawwa's hand slipped into mine and I held on the way a little kid will cling to her mother while crossing a busy street.

The elevator carried us downward for an impossibly long time. We emerged into a small, cave-like room that had an odd, garlicky, metallic odor.

I rubbed my nose.

"Iron," Hawwa said. "It's thick in the soil here. It's why Nick chose this place to build his home and, by extension, his business. His fae blood isn't dominate enough to prevent him from wielding iron, but it would be all but impossible for him to dig through a concentration of it this heavy."

So, he's part fae. I'll have to tell Chantelle.

A sharp thorn pricked my heart. There'd be no telling Chantelle.

Directly ahead of us, a metal door was set into the stone. Etched warding covered every inch. To the right of that, hung a thick black curtain.

"The window is made of quartz and enforced by powerful spellwork. He can't break it without altering reality."

He probably can't dig through the soil. He can't break the window unless...

Containing a god was tentative business at best.

She squeezed my hand. "You can open the door when you're ready. It's not locked on this side. I'll leave you alone. Be patient with him, Olivia. He's more fragile than anyone realizes." I saw her love, her worry, her fear, her hope.