Chapter 17
Torrent
Ipeered through the tall window on the Mediterranean-style house into its inner courtyard, where Quinn had stretched out on a lounge chair by the pool. Her toned but slim torso was unencumbered by the layer of metal beads that had weighed it down for so much of the past month. It lifted a weight in my own chest seeing how relaxed she looked without that burden, but a twang of anxiety reverberated through my nerves at the same time.
“Are you sure the protections around this place are enough to ensure her powers aren’t noticed?” I asked Rollick, who was sprawled on the modern sofa perpendicular to the window. “In that cabin in the swamp?—”
“I’m well aware of what happened in the swamp,” Rollick interrupted, “seeing as that incident was the start of my plans derailing. I hired some mortals to add to the silver and iron deposits around a few of my properties as soon as Quinn came to the hotel. I wasn’t so na?ve as to think I could count on remaining there as long as I’d have liked to.”
I had felt the unnerving prickle of the metals’ effects as we’d cruised up the winding drive to this sprawling estate in the Texas badlands. And we were far enough away from anyplace we’d clashed with our main opponents that it was unlikely they were searching for us too thoroughly anywhere nearby. But hearing Rollick confirm the property’s security measures soothed the worst of my worries.
He’d been confident about his hotel, and no shadowkind had detected Quinn’s presence there… until we’d purposefully tipped our enemies off to her location. Rollick wasn’t the type to cut corners when it came to things he cared about.
And from the atmosphere I’d sensed between him and our mortal since our return, I was starting to suspect his caring had expanded in dimension. It didn’t seem anything overt had actually happened between them, but it was clear he no longer viewed her as simply a tool.
I didn’t know whether to see that change as more comforting or unsettling.
“Sit down,” he added, tipping his head toward the chair across from him. “Rest those legs—there’s no shame in it. She isn’t going to vanish the second you take your eyes off her.”
I grimaced at him, but I sat as he’d requested. We did have business to discuss. “You said there’s something specific you think I can help with. What exactly is that?”
Rollick exhaled in a slow sigh that told me he wasn’t happy about what he was about to say. “I believe one of the fiends we’re dealing with is a—or the—leviathan.”
Whatever I might have anticipated him saying, I hadn’t expected that revelation. I stared at him for a beat in case this was some bizarre prelude to a joke, but he showed no sign of taking back the statement.
“What the fuck would a leviathan want with a bunch of human sorcery?” I asked. “Wouldn’t he have better things to do?”
“Wouldn’t it be nice if that were the case?” the demon muttered. “Who knows what goes through the mind of a being that ancient? Maybe he’s simply gotten bored. It’s not as if anyone’s heard much about him or any being like him in ages, so he can’t have been occupying himself all that thrillingly. But that’s where you come in.”
“With the thrills?”
Rollick chuckled. “Preferably not so much thrills, more with the hearing about him. The ocean is your domain. I want you to cruise around through the seven seas calling on whatever other watery shadowkind you come across and see whether anyone knows anything about what might have motivated our serpentine foe.”
The request did make a certain amount of sense. All the same, I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “So I just got back, and you’re sending me off again on a mission of unknown length.”
“You’re allowed to say no,” Rollick replied languidly, although the slight tensing of his fingers as he picked up his glass of expensive gin showed he wasn’t quite so relaxed about it. “I think it’s become very obvious that I no longer have much of any control over what you do or where you go. But it will be for her benefit.” He glanced toward the window.
The sunlight was gleaming off Quinn’s pale hair, but that wasn’t what caught my attention most. It was the strange, almost wistful expression that crossed the demon’s face. I found myself bold enough to say, “And you seem nearly as concerned about that now as about everything else that’s at stake.”
Rollick’s penetrating gaze flicked to me. He smiled again, looking only amused rather than offended. “I don’t think I need to tell you that she’s a rather impressive example of her kind.”
He hadn’t even tried to deny his interest. I bit back the urge to shout out that she was mine, that he could make no claim on her—because what would the point be? If he’d been going to, he’d had every chance while the rest of us were gone. Maybe he had, and she’d rejected him. Although she hadn’t exactly looked uncomfortable in that moment as we’d emerged from the shadows when he’d been sitting so close to her.
