Chapter 36
He responds without hesitation, his mouth hot and hungry.
His grip on me shifts, pulling me closer, so I’m acutely aware of the hard length of his thigh pressed against mine.
I’d been clinging to him in my distress; now I let my hands trace the broad line of his shoulders, down to his narrow hips and back up again.
His lips part and the kiss deepens, tongues touching.
He tastes faintly of coffee, and the smell of lilacs rises around me as I let out an involuntary sound of pleasure.
It’s the most perfect moment I can remember, certainly since the war, and for a moment everything falls away except for warmth and desire.
It can’t last forever, though. After a few endless, glorious moments, the kiss ends, though we’re still wrapped in each other’s arms. Adrian’s forehead leans against mine, and I sense more than see him smile.
“You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do that,” he murmurs.
“Really?” I ask. “Because my hair is a disaster, and—”
He cuts me off with another, briefer kiss. “Really. There were a few times I almost acted on my impulses, but I wasn’t sure if you were a secret murderer.”
His words are like a splash of cold water, and I sit back. “Oh. Right.”
No kiss, however wonderful, could erase the fact my body had been taken over, the creature in it using my face and name for its own inscrutable ends. I hope it didn’t kill anyone with my hands, but it almost certainly ordered for Pearce to be murdered and the Key of Mithras stolen.
“Obviously I didn’t think you were, but now we know for certain.” He lets his arms fall from my shoulders but catches my hands. His fingers are strong against my own. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to break the mood.”
“No, it’s all right.” I squeeze his fingers to show I’m not upset.
Adrian’s thumb slides over my knuckles in a gentle caress. “You’ve had a shock—we both have, I suppose, but you most of all. It’s supper time, so let’s find something to eat. Food always makes things better, or so my mother would have it.”
“My mother was a terrible cook. Didn’t have the patience for it, I think.
She just made the same few dishes over and over: porridge for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and for dinner boiled meat of whatever species the butcher had on sale that week, alongside whatever greens were in season. Also boiled.”
“Oh dear.” Adrian’s eyebrows went up. “I suppose army rations weren’t so bad to you, then.”
“At least they were edible.”
“If you say so.” He rises to his feet, gently drawing me up with him.
We kiss again, then I excuse myself to find the washroom in the hall, so I can splash water on my face and hopefully erase some of the evidence of my bout of crying. As I approach the small mirror, I feel the familiar twist of dread in my stomach at what I might see.
Because I don’t expect the reflection to be human.
At least it makes sense now. Did the creature in my body experience any of the same revulsion when it saw itself in my body? Or was it used to such switches, having taken other victims before me?
The hotel restaurant is doing a brisk business, and no one spares us so much as a glance when we sit at an out of the way table.
I choose the pork loin with mashed turnips and applesauce, and Adrian the beef tenderloin with paloise sauce and Parisian potatoes.
I wish desperately for a bottle of wine to go with it, but thanks to Prohibition have to make do with tea.
Once we have our food in front of us, Adrian says, “We need to figure out what to do next.”
I would prefer to eat my dinner, then go upstairs and sleep for at least twelve hours straight, if only to escape thinking for a while. Except of course my dreams are haunted by what have turned out to be terrible memories.
“We can’t exactly go to anyone else for help,” I say as I lift a bit of pork to my mouth. It’s delicately flavored and buttery with fat, but I find it hard to appreciate at the moment. “The police, your employers, the army…any of them would think we’re lunatics and send us right back to Danvers.”
A line of concentration springs up between Adrian’s brow as he eats a potato. “The cult that tried to kill us, whoever they are, must know what’s happening. They want to stop the Timekeepers.”
I stare at him in disbelief. “As you said, they’re trying to kill us!”
“No, they’re trying to kill the member of the Swarm who possessed you,” he corrects mildly.
“Which presumably would have left me stranded somewhere else in time, in the wrong body, if they’d succeeded!”
“The point is, they want to stop these creatures. I’m not saying they’re our friends, or even our allies.
