Chapter 21

Half an hour later the duergar was back in the cold room awaiting an agent from the FIB to pick up his remains and we were on the road, heading toward the closest five-star restaurant. The original plan was to split up and cover more ground, but Rianna had pushed too hard in the ritual—wobbling out of her circle to collapse into a chair—and as weak as she was, I couldn’t send her off on her own. So she was in the backseat with Desmond, I had shotgun, and Falin was driving.

I seriously needed to requalify for my driver’s license.

The only upside? Falin had acquired a tablet with all the reported missing persons from the last two weeks and the case file from the duergar’s suicide scene, which had been a museum of all places. Of course, that was where he’d acquired the sword, so it made sense.

We knew the rider jumped to a witness of his previous host’s suicide, so with luck, someone mentioned in the case file would also be in the missing persons database.

I tapped the screen, flicking through the older photos. The victim I was looking for wouldn’t have come home last night—I only hoped he’d been reported missing already. As I scrolled, a familiar face popped up on the screen.

“That can’t be,” I whispered, staring at the face of the man who’d been in Brew and Brews, the one Kingly’s ghost had taken a swing at on the day the rider made him jump from Motel Styx. The drunk had been missing since that day, which meant he wasn’t the host we were looking for, but I’d bet he’d been the host following Kingly. Was the rider that close and I couldn’t tell?

I should have noticed a huge, miasmic blur rising out of a body and jumping into another, how could I not? Of course, I hadn’t been there at the exact moment Kingly had died.

If I had just opened my shields…What, exactly? Even if I’d seen the darkness inside the drunk, I wouldn’t have known what it meant.

Besides, it was too late to sit here and bemoan what I did or didn’t do. If the drunk had been a host, he was dead now. Either he was the man on the rocks or he was the one who’d passed the rider to that man.

“Did you find the host?” Falin asked, glancing away from the road long enough to make me want to grab the wheel.

“Not the current one. Now you drive and I’ll look.”

Once he would have smiled, would have teased me. Now all the sharp angles of his face remained hard, untouched, as he turned back toward the road without a word. Something inside me twinged, a small, invisible wound. I forced my focus back on the tablet.

Scrolling through the files, I located the people reported missing today. It wasn’t a long list: two men and one woman. My first instinct was to dismiss the woman out of hand, but just because the rider hadn’t possessed a female yet didn’t mean he couldn’t.

I opened the case file from the duergar’s suicide, scanning names of the witnesses. “And we have a match.”

“You found him?” Rianna asked, holding on to the back of my seat as she peered over my shoulder.

“Michael Hancock,” I said, double tapping the picture of a man in his mid-thirties. The image filled the screen of the tablet. “The rider has always used the victim’s real name and cards before, let’s hope he still is.”

Rianna and I pulled out our phones, which earned another glance from Falin.

“We looked up the number to the two hotels we know the rider has frequented as well as a few other five-star resorts before we left the office,” I said as way of explanation.

The phone rang several times before the desk clerk answered. I forced a smile into my voice. “Hi, I was wondering if you can connect me to Michael Hancock’s room.”

“I could, but it would just ring. Mr. Hancock isn’t currently in his room.”

Jackpot. And a chatty clerk, or a bored one. Whichever, maybe I could use it to my advantage.

“So he went to lunch already? I was planning to meet him”—not that the rider knew that—“but I don’t know the name of the restaurant. You wouldn’t know, would you?”

“Actually, he asked me what my favorite restaurant is. I sent him to Pollyanna’s Porch. Have you ever been there?”

I’d never even heard of it, but my super helpful desk boy offered me directions. I was so never staying at that hotel if I wanted discretion—not that I could afford to stay there in the first place.

As soon as I hung up, I relayed the directions to Falin and twenty minutes later we were pulling into Pollyanna’s Porch. It was one of those places that reminded me that despite the fact we were a large city in an unfolded space that hadn’t existed a hundred years ago—at least as far as humans were concerned—this was still the South and people enjoyed old Southern charm. Which was clearly what Pollyanna’s was aiming for with its country bed-and-breakfast design and huge wraparound porch complete with painted wooden swings. I half expected to be greeted at the door by a gray-haired woman wearing an apron covered in flour. But no, it was a restaurant, and while it tried to maintain its quaint charm inside, the bustle of servers in the midst of the lunch rush broke the spell.

We bypassed the hostess and PLEASE WAIT TO BE SEATED sign. When the hostess objected, Rianna assured the woman that our party was already here and ignored her when she objected to our “dog.”

“What if he took one look at this place and turned around?” I asked. After all, while Pollyanna’s might make it into a cultural magazine, it was a far cry from the five-star restaurants he’d been patronizing.

“And what if he didn’t?” was Falin’s response.

Point. We might as well check. It was the only lead we had.

The dining area consisted of two floors and had been divided into several themed rooms. We split up to search, Falin heading upstairs, Rianna going right as I took the left. I walked into a crowded room that instantly made me think of apple pie—which could have been the red and cream wallpaper or the pictures of apples hanging on every conceivable surface, but I was betting on the charm that filled the room with the scent of baked apples. I’d just turned the corner when a pair of arms grabbed hold of my shoulders.

A scream built in my chest but melted in my throat as a pair of very familiar hazel eyes met mine. Death pressed his finger over my lips, and then led me behind a fake potted tree.