They’d spent a lot of time together just the two of them in the past several days. That was a recipe for either killing each other or developing some sort of closer rapport. And they definitely hadn’t killed each other.
I willed my teeth not to grit and kept my voice even. “She is. You were the one who wanted her to tap into her sorcery to begin with. Now I can’t help wondering if you encouraged her using it on us.”
Rollick’s smile tightened just slightly. “If I nudged her in that direction, it was only bolstering feelings she already had. I wasn’t the one who put the idea in her head—she came up with it all on her own. And if it makes you feel any better, afterward I realized the emotional toll on her wasn’t really worth the benefit of not having to argue with the three of you over our plans.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “So you’re not worried that we’ll run off with her again?”
“You know what?” Rollick said with a wave of his hand. “Feel free to, if you can convince her. I tried to drop her off at her family’s home, to hand her old life back to her, and she wouldn’t take it.” His attention slid back to the woman by the pool. “Much too stubborn for her own good. This shouldn’t have been her battle to begin with.”
The admission struck me momentarily speechless. He’d have let Quinn go? He’d already attempted to? After all the lengths he’d gone to in order to get his hands on her…
The prickles of apprehension and jealousy faded, and for a second I felt almost ashamed. It made sense that I’d been wary of his intentions. They hadn’t always worked in her favor. But I’d misjudged just how much of an effect she’d had on him while we’d been gone.
“I think we’ll just be lucky if she doesn’t feel the need to send us away again so she can take on the entire battle herself,” I said, more honestly than I wished I was being, and stood up. “I’ll go scout out word about the leviathan. But we’ve only just gotten back. I need to talk with her first.”
Rollick got to his feet too with a brisk gesture toward the courtyard. “Talk to her, do whatever you like with her. I’ve got my own business to attend to. It seems I need to raise an army.” He made a face. “Just remember that the faster we get these menaces dealt with, the safer she’ll be.”
Ifwe could deal with them, I thought but didn’t say. I’d heard his account of what had happened with the Highest’s warriors, and I wasn’t sure I liked our odds.
But that didn’t mean I was going to give up. I’d only just found real joy in this world; I wasn’t going to let any monsters, no matter how ancient, steal it from me again.
And I’d better make sure the source of my joy knew it too.
As Rollick ambled off to see to his army-building, I opened the door to the courtyard and stepped out into the desert warmth. It would have been easier to simply leap through the shadows, but I forced myself to walk over with the support of my tentacles, ignoring the twinges of pain in my lower legs.
Quinn straightened up at my approach, setting aside the small, leatherbound book she’d started paging through. Concern flashed across her pretty face. I sank onto the chair next to her before she felt the need to express her worries about my physical limitations out loud and tipped my head toward the book on the side table. “Getting some reading in?”
She looked at it and wrinkled her nose. “I got that from the sorcerer enclave. It’s a record of different strategies for warding off supernatural powers. I thought it might have something useful for keeping our enemies from sensing me, but so far nothing sounds as effective as my vest has been.” She frowned. “I wish it had some method that would work to protect all of you from sorcery, but the approaches all seem to involve things that would be uncomfortable for shadowkind in general.”
“A quick fix would be a bit much to ask for, I guess,” I said. “But we’ll get it figured out one way or another.”
She glanced toward the room I’d come out of. “Is it time to get going again? Have you all been making plans without me?”
I offered a wry grin. “Not plans for you. I’m going to go information-seeking. Since I’m the most comfortable of us in the water, Rollick thinks—and I agree—that I’m the best one to learn more about the leviathan’s intentions.”
“You’re leaving?” She couldn’t quite smooth the disappointment from her voice, which made me feel both gratified and guilty. “For how long?”
“I’m not sure yet. But I didn’t want to go without talking to you first. We haven’t had much of a chance.” After Lance and Crag had glommed all over her this morning, I hadn’t known what to say. I didn’t know how to crack open the walls around the churning emotions inside me without too much spilling out.