Only that they could be, if we can convince them you’re, well, you now.
” He ponders another moment, then shrugs.
“But we don’t know where they are, and I’m certainly not using you as bait to draw them out. ”
“Thank you.” I take a spoonful of the applesauce. Not enough cinnamon.
“Why did Swarm-You go to Widdershins before it switched back, I wonder,” he says after a few minutes of silent eating. “The letter you found in Forgotten Folios was from a Dr. Dane at the university there. Damn, I wish I’d thought to keep it. Do you remember when it was dated?”
I cast my mind back. “Mid-September, I think. Of this year.”
“So only a little over two weeks ago.”
“And when did, er, Swarm-Me go to Widdershins?”
“September 23. I was following him, it, but I won’t swear it didn’t somehow slip away and go to the university without my noticing.” He pauses, then adds, “The other cult might have been trying to kill it before, I can’t say for sure, but the first time I know of was the day we met.”
“They could have their base of operations there, then?” I guess. “Maybe they know how to spot people who’ve been taken over?”
He shrugs. “I haven’t the slightest idea. I don’t have any contacts in Widdershins, but I can call my office tomorrow morning and find out if any of my fellow investigators do.”
I try to think of anything we might be overlooking and come up empty. “I don’t have any better ideas. Do you suggest approaching Dr. Dane first, or searching for this other cult?”
He considers for a few bites of dinner. “Dr. Dane, I think. It seems like the safer course, and it might help us figure out what these creatures want. They were looking for specific books—why? What knowledge do they need, and what do they intend to do with it?”
A shudder goes through me. “They’re drugging people to suppress their will. Whatever they intend, it can’t be anything good.”
“No.” Adrian’s expression switches from thoughtful to grim. “No, it can’t.”
Once we’re finished with dinner, we retreat back upstairs to our room, and Adrian throws the bolt on the door. A shiver of anticipation runs through me—I want to go to him, take him in my arms, and…
A jaw-cracking yawn interrupts my fantasy.
Adrian brushes the back of his hand gently down my cheek. “You should go to bed.”
I want to go to bed with him. But with my belly full, my body seems to have decided it’s had all it can take for one day. “I’m sorry,” I mumble.
He leans in and kisses me, lips tender against my own. “Sterling, you’ve had an unimaginable shock today. Your mind is surely exhausted, your emotions wrung out. Given that, I don’t think it would be a good idea to do anything tonight, even if you weren’t yawning your head off.”
He’s right, as usual. I shuffle off to the washroom down the hall, then return and strip down to my underwear, sparing a wish for my silk pajamas back in my Greenwich apartment. Will I ever see them again?
Adrian watches me remove my clothes with an appreciative look in his eye. My skin heats in response, and he grins. “I love how you blush all over.”
“Well now I’ll never get to sleep.”
He chuckles, the sound sending a bolt of desire through me. “I’m going to sit up a while and think.”
I crawl under the covers and close my eyes. I learned on the battlefield how to catch sleep whenever and wherever I could, so despite everything, unconsciousness finds me quickly.
And so do the dreams.
I’m with Bianca atop one of the ziggurats.
Below us, the Swarm go about their business, scurrying through the strange city in the jungle.
Some of the buildings on the outskirts have been left to crumble, and the rest seem to have been patched with less skill than the original builders used.
Remnants of bright paints cling to the walls, but the tropical sun and hot, humid air have stripped most of them away.
“They were called the Tschchch,” she says in my head, the final word a buzz like a cicada rather than anything she could have pronounced with her human tongue.
“Who?” I ask.
“The ones who built this city. Whose bodies we wear.”
“I thought they were the Swarm?”
Red and white flashes strobe down her trunk. She’s upset. “Not to begin with.”
There’s something massive moving in the distance, approaching through the jungle. Overhead, creatures with wings of skin rather than feathers ride the thermals. I want to ask her more, but Emerson is there, flesh rotting and eyes glowing with cold fire. Somewhere far away, Hart laughs.