“What are you doing here?” I whispered as I moved into the corner, as hidden from the room as possible. “You avoid me for a month, then you show up last night with a cryptic warning, and now you’re here? Your timing is rather suspect.” Because his presence could mean we were on the right track in hunting the rider or could simply be because for the first time in a month, I was working with Falin. Death was not the fae’s biggest fan. Not that Falin is being anything but coldly professional. I looked at Death. “You know, I don’t know if I want to hug you or hit you.”

He chuckled, the sound bridging the space between us. Then he leaned his forehead against mine and gazed down at me. My world filled with him, with the familiar shape of his jaw, with the dark hair that fell forward to brush against my skin, with the hazel eyes that held every color and gleamed with an inner smile. A smile I felt myself returning because it was Death.

“Hello to you too,” he said, amusement lacing his voice.

We’d flirted for years, but it had always been harmless, our body temperatures too drastically different for anything more than a little teasing.

Until recently.

He lifted a hand and stroked my cheek with the edge of one finger. His eyes betrayed his continuing amazement that we could touch, and a thrill surged through me. Of course, it wasn’t like I’d been completely unaffected even when he’d been so cold his touch burned. Now warmth flushed my skin at the light caress, and I took a deep breath, trying to calm my body’s reaction.

The part of my brain still functioning reminded me that this was Death. That pursuing anything would change everything. Hell, it had already changed everything. There could never be anything between us. It was just hard to remember that sometimes—like when he was close enough that I could feel the tickle of his breath against my skin and smell the sweet scent of dew that I always associated with him. He watched me, watched my reaction to his nearness, his touch, and those eyes with their kaleidoscope of color held so much emotion that I had to look away.

Death’s finger reached the corner of my mouth, and he traced my bottom lip. My breath caught, and my gaze snapped back to his eyes.

His pupils dilated, his gaze fixed on my lips. Something inside me tightened as my pulse quickened. I wanted him to kiss me. Wanted to feel his lips crushed against mine, to know what it would be like to open to him, to explore his mouth.

No, bad idea, Alex. A very bad idea. Not to mention Falin was around here somewhere. I swallowed, a twinge of guilt curling in my stomach.

Our flirting was close to blurring the lines. To becoming too serious. Dangerously so.

With the exception of his “intervention,” Death had been acutely absent from my life, and that, coupled with Falin’s icy cold shoulder, meant my emotions for both men were still a tangled mess. The idea of a relationship with either man scared the crap out of me, and yet the last month had been emotional torture. Not that a relationship with either was an option.

Oh, Death might be tantalizingly close right now, but he’d leave again. A relationship between a mortal and a collector wasn’t tolerated. We’d flirted and teased, but never taken it to that next level.

We were so close, a deep breath would bring us in contact. I wanted that so bad it terrified me. His hand moved to the back of my neck, wove into my loose curls. We were both breathing a little too fast, and yet neither of us closed those last few inches.

“We’re running out of time,” he whispered, his voice low and hoarse.

Time? “If you vanish and start avoiding me again I’ll—” What? Never talk to him again? That was the exact opposite of what I wanted. “I’ll…I’ll root you to reality.”

I might even be able to fulfill that threat.

He smiled, and then leaned toward me. It took every ounce of self-control I possessed to step back. But I did step back.

“Don’t. If you’re just going to leave again, don’t.” Because it would hurt worse, and his extended absence had already hurt enough.

Death squeezed his eyes closed. When he opened them again, some of the light had left them, and something inside me mourned the loss. But the distance was necessary, for both of us. His face turned serious and he glanced over his shoulder before saying, “You need to leave this restaurant.”

“I’m guessing that means the rider is here.”

He tilted his head. “Rider?”

“Yeah, you know, the weird miasmic creature that seeps into mortals, rides them around for a while, and then discards them like yesterday’s dirty underwear?”

He stared at me. Then a smile broke across his face and he shook his head in silent amusement. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“So stop vanishing,” I said and the amusement melted from his face. I changed the subject. “So how did this creature get here?”

“We believe it was pulled through one of the rifts in reality a month ago.”

Pulled? I groaned. “By the skimmers?” I asked and he nodded. Those fools were like a pox that wouldn’t go away. I remembered them standing around the rift by the river, drawing anything and everything they could pull. The raw magic burnt at least one from the inside out and drove most of the rest insane. They hadn’t differentiated what kind of magic they drew, but the rift had connected to more than just the Aetheric plane, and it wouldn’t surprise me if one grabbed the rider and took it into his body. Those fools.

“Alex?” A whispered voice called.

Death glanced over his shoulder. “There’s no more time. You have to leave. Now.”

I swallowed, and a lump of fear slid down my throat to hit my stomach hard, a sick feeling oozing over me. I might flirt with Death, but his job was collecting souls. “If I stay, am I going to die?”

He frowned and I swore the colors in his eyes spun. Then he stepped forward and I was engulfed in his arms, his warmth, his scent.

“No,” he whispered the word into my hair. “No. You will not die.” It sounded more promise than prophecy and something about the way he said it made me tremble.

“Alex,” the loud whisper called again.

The tension in Death’s body was palpable and he squeezed me tighter. Then he stepped back until he was an arm’s length away, his hands on my shoulders. “Promise me, Alex. Promise me you’ll walk out of here and stop looking for that creature.”

I couldn’t promise that. I didn’t.

His face clouded, and he closed his eyes, his head hanging downward. The voice called for me again, and Death glanced toward it. I couldn’t see anything beyond the tree and I doubted he could either. When he turned back, he didn’t say a thing. He simply leaned forward, his lips touching mine in the lightest of kisses. He was gone a fluttering heartbeat later.

My fingers moved to my lips. That fleeting, ghostlike kiss? It tasted of sorrow.