But maybe there wasn’t such a thing as too much. This woman had told me she loved me. She’d sacrificed her own happiness and security to try to protect me. If I hadn’t already known I didn’t need to hide myself from her, that should have convinced me.
Even now, she was hanging her head. “If you’re angry, I’d understand. It was a shitty thing to do, even if I was trying to look out for you. I?—”
“Quinn,” I broke in, scooting to the edge of the chair so I could lift my good hand to her cheek. “I’m not angry. I wish that you hadn’t felt the need to do it, but I know it came from a place of caring. I just don’t want you to ever feel like you should have gone farther or that you’ve made a mistake by letting us come back.”
Her gaze slid to my other hand, the ruined one resting on my knee. It didn’t ache as much as it used to. I could close the thumb and the remaining fingers in a sort of pincer grip, which seemed somehow appropriate. A little crab appendage to add to my overall sea-creature theme.
Quinn obviously couldn’t see any humor in it. Her voice came out rough. “You’ve lost the most out of anyone. I hate that.”
“I can’t say it’s my most favorite thing in the world either, but—” I tugged her face up so she’d meet my eyes. “I don’t mind. You have to understand that. It’s a tiny trade-off compared to everything I’m getting in return.”
“How can you say that? You’re about to go off nosing around after some uber-powerful, murderous monster, and?—”
“I don’t care.” I cupped her jaw, willing her to understand how much I meant this. “The whole time, I’ll be thinking about how I can come back to you. About what I’ve already had with you. And that makes it more than worth it. You told me that you love me, and I don’t know what it would even mean for me to say it in return. But Quinn, you have no idea how empty my life was before. I used to fill it with drugs and parties, and then I filled it with carrying out jobs for Rollick, but none of that stopped me from feeling alone.”
“You had Lance and Crag,” she said, her voice dipping low.
“In a way. They were more colleagues than friends. I had to keep up an air of authority. I wasn’t sure, if I let that waver, if they’d still respect me given my other weaknesses.”
Quinn’s eyes flashed. “There’s nothing weak about you.”
I smiled at her. “And you’re the only person who could say that who I’d believe. Because you’ve seen every part of me, you recognize my difficulties, you’ve heard about who I’ve been, and you don’t shy away from any of it.”
“There’s nothing to shy away from,” she said with the stubbornness Rollick had commented on. He had been right about that.
“Not when I’m with you,” I said. “You see me, and you embrace all of it—and when I’m with you, I know I can be the man you see. I still have a place in this world. I’m more than just an outcast. And I have more of a purpose than I ever did before. You gave me all of that. So losing part of a hand really isn’t that big a deal. You’re worth it. And I am too.”
For a second, she looked as if she might cry. Then she leaned forward to wrap her arms around me and bury her face in my shoulder. I slung one of my tentacles around my waist to tug her closer, and she let out a ragged sigh.
“You are,” she said. “You were before you met me too.”
“Maybe so. But it didn’t feel like there was anywhere near as much of a point before I met you.”
She pulled back to look into my eyes again. “There is one part of you I haven’t seen. You’ve never shown me your full shadowkind form. I’d like… I’d like to totally know you. If you don’t mind.”
Even with all the faith I had in her, doubt jabbed through my chest for an instant before I nodded. It seemed only fair. And maybe I wanted her to have that piece of me too before I had to leave again.
The pool gave off a faint oceanic tang, laced with salt rather than chlorine, which I was grateful for. It’d feel better on my skin. I stepped to the edge and dipped my feet in, not bothering to remove my clothes. They’d vanish as I transformed anyway.
With Quinn watching from her chair, I sank into the water. As it flowed over my head, I released the human guise I’d always worn with her even when I brought all of my tentacles out.
My body expanded, torso and head ballooning, tentacles widening and stretching. In a matter of seconds, I filled most of the pool. The cool water rushed over my pliant flesh with a welcoming sensation, but I turned my eyes toward the surface of the water with tension wound through my innards.
What if this had been a mistake—one step too far?