Chapter 17 Mad God #2
Even with superhuman abilities and loaded with weapons, men were all the same. Liv lifted the tray’s big silver cover. Pancakes—looked like whole wheat—and strawberries. Milk. A blushing, deeply ripe peach, neatly sliced, a tall white paper latte cup. “Great.”
“That’s not even the fun part.” Jake probably didn’t like sharing her attention with breakfast, which was right where she wanted him.
So she threw him another question, just like a bone to a stray dog. “What’s the fun part?”
“Along with being able to survive shit that would kill a superhero? The creeping insanity.” He paused, examining her expression.
A puppy or toddler, checking to make sure someone was observing so they could be certain of their own reality.
“It’s the god, you see. He’s nuts, and does his best to drive us off the deep end, too. ”
“The mad god?” There isn’t anything in the DSM about that one. Even if she could believe the tentacle-horror she’d seen with her own eyes, a god was something else—or maybe it was just her good old-fashioned American agnosticism talking. “So…”
“Well, mad or obeying the dictates of an inhuman intelligence, what’s the diff?
Anyway, if we go off the rails, he can reach through us.
” Jake warmed to his work, losing his faint professor’s sneer.
He was a lot handsomer without it; Mika would have liked his easy manner but not his disdain.
Her old roommate Sandra would have snapped this guy up in a hurry, putting him through his paces and coming back with a full report before leaving him in the dust the instant he stopped measuring up—in any direction.
“The unhinged were always his chosen prophets, before.”
“Great.” Her stomach closed, tight as a fist. Still, Liv settled herself gingerly at the small table and reached for the latte.
How many more euphemisms for mental disorders would this guy come up with?
“So… is it a cumulative effect?” In other words, was she going to have to worry about one of them snapping and doing something nasty to her?
Dealing with men always revolved around that question.
“Sort of. The only real inoculation’s a lirai; even a potential’s presence mutes the whispers bigtime.” Jake folded his hands behind his back, settling into what was probably called parade rest. Erik often stood that way, too. “Seal a Dreamer up, though, and you—”
Okay, hold on a second. “Hang on.” Thin icy drizzle slapped at the window. Looked like the storms had moved in for real. She certainly wasn’t missing the indignities of her morning commute, to be honest. “Seal?” I don’t like the sound of that.
“You should ask Ignatius about that part.” Jake’s posture changed, and he spread his hands—but slowly, carefully; maybe he’d just realized the relative difference in their sizes. Or maybe he’d said too much. “He wouldn’t like me making a mess of explaining.”
“I’ll do that.” She rescued a pen and a scrap of plain paper from the clutter of last night’s festivities, scrawled a note. Ignatius: Seal? “You want some of this? I can’t eat it all myself.”
“You think it’s poisoned?”
“No.” Not anymore. “I’m being polite, but if you don’t want any, just say so.”
“Oh.” He scratched at the side of his neck, and for just a moment there was a vulnerable flash of the kid he must have been, however long ago. “Really? Okay. Sure.”
Oh, Liv, you can’t really believe all this bullshit.
The trouble was, she was sort of starting to.
“So I’m just a potential, I’m not really a lirai yet.
” Liv sniffed gingerly at the latte—it was, indeed, blessedly plain—and took a long almost-scorching swallow, then picked up the heavy antique butter knife.
“I’m gonna cut this in half and we can share.
And you guys live for a long time. Do you ever die of old age? ”
“Nope.” He watched her division of fluffy, golden-brown cakes, and his gaze kept stuttering to her face, patent disbelief making him look even younger.
“Because you stay young?”
“Because it’s a violent life. Statistics aren’t on our side.
” Jake paced across mellow hardwood, his footsteps only making a token noise every now and again.
He dropped into one of the chairs opposite her with that same eerie quiet.
“And because if one of us goes around the bend, his brother—or his Father, or his sons—have to hunt him down and kill him. They know him best, so they can hunt him quickest.”
Well. There goes my appetite. The butter knife shook, so she laid it carefully down. “Is that so,” she managed, picking up her latte again. The pancakes could wait for a second. Coffee slopped inside a trembling paper cup.
“It’s all right,” Jake said, almost kindly. “You won’t go insane. Lirai are immune.”
Not comforting, kid. Funny, the longer Liv spent talking to this guy, the older she felt. “That’s nice.”
“And I’m too young to go dark, plus Erik would hang me up like a side of beef if I did. So don’t worry.”
“What about if Erik…?” She didn’t want to ask. And the old guy, did that mean he was more at risk of this nebulous insanity too?
What if all three of them decided she was too much trouble, or… God, it was a hall of mirrors. Even absolute proof of monsters seen with her own damn eyes wasn’t helping.
“Coffee first,” Jake said, and there was no levity remaining on his fair blond face. “Then worry about sanity.”
It was good advice, but she still didn’t like it. So she took another burning gulp and studied his face. “You still want some of my pancakes?”
“Maybe just a bit.” But he smiled, and just maybe she’d gotten through to at least one of her captors.
It was a start. “We’re going to have to share the plate.” She worked to keep her tone businesslike. “But I’m not sharing my coffee